Why Is The UK Prison System Failing? | Steve Gillan

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1:12Why are prisons so low down on the government's priority list? Is it because they simply don't care about prisoners? They've committed a crime? Maybe they think who cares anyway? And also, are prison officers working in safe conditions? Did you know that prison officers have had their right to strike removed from them? To have all of these conversations, today I've invited Steve Gillen, who is the General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association, on to Bold Politics.

1:43Steve, thank you so much for coming on Bold Politics. To set out the scene, we met only a week or two ago in Parliament where you reached out to me for a meeting to find out mine and the Green Party's positions, particularly around prisons and workers' rights, particularly with prison officers. And I felt like it was a really good meeting and you were there to ask me lots of questions. I asked you a couple of things and every time you spoke, It was really interesting. And you said lots of things that I would expect someone who has worked in the prisons to say. And you said some things that I didn't expect you to say.

2:12So I'm delighted that you then accepted my invitation for me to turn the tables around and ask you some questions. Yeah, brilliant. And I look forward to it as well. And yes, we did have an interesting dialogue last week. And it was great to meet you. So beginning at the very beginning, you are the General Secretary of the POA. Could you explain to our viewers what the POA is? Yeah, of course. We are a trade union. It's 33 ,000 strong membership with 4 ,000 retired members as well. So about 37 ,000 members in all. We are the largest trade union in the United Kingdom that represents prison officer grades and operational support grades, including the private sector.

2:50So we're very proud of that. We've been operating since 1939 and we go from strength to strength with our membership. We're the only recognised trade union in the UK for prison officer related issues. And it's worth saying with another hat, you're president of the Trade Union Congress at the moment as well. Yes, I'm also, and I'm quite proud of that on behalf of my union, that it's the first time that a general secretary has been TUC president. So I don't take that lightly. I think it's good for my trade union. But personally as well, I'm immensely proud of wearing the two hats this year, although to be fair, it's been a hell of a lot of work.

3:29I can imagine that there's a lot to do at the moment. So I suppose let's start at the beginning. What is the prison system looking like in England and Wales right now? Well, in England and Wales, I mean, I've been on record, as have many national officials within the POA, to say that we are in crisis. and really and truly we are in crisis because one we're vastly overcrowded i can only say that back you know in the years of austerity some would say we're still in the years of austerity but back with the coalition government back in 2012 i can only describe it as financial vandalism to the criminal justice system the taking out of thousands of years of experience from prison officers and making them effectively on a voluntary basis redundant.

4:19That didn't help anything. We pleaded with the government not to do it at that time, bearing in mind we haven't got the right to strike. Had we had the right to strike back then, I can assure you there may have been a different dialogue and perception with regards to that because we would have used all our might to stop the vandalism of the prison service at that time. I want to come on to Right to Strike for sure in a moment because I think lots of people will be shocked that workers can't withdraw their labour and we'll talk about why that is and why that shouldn't be. Before that though, because you've worked in a prison service yourself for decades, how have you seen the conditions kind of degrade and what real impact has had that on people who work in our prisons?

5:03And the prisoners themselves, I suppose. Yeah, when I started in the prison service in 1991, HMP Chelmsford, The prison population around that time was about 43 ,000 prisoner population. It's now double that. There was more staff back then. There was more prison officer grades back then looking after 43 ,000 prisoners than there is now. But the main difference for me is the funding aspect. You know, you had the Blair years where the talk was talk on crime, trying to boost it up to say tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Before that, you had Michael Howard saying prison works and different things.

5:46But I think you've got to go back many years before that, because by the way, back then the prison service wasn't perfect, nowhere near it. But it's certainly not perfect now. And it's a lot worse than it was then. there are some improvements like there's no slopping out now where there was when I joined the prison service and of course you then had the Napier challenge in in the courts and that was a prisoner in Scotland that won the case about slopping out so that effectively finished in England and Wales as well and there was a bit of investment in order to make it slightly better but But when you're still sharing a cell, two and three to a cell, that's designed for one, it's still inhumane.

6:29Let's be clear, it's not good for the prisoners and it's not good for staff. I actually see the main differences now. One, the modern-day prison officer is more violent, I think, than when I started, and it was violent enough then. Society's probably more violent, in my view, and that doesn't stop at the prison gates. There's a lot of organised crime. There's a lot of organised gangs. There's lots of drug taking. And it's my members that are on the receiving end of that. And what I found really curious when we spoke without pushing you into a position, we had a conversation, for instance, about the legalisation of drugs, which you don't have a firm position on, but it struck me that you were interested to hear more about the evidence.

7:11I mean, I'll keep an open mind as General Secretary. My union hasn't got a policy on drugs, quite frankly. But we're there to be persuaded about doing it. You know, you look at the Dutch system, you look at what's happening in Portugal, you even look at Glasgow, what they're doing. Actually, they treat it now as a health issue more than criminality. And they are seeing some results in relation to that. So I will always keep an open mind because we've got a major drug problem in prisons right now. There's no doubting that. And the only people that are gaining out of that is really the organized crime gangs by getting into prisons one way or another, whether that's through drones, and I will say through a minority of corrupt staff, because I can't ignore that.

8:05And we've been pushing for much more severe sentences for staff that are caught because they're not just a danger to themselves or to the security of prisons. They're a danger to other prison staff. And the vast majority of prison staff are really good professional people and they've got nothing to do with any form of corruption within the service. The other thing that struck me when speaking to you is I think people probably have a stereotype of the idea of a prison officer pitting themselves against a prisoner, but that didn't seem to be your view at all, actually. You seem to have a remarkably compassionate view towards people who have made mistakes in life.

8:46There are a lot of compassionate prison officer grades out there that spend a lot of time, in their own time actually, after work, maybe worried about a particular prison officer that will stay. Look, I'm not saying everybody's perfect because you will get your bad eggs. It doesn't matter what occupation you're in. You will always get those that abuse their authority. And prison officers are no different. So there are some bad eggs. I'm not denying that. But the reality for me is I would say 98 % of our membership are good public servants that want to do a good job, that want to see an end product, actually.

9:27from someone that comes in to the prison and in the end they don't come back. But at the moment we've got a revolving door. And it's nice to see some of the success cases where prisoners themselves will write in thanking the staff for the way that they were treated. I mean, it's pretty remarkable and I feel like that's exactly what they're working on. But it doesn't make a headline, does it? Yeah, exactly. The media are always looking for those horrible stories. Absolutely. It's interesting. You talk about the revolving door there and the reoffending rates, which I don't have exact numbers, but I just know they're pretty sky high.

10:00What do you think is going wrong there? Why are people leaving prison and then ending up almost immediately back? I actually think there's not enough done, there's not enough invested in order to keep people out the criminal justice system in the first place. And once someone's in the system, it's very difficult for them to break out of the system. And what I mean by that, if you recall back in the days where Thatcher said she wanted care in the community. What an absolute failure that was because there was many low, medium, secure psychiatric places where people were diverted to that needed help.

10:42And unfortunately, when all those places were shut down in our communities, some of those poor souls were left to take their own medication and different things. And sometimes it didn't happen. And unfortunately, a lot of the times, inevitably, they went before the courts. The courts had nowhere else to put them. And we've got anecdotal evidence on this that magistrates and judges will say, well, at least they're getting three meals a day and they're getting treatment programs in prison, so we're going to put them in prison. Let me be clear. When I started in the prison service, I never had one day of mental health training.

11:22Gosh. Not one. It's improved slightly, but not at its best. We are not the correct people to be looking after mentally ill people. And mentally ill people, if we've got any compassion in Great Britain, should be diverted away from prison. And perhaps we wouldn't have 87 ,000 prisoners and having to release early in order to facilitate. So I actually think something needs to be focused more. At an early age, whether it's school age, having programs to keep people away from prison. I might be doing a disservice to my members because I'm not careful. I'll be talking them out of a job. But surely that's got to be better than warehousing people and just locking people up.

12:06You're slightly joking there, but I think the point is we would still need those prison officers. They just wouldn't have to be in unsafe conditions where things were overcrowded. I'm presuming you've met many, many justice secretaries and prison ministers, etc. over successive governments. I presume you've been promised all sorts of things, and I'm not expecting you to portray confidences on a podcast. But why have those things not been delivered? Why have prisons never been given the priority that they need for such a huge sector? Because prisons aren't top of the list. They're way down when it comes to it.

12:36So, for example, you're absolutely right. I've lost count of how many prisons ministers and justice secretaries that we've actually had. The only constant, actually, is the trade union. The trade union is the constant. And we're quite proud of that because every time someone new comes in, I find myself like a broken down record, repeating the same things over and over again. And we have reviews after reviews. and now we've got another one which headed by Amber Rudd. So we're due to meet Amber Rudd very shortly and I'll be perfectly honest with her. It's not a review that we need. It's actually decision-making of all political parties, quite frankly, to get together and say what's good for not just the prison service but the whole criminal justice system.

13:31And Amber Rudd should know that as an ex-home secretary because she was part of the problem. And I'll be telling her that next week. Her government were part of the problem. It does seem odd to appoint someone to do a review who was so intrinsic in quite recent history and not dealing with the problem that you're now reviewing. I find it extremely odd. And I'm not being critical of Amber Rudd, that person. She may well come out now that she's free to do so to actually maybe say, do you know what? What I learned off the trade union and their members is the truth and we're missing a trick because they should be speaking to the very people that are doing the job.

14:11But unfortunately, there's that competition about who can be toughest on crime and who can deliver to be toughest on crime. And all the political parties, I'm afraid, have fallen into that because they want to please the sun in the mail because it's them who dictate the policy in this country with regards to criminality. That's wrong. I push back on all the political parties. Yeah. I mean, I'm pushing back on all the political parties and I'm actually a card-carrying Labour Party member. Sure. But the reality is there's criticisms of them as well. They don't get a free pass on this issue and neither do the Tories, neither do the Lib Dems because they were part of the coalition and different things.

14:52Neither would the Greens if they don't support us on our right to strike, which clearly we've had that conversation and you do believe in workers' rights, which is refreshing to hear. But again, I've heard that off of loads of politicians. Tony Blair promised it back in the 90s. Jack Straw promised to stop privatisation of prisons because he called it morally repugnant. But it continued. I think when we had that conversation, I talked about Green Party policy not just being to roll back some of the recent anti-trade union laws, but to go all the way back to 1979, which is under Thatcher's government, where she really started to dismantle so much or tried to dismantle so much of the structures.

15:29And that's refreshing to hear, actually. And so if we get on to right to strike, again, some people will be familiar with this, some won't. But I feel like most people know it's a basic kind of human right to be able to withdraw your work if pay is not being met, but just as important, healthy working conditions that also keep you safe. And I know particularly within the prisons at the moment, you're really putting a focus on those healthy working conditions. We've got our campaigns. Some of those campaigns are quite logical campaigns surrounding health and safety, surrounding a basic fundamental human right, i.e.

16:01to withdraw your labor as a last resort, and a decent retirement age as well for prison officers and related grades. because I just can't imagine prison officers working to the age of 68, which could be thrust upon them very, well, quicker, because they're doing a review of the state pension age at the moment, and we've got right to retire, a link to state pension age, which is totally wrong. Now, every politician and every political party agrees with me, but they've not done anything about it. in relation to the right to strike there may be those members of the general public that might find that abhorrent but the reality is up until 1994 we did have the right to strike and it was a conservative government that took that right away and let me make it absolutely clear when Michael Howard did so it wasn't over a pay dispute it wasn't over working hours it wasn't over terms conditions.

17:06It was over overcrowding of prisons back then, but only held 43 ,000. That's what it was about. And they locked out at Preston and a couple of other establishments. And that was the reason that that brutal legislation was brought in. The legislation is that punitive in that if I was to say to our members in a circular, do not work voluntary additional hours, that's industrial action. That is illegal under that act. And of course, we then go before the courts by way of injunctions and different things. And the latest one in 2017 was to have a contempt of court against his award. And we were fined£200 ,000 with the threat of myself and our national chair, Mark Fairhurst, have been imprisoned if there was such a hideous act again of protecting our members' health and safety.

18:05And yet you've got one piece of legislation that actually says you're legally obliged to protect your health and safety and the health and safety around you as well. When we have taken action on health and safety as a result and prisons have been brought to a standstill, the letters that we get in from ex-prisoners say well done because you're not only trying to make it better for yourselves you're trying to make it better for those in your care as i understand the team is a minimum service level so this isn't striking and you know the prison is just well we're not reckless we wouldn't do that right and when we did in 2007 and we called it a strike then we didn't call it health and safety legislation we called it we're going out and strike because you're not taken as seriously on pay.

18:55At that time, they interfered with the pay review body who had recommended X and they capped it for all public sector workers. That was under a Labour government, by the way. And they capped it and we walked out and we told Jack Straff what we were going to do. He was in France at the time. He didn't believe us. And we did. And we brought No, am I proud of that? I'm proud of my members that they actually did that, but it should never have come to that in the first place. And we'd done rounds in the TV studios actually saying that at that time, and it was massive news. It was big news. First and foremost, though, we made sure that if there was any incident within the prisons, then prison officers went back in to deal with those incidents, including looking after vulnerable prisoners as well.

19:48And we did that. We're not totally reckless. We understand that we're dealing with the human element as well. But prison officers are also human beings. And they've got a right to earn a decent wage in difficult circumstances, have a decent retirement age. And we're not asking for any favours. as always we're asking is parity with other uniformed services and different things. I see the threats were there for the doctors recently, that it may be time to restrict them. Absolutely insane to even contemplate that. And I actually think if they treated people decently in the first place, there'd be no need for anybody to take any form of industrial action.

20:33Industrial action is a last resort. Nobody wants to lose money because that's actually what happens when people are on strike.

21:04hats. You shouldn't have to be your own IT department as well. That's why I rely on AT &T Business. They keep your connectivity reliable so you have one less thing to worry about. Powered by AT &T Business. Built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect hire. Skills First Hiring helps you see talent others miss like more than 70 million stars skilled through alternative routes let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60 % more likely to find a successful hire hire skills first learn why at tear the paper ceiling.org brought to you by opportunity at work and the ad council

21:58i've not brought you on the podcast to put pressure on you because i'm a better host than that. But it's interesting when you say you're a card-carrying Labour member because I hear this a lot from people who are still in the Labour Party but then will recite a whole, you know, recent history and wider history of eroding workers' rights. How do you kind of marry that circle without putting lots of pressure on you? Well, look, since leaving school, you know, from the age of 18, I have always voted Labour. And the reason I say that is because even a poor Labour government is always better than a Conservative one.

22:29That's the way I view it. It seems to me at this minute in time that this particular Labour government have actually been embarrassed to talk about the Employment Rights Act of 2025, almost as if it's not the right thing to do to say, actually, we want workers to be treated well in the workplace. We want young people to be paid better. We want to get rid of the gig economy jobs and so forth. But I'm not blind to the fact that I've been let down in the past by a Labour government. But my view is sometimes is that you fight from within. If I'm not a card-carrying Labour Party member, I haven't got a voice.

23:16But if I'm in it, I have got a voice. But what I would push back on, I guess, is that we're now in a five-party, six-party system. It's understand that people felt in the past they had a voice from within but there's a not now stronger evidence that actually being without has been the stronger voice in terms of pushing Labour in a better direction. I think politics are changing dramatically all over the world actually and we are seeing lots of the British public effectively saying we've had enough of the two main parties or you could say the three main parties being the Lib Dems of the past and things like that.

23:54So there is an element of truth in that, and that's why people have gone to the likes of reform, because they see them as perhaps their saviour. Let me tell you, they're no saviour for working people. They voted against the Employment Rights Act. There's no doubt about that. They're all millionaires and multimillionaires, and they do the bidding of the billionaires. They're not the party of working people. But Labour have got to fill that gap. Now, I know that you would say that the Green Party are filling that gap because they're more left-wing than what Labour are. And in many respects, Zach, I commend you for going to the left.

24:35But I don't want you to go to the left too much because one of your candidates up in Scotland said that there shouldn't be any prisons. Now, that would make all my members redundant and we've got to operate in the real world. we understand that you know there's lots of people in prison that should be diverted away from prison but let me make absolutely clear there's also those individuals in prison that thoroughly deserve to be in prison and victims of crime should always come first second and third what you were saying about reform was particularly interesting because there i think there is this preconception from the labor government or labor ministers that working people in inverted commas are now looking at reform because they're upset with immigration and that they want to see immigration numbers come down.

25:22But it also strikes me the amount of time I spend in trade unions and with workers that that's not actually true. What people are bothered about is inequality. And when migration is blamed as a driver of inequality, then that's an easy narrative to kind of run along with. But actually when you have that conversation, it becomes relatively easy to unpick it. I think it's more complex as well, Zach, given that we now live in a world of social media, algorithms, social influencers, or so-called social influencers, and there's a lot of money to be made from it. And the far right, I'll be quite honest with you, they are very well organized, not just in this country, but all over the world.

26:06I've seen it in Colombia. I've seen it in the South American countries. We've seen it in places like Hungary, all over Europe and different things. And there's lots of money being pumped into it by very rich people that fear left-wing groups because they might find that their wealth might be redistributed. And that's what they fear. So therefore, they fund people to create fear very effectively through social media. And it's dead easy when people are caught up in a cost-of-living crisis to look left or right and say, that person there's to blame. They're taking my job. They're taking my house.

26:53They're taking my doctor's appointment and so forth. And we've got to break down those myths. And I think the trade union movement are the people that have got to do that because politicians aren't going to do it. They just sling mud at each other. And I think we've got to do it. And we started that at our conference, actually, this year. Now, personally, I've been attacked on social media and different things for allegedly being woke. Now, that's a word. I've just done an article on it in our magazine, funnily enough, because that's a word that's been hijacked by the far right because the word woke meant being politically aware of groups of people such as whether it's immigrants, whether it's black people, whether it's gays, whether it's lesbians, whether it's transgender, any minority groups, to make sure that there was equality for them.

27:46That's what that was about, woke. Now, I'm quite proud to be woke then, if that's what people want to label, but it's almost used now as a way of an insult to, oh, he's so woke and different things. We've got to break that down. and we've got to get back to decent politics. I look at the politics. I mean, Jeremy Corbyn was criticised for saying he wanted to do things in a kinder way. He was right, by the way, for saying that. And he was ridiculed for it. And then, of course, we had the murder of Joe Cox, the murder of David Amess. Politicians have got to be wise about the words that they use because it can be an incendiary device that when they go out and say about, well, it's this group of people over here, they're the ones, watch our daughters and our women from a particular group of people.

28:44It's just nonsense, to be honest with you. But unfortunately, when people during a cost-of-living crisis are looking for someone to blame, they will blame other ordinary working people that might be fleeing their own country. Don't get me wrong, there are individuals that are here that shouldn't be here. There's no mistake in that. And I actually think that we do need to tighten up on immigration rules and different things. But we've got to be compassionate as well, because let's face it, Britain holds onto the coattails of America in every conflict around the world. And sometimes you reap what you sow with foreign policy.

29:24Just coming from a meeting where the mayor of London was talking about the lack of house building, of council house building that's going on. And some of that being due to a skills gap, which was created as a result of Brexit. And so I think, you know, we don't just want migration because we need people to work and do those jobs. But that's certainly part of what makes migration. Listening to everything you just said, it just feels like in the wider conversation, there's a lack of nuance. So for instance, we need to abolish prisons is one extreme position. But then at the same time, what I'm hearing you say is we need to reduce overcrowding in prisons.

29:56I know one thing I spoke to you about was mothers, for instance, who have been put in prisons for stealing nappies or baby food. Just seems like a really ridiculous and inhumane use of everyone's time. Now, of course, I want everyone to obey the law. There's a reason why we have the law. And at the same time, if people are living in poverty and you give them no other choice, then you can understand why people make those decisions and prison probably isn't the appropriate place for them. No, I agree with you, Zach. And that's one end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got some women prisoners that need to be in prison because of the heinous crimes that they have committed against their victims, sometimes including their children as well.

30:34And there's been lots of cases regarding that that have hit national newspapers. But yeah, I mean, the prison population is far too high. I mean, the Strangeways riot, when that happened, all the evidence came out that we were overcrowded. the conditions were awful and different things. So that was one aspect to it. But we seem to have learned nothing 30-odd years later and we still go down the same rabbit holes to say, well, you know, we'll bury heads in this and hopefully it will all go away. And now we're reaping what we're sowing because the Labour government have had to introduce another sphere of early release, which is causing some anxiety amongst not just the political foes, but also the general public.

31:22I mean, I listened to a debate last week, which was an excellent debate, between a solicitor and our national chair, Mark Fairhurst, on a podcast. Between them, they absolutely nailed it. You know, writing to victims to tell them that their rapist offender is getting out early, but don't worry about it because there'll be an exclusion zone and they'll be wearing an ankle tag by a private provider that's failed in the past. I don't think if that was a relative of mine, I don't think I'd be too pleased. And you mentioned a private provider there. That's obviously been a huge issue that we've not yet spoken about.

32:00What has been the effect of kind of outsourcing and the use of private companies in the prison system? The Labour Party Manifesto, first and foremost, was to have the biggest generation of insourcing. We've not seen that. and Capita were awarded the contract within the civil service for pensions. What a disaster it has been. I've got members that have lost their loved ones that haven't been paid a death benefit. They haven't been paid a pension. Some have waited 15 months. So I've raised that at the highest level. And I'm glad to see that they're finally acting by saying to Capita, we're putting you on alert now that you're failing and different things.

32:43I would like to see them go further and insource it. But I recognise that they've got to get rid of that backlog first because first and foremost, it's about dealing with our members who are due to retire, who haven't even got any figures, those who are bereaved, those who are awaiting medical inefficiency payments and so forth. And that's just the tip of the iceberg within the prison service. It's civil service-wide. So not only were they given that, but they were also given the payroll system as well. And it seems to me that failed companies, time and time again, are being rewarded for failure rather than bringing them back in-house into the public sector where they belong, actually.

33:30We've seen far too much of this default position to say, well, it's cheaper for the public purse. Let's put it out to tender and let's give it to a private company. It's not the answer. It never has been. And time and time again, that's been proved, whether it's private prisons. Don't get me wrong. There's been some operators there within the private prison estate where we've got a real good recognition deals with and we've got on very well with them in negotiations and so forth. But primarily, is it right to earn a profit out of incarceration? I would say it's not. So I don't hide that when I'm talking to the private people that we deal with and we've got recognition rights.

34:16I tell them openly that is the POA policy and we will continue to campaign. But I recognise that I'd rather it was us that were representing those members in the private sector because if we don't fill the gaps, someone else will. The new Andy Burnham government, they'll be looking at ways of saving money. What argument would you make to the Chancellor of the false economy around cutting money for prisons as opposed to actually if we invested in our prison estate? I've had those dialogues with Rachel Reaves in meetings that the TUC exec have attended. You can't build your way out of a prison crisis and rely on the private sector to do so.

34:57It's a false economy. It's just not going to work. So what I would say is you've got to invest, not just in prisons, but in the whole criminal justice system from prisons to policing to the court system, 80 ,000 backlog in our Crown courts, to probation, to social services, to all the foundation elements there that will keep people out of prison. If you don't do that, then we're going to end up with over 100 ,000 prisoners. And that's the sort of projection that they're sort of talking about by 2030, which I've got to say is really worrying. So my message to Andy Burnham, because, you know, every time there's a change, that creates an opportunity as well.

35:45And I hope that the new Prime Minister will look at the criminal justice system and recognise that everything that the trade union movement have been saying about it, the underfunding, the complete financial deprivation that has come under in the last 20 odd years, maybe further than that needs to be reversed. If they actually get it right, then they won't be spending as much money on the criminal justice system and banging people up in prison as it costs an absolute fortune. Only the people that deserve to go to prisons will be there. And I think that's the argument in a nutshell, isn't it? That people come from different political perspectives, but actually when you look at the data and the evidence, investing in prevention and investing in public health approaches results in less crime, which results in less overcrowding improvements.

36:36I think politicians of all parties should actually have part of their induction as an MP to go and visit a jail. Because there's so many out there, MPs, I don't blame them, but they've got absolutely no knowledge of the prison system whatsoever. It's almost like outside, out of mind, we don't care, because we're bottom of the pile in the public services. And I understand that. I'm not naive, to be honest with you, because it's not every day that if you take the average person in the street, they're more likely to come across a nurse, a doctor, a teacher, a firefighter, a policeman than they are a prison officer, unless they go to jail.

37:21But the reality is we're just as important a service because it's costing billions of pounds to lock people up. surely our job should be about keeping people out of prison so that that money can be reinvested into teaching into the nhs into other areas that benefit the general public in the foundations of more hospitals more dentists more schools better fabrics and things like that in the communities It makes sense to me. I can't understand why it doesn't make sense when people get into government. And I agree about people visiting prisons. I think I said to you last time, I spent quite a lot of time in prison, not as a prisoner before the Daily Mail get excited.

38:06But doing theatre role plays and things like that. And fascinating speaking to both prisoners and officers about their experiences. And finally, something you said a little while ago I thought was really interesting. You said the wider trade union movement had a huge role to play in terms of countering some of the narratives of the right or what I would call toxic or hateful narratives. What does that specifically look like? What does it look like when the trade union movement come together and create an alternative that people can be hopeful in? I actually think there's very good work going on within the TUC of the TUC affiliated trade unions on that very narrative.

38:43because they recognise within their own unions, they have people that are saying, well, I'm fed up with the mainstream parties and we're going to look for an alternative. And unfortunately, that alternative seems to be reform. It shouldn't be, but unfortunately it is at this minute in time. And it might be because they like the soundbites that come out. Oh, yeah, he must be right, blah, blah, blah. It's all these immigrants coming in that are taking our jobs and creating all the crime as well. It's just nonsense. So I actually think the trade union movement have recognised and there's some good dialogue going on at the minute, but it's actions that we really need, to be honest with you.

39:22And to be fair, the TUC are leading the way in that by countering that narrative. And I think we need to step up to the plate going forward and put pressure on government to say, look, it shouldn't be about who's toughest on a far-right narrative. It should be about how are we going to deal with the cost of living crisis? How are we going to put more money in people's pockets? How are we going to make people feel in the communities safer? How are we going to make people in the communities recognize, actually, that people are speaking on their behalf and care about them? Because if governments don't do it, and of course the government at this minute in time is Labour, if they don't do it people will look to other areas to see who can do it and the best I suppose the best scenario that I can relate to that is in Scotland right where I came from I came from a place in Greenock when I was a kid I used to listen to my grandparents my mum dad aunts and uncles talk about politics it was a big thing in our family and what have you and it was almost as if If you stuck a red rosette on a donkey, they'd vote for the donkey.

40:39That's changed throughout the years because younger generations coming through recognised that Westminster wasn't delivering for people in Scotland. Devolution came along and it still wasn't delivering enough. So they placed a trust in the Scottish National Party, whether that's the right thing to do or not. but I can say that I watched from a distance because I no longer live in Scotland and some of the things that the Scottish National Party were doing were more to the left than what Labour were talking about and people placed a trust in them. Some of my relatives did. They changed the vote from Labour to Scottish National Party and you've seen Plaid Cymru in Wales and in Northern Ireland.

41:29You've seen Sinn Féin. The government lost four times as many votes at local elections at the last local elections to the Green Party as they did to reform. So I totally hear your point about reform are a credible threat and we have to take them seriously. But what I'd also say to the Labour government is that I think the Green Party and the left more generally are showing that actually wealth taxes, tackling inequality, investing in workers' rights, these are all popular decisions to make. So I think sometimes they create a false pattern. Well, I'm not going to massage your ego, But you know when you're hitting the points because they'll come looking for you and attack you.

42:06Someone once said to me in the trade union movement, when you take on the establishment, they'll hunt you down and they'll give you all the bad publicity. So when you look at the rail drivers, for example, or the doctors that have been taking industrial action, they've had the full force of that establishment because the media are part of that establishment. so they fear someone that's different that wants to talk about working people to move away i'm afraid you're falling into that sphere so you must be doing something right i'm more than honored to be in that sphere and actually it really strikes me the amount of people across the country it's the thing i hear most often who say something like don't let the bastards grind you down or we know who you are i mean someone also once said to me and i i like it to be honest with you when I used to moan about social media and the attacks and different things on me personally and what have you not that I read them because I'm not on Facebook or anything like that this individual once said to me it's when they stop talking about you you've got to worry and you know what it's very relevant so I don't mind people attacking me and and if it means that I've got to stand up to individuals even within my own union that will try and promote Tommy Robinson and rallies and things like that.

43:24Let me be clear. I will always stand against that sort of nonsense. Well, I think you're an incredibly important voice in doing that. And we're going to need all the workers and the trade unions are definitely a huge part of that. So thanks so much for coming on. You're very welcome, Taki. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Steve. Thanks.

43:45Hey, everyone. It's Adam, host of TED's podcast, Rethinking with Adam Grant. And this episode is powered by AT &T Business. When you're building a business, momentum is everything. There's nothing worse than hitting your stride only to have a spinning loading icon bring everything to a halt. When navigating competing priorities, reliability isn't a luxury. It's a foundation. AT &T Business is built to work so you can spend less time troubleshooting and more time focusing on what actually matters. Powered by AT &T Business. Built to work. Get today at business.att.com.