Media Storm - LIVE SHOW Misogynoir in Parliament - with Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Nadine Batchelor-Hunt

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

Coming to you from the London Podcast Festival: The Guilty Feminist presents Media Storm’s debut show, live from King’s Place! Presented by journalists Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia, Media Storm is a news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. From migrants to sex workers, trans to indigenous people, convicted criminals to Romani communities— Media Storm puts people with lived experience at the centre of their stories. In this bonus episode, Mathilda and Helena welcome Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy and political reporter Nadine Batchelor Hunt to discuss elitism in Westminster and the discrimination undermining UK democracy. It is often said that Britain has its “most diverse” Parliament ever, at least in terms of gender and race. But it falls short of reflecting the population, while working-class people face growing exclusion from Westminster’s imposing halls. The governing Conservative party trails behind in minority representation and formally denies the existence of institutionalised racism, and “identity politics” have become a viciously divisive political battleground on both the Left and Right. So how do we advance equality in politics for the sake of everyone in society? And what role does the media play in challenging the status quo? Recorded 18 September at King’s Place, London. Guests Bell Ribeiro-Addy @BellRibeiroAddy Nadine Batchelor-Hunt @nadinebh_ Sources https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01156/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7483/ https://www.ippr.org/publication/closing-the-gap https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50808536  Production Researcher: Izzie Addison Media Storm theme: Samfire @soundofsamfire The Guilty Feminist theme: Mark Hodge and Nick Sheldon Cover image: Viktor Erik Emanuel/Kings Place Producers: Tom Salinsky and Deborah Frances-White  Get in touch Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/mediastormpod or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mediastormpod or Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@mediastormpod like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MediaStormPod send us an email [e-mail] check out our website https://mediastormpodcast.com Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Join the movement and donate now at Movember.com. The Hulu original series Murdoch Death and the Family dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama to the screen like never before. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark. Watch the Hulu original series Murdoch Death in the Family, streaming October 15th on Disney Plus. That was fun. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Media Storm's first ever live show

from the London Podcast Festival. For those of you who don't know, Media Storm is a podcast that points out myths and misrepresentations in the mainstream media and puts people with lived experience back at the centre of the story. I'm Matilda Mallinson. And I'm Helen Awadier. And this is Media Storm.

Okay, so today we are going to be talking about holes in our democracy, inequality, getting into, and inside Westminster. And joining us are two very special guests. If you could all give a very big round of applause, and please welcome to the stage, Labour MP, Bell Ribeiro Addy, and political reporter Nadine Bachelor Hans. So anyone listening to the podcast retrospectively is going to need to be able to distinguish your voices. So Bell, will you just introduce yourself and tell us a little something.

Hi, my name is Bell, Rubriadi, a member of Parliament for Stratham since December 2019 now. My name is Nadine Batchelahun. I'm the political correspondent at Yahoo News and I also work in Parliament. We're going to crack right on. it might be good news to you to hear that the parliament we currently have is the most diverse parliament this country has ever seen, at least in terms of gender and race. So the 2019 general election gave us a House of Commons that is 10% ethnic minorities and 30% women. Of course, it was going to actually represent society. It would be more like 15% ethnic minorities and 50% women. And then the data for the governing party gets a little worse. So Labor has one in five

MPs who are from minority ethnic backgrounds, the Conservatives have one in 15. And while the majority of Lib Dem and Labour MPs are now women, for the Conservatives, it's fewer than 25%. So that's the data, but what is it like in real life? So Belle, you said you've been in Parliament since 2019. What was it like walking into the halls of Westminster in general, but also as a person who is a part of that minority? Well, I think it might have been a little bit different for me from some of my colleagues, because I worked there for a number of years before for Diane Abbott.

The difference was that I got to go down these corridors, which only MPs are allowed to go. I always wondered what was down there. That was really interesting. It's nothing special. I was going to say, there's really nothing in them. That's interesting. I suppose it's slightly different.

You know as a staffer that people are treated generally, depending on the type of staff you have. What kind is your pass? Brown. Brown. So Genos have brown, house staff have grey, member staff have green, and MPs have stripy white and green. So you can see them coming from a mile away and you're meant to treat, well, house staff generally treat them much nicer. What I found out is it doesn't always happen with me because they see me before they see my past. And what past would they assume that you had by seeing? One of the others, yeah. Have you seen a change at all in discrimination in Westminster,

whether that be a positive change or a negative change? Well, I think as the diversity of staff grew, there was a black staff network, started up, and they, like me, used to happen to me quite a bit, started to complain about the amount of times their past was checked. So they've changed things slightly to try and stop people doing that. It doesn't mean they don't still do it more than they do to other people, but it's a lot less than when I started working there.

The question isn't just about gender and race. And actually something I found in my research that was really interesting is that if you look at this by the measure of class, things are kind of getting worse. The proportion of Labour MPs to have come from working class jobs has halved since the 80s. For the Conservatives, it's 1%. And so we may not actually have the most diverse parliament we've ever had.

Nadine, as a political reporter, can you shed any light on where this inequality is coming from? What are the barriers for people coming from diverse backgrounds, getting into politics? Yeah, so I actually grew up on a council estate in Birmingham and then ended up going to Cambridge, then ended up being in Parliament. And you kind of see that essentially it's where people start out in life, particularly with schooling. So private schools, for example, are pretty much a gateway into these elite professions. You have this kind of private school culture where people know each other. the schools, people know the lingo, there's that social capital that means if you go into a job

interview or you go into a student politics room or whatever, you are confident. A lot of the people I went to university with said I knew I was going to get in. I knew I was going to get into Cambridge. It wasn't even a thought. So that kind of confidence that's instilled in you all the way through means that when you get into politics, you have the Jacob Rees-Moggs of the world who are very at home. Even when it comes to visuals, you know, Eaton looks very much like Oxbridge. Oxbridge looks very much like Parliament. So it's just these people are just used to being in these environments and because of that they're more confident to put their names into the hat and they look like the people in the establishment so they're more likely to get

promoted that's why we need more diversity so people everyone gets into the room not just people from a certain demographic and i feel like when we're having this conversation about these systemic barriers that result in a parliament that doesn't reflect our population it's hard to ignore that the current government has insisted that systemic racism isn't a problem. And last year we had the Sewell report. You probably saw the race report that basically asserted

that Great Britain is no longer a country that has structural racism. I think Bell and I went on news night actually. Oh, this is going to be some deja vu. I had an argument with Calvin and Robinson about this. It was just us to and him, wasn't it? Yeah. What was that line of questioning like on news night?

Yeah. It was a bit surreal because we've been arguing about this and this is what always seems to happen now. that we have more diversity and we both understand not every single black person thinks exactly alike but when the majority of people that look like us believe that something is wrong the idea that you find somebody that looks like us to try and discredit what everybody else is saying is it was just really awful and that's what kept on happening every single time we debated this yeah do you think that we spend so long discussing whether or not things are racist rather than how

to solve racism yeah that's the key issue you know i um was asked to go on, I think it was Good Morning Britain a while back with another commentator at the time and I said to them, I'm not going to go on and talk about race to this person because it's just going to be an argument for clicks and this person... I'm not going to name names, but... And I said to them, listen, I'm not... I said

I'm not going to do it like and they come offreyed me more and more money and I said no, I said, you know, this person doesn't represent like the views of anybody in the mainstream black community. I understand that you need balance, but this is not balanced. This is what they call false balance, and it's something we come across in every topic that we cover on Media Storm, where the media has this idea that to be balanced, you need to have one person saying yes and one person saying no, even if that's not representative of how people actually feel. Well, let's talk a little bit more about one barrier that minorities face in public life in general, but I think especially in Parliament, is this kind of online abuse that happens. And it seems like now to be almost inevitable if you take up a role, especially in Parliament and especially as a woman and a woman of colour, particularly as a woman of colour, who are 84% more likely than white women to be targeted.

I wonder, Belle, do you experience this kind of abuse and has it ever made you question your role as an MP, especially such an outspoken one, of which we're very grateful for? No, absolutely. I had to question my sanity. and genuinely because I as I said I worked for Diane Abbott for a number of years I saw all of that I spent a lot of time trying to stop her seeing all of that and that has its own effect on you and I remember when I first put up on my own Twitter because I'd not been commentating myself for a while just in case I got Diane in trouble when I put up on my own Twitter that I was standing and the first thing that came underneath it was something about me being a fat black X Y or Z

and you know my heart just sank I'm like this is what you're getting yourself in for instantane. So the first tweet you've put out to say that you're going to be putting yourself forward to be a member of parliament this is the first thing that somebody has to say to you. So yeah, it does make you think. In general, just being a woman of colour

and the internet is just absolutely exhausting. Like, we have to put up so many barriers, so many blocks on our DMs. As a journalist, you face a lot of it. And yeah, it is absolutely exhausting. The comment that you were subjected to is language that doesn't just exist on social media that we do sometimes see in the mainstream media.

And this is Media Storm, we like to look at the role that the mainstream media has in creating these problems and hopefully the solutions. And when it comes to political reporting, there's plenty of discriminatory language. Something that comes to my mind is shoulder gay. I don't know if anyone remembers. It was in 2020 female MP, Tracy Brab and Worry off the shoulder black dress while speaking in the commons. The Daily Mail photoshopped faces of other female leaders

onto the photo of Tracy wearing this dress as some sort of like Who Wore It Best contest. Yeah, adding to this long line of media that reduces female MPs to fashion choices. Also remember Legit. Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon, I think it was, who were on the front of the Daily Mail. They said, never mind, Brexit.

What about Lexus? Then there was the whole Angela Raina stuff, which was just... Angelina very recently. yeah yeah okay so bell have you ever experienced any mistreatment or unfair reporting well firstly they have to figure out which one of us i am so it sounds awful but there was this one time where um the commons the BBC Commons service which puts our names under when we speak in parliament got dawn butler and marcia de cordova mixed up and then the evening standard

went to report on it say ha ha ha look at the BBC they're so stupid but instead of using a picture of Marsha, used a picture of me. Oh my God. And then they called me to try and apologize quickly before I said anything and then to blame it all on Getty Images who had, for the six months or so I'd been an MP, labelled all of the photos that anyone had taken of me as Marcia de Cordoba. So that was everybody. The BBC, Evening Standard and Getty images. I did actually, in Parliament as well, there's very few black women political journalist. I get mistaken. We all get mistaken

for each other. I'm not surprised. And it's, some of us are mixed race and some of us are black and we look visibly different as you know. And people will come up to me. I know who you are. Yeah. So they'll come up to me and say, you know, a journalist from the FT. Oh, I'm like, it's not me. And these are MPs. At one time, actually, I'd had a whole

coffee with an MP talking about the cost of living crisis. And then she says, oh, thank you and then gives a different name. And I was like, I'm not, that's not me. And then she says, oh, well, you know, my secretary She must have got it confused. And I thought, I've never seen your secretary in real life. So how would she know what I look like?

And I'd met this woman with the journalist. She thought I was. So it's just ridiculous. Yeah. Do you know what? They're in both, as in both Parliament and in both journalism. Because a connection that we often make when we do our investigations on MediaStorm is that the same groups that are misrepresented by the media are also underrepresented in the media.

So within newsrooms, like I know I have been in London. newsrooms that are meant to reflect Londoners and being maybe one of five people of colour on their entire editorial team. And then there was also another Indian woman who I got called her name

quite a lot. It's just like, she was also about 55, so there was also a time where somebody thought I was Shobna Galati from Coronation Street, but that's a separate thing. But Nadine, how have you found, as a political reporter, getting into political

journalism? So obviously there's the problem with racism in politics, rhetoric that you'll see MPs who have said racist things around Parliament. You know, Conservative Party conference last year I found it quite difficult. I won't go into names, but there was an event which was seen as an anti-woke event that I had to leave because it upset me. And luckily my editor was quite understanding. But you know, when you're in these environments, even lobby briefing, so these happen twice daily and you go and talk to the Prime Minister's spokesperson and ask questions and it's always shocking how they're just rarely ask about race rarely and in these environments normally you'll ask a question say on energy bills and then another

journalist will bounce off that and another journalist will bounce off that and then sometimes if you're the black person in the room no one bounces off it so you'll put your hand up and say hey you know the stuff that happened with nzgani this is quite bad and then no one will bounce off it or um i had a friend and she asked about the chris cabber stuff And the spokesperson responded saying, we're not going to comment during a period of national mourning. And I wasn't there in person, unfortunately, but I text to my colleague and said, I'm really sorry. Because no one backed her up either. No one back to rep on that.

So imagine being the only black person, you know, in Downing Street in this hugely like imposing atmosphere surrounded by journalists who have been doing this for years and then putting your hand up and saying that and no one saying, you what? Like, you can't say that. That's really bad. You can see that reflected in political reporting. That's why we don't have coverage enough on racism. You know, there was a newspaper who had on their front page at one point, something about over 50% of black kids living in poverty.

Yet their political correspondent didn't mention it once in lobby, and it was their splash on their front page. So it's just a real disconnect, and that's why in the media we don't have this coverage because the questions aren't being asked at source in the room when people have the opportunity. Okay, so let's talk about solutions starting in Westminster. Labor has done a really good job of diversifying its gender profile.

But what we see less of is upward elevation and that reflected in the leadership. It's often criticised as a party for being the only active UK party to not have had a female leader. And the Conservatives have given us three female prime ministers now, whatever you think of them. And they've given us our first ethnic minority prime minister with Disraeli in 1868, I think. they've put in a lot of effort into creating that upward mobility and it was reflected in the leadership contest. So I wonder whether you have any ideas about what Labour can do to improve upward mobility and diversity at its leadership.

Well, I think in terms of making sure there were more women in the first place, using all-women shortlists, I was on an all-woman shortlist, that made a massive, massive difference. But I'm actually more concerned, representation does make a difference in terms of what we discuss but at the end of the day as you said we have had three female

prime ministers and under them I didn't see a situation where women's lives improved so as well as being concerned about what Parliament looks like I'm concerned about what it does and what the people who enter Parliament believe and think

and working out to make sure that we have diversity in terms of race in terms of gender that makes a massive massive difference but if we don't start having diversity in terms of views things are never going to change it's actually it's definitely interesting you say that because we have well we had a woman of color pretty retail as a home secretary who possibly

bought in you know one of the hard most hardline immigration policies under immigration policy her family would not have been allowed to come to this country that is just she's one of three though we have had since Windrush, Sajad Javid, Priti Patel, Suella Breverman, all from immigrant backgrounds, all pursuing almost increasingly hostile policies towards immigrants. This is actually something which, yeah, I don't always know what to make of. With the Conservative government, you have very high-profile people from minority backgrounds proposing very hardline views that kind of prop up the status quo, downplay,

racism and penalize immigrants. Kami Badenok is so anti-woke that she used masking tape to divide a unisex toilet into male and female sections during her leadership contest. Yeah, Nadine, can you, like, what do you make of this phenomenon? It, honestly, I just don't know. I don't really know how to approach it. It's just really nebulous, you know. I don't think it's fair to say anybody's in a specific position because of their ethnicity.

apart from white, obviously, white people. But when it comes to this kind of stuff. But, you know, it is a complicated thing. And, you know, as we were saying earlier, not all people of colour think the same way. And there are differences. You've got Afro-Caribbean communities that have very different cultures

and overall political views to African communities and the Indian community is very different to the Bangladeshi community. So there's all these things to take into account. And honestly, I don't, I just don't think it's a, there's one answer and I think it's fine to just say I don't know what to make of it because these people I think you just let them speak for themselves and I understand why it's a controversial thing within communities of colour because you see this and you

feel frustrated because it feels very personal I honestly I think about this a lot and I haven't decided on what the one truth is if there is one truth but it's very very nebulous right because it's not like people should be held to higher accountability because they're from a minority background but they are well I've always said this as well like with politicians and I do think this, to some extent, with Rishi-Sanak was true, if you're an ethnic minority in politics, you have to be perfect. You cannot put a foot wrong.

If you want to be in a position like being Prime Minister, I personally think within the Conservative Party, the amount of hatred and vitriol he had towards him, I don't know if it's just because of race, but I do know that if you want to progress and be successful as a black person or an Asian person, regardless, you have to tow

a very thin line. You couldn't go around acting like Boris Johnson, because you just wouldn't get very far. So, yeah. Lest we forget, Diane Abbott drank a MNS mehito on the London Overground. And that was possibly one of the biggest media storms we saw. But should we list what Boris Johnson is not? No, let's not. We will never end this show.

And maybe this is the time that we want to open to the audience. Does anyone have any thoughts, any questions for our panelists? Hi. I'm not from the UK, but just I've followed a bit of British politics. But I get the feeling that I think minorities who enter the Tory party do so for career reasons. So that maybe they are following very hardline immigration policies because that is what is going to get you to a higher ladder in the career. It's interesting because what that does point to is that in order to get to the front benches,

my understanding of how our political system works is that rather than necessarily representing your constituents' views, you have to tow the party line. I understand that this is necessary for a government to function because a party needs to be able to put through legislation but I wonder if it's something that Bal maybe or Nadine that you ever think is a problem that how important it is for political,

for your career elevation in politics to tow the party line. Firstly, all parties, you have to be extremely capable as you've heard before. You can't make a mistake when you're an ethnic minority or it's blown out of complete proportion. So I'm quite sure they're all extremely capable. But in order to move yourself to the front, you have to be amenable to whoever's in charge

and you have to do exactly what they want. And you almost have to do it more so than anybody else to prove that loyalty because you've already got something counting against you, which is your race. So I feel that they're perhaps more extreme on certain views to make themselves stand out and show that they're really, really loyal. I think sometimes it goes across the spectrum as well it's not necessarily a conservative party thing you know there is pressure on

you know in ethnic minorities and any party to kind of go towards a more establishment line you know the monarchy green dying I think is a prime example there will be a lot of MPs in political parties that have an issue with the monarchy whose ancestors were colonised by the British Empire who feel that they can't speak

and essentially I mean take for example the Labour Party having told they can't really post anything on social media unless it's RIP queen. Now that doesn't feel very democratic. So, you know, regardless of whether you're on the left or the right when you're an ethnic minority, the establishment wants you to be more like them. And if you came out like guns blazing as a radical,

you're going to find it very difficult to get into a senior in a political party. Yes, it's very difficult. Were there any other questions before we move on to part two? So Zim Rafiq and the DCMS, if the makeup of that select committee was different, would there have been more movement with the inactivity with Yorkshire

because they basically haven't been penalised? Just to contextualise Azim Rafiq is the cricket player who came out about experiencing racism during his time playing. I would say part of it is select committees as you'll know more about it, but they can recommend things but there's only so far they will get

unless the government takes it on board, but also the media coverage. If there's just not an interest there, then the public interest dies. You can tweet as much you want about it, post as much on Facebook about it. But as we know, there's an issue in newsrooms

with caring about these issues. Same goes with the Nisgarni stuff. As soon as Boris Johnson, well, within a week or two, when it became apparent in the media that this wasn't going to bring down Boris Johnson, no one cared. It's just how it is.

If nobody in the newsroom cares enough to commission on it, and there's no one in the newsroom to say, why aren't we commissioning on it, doesn't happen. And that's why it happened, yeah. It can be really frustrating. Yeah, and that is a really, that's a really big thing. Like, I can't tell you the amount of times I pitched something

and I got told by an editor who is just because of the makeup of newsrooms usually middle-aged, middle-class, white man, usually, and they'll say, oh, that's not relevant, that's not relevant. But what they're really saying is that's not relevant to me. But it works even from political parties, let's say, trying to put out press releases about different subjects. I remember once pushing past someone to do it on the basis, and this is a press officer from somewhere.

You said that Shemima Begham didn't poll well, so we shouldn't say anything about it. Obviously, that's how it works in the media. That is literally how it works. It's as basic as that, you know, is this going to land with our audience? What's the worst thing that's going to happen here? Is this the ethical argument?

Yeah, but how is it going to read? That's how it is behind the scenes, particularly in PR and press 100%. But then the people asking and answering those questions come from a very narrow section of society. I think we need to wrap this section up to end on if you say it positively enough

might be okay and can we have a loud round of applause everyone please follow Bell and Dean give it up thank you so much incredible You know, I'm going to be.