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We're also going to be discussing Mickey Mouse University courses. I know that's a phrase that angers you a little, Kamal. You can tell me why in just a moment, but are they a waste of students' money? And a subject very close to my heart, Gareth Southgate.
How do men do smart casual? Welcome to the Daily Team with me, Kevin Atomeney and me, Kamal Atomeney. We had a day, didn't we? We had a day.
Day of days. At the top of the news headlines with Arishisunak, an interview? Yes. Any thoughts?
Having stepped in it for at least a couple of hours, we were both online last night, answering our great readers' questions about it until nine o'clock. No, we had a...we've been in a shift yesterday, didn't we? I had some interesting feedback from some Tories, one of whom I shall quote now. Sorry, I'm going to get the phone up.
There's a degree of resentment towards me from some of the ready for Rishi Brigade, who think I've been too critical of him in the past in my columns. So one of them, this person, is a cabinet member, said, Oh, so has the PM1U over at last? My point back to them was it's not really about winning me over or winning you over. It's about winning over the electorate.
And I did point out that he did show his human side, and that was brilliant. But I did point out to some of his allies today, he should have been doing this 18 months ago. It's a bit too late in the day to be selling the real Rishi. Also, Kamal, I'm going to share this with our wonderful audience.
You managed in a very, very big and busy day to get to the hairdressers and have a bit of a colour pudding. I thought it was very brilliant of you. Talk about multi-tossing. You literally wanted to be from under the rollers, don't you?
Yeah, I was under like, I had a tint and heat to speed up the process. I mean, it's quite dark, but over the course of this election campaign, it will go greyer. Let's get into Diane Abbott. Really significant issue.
Labour's relationship with the left, the hard left, how you might describe that. We covered in the podcast a few days ago that Jeremy Corbyn was going to stand as an independent for Labour. He's actually launching his own independent campaign, fighting his seat, Islington North, later tonight. Sadie, I can't make it because I'd love to have been there.
I think he would like you to be there as well, and all his supporters. But for him, for Diane Abbott, let's just think back to 2019. Jeremy Corbyn was standing to be Prime Minister. Diane Abbott was Shadow Home Secretary.
So if he had won in 2017 or 2019, she would have been a significant member of the Cabinet. Now in this situation where Jeremy Corbyn has announced what he's doing, he was expelled from the Labour Party over anti-Semitism. Diane Abbott, much more confusing, let us run through the story. Now it goes right back to a letter she wrote to the Observer newspaper in April 2023.
And in this letter, she suggested that for Jewish, Irish and traveller people, they did not face racism as she described it all their lives. She said they did undoubtedly experience prejudice, which she said was similar to racism. And she equated that prejudice to being a redhead. Now, that created, of course, a huge controversy.
She did apologise for it, but she was expelled from the Labour Party over that letter. And Jewish people naturally took great offence to it. She has also, let's be honest, Kamal, been sort of guilty by association to Jeremy Corbyn, his administration associated with anti-Semitism, driving Jewish MPs like Luciana Berger out of the party. And along the way, Diane Abbott was always his white hand woman.
So I think that has tainted her. There's some confusion, though, isn't there, about what has actually happened? Because Diane Abbott has spoken to our colleagues on the telegraph this morning and suggested that although she had the whip restored... Let's just explain this, Kamal.
Yeah, let's take people through. I think we use words like whip. So what happened? So she was expelled from the party.
She was told that she had the Labour Whip withdrawn, which means she becomes an independent. She doesn't get to vote with Labour either way. She isn't seen as part of the Labour team pending an investigation. In December last year, she was investigated.
She carried out an anti-Semitism awareness course. And I think by February, they more or less knew her status, which was that she had apologised and tried to atone. Fair enough, it's been decided in the last day that she should have the whip restored, which means that she can be a sort of fully fledged Labour MP. However, she's told our colleagues that she's banned from standing in Hackney.
Her seat since 1987. Since forever, right? So I can't quite understand this. On one hand, you have the Labour Whip restored.
That would suggest that you'd want that person to fight the next general election in that seat. They've said no actually stand aside there and are similar to Corbin way, although she's been exonerated more than Corbin who was never left back into the party. When asked about this today on the campaign trail, Kia Starmer has denied Dainabot's version of events. The whip has been restored to Dainabot as you know, so she is a member of the parliamentary Labour Party.
And no decision has been taken to bar her going forward. So that's contradicting directly what Dainabot has told us. If she isn't barred, then she stands, although she's 70 years old. I spoke to a former Labour cabinet minister this morning who just suggested that there may be some bargaining going on behind the scenes.
Do they not want her to stand as an MP? Because if they become the next government, if they form the next government, they elevate her to the House of Lords. That's in itself a bit contradictory because, of course, they want to abolish the House of Lords, although that would take some years. Let's step back a little bit and think about Dainabot's status as a politician in the UK.
As we said, she first became an MP in 1987 and watching this morning, those pictures of when she first wins the seat in Hackney, a young black woman, the first black female MP in the United Kingdom, was amazing to see that energy, that fresh face, and how much she was going to possibly achieve. I remember, I was the boy, that would be just about 20 years old then. And to see someone like that break into House of Parliament was really significant. It was a real moment.
And she did do some incredible things in terms of the campaigning and the work she did. And she had some real allies. Don Butler, the MP for Brent Central, which is very close to Dainabot's Hackney seat. She was on BBC's News Night last night.
And she really leaned into, I think, what is a lot of the sense of Dainabot's political, why she matters politically for so many black and brown politicians? Dainabot was the first elected black female MP in our country. And that is something to be proud of. And when I entered Parliament in 2005, there were just two of us, just me and Dainabot, they couldn't tell us apart, but that is another matter.
But there were just two of us. And I think it's important that the Whits was returned to Dainabot. She went through the process. And I think the Labour Party has acted at a team.
I do feel that there are some people around Keir, not Keir himself, that maybe watch a little bit too much scandal, or the West Wing. I think that's how politics is done. That isn't how politics is done. And it is important that somebody like Dainabot, you know, gets her due respect.
No one can take away from Dainabot what she has achieved as a black woman in politics and actually as a woman in politics. However, you and I both know that she has got a checkered history and that she is quite a complex and complicated character. She listened to her on BBC's Question Time because she addressed the windrush scandal with her kind of characteristic rigour. Windrush Generation, who people are shedding crocodile tears about now.
I knew that generation was my parents' generation. There is no more patriotic group of people. There was no more harder working cohort of people. And the way that had been treated is shameful.
So that's a great moment from Dainabot in 2018. However, unfortunately, she has heard her share of on-air gaffes. A lot of people remember the car crash interview she did with Nick Ferrari on LBC during the 2017 election campaign when she struggled with her mathematics. So how much would 10,000 police officers cost?
Well, if we recruit the 10,000 police men and women over a four-year period, we believe it'll be about £300,000. £300,000? Sorry, £10,000 police officers. What do you say to them?
No, I mean, sorry. How much will they cost? They will cost. They will, it will cost about £80 million.
About £80 million? I think she described that as a brain fade, I think, from memory. She certainly, as you say, has had some controversies. Many people asked whether she had the skills necessary to be a leading cabinet member.
But this was someone who also won the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Award in 2011. So she has had this quite volatile career. And I think the racism point that was raised by that appalling letter to the observer about the difference between prejudice and racism, and as ever on a lot of the left, they really misunderstand what racism actually is for the people affected, not just Jewish people, but in this instance, travellers and Irish people as well, that somehow there's a ranking, there's sort of victim Olympics. And I knew Diane really quite well, I previously been political editor.
And we really sort of fell out is too strong, but we drifted apart over Tony Blair and was he really the right future for the Labour Party? And then, of course, the Iraq War and all the things that came out of that. And I think the sadness for Diane is that she's sort of stuck in a bit of a rut, had this almost resurrection under Jeremy Corbyn, and then has gone back into this rather trench-like position. And my main emotion now is sort of to feel sorry for her.
She's an older woman now, she's got people standing outside her house. She has faced horrendous abuse for being Black, for being a woman, particularly on social media. So there is some sympathy there. The issue now, of course, Camilla is kissed, aren't they?
Do you think this is working for him? I.e., I'm fighting the left. It's good for me to show that I'm not the person, even though I stood on a fairly Corbin Easter ticket in 2020 when I became leader. Or is it, this all looks a bit confused.
Does it tell us something about the way starma operates? If it looks as if Diane Abbott is being made a scapegoat of in order for Kia Starma to kind of flex his moderate muscles, then I think it looks bad. I'm no fan of Diane Abbott, or indeed her fellow comrade, Jeremy Corbyn, all their politics, all their opinions on the Jewish issue. However, it's this idea of making an example of her because she's so closely aligned with Corbin.
Therefore, you get into it. Is it fair that she is guilty by association when she's apologized? She's apologized for what she said and what she wrote. Also, on a wider level, this actually just draws attention back to the fact that starma spent four years propping up Corbin.
I mean, is he in a position to judge Diane Abbott? He was on this man's shadow front bench. For starma, I think that he would sense that this is a net. Positive is the wrong word, but that the public will hear more loudly, I'm taking tough action against all those people that the public don't like very much, rather than this is all a little bit confusing.
Why this is a discussion being had a matter of days before the final candidates have to be agreed by Labor. I think does question something about the Labor Party's operation. Quick word on what our readers think, because you might imagine on the telegraph that everyone would be vehemently against Diane Abbott being allowed to stand again for Labor. However, Jackie Jay, I think reflects my view on this.
I don't like Diane Abbott's views, never have. But this is an appalling case of double standards. If you were happy to have her in the party, then she should have a right to stand in her constituency. If not, then you shouldn't restore the whip.
I hope she stands as an independent and wins, purely to teach you who ever made this stupid decision a lesson. Coming up next, we talk about Mickey Mouse University courses and whether they're worth the paper they've written on them. Broke showed her for an Aisha, CIBC Investors Edge, while at the carnival. Aisha thinks gut-wrenching ups and downs should be for roller-coaches.
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Acast.acast.com slash advertised. Shall we have a moment to praise our colleague Cara Mugen? Because she's got a new bed of lies episode out. So anyone listening to us when we've covered the infected blood scandal will have heard Cara's very informative voice on this subject.
And at the weekend, she broke the news of some 500 victims suing the Department of Health for misfeasance in public office. The former pupils of that school that was very badly affected by the true laws, they're going to be suing the government. All of this and more is going to be included in a bonus episode of her podcast, Bed of Lies. It's available now wherever you get your podcast.
So as you download the daily tea, download Bed of Lies 2. Kamal, hot off the heels of asking 18-year-olds to do national service, following requiring 18-year-olds to continue with their mathematical studies. We now have another offering from the Tories to the Utah today, if I may call them that. The Generation Z's, anyone doing a Mickey Mouse degree will find that they won't have anything to study under the Conservatives because they're trying to scrap them.
I can see you bristling. No, I just want to say, you did raise at the beginning. I like this phrase, Mickey Mouse. And I am going to admit to our millions of listeners, the tribe that is the daily tea, calling the Mickey Mouse, I do find really uncomfortable.
But we're going to unpack that a little later. But let's tell our brilliant audience, first of all, what have the Conservatives announced. I just want to say as well, we picked this up, didn't we, with our Rishi Sunak interview, which if you haven't heard, please do go and listen to. This is the third big policy announcement, or maybe even the fourth, that the Conservatives have made during the campaign.
In sharp contrast to Labour, who have not announced anything. Labour is going for, I think Ben Displabid, and you've been writing Smith out brilliant, please go and listen to the Ming Vars policy. You know, keep quiet, get over to the other side of the room without dropping the vars and say as little as possible. Kissed on.
Rishi Sunak, I'm so far behind in the polls, I'm just going to chuck a load of policy spaghetti at the wall and hope that various coalitions of people, oh, I quite like that national service, oh, I quite like that. Pensions quadruple lock where taxes won't be put on, any more taxes won't be put on, the state pension. Oh, I quite like the idea of stopping some degrees because they're called Mickey Mouse. It's become a very interesting dividing line, Conservatives activity, Labour science.
Let's put a little bit of Parmesan on that spaghetti. Because Gillian Keegan, the education sector, has announced this policy with these words. We will outlaw ripoff degrees so that no more students are lured onto courses that don't deliver the outcomes people deserve. Our clear plan will be to help hundreds of thousands of young people find a path to a financially secure future.
So what the Conservatives are saying is that they're going to axe degrees, which they don't think result in good earnings and good jobs for graduates, and instead plow that money into funding 100,000 extra apprenticeships a year of rise of nearly a third compared to the 340,000 total places offered last year. To be fair, I do bristle a little bit at the terminology, Mickey Mouse, because you could apply that perhaps to somebody studying journalism or graphic design, and I'm looking out to the news from now and I'm seeing people who must have done those courses at university doing really, really well at the telegraph. I don't like this idea of looking down your nose at a creative subject, but taking history, politics and economics very seriously. So agree with that.
I did a serious degree in a vertical because I studied law. I did use to take Mickey out of my best friend for studying PR, and I said, how's the colouring and going, which is more of a slight on me than my friend? Can I add? She's been very, very well in the PR world.
However, I don't know if some students are being offered value for money now that they're having to pay over nine grand a year for their university courses. We've got a problem with the quality of the learning that's offered, and I think a bit of dishonesty by UCAS, which is the body which controls university applications when it comes to telling students whether they're going to get full in-person teaching or online lessons. It's an interesting piece of command, would you believe, that I read in The Guardian. Sometimes I do read it, saying that the student experience has really degenerated since Covid.
This idea that more lectures are being put online so students can watch them at their leisure, that then disincentivises them from coming on to campus, we then get issues with social exclusion and loneliness. Attendance levels, anecdotally in this piece, are low. One lecturer in a London university said attendance was regularly around 30%. Students are spending a huge amount of money on this study, 30 grand, that they have to pay back over the course of their working life.
If you're going to study something that isn't going to result in decent earnings and a decent job, and indeed they're all around university experience that does help to shape people, why would you do it? And I thought this was interesting on apprenticeships. According to the Centre for Policy Studies, those who complete a level three apprenticeship are likely to earn an additional 77 to 117 grand over their working life. So we've got into this two-tier system, a bit like grammars and secondary modern, that we're unfairly maligning apprenticeships because we're not seeing them as important as degrees, when actually people can come out of an apprenticeship and earn more money than they might if they come out of a degree course.
I think there are two different things here. There's Mickey Mouse courses, which is basically a standard of course. Is it good enough? Is it actually giving you solid education in a thing that's going to help you on your career and kind of your future life?
And then there's, do we have enough highly skilled people of whatever type? There's brilliant piece in the telegraph in the money section. And the headlight is, I did a Mickey Mouse degree and now I'm CEO, earning a six-figure salary. And it starts off like Andrew Gardner, graduated from the University of Sulford with a two-one in sports and leisure management.
And he remembers being asked why he had just spent three years getting a degree in push-ups. And just as you say about graphic design or many of these areas which are connected with creativity are looked down upon. I love the point you make about snobbery. There is a standards issue around the vast expansion in universities that we have seen over the past 40 years have the standards been maintained.
But actually, we don't have an in comparison to some of our main competitors. Enough highly skilled graduates. The number of highly skilled graduates we need for the economy, particularly if we are going to cut the amount of immigration we're going to get into this country. And again, Rishi Sunai Prime Minister told us yesterday he is going to do that.
And I'm not convinced that Labour want to see much higher levels of immigration because it is such a controversial issue for so many people. So the number of highly skilled jobs we will need domestically in the UK as proportion of all the jobs he's only going to grow. If you look at some of the competitors, South Korea, Japan, Canada, I was looking these up this morning, 60 to 70% of young people go into higher education, university, further education. I think we should add apprenticeships into that mix.
We should all be seen as part of that journey into valuable work. Because as you say, a degree is not simply about pounds and pounds. If I go back to when I was starting my university life, less than 10% of young people went to university. It was a very elitist system.
A very high proportion of middle class children went to university and a very low proportion of lower income children. The big revolution actually started under John Major. You also always told me Blair did the 50%, 40% and 50% of all young people to go into university. Actually, John Major started much of the revolution in the growth of higher education.
That was the right journey. I don't think that we should be getting into what one conserves, I spoke to, of course, of unifobia. This idea we need to go back to this rather more elitist system because we need high grade, highly talented people to help our productivity, which will help our growth. And that's where we need to focus.
One of our brilliant producers, Lilian, has done a deep dive into some of the data. This is telegraph analysis that we've run on the website and in the paper. Which degrees do you think yield the highest earnings come on per subject? Yes.
Computer science and economics. Medicine and dentistry. Apparently, you leave on an average salary of 52 grand after five years across all UK universities. Which do you think is the lowest earning degree from a specific university?
Golly, given you've laughed slightly. I wonder, is it media studies? Yes, it's media journalism and communication degrees from the University of Hull. Apparently, grads earned on average 16 grand after five years according to Department of Education data.
The course offers a module in Disney studies. By the way, anyone listening to this who wants to be a journalist has many roots into this industry. You can come straight from school at 16 if you've got enough gumption and equally, you don't need to study journalism at university to be a journalist, just to clarify. I think it's one of these huge issues that's not spoken about enough.
The last really huge debate around education was really under new labour. And Michael Gove did put in some real reforms under the Conservative Government of the last 14 years, which have paid some positive dividends. I think, Commander, we should come back to this. We should watch this.
And I think higher education in particular, the huge number of foreign students that needed, the huge debts being wrapped up, the access issues, the funding issues, the skills issues, I think, is very, very important for the future, and it's a good debate to have. Now, Kamal, I am dying to hear... This is your keenest bit of the day, I know. Your reaction to Gareth Southgate announcing that he's going to be ditching the three-piece suit at the Euros and opting for nowhere.
Well, I'm wearing my peckwadiola rollneck today, as you know. And I'm very rather proud of it, as you also know. I have struggled. Let me share with you my pain.
I think it's important on this, the daily teapot cast that people are allowed to be honest about their pain. Very important. I have always struggled with this. I was always known as kind of sharp-suited, you know.
I turned up to my first-ever job at a tiny local paper outside Glasgow in a three-piece suit. I don't think they knew what had hit them in Dumbarton. So you never thought it would be an umpire? To be an umpire?
I don't think the Lennox Herald in Dumbarton had ever seen really anything like it. I'm not going to use this guy. I know I was very much ready for my professional career. I thought I'd better dress up and look good.
And I've worn a suit ever since. But then, about ten years ago, I thought this is ridiculous. And particularly, actually, for good reason, thinking about access, Gareth Southgate has made a similar point. It can make you seem your authority put people off being able to engage in a conversation or anything.
If you're coming in your big suit and younger generations, younger people, to do not dress like that. Yeah, let's just say what you... As to that sort of teacher-pupal relationship. Yes, speaking to GQ's Match Fits column, Southgate said, whenever you put something on, you're making some sort of statement, aren't you?
I am conscious of that now. When you're working with young lads, you don't want to be too stiff in what you're doing or wearing. So that's why he's now opting for what he says will be more relaxed, short-sleeved knits. Yeah, so I had a short-sleeved knits on yesterday.
But the problem is that it doesn't come naturally. So to my... I think Gareth Southgate is slightly younger than me. But our generation find it very hard to still look like you're taking your job seriously, but also that you are relaxed enough to be approachable.
Because I don't want to come into work looking like I've just come off a hill or I've come off a football pitch or I've... I mean, I'm a jogging pantsom, you know... In your pajamas, sweat-taught. I can't be wearing them, you have them.
But I think there is... It's a really... And also for men, there are not that many options which aren't. There was always a joke at the BBC, the Blue Shirts.
Lots and lots of men at the BBC wore a blue shirt because they didn't want to be stiff to wear a suit and a white shirt. So they wore a blue shirt. And you just felt a bit sorry for all those men struggling to find that in a relaxed self. My former editor of the Sunday Express, Martin Townsend, once addressed the newsroom and said this, reporters who wear ties get stories.
And I said, even the girls, he said, especially the girls. I didn't actually have a wear-a-suit and tie after that. Can I confess something? I wasn't happy with my outfit yesterday to interview the Prime Minister.
I was trying to do that kind of wide-leg trouser thing. And then I looked at all of the images of our great day together with Rishi Zunak. And my trousers are really creased and it's annoyed me. I wanted to wear, I wish I'd worn this yesterday, but I'm wearing sort of wide-led white jeans.
And I'm a bit of a traditionist and I do question whether I should be wearing any denim at work. Now, what we want, you looked beautiful yesterday. Come on, and you look beautiful today. But were you happy with your outfit?
I also want to, as you know, and you did look at me and said, you look at me in that classic line. Are you wearing that jacket? In a slightly rhetorical phrase, you can't be. But I did wear the jacket, but I also was less than 100% happy with my outfit yesterday.
But the key was in the content, of course. But we want to hear from our brilliant daily tea audience, particularly men, what do you wear? Do you look like you're taking work seriously? But also to be maybe slightly less or steer that a suit can look a bit austere.
Can I just say, by the way, the Prime Minister strolled in here, no tie, white shirt, sleeves rolled up. It was actually quite smart cash, the vibe I felt. Well, that's us for another slightly calmer day, Kamal. And we will be back, of course, tomorrow at 5pm with the election latest and any other breaking news.
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