Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - Catherine Bohart: TL;DR - 3. What's with all the riotous goings-on?

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Columns. Analysis. The Guardian's Long Read. Who has time? Catherine Bohart, that's who, and she's going beyond the headlines to give you the lowdown on one of the biggest stories this week, with our usual nerd sidekick, guest expert and roving comedian correspondent.This week: What's with all the riotous goings-on?Writer Tom Neenan explores what's been happening on the streets, Professor Anand Menon explains how this fits into the context of the rise of the far right across Europe and Zoe Lyons wonders why British fascists don't seem to scrub up quite as well as their continental equivalents...Written by Catherine Bohart, with Madeleine Brettingham, Sarah Campbell, Georgie Flinn, Ellen Robertson and Pravanya Pillay.Produced by Lyndsay Fenner & Ben WalkerRecorded and Edited by David ThomasProduction Coordinator - Beverly Tagg & Elise BramichA Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Welcome to TLDR, Too Long Didn't Read, the news for people who've only got time to skim the headlines but have also somehow found time to watch enough gymnastics that they feel qualified to shout in no way was that a 13.8! I'm Catherine Bohart and don't worry, we can nail the landing of this week's news together. this week's news together. We're coming to you from the basement of the Museum of Comedy, which is like the British Museum, but for laughing instead of looting. The news moves so quickly now and I wish there was another way.

The dream is Naga Munchetti taking me by the hand and saying, walk with me, we don't have much time. The stock market was down, now it's up, ballet flats are back in and Bratsommer is already dead. Then she strokes my face and the rest of the dream is private. I think you'll agree there's plenty going on this week, so which story to turn our attention to? In Washington, Kamala Harris has announced

her running mate for election. She's picked a bisexual hard left Native American for VP. Just kidding, it's a white guy called Tim. It is a white guy called Tim. Surprise! In being held to ransom for essential liquids news, three water firms face a record total of 168 million pounds in fines for dumping sewage into rivers and seas. The companies are outraged they will not be able to recover the money from customers

to pay the penalties. Just like I'm'm outraged I can't make the lamp post I hit pay my speeding fine. They've said they're disappointed by the decision which is like me getting grounded as a kid and telling my mom I'm not angry Geraldine I'm just disappointed. I'll be in my room when you're ready to apologize. And over at Big Banking the Bank of England has now said it believes that big UK banks need to do more to be ready for potential failure. I'll tell you what the Bank of England could do with that advice.

What they could do is write down a piece of paper, push in an envelope, open up a portal in time and then send it back to 2007. Bank of England have presumably also warned sternly that if the banks don't prepare to fail, well, we'll all just bail them out like they did last time, no begging. But unfortunately there's only one story on our minds this week, sashaying onto the news agenda like only a flaming police van can. It is of course the eruption of far-right violence and rioting across England and Northern Ireland.

Oh, the dark silence. If you're feeling wobbly, of course you are. This week has been horrible and we hope you're safe. Hopefully like me you've taken some heart from the tremendous anti-fascist presence in places like Walthamstow. It's been great to watch and not just because I like my mummy. Yummy? LAUGHTER On a human level, I have been truly shocked by the violence of the past weeks.

Not as shocked as Priti Patel, of course, who has spent a good while trying to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and now has said there's no place for that in our amazing country. Not clear if by that she means racism or refugees. Maybe both. Priti contains multitudes. To be fair, it must have come as a huge surprise to everyone that the ubiquity of anti-immigrant rhetoric has also stoked the fires of latent racism.

I'm also horrified to hear that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, is half Irish. I can only assume he's not talking to his mother because if he was, she'd surely have told him going around in balaclavas telling women they can't wear hijabs is moronic. Stephen, we hate the English, not everybody else, we've been over this. Now, if like me this story makes you want to weep, barf and lie down, I beg you to stick with us because we've got an in-house nerd to help us unpack the fear of it all. It's hot as hell in here and he's still wearing a cardigan, just so we know he's a smart guy. It's Tom Neenan, everyone!

Tom is a stand-up comedian and was the head writer for Masterport and Hello America, but more importantly, he is one of the most jovial gossips I know. I've asked Tom to bone up on this story because I have a lot of questions and there's a lot to be said about these lads. Isn't there Tom? Oh boy, yes there is. First question and I don't mean to be rude, but you're a white man. Yes I am. What's going on with the lads? Yes, I am. What's going on with the lads? If I may. Yeah, no, it's been a chocker for us white lads.

Not just the last week, the last few thousand years. But, no, yeah, we have seen what I have sort of described as, to put it mildly, the start of Pratt Summer. That is a Charlie XCX reference, which might not seem appropriate, but I think a lot of the people out writing this week do enjoy Charlie. So yeah, sort of tone reset as I give us just sort of the background as it were. Obviously there were horrific attacks in Southport on the 29th of July, which led to the spreading of much misinformation online that the attacker was Muslim and a refugee, which led to, amongst other things, riots and Islamophobic attacks

and things like that. In Southport originally. That's exactly right, yeah. I don't really understand how they are as a group organized and if they are a touring show or if it's that they are, because obviously every interview of locals is understandably like, they're not locals. It's like the sort of West End version versus the touring show exactly. It is always worse. It is always, yeah, yeah. It's someone from Emmerdale's in it, it's weird. It's also funny to criticize anti-immigrant rioters for not being locals, but that's a separate point. They're not from here, go back to where you came from. The way in which these men seemed ready to go makes me think that it's not simply born of

Southport, there seems to be a boiling anger. And why is it, like what is specific about now, that what has coalesced for us to have gotten to that point? Good question, yeah I mean look at a number of things, obviously it's the summer which helps, people want something to do and have you seen the price of centre parks recently? A lot of people have lots things. Obviously, it's the summer, which helps. People want something to do, and have you seen the price of centre parks recently? LAUGHTER Lots of people have lots of different theories. It's Russian bots. It's the, you know, it's the local election and the fact that our first pass-the-post system

means that maybe people voted for reform, who then didn't see reform get in where they are, and they felt a frustration with that. I'm not sure it's that, and I think also it lets a lot of our other political parties off the hook. We shouldn't forget that we have just come off an election where immigration was front and centre. Nigel Farage called it the immigration election. This involved things like, obviously, from the conservative point of view, they were bigging up their Rwanda plan, which was amazing when you think about it.

The money that they spent, I only hope that Labour follow TAC and find a way of, I don't know, spending two billion quid to spend one asylum seeker to Guam. Well done everyone. But then obviously it was Labour as well because everyone thought that slamming immigrants was their way of winning the election. Do you think there's any value in the argument that like obviously the another crisis in this country at the moment is that prisons are over subscribed? Subscribed is the wrong word. They're full. I unsubscribe. It's so hard to do on that email though. No but I just wonder like if

there's any sense from the part of the rioters that there might be less consequence. Yeah possibly. I mean I'd quite happily see 400 pot-smoking environmentalists be taken out of a prison so we can pop in 400 racists but I that is a prisoner swap I'd watch but I Wonder if there's a if there's a sense that the full force of the law is not as forceful as it might be at other times Yeah, quite possibly I mean, that's the thing about writing isn't it that you think if you all move as one group

Then you're actually immune to any kind of prosecution and that luckily hasn't been to see the case I'm just looking at the stats now and sort of at time of recording there have been 400 arrests. So that's 121 arrested in London, 35 in Hull and one person in Preston. If you ever feel lonely just think at least I've never been arrested for being part of a one-person riot. I feel like a lot of the hot takes on this story are essentially classism and it's very easy to point to a bunch of people who've been arguably disempowered for a long time who are doing the wrong thing now but without asking who found the flames of that rage and a lot of those people wear suits and work in government and it's kind of easy to say

but we should be holding people to account who are creating the systemic problems. The four richest Britons have more money than 20 million of us. I would gladly bitch about them instead. The problem is that I don't know how you, how do you shift that scapegoating up instead of down? Very hard, especially, you know, if you are a person of color and you think suddenly your business has been set on fire

through absolutely no fault of your own, just through thuggery, to stand there and think, yeah, the system needs to change. That's the problem. So it's really hard and this is what they thrive from. They thrive from people who have no money fighting other people who have very little money rather than looking up.

Fortunately, people like Elon Musk are really helping us out at the minute by just highlighting what awful people they are constantly and on their own platform. So I guess that's a public service in a way. So do always make the effort to look up and also see who's benefiting from this because the people being arrested aren't benefiting from it Neither are the people who are being intimidated and upset and hit by they're not benefiting from it Someone is and it's usually going to end up being somebody rich and someone who looks more like me I'm not rich, by the way. He just sounds it.

It's important. It seems like with a lot of the political rhetoric we are hearing in defense of these views, we're not reinventing the wheel. A lot of this stuff feels familiar. That's because it is. What we're seeing right now at play, Technique's right out the far right playbook,

which is the one book that you don't want to have at the back of your Zoom call. That and the Illustrated Fifty Shades of Grey. Pop-up edition. It's like the book The Game, you know, but for right-wing grifters, so exactly like the book The Game. The Game, is that the book where in the noughties they told young men how to manipulate women into sleeping with them? I wouldn't know. I don't do that kind of thing. By the way, nice dress, Catherine.

I saw a pretty girl wearing it yesterday. I'm 35. So here are some of the moves that you see again and again from the Faroite Playbook Pickup Artists. Number one, make them feel special by fostering a sense of injustice. Remember, you're the real victim, not the people in the building you've just set fire to. Your two-tier policing really disenfranchises you, because if there's a group of people the police haven't been historically sympathetic to, it's white men. 2. Get their attention with a flirty little dog whistle

Say really inflammatory things that could also be totes of the innocuous statements, like Nigel Farage saying Rishi Sunak doesn't understand our culture, but when questioned saying I was just talking about rich people, you're the racist one for thinking I meant anything else. talking about rich people. You're the racist one for thinking I meant anything else. Wink. And three, make them feel special with a lovely little scapegoat. Just use the seductive power of Shaggy's 2000 floor filler, It Wasn't Me. Because it wasn't me, it was immigrants. Remember, it's always immigrants. But you crashed the economy. It wasn't me. We're doing audience interaction. Oh yeah!

But you cripple public services. It wasn't me. But you profiteered off the pandemic. It wasn't me. Oh, it's a buck passing banger for every occasion. So there you go, the far right playbook. Please don't try this at home. Please. Please. Now then, time for our sidebar. And who better to give an outsider's take on the Far Right

than a comedian who lives in Brighton? The beating heart of Britain's far left wokerati, it's Zoe Lyons. So many people this week have rightly criticized the far right's beliefs. I'm here to criticize something much more important. Their outfits. They were appalling. And I say that as someone who lives in Brighton, a place where people can happily pop out for a pint of milk in a gimp mask kilton flippers. Now, you might think that I'm being flippant

by mentioning the connection between fashion and fascists, but presentation is clearly important when it comes to far-right politics. Just like it is for any entity trying to sell you something fundamentally unpalatable. I'm looking at you, oat milk. It's weird. Traditionally, the far right has been quite stylish.

I mean, say what you like about Hitler, but he wouldn't have been seen dead in a pair of Crocs. And he's not the only one. To this day, in Europe, the fash continue to cut a dash. Take the French far-right National Rally, for example. They have had something of a rebranding over the years of a party who openly embraced neo-Nazi ideology while being led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man who looked like he smelt like a brie that had been kept in a sock. To now being fronted by TikTok favorite Jordan Badalia, the clean-cut, sharp-suited party

prodigy who resembles one of those shiny polished turd estate agents you might find driving around in a company Mini Cooper, gleefully informing tenants that their rent has just doubled. This American psycho look is proving very popular with women voters, even though the National Rally has historically opposed policies aimed at improving women's rights. In a marvelous display of puddle-deep thinking, when interviewed in the street about Jordan for a TV news channel, a 63 year old female French voter said, oh, he I like him. He has some good ideas and he is very cute. For a start, love, he's 28 years old.

You could be his nanny, you dirty man. I know it is hot over there, madam, but there is no excuse for being that thirsty. I guess it's no surprise that this far right poster boy for anti-immigration dresses so snappily. He is, after all, the son of Italian immigrants. And Italians know how to dress. Oh, immigration, it's so confusing, isn't it, George? You sort of hate immigrants, but you kind of are one. This ill-fitting hypocrisy is sort of ruining the look. And of course, the Italians are currently sporting their very own dress to impress little fascist princess,

Georgia Maloney. Now, don't judge me for what I'm about to say. We all have weird crushes. I'm judging you. I'm judging you immediately. Okay, okay. I admit that I'm as shallow as that pervy French nana and I must be parched because Georgia is very much

against same-sex marriage, but I just get the feeling that we could happily live in sin. Come on, Georgia, just because you're called Maloney doesn't mean we can't elope. She could pop on her trademark Georgia Omani beautifully cut pantsuit and call me a naughty little socialist. Honestly, I haven't felt this conflicted since Penny Mordant displayed exceptional forearm strength with a broadsword at the King's Carnation. God, it's so confusing, isn't it?

But in Britain, however, fashion does not seem to be at the forefront of any far-right rioter's mind. The uniform of choice of this army of saddos features the obligatory balaclava style face covering for those brave individuals ready to facelessly be the face of their cause. The lack of fashion sense was also highlighted as some of the rioters stripped the shelves of a branch of shoe zone in Hull. And again, I'm not going to judge. I am a middle-aged gay lady. The love of an easy slip-on might be the one thing that I have in common with Tommy Robinson's footman. And let's not mention Tommy's dad trunks that he was spotted in on his hold in his all-inclusive resort in Cyprus. All-inclusive. Oh, the

irony. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Inclusivity. The one thing you're very much not about, mate. He was also spotted in a pair of tartan flip-flops, so not content with stoking race riots, he's also guilty of cultural appropriation. LAUGHTER So, the British for our right might be lagging in the fashion states, but it's important

to remember, even if it's wearing a top hat and tails, a bigot is still a bigot. And for me, it'll always be better to have a unique dress sense than horrible beliefs, which is why, as a matter of principle, I've delivered this entire monologue in toe socks and a slang kit. Thank you. Zoe Lines everybody! Now, I'm a very nosy Irish woman so I still have a load more questions. I don't know about you Tom. Well actually I do know about you Tom because like I said I'm very nosy which means it's definitely time to bring on our next guest.

Arnand Menon is director of the UK in a changing Europe initiative. He was a special adviser to the House of Lords EU committee, which it turns out isn't just telling the Lords where it's best to take a summer holiday. Please welcome Arnand Menon, everyone. Welcome to the show. How are you? I'm very well. How are you? Good. I'm great. And I don't know if you can hear from the outside, but I'm bisexual. I'm starting to feel a bit left out.

Oh, I'm sorry. Well, finally, Radio 4, the straight men feel left out. The reason I bring it up is actually because whenever I'm single, it crosses my mind that maybe I should give a relationship with a man a try. And I'm going to ask you the same question I ask myself in those dark times. What about Europe? Are they any better? Well, in some ways, yes. But when it comes to the question of the far right, no, they're far worse than us. Compared to most of the countries near us, actually, as a multiracial society, we do really well. Okay, that's important to remember. But where does it sit in the context?

Can you tell us maybe about what's going on in France, what's going on in Italy? In France, well, President Macron kind of screwed up. He came back after some European elections, in which he did badly, and having lost those elections he thought, I know, I'll dissolve parliament and have a national election and see if I can win that. And guess what? He got hammered. And the far right did really well.

Now because they've got a two round system, in the second round the far right didn't do so well, so the French sort of breathed half a sigh of relief. But the far right are the most popular political party in France at the moment. And in Italy, they're in power. Though interestingly enough, and this is one of the things about the far right in power is Georgia Maloney, she of the Armani suits

and everything else we've heard about her. Yes, everything else, subjective we've heard about her, yes. Indeed, all that melon stuff. I love when we get an academic to engage with the melons, yes! Referring, not engaging. Of course. Smoking like a man who's wife's in the room. Go on. So she came to power on quite a far right platform and about five months in she made

this remarkable statement saying, actually immigration's quite a complicated issue it turns out. So one of the things about the far right is when they're actually in charge stuff feels a lot more difficult. The UK's favorite dish is chicken tikka masala. It used to feel like England was a proudly and profoundly multicultural place. Do you think that that's still true? Has the rest of Europe been less ready to embrace multiculturalism because they already had nice food? Firstly you've obviously never been to Germany. For the food there's rubbish. You're right. Actually my knee-jerk reaction to your question was that chicken

tikka masala is awful North Indian food and South Indians would never be seen dead eating that rubbish. That's probably not the answer you were... No good for you. You got it. No good for you. We're covering the big issues on this show. I guess my real question is that it seems like the way that the language around multiculturalism is being used at the moment as if it's about a failed experiment.

Yeah. But is that genuinely true? I mean, part of the problem here is we're all or nothing. I mean, we've acted like goldfish this week. On Monday night, the world was going to end. By last night, we were the liberal haven of the whole world because we're lovely and anti- and you know, we go from one extreme to the other and it's never that simple, is it? The fact of the matter is, as multicultural systems go,

ours is pretty good. If you go to many European countries, immigrants are sort of banished to the suburbs and it's horrible and deprived and whatever. There is a bit of that in this country, but that's the point. We're not perfect, but I think we do pretty well compared to other countries. That doesn't mean there isn't work to be done. There's a lot of work to be done on integration for instance. But I just think if you look at it in the round, I

don't think we should get too depressed. Obviously this week has told us we shouldn't get complacent. But actually I think our model works pretty well. And do you think that there's a connection between the European, American and British far-right movements? they connected to one another a bit so Social media is obviously one thing you know American right wings are trying to get involved in what's been happening here this week But in general no and I mean this might come as a shock you know one of the reasons why is that right-wing nationalists? Don't get on very well with people from other countries. So... A solid point well made, I suppose.

But I guess then the question is, how big is the threat? Is it a natural cyclical thing, this level of right-wing... All right. I mean, on the threat level, I mean, we don't know do we if you think back to 2011 we had those riots at the time Everyone was saying oh my god, the world's gonna end six months later. We'd all forgotten them Yeah, right, so we don't know how you know what's gonna happen in the future I mean speaking personally as a South Asian here The slightly sad thing is I felt things and thought things that I've not thought since the 1980s

Yeah, you know I've seen a certain sort of white bloke With his mates on the street and cross the road for the first time literally since the 1980s I might be me overreacting but I mean so in that sense it's changed the mood a bit and it you know one of the one of the things we've We've had to learn is that? Norms are fragile and we develop these norms of behavior Which I think have been quite badly damaged by what's happened in the last week So they'll need to be rebuilt but I think the broader question is our system has proven quite robust

The electorally if you look at all the polling the vast majority of public opinion and the interesting thing is this includes conservative supporters. Decry what's happened, think there should be the harshest possible punishment, think these people are thugs and rioters. So my hunch at the moment is actually the system will prove quite robust. Though, you know, you were talking earlier about some of the root causes of this.

I think we should never lose sight of that. And that's a difficult conversation, isn't it? I don't think it's right to be racist, but if I had been unemployed all my life and I'd come from a place where all my family were unemployed and there were no prospects and no jobs, I'd probably be quite hacked off with life. Yeah.

And you channel it as you channel it. Alright, well enough of us prancing about up here, we've got our own volatile mob right in the audience. Does anyone have any questions for our expert or for Tom? Hello, what's your name? Tabitha. Hi Tabitha. I was just wondering if it's possible that hidden racism

can be worse than people who kind of wear their racism on their sleeve. Because you can't challenge the racism people are hiding and getting away with behind closed doors. But if someone's racist at the next table, you can turn around and say, that's not okay, and have a discussion about it. I mean I'd rather be bitched about them punched right?

Put it on a t-shirt let's go! So you know I grew up in West York in the 70s and 80s and it was dangerous right and actually then if you'd said to me well look everyone's gonna keep being racist but they're not gonna do anything anything or say anything I've taken it I've been fine you know so on one level but you're right you know when it's closet it's harder to sniff out it's harder to pinpoint as thinking again about say the electoral campaign we've just been through I think so much racism is hidden actually in plain sight just thinking about phrases like stop the

boats which is a phrase that we've all heard and think how dehumanizing that is. It's a way of talking about people but not making it about people because they're saying stop the boats. If people started fleeing persecution on jet skis they wouldn't go thank God the boats have stopped. Hello, what's your name? Charlie. Hi Charlie, what's your name? Hello, Charlie. Hi Charlie, what's your question? I know it's impossible to predict this, but do you think a Trump loss or a Trump win would see more presence from the far right? So firstly, Trump won't concede and won't give in, so there's a real, as Biden said

on Wednesday, there's a real possibility of violence around a Trump defeat. So that's the first thing. Secondly, it seems to me that the Republican Party has been magnified. So you're not going to go back to... I mean, in fact, he has missing George Bush Jr. You know, there's halcyon days of Iraq. But that Republican Party seems to me to be dead. So the right won't go away and the right is radical and radicalized.

And I don't think that will stop. And I don't think that radicalization will stop if they were out of power. So you might get a tempely reprieve. I think actually the other thing, can I just say this very, very quickly? Of course. I do think liberal hubris is a massive issue in our societies. I think there was a lot of that under Obama, and actually under the bonnet, right-wing America was seething when Obama was in charge.

They just hated it and it radicalised them. And, you know, Obama's legacy was Trump. Macron's legacy might be Le Pen. David Cameron's legacy was Brexit. That sort of rather smug, self-satisfied liberal in charge that doesn't actually do enough to address the needs of real people is quite dangerous. I know this isn't strictly relevant, but I was in an alternative rock band called Liberal Hebris. It's you, hi, you're the problem, it's you.

Okay. Well thank you very much, give it up please for Arnon Mennon everyone. Alright, so Tom, at the end of the story, what have we learned? Did you have a hero of the week? The heroes have to be all the people that we saw coming out on Wednesday as a counter demonstration. I saw some amazing placards, there was like Nans against Nazis and all these things. One person had a placard which was a swastika with a cross drawn through it saying, we don't approve of this. The problem was the cross and the swastika did align so all that says if you want to be on the right side of history the basic tenants of graphic design are your friends. Okay and what about whose Insta should we be lurking on? Who should we be keeping tabs on?

I want to keep an eye on Keir Starmer because he said, do you remember at the start, he said oh I'll probably clock off at five o'clock on a Friday. No you won't. Basically what I'm saying is I don't think Keir is listening to us right now go out on Radio 4, which is a shame because I'd love to tell him to grow his hair out because grey spikes are quite 2005. I love that that's your message to Keir Starmer. Okay, this has been TLDR and we made it to the end. Well done us. And now you can go back to enjoying the beach volleyball. I'm not judging you, I also love watching those women's glistening sportsmanship.

TLDR was written and hosted by Catherine Bohart with Tommy and Zoe Lyons and Professor Arnand Menon. It was also written by Madeleine Brettingham, Sarah Campbell, Ellen Robertson and Pravanya Pillay. The producers were Lindsay Fenner and Ben Walker. It was a Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4. If you look through your makeup bag, you might have a blusher, eyeshadow or face powder that contains the ingredient talc. But there are questions about its safety. Women diagnosed with cancer have launched court cases against cosmetics companies. They claim there's something lurking in the talc.

Asbestos. I'm Phoebe Keen, and from BBC Radio 4, listen to How They Made Us Doubt Everything, series two, Talc Tales, on BBC Sounds.