Woman's Hour - Cat Power, US Midterms, Hope Boxes, writer Yasmin El-Rifae

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Chan Marshall, better known by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer, songwriter and producer. After three decades in the music industry, she has eight original albums under her belt but has also made three cover albums. The most recent saw her singing everything from the work of The Pogues to Lana Del Rey. This Saturday she will be recreating Bob Dylan’s iconic 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert. It was one of the most controversial tours in the history of rock & roll, where Dylan enraged fans for electrifying his songs. Power will be performing them in the same order as Dylan himself: the first half of the show will be acoustic before an electric band join her for the second half. Chan joins Emma to talk music, motherhood and honouring a rock and roll icon. With just five days to go until the US midterms, Emma takes a look at what matters to women voters. On Monday we heard from a former Republican strategist, today Emma will be joined by Democratic Party political strategist and former head of EMILY’s List, Stephanie Schriock.A new project, led by Lancaster University, has created memory boxes, designed to help women whose babies are taken into care at birth while a court determines their child’s future. We hear why these ‘Hope boxes’ are so important to the women who developed the idea and Research Fellow, Claire Mason who supported them. And discuss why the number of newborns in care proceedings in England and Wales has increased over the past decade.We revisit the events of the Egyptian protests in 2012-2013 in Tahrir Square in Cairo, with the author Yasmin El-Rifae. Her book, ‘Radius, A Story of Feminist Revolution', tells the story of the women and men who formed Opantish – Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment and Assault to intervene in the spiralling cases of sexual violence against women in the square. The group members often risked assault themselves and Yasmin was also one of their organisers.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Have you ever heard of booty patrols? No, me neither. The name refers apparently to the practice of unwarranted stops of cars driven by women some male police officers find pretty. And it is one of the details in a new damning report out today

by the police watchdog ordered by the government after the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer in March of last year. Hundreds of police officers who should have failed vetting checks may now be in the job in England and Wales. Eight forces were looked at and decisions on officers which were questionable at best have come out. Police leaders have been criticised for allowing a prevalent culture of officers who are predatory towards women to join and stay in the ranks. But the voices of women also ring out in today's report because officers, staff and volunteers were surveyed for their experience of working

in the police and more than 10,000 answered the call, a huge response which has also been noted. And the details shared are worth pausing on. Senior male officers pursuing women in lower ranks for sex via the work email system. Also at parties. Viewing porn at work and inviting others to look at it too. This is also on phones that have been seized and are in police custody. But also looking at porn on computer systems at work too. Sending porn to female colleagues' phones. Misogynistic comments about crime victims and the public that they are meant to be policing. Remember, by consent. Of course, there is much being made of the record number of women now working in the police force. Nor is this a report meant to paint all male police officers as the same. But it does give a window, an important window, into what's being described

as a sexist and misogynistic culture that some employees, as well as the report's authors, feel is pervading in our police force. And this is looking across eight police forces. It was commissioned in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder. This is the report, although there have been others, we've also been hearing about the Met Police specifically, but this is the report that was ordered by the then Home Secretary, Priti Patel, after what happened to Sarah Everard. And this is the one to pay attention to, to try and get a sense of some of the problems. Now, I also know that a lot of police officers listen to this programme. I've heard from you in the past. I'd appreciate hearing from you again if you wanted

to today. But I would like to ask for your response to this report today, to the insights that it provides, and whether if you were in a place where you were thinking about trust in the police, whether this has changed your mind, whether this has affected you in some way, what you take from this is what I'm interested in. You can text me here at Women's Hour on 84844, text to charge your standard rate. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour. You can email me through our website and you can send a voice note now or a WhatsApp message using a different number,

03700 100 444. If you leave your number, please, on the text, we could also see if we could get some of you on air with me today to actually hear what you have to say or we could do it through voice notes. But to hear what you have to say in any way you choose to do it, I would be grateful. It would be very interesting.

I think it would be very important because we are policed by consent. That's how it's meant to work. This report has given an insight not only into the vetting procedures, the way that police officers are hired, but also the culture of working in the police for some who have responded and what they say is a reality day to day. So do get in touch this morning. It would be very good to hear from you. cat power, and the untold story of a group of women and men who organised a different kind of protest in Tahrir Square in Egypt during the Egyptian revolution of 2012. All that to come. But first to that report out today by the police watchdog looking at these

eight police forces. The report found decisions on officers which were, and I quote, questionable at best. Of 725 sample cases closely examined in the review, there were concerns about 131 officers cleared to serve in police forces, but the watchdog has said the true total could be much higher. I wanted to say this to you as well. We invited a representative from each of the eight forces onto Woman's Lair this morning, those forces that were investigated into the report, but we were not offered anyone.

No one was made available to us today. Here's what Matt Parr, of His Majesty's Inspector of the Constabulary, had to say this morning to the Today programme, to my colleagues there. I think we're at something of a tipping point moment. It's not just our report today. There have been other hard-hitting reports shining a light on police behaviour and some of these problems. I think we've now reached the point, or at least I hope we've now reached the point, where chief constables and other police leaders realise that this is something they've got to bear down on much harder. They've got to take more interest in recruiting the right people. They've got to take more interest in driving out misconduct, because if they don't, these problems

are going to keep coming back and they can't. I'm joined now by Sir Peter Fahey, who was the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police from 2008 to 2015. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. What's your reaction to the report, first of all? Gosh, very depressing, very concerning. I can understand some of the factors there. We've always known, it's known internationally, it's known from all the research that there's a group of people who want to join policing for the wrong reasons and you have to be always vigilant about that.

We also know that policing and what its officers are faced with, what they see of human nature, their day-to-day experience, often the very worst of life, can do some very damaging things to them and can absolutely affect their attitudes and their behaviours. And you need to be on top of that all the time. I think, as you say, what I find most concerning about this report is the very high percentage of female officers who say they've been subject to misogynistic comments or worse, and not had the confidence to raise that. Now, we know that that is obviously an issue in wider society and other workplaces. But it's very disappointing and concerning that that is prevalent in the police force. I think my generation of police leaders, we thought by

bringing more and more women into policing, that that would help prevalent in the police force. I think my generation of police leaders, we thought by bringing more and more women into policing, that that would help to change the culture and tip the balance. There's no question that the culture has changed, but it's not changed enough. And of course, why the society changes around it. What the report, I think, also says is that police forces have to act more on the basis of suspicion. In a lot of these cases that they've looked at,

there was a suspicion about an officer or an applicant coming into the police force and and i suppose in the end of the uh the the people making the decision of giving them the benefit of the doubt i think this report is saying no there needs to be a harder line taken on that and that may affect obviously the rate of recruitment because the other thing which is happening in policing at the moment is forces are actually finding it very difficult to recruit officers for a range of reasons, which, again, wasn't the situation some years ago. And it might be that, therefore, they feel under more pressure to accept people who perhaps in the past they wouldn't have accepted. That is a concern. An anonymous person got in touch with Radio 5 Live earlier today saying forces receive money for meeting recruitment targets.

And we know that the government's promised 20,000 recruits. And as you say, there's this drive, but there's also concern about filling that quota. How much of a concern is that? It's a concern both sides. It's a concern that obviously government and forces themselves want to get those officers in and the public wants to see those officers. But the fact is policing is not very attractive at the moment it obviously has not got a very good image it's not very well paid um and it's a really very changed situation i was in manchester recently and i had you know there's a van out there in the shopping center with officers trying to recruit

people that never had to be done before the problem was absolutely the opposite too many trying to join so there is that pressure but it always doesn't help when you have stopped start recruitment so what has happened is for a long period of time police forces were not recruiting anybody and therefore vetting departments and all that experience was lost they've now obviously put that in place the report says there's not enough of that in place they need to put more staff into it but it also means there's not necessarily the same expertise that was there before because they closed the unit down when there was no recruitment taking place. As a former chief constable had you heard of booty patrols?

I haven't heard of that particular you know one but you know you have to be really careful about what's going on on the front line of your policing i was always very conscious that policing operates 24 hours a day it operates um across lots and lots of different locations in big forces in particular and therefore you can never be naive about what is actually happening on the front line and i think the difficulty police chiefs have and i faced it a little bit is you realize that your frontline staff are often from a totally different generation than you were and particularly with all the advent of social media and a more sexualized society and different attitudes out there and i was you know very conscious that i didn't really understand a lot of that and i had

to have good people who were trying to get into it but clearly forces are facing a major problem what to deal about how to to police social media in particular a lot of that is private use of that social media closed groups uh things that even police forces can't get into i make sense of dealing with that and and that that also has been a big part of of the focus recently for a number of cases but i suppose it's it's just some of those details about what's actually happening in real life with police officers with some police officers what what they think is an appropriate use of the position and male police officers behaving like this you know whether it's viewing porn at work on on victims phones or using their powers to pull over you know women they deem pretty in cars yeah and you know that that's absolutely appalling and that's also why you need um good sergeants and good inspectors.

There's a lot of emphasis in this report about what happens before somebody joins the police. In my experience, the best vetting is done during the training period and having really good sergeants and what we call tutor constables training police officers who've just joined to absolutely root out those that don't have the right attitude and to be fair there are a lot of officers that are are basically who resigned during those first two years and some of these undoubtedly either they realize that they're not suitable or in a way informal pressure is put on to get them to leave because it's realized they're not suitable and there needs to be more of that but i think your your listeners also will be surprised to hear that you know in in the BBC, if your senior management believes somebody is not of the right standard and has not got the right attitudes and behaviour,

the senior management can sack that member of staff. That doesn't happen in policing. Your chief constable can't be a second officer. It has to go in front of an independent panel chaired by a legally qualified person and we've now got at least two forces that are taking legal action against those panels because they believe they've not been robust enough and they've disagreed with a decision to hold on to an officer so i think there are some other elements there but i think there's a wider issue here about the culture of policing and there's something i was concerned about during my time you know there's a lot of recommendations in the report about changing procedures and doing this differently and doing

that and putting more staff in but i think there needs to be you know a debate about why is this happening what is the culture in policing and how policing copes with in some ways it's a very traditional it's a hierarchical organization in some ways it's based around discipline so based about people obeying orders but on the other hand it needs to be a very modern organization that brings in really good people and allows them to be themselves and i think policing struggles with that as do other organizations like the fire service and and so at the same time as there needs to be this improvement in procedures um and and absolutely more resources putting into investigating officers who are causing concern

at the same time there needs to be you know policing needs to be open to looking at why is this happening? And what are the more fundamental things that need to happen to open policing up to attract the right sort of person? And absolutely for people like female officers to have that confidence that I work in the sort of organisation that if somebody is behaving inappropriately, not only will the organisation deal with it, but my fellow officers, my fellow members of staff will obviously deal with that and make it absolutely clear that that is not acceptable in this organisation. We're getting a lot of messages in about how, in particular, women feel towards the police right now. And it's a pretty grim picture of some of the messages that are coming in. I mean, what would you say to a woman in your life right now about whether to trust the police or not,

especially if they were in a situation where they needed to go to the police or something was happening at night? Emma, I would, you know, and I've been quite open about this in previous interviews, you know, I think they would need to absolutely use their judgment and their common sense. I think absolutely they should trust individual police officers. But I think it is about the wider system. And I've been very open that, for instance, if it was a member of my family that sadly was a victim of rape, I'd have to think long and long and hard about whether I recommended them to go and report it.

And that's not just about the attitude of individual officers, it's more about the wider system and the, you know, the dreadfully low rate of prosecution. You know, I would say, and people will say, well, you would say this, the vast majority of officers try and do a good job. But the fact is, you know, I can absolutely understand, you know, why women feel like this. And to some degree, what I think doesn't matter. But the crucial issue here is a very large percentage of women do not have confidence in the police and individual officers and do not have confidence in coming forward. And that's got to be a major concern for policing and really, you know, robust action needs to take to try and change that and rebuild that confidence, because it's absolutely crucial for the safety of women and for the credibility of policing. I know you say it's not about your view, but because of your experience, it is striking to

hear you say that about if that was the situation for someone in your family. What would need to change for you to change that view? It would need to be a fundamental change in the criminal justice system, the way that it treats women who have been victims of sexual offences in particular. And, you know, that's the particular bit that I'm concerned about. And I don't think it's really about what I think. It's about any woman looking at, well, if I report this, what are the chances of a conviction and how long would it take to get that conviction and the fact is you've got a less than two percent chance of the conviction and it might take even then it might take two or three years to get to the end of the court process now you know and that's just one factor of the process

but the trouble is all that feeds into some of the cynicism and that some officers feel and if you want a really positive culture you've got to be in an organization that feels like it's winning that feels that when you you've got a victim and a member of the public's got a problem that you can actually solve their problem the trouble is as well it doesn't help that policing has developed a siege mentality and when officers feel that they're trying to operate a system like a court system which actually has very little to offer a lot of victims and possibly is going to make their situation worse, that's the sort of situation that starts breeding a negative, cynical culture. And you have to be trying to be aware of that.

So while policing itself needs to do a lot, we've got to be careful in all the criticism that, in a way, it doesn't actually reinforce that siege mentality. And more officers actually leave the job and fewer good people out there want to join it. So there needs to be that balance. I was going to ask, would you encourage a woman to join the police right now?

I'd say, yes, it's absolutely your most wonderful career. And you are dealing with one of the most difficult, you're dealing day to day with some of the most serious social challenges alongside people at the very worst moments in their lives. But again, you need to be realistic that there's lots of wonderful things about policing, but it has got a particular culture. And you're going to be working in an organisation that's hierarchical, that sometimes struggles to deal with difference and again where like unfortunately in a lot of the public services and it's true you know of the health service you're possibly going to be in a frontline position where you're under enormous pressure and where you can't solve the problems of the people coming

you know that you are having to deal with and you can't make the difference in their lives that they are seeking and that you feel that's your vocation to achieve um you know and i think you know people would need to be realistic about that. But the culture has improved. And I think reports like this and the support of the debate this morning will help to move that forward. But people need to be realistic about what police officers are dealing with. What is the nature of the job?

As I say, the fact that police officers see the very worst of human nature every single day. And the trouble is, you know, that that does affect you. That does affect you. And in the worst cases, it changes your attitudes or, you know, it exacerbates worrying attitudes you already have. And as I say, that's why police chiefs need to, you know, cannot be naive about that. But as I say, there's also a danger if we're too critical that it just you know breeds a siege mentality and officers don't feel like they've been given the tools and the support they need to try and

do the different job that they do. I mentioned just while I have you if you're joining us it's Sir Peter Farheon with me from the former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police I mentioned trying to get our team this morning has tried to get someone to come on from any of the eight forces that were looked at for this report. The Met Police responded with a statement. No one put anyone forward, just saying we are setting clear expectations of behaviour, are developing data and technology to identify those who are not fit to serve. We will succeed with the vast majority of our honest and dedicated officers and staff. And from the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, she says here, there's a longer version, but just to give you the gist of it. It is no secret that recent high profile incidents have shattered the public's trust in policing.

His Majesty's Inspectorate's report shines a stark light on some police vetting practices, which makes it too easy for the wrong people to enter and remain in policing. Chief constables must learn these lessons and act on the findings of this report as a matter of urgency. At its best, policing in this country is an example to the world, and we need to make sure this standard is consistently met across all forces. What do you say to the flavour of those responses today? Because that's the best I can get you. I mean, number one, I'm disappointed that they don't put up an operational police leader to speak about this. I think it's always better to be open about this.

Well, I think specifically on Woman's Hour, when there are these details about, it's not just the general culture issue, it's talking about misogynistic and sexist culture. Yes, well, you know, I think that they should absolutely put people up. I would say about the government position, I think a lot of policing is getting confused about the fact that, you know, politicians are saying that the culture of policing needs to change. But at the same time, policing has been criticised for this thing called woke policing,

which I don't understand. So for a lot of officers, they feel in one way they're being criticised for being too politically correct, and in another way, not being open enough to change their culture. And I think politicians need to give a clear line on that. And I do think part of the culture change that needs to change is greater openness.

And I think it is disappointing, given, as you say, the concerns in this report, that there wasn't an operational chief put up to talk about it and to talk about some of the real challenges they have, because it is difficult when you're operating on the basis of suspicion. And one of the most difficult decisions I had as a chief constable was about often what degree of intrusive tactics and expertise were we going to use to investigate our own officers.

And sometimes we were putting more effort and resources into investigating our own officers than we were investigating some rates. And sometimes that was necessary. Well, that's what's going to have to happen now for some of these forces, isn't it? Yes, absolutely. And then I can only tell you that that is a difficult decision um and at the same time you can only do what is absolutely lawful and i think be better if the police officers police chiefs today were open about that and explain some of the really difficult dilemmas because coming out this report and the metropolitan police have already done it

police force is going to have to put more resources and effort into counter-corruption units and into vetting and as i say are possibly going to have to be open to legal challenges from officers who they decide possibly on the basis of suspicion or whatever but they no longer have confidence in and either need to be removed from the service or need to be restricted in what they're allowed to do just as finally there are many messages i will come to them but from the service or need to be restricted in what they're allowed to do. Just as finally, there are many messages, I will come to them, but there's one I wanted to read to you to ask what she should do or what one could do in this situation. Good morning, my name is Helen.

I experienced many years ago a young police officer who was following me with his police car lights flashing in the early hours of the morning and signalled for me to pull in, which I did. He asked for my details and then commented on how attractive I was and asked me out. We were talking about booty patrols, some of the details in this report. What are you meant to do if a police officer comes on to you or makes it clear that you're being stopped for a very different reason? Well, number one, you should certainly say, are you recording this? Because each officer has got

a body camera. And then you should say on that camera, I find this totally unacceptable. And obviously particularly serious is that it's somebody who's a victim of a sexual offence. So, you know, absolutely you should ask, is this being recorded? You should take the, you know, the number of the officer, often they're now displaying their name, and actually make a complaint because that is totally unacceptable. And that's made clear to officers that it's unacceptable. Of course, some can be quite intimidated by police officers at the same time and will be surprised in the moment. But it was good just to ask what you're meant to do and how you're meant to handle it. Sir Peter Farhey, thank you for your time, your insights and your response to the report this morning.

The former chief constable of Greater Manchester Police from 2008 to 2015. A message here. Women I know have no confidence in reporting sexual violence to the police, let alone the rest of the criminal justice system. That's from one of our male listeners, Richard, who's listening. Another one here. I'd already decided to be more guarded around the police following Sarah Everard's murder. This report simply reaffirms my suspicions.

I would never invite a lone male officer into my home nor get into a car with one. Also, as a civil servant, I underwent vigorous vetting, though it took months, so I cannot understand how some of the police vetting standards have been so lax. Another message here, maybe the police force reflects society, where misogyny, porn and violence are prevalent. Changes need to be throughout society, with public servants such as police being role models. And one more here saying, I used to manage allegations against professionals

and work with many fantastic police committed to protecting the public. However, sadly, there were some who took advantage of their power and abused people with less power. Any institution with power needs to be closely monitored as power is often misused, sadly. And Deirdre says, disheartening to hear your speaker, Sir Peter Farhe, talk about police having to face the very worst of human nature

and how that can affect behaviour. So do social workers, nurses, medics and family lawyers. And so it goes on. That message there from Deirdre. Keep your messages coming in about your response to the details we're hearing today, which don't just take in the vetting procedures of how police become police,

but also the culture from a huge survey, very high response rate here with a lot of women's voices in that mix, thousands, more than 10,000, saying what it's like to work or volunteer within the police force. 84844 is the number you need to text. And just again, to put this in context, this was a report ordered by the government

after the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard last year at the hands of a serving police officer. So this is just that report. When you hear those things, what the government's going to do, how it's going to respond, this is that report. And we wanted to make sure that you were across the detail, but also had the chance to say what you wanted to say about it. So please keep those messages coming in. Now, my next guest is the American singer, songwriter and producer Sean Marshall. You might know her better by her stage name, Cat Power.

After three decades of creating blues, rock and folk music, writing about love, loss, abortion, grief and God, she has eight original albums under her belt and three albums of covers in which she sung the works of greats such as Frank Ocean, Iggy Pop, and also sang with people like Lana Del Rey. This Saturday, she'll be covering another great, Bob Dylan, in a recreation of his historic 1966 performance known as the Royal Albert Hall set. Kat Bauer there singing, rather appropriately, woman from her 2018 album, Wanderer. She joins me now. Good morning, Sean.

Good morning. Nice to be with you. Thank you for being with us. I just said the clip that we played from your record, Woman, and you've been working in the music industry for a long time now, three decades or so. How has it changed? I know.

I was going to say, how has it changed for women? Loaded question. so how has it changed i was gonna say how has it changed for women loaded question um i think it just keeps you know obviously getting more uh more of us in here more of us out there um rock and roll is dead and we're here now which sucks for us i'm just kidding but um yeah i think it's constantly sort of morphing into um some new territory and and and i know you know you know not that long ago you had your son and and that will have also changed i'm'm sure, for you day to day life and being on the road. Yeah, he was always with me for all my tours until the pandemic. Obviously, we shut down. But this year is the first time he has not been with me on this tour. I've been on for about five months six months his father's been helping

out so it was pretty easy actually um i didn't i didn't think it was going to be easy you know but it was i think when you i think you know good parents or parents who love their children know that it's um easier to to do it than to not do it i don't know what i'm saying no no well it's it must be a change though if he's not with you this time because you you know totally different you are doing this you i should say you are a single mother i know that you you you are parenting with um your son's father but but not having him with you must be really different for you. And it must be a different experience. Yeah, he's always been with me, single parent style.

But right now with this tour opportunity I have with my new record that came out, the covers record, the covers, sorry. I was, I needed his dad's help. So it's worked out and, you know, he's in second grade and, you know, it is very difficult not being with him every day. So that is rough. But at the same time, it's the first time in about, I guess, eight years where I feel like I'm actually able to super duper focus, which hints this concert coming up and, you know, finishing my record cycle, which is the quickest record cycle I've ever done. Usually it's like, you know, a couple of years, but I was able to, you know, bang it out in five months and I'm, you know, done with the covers. Well, let's hear one of those covers, which is the Rolling Stones' Satisfaction. Let's have a listen. Cat Power's cover there of Rolling Stones' Satisfaction. You mentioned you're just finishing touring with your album Covers. And I wondered why Covers and doing Covers, why it appeals to you so much, what you get from it. Just hearing that recording, you know, that was from 1999.

That was my first Covers record. But just as everybody who loves music music since they're kids and everything, we all have songs that are like a part of our personal individual history. We have so many songs that kind of grew up with us or we grew up with them. And, you know, before like MTV culture, I think that MTV culture, you know, they needed new content, new artists, new production deals, you know tradition to to to pass down songs and to community drives uh sorry i don't know what i'm saying it's too early i didn't sleep i'm sorry i couldn't sleep because polyester sheets dude um i can't sleep with polyester sheets but sorry I think the tradition of covering

songs though is something people may have forgotten and that it was part of it and you couldn't always you couldn't just see things before pre-recorded before recorded music you know that's all we had was shared songs and stories and things and that was

you know and through the you know 2030 you know everybody's always been current jazz blues country folk you know it's all pretty much um and i think that's why one of the reasons why hip-hop is so sustainable because of the you know because of all so sustainable because of the, you know, because of all the reflection and all the beats and the samples from all these classic amazing albums and artists and songs, you know, so it all kind of reminisces when we, when we hear certain things in hip hop music. But I think it's something that's, you know, been gone for a long time,

but it's, I find it to be a huge part of music history. And Bob Dylan, this is what you're focusing your attention on now at the Royal Albert Hall this Saturday. He's like one of the kings of that, one of the early masters of, you know, singing other people's songs, you know. And why Bob Dylan for you? I think just growing up as a kid, there was, you know, in the 70s, you know, there was so much music, all kinds of music um and something about you know bob had it's almost like it was

felt more personal like it was it was maybe i didn't understand exactly what he was saying as a little kid but it was like i felt like he was singing to me like the same way I feel like, you know, felt like Billie Holiday was singing to me. But it wasn't so much about Bob's voice as it is Billie's voice, but it's his words, you know, like he was kind of like the Pied Piper, like, oh, he's going to tell, he's telling me the truth or he's telling me a fable. You know, I don't know. It was like, it felt like he was like a magician or something. There was something believable, I guess, about him. When you do covers, are you trying to bring something new to the music or are you trying, you know, especially thinking about what you're doing with Bob Dylan this weekend, or are you trying to create or recreate something they were doing

well normally I do covers um because I just enjoy the song and I want to play this song and I if I record it or play it and it doesn't sound like the original, that's because I don't actually know chords. I know how to play them on piano and guitar, but I couldn't tell you the name of any of them. So if I want to do a cover, I don't know what I'm doing, so it's not going to sound like the song but for Bob for this for this uh this Royal Albert Hall um performance I wanted to be in line with you know I didn't want to recreate it I wanted to um you know just just sing it I wanted to you know sing it the way that I felt it you know the way that i the way that i feel it's already been sung not not trying to be bob or emulate bob but just i don't know giving it more light not not necessarily reconstructing it at all this you know doing something different as

far as covers go because i usually you know don't i usually find my my way through a song on my own but with this i really wanted to to be loyal to to the um structure of of of the song yes and and and it was notable this concert wasn't it because the second half was as an electric set of songs, which was a real moment for, I mean, which is hard for us to imagine now with technology. But can you tell us just a bit about that? Yeah, I think the faith, you know, that, I mean, sorry, I wish I was a rock critic. I would, these words would be flowing out of my mouth but um what you know

essentially this beat poet you know comes out with you know rock and roll electric uh vibration that uh changed what people perceived as you know what's allowed and what's not allowed, you know, two opposing sides of thought or thinking or just creating confusion, people having to think for themselves. And, you know, right now, if that would have happened, it would, no one would bat an eye, you know, an eye on that. But back then people were so uh were grasping at straws trying to like find i guess social individual social consciousness with what with the way society was and well i think he was just like here let's just let's go let's have you have you heard have you heard from bob dylan ahead of you doing this have you been in touch with him well i actually got to see him

the other night briefly um but uh i um yeah i'm not sure what he thinks you know i don't I don't of course I want, you know, to be respectful of him and to him. But I don't if he doesn't care about it, it's not it doesn't bother me or it doesn't. It's not my goal is to not, you know, make Bob Dylan love me. You know, I love Bob Dylan, you know. Well, and many do as well. And they will be greatly looking forward to those who've got the tickets for this weekend. Good luck with it all. Thank you for talking to us.

Sorry about the bad night's sleep, but I've still enjoyed our conversation. Kat Power, who will be singing Bob Dylan at Royal Albert Hall this Saturday and talking a little bit there about the tradition of covers and perhaps what we don't remember about it. Many of you getting in touch talking about this report, this damning report this morning, this major report leading all of the news bulletins about the culture of misogyny and sexism in the police and the vetting systems that aren't in place, which should be in place across eight of the forces in England and Wales. A message here, because the police have been good to me so many times, I didn't report them when I should have. And I feel partly responsible for the rot setting in. Another one,

my experience with police officers has been positive. I feel very sorry for the good cops. It's a difficult job. I was on our neighbourhood watch committee years ago, and I realised how hard it is trying to deal with local matters in London when your staff are constantly called away for other duties in central London. I know one young woman who joined the police but couldn't cope with late shifts and the difficulties getting home and now working elsewhere. We need to fund our police properly and provide proper working conditions, says Jill. My son's friend resigned from the Manchester police because he received unwanted sexual advances from a senior officer. How could he complain when this was the very officer he'd have to report it to? And that is actually in the report about how difficult things are

to report. Another one here, my daughter is a police officer. She tutors new recruits during their probation. Recently she was expected to tutor a male officer who had been reported by And that's what we were hearing about regarding the government targets that have been set to get 20,000 more police officers, they call them new recruits, but of course arguments about the cuts that were made before, which informs that total number. Now, to something else entirely, you might think you know about the Egyptian revolution and those famous protests in 2012 in Cairo's Tahrir Square as protesters demanded change. What you might not know is about the mass sexual assault

of some of the women who went to that same square to fight for better lives. Nor may you have heard of the organised fight back against such abuse, known as a PANTISH, Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment and Assault. The female and male group members risked assault themselves by forming this fight back, as it were. The journalist and writer Yasmin El-Rifi is one of the organisers,

and she's now detailed their efforts in a new book called Radius, A Story of Feminist Revolution. Good morning, Yasmin. Hi, good morning. Thank you for being with us. Why was it so important to document this story? Well, I mean, as we just heard at the top of this program, structures in our societies fail women all the time. And this is a sort of extreme example of that happening, but also of an organized

effort to fight back, which was quite extraordinary in that it was at such high risk for the people involved. And I was part of this group in 2012 and 2013. And what we saw happen was a pattern of sexual attacks, mob sexual attacks began to spread through Tahrir in late 2012. And a few groups of people started to spontaneously organize themselves to fight back, to intervene physically in the mobs and in the crowds. So who was attacking these women? We're not sure. Most people who were close to the events at the time

believed that there may have been some pre-organization, like some premeditation, because especially when the pattern took hold, there had been sort of one-off attacks of this kind previously. But when it started happening over and over again, we started to see it happen in a synchronized way. But the thing that was really horrifying, and I think the sort of the questions that have stayed with many of us for a long time come not from the question of who was doing it, but from the fact

that, you know, the attacks would often start out with quite small groups of men, like three to four men would form a circle around a woman, separate her from whomever she was with and begin assaulting her. But from there, these very large chaotic crowds could often form sometimes up to 100 people and more. And these weren't all necessarily people joining in the violence. Certainly many men did spontaneously join in the violence. But other people were trying to help others were pickpocketing, other people were filming on their phones trying to figure out what was going on. And so it was this kind of spontaneous spread that was really such a painful experience for many of us. And your operation, how did it work? Well, eventually, I mean, at first, you know, we went out. The first time I volunteered with

the group, it was, I think about 20 of us went out and we had tied pink ribbons around our arms so that we could recognize one another as we moved through the crowds. But from these kind of very ad hoc sort of vigilante groups, it developed into being quite a sophisticated structure. So we would have about four teams of intervention groups on the ground, usually around 20 people each. Over time, we figured out how to best move through and essentially penetrate these circular mobs, how to form a safe corridor, send a small team, usually of women, in to find the woman being attacked and bring her back out through that safe that safe so those women i'm just trying to visualize those women would go in down the safe corridor would and and the woman could already be being attacked or assaulted or abused and would they

have to get those those abusers off the woman yeah so women we found it was very important for women to be part of that force going in because oftentimes women who were being attacked were so panicked and having such an extreme, you know, a physical response to the extremely stressful and scary violence that they were being subjected to. They found it difficult to trust anyone who wasn't a woman themselves. So they had to clearly see this was somebody and some others to trust. Was it successful? Often, yeah. I mean, especially once we sort of, once we had a bit of time to learn how to better protect ourselves, particularly female volunteers who were going in and doing this work.

So we learned things about how to dress ourselves, how to navigate the crowds, how to drive away more quickly. So once it sort of had a little bit of time to learn how to do the work, it was successful. I mean, we were able to pull out hundreds of women from these attacks. And why do you think it's important for people to make sure they know about this element of the revolution? You often think of it as a positive thing. You think of people raising their voices, fighting for a better life.

But at the same time, we're hearing now from you about assault in the middle of these demonstrations for freedom and a better life. I think it's a very powerful example of women who have been victimized and made victims of sexual and bodily violence becoming agents against it themselves. And I think that too often we are expected as women to revert to the police force or men in general, men in our lives, to help us or to save us and that can be fine when it works but i think too often it doesn't work and we're failed and um and so it was in it was a very powerful example of that but also i think it's a useful story and a useful history for um for people who are trying to work together against various kinds of injustice or various kinds of violence even. So there's a lot. So after Opantish stopped its activities, after the coup brought an end to the protest movements in Egypt, I went and did about 20 interviews with other organizers and volunteers in the group. So the book is based on those interviews as well as my own personal experience.

And I found that there was a lot in there that could be useful in terms of thinking about how to collectively organize, how to deal with political differences within feminist groups in particular, and what to do when you feel betrayed or left alone by people who you had considered political allies. Because at first, when these attacks started happening in 2012, many revolutionary groups and revolutionary activists denied that the violence was happening because they were worried it would sort of tarnish the image of Tahrir, whereas people who organized, the men and women who organized the Pantish felt that this had to be pushed into the center of the movement and its calls. And well, it would be fascinating with the fullness of time to hear about how women in Iran and in Afghanistan, in particular at the moment, have also been organizing with

some of the footage that we've seen. The book is called Radius, A Story of Feminist Revolution. You've been listening to the journalist and writer of that book, Yasmin El-Rifi. Thank you very much for taking us into that and giving us an insight and more detail in the book. Thanks for having me. Your messages are still coming in. I will return to them if I can, but linked in some way about the structures around us and who's policing us and how we help each other. But in just under a week, if we cross the pond to the US, we will have the results of the midterm elections. Midterms happen halfway through a president's term in office

and are generally viewed as an indication of how the term is going. Well, with six days to go, the most recent opinion polls are forecasting the Republicans will take the House of Representatives, but the Senate is still a dead heat. No way of telling at this stage how it will go. Well, earlier this week, you may remember I spoke to Jennifer Kearns, a political commentator and former political strategist for the Republican Party. We spoke about a lot of things, including the fact she thinks the Democratic Party have failed women. But whatever the results on the 8th of November, President Biden will see how his first two years in office have been received by the American people. Let's speak now to Stephanie

Shriok, Democratic political strategist and former president of the Political Action Committee, EMILY's List, which aims to help elect Democratic female candidates. Welcome to the program. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. What I said there about the forecasts, I mean, very difficult things to forecast, but the House of Representatives looking like it's going to the Republicans. What's your take on that? Well, that's been the case from the beginning of the election cycle. We in the United States tend to vote against the sitting party in the White House in the midterms. So we knew holding the House majority was going to be a challenge. I think the real question is,

how close is it going to be? And we know that either way, whether it's Nancy Pelosi or Kevin McCarthy, who has the gavel, both are going to have a challenging time moving anything forward, particularly Republican Kevin McCarthy, who would likely be the speaker on that side. He's got a very complicated caucus over there. So we will see what happens in the next few days and how close that house is. Do you think that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has been overplayed by the Democratic side as an issue in particular that women will vote for or against, if you see what I mean? No, I understand the question. And I actually don't.

I think it has been honestly one of the truly motivating factors. Like I said early in this is midterms are usually really bad for the party that is in the White House. So Democrats were bracing for a disaster across the board, governors, races, legislatures, state legislatures, I should say, the Senate and, of course, the House. When the Dobbs decision came down from the United States Supreme Court, stripping abortion rights away from American women and letting the states decide. And of course, the state legislatures all over the country in so many places started moving bans. We saw a massive increase in registration, voter registration, by women, particularly young women, and that energy has not decreased. So the

electorate itself has more women in it because of what has happened. And what we're seeing is this continue movement, particularly through the advertisements, of course, but also on the stump, as we would say, talking to voters that women are motivated. And when women are motivated to vote in the United States, they tend to deliver more democratic victories than not. So we're hoping that holds. Well, we will see. Of course, the argument goes that there are other issues dominating people's minds at the moment, including women, especially around the economy. But talking about energy, talking about youth, if we talk about President Biden for a moment, raising eyebrows with some mistakes and tumbles,

just looking through his last few speeches. I mean, last night, he's delivered what's been described as a gaffe-filled speech in Florida, mixing up representative and senator, speaking alongside the Congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who's hoping to get re-elected. Biden mistakenly referred to her as a senator. He's also claimed America has the lowest inflation rate of almost any major country in the world.

But among G7 countries, for instance, only Italy and the UK have a worse inflation. I could go on. I mean, for instance, he talked about 54 states of America last week in a speech, which is inaccurate in terms of how many there actually are. Are you concerned about these gaffes? Well, we're at the end of an election cycle. A lot of stress is upon all of these elected officials, particularly the President of the United States. We just barely survived four years of Donald Trump and his crazy statements that came out of his mouth and through his Twitter every single day. So a few gaffes here and there from our sitting President Joe Biden does not concern me. And I think that will be just fine here.

Sorry. I mean, first of all, it's something when you have to reach for a comparison to Trump to say, well, what we heard from him was bad. And now what we're hearing, you know, this is sort of okay. But there's sort of factual errors, as opposed to things that you could debate whether you like them or not. Well, I think that's really more just like the speed of speeches. I mean, this is always a challenging thing to do when you're on the stump. But we didn't see other leaders do this from the Democratic side. There's a concern about whether he's up to it, basically. Do you have any of those concerns? You're talking especially about young women and who they want to put their energy into.

Well, I think he's got a very, very good record to stand on when, you know, if and when he decides to run for reelection. You know, he's delivered a lot of legislation through. Now, the problem is it's hard to talk about that because we are in this moment where the mega Republicans are really pushing these just really awful ads, particularly around transgender issues and education. And it's just so having a moment of let's talk about what we just did for advancing some legislation to to slow down climate change finally in the United States. I think he's just going to have to focus on his record and he's going to have a good organization around him, no doubts. Should he run again? If he can't remember how many states America has? I think he knows how many states America has. It was a slip.

I watched this this morning. I sort of wanted to see it for myself. Right, right. I understand. But he definitely knows that there's 50 states in the United States of America. And it just was something that just flew out of his mouth. And alas, that happens sometimes. I have made those mistakes. Everybody makes those mistakes sometimes. And for someone who has the world on his shoulders, a few verbal gaffes, I'm not worried about. What I want to know is that he can work with people and move policy forward. And he has done that.

And he's done that very, very well. You work around politics, within politics. We've also had a situation, of course, where America is still reeling from the attack on the husband of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. The US government has distributed a bulletin to law enforcement across the nation warning of a heightened threat of domestic violent extremism against candidates and election workers driven by individuals with, quote, ideological grievances. Just very briefly, I'm against the clock slightly. How concerning is this at the moment for those working in politics?

It's incredibly concerning, and it's particularly concerning for women. I will say men are also getting threats, so I don't want to discount that, but the volume of death threats and threats toward our women elected officials and our women election judges. And there's a lot of women who serve as poll workers are extra violent, frankly, disgusting. And it's been going on and getting worse for years now. And we are not doing enough. I will be very blunt. We need to take this very seriously. This is domestic terrorism and we need to get on top of it now. We don't need a bulletin. We need action and we need action from everybody, including our local governments. Stephanie Shreve, Democratic political strategist. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for your company.

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