YouSaid · the spoken record

Dr Faiza Shaheen

lines on the record: 31
first: 2023-11-26
most recent: 2023-11-26
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Know us being so London centric, and I say this as a proud Londoner, but it's not really okay that it's absolutely not okay that we are so London centric and where our MPs are and where most of the policymaking happens.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How's you know so many people's votes don't count in our current system? I just think it's not democratic. So it's not even about making it more likely that Labour would win in the future. It's actually just about like a basic concept of democracy. I know I've heard Key Starmer and the point come up about votes and people being able to vote from age 16. And I think that's another really important idea in terms of countering the ageing population to make sure that young people are getting a voice and who governs the countries and country and influencing the sorts of policies that are put forward because of that. And again, it's a democratic point because, you know, we have an increasingly aging population. So we need to find ways to balance different perspectives amongst citizens in the country. So yeah, I mean, I think there's lots of things. I also talk in the book about”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I talk about it in the book that there's a real need for kind of democratic reform in the country. I mean, the House of Lords. I mean, there's still like 92 peers or something that are completely just inherited, like viscounts and barons. so archaic, these people that have a say in our policies. And then, yeah, I mean, I'm on record saying that I support proportional representation. I know it's not where the leadership is, but I'm an inequality expert. I've worked on inequality for many years. When you look at countries that have proportional representation, they tend to be much better at addressing inequality. And that's not, it's a causal relationship rather than just a correlation. So, you know, and I understand people feel like their votes don't count”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I probably didn't expect this kind of spectacular shift, but I knew that they would damage our country for sure. And I know always that when things are going badly economically, and even when they're not, they will always pick on refugees and immigration and make that their issue. Even though, again, they failed every time on all of their targets. So, yeah, it's really sad. And, you know, I've been working internationally and people are just like, oh no, what's happened to the UK? Like our international reputation is just like on the floor. And it's been embarrassing. Like someone asked me today about the Rwanda policy. And I just was like, Know it's embarrassing, it's terrible, it's terrible, it's a terrible indictment of our country and our values.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the surprise probably is just the extent to which his entitlement has played out. And that he upset Dominic Cummings and we all found out about the sort of disgusting things that they were up to and partying while people were locked down and having their families die on their own. I mean, it's horrific. And then since then, have you ever, I don't know, for people that have been to Conservative Party conference, I went to Conservative Party conference back in 2017. I was speaking at a side event. It was very interesting. And when you see who the members are, then I was not surprised. I knew straight away that I would pick Liz Truss.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I expected Boris Johnson to be bad. And I feel at least that I at least went out and tried to stop that and made the argument against him and the conservatives. And I remember just after the election doing News Night or doing an event where I was like, he's absolutely going to fail. But did I expect it to happen in this way? I mean, I knew you would fail on all of his policy promises because I knew he was a liar and I knew the leveling up agenda was completely flawed. And so I”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's absolutely a tragedy. I mean, they've totally trashed our country. They've systematically trashed my home, you know, my country. And I feel so angry with them. And they're just caught up in their own melodrama, you know. And it doesn't really even seem like they care. They have no shame about it. You know, Ian Duncan Smith was Liz Truss's campaign manager. I just can't like, how do you do that? And like still walk around like you that you've done some good, you know, I just don't.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really important that I make these sorts of arguments and I use my voice well because unfortunately, yeah, it feels quite a surprise sometimes when I think about how I manage to get through.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, tricky one, isn't it? Because it's like on the one hand, yeah, I believe in public ownership and, you know, I believe in public investment and I believe that the state has to have clear objectives and a clear vision. And it's interesting how that's defined. And yeah, I support Palestine and I think that we should, our international policies. But I, you know. I also work with governments around the world who are kind of center-left. Like I'm here in Germany right now. So I find it a bit strange, you know, it's all kind of relative and it's interesting that I always get name checked in how many candidates have been selected and been on the left. I think it just makes me feel that I'm extremely lucky to have the local support that I do. And I'm so lucky to have got through.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The school Know most of those kids didn't get in. So, you know, at the end of the day, like the Labour Party needs to speak to those parents and say, it doesn't matter, we're going to make your state school better. We're going to make sure that whatever your kid wants to do in whatever profession, that they have a good chance, a happy life. And so I think that. Yeah, I think that's the way to do it. Like whether they, if they want to go to Oxford and do the academic thing, then that also will be an opportunity for them. But if they don't, that's also fine. There's not one route to be in success or to be seen as successful in society.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, or they've got like craft skills or whatever that might be. And we want to be, we need to say whatever your child is good at, even if they're not good at maths like I was, even if they're not academically brilliant at other things, then we are going to make sure that your child has a good life, is respected in society, has a good wage, and can have secure housing. And so I think that's like the ultimate promise to make the people because, you know, a lot of parents, there's this like school in the area that is kind of notoriously hasn't done very well for many years. And like when I door knocked in that area just before, just during the time of the year that kids do the 11 plus and there was so many working class parents, these are the streets I grew up on. There were so many working class parents that said, oh, I'm getting my kid to do the 11 class because I really don't want them to go through.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I've been thinking about this quite a lot because, of course, if someone had said to my mom, I was thinking if I'd said these things. Had this very big dream, these big dreams for us, she called me Pfizer. Pfizer means winner in Arabic. You know, she was kind of obsessed with us making up for her hardship and the way that she felt. Like she was quite kind of quite low down the hierarchy in the UK and was treated quite badly. If I said these things to her, how would she feel? And I think one, she probably would tell us, oh, you can still do it because, you know, that was like, that's the dream. Of course, you know, we love it. We love it when people, you know, beat all the odds. We love those stories. But I think it's really important to say to people two things is that, yeah, we want the absolute best for your kids. We absolutely want them to do whatever they want to be, whatever they want to do. And that might be, you know, they're creative, they're musician or they're.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like our teachers and our nurses, and of course, our care workers, you know, the people that work to keep the country going, our bus drivers, you know, as we saw during COVID, the essential workers in this idea of social mobility and making it, the essential workers are mainly at the bottom. So it's also a complete, you know, my aim is to be like, this is not even a helpful concept. This is a concept that makes society quite ugly. It locks us into a rat race and it locks us into a rat race that many people lose in and feel like failures. And then even those that make it end up doing jobs that probably mean they're making inequality worse in society.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can travel and anyone, anyone can like move up this ladder, they have completely decimated any sense of Security in people's lives, or the ability to kind of move and get different jobs, but better paid jobs, unless you've kind of been one of the lucky ones. But the problem is as well with that is that, and this is kind of the big part of the argument, it's not just that social mobility has failed in its own terms and the rhetoric about it is very, very far away from the reality or that it's hard, you know, that it shouldn't be so much harder for some, it's that it's backed up this hierarchy of worth and work and it's told us that making it is getting rich and getting rich is doing a lot of the sorts of jobs in society that aren't even necessarily good for society, you know, being a hedge funds manager or these kind of really the top paying jobs do a lot less for society than the sorts of jobs that are really badly paid and in fact have been undermined by”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A, that give people that opportunity to move up. I mean, it's not the case that you can move from the factory floor up to management. You know, that's just not something that exists now. You know, there's so much evidence and data around how many people get stuck in low-paid, insecure jobs, because there's kind of nowhere for them to jump to. The point of the book is to say that structurally, whether you look at the economy, whether you look at education, you know, whether you look at wealth, the economy is not set up to allow people to kind of travel and have more secure lives compared to what their parents had. You know, housing sector, for instance, is a typical example. So it's just, it's a fairy tale in the sense that whilst they tell you that the aim for us is that anyone”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I guess in terms of why it's not the case, I mean, because there was a time that it was the case that people were able to have more secure incomes and buy houses and, you know, basically have a better life than their parents, which is, you know, something that people love to, of course, you know, people want their kids to be in a stronger, more secure position than they have been. But that only happened in a period kind of post-war when there was a much stronger welfare state and the creation of various aspects of the welfare state and a big push to invest in different parts of the country. There was a huge growth in middle level jobs. So there was somewhere for some people to go. And when you look now, there's a chapter in the labor market and work. And when you look now at the fundamentals, there's very few positions.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Proportionate number of black and brown people that are on zero hour contracts, unemployed, you know, all of those things. So it doesn't really change anything in society. In fact, one of the arguments I make in the book is that it's kind of people like him and Brotherman have given cover to a set of really quite ugly policies and racist policies. And the conservatives have been very clever about identity politics and what they hired underneath it.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Within the Conservative Party, he hasn't been tested by the electorate. So it's sort of, I find it strange that we kind of use that as an example because all it is is an example of, and don't forget that they literally had to get him in and keep Boris Johnson off because if it had gone to the Conservative Party members, they knew that Boris Johnson would have been back again over Rishi Sunak. So it's a very strange example to use. And at the end of the day, even with all of those discussions, what does it matter when the lives of so many working class people in the country has not got any better, has got worse, even middle class people, right? You know, this is very clear. What does it matter to have him, even if all of those things were true, which they're not, like that he's some kind of shining example of social mobility, what does it matter? Because ultimately it's still...”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Last year, when obviously all this was happening, and everyone Everyone was contacting me saying, Oh, what do you think about the diversity of the Conservative Party? And this is what the kind of shallow, the social mobility approach and the shallow idea that that means that you can just have some representation and therefore we're doing well is okay. I mean, there's multiple reasons why Rishi Sunak isn't really even the exception. He was from a middle class family. He went to a very, very expensive school, which is, you know, a sign the extent to which class can chant brace really, right? When you've gone to one of those incredibly expensive schools with those kind of networks and then on to Oxford, then you're not in the same position as someone that went to a state school. I mean, it's a completely different route that you're on and a completely different set of people around you and expectations. And so, and also, you know, the thing about Rishi Sunak and when they use that example, how many people voted for Rishi Sunak, a few MPs?”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most of my generation, most working class people my generation, or children of immigrants were told you have to wet twice as hard. The truth is it's much more than twice as hard. But even why would we set up society to have those kinds of differences and make it so, so difficult for some people when it's so easy for others? And rather than expecting someone to be all the odds, why wouldn't we just change the odds altogether?”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hurdles there are towards going kind of getting into doing A-levels, getting your three A's, getting into Oxford or Cambridge. And then from there, then becoming an MP. And so it was one, and this is without, this is just kind of top lines, just looking at poverty, really, and going to state schools. And it was 1,000 times less likely for me to take that route to becoming an MP and becoming an MP than it was for David Cameron and Boris Johnson. And it begs the question, you know, we've been so obsessed with social mobility in this country as a kind of litmus test of how we're working as a society. As long as someone poor can make it to the top, then we're doing okay. But it begs the question that even if someone does make it, why should anyone have to work a thousand times harder or even, you know, even most”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, definitely. So some of those stats I'd started doing for a show, for a documentary we'd done with the BBC called Will Britain Ever Have a Black Prime Minister. And I'd been like the Stats geek on the show and I'd gone through and looked at typical pathways to becoming MP and then on to Prime Minister. And lo and behold, the vast majority of our prime ministers have gone to either Oxford or Cambridge University. And so kind of tracking that path and very many of them have gone through Eton or a select through of what they call the Clarendon school, so not just private schools, but the very, very expensive private schools, private boarding schools in the country. And looked at the likelihood of people with different ethnic backgrounds who were born poor to kind of get through the various different”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it, you know, just really just the kind of completely different life and things like it would come to the first Christmas and I was going to work in Gap over Christmas to earn money and they were all going skiing and they were talking about how much money they get from their trust fund, which was like, I had my student like, I mean, it was just a completely different life. And, you know, of course, there's some people that were like kind and curious about meeting someone different like me as I was kind of interested in their lives. But some of them were just really rude. And sometimes not necessarily rude to me, but rude to my friends that would come up because somehow I was at Oxford with them, you know, they might have considered me smart. So I was okay. But my other friends that would come and sound really working class or be working class people of color.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I don't have a very, I didn't like Oxford at all. I definitely did not have a good experience in terms of the social aspect of it. Although, you know, I completely credit it with my politicization or part of my politicization. It was such a lesson in class because, of course, I'd never been around people from the upper classes and who went to those very, very expensive boarding schools before. I'd never been around that level of privilege and entitlement. And, you know, In the beginning, I was a bit naive. I just kind of went in and was a very chatty Sunday. Found people constantly asking each other what school they went to and being very confused by that. Like, why would you know my school, the sixth form college I went to in Wolfhamstow? Why would you know?”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It definitely runs deep for me, you know, not just Ian Duncan Smith, but of course the Conservatives in general and what they did with austerity. I think sometimes people that haven't had that personal experience kind of act like it was something that was, you know, 2010 a while ago or something, but the consequences of that played out for people's lives for a long time. And still, you know, local schools getting in touch with me struggling with funding. And that's because of austerity. So it is and the various other cruel things that they've put in place. Yeah, it is personal. It definitely. Yeah, I'm against everything. I'm against everything they stand for. Yeah.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was the harshness by which she was treated, you know, to see that firsthand, to know that so many people struggled, so many people were suddenly told that they weren't going to get their benefits anymore and treated with such a lack of respect. And there was this day I was at home. And I remember I was upstairs and my mom was really nervous about them coming and I was upstairs. And she'd got all of her letters ready from the doctors. And they came in and they were so harsh in the way that they spoke to her. It was like a criminal or something. And she kept saying, but I really want to work. I wish I could work. I mean, she got sick in her mid-50s. Can you imagine like, of course, like, do you think that people want to be sick? And so”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, it was really personal. So I hadn't thought about being an MP before. Kind of came up because of just after the 2017 election and some local people said, like, would you consider running here? And it was funny because I'd watched I Daniel Blake, like, I guess it was a few years before when it came out. And it was like, when I watched that movie and of course it's a horrible story of how people and benefits were treated and affected by the welfare reforms that Ian Duncan Smith led on and compared to the experience of my mom who had heart failure and really, really struggled with her health, like she struggled to kind of walk from one side of the room to the other without having to stop, without getting breathless. And she was one of the people that had these people coming to assess her situation, even though she had like reams of doctors' notes and letters.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, for me, it's really about speaking from the heart, about being honest about my positions and different areas. And, you know, trying as much as possible, in which it's been a very difficult situation to give people a sense of hope. And also the other thing that I really found in that campaign, and it's kind of happening again now, is that, you know, people would come one time, they would find a community of people, they would kind of enjoy themselves, that we would go canvassing, but we'd also go out for lunch or drinks or whatever it may be. And we tried to make it social because if it's not joyful, if it's not about love, if it's not about community, then people don't come back and it's a sort of dry. Dry politics that's just functional and that's not inspiring.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Quickly ran in. Husband kind of stood in the way. And yeah, the police were called, but they kind of went off. But it was, I was shaking. It was quite scary. And I know that people in the people who had seen it, you know, they kind of sat me down and got me a glass of water. It was very sweet. But yeah. And so the beginning of the book is that day as amazing as the campaign was obviously it was an awful day for that reason. And because, of course, we lost. So yeah, that's the opening of the book.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, that election got really heated. People will remember. And for us and Chingfidung were for Green, we ran this incredibly big campaign. Hundreds of people came and thousands of people came to support me over the period, which we massively appreciated. But it really did worry the conservatives and it really did, you know, for the people that weren't with me, there was certainly aware of me and very against me. And so it got pretty ugly. And on election day, I went to go down and vote for myself, which is a polling station not far from my house. And I was standing outside, we had a friend that was taking some photos. And these two guys just suddenly came out of nowhere. And they came kind of rushing up towards me, shouting terrorist sympathizer and various other expletatives. And, you know, were very menacing and it was really scary.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Coming Part mem Focusing Is in On international cooperation The London School of Economics. She will be running as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Ching Woodford Green, her local constituency in the next UK election, which she also contested back in 2019. Joining Pfizer in conversation is Will Lloyd, commissioning editor and writer at the New Statesman. The two spoke earlier this year in summer 2023. Pfizer had lots to talk about, so there's a second members only exclusive part that's ready for intelligent squared members. Head tointentsquared.com slash membership to sign up, and you'll get the extended version of this chat plus a brand new global I'll pull cost.”
2023-11-26 · Intelligence Squared · Know Your Place: Does Class Still Rule Britain? With Dr Faiza Shaheen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT