Is this your daughter? Yes. Oh. How are you doing today? Not so good. My head hurts and around my stomach and I just don't feel good all the time.  How long have you been feeling like this? It's been like that ever since I came back. So you're here today to talk about your visit. We know that you went down to the medical center to talk to the doctor about your illness and your treatment. So how did that visit go? My mother went down to Phoenix and I think that with one of the children being there should have been present at least for the information when the doctor explained to her. There's nothing else they can do for her but just to send her back. But we were very upset because, you know, no one translated for my mother and also no one was there. I imagine it was upsetting to hear that news by yourself. They said they can't do any more by that, I guess. I don't know. Did you understand what the doctor was telling you about the cancer? Not really. Would you like me to review a little bit about the cancer and where you've been and also so that your daughter now can hear more about the cancer and about the options at this point? No. Okay. Yeah, that would be good. Okay. Yeah. Well, what we know is that you have this colon cancer in that although you've tried the treatment, despite what you've done so far, the cancer has spread and it's no longer just in the colon, now it's in different parts of your body. That could be part of why you're having some discomfort as well. And when they say that there's no more to do for you, what they mean is that there is not a treatment at this point that will make that cancer stop growing or go away.  It's grown and it's spread and there's not a way to take it away, but there is a lot more that we can do. When you talk about treatment, what kind of treatment are you talking about? I mean, it seems like when she got sent down to the big city, you know, they told her something else. So what would you think you might have here that we might have to think about? When we talk about treatment now, we're talking about active treatment to help you feel good as you continue to live with this cancer. And so that means that if you're having trouble with nausea, we might be able to have a treatment that could help your stomach. If you're having trouble with pain, we might have a treatment that could help with the pain. Oftentimes, we're talking about pills and other medications. Are there other types of treatment that you're wondering about? You know, we had a relative that was sent down to the big city for the same kind of illness. And when she did visit and she just broke down because she never thought to see an uncle like that with tube in the nose and also have something like a tube going in the mouth and also had some little, like an IV or some tube that's going into the arm here. And she says, I don't want that at all. So what I'm understanding you to say is that it's important to you to not have to be sent off to a big hospital and have to have those types of treatments if they're not going to be helpful. And right now I don't think that any of those types of treatments would be helpful. What I'm understanding is that you don't really want to go off to a big hospital. What would be important to you? She mentioned that she'd like to consider the traditional healing ceremonies. She wants to talk with one of the medicine men that who can do a chant over her for five is a five-day ceremony. She wants to do that. And maybe as a family we could support her and get that ceremony done for her. So what I'm understanding then is that the traditional therapy is very important to you and that can certainly have a very, very big role in your treatment now as you continue to live with this cancer. We also will have other treatments to offer you if you feel like you need them. And like we talked about before, those would be aimed at your symptoms. So if there are medications that we could offer you that would help with some of your symptoms then that would be something that you could consider in addition to the traditional healing. Are there other family members that you would like involved in some of these discussions? My sister and my brother. Do you think we could set up a meeting where they can all come along with you next time? And then we can all sit down as a group and discuss what's important to you at this point? Well we'll certainly work with you to find a time that we can all get together. I'd like to examine you now and then we'll talk about what types of medications we could use to help treat that pain that you're having. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.


Yeah, good evening friends. And it's always a pleasure connecting with justice V. Ram Kumar who we always say that is an epitome of knowledge. And day in and day out, you can bother him for the purposes of asking him on any legal perspective alone and his passion to pay back to the society. What we say in the corporate world CSR that is corporate social responsibility. I feel that he has taken an honest task of legal social responsibility LSR. And for that, we keep on asking him and requesting him to take decisions and off late since he's quite busy as well as taking his passions with short question and answers on the virtual mode. Despite all this, we request him and yet he always exceeds it and that gives us a pleasure. That he exceeds to us and he we exceed in our request that he should take one sessions. And today's session is on the four feature of the bill bond section 446 of CRPC, which is a very short topic. And we are experimenting it that we are not shared the zoom link and straight away we are going live on the YouTube as well as Facebook. I request sir to share his insights over to you. Thank you Mr. because good evening friends. Today we are on for feature of bail bond covered by section 446 of CRPC. See, there is a lot of confusion among many members of the bench and the bar as to what exactly is a bail order and bail bond and what exactly is the cancellation of the bond and cancellation of the bail order. Not a confusion. So my endeavor will be to steer clear of those confusions. Okay, a person released on bail with or without sureties has to execute a bond for such amount as the police officer or court things sufficient. This is what section clause one of section 440 CRPC says the amount of bond shall be fixed with due regard to the bail order. The circumstances of the case and shall not be excessive. This is what section 440 clause one says such a bond is to be executed in terms of form number 45 of the second schedule to CRPC as per which the accused and his sureties undertake that the accused will attend the police officer or the court as the case may be. On every day on which there is investigation or trial as the case may be and the explanation to section 446 clause one CRPC clarifies that a condition in the bond for appearance shall be construed as including a condition for appearance before any court to which the case may subsequently be transferred. The further undertaking by the accused and the sureties is that in the event of any default made by the accused to appear before the police or the court the accused as well as his sureties shall forfeit to the government the amount fixed by the court as the bond amount. Therefore the accused there is a separate contract between the accused and the government and the sureties and the government. The contract is I shall the accused will say I shall without any failure appear before the police officer or the court as the case may be on all the dates of posting and all the dates of investigation. And in the event of my committing default I shall forfeit to the government the sound fixed as bond amount to the that is the undertaking by the accused sureties will also make a similar undertaking. Both are incorporated in form number 45 of the second schedule to CRPC. So the sureties will also undertake that in the event of the accused not appearing before the police officer or the court they will also forfeit to the government the amount fixed as bond amount so that there is a sort of an undertaking. Not only that there is an assurance by the accused as well as the sureties that the accused will with faithfully and without any default appear before the police officer or the court as the case may be. Now the Supreme Court has had occasion to consider this and the Supreme Court speaking through justice Katie Thomas in two decisions has highlighted this aspect of the fact matter. The Supreme Court speaking through justice Katie Thomas has held that this is an independent contract between the accused and the government and the sureties and the government. You may refer to Ramlal versus state of UP. AIR 1979 Supreme Court 1498 as Murthasar Fazal Ali or Chinna Paradi is one decision. Then Mohammed Kunju versus state of Karnataka. AIR 2000 Supreme Court Page 6 Justice Katie Thomas and M. B. Shah. Other of the judges is Justice Katie Thomas. Any breach of the condition for appearance will result in the automatic forfeiture of the bond in view of the self-explanatory wording of form number 47 of the second schedule to CRPC rendering the accused and the sureties liable for action under section 446 CRPC. Such a breach may also entail automatic cancellation of the bond by the operational section for 46 A1 CRPC. See I told you the accused and the sureties have entered into separate undertaking between the government. And the undertaking is the accused shall faithfully appear before the police officer or the court as the case may be without any default. And in the event of the accused committing any breach in this condition the accused as well as the sureties will forfeit to the government the amount fixed in the bond amount. That will be that is the undertaking. So this has been highlighted in those two rulings. Now once the how is the bond forfeited now for forfeiture forfeiture of the bail bond you don't require any separate order court doesn't have to pause a separate order. Once the accused remains absent he's undertaking is that he shall regularly appear before the police officer or the court on the appointed days. Now supposing the accused remains absent on a particular day then his absence is evidence of his breach. He has committed breach of the undertaking by remaining absent without any excuse. So he has committed breach. Once he commits breach of the undertaking forfeiture is automatic. The court does not have to pass any separate order. Why did you remain absent? What are the reasons for your absence? No, once he remains absent he has already committed breach of the condition for appearance. Therefore you under form 45 the contract is entered into under form 45. Then form 47 second schedule CRPC indicates that once he has failed to appear the bond is automatically forfeited. Then what remains is the forfeiture part of it. The court will be entitled to recover the bond amount by way of penalty. Now regarding the recovery part he is entitled to notice because there may be valid reasons for the accused not appearing before the police officer or the court. Now certain offbeat decisions were taken in the High Court of Kerala to the effect that upon breach of condition for appearance the accused and the sureties are entitled to be served by two show cost notices. There were some decisions taken by the Kerala High Court of course but there are other high courts also to the effect that once the accused remains absent he has to be given a notice as to why he remained absent. Then only the forfeiture takes place. No, those decisions do not lay down the law correctly because once he remains absent he has committed breach of the condition for appearance and the forfeiture is automatic. Once the bond he remains absent bond is automatically forfeited. What remains is to recover the penalty. For recovery of the penalty in whole or in part the court will have to hear him, give him a notice. Why should I not invoke the penalty clause and recover the entire amount by way of penalty? There the accused will have valid reasons as to why the entire amount should not be recovered or even not even a pie should not be recovered. Now the separate decisions which held that accused is entitled to two notices, one before forfeiture and the other after forfeiture were overruled by a larger bench of the Kerala High Court. In 23 versus state of Kerala, 2009, 4KLT67 presided over by then Chief Justice SR Banur Math and AK Bashir. Banur Math is the author of the judgment. Now after the decision bench ruling nobody can argue, no accused can argue or no surety can argue that he is entitled to two notices, one before forfeiture and another after forfeiture. He is entitled to only one notice that is after the automatic forfeiture of the bail bond. As mentioned earlier the only notice which the accused and the sureties are entitled to, consequent on the forfeiture of the bond is a show cause notice to be issued under section 446 clause 1 CRPC calling upon them to pay the penalty which they had undertaken to forfeit to the government, consequent on the absence of the accused. One such a show cause notice is issued to them they can show valid reasons if any for not paying the penalty wholly or in part. They can show reasons such as the accused was affected with cancer or COVID pandemic or with such other deadly disease. Therefore he was unable to appear before the court or before the police officer. Another reason can be the parents or the spouse of the accused had expired so he had to attend on them so he couldn't appear. Or there could be a third reason it was a Harthal day only there was no public transport system so he could not get a bus to reach the court or the police station. That can be valid reason or there can be still another important reason on that day appointed day where he was to appear before the police officer of the court. He was actually in custody in some other case so physically impossible for him to appear before the police officer of the court. These are all there may be other reasons also these are all valid reasons which they swayed the accused from appearing before the court. These reasons are available to the accused in this show cause notice issued to him after the for future of the bond and he can say that see I was actually in custody in some other case. So I never knew that there is such a posting so kindly excuse my absent court and can say that no okay. This is a valid reason he was actually in custody in some other case he was in the prison therefore he couldn't nobody can expect him to be present in before the police officer or before the court therefore he is excused.  Now depending on the truth or otherwise of the reasons put forward by the accused and the sureties court may either wholly or in part remit to the penalty under section 4463 CRPC. If partial remission alone has been made then the court can enforce payment of the unremitted part of the penalty. The penalty ordered by the court under section 4463 CRPC shall be recovered as since it were a fine imposed under the court. You refer to section 446 clause to CRPC then section 431 CRPC is the provision for recovery of money other than fine payable under the CRPC. Such money is to be recovered as if it were a fine by resort to section 421 CRPC which is the provision for recovery of fine by now the mode of recovery is by attachment and sale of the movable property of the offender. Or issue of a warrant to the collector authorizing him to realize the amount as an annual of land revenue from the movable as well as the movable properties of the defaulter. Now one important aspect to be borne in mind is that if the penalty is not paid and it cannot be recovered at all because even after resorting to attachment and sale etc. If the court finds that the penalty cannot be recovered in the manner stated above then the surety alone is liable to be imprisoned in civil prison for a term not exceeding 6 months. Accused is not liable to be imprisoned in civil prison for nonpayment of penalty. Surety of course will be liable to be imprisoned in civil prison for a term not exceeding 6 months. 6 months is the outer limit for being imprisoned in civil prison. The accused is not liable to be imprisoned because of the wording of the proviso to section 446 to CRPC. This is the mechanics of the forfeiture of the bail bond. So with the bond is for appearance and the accused remains absent contrary to the undertaking given by him to the government through the instrumentality of the court. Then he will forfeit to the government the bond amount that forfeiture is automatic because of the court can visibly see he will not be he will be absent in the dock. That itself is proof of the default, proof of breach of the condition for appearance and then the forfeiture is automatic. After forfeiture court will ask him call upon him to pay the penalty to pay the entire amount of penalty. Then he can be heard to say that whether he has got valid reason as to why the penalty should be or should not be enforced. This is the mechanics of forfeiture of the bail bond. Now next time we will be considering the cancellation of the bail order. There is a wide difference between these two. Forfeiture of the bail bond resulting in the consequent cancellation of the bond and cancellation of the bail order itself are two different things. In the next session we will examine the principles of cancellation of the bail order. When the accused after being enlarged in bail he commits default or he violates one or more of the bail condition. Then it is not a of course if it is for appearance then there is a forfeiture of the bail bond. But if it is supposing he has been asked to report before the police officer once in a week and he does not report then it is a violation. Once he violates the bail, the condition in the bail order then he is liable to be, the bail order is liable to be cancelled. We will examine that in the next session. So I suppose that you have now got a full understanding of the mechanics of the forfeiture of the bail bond. Thank you. Yes sir, only one question has come. It says, can a court put conditions in bailable offences? What is the difference between terms and conditions for bail? Bailable offences, there can be no condition can be imposed except a condition for appearance on such particular date. On such and such date you shall appear before the police officer or before the court. That is the only condition which can be imposed in a bailable offence because bailable offence means he is entitled to bail as of right. Once the offence is found to be bailable, he is entitled to bail as of right. No court can refuse him bail. Only thing is if he is not able to furnish sureties. Supposing court insists on sureties, he is not able to furnish sureties because he may remain in custody. Otherwise he is entitled to bail. But unlike in the case of a non-bailable offence covered by section 437, where the bail is not as of right is the discretion of the court. Whereas bailable offence falling under section 436 CRPC where the accused is entitled to bail as of right. Thank you friends for connecting with us and those who have missed our previous webinars can always like, subscribe and share the videos so that we also come to know what you are liking. And in case you want any other webinar on any topic with good resource persons, you can always drop a message on the WhatsApp. Or on the YouTube link itself. We would be too glad to convince the speaker. And we know that there are too many speakers like this is Ramkumar who accede to our request for sharing his knowledge. Thank you everyone. Stay safe. Stay blessed. Namaskar.


Ash, how are you doing? You're excited, I'm sure, to be back on Tiskey Sal on a Monday evening, whatever is allowed to happen outside. I mean, look, I'm only here because I couldn't get a table down at the local, so don't make me act happy about it. People are talking a lot about this thing that pubs are only accepting bookings, but actually I've been looking at some of my favourite pubs, and they're all just letting people walk straight in, so I think it's potentially overstated. Maybe we'll be doing lots of queuing, but you can drink even if you're as disorganised as myself. What do we have on tonight's show? I'll tell you now, we're going to talk about Dodgy Dave, David Cameron, he is about to be investigated. The government had launched an investigation into his relationship to Lex Greensill. We'll talk about whether that will be another whitewash. That's what most reports undertaken by this government tend to amount to. We're then going to talk about what they're talking about in the House of Commons today, which is the death of Prince Philip. We've seen all of our political leaders. They've devoted seven and a half hours to, I suppose they're not debating Prince Philip, but rather expressing their condolences and respect to Prince Philip. We're not going to talk about it for seven and a half hours, but we will take you through the key events as we will take you through some of the big developments this weekend when it comes to that particular story, mainly about how it's been covered and who has been rolled out on TV. We'll finish with some images of people enjoying their new freedoms, including queuing for Primark and getting beers at 8am in Huddersfield. You know the score, do share the show, link tweet on the hashtag Tiskey, sour, put your super chats under the stream and comment on Twitch. First story. Today the government have announced they're launching an independent investigation into the activities of David Cameron and Lex Greensill. Now the investigation will be with reference to the extent that Greensill was able to shape policy when Cameron was in government, and then the extent to which Cameron was able to use his personal connections to benefit Greensill once he left office. Now this is all a fairly complicated story. We covered a fair amount of it on Friday, but to introduce the launch of this investigation, I'm going to have to introduce what is being investigated. So for a quick refresh, there are three key parts to this story, three key time frames in fact. So first of all is what happened when David Cameron was Prime Minister. So back then his top civil servant, that's Jeremy Hayward, invited the now disgraced banker Lex Greensill into the heart of government to promote a scheme called supply chain finance. Again, supply chain finance, quite complicated. All you need to know is that what this meant in this context was recruiting a bank to pay government suppliers more quickly than the government otherwise would. So there was a problem at the time. Pharmacies weren't getting paid quick enough for the work they'd done for the NHS. So instead of saying the NHS could just pay them a little bit quicker, Lex Greensill came in and said, no, no, no, no, no, the NHS doesn't need to pay them quicker. What we'll do is we'll give them a loan in the meantime. Now obviously the person who benefits there is the bank who gets to charge a fee. And in this case, the contracts ultimately went to, yes, you guessed it, Lex Greensill. He made a lot of money out of this all looking pretty dodgy. That was the first part of the scandal. The second part of the scandal is where it gets even more fishy. So this is after David Cameron stood down. He's no longer working with Greensill in government, but he does go and get a job with Greensill at Greensill Capital. So he's working as an advisor for that company. He has quite a lot of shares as part of his remuneration, and his job is basically to peddle influence. So to use his connections to try and get Greensill access to various government schemes. In this case, it was especially those COVID support schemes. Very, very controversial. We know that he texted Rishi Sunak, for example. We also found out on the weekend that prior to coronavirus, he had a meeting. David Cameron had organized private drinks with Matt Hancock and Lex Greensill. Now, this was to discuss a financial scheme involving NHS staff being able to withdraw their pay before payday. Again, with Greensill as an intermediary or a company which was owned by him. That did go on to be adopted. So we've got one part of the story. When Lex Greensill was in government, he got supply chain finance adopted, which he then personally benefited for. Once he leaves government, David Cameron is using all of his connections, all of his influence in government to try and get Greensill Capital basically more contracts. The final part of the controversy is that Greensill Capital collapses. So Greensill Capital, it makes its money by giving out loans and making a fee from them. It had given out too many loans and too many dodgy loans, in particularly to Goopter Steel. So they had ended up lending a lot of money to Goopter Steel for work. They hadn't done. So Greensill has collapsed. Now Goopter Steel looks as if it could collapse. That would mean quite a lot of jobs on the line. Now, why we're talking about this today in particular is because the ongoing saga and more importantly the journalists who have been covering it, who've been keeping the pressure on David Cameron and Greensill and Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock. That has led the government today to announce an independent review into this whole affair. So according to The Guardian, the independent review commissioned by Boris Johnson will be led by the legal expert Nigel Boardman, a non-executive board member of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It will look at the development and use of supply chain finance offered by Greensill and its associated activities in government and the role Greensill played in those. Johnson Spokesman said there was significant interest in this matter. So the PM has called for the review to ensure government is completely transparent about such activities and that the public can see for themselves if good value was secured for taxpayers' money. Now, Ash, I want your comment on this inquiry. Now, there were lots of people demanding an independent inquiry. Lots of people saying it looks like something dodgy has gone on here. We need to make sure this all comes out into the open. Let's have an inquiry. Let's have an investigation. At the same time, we've just been talking over the last couple of weeks about an investigation into racism which was released in this country. They'd employed to run it. People who didn't really believe racism was a big deal. It found racism wasn't a big deal. It was a whitewash. This time, to investigate the relationship between government and business, they've hired or employed or assigned a board member at the Department for Business. It doesn't seem particularly independent to me. What are you expecting will come out of this? Will David Cameron be at all worried or will he know that his charms in government are not really going to come to a conclusion which is that worrying for anyone with much power at all? Well, I think there's a few really important bits of context here and one of the things that you mentioned is critically important. This is a government which really quite enjoys marking its own homework. It likes putting out reports which absolves it or its institutions of any wrongdoing or responsibility.  That's actually quite core to the government's strategy. We've also got a government which is overseen I think quite a historic corrosion of standards in public life and accountability. We've seen that not just in terms of the personal conduct of Boris Johnson but also in terms of the coronavirus contracts which have gone out to the mates and chums of various ministers. That's really another important bit of context. When it comes to improper use of taxpayers' money, this is not a government which is particularly interested in having accountability or oversight for that. Then I think you've got a third thing which is what are the rules and what do they say about this business of lobbying after you've left the government? The rules themselves are incredibly lax. It's only for two years that David Cameron was legally barred from lobbying and it's only for two years after leaving a ministerial post that the code says that you have to seek permission from the ISO of a special committee to make sure that there's not any conflict of interest or potential that this job is something which impacted how you went about your job as minister. Two years isn't very long to wait if you're looking for a really tasty big fish to go through the revolving door from number 10 to the officers of a corporate lobbyist. Instead of having rules which prevent and inhibit corporate influence in our politics, instead what the rules do is establish a statutory basis upon which influence and the manipulation of our politics can take place. I think that when you have all of those things together, the fact that the rules themselves are quite lax, the fact that we've got a government which isn't particularly interested in upholding standards or accountability and a government which likes producing reports which exonerate itself of any wrongdoing, then I think it's unlikely that there's going to be anything for David Cameron to worry about. The one reason why there might be, and this is I think quite a small chance, is that Boris Johnson and various figures in government think, you know what, we hate call me Dave, let's just deliver the political coup de grace to his career. But that probably wouldn't happen because it would risk a fair amount of contagion. He was known to be texting Rishi Sunak and figures in the Treasury. He met for an informal drink with Matt Hancock, so that would take down potentially members of Johnson's cabinet. So I don't think there's much to worry about for David Cameron unless he's pissed off the wrong person. Probably what they're going to say is, look, no one broke the rules, so there isn't really a controversy here, but probably we should ever so slightly change the rules. So I think that probably what will come out of this is they're like, oh, we'll make some cosmetic changes to the rules so in theory this can't happen again even though something almost as outrageous basically can happen again because they don't really want to make corruption impossible because that would stop them doing corruption. I've got a great comment here I want to read out before we go to Cameron's response because he's broken his silence on Sunday. Shalendra Singh with a £5 Super Chat says, Cameron, the perfect metaphor for contemporary tourism, corrupt, arrogant, cavalierly incompetent, shamelessly hypocritical, and opportunist. They're probably not words you will see coming out in that independent report even if they are a fairly piffy summary of where we currently stand. Let's go to some of the statements from David Cameron because as I say, this has been reported on for weeks now. Various new sort of new parts of this story are emerging every week. Up until now, David Cameron has completely blanked anyone asking him any questions. He hasn't spoken to any journalists. He hasn't given any interviews. We heard the first words from him on this particular issue on Sunday. It was a 1800 word essay released via Press Association. This is not someone who likes to be put under scrutiny. It's put over his side of the narrative and hope that will be the end of the story. It's not going to be, but let's see what he said. I'm obviously not going to read you all of it, but go through some of the key parts. First of all, he tries to distance himself from the first part of the controversy I said, so the part where Lex Greensill gets a key role in government and ends up putting through or getting implemented all of these schemes which he goes on to financially benefit from. So on that topic, David Cameron writes, Lex Greensill was brought in to work with the government by the former cabinet secretary Jeremy Hayward in 2011. He was not a political appointee, but part of the civil service drive to improve government efficiency. In bringing him in, Jeremy was acting in good faith to solve a real problem. How to ensure companies in supply chains, particularly small and medium sized enterprises, could access low cost credit. The false impression has been created that Lex Greensill was a close member of my team meeting with me on a regular basis. The truth is I had very little to do with Lex Greensill at this stage. As I recall, I met him twice at most in the entirety of my time as prime minister. Now, a couple of things to note there. He says this scheme was implemented because it would benefit small and medium sized enterprises. Now, as I sort of described in the introduction, the small and medium sized enterprises in this case were pharmacies. The problem was that the NHS weren't paying them on time. When this supply chain finance scheme was being proposed by Lex Greensill, most civil servants were saying, wouldn't a simpler solution to this problem just be to get the NHS to pay them on time? Obviously, that didn't work for Greensill because he wanted financial services to be involved deeply in this ultimately because he could make some money from it. Let's go to the next part of this statement. Now he's going on to the issue of how he ended up getting a job for Greensill after he stood down as prime minister. He says, the idea of my working for Greensill was never raised or considered by me until well after I left office. I took up the position as a part-time senior advisor to Greensill Capital in August 2018. This was shortly after General Atlantic, one of the most respected international backers of tech sector companies invested in the company. Large financial institutions like Credit Suisse were helping to enable Greensill's expansion. Now, some key background there. Basically, David Cameron is saying, look, I got this job with this company that ended up going on to collapse and it seems like there were some fairly dodgy things going on in that organization. But don't blame me because I just went to work for a company which was trusted by other organizations which we recognize as legitimate credit Suisse. I'm sure they're not particularly moral organization, but no one thinks they're about to collapse tomorrow. So he's saying, because they were respected by these organizations, that means no one can ask questions about me going to work with them. The problem there is it's all a little bit circular because in Gabriel Pogrin's reporting in the Sunday Times, often the position that he's put forward as the motive for why Lex Greensill was so keen to get these jobs with the NHS was because working with the NHS, working with the British government, that gives you lots of credibility to then go and say to Credit Suisse, look, we're a really legit organization. We're working with the NHS, we're working with the British government. Do you want to invest in us? So they say, look, I'm working with David Cameron. Will you invest with us Credit Suisse? Then David Cameron says, look, I went for work for them. Credit Suisse was working with them. The whole thing's completely circular. A bit more from this statement. So this is on him, I suppose, suggesting that he's not to blame if the company failed. So he says, I was not a director of the company and was not involved in the oversight of management or the day-to-day running of the business. I was contracted to work for the company for 25 days per year, details of my other activities since leaning down on the street to set out at the end of this statement, where my remuneration was partly in the form of a grant of shares. Their value was nowhere near the amount speculated in the press. Now, the amount that was initially speculated in the press was $60 million. I think that's now gone down to maybe $20 million. So when he says it's nowhere near what it was speculated, maybe it was nowhere near $60 million. $20 million? That's already making you look like someone who was principally interested in money when you went to get this job and when you were desperate to try and get this company saved or supported financially by your mates, Rishi Sunak, et cetera. That was probably to save the value of your shares, which are worthless now, by the way, because the company's collapsed. But at one point in time, we think they were worth about 20 million pounds. A little bit more because, as we mentioned on Friday, actually, it's not just his relationship to UK government officials which raised his questions about David Cameron. He also went on a camping trip with Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia to try and get more work for Greensill Capital, to try and get more contracts for Greensill Capital. He justifies this by saying the following, As part of my work, I assisted with presentations made by the company overseas, including in the US, Singapore, South Africa, Australia, and the Gulf. While visiting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in January 2020 to advise on their forthcoming chairmanship of the G20, I also, with Lex Greensill, met with a range of business and political leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. As the Softbank Vision Fund was by this time the largest investor in Greensill, the company was in effect part owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, itself a major participant in the Vision Fund. Greensill planned to open a new regional office in Riyadh as part of its international expansion and I wanted to assist in this effort. While in Saudi Arabia, I took the opportunity to raise concerns about human rights, as I always did when meeting the Saudi leadership when I was Prime Minister. Now, the important context here is David Cameron went to visit Mohammed bin Salman just after Khashoggi was brutally murdered in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey. And everyone knew that Mohammed bin Salman was implicated. And then David Cameron goes on a camping trip with him because it would be good for his business, who he now owns 20 million pounds worth of shares in.  You know, how much do you want to bet he didn't actually mention that he'd just chopped up a journalist when they were on that camping trip trying to seek business. The final quotes are in reference to the recent part of this story, which concerns him texting government ministers. Probably the thing that has made the most headlines, him texting Rishi Sunak, et cetera. So about this, he says, in my representations to government, I was breaking no codes of conduct and no government rules. The registrar of consultant lobbyists has found that my activities did not fall within the criteria that require registration. Ultimately, the outcome of the discussions, I encouraged about how green sales proposals might be included in the government CCFF initiative and helping the wake of the coronavirus crisis was that they were not taken up. So he's saying they weren't taken up, so it's fine. It's not corruption if it didn't happen. That's just he wasn't as good a lobbyist as he thought he was essentially. Anyway, let's go on. So he says, so I complied with the rules and my interventions did not lead to a change in the government's approach to the CCFF. However, I have reflected on this at length. There are important lessons to be learned as a former prime minister. I accept that communications with government need to be done through only the most formal of channels, so there can be no room for misinterpretation. So he's saying no rules are broken. It was fine. That probably means the rules need changing. And then he's saying the problem was that my actions could be misinterpreted. The problem isn't that your actions could be misinterpreted. You're trying to use your connections to increase the value of your 20 million pounds worth of shares in a company that was doing kind of a semi-fake business. Ash, what do you think about this statement from David Cameron? We never thought of him as a particularly, you know, I mean, he's always been quite shameless as a politician and it's really, really on show here. Well, so this is the thing is that he's not unusual in terms of, you know, leaving a career in government to pursue a career of lobbying. It's fairly common, particularly in the UK because we've got such lax rules. However, he is exemplary for his, you know, incompetence and almost gaucheness in the act of lobbying for this, you know, company which is held together, you know, on spit and string and kamikaze investments. And he's essentially going around the world going, hi, remember me? I'm the former Prime Minister. That means you should have put your money in this failing outfit so I can get my shares. It really is astonishingly unsophisticated even within the world of lobbying. The question is what impact is this going to have on the government that we have today? I think that when it comes to the present day UK, we do have a very, very lax and desensitized attitude to corruption. I think there's a sense amongst the public of everybody's up to no good. So what's the point in getting too upset about it? In the 90s, when you had all these conservative so-called sleaze scandals, you had a press which was really willing to take up the stories and run with it and turn it into the public talking point of the day. Sometimes it was, you know, sometimes it was quite complicated stories, but they managed to have traction. They managed to have cut through. I think today, you know, you do have some individuals at the Sunday Times like the journalist who broke the story, some individuals at Newsnight who are very diligent and dogged in pursuing these stories, but you don't necessarily have that cut through at the level of broadcast media, which is quite happy to define itself by like appeasing and appearing affable to a government rather than holding it properly to account. I hope I've made this very complicated story kind of understandable or as understandable as I can. But if you still have questions, there's one thing you have to do, which is tune in to downstream tomorrow, 7 p.m. with Aaron Bostani and Gabriel Pogrin, the person who broke these stories, who's written the best articles about all of this on the Sunday Times. So if you're left thinking, what exactly was it that Greensill Capital did? Find out tomorrow at 7 p.m. Before we move on from the issue of David Cameron being corrupt, I just want to bring up, is it light-hearted? I don't know. Maybe it's actually deeply depressing. I'll show you anyway. Because people have known that David Cameron was dodgy for a while. You might remember that Cameron appeared in the Panama Papers that we had personal connections to tax havens. At the time, Jeremy Corbyn, who was then Labour leader, demanded that David Cameron be investigated. And this is how LBC responded. So let's get this up. Jeremy Corbyn says, PM should come clean over family finances after Panama leak. Should Corbyn resign over this call? So when Jeremy Corbyn was leader and so offered slightly more vigorous opposition to corrupt politicians than Keir Starman currently does, what did the media say? You should resign. Who were you to call David Cameron corrupt? By calling him corrupt, you've basically abdicated your position as a responsible leader of the opposition and so you should resign. It was bananas. Ash, can you imagine now if Keir Starman says, David Cameron should come clean, is there any outlet in the country who's going to say should Starman resign? But look, Keir Starman's called for more resignations from his own front bench than he has from the government. And I think that what's happened is that the attitude that the press took towards Jeremy Corbyn, which is the more he opposed, the more he delegitimised himself and his role in politics, Keir Starman's inherited that media context and instead of trying to push back against it, to try and reassert some of the really fundamental norms and principles of functioning democracy, he's gone, you know what, I'm going to play ball. So I'm going to be much harder and much more stringent on my own front benches, on the MPs within my own party than I will be in holding the government of the day to account. So look at what's happened in the case of Greensill. When I wrote about this case in the Cortado, which I'm sure you read last Friday, Michael, one of the things that I said is that Labour's initial response is to do what it always does, which is call for an inquiry. So you're calling for an inquiry, which you're pretty sure is going to exonerate the government because it's them marking their own homework, and then what are you going to do? Complain? Well, you didn't have the guts to call for any resignations. You didn't have the guts to apply pressure properly. So essentially you're getting what you asked for and complaining at the result. And so I think what this indicates is the real failure of Keir Starmer to acknowledge the real context that he has and that by trying to play along by the rules of a game designed to disempower him and designed to disadvantage Labour, he's essentially making a rod for his own back. We have a great comment from Oliver Kant with a tenor. Thank you very much.  I don't even know what that is. For 24 hours as a tribute to Prince Philip, it was so bleak and dreary and customers shared a similar groaning sentiment to me. Do you know what Greek bazookie music is? Yeah. I think I know what Greek bazookie music is. It's all that kind of like... Can you sing it to me? I cannot sing, but I think Greek bazookie music is like, you know, with the stringed instruments, like I'm going to make a sound like dueling banjos and that's not Greek bazookie music. That's the only noise I can make. I think it's the one which is like... That doesn't sound very funerial. I'm not sure if that's what you'd play. I don't know if there's more for bazookie music. I'm not an expert in Greek bazookie music. I just grew up in Palmer's room, but that doesn't make me an expert in Greek bazookie music. All right. We'll look up Greek bazookie music after the show. Maybe we can play out the show with it. Is it this dreary world we've all had to live in for three days and another five, I suppose. It's eight days of national morning, isn't it? It's all encompassing. We're going to go to Parliament first and I'm going to go you through or take you through some of the other events of the weekend. So we are now on day four of our state-mandated morning process after the death of Prince Philip. And today, after a weekend in which all political interviews and political campaigning was cancelled and where radio stations were only allowed to play slow songs and where co-ops could only play bazookie music, the House of Commons has scheduled in seven and a half hours for tributes to Prince Philip. Now, it's still going on. We're glad you've tuned into this instead of various now backbench MPs talking about Prince Philip. We are going to show you some of the interventions which opened that debate. This was Prime Minister Boris Johnson's tribute. Mr Speaker, it is fitting that on Saturday his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh will be conveyed to his final resting place in a land rover which Prince Philip designed himself with a long wheelbase and capacious rear cabin. Because that vehicle's unique and idiosyncratic silhouette reminds the world that he was above all a practical man who could take something very traditional. Whether a machine or indeed a great national institution and find a way by his own ingenuity to improve it to adapt it for the 20th and the 21st century. Now, this is a meme I've heard so much over the past four days which is to say, oh, one of the great things about Prince Philip was he was able to bring the royal family into the 21st century. I mean, on a very literal sense, he did that because he became the Duke of Edinburgh in the 50s and he's still the Duke of Edinburgh in the 21st century. But the only evidence I see for doing this in any more material way is he took a video camera to Balmoral. Everyone says, oh, he brought them into the 21st century by making this video in the 1960s of that one holiday. Fine, maybe it was a good video. I don't know if it really was a shocking feat of engineering. Anyway, no more complaints about that speech. Let's take a look at what Keir Starmer had to say. Britain will not be the same in his absence. For most of us, there's never been a time when the Duke of Edinburgh was not present. At every stage of our national story, for the last seven decades, he's been there. A symbol of the nation we hope to be at our best. A source of stability. A rock. Her Majesty once said, grief is the price we pay for love. The Duke loved this country. And Britain loved him in return. That is why we grieve today. I don't know, is it bad to laugh at that? I just, you know, as I say, as I said, you know, on Friday I went on Sky on Sunday and I said the same thing. It's always sad when someone dies. It's sad to sort of say, it's sad if someone dies and especially if someone has lived with them for over 70 years. But this whole, this is ridiculous. He's a symbol of the nation we want to be. This is a man who was born into privilege, who was offensive to ethnic minorities and is the father of an alleged pedo. I mean, is that the nation we want to be? I mean, we can't all be born into privilege. The whole point of status, which is what the royal family is about, is some people have to be below you. We can't all be royal. Otherwise royalty wouldn't exist. There's a contradiction there. Keir Starmer also claimed in his speech that the monarchy was the one institution for which the faith of the British people has never faltered. Which suggests he doesn't know his history because he actually made that claim a mere few feet away from a statue that led the revolution which overthrew the monarchy including the execution of Charles I. Truth goes out the window when it comes to situations like this. One more speech I want to show you. This was from Harriet Harmon currently a Labour-backed bencher. She went down what I thought was a surprising route although now it seems to be well trodden. Everyone is bringing out this trope this weekend suggesting that Prince Philip was a feminist. He had the intention to give up what would have been a glittering career in the Navy and make his duty to support his wife in her role took him into uncharted territory and left him exposed for if he was not the head of the family what did that make him? There was no reassuring recognition that he was no less of a man for what he did in putting her first and putting himself second. Of course, Mr Speaker it takes a remarkable man to be a leader but it takes an even more remarkable man to support a woman leader and that's what Prince Philip did. When we hear the Queen speak we know that she always weighs her words carefully and what she said at their golden wedding anniversary in 1997 was that Prince Philip had quite simply been my strength and stay all these years so what a loss it is for her to lose that husband, that partner her leech man of life and limb we're rightly paying tribute to his work on the environment for young people our armed forces and much else besides he did his work but above all he enabled the Queen to do hers as he deserves our recognition and gratitude he served this country by serving his Queen Ash, I need your take on this is the new vision of 21st century feminism that a good feminist man marries a Queen Yes, and that's what you call allyship Michael I mean it's completely fucking embarrassing it's completely fucking embarrassing that we've got to a state in our national politics where republicanism which was once a point of view which was happily articulated even in the comments by Labour MPs who would say I'm a Republican is now considered so completely beyond the pale that anybody who wishes to be taken seriously in politics and not assassinated has to say I pledge my allegiance to a completely outdated way of running a country and in order to maintain this delusion that this is a good way to run a country where you've got the belief maintained at the centre of power that there is such thing as a superior bloodline and they should inherit power from generation to generation in order to maintain this fiction you have this dreadful sight of supposedly progressive MPs trying to drape the business of feudalism in liberal and forward-looking clothing Prince Philip is not the first male consort for a British monarch there was of course Prince Albert this isn't something which is new to us William and Mary of Orange the claim to the throne came from Mary and not William although there were joint monarchs on the throne and Anne as well there was a male consort so this isn't something which is unusual in British history but what is unusual is having to justify it in modern and even quasi-democratic terms because otherwise if you call it what it is which is a cartel based on the delusion that they've received some authority from God thousands and thousands of years ago asking uncomfortable questions what this is from Labour MPs I think is utter cowardice and that's not to say that there's not a loss an intense feeling of loss for the Queen and their children this is a 73-year marriage that's not something which you see every day and imagine that this loss particularly playing out in such a public way is deeply painful but what it also is the moment of loss is an opportunity to redraw the boundaries of polite opinion because when you start seeing everybody from the Conservatives all the way through Labour being compelled to participate in an act of mandatory mourning well what that does is that shows up the Royal's position in the public eye it's an opportunity to launder reputations to manufacture consent and it's quite cynical in lots of ways it's not just an organic outpouring of grief it's cynical it's also at times quite sinister and I think no more so than the phenomenon we've seen this weekend where billboards across Britain cities are converted into being quite crass memorials for Prince Philip I want to take you through some of them we showed you I think one on Friday but there have been more that have appeared that I think you just have to see these are all in Birmingham so you can see there Prince Philip on various shopping centres in car parks and bridges all very dreary British image the most dystopian one is this one I love this you're driving down the motorway going into central London I think that's going under the Blackwall Tunnel and you can see there these huge images of Prince Philip lit up on both sides of the road and then the next one is probably actually peak children of man this is Prince Philip turning on the top of the BT tower one of the highest buildings in London HRH Prince Philip 1921 to 2021 and then his face in in lights very very odd now the question this raised for me was this billboards commandeered by the state did they force the billboard companies to show all of these images of Prince Philip and what would happen to the original advertisers what if Nike had already paid to advertise on the top of the BT tower I haven't seen anyone write a definitive article on this but the person who I think had the most persuasive argument was Prince Philip Prince Philip he suggested that Clear Channel Global the other firms who own the billboards probably made the decision and that would probably have been because one demand is low at the moment for billboards not many people are buying stuff not many people are out and about because most people are in their homes so there's lots of the cost of changing what you're going to advertise isn't huge but also the biggest customer at the moment health ads etc this is almost them sucking up to their biggest customer who is the government so it was quite a simple explanation but Ash I mean it all to me looked pretty dystopian everything just so grey grey written grey motorway then you've got enforced on you mourning for a redditary royal but that's the thing it is enforced and it is so top down Diana died there wasn't outpouring of grief and look I think that outpouring of grief was outsized disproportionate and it's because of the place that royalty and even X HRH is like Princess Diana have in our public imagination but it was bottom up it was something that people felt compelled to do leaving the flowers outside Buckingham Palace the sights of people crying and really feeling quite wounded by the loss with Prince Philip one there's a very sophisticated media operation operation fourth bridge which goes into place as soon as you know the news broke of him dying there's one for every member every senior member of the royal family and then to what you've got is I think an attempt to an attempt to hold at bay in increasingly aggressive and deranged right-wing press where if you fail to display significant you know what they deem as a suitable amount of grief and mourning but they will come for you they will aggressively come for you I found myself in the daily express for having made I think a true observation which is that DMX was a better rapper than Prince Philip and lo and behold I found myself being attacked for it in a right-wing tabloid because there is I think alongside this desire to impose grief and to manage a public active mourning which creates buy-in for a deeply equal society which has at the top of it the monarchy you've got almost a sense of blood thirstiness for those who are seen to step outside of those boundaries and so that's the really dystopian thing about you know the billboards or national rail turning their website into grayscale it's because they're afraid they're afraid that if they don't do these things this performative grieving that they'll be torn apart for it let's take a look at the gray website first of all if you've ever been on national rail to book a train you'll know that the color scheme is I think it's normally red and blue but here it's all all black and white all grayscale and that was as a a memorial I suppose to Prince Philip anyway someone complained about this on twitter or asked why is it all in gray we're going to show you an interaction on twitter which was quite striking so first of all in response to that query whoever's running the national rail twitter account says hi the website has been set to gray while we are in the mourning period of Prince Philip the person replies cheers is there a way to change it back to normal as a user as all gray I struggle with and then the person of the national rail says unfortunately I do not believe there is currently I will leave a note for someone to look at it on Monday to see if there is as I too have been struggling to read while it is colored differently now I wouldn't have realized this if I worked at national rail and someone said to me can we change it all to gray I would have said well it's ridiculous so probably not but actually a better argument as you should not do that is because there are many people for whom reading something in low contrast which is is grayscale is very difficult he's asking is there any way I as a user can put the colors back so I can read and then the person who literally works with national rail says I don't know because I can't read it either right this is bananas what are they doing what are they doing I think today it has changed which is why that first tweet was deleted because it looks like originally the plan was to have it grayscale throughout the whole morning period which was eight days actually they've changed it back now because I think you know those accessibility issues are pretty overwhelming I want to go on to the public backlash there is a bit of a backlash there it's about accessibility issues there were when it came to the media though many people who do seem to be finding this all fairly ridiculous or at least rather dull we talked about on Friday how the BBC had gone for a simulcast which meant that they put out the same show on BBC BBC 2 and BBC news ultimately that was for 24 hours where you couldn't choose to watch anything else on BBC BBC 4 was just taken off air out of respect very very bizarre anyway viewers did not respond particularly well to this so Jake Cantar is international editor at showbiz magazine Deadline and he crunched the number so he tweeted the verdict is in wall to wall TV coverage of Prince Phillip's death was a turn off for Brits with major channels losing prime time so that's 7pm to 11pm viewers compared with Friday, April 2nd so that the previous Friday now the BBC 1 was down 6% so 6% less people watched BBC 1 than they did the week before ITV was down 60% 60% less people watched ITV than the week before BBC 2 was down 65% and Channel 4 was down 8.5% now Channel 4 was one of the few channels that didn't devote all of their output to Prince Phillip some of it was not all of it and in fact the show which got the highest ratings on Friday was Gogglebox so as we talked about on Friday all of those news stations have been prepping for literally decades for the moment when a royal family member dies so they can have the perfect output so everything's in the right place at the right time they've been planning for literally decades people just want to watch Gogglebox because why would you want to watch the same show on every channel which is not a particularly critical or interesting analysis of someone's life but this absolute fawning this fawning of this person which is really really fake the second sign of the backlash wasn't just people turning off their TVs it was them complaining about what was on their TVs so there was so many complaints at the BBC about all of the channels showing the same thing about Prince Phillip and that they set up a dedicated complaints form so you could type in your email address and that would automatically make a complaint about the overwhelming coverage of the Duke of Edinburgh now apparently that's standard practice when the volumes of complaints are so large instead of getting all these different individual emails that they have to catalogue they just put up a form but that wasn't enough to stop it enraging certain conservatives so conservatives who were enraged by the existence of this form including the Bow Group which is Britain's oldest conservative think tank they argued the form encouraged people to complain who otherwise wouldn't have and this is a tweet from them the BBC is prompting a response in publicising a complaint regarding Prince Phillip and they're doing so in a way they don't do with far more controversial coverage that promotes left wing views or figures the question has to be asked I think they were annoyed about actually that was on ITV wasn't it the Black Lives Matter dance in any case there aren't many events when you have the same thing on every channel I can't think of another one the BBC ultimately took down the form on Sunday whether that was responding to this pressure from the right or whether it was just that they normally take down forms once complaints have peaked maybe we'll never know the BBC say it was the latter Ash do you think this has backfired do you think the potentially what's it called operation drawbridge operation fourth bridge operation fourth bridge do you think in their you know post game review they're maybe gonna say maybe we did ram this down too many people's throats and actually this is gonna undermine the monarchy instead of reinforcing it no because I don't think it does undermine the monarchy that's the thing I think people turned off by it but not because they're thinking oh well enough of you know this old you know non-agenarian who none of us care about that's not what people are thinking I think what they are thinking is well this isn't what I go to television for anymore the way in which people consume their news has changed a lot since say Princess Diana died so when it comes to a breaking news story especially if you're younger you're probably gonna hear it from like a push notification or you read it online or somebody's WhatsApp to you it's not necessarily that you've got the TV on and you're going to be watching it watching it watching it and then the news comes on people are I think expecting news not to take up such an outsized portion of broadcasting time particular when you think about entertainment only subscription channels that people turn to as well it means that public service broadcasters I think are in a bit of a tricky position in terms of how do they fulfill the requirements of their public service remit when consuming habits have changed a lot so I think that's why people turned off it wasn't necessarily an expression of their feelings towards the monarchy I think it was an expression of their feelings towards broadcast media now if I'm you know the director general of the BBC and I'm looking at a government which is relying on right-wing papers to be you know anti BBC attack dogs I will think well maybe on balance it's better for me to be seen to be more in alignment with the government in leading this you know enforced and performative grieving than it is to turn off for a temporary amount of time some of my viewers so I disagree a bit with your take Michael which is very rare I don't think that this is going to matter very much to them I'm wounded we should just end the show there I'm going to go drown my sorrows in the nearest pub garden I've just got one more thing I want to show you actually about the Royals then we're going to actually then we're not going to move on different there is so much content talk about it I just want to show you a great headline change on the metro so we talked from Friday about how they were kind of laundering the racist statements of Prince Philip and making them just out to be light hearted gaps icebreakers is basically what we're now considering racism to be there's a very good example of this I mean an outrageous example on the metro so they on Facebook put forward promoted this article the best of Prince Philip's gas quotes and quips gas quotes and quips then the example they've got is if you stay here much longer you'll all be sliddy-eyed so you know just a classic example of out and out racism that's you know what you said in the 80s in China and they're calling it gas his best gas quotes and quips now obviously they've got a little bit of pushback they've changed it to instead of the best the best and worst of Prince Philip's gas quotes and quips and then added well taken off the racism and instead introduced the the kind of the fat phobia to the 13 year old and so it's that time he told a 13 year old boy who wanted to go into space you're too fat to be an astronaut there's kind of Cruella de Vil type relationship children there let's go to a couple of comments Juliet Jake's with £10 both for providing respite from the mainstream politics and media's embarrassing parade of craven bootlicking I'm glad you appreciate it it's very much it's very much welcome because to be honest while watching the coverage is incredibly dull the more ridiculous aspects of it are you know when they don't make you pull your hair out I don't have enough to pull out really it can be quite entertaining the the lengths they're going to to bootlick this guy Dina tweets on the hashtag our main story so glad the folks at Tiskey Sour are covering the green seal scandal because I've had enough of mainstream sycophantic coverage of other far less relevant news stories in the past week Navarra media is an excellent example of why we so badly need independent media thank you so much for that Dina we do really appreciate it as a reminder we do really love your super chats if you don't want to put a super chat a really good way to get in contact with us is to tweet on the hashtag as I said we struggle to follow all the comments on the youtube stream so either send a super chat or tweet and then we'll always see it our next story the death of Prince Philip has been used by the press to demonstrate their royalist credentials and by politicians to show their undying loyalty and sympathy to the Queen but what about the royals themselves now of course I have no doubt they're genuinely mourning for a husband a father and a grandfather but this is also an institution for whom every public outing is meticulously planned to maintain a particular self-image and it's in that context that more than a few eyebrows are raised when this member of the firm was rolled out on BBC news yes it's a terrible loss my father said to me on the telephone a few months ago we're all in the same boat and we must always remember that but occasionally we in the family are asked to stand up and show compassion and leadership and unfortunately with my father's death it is brought at home to me not just our loss but actually the loss that everybody else felt for so many people who've as it were died and lost loved ones during the pandemic and so we are all in the same boat slightly different circumstances because he didn't die from Covid now first of all we're not all in the same boat not everyone else gets eight days of national mourning and similar casts on BBC one and BBC two and no one's allowed to watch any normal TV when they die it's not only the fact that he didn't die of Covid which separates him from the 140,000 people who tragically passed away from Covid 19 it's the response that his death gets a disproportionate response second and more importantly what the hell is Prince Andrew doing on BBC news now unless you've been living under a rock you'll know that Andrew is the friend or was the friend of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Andrew himself is accused of sexual abuse and this is the Andrew who has been hiding from the news, from the BBC, from the media since 2019 he's refused to speak to anyone refused to answer questions about all the legitimate issues that his past behaviour raises and now he comes out two years later on the one occasion when no one can ask him anything about his relationship to a convicted pedophile and can only ask him about his father who's passed away now it's not an accident that he was rolled out on to BBC news this is an attempt to launder his reputation and the BBC really really played along by the way it wasn't a camera went to that church and they were like oh this is a bit awkward because Andrew's come to talk to us and obviously it's a bit inappropriate to put out an interview with someone who is refusing to give an interview to the FBI even though they want his support to go forward with a very, very serious investigation into industrial child abuse no they didn't say oh we'll just have to film it and then we'll put it away afterwards no this led BBC news on BBC news at 10 last night, so Sunday night you had as their main clip Prince Andrew saying something nice about his father no mention of the fact that this guy very close friends of a convicted pedophile this guy is avoiding an interview with the FBI which basically means that he is standing in the way of an investigation into industrial child abuse now Ash I can see why Prince Andrew would love this opportunity to go on the TV and talk about something other than his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein whether or not he can sweat or what day he did or did not eat at Peter Express but why the hell did the BBC play along with this why did the BBC play along with this well a lot has changed about the relationship between the media and the royal family you know it was really after the age of Diana that instinctive knee jerk deference did come to an end however there is still a very cozy relationship between the royals and the media because the media wants access and the royals want favourable coverage those are two things which are occasionally in tension but often work quite well in concert with one another so if the BBC know that they can get FaceTime in a direct interview with the senior royal it doesn't matter that it's completely inappropriate for the BBC to land an interview with him before the FBI are able to and then it's completely insulting to some of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein that this man who's been accused of very serious crimes including the sexual exploitation of a trafficked minor is able to have a very sympathetic hearing from one of the world's most prestigious broadcaster it doesn't matter at that moment because what the BBC want is access and access to those quite intimate moments where the royal family are seen and engaged with on a human level rather than on a distant ceremonial level the BBC are quite happy to ignore I think the ethical considerations and this is the thing about the royal family and it's something which I think is particular to the UK's royal family they've changed and adapted an awful lot over the 20th century and one of the huge ways in which they've adapted is the way in which they've engaged with the media, television celebrity culture and also try to take on this identity of what we are essentially a public servants they've rebadged themselves rather than an institution of power of governance of state craft as one of symbolizing the nation it's Britain's first family family if you like and also that they've dedicated themselves to public service they're essentially an extension of the charity sector and it means that many of those images those tropes those narratives can come in very handy and can be very potent when coupled with the disproportionate amount of power that they're able to wield because of their formal constitutional role and so here's how we see it with Prince Andrew Prince Andrew is a man who were he a private citizen would of course be affected the kind of respect in his grief that we would allow for any other private citizen but also were he a private citizen it was likely that he would have to face the music he would have to cooperate with the FBI's investigation and who knows he might face some quite uncomfortable investigations and accusations and perhaps even charges himself that's what would happen if he was a private citizen but because he's not because he is a member of the royal family he's able to take the best of what a private citizen is afforded which is a sense of respect and regard for their grief and unwillingness to intrude on a moment which is very painful for somebody and so I don't really want to hold them to account he's able to combine that with the lack of accountability which plays out in a very distinct way because he is a member of the royal family and that for me is just it's proof of why we need I think a renewed republican movement in this country I don't think we can claim to have a healthy media culture while we still have a royal family and I don't think we can claim to be a mature democracy where we believe in people achieving their role in public life through talent through merit and because of what they do and that their ability to meet the needs of the public rather than an accident of birth and I also think we can't claim to be a society which takes issues of justice and equality before the law seriously while we still have people who because of this enduring belief in bloodline superiority are completely above the law and completely above accountability you're watching Tisgisawa on Navara Media if you are enjoying the show do make sure you hit that subscribe button we go live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7pm and we put out videos every day there's one more clip of that interview with Prince Andrew I want to show you because for me you know we didn't know, no one asked him about the Epstein case in that interview but I think on one reading maybe he did reveal something in fact maybe he was trying to let's take a look if you had a problem he would think about it and that's the great thing that I always think about is that he was always somebody you could go to and he would always listen he was always someone you could go to and he would always listen Ash do you think he is trying to tell that Prince Philip knew? Prince Philip knew? No I don't think he is, I don't think Prince Andrew is that smart you know he's somebody who wandered into that interview with Emily Maitlis completely unawares of the fact that he was going to make a complete donkey of himself he's got no self-awareness no awareness of the limitations of his own talents he's also got no intellectual capacity either so I think he was just saying stuff that sounded good and again it's imploring us as the public to empathize with the humanity of the royals while at the same time having deference for their feudal and constitutional symbolism That's so true what's notable actually as you say he just seems like an idiot right if he was not the second or third born I can't remember which one it is if he was next in line to the throne we would all constitutionally have to say he was actually God's gift to mankind you know you'd end up having these long ass debates in parliament where everyone's self-flagellating to say quite how brilliant this man is luckily because second or third or whatever he is in line to the throne actually I mean he's probably eighth now I've got no idea they don't have to degrade themselves to that same same degree but that's the whole problem with hereditary monarchy you don't get to choose who has the role and that's the thing that's the thing is that you could see it in that parliamentary debate is that people have to invent a narrative of extraordinary talent and genius around these people because otherwise you'd have to confront the fact that their position in society is completely unearned by virtue of being born into the royal family you are catapulted to the very top of British institutions whether they are arts institutions or philanthropic institutions and we hear a lot about Prince Philip's public service now I've got no doubt that he was a man of talents he distinguished himself in the Royal Navy for instance during World War II but was he really an expert conservationist an expert in working with children an expert in animal welfare an expert in mechanics an expert in the military was he really this man who left school and didn't pursue further education really an expert in all these things was he really the most qualified man to take on all these roles or was his symbolic power enough to get him to that place and that's what made him useful to these institutions because this is the thing which I do not buy one bit about this myth of public service which surrounds the royal family their value almost entirely lies in their ability to communicate an emotional affect and a sense of national symbolism to the public they're not mastermind strategists they're not talented organisational builders they know nothing about what's an internal culture that you need to develop at this particular charity or what's the most effective way we can reach XYZ demographic of people they're essentially incredibly famous they come loaded with ritualistic and ceremonial meaning they're not exceptionally talented they're not particularly interested in arts or culture they're not extraordinary people in any way other than the circumstances of their birth so true it really reminds me of I was watching a documentary about Ceausescu the other day he was the communist dictator of Romania and it was constantly mocking them because there was a bit of a cult of personality about him and his wife and the role his wife played was she was constantly in all state media referred to as a world renowned scientist even though she hadn't really done any world renowned science and this was like a complete feature of mockery in the documentary probably fairly I'm not an expert maybe it was propaganda who knows but to me it seemed kind of fair to be mocking them on that account but it's exactly the same here we have to say you know Harriet Harman stood up in parliament if he hadn't done that he could have been anything how do you know because he was a powerful guy in the navy he was born into the monarchy he wasn't just a happy go lucky working class guy who kept getting promoted if you're born into the monarchy you get given quite good roles in the military that's how it works they don't just make you be some regular soldier as to work your way up so everyone just completely swallowed this idea that in fact this hereditary monarchy is a meritocracy there could have been anything no it's great it's bullshit there could have been anything I tell you what they couldn't have been poor that's very true alright let's go to some comments Alex Gillan with 100 Crohners says perhaps Prince Andrew feels protected if he is on hallowed ground it's quite possible although the idea that one shouldn't talk about child abuse or religious premises has led to countless horrors so I would hope the BBC would not ordain that they should not ask questions about child abuse when they're near a church Joshua Youngerman with a $5 donation says but Michael he said he was at Peter Express that is true he did say he was at Peter Express in Woking which was very convincing I was just less sure about the hole I went to the Falklands War bit also Joshua Youngerman says just want to say that Ash telling me to get fucked in response to some trash talk was the highlight of my week last week go Arsenal I don't know if you want to insult this guy again because Ash he's paying us yes I mean you really need to insult this guy you know what Josh knows that I've had a hard weekend as a Spurs supporter he knows what I've gone through and yet he's coming here and my camera's turned itself off right but still time for one last fuck you Josh fuck you let me turn this thing back on I'm hoping we can get it back on for our very final section Freshty with £10 says thanks for the quality streaming as ever please can you say hello to Donnie hello Donnie I hope you both appreciate that thank you so much Freshty let's before we go on to that next because I want to give Ash a little bit of time in case she needs to cool down her camera or however it works we have over 2000 people watching it we don't have over 2000 likes which means that not all of you have hit the like button so go on do it what's stopping you finally today was the first day that non-essential shops gyms and pub gardens in England have been open since the start of January now this will be a relief to many it gives us also the first sense of how keen people will be to get out and about as Covid restrictions fall away so what did happen what are the signs of recovery well for Primark at least it seems like everything's going to be okay these were scenes from Primark in Bristol you can see an incredibly long queue there some context here is that Primark is one of the few high street shops that doesn't have an online store so no one has been able to buy anything from Primark in the UK for I mean how long has it been over three months now so maybe there is a back lock of people needing pants and socks etc I've never quite understood why you need to be the first in there what do you need so much today that you couldn't get tomorrow or on Wednesday but there we are I'm not one to judge there was also a very big queue outside JD Sports on Oxford Street they seem like they're going to be fine so you can see the crowds assembling as the shutters are opening and then people really running in and then also I mean they seem to be falling over each other to get into that door on the right I think that might go upstairs or that's maybe just they haven't noticed that the shutters are open in any case again I don't know why you need to be there at eight in the morning who knows also I was a bit surprised that JD Sports didn't have any security on the door because the whole point I thought was that people supposed to queue so you're only letting in a certain amount of people at a time there might need to get into the pubs to their system and of course that was shops what about pubs I'm certainly more excited about the pubs than the shops luckily we weren't out filming pubs this morning but good morning Britain were they were on hand at 8am to monitor pub attendance in Huddersfield let's take a look how are you feeling about being back in the pub well it's really exciting and I am super excited to meet my friends outside of home having them on here how do you feel about sitting outside in the cold though it's not that cold after a while when you're sitting in the sun I get to sit with my friends and I haven't seen them in a while so it's worth it Ash I want your take on this I thought that was quite sweet the people who had gone for a pint at 8am they were just pleased to hang out with their friends even if they were freezing and actually drinking a really cold pint at 8am on a really winter's day is actually quite a horrible thing to do I mean look it's way braver than our troops you know I mean I think there's something really sweet about it and I think that you do get that sense of excitement of it's an experience to be one of the first people after a lockdown to have a pint at 8 in the morning is kind of a story it's a thing to do I think that with the queues around Primark and JD Sports I think you know while I understand the desire to like get out there and do all the things that you couldn't do during a lockdown like physically browse in shops the thing that I miss is spritzing perfumes I miss that so much but what me missing the spritz of perfumes and I think the long queues also tell you is that I think that we've reached a stage in human history where leisure and time off work is completely inseparable from consumerism so what would you do with your time if it wasn't being out there buying things which are probably strictly speaking we don't actually need it's really hard to imagine it's just so interwoven in modern life our sense of selves, our sense of what it means to not be working that I think shopping is something that people legitimately and genuinely miss yeah I mean if it's what floats your boat go for it I probably do need some things but yeah I can't really imagine queuing on a Monday morning to go to any shop how will this work in terms of the virus I'm sure some people watching will be worried seeing those queues especially people rushing into JD sports on one level I think probably we will see a little spike because I personally do know some people who are still getting COVID and there will be quite a lot more contact I think from now on but the numbers are quite good at this point in time and with all the vaccinations I think it is quite likely unlikely sorry that we'll see a big spike in hospitalizations and presumably we'll be watching this closely enough that we won't get any huge outbreaks which lead to new strains you've got to remember that the last time this got out of control we were allowing people to drink inside of pubs most of the activities they have allowed now are fairly low risk so I'm not too worried about it we'll have to keep our eyes on it Ash your final thoughts on the epidemiology of this do you think the government are moving too soon too slowly or getting it just about right well look I think it remains to be seen and that's a really woossy thing to say but it's true I think one of the things you've also got to bear in mind is that when you do have a relaxation of the rules people's behavior tends to extend to the next bit ahead so if you're saying socializing in gardens and outdoors is alright it probably will have also an increase in people socializing indoors in their homes the vaccination rollout has so far gone really well I don't think that this will necessarily have a huge impact on hospitalizations but my camera's out again I'm being silenced Michael I'm being silenced I don't necessarily think that this is going to have a huge impact on hospitalizations because the most vulnerable groups and the elderly have mostly been vaccinated but we'll see how this interacts with things like international travel the emergence of variants there's a lot of moving parts in this another is of course the impact of long COVID which we know doesn't impact young people even if you're less likely to be hospitalized or made seriously ill so I think there are lots of things to keep an eye on but so far I don't think the loosening is going badly but I'm touching wood because I don't want to draw the evil eye obviously there are things that they should have been doing that they should still be doing paying people to self-isolate for example that would make this all a lot safer but I don't think them not doing that is a reason to keep the pub guns closed we have P Walsh with 199 says hi Mike please wish my wife Jackie a happy birthday happy birthday Jackie lucky to have a husband to watch this I mean I assume you do as well before we go I do want to plug downstream tomorrow at 7pm it will be with Gabriel Pogrand who is the journalist who broke so many of these stories when it comes to David Cameron and Lex Greensill is also really good in interviews so if you if you want to know more about this story do make sure you tune into that tomorrow if you want to make sure you don't miss that do hit subscribe and turn the notifications on then you'll find out every time we go live Ash Sarkar thank you so much for coming on the show I was expecting you to have to say goodbye without a face but it's so lovely to see you you can't get rid of me that easily Michael I'm here we'll have to sort out your camera for next Monday I think you just need an ice pack around I don't know what this problem is and thank you for watching Tiskey Sour and we'll be back on I'll be back on Wednesday at 7pm for now you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media good night