[Music]
Okay. I can't
Welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me, George Galloway. Tell me Gatri,
the right honorable Peter Lily, MP, is a
long-erving member of parliament, a
former Tory cabinet minister under
Margaret Thatcher and John Major and
once a contender for the prime
ministership itself. economically
conservative and the former secretary of
state for trade and industry. We thought
we should seek his council on where
Britain is headed in the wake of the
chancellor's autumn statement and in the
face of the silent calls of ruin all
around. I sat with him in parliament for
almost 30 years. He's sitting there
still and I'm glad to say he's sitting
with us on board the Sputnik today.
Thank you very much Peter for joining
us. The autumn statement yesterday was a
a fairly dire uh set of figures. Uh they
are seeking to blame it on the decision
of the British people to leave the EU.
To what extent is that an accurate uh
analysis in your view? Well, I just
think it shows that the whole
forecasting profession and establishment
haven't yet caught up with the fact that
they were wrong. They forecast that we
should now be in a deep recession with
the uh GDP 3.6% down, 500,000 more
people unemployed by the end of the
year. Uh and it hasn't happened and
they're sly slowly adapting. I used to
be in the forecasting business and I
found it very difficult to forecast the
future, but it was very easy to forecast
how other people would forecast and it's
quite easy to forecast how the things
like the Office of Budget Responsibility
will forecast. That is to say, they'll
half the distance between what is
happening and what they forecast will
happen and forecast that will happen
next. And so they're always a bit behind
the time. Forecasting the past uh they
can uh as we found over both Brexit and
the Trump uh presidency, uh their
ability to forecast the present, never
mind the future, is I think fatally
wounded. Don't you? Absolutely. I'm not
that I got it right. I I did on both
counts, I must say. Well, I I for some
reason assumed we we were going to lose
the Brexit vote, went to bed in despair
and woke up in joy. But um that's partly
that I'm always cautious and so I I
prefer to forecast that bad things will
happen and then when good things do or
bad things don't, I feel very cheerful.
Although nothing is ever as good or as
bad as it first appears, as we both
know. Um the cost of Brexit, as the
media keep telling us, is steadily
escalating. Uh just at the moment when
it would appear new forces are coalesing
to try and scupper Brexit by making it
as unattractive looking a prospect as
possible and then going for a second
referendum. Do you think they're going
to get away with that? No, I don't think
they will. And happily the prime
minister although she uh was on the side
of remain seems now to have recognized
that the British people have spoken and
she's going to proceed and not allow
herself to be reversed and actually even
in in the lower house in in the House of
Commons uh there's a general consensus
we'll all vote for triggering article 80
sending the letter off starting the
negotiating procedure may run into
difficulty with the House of Lords but
if the House of Lords are too intr
antigent. They might find they're
committing suicide. Meanwhile,
however, this figure from the past, we
thought as we just made a film about
him, Tony Blair seems to return on the
stage. The return of the Bl Rich
Project. Exactly. How's that going to
affect things? Well, that can only help
Brexit. I think if he's associated with
the forces of trying to reverse it, then
if nothing else, that will mean that the
bulk of the Labour party will then come
on board in favor of Brexit since he's
pose a very big difficulty for the SNP
who are madly europile and madly anti-B
Blair. Uh are they going to follow the
leader they've spent the last decade
excoriating and profiting from his
excoriation? That will be wonderful.
seem see them agonizing like that. It
won't cause me any distress at all, but
it might cause them considerable pain.
It's clear, Peter, they're not going to
try and stop the prime minister
triggering the beginning of the
negotiations. Seems to me given the
meeting uh this week between Mr. Blur
and your Urswile
uh colleague uh Nick Kle uh that they
are going to allow the negotiations to
proceed but hope to paint the outcome in
such an ugly way that they can get a
majority in the House of Commons to put
the final deal to the people in a second
referendum. I think that's the game. uh
is that I think is that in your view uh
a real and present danger and how do you
think people would uh vote in a second
referendum? Well, they're trying
certainly to make it a condition. The
House of Lords might well be persuaded
to make it a condition of triggering the
uh negotiations that the government
agrees to hold a second referendum at
the end of the process. Uh, I think
we'll throw it out in the comments, but
if that were to go through, it would be
very damaging indeed. It would undermine
the government's negotiating position
because then the European states would
just make the outcome as unpleasant as
possible. Even if were it to be
implemented, it would be more damaging
to them in the hope that the British
people would then say, "Oh gosh, that's
too dreadful." And come sort of crawling
back and asked to be taken back in
again. So that I mean that's the reason
for not having a sec second referendum
promised at the end of the process. I
think that once we've done it actually
people will think great we're now free
now we can get on and do things.
Something like 70 to 75% of the people
at this stage don't think we should uh
reconsider in a second referendum. It's
a hardcore of 25% of the electorate who
want to have another go. The problem it
seems to me for the prime minister is
that almost the totality of what I would
call I wouldn't ask you to uh echo it
the the ruling elite in Britain almost
all of them are against leaving the
European Union. The finance capital
sector is virtually 100% against it. A
lot of the newspapers and the BBC are
against it. Uh it seems to me quite a
tall order for the leader of the Tory
party to force through a flagship policy
against the will and wishes and
interests perhaps of all the main uh
bits of the Conservative Party's
coalition. Yes, I'm not sure they're all
part of the Conservative Party's
coalition. You're right. They are the
governing elite. Uh they have quite
disproportionate influence and they're
largely unelected and self-appointed.
uh from the BBC, House of Lords, the um
and finance capital as you say. I used
to be part of finance capital. I was a
partner of a a big uh uh finance company
in the city. And when the then
government, Mrs. Hatcher's government
brought in big bang all my partners,
there were 40 of them almost to a man uh
said this would be the end of
civilization as we know it. And you,
Peter, you're in I was sort of just
being involved in politics. you must
somehow stop it. I said it seemed
actually quite a good idea to me. The
interesting thing was it made them all
very rich so that they opposed something
which actually turned out to be in their
own interests. I was the only person it
didn't make rich because at that point I
got elected and became a member of
parliament. Timing is timing is
everything Peter the so I I think the
finest government and they're just
they're resisting change because it's
simpler to resist change and continue
with the system they've got once the
change has been imposed on them as in
the case with big bang they'll adapt to
it and continue to make themselves very
rich well as as a certain uh Dr. Markx
said nothing is as constant as change
and we are now in a period of
extraordinary change politically. Uh
this ruling elite lost on Brexit. They
lost in the United States because all of
finance capital was behind Hillary
Clinton. All the military-industrial
complex. All the newspapers were behind
Mrs. Clinton and they lost and they lost
uh the the Brexit. How far do you think
that that change is going to go? I don't
know. I I certainly didn't forecast it
and so I'm probably not the best person
to forecast what will happen next. Uh I
find it very hard to think that for
example Marine Mar Le Pen will win in
France but for the first time it just
becomes possible to sort of consider
that might happen. It's already had its
first uh impact, hasn't it? The goalists
are choosing uh the most right-wing if
you if you want to use old language as
their nominee. They're in the process of
uh of doing so. Although paradoxically I
find myself in agreement with him and
with Trump for that matter on some of
the very biggest uh political issues
like the need to end the steadily
growing confrontation with Russia, the
need to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda
decisively rather than by one means or
another actually strengthen them. Uh are
left right uh lines being redrawn? Will
you and I be comrades at the end of this
day? Well, we might we were in the
Brexit campaign, I seem to remember. Uh
we might well do. Uh the extraordinary
thing is the what has happened actually
is that the the progressive sort of
elite who used to uh work hand inand
with the industrial working class and
they sort of work for them and produce
goodies like council houses and so on.
Um and it seemed to work quite well for
both parties. that's broken down and now
the uh the progressive elite uh despise
the their old power base and they've
just become a coalition of special
interests of minorities but also sort of
university educated posh people uh and
they actually despise the man and woman
in the street who used to be the base of
their support and that went on for a
while they because the man and woman
street didn't realize but they it
suddenly dawned on them that the people
they used to rely rely on to sort of
operate power on their behalf, despise
them and loathe them. And that's what
lies a bit behind Brexit, a lot behind
Trump. I think uh it's bit less likely
to be the case in France because um
Marine Le Pen's party's got a long
history behind it. I think the history
of the fascist history of uh the
national front and indeed the rightwing
in Germany probably be significant
barriers to them winning but they don't
need to win if they can get some of
their agenda uh adopted. It seems to me
obvious if you create industrial deserts
and call them insultingly call them rust
belts and then expect the people who who
have been left to live in the rust belt
to continue to support the very people
who presided over the
desertification. Uh that's asking a lot
even of a of a very uh uh patient
electorate. Isn't that what's happening?
That's what's happening on the economic
front and on the sort of social front.
They the elites sort of despise the
ordinary patriotism, the ordinary
working person in America in this
country and call it xenophobia. And then
when they're concerned about a large
increase in the population, meaning
there are few houses to go around and so
on, they call that racism. Um, and when
they uh ordinary working man or woman
wants to sort of own their own home and
so on, they're selfish. Uh so it's it's
that sort of contrast of attitudes
between the people who've got a lot and
feel superior and the people who've only
got a little uh but have got their old
attitudes and values which they find are
actually despised by the people above
them. That's the big division in
society. Now Peter Lily, pleasure to see
you again and to talk to you. Thanks for
joining us on the sputnneck. Coming up
next, prepare to get down with it in the
grime.
Welcome back to Sputnik. Hi Collins is
the author of a new book, This is Grime,
published by Hodder and Stoton. Recently
on the Sputnik, Daniel Rachel described
grime as the heir to rock against
racism. So naturally, we thought you'd
want to know more about it. Hence, the
author herself is on board the Sputnik.
acclaimed writer for the Guardian, The
Sunday Times, and a shelf full of
magazines, particularly ID magazine,
where she's the features director. I'm
glad to welcome Hattie Collins.
Congratulations on the book. It's a
really beautiful product. The
publishers's done a great job with it, I
must say. Ideal Christmas present, I'd
say. I would say a stocking filler.
A stocking filler. A really nice piece
of work. Now, you state that grime is,
and I quote, the most significant
workingass subculture in Britain of its
time. That's a big claim. H how would
you uh convince the viewers of that?
Well, I think it's an incredibly
provocative um culture. It's a very
articulate culture. Um it has it has
kind of spread from this very very small
tiny sort of outcrop from from the
middle of nowhere really in East London
from from the the working class estates
of places like Bow in East London. It's
from my old uh constit I can't claim any
of them. Well maybe you've influenced it
in your own way George who knows. Um and
from there it spread it spread around
the world you know you now have like
international superstars such as Kanye
West and Drake who are talking about
this this this culture and they want to
be involved in this scene. You have kids
in Korea making grime now. You have kids
in Japan DJing Grime and inviting the
MC's over. Um so, you know, from from
Small Seeds has become this really
important, powerful movement. Um it's
all driven by a very DIY aesthetic. It's
all it's all very young people. Um most
with little to no money at the time that
the scene began and they did it all off
their own back, very much in the similar
way to to punk back in the 70s and '8s.
It reminds me a lot of uh punk. Not that
I was a great fan of uh punk, but I
obviously recognized and of course now
recognize its historical significance,
but it seems to come out of the same
housing estates and be marked by the
same, as you put it, lack of money.
Well, yeah, there was, you know, this
this was tough times, you know, when
when Grime first came to be in the early
2000s. This was this was uh you know,
very tough economic time. There was very
poor schooling, very poor housing. um as
the book sort of reveals through it's an
oral history. So the book talks to um
not just the the people um who make the
music but also their parents. Um so you
know the book explains there was lots of
social problems at that time um times
were tough and obviously from that comes
great art. We've seen that many many
times. I take it in these difficult
times. there was a big lure to gangster
as well of which well I think what a lot
of these kids wanted to do was get away
from that you know yes of course there
were lots of there were lots of issues
at the time in areas such as this um
there was there was problems with gangs
there was problems with drugs and what a
lot of these young people wanted to do
was to take themselves out of that
environment and to provide perhaps even
unwittingly uh role models to other kids
from those estates to say look you know
there are far more alternatives to to
this life you can make music you can be
an artist you can go on to be someone
like Jamal Edwards um who's uh who owns
a huge huge website. You could go on and
be like Dynamo who's a magician. All
these people, although you wouldn't
necessarily class them as grime MC's,
have all come from the same spirit.
Well, the uh defining characteristics of
it, I mean, to the people watching this
who perhaps don't know some of the
things that we know or many of the
things that you know, cuz you're the
expert. Um, if you settled down to
sample the grime culture, what can I
expect? Uh, what can you expect? It's
quite loud. It's quite loud. It's quite
noisy. It's very energetic. It's
characterized mostly by uh 140 BPM,
which to put that into some sort of
context, it means it's it's faster than
hip-hop. It's more around the sort of
jungle drum bass, like club music. So,
it's it's pretty fast, which means the
MC's uh are sort of driven to rap very
fast. Um, which gives it that sort of
energy. Um, and uh, yeah, it's very it's
very powerful. I think if you were to
experience grime in its in its natural
state, which is in a club, it's in
rapping. Yes, rapping. It's all MCing.
It's all MCing. So, they say MCing,
which which is different to rapping in
it in its own way. So, so these are the
sorts of things that characterize
us and rap. Well, rappers tend to rap
over over slower beats. Um, and MC's rap
over faster beats. There's also a
culture within grime very influenced by
by the lots of the parents of the scene
um who have come from Jamaica and the
Caribbean of sound clash culture, which
is where artists in Jamaica would clash
each other. So, it's a very sort of um
uh competitive. So to to get what they
call a wheel up or a forward, a rave, um
you have to sort of have the best
lyrics, the best lines. So there's a
sort of striving towards that, which
again is why they say MCing as opposed
to opposed to rapping. It's complicated.
The best way to do it, I think, is just
to throw yourself into YouTube, listen
to as much music as you can, and if you
get to experience music live at
somewhere like an Eskimo Dance, which
travels around the country, go and see
it live. Essimo Dance. Yeah. That's
where you'll see the main players of the
scene. You'll capture the energy, the
audience. It's a brilliant. The audience
gets so into it. It's a really
welcoming. Who are the audience? Um,
it's interesting that you as a white
woman uh wrote this book. Most people in
so far as they know anything about this
will have a preconception that it's a
black thing. Yeah. I think actually it's
a common it's a common conception. Um,
of course, mostly is it is mostly young
black boys that do grime. Um, but it's
from it's from the East End, which as
you know, George, is incredibly diverse.
You know, you we have Indian people in
grime. You have um white people in
crime. So it crosses over black Asian
boundaries. Black and Asian as well as
black white boundaries. Exactly. And
male and female. It is of course, as I
said, like mostly dominated by men, but
there are brilliant women within the
scene. White women, black women, um
Asian women, Indian women, you know,
it's it's pretty diverse. And from
without sounding try and without sort of
sounding, you know, saying it for the
sake of it, I've always been incredibly
welcome within the scene. I've written
about it for a long time um since its
early earliest beginnings or earlier
beginnings and it's always been incred
incredibly inclusive and incredibly
welcoming because that's what those
estates were like. Lots of those estates
were very Now you you yourself raised
the issue of women. Uh one of the common
criticisms of previous genre uh is that
misogyny
uh sometimes violently expressed is a
characteristic uh of those previous
genre. How is uh crime visav these
gender issues? I think crime is quite
progressive actually in lots of ways and
and actually also with when it comes to
the sort of gender issue. I think, you
know, people tend to associate grime
with hip-hop. It's a sort of general
thing, but that's actually very
different for for some of the reasons I
explained earlier. And I think generally
speaking, when it comes to women,
there's actually a sense of equality.
There's very little there's very little
blisting of women. The videos very
rarely show, you know, women in the club
being degraded, like the sort of normal
tropes we see with American hip-hop
videos. Actually, um, actually, yeah,
the there's lots of songs that you'll
find, um, the main MC's talking about
their moms, their sisters, their
partners. Um, Stormsy has his mom in one
of his videos. You know, all these sorts
of things that people expect to see from
things like grime. They actually tend to
do the opposite. Um, you just need to
scratch beyond the surface. I think lots
of people tend to look at it and see
lots of young black boys in hoods and
assume that it's scary, that it's
violent, that it's misogynist. Um, but
actually it's it's not, you know, you
just need to look. Well, it's sounding
more and more like our kind of thing.
Uh, we need to get into this. We'll do
your next take dance. Yeah, Rob knows
this in the Eskimo uh event. Now the how
is it as it were monetized? Cuz it it
takes money to buy mints. Uh nobody can
indefinitely produce art without
earning. Uh how is it monetized? People
paying for downloads or buying tickets
for the gigs or what? Yeah, it's changed
over the years. Um, initially it was
lots of it was from the gigs you they
would get bookings. They would sell
vinyl and artist like WY who is widely
assumed to be the sort of the person
that made up the genre, the godfather of
grime, would sell thousands of of vinyls
from literally from the back of his back
of his car, from the boot of his car.
Um, obviously as a time changed, the
internet came in, decimated all that.
Um, now lots of times artists, the one
of the t-shirt I'm wearing is is um a
brand of one of the artists called Boy
Better Know. Uh, they sell a lot of
t-shirts. Um, they sell shows out
throughout throughout the world. Um,
Skeptor, uh, who is the brother of of
the guy who has his t-shirt company,
he's just gone to number two in the
charts and won the Mercury Prize. Uh, he
has endorsements with Levis, he has
endorsements with Unilo. So, you you the
top tier of artists, I would say, are
probably earning pretty pretty well. So,
they've becoming a bit mainstream then
in their own way. Yeah. Well, they're
becoming mainstream, but they're doing
it on their own terms. You know, this
this the Skeptor isn't signed to a major
record label. He's completely
independent. He's done all of this out
of his home in Tottenham, you know, a
very modest, I don't know, two two bed
house, whatever in Tottenham. That's how
this has all emerged. And so, what's the
the politics uh of it? Uh if the Rock
Against Racism historian uh feels that
Grime is the air. Uh what does he mean
by that? Well, I think it's getting more
and more into the lyrics, but I think
just from what I was saying earlier, I
think it's very culturally it's very
diverse. Grimes always been very
inclusive. So, it's done. So, it's been
it's been it's been progressive in that
sense in the way that it's just being so
anti-racist in practice rather than in
preach. And then you look into the music
and the lyrics and especially in in the
recent years, we're seeing much much
more of that. We're seeing much more
political progression from the MC's.
We're seeing them uh take it from beyond
the lyrics. They're going on marches
now. They're going on demonstrations uh
on their Instagram, on their platforms.
They're using that to to post really
provocative, interesting political
statements. Uh whether that's about
Black Lives Matter or um uh the missing
women in Boca Harim. Uh you know, these
these artists are really using their
platform for change. It's not, you know,
again, it's not about these obvious
stereotypes that we hear that they're
talking about money and women and chains
and nice cars. It's actually quite it's
actually quite different to that. Now,
punk never really made it in the United
States. Uh is Grime making it in the
United States? It would be great if it
did if it did crossover. Um, and lots of
lots of these big American stars like
Kanye are taking a big interest. You
know, you have Fel who's a huge star on
on Skeptor's album. Um, and we're seeing
we're seeing much more crosspollination
between the two cultures. It but it's it
now goes down to the American people.
You know, it's all very well that the
the artists like it, but will the actual
I mean, will they understand the
language? Will they understand the
references to East Enders, which you
know, you hear a lot of in in the
lyrics. Um, will they understand these
references? And do they want to
understand them? Long live the East End
of London and Glasgow. Yeah, of course.
Haty, it's fantastic talking to you.
Thank you so much for having the very
best of luck with the book. Thank you so
much. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.
[Music]
And now it's your turn to tell us what
you think through the portals of social
media. What's rattling gadry? So we
asked what Britain's postrexit uh
strategy is basically in trade and
industry and Euromman and activist says
we need article 50 to be activated ASAP
because negotiations are not possible
before it happens. Let us respect the
referendum. And Phil says the UK
government are navigating in the dark
without a compass.
Well uh the compass is the decision that
was made. It has to be implemented.
Anyone who seeks to block it will do so
at their peril. My own guess is that the
EU will be easier to reach a deal with
than people currently imagine because
it's not in their interest to have a
trade war with Britain. Well, that's all
the tweets that we have for today, which
alas means that's the end of the show.
But you can stay in touch with us on
social media on Twitter
RT_Sputnik or on Facebook Sputnik on
Russia Today. It's goodbye from me Gatri
and from me George Galloway. It's been
marvelous.
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