Keir Starmer Refuses To Rule Out Smoking Garden Ban Proposal | #NovaraLIVE

hello and welcome to Navara live I'm moo mlan I've been away for a while you may not recognize me but I am in fact she and tonight I'm joined by new face Mish Fraser Carol hello hi Moya how are you doing I'm okay I'm wondering if the audience will be able to take our joint sleigh but I'm sure we'll soon find out uh coming up later tonight UK teens are the most unhappy in Europe you and me both bro uh the UK's new rail Minister has been exposed for getting a work of fired and finally some good news for UK climate campaigners but first another smoking ban could be on the way potentially cheering news for partners of smokers bracing themselves for a winter spent shivering in a pub Garden because the government is supposedly considering proposals to ban smoking outdoors in certain areas according to a sun exclusive leaked whiteall documents reveal smoking could be banned in the likes of Pub Gardens children's playgrounds and outdoor sports stadiums these suggestions would form part of the tobacco and Vapes bill which was if you may remember a key policy of the previous conservative government that legislation promised to progressively raise the age at which people could legally buy cigarettes until there would be a generation who were legally unable to purchase them that bill was Shel due to the election but in July's King's Speech labor promised to resurrect it these new leaked propos proposals go further than any conservative plans though and when questioned today prime minister K stama did not deny that an outdoor smoking ban might be on the table it's being reported that you're looking at tighter restrictions on smoking Outdoors Pub Gardens outdoor restaurants outside hospitals and so on is that something that you are considering my starting point on this is to remind everyone that over 880,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking um that's a preventable death it's a huge burden on the NHS and of course it's a burden on the taxpayer so yes we are going to take decisions in this space more details will be revealed but this is a preventable uh series of deaths and we've got to take the action to reduce the burden on the NHS and reduce the burden on the taxpayer you said when you became prime minister you wanted politics To Tread more lightly on people's lives this is the opposite isn't it I think it's important to get the balance right but everybody watching this who uses the NHS will know that it's on its knees um we have to relieve the burden and that's why I spoke before the election about moving to a preventative model when it comes to health I want the NHS back on its feet but I also want it fit for the next you know 75 years just as we've had a brilliant 75 years um already um and that means taking action in relation to preventable uh deaths and these are 880,000 a year year preventable deaths obviously a back class has swiftly kicked off two contenders for the conservative leadership have also waited in Robert jenrick asked on social media why starma was quote focusing on this nonsense pretty Bal called the proposals quote Nanny state regulations I mean they were introduced by the last conservative government but who's counting Nanny state or not tobacco use does Remain the single biggest cause of preventable illness and premature death in England making it undeniably a huge pressure on the NHS what's interesting about these leaks is starma could have called them for what they are which is proposals to be considered likely put together by civil servants for the last government to look at but he didn't which means they might well happen is this the best way of tackling health issues caused by tobacco use though well if the government do take these proposals forward to legislation they may be encouraged by this snap polling on the issue from yugov 58% of the public say they would support the plan split between 35% saying they strongly support and 23% T tending to support in contrast 177% say they oppose and they're all my mates and 18% strongly oppose Misha do you think an outdoor smoking ban is too Molly cuddling and can you actually see it happening yeah I actually do think it's too Molly coddling I feel like you can't really make the same arguments that were made for for example the indoor smoking ban which was you know that people passively smoke they inhale the toxins um and so it's not really fair on people who are in the environment when people go outside to the smoking area in a pub in a club I think there's kind of an understanding that most of the people there are smokers that it's their decision it's obviously ventilated because it's outside and like people should be able to make decisions about their own health Heth but I actually think this is not the thing that annoys me most about this um suggested policy I think what I don't like about it is the fact that it really reflects what st's approach is to the NHS which is you know within very restrictive fiscal rules he basically doesn't want to reverse years of NHS Cuts so he's implementing a policy that costs him nothing um with the aim of reducing the sickness burden on the NHS and I think what d could really do in this situation which I don't think he is going to do is to reverse over a decade of NHS austerity um which would improve waiting times it would improve staff shortages you know numerous systemic problems um and give us a Health Service that actually functions um I also think another thing that's annoying about this policy is that it doesn't get to the root cause of smoking so for example there are educational initiatives that could happen you know educate educating people on making their own decisions around their health which could also reduce um the number of people who smoke so yeah there's really feels like the kind of lazy route to alleviating pressures on the NHS um it's also bound to hurt pubs and clubs and I think if it does go through um like you've mentioned it's going to annoy a lot of people so I don't think it's a good decision from sta that's a really great Point that he's kind of attacking literally the uh the symptoms rather than the causes do you think it's telling that cuz I remember this policy was announced right I remember as all being like this is just another distraction policy tinkering around the edges from rishy sunak throwing whatever he could at the wall hoping it would stick but it and when it got dropped before the election we're like of course it's getting dropped is it telling that this has been picked up with immediacy by K st's labor government and when given the opportunity to deny that this is going to be a priority he's done the opposite yeah I think that it is interesting that it's been picked up my interpretation of like some of the impetus behind Rishi sunak uh suggesting you know the Vapes ban Etc was to kind of have something that uh something to be remembered by that was kind of a big um like Flagship policy and I thought that that was kind of a thing that he was going for on the way out so I do think it's interesting that starma has kind of picked up this smoking issue again um and I think it's probably another example example of the huge amount of continuity between the last government and the current labor government licenses to explore two huge North Sea oil and gas projects were granted by the last Tory government much to the anger of climate campaigners but a new decision by the labor government mean that both projects may now not go ahead the first is the massive rosebank oil and gas Field located west of Shetland and the UK's largest untapped oil field the other is east of abedine the Jack door gas field that was projected to produce enough gas to power 1.4 million UK homes the granting of the Rose Bank license was hugely contentious for climate campaigners it was approved by rishy sunak in September last year giving Norwegian Energy company equinor the right to drill for oil on the seabed and fund the FD podcast further but campaigners argued that the field would release around 130 million tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime that is the equivalent to the annual emissions of 90 countries and the license came in the context of the International Energy agency declaring that no new oil fields could be developed if the world was to meet its 250 Target climates pandering to The Climate skeptical right-wing of his party and citing the need for Britain to have energy Independence richy sunak declared the drilling could go ahead but in the wake of sunak decision climate groups Greenpeace and uplift are pass a judge to review the government's decision making process the Tory government had planned to defend the licenses in that judicial review but in June the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling holding that potential emissions from the burning of Unearthed fossil fuels must be considered before drilling licenses are approved before that ruling energy companies usually only considered the emissions involved in the extraction of the field so it really was a game Cher and as a result the labor government has decided it really is not worth defending the rose bank and jackor licenses in court the government's decision to withdraw from the case doesn't mean the energy projects definitely won't go ahead the judge will first have to decide whether rosebank operator equino or the shell subsidiary that operates jackor did consider all the relevant emissions in their environmental impact assessments now if the judge finds that they did not take the emissions from burning the fuel into account wonder how that will go that will mean the licenses granted by the Tories are void but the operators could still submit new assessments and reapply to the government for licenses if that happens though they will likely run straight into this Manifesto commitment from labor we will not issue new licensers to explore new Fields because they will not take a penny off bills cannot make us energy secure and will only accelerate the worsing climate worsening climate crisis now I'm joined by Tessa Khan executive director of uplift who are bringing one of the cases against rosebank Tessa what signal is the government sending with this decision well it's sending a signal that is vastly different from the last government which is that it is not going to actively encourage the extraction of new oil and gas from the UK's North Sea which is the direction that we've got to go in urgently if we're going to save off the climate crisis um and also do the right thing by the people who currently work in the industry in the communities in Scotland who really need a plan for their future that moves away from Orland gas has uplift has any conversations with key labor ministers about this decision did you know it was coming we did not know have you had discussions in general with the government though about their direction of travel as it were when it pertains to oil and gas licenses we haven't met with any ministers since this new government took shape um we you know are very pleased to see in the labor party's Manifesto a commitment to ending new oil and gas exploration licensing that is a critically needed and in many respects given where the rest of the world is going it's a very Progressive position to have adopted on climate we obviously want them to go further than than that as I said we desperately want to see more detail about their plans for a transition for the oil and gas Workforce and for communities with ties to the industry but in general the signals from the government having both pulled out of defending the case against the cumri a coal mine now also dropping their defense against the rose Bank oil field and the jackor gas field I mean those are all things that I think deserve to be commended is this decision by the government not to defend these licenses the final in the coffin well we certainly hope so but um the way that this is going to play out is that the government is as you say not defending um our challenge but the companies involved so that is eano and Norwegian oil giant that is trying to develop rosebank shell everybody's favorite oil and gas company that's trying to develop Jack door those companies are likely to try to still fight this in court so we do have to wait for a final decision from the court of session probably to come in the next few months about whether or not the government's decision to approve Rose ban and jaor was unlawful and then once we have that decision and we assume that it will be that it was unlawful because the government's accepted that that's the case um then it will be up to those companies to decide whether or not they want to resubmit or restart the process of applying for those same development permits and then it will be up to the government once again to decide whether or not to approve those but the labor government is on the record saying that they think that Rose bank is a disaster for the UK public you know it's not just a climate disaster it's also involves giving billions of pounds of tax breaks to incredibly wealthy oil and gas companies it's an economically absurd proposition it does nothing for our energy security or our energy affordability so we think it's a pretty watertight case to reject that if it does come back to the government instead of oil and gas licenses how what are the concrete ways you you want the labor government to be investing in this green transition well the most urgent thing that we need to do is rapidly scale up our renewable energy resources and that's not just from a climate perspective renewable energy is also the only way that we're going to protect all the families and households across the country who are incredibly worried about their household energy Bills going into this winter our dependency on gas is what's Driven up our energy bills um it is the only way that we can keep those bills down in the long term so we want to see a massive rapid buildout of renewable energy but also just as crucially we want to make sure that the investment um in the renewable energy industry the supply chains the jobs all of the benefits of that industry go to the communities that have historically been dependent on fossil fuel sectors like oil and gas so that there is a fair transition and we make sure that actually Scotland which has some of the best renewable resources in the world can really benefit from the prosperity that that should bring are these suggestions possible under the austerity budget that labor has warned is coming in Autumn well we're obviously like everyone waiting to see exactly what's in that budget I mean the government has so far I think made one very important step in that general direction which is the establishment of GB energy we obviously need to wait and see exactly what the Mandate of GB energy is where it's going to be based what it's going to do but you know the suggestion is that it will create tens of thousands of new jobs um and that those jobs could be used to support people out of high carbon sectors but absolutely I mean when you think about the way that other countries have invested in this transition attracted investment scaled up energy renewable energy at the scale that we need it's required uh proper industrial strategy and it's required a fair bit of investment behind that so we absolutely do need to see that scale of investment if there is any credible pathway towards those goals which the labor government has made its own goals by the way including decarbonizing the power sector by 2030 Peter hendy is the labor government's new Minister for trains now he's an unelected politician thanks to being appointed as a life peer in 2022 hendy's previous gig was is the chair of network rail that is the government-owned organization that manages the UK's rail infrastructure and it turns out that while in that role hendy abused his power to get an award-winning engineer sacked for raising safety concerns about Houston Station in London that engineer was Gareth Dennis who also hosts a popular podcast about the railways earlier this year Dennis spoke to a journalist writing this article for the independent uncomfortable unpleasant unsafe how London's Houston Station became hell on Earth and yes those are Dennis's words in the headline part of a much larger discussion of how Houston is no longer fit for purpose but Peter hendy was not happy internal emails seen by Politico show that hendy was very annoyed by this quote from the Independent article you're talking about thousands of people squished into that space it's not just uncomfortable it's not just unpleasant it's unsafe Dennis's comments were based on a September 2023 Improvement not issued to network rail about overcrowding at Houston Station in it the office for Rail and Road warned Network rail of the risks to passenger safety caused by crowding and passenger surges at the station so Dennis wasn't saying anything that wasn't already in the public domain that didn't matter to hendy though who instructed his Communications officer to look into Dennis writing this please check whether we have and or are currently employing him as we should stop accusing Network rail of operating the station unsafely is unacceptable when hendy discovered that Dennis was in fact employed by subcontractor sister he wrote a letter on network rail headed paper to Sister Co saying this Gareth Dennis is a sister employee so he must write with your Authority please let me know what evidence you have to substantiate his allegations alternatively what action you are taking if what he alleges is not your company's view employees here know that what they say in the media reflects on their employment and I should like confirmation that your employees understand that too and of course finding a potential supplier criticizing a possible client reflects adversely on the likelihood of your doing business with us or our supply chain did you spot that threat there it was hardly very veiled sister coo wrote back to hendy apologizing for quote any alarm this may have caused in your organization after reading the article but hendy was not satisfied writing back to the CEO on May 19th this year he demanded further action against Dennis and threatened to quote take it up with your head office and shareholders on May 20th just a day later Dennis was suspended from the engineering firm he was then offered a financial settlement to leave cisterra on the condition that he signed a confidentiality agreement Dennis refused and was formally dismissed 6 weeks later after a disciplinary panel Hearing in Dennis's letter of dismissal sister says this as a result of the article on the 14th of May 2024 sister limited received a complaint from Lord Peter hendy chairman of network rail a cisterra limited key client to this end your conduct has B the name/ reputation of sister limited and network rail into disrepute that makes it pretty clear that Peter hendy's obsessive Vendetta against Gareth Dennis was the driving factor in his sacking by cisterra and for what pointing out the risk to the safety of the public at Houston Station this is who the labor government thinks should be in charge of our Railways a man who'd rather have someone fired than address the failures he's pointing out in response to the political article that broke the story Network rail said this the rail regulator's concerns raised in September 2023 about passenger congestion at Houston Station were addressed and put to bed in December 2023 months before the article to which Dennis contributed was was published decisions on how employee conduct is handled is a matter for Employers in this case sister the Department of Transport has refused to comment on Peter hendy's conduct while head of network rail but joining me now is the engineer at the center of this story Gareth Dennis also host of The Rail NATA podcast Gareth when did you become aware of what Peter hendy had done the moment when um I received a slightly ter email from um someone a few lines up the chain a command from me going uh can we have a quick meeting urgently we need to talk about uh this Houston article um and at that point it was can you can you just okay this article right there's some evidence presumably behind this I said oh yeah sure here's some evidence here's the or Improvement notice um you've summarized beautifully by the way Mo nicely it's like it's it's like oh God live through this again yeah um but uh so the Improvement notice but also um there is a uh there was a document that um hs2 limited the organization overseeing or was overseeing the the Redevelopment of half of the Houston sort of station site um they published a as part of the how do we not spend any money at Houston reports that they've been having to deal with for the previous government they they were looking at a report of what happens if we don't do anything at Houston and that report said within the next decade the station would have to close regularly as a result of unsafe levels of overcrowding so it's not just the Improvement notice that was the other thing the third thing is I happen to have co-founded the the campaign for level boarding with a certain Tanny gay Thompson um a few years back in a Cafe in Darlington station um uh Tanny also having her own problems with the railway this week related to accessibility and safety anyway so um I am the co-founder of the campaign for level boarding and I deal with a lot of accessibility uh issues and I uh hear a lot of issues from particularly disabled activists and campaigners and passengers who and Houston just comes up again and again so when that station is Crush filled safely apparently as we as we when it's Crush filled it's really unpleasant if you're walking around but imagine if if you're in a wheelchair or trying to negotiate through with a you know behind a guide dog it's just unacceptable so I passed all the evidence on and um that was then sent in in a reasonably weak uh worded email I have to say from the CEO back to hendy and hendy just ignored all that and then sent the um sent his second threat his second um uh legally dubious threat to to through to my former employer so that that was kind of how they all kicked off really what have the last three months been like for you yeah it's been pretty Grim so um uh I you know I have ADHD in a sudden change in circumstance as anyone who has ADHD through through the covid lockdowns um will know is not good for the old capital m capital H mental health U so that's been pretty G but I also have a one-year-old child that I've had to you know actually in a way has has got me through the last three months but uh knowing that uh that their future is you know kind of wrapped up so much into mine let's put it that way I have a very very supportive wife yes I'm a wife guy I have a very supportive wife who has also been wonderful and supporting me but you I was potenti letting her down as well and and the ramifications of that and you know what did it actually mean for my ability to talk about this industry and and you know would they would they get the better of me and and and and shut me up well no is is the answer uh they clearly didn't what's strange in this I'm sure you might pick this up what's very bizarre is just the extent to which um having had a v voice in the media to start this story and and obviously have some connection with journalists they thought it was a good idea to um string me out Corner me and and also um cut me off in such a way that they can no longer hold me accountable in any way whatsoever let alone hendy sending these um dubious at best um letters and emails which by the way obviously I could just subject access request and Freedom of Information uh request out just very bizarre um so yeah it it's not been good for me the last three months but today um when I could finally talk about it publicly has been glorious some catharsis anyway yeah I'm I'm so sorry that you've gone through this do you know of anyone else who's suffered similar ramifications for speaking about the rail industry what is What's the culture like for for talking publicly about the issues um so I have to say it's a mix but so there are there are there have been positive steps about safety culture and I'd be just making a bit of a story out of nothing if I didn't say there have been positive steps about safety culture in the industry and and actually on lots of measures of safety other than accessibility other than the platform train interface other than those there has been progress but when it comes to accessibility when it comes to safety of passengers at stations in particular when it's related to crowding or in trains when it's related to crowding there has been in action frankly um and it's something that the industry really fails on but not just that so to your first question I've had lots of messages today and I know of stories previously as well from people going thank you so much for talking out I couldn't and those stories are um dispropor bearing in mind this is an industry that is uh not well represented for women people of color queer Folk those messages are a high proportion of those are from women some from queer folks so you know the young people who who are in this industry that the industry purports to be you know F you is isn't it great that we're diversifying as soon as those people get people get ideas above their station this happens you know the the old white boys come in and uh and and realize that a world that they no longer understand and no longer really have control over um uh is is holding them accountable in a way they do not like and obviously when hendy pressured your former employer to to sack you that happened in May it started in May between that period he's been made rail minister in the new labor government how did you react when you heard that happened so um that announcement happened on the day I received the letter from cisterra saying they were going to sack me so that's not that's not related that is pure coincidence but it was a rather unpleasant coincidence that that happened on the day when I was seeing prominent people in the industry going hooray isn't it wonderful Lord hendy the the busty regulation millionaire is now going to be in charge of the railways fantastic he's a he's a hero for our Railways a man of the people somewhat forgetting his rather unpleasant stances during the strikes a couple years back but anyway um so you know this is you there was celebration as he was appointed he was going to be the savior of the industry well hopefully uh his career is now going to be rather short and he'll have no part to play in the um in the new shape of the rail industry what was his actual tenure Network rail like well uh let's just pick out some of the highlights shall we so uh in the aftermath of the the co pandemic we saw a government decide that Railways were a bad idea we saw the timetable collapse of 2018 well in advance of the time T of the uh of the co pandemic we saw funding after the co pandemic being cut by government we saw hs2 being hugely curtailed massively limiting the ability of rail to to to move people away from damaging modes like Road and air um we've seen absolutely no movement whatsoever in improving accessibility on Railways there's no rolling program of platform Corrections that we've seen new trains being purchased that don't provide um independent access for disabled people um I have to say it's not a great legacy frankly he's been in in position for he was in position as as chair of network rail for almost a decade what measurably has improved over that period because actually we've seen what he's presided over is the end of Britain's Railway Renaissance that's that's really his legacy it's not necessarily a very good one you've called for hendy's resignation why do you think he has to go yeah so I mean I I don't want to pretend to be a lawyer here because I'm decidedly not but I would suggest that um particularly on the laws that we've inherited from the EU um threatening A supplier on contract you know that that you will tamper with their ability to win contract based on the discussions of a uh an individual emplo uh employee referring to publicly available safety information um is dubious um uh if not illegal uh so on a on the basis that that would comprise misconduct in a public office uh that's the end of the road for him but I think that's that's that's legal ease for me goes much deeper than this if this is his view of people who are within the industry but realize that the conventional if you like internal channels for change are a complete waste of time and are a way to store statistics and not actually create change and decide that the best way to create change is to make people feel a little bit uncomfortable so perhaps they do make change if the response to that is to sack them and all the people who don't have a voice uh who that who he might have sacked that's got him to the point where he can have such hubris to write what he wrote in those emails he is not fit to re to shape what our Railway industry is going to look like because that's what his role is that's what he's been put there to do is to shape Britain's rail industry the most one of the most if not looking at my book which is coming out in a couple months the most important industry in in our country for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and improving um equality in this country he's going to be in charge of what the shape of that industry is going to be be going forwards I do not think he's the right person to do that at all and I think this uh sorry episode um is some of a somewhat punctuation at the end of that Gareth Dennis thank you as ever for speaking to us and I'm sure in a couple of months when your book comes out we can talk to you even more and I hope that today has been a bit of a bit of a BAL after the hell of the last three months anyway thank you again plenty of adults have found the last 14 years of Tory rule a source of deep unhappiness austerity culture wars and Scandal have torn into the fabric of Britain's social life and that's before we get into Fred again but it turns out teens have been affected too and guess what the kids are very much not okay a news study has found that the UK's 15-year-olds are suffering a happiness recession coming at the bottom of a European satisfaction League the study was conducted by the children's Society in 2021 and 2022 not only did Britain's 15-year-olds rank as the unhappiest in Europe but the proportion reporting low life satisfaction was much much greater than that of their many of their nearest counterparts while only 7% of Dutch teenagers felt unhappy a quart of UK teens reported low levels of satisfaction with their lives France Sweden and Ireland all had fewer unhappy teens only Poland's percentage came close to Britain's the proportion of unhappy 15-year-olds in Britain is also more than double that of Finland Denmark Romania Portugal Croatia and Hungary so what's the cause well food poverty was cited as a key reason behind the high misery level and girls as well as those from disadvantaged backgrounds were also more likely to report low levels of satisfaction with their lives the children's Society has been conducting these servies since 2009 and their results show a trend children's happiness scores were highest between 2009 and 2012 but just as the tor's austerity policies began to bite they began to fall I was very lucky I was probably the last generation of really happy kids and they've kept dropping ever since given the correlation between Tory Rule and unhappiness it's perhaps unsurprising that the study also found that the UK had the largest gap in happiness between the most advantaged and the least disadvantaged and the most disadvantaged teens the report goes on to give this analysis of the results children and young people deserve better decisive action and National leadership are needed to overturn the decline in children's well being we know these experiences are not lived in a vacuum the pandemic Rising levels of poverty concerns over young people's safety the climate emergency and other stresses have put a strain on young people's lives and can prevent the experience of a happy and fulfilled childhood Misha you do a lot of work around mental health how do you see teenagers impacted yeah I think these findings are no surprise to me um I think that this is something that I talk a lot about in Mad World which is book that I wrote on the politics of mental health the fact that our mental health our suffering cannot be disentangled from our political conditions and as you mentioned there are so many factors like the climate emergency that makes it very hard to look forward to the future um the impacts of over a decade of austerity the decimation of public services and Community I think it's very hard to feel optimistic about the future and I think that we often talk about this with regards to the the general population but obviously this is also impacting children and teenagers um I think it's really important that we don't talk about suffering in a vacuum um because like you say it correlates with poverty and inequality um 12% of children experience food poverty in the UK that's actually more than a higher proportion than the number of adults and then we've seen the impact specifically of things like youth centers being cut um through throughout Tory austerity they're also obviously entering into a very hostile job market that looks different to the one that maybe you I were entering into when we were um entering our early 20s you know lots of people are working in precarious gig economy jobs um in which wages are falling and this is also correlated with very negative mental health outcomes so whether we call it kind of mental health mental distress or whether we call it you know as they call it in this study a happiness um recession I think it's really important that we don't individualize these findings I also think often when we see kind of conversations about young people's mental health there can be a tendency to kind of overstate or just emphasize specific factors over others so for example I feel like social media comes up again and again when we talk about young people's mental health and obviously this does play a role um but I also think that state violence you know the impacts of things also like racism marginalization um the far- right violence that we've seen recently I think it's kind of taken as common sense you know among on the left that these things affect adults and we need to acknowledge that they're definitely going to affect young people too so yeah I really hope that we can use these findings to kind of campaign around these political conditions um because you know children young people they are our future and maybe there's an argument we can make there for building a better future where fewer people suffer don't you find it so interesting the way that uh you know with this this sort of research comes out and this language happiness recession has to be used to Market it and make it of Interest like that's Financial language applied to the levels of well-being of teenagers I don't know what you think about that like it's fascinating the way we have to sell this to people to make them interested yeah I think it really is and I think that language is something that I have like complicated feelings about because I feel like the description of it as a recession obviously evokes ideas about the economy our political climate impacting on how well we are but at the same time happiness recession in some ways feels at the same time a bit euphemistic or as if it doesn't describe the genuine kind of misery and suffering that people are really experiencing in like an adequate way so I think there's kind of pros and cons to it this Summer's General ction or a deeply unpopular conservative government swept out of office after 14 years in power many many people in the UK were glad to see the back of the Tories but are they that enthusiastic about their replacement starma labor well when we look at the approval ratings coming in for the new government they aren't that great and they're quickly getting worse for the first time since coming to power a majority of Brits now disapprove of the labor government's record only 23% say they approved down three points from when you go last asked just 10 days ago what has happened in the last 10 days those approval ratings are of course not as bad as the last governments but what is noticeable here is one the direction of travel and two the pace at which disapproval has increased labor having been in government less than two months no honeymoon for you care that rise in disapproval is being driven primarily by older voters with these voters disapproval ratings have exceeded that of the last Tory government 72 % of over 65 say they disapprove to only 16% saying they approve some might respond to this that governments are always unpopular which is somewhat true and you know older Generations tend not to be as supportive of Labor as Tories if we still look along those binary lines but if we zoom out to a wider scale we can see that in previous times such as mid 2021 just as many people approved as disapproved of the government now I'm wondering what's behind this Misha do you think this is something to do with you know the economic policies that Rachel re has been putting forward I know that pension uh fuel uh payment is has gone down like a lead balloon uh or is it something else is there a disillusionment among people which means that their span for approving of governments is getting shorter and shorter tell me what do you think yeah I think it's complicated I mean I think some of this was somewhat predictable with kir starma in the sense you know the commentar often described his win in the general election as a Loveless Landslide you know lots of people I think felt that they were holding their nose and voting labor um and weren't necessarily excited about the potential of a labor government um so I'm not surprised that people are starting to feel dissatisfied you know star's platform that he ran on constantly promised vague kind of change um but he sold himself as a sensible politician you know someone who wasn't going to pull any big surprises out of the um but maybe we kind of expected that after over a decade of Tory rule we would feel something you know some level of okay maybe things are getting slightly better and so I think that that dissatisfaction is maybe starting to come through um I think that you know people maybe were feeling that there would be some distinction from you know the Tories and that actually things don't necessarily feel that different and obviously that raises the question of is this leaving the door open to the far right to come in as the opposition um but I also think you know the reasons why people are dissatisfied go further to like you say touching on policy and things like this um so you know there's been this kind of Scandal that people have been talking about around labor cronyism um I think it was 2third of British people said that they feel the labor government only wants to help itself and its allies um people are saying that they feel that this government is cor corupt um and there have been you know a number of things that have made the headlines about for example um one of K's biggest biggest donors getting a free security pass for number 10 um so I think there's also the fuel allowance which you mentioned which might explain some of why it's kind of the older demographic who have really really rapidly kind of gone down in their uh ratings for K stas approval you know that was a payment of up to $300 pounds that were supposed to support pensioners in paying their heating bills and now that's only going to go to people who are on benefits so I think that makes sense that that has um upset that group yeah I think overall it's just really bad news for starma you know you usually expect a bit of a honeymoon period um for new Prime Ministers and it feels like he had a very mild one like it barely existed and now it's kind of over before it started but maybe this is is a sign that he actually needs to do something that's more than kind of more of the same Tory like policies indeed I mean we do all predict that the honeymoon period would be brutally short but maybe not this short uh Misha thank you so much for joining me tonight short but sweet thank you MOA it's been great to be on again I'm sure we'll have a couple more times together before I depart for good uh thank you everyone for watching this evening the show will be back tomorrow you have been watching Nar median don't you forget it good night