Why is Volodymyr Zelenskyy opposing anti-corruption laws? How will US withdrawal affect Unesco? And are shared electric bikes a force for good or evil? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Jamie Timson, Harriet Marsden and Felicity Capon
Image credit: Mike Kemp / Getty Images
It’s the week ending Friday the 25th of July and this is the week unwrapped. In the past seven days, we’ve seen the White House pushing back at reports President Trump is named in the Epstein files, Thailand sealing its borders with Cambodia after rapidly escalating tensions between the two countries and the death of heavy metal and reality TV star Aussie Osborne at the age of 76. You can read all you need to know about everything that matters in the week magazine, but we’re here to bring you some stories that passed under the radar this week. Big news not making headlines right now, but with repercussions for all our lives. I’m Olly man. Let’s unwrap the week. [Music] And let’s welcome back from the week’s digital team Jamie Timson and Harriet Marsden. And from the week junior, senior editor, Felicity Capon. Uh, also this week, chaps, the Lioness’s made it through to the final of the women’s Euros. Harriet, did you succeed in your quest to find a pub to watch it in? I’m actually watching it with a bunch of friends on Sunday, the final. So, I’m very excited about that. Sounds like a no. Did you just give up? Unfortunately, I actually had plans that I couldn’t change, so I missed it all together. What? But I heard I heard I heard I heard the atmosphere was incredible. Gesh. What you should have done, of course, is have plans and then change them three minutes from the end and then you’d have been fine. Oh, should have, would have, could have. Jamie, what about you? You were saying it would be difficult to watch a match cheering on England from Scotland. Yes. I was uh I was at a gig and I managed to get home in time for the goal. There you go. Exactly. Didn’t need to change your plans. Almost perfect. Almost perfect. And Felissa, you seem very excited when I even mentioned the concept. I’m I’m hoping you were watching from beginning to end. I was not. I’m a real fair weather friend. I’m now getting into it. Just now I’m getting Well, I saw the um I saw them squeak past Sweden, although I only watched the highlights and I thought that was pretty exciting and now I’m like, go England. Glory hunters. Jamie, you’re up first. What do you think this week should be remembered for? This week we wondered why is Zilinski playing chicken with Kiev’s protesters? It seems to me that he doesn’t consider corruption a problem or something wrong. Not from the point of view of the law in general, from the point of view of values. Yes, you have the head of the anti- monopoly committee suspected of illegal enrichment. He explains millions in assets by saying that his parents used to sell raspberries in the past. Do you understand the schizophrenia of this story and this person stays in office for a year? Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Witali Shabunin speaking to the Kev Independence editor-inchief Olga Roenko on Friday. Jamie, what’s the story? Yes, this week we saw a bit of a hokeie kokei from Vladimir Zalinski where he first initially approved a law that placed previous independent anti-corruption agencies under executive control. And then following widespread protest, some of the kind of biggest protests that we’ve seen against uh Zalinski since the war, he then in a kind of state address said that he would be putting forward another bill that would give back the independence to anti-corruption agencies that he would that he was talking about. Yeah. So, initially there was a new law coming through that was going to bring the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office under the direct control of him and his government whereas previously they’ve been independent. Yes. And uh then he said actually the anti-corruption infrastructure will work but without Russian influence and it needs to be cleared of that. So he was basically saying that the reason that he’d done this was because he felt that there was Russian influence in uh the NABU and the SBU. Critics of Zilinski say that that all seems very convenient, right? You know, suddenly he’s done something and then he he says actually it’s because the Russians were involved. Honest honest, I’ll I’ll bring it back. Also crucially they have he hasn’t put forward any text for this um new bill for giving back independence to these and it’s not clear exactly when we’ll be able to see that new bill whereas he has signed the law that has taken away the independence of these of these agencies. Yes. And this apparent U-turn Felicity has come after protests on the streets in Kev which is something that we’re not used to seeing at least being reported in the Western media. Yes, that’s right. I mean, it hasn’t just been in Kev. It’s been across the country in cities such as Odessa and elsewhere. Um, huge outpouring. I don’t think there’s been as big as protests since before the Russian invasion. So, a huge show of outrage directed to Zilinski, which, you know, he just hasn’t really been used to. And I think it probably came um came as a bit of a shock maybe. Um, and obviously this comes at a time when um Ukraine is involved in a war. obviously with Russia. So, at a time when you think this would be a showing of national unity, um it was very much looking like he could be losing the public and and losing public support. And and you have to remember that, you know, half the country now has combat experience. This is a population that has been through quite a lot. So for them to turn on their wartime leader in this way is pretty interesting. Particularly when Zalinsky for so long has been the kind of darling of the west, the poster boy, this kind of hero myth sprung up around him that he was in this David and Goliath story that he was standing up to this Russian aggress aggressor and could do no wrong. Um and that’s obviously all changing now. Yes. One of the most powerful placards that I saw Harriet was someone holding obviously it was translated so I could read it a piece of cardboard that said we didn’t fight the war for this. I mean that’s the point isn’t it? They’ve had combat experience so that they could fight for freedom and this implication was well we can’t have a real anti-corruption agency if it’s controlled by the government. That isn’t freedom. Yeah. So actually I read something really interesting which I asked my former flatmate who’s Ukrainian who lives in Kev. I asked her about this. I read that there was something in the psyche of the culture of the Ukrainian people that was very fired up about protesting against I mean bear in mind their maid on revolution was in 2014. This is not that long ago that there was this enormous revolution that ousted the former president. So I asked her, “Is there something in the Ukrainian psyche that means that people don’t take this sort of thing lying down if they’re unhappy about what the government is doing?” And she said that sometimes you need to prove your point to the government. So her way of describing what happened was that they effectively took over the department that dealt with anti-corruption cases because that department was kind of looking into the government and then went on holiday for a month right away as if they were very tired. Um, so it was a very odd-looking process and everyone’s extraordinarily unhappy about it. Jamie, why did he decide to do this in the first place since it is clearly an unpopular move? Yeah, I mean it’s a good it’s a good question. There there are um obviously as Harriet’s flatmate was saying, there are um suggestions that he I mean the anti-corruption agency was looking into cabinet ministers and and Zalinsk’s close allies in the government. So there there is a kind of nefarious reason that you could say that they wanted to take control over it. He he would say that that or he has said that there’s been kind of worries about Russian influence in there and that actually it’s through you know the independent. We know that corruption is a big issue in in Ukraine and I think that there’s a a worry or from Zilinski’s perspective there’s a worry that you know Russia could lean or get access to the the independent and and cause um the independent corruption agencies and cause uh issues there. I think the fact that he’s done such a quick vault for us kind of suggests that he really didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal and actually kind of thought that everyone’s attention was looking somewhere elsewhere and he could kind of get this one through and it you know arguably he probably had some history of doing kind of similar things because of as Felicity was saying like his incredible popularity and wartime ethos but it does show that is this the beginning I guess of backlash towards um Zalinski and you know they haven’t had elections. They’ve talked a lot about the potential for future elections after the war has happened. Could someone stand against him? Would would he lose? These are all really interesting. You know, what happens after Zalinski is a really interesting question. Yeah. But all of that kind of gives Zilinski the benefit of the doubt. I mean to be more on the nose about it, Felicity, did he try and take control of the anti-corruption agency because he’s up to something corrupt? It certainly looks that way and that’s obviously why everyone in Ukraine is kind of furious. That’s obviously why the European Union has come out and they’re very critical of that because they they set up these organizations in the first place and that was one of the criteria Ukraine had to meet on its on its journey to becoming part of the European Union which it’s very a lot of people especially young people in Ukraine are very much hoping that will happen. Going back to the Panama papers, some people would say that you know Zilinski was imple implicated in the Panama papers. Some people would say there’s always been this this um this whiff of corruption around him that you know a lot of people have conveniently forgotten about. He was sort of Time magazine’s person of the year in 2022 and you know he was this hero but actually the Panama papers uh the leaked documents suggested that he had this previously undisclosed stake in an offshore company. He appears to have secretly transferred to a friend weeks before he he won the presidential uh vote. He has lots of friends, lots of allies in in high places who have been um involved in in corruption. So this this kind of whiff of it has has never really gone away. And as Harriet was saying, it’s it’s a really big deal in Ukraine because um the the legacy of Victor Yanukovic who was um previous president. I mean he was he was brought down because of his you know his corruption basically. One of the plaque cards that I really like that I saw from the protest was a Time magazine cover which featured Silinski, but half of his face was covered by that of Yanukovic. So people are clearly drawing comparisons to this former very, very unpopular leader and it did not go well for Yanukovic. And will it go the same way for Silinski? I mean, there’s another theory, isn’t there, Harriet, which is that Donald Trump might have had something to do with it? Explain that for us. Yes, the the Trump involvement, I think, is quite an interesting one. The theory is that because Trump has this slightly personal history with these agencies that a lot some people are suggesting that that personal history might have been what led Zalinski to take or at least not to take action but to assume that he could sort of get away with stripping the independents from these agencies because during Trump’s first term his supporters accused these specific agencies of helping with the investigation into Russian meddling in 2016 US election. So there is a little bit of a history there. But I think it’s also fair to say that this is just kind of the latest in like a series of maneuvers that have been accused of being attempts to consolidate power and crack down on pro-reform activists and tighten power at this incredibly perilous moment for Ukraine as the Russian troops are advancing. So some people are accusing or have been accusing the Zalinsky administration for a while of abusing their special martial law wartime authority to consolidate power. So using these arrests as like a pretext for undermining the watchdog and silencing critics. But to be fair, to be fair to Zalinski on the other hand, in an audit of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau published this year, this expert commission found that it was only moderately effective and not immune to political pressure. So there are some legitimate criticisms of these agencies as well. I suppose as well Jamie, you know, obviously people will protest this, but if it is being done to ensure that America continues to support Ukraine, if it is part of a deal with President Trump, then ultimately that is consistent in uh Zilinsk’s commitment to ensure that they have as much cash as possible in their fight against Russia. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that’s the the the big issue is, you know, accessing to the EU is a really important thing for Zalinsky, but maybe it’s a really important thing somewhere down the line. It’s maybe not as important as getting the money and the the the weapons and everything now. So, maybe it is a calculated decision on his part that if we can keep the US on side and we can keep the the kind of money flowing in, then maybe later on down the line we can be like, “Oh, yeah, of course, we’ll we’ll we’ll make those things independent.” I think it maybe does show a real kind of mindset change amongst maybe Zalinski and and the Ukrainian leadership of we actually need to now focus much more on the war and we know from you know as Harriet was saying it’s actually a really perilous moment in terms of um whether or not Ukraine can survive this year um and particularly as we go into the winter and there will be another Russian offensive you know whether or not that how close we are to a ceasefire or or or something because from Putin’s perspective, it he’s happy for this to drag on and on and on and on and Ukraine can’t really afford that. Okay. Uh up next, what has Trump’s White House withdrawn America from? That’s after this. [Music] Okay, Harro, it’s your turn. What do you think this week should be remembered for? Did Trump just make the US a little bit more uncultured? The pyramids of Giza, Yellowstone National Park, the Taj Mahal, some of the more than,200 cultural sites around the world that UNESCO has deemed to be of outstanding value to humanity. I am delighted to welcome you to the 47th session of the World Heritage Committee. In Paris this month, a committee met to add to that list, something that’s been done nearly every year since 1978. PBS NewsHour reporting on some of the additions to the UNESCO World Heritage list on Friday. Uh, okay, Harry, just before we get into this, cuz we’re going to quickly get lost in the bureaucratic weeds for people who aren’t entirely sure, what is UNESCO? What exactly is UNESCO and what do they do? Well, it’s a United Nations body. It’s the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. And what it one point to you. Thank you. Thank you. I’ve been practicing I’ve been practicing that actually. Um what it it’s mainly known for being responsible for choosing and protecting the kind of more than 1,200 world heritage sites which are all around the world in more than 165 countries. So those are cultural or natural landmarks that have outstanding historical or cultural values. So things like Yellowstone National Park, Machu Picchu, uh the Acropolis in Athens, the Great Barrier Reef, the Lake District, the Tower of London, City of Bath. Actually, that’s a weird one. I always think you can’t put a whole city in. I don’t think I mean Pompei. Okay, it’s I think it’s a really interesting one actually, but this um this so this United Nations body was founded in 1945 after the Second World War with kind of a peacekeeping function. So the idea is to promote peace and international cooperation in education and sciences and culture through dialogue and mutual understanding. So it also has a big cultural and educational program to kind of promote dialogue between cultures which is something that a lot of people frankly don’t know about or understand. Right? They they did they think UNESCO and they think about the world heritage stuff like we’ve just been saying. And that maybe goes to the heart of this issue we’re about to explore. But what’s happened this week? Well, this week the Trump administration has confirmed that the US will be pulling out of UNESCO only 2 years after it rejoined. Um, so this is actually the second time that Trump has pulled the US out of UNESCO. But this time the White House said that UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsiz focus on the UN sustainable development goals. And the uh the White House deputy spokesperson said that UNESCO supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes that are out of step with the common sense policies Americans voted for. Felicity, have you had a look at any of these policies that they might be referring to? And do you understand where they’re coming from? I mean, Trump isn’t the first person to have withdrawn. So, um, in 1983, Ronald Reagan, his administration, uh, withdrew because he said UNESCO had an anti-western bias and has extraneously politicized virtually every subject it deals with. Obama also withdrew its funding, and that was over anti-Israel bias, which I think is is an issue again, and it’s over sort of making recognizing Palestine as a a state and and that sort of thing. in the UK. Margaret Thatcher pulled the UK out of UNESCO and Penny Men was talking about leaving in 2018. So, it’s certainly Trump isn’t the first person to have thought there is something problematic with this organization and maybe we shouldn’t be part of it. I mean, when he says it’s woke, um I I mean, it depends how you define woke really. I think more people would have an issue with it for being bloated and ineffective. I couldn’t I couldn’t immediately see how it was woke, but I mean it plays very well with his voter base and it’s it’s part of the president’s drive to pull the US out of a series of global bodies including the World Health Organization, halting funding to the Palestinian Relief Agency, pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and when you look at what he’s done with US aid, which has massively pulled that back from countries, which I would argue was more uh troubling than UNESCO, which I I mean I kind of I see that there are there are definitely problems with UNESCO. I can see why you would want out really. Well, I tried to approach this, you know, impartially as ever. I’m not generally a big fan of America first. So, if I had a bias, it would be to think that the Trump government had pushed this too far. But, Jamie, I looked into some of the things that UNESCO have been doing recently. One such is the gender equality quest in video games, a global overview of gender dynamics in video gaming. that does and maybe it is because I, as I was saying to Harriet, didn’t have an appreciation of UNESCO’s historical role in cultural conversations beyond monuments and stuff, but I did look at that and think, sure, but why are UNESCO funding that? Like that is not the same as protecting Stonehenge, is it? That seems like something a different body should be doing. Like something about women’s rights, not UNESCO. I’m going to shock you here. Um, about 10 years ago, I was part of the Global Alliance on Media and Gender for UNESCO. Wow, so many hidden folds to your chest of background. I went to I went to I went to Geneva like three times and I was pretty bloated to use Felicity’s term after all the fondue that I was having there. Um, but the it the the point of the the body that I was sitting on in part of the international steering committee was about helping equality in the media. To be honest, a lot of the stuff that UNESCO does, you’d struggle to I mean, you’ve picked out obviously a fun one with the video games, but you would struggle to say that it’s not important to have more cross-cultural communication. It goes back to what we were saying about soft power and the way that the UK, for example, has really lost a lot of its soft power. Um, a lot of the time countries that are at war or not talking to each other won’t talk to each other at the UN about serious things, quote unquote serious things, but they will talk to each other behind the scenes about things that are culturally important or that they share cultural values on. So, a lot of the time backdoor channels such as UNESCO are so important for getting two sides that are at war or against each other to be in contact. And yes, the meeting might be about gender equality in video games, but ultimately the fact that they’re talking to each other and working together on stuff like this is massively important for keeping channels open and discussions open. I mean, that’s really interesting, but why not keep the channels open, but have the conversation ostensibly about, you know, protecting stone murals, which is what it’s for. Yeah. I mean, UNESCO obviously has way uh a massive purview in terms of what it can uh talk about and what it’s interested in and that’s to do with the kind of levels of funding and is chosen by you know the people at the top of the UN and surprise surprise it’s a massive civil almost like civil service organization and it loves to give itself more jobs to do that can take lots of time and doesn’t actually get get very far. Believe me, I have sat on those meetings. I know that that is the case. But I would say that there is a a benefit to being part of UNESCO and being involved in the conversations rather than pulling yourself out. I mean, it’s also exacerbated tensions between countries. So, it doesn’t just work as this lovely conversation where everyone gets together and talks about global heritage. China and India filed rival claims over Tibetan medicine. Japan withheld funding after documents on the 1937 Nanjing massacre in China were added to UNESCO’s memory of the world list. And like it’s it’s hit some real bum notes. In 2012, it elected Syria to a panel to judge human rights abuses. That was when Assad was in charge. So I mean it it it has also exacerbated tensions between countries. And you know it’s also also outrage. Um, it knocked Liverpool off its list of UNESCO World Heritage in 2021 because it decided that building a football stadium in Everton meant that it could no longer qualify as a world heritage site. And Liverpians, well, actually, I’m not sure Liverpoolians really cared because they thought, well, people will still come and visit us for the Beatles and the Liva Building and the Three Graces and Penny Lane, etc., etc. But I think there was a sense of outrage that Liverpool wanted to modernize and you know a bunch of people who you know don’t hadn’t visited Liverpool in 10 years decided that it was no longer worthy of a world heritage site. How has UNESCO responded to all of this Harriet given that America has withdrawn twice before they were presumably prepared for this possibility? Well firstly I I I’ve got a personal connection like Jamie as well. So my dad actually works in world heritage and he’s also from Liverpool. So, it’s not it’s not it’s not 100% true that nobody who works in World Heritage ever went to Liverpool to look at that. Are you the president of the United States of America? Cuz then we’ve got the hat-tick. Everyone’s associated with this story. I might be. I should be. You’d be doing a better job. Um but in terms of in terms of how UNESCO has responded, um obviously it’s going to be a massive blow to UNESCO’s work, particularly in terms of all of the sites, all of the World Heritage sites that there are in the US. Um and there are uh there are 26 and they’re very very very important but they have also said that they have been braced for this departure because as we said Trump has withdrawn once before and the US only provides about 8% of its total budget. So it’s actually like a less severe departure for UNESCO than the US departure from for example the World Health Organization which the US is the biggest financial backer. But in terms of finances, if we’re talking about the advantages of being a member of UNESCO, the UK, for example, contributes roughly 11 million pounds per year and it gets about100 million pounds added value to the economy from the designation of World Heritage sites. So we do there is an extraordinarily large net economic benefit to being a member of UNESCO. Yes. So I guess what’s interesting is whether it matters Jamie though uh you know whether America’s part of the organization or not in terms of that economic benefit. People will always want to go to Yellowstone and actually presumably UNESCO not going to suddenly say oh Yellowstone’s not part of our heritage list. I mean it clearly is even if America aren’t contributing. Not unless they build a football stadium in the middle of Yellowstone and suddenly people are going to fall over themselves. Um no I think I I think the broader I mean obviously they’ve they’ve they’ve made a point. It’s a good PR win for Trump. It’s definitely it fits in with their America first ideology as we’ve discussed. I mean, uh, Obama pulled out funding in 2011 because they, uh, because of the Palestine, um, Israel stuff. The accusation is that they’re anti-Israel, but that comes from specifically them being the first body to admit Palestine. Yeah. Became well, Palestine became a full member of UNESCO in 2011, and so the Obama administration stopped providing funding to the organization because it was barred to do so by US law. Um so I mean yeah we we’ve we’ve discussed um the ways in which it obviously is is a good win. I think it’s a if you take a kind of macro view uh what it looks to be another way for China to kind of um continue to to push it its tentacles out into um a new they’ve they’ve been looking to replace a lot of what the US does in the United Nations and um and UNESCO is is no different and China is kind of filling the vacuum that is being left by the US in uh at the UN doing a lot of brokering behind the scenes for conversations particularly when it comes to foreign policy because they can uh provide a kind of uh opposite point to where the US were on a on a lot of it. So yeah, I mean it it’s uh while on the face of it it’s like this is a story about you know the leaning tower of Pisa, it’s actually got a much wider repercussions um for the kind of future of of geopolitics. I think also for the future of AI as well. I think something that a lot of people don’t realize is that UNESCO is the UN agency in charge of setting artificial intelligence guidelines. Why? Um because it’s it’s science, education, and culture. But then there must be other organizations who are dealing with AI who are talking between countries. Why on earth would you need I think I think I think every single organization in every single world body is dealing with AI. But just just to be specific, this is the UN agency in charge of setting the UN’s artificial intelligence guidelines, which makes this really important that China has effectively replaced the US not just in terms of financially. So, China has taken the place of the US for the biggest financial backer of the of UNESCO. Also, its deputy director general is a Chinese official. Now, it recently this month got its 60th World Heritage site, which means that now China is tied with Italy for the top slot for all world. What can it do as an organization? What can it actually do? I mean, even when it comes to world heritage sites, it doesn’t really have any power. Like you saw the Taliban in 2001 demolished the Buddhas and no one could do anything about it. And that’s what it’s famous for is the world heritage sites. There is a big as Jamie was explaining there is a big element of soft power but there is also a big element about UNESCO has quite a lot of power over deciding what counts as history and what counts as culture. So for example UNESCO has also given a lot of support to major projects like the belt and road initiative which has huge economic impact in Africa in Latin America and around the world. Beijing’s also really lobbied hard for these world heritage sites designations and some of them are in like oppressed regions like Tibet like Fist was saying like in Tibet. So locals have said that to get this kind of world heritage designation would be to undermine what they’re saying about the oppression and control their culture and history. But I think Felicity’s point is a good one though about what is the point of these bodies and like what is the point of the UN and what is the point of UNESCO? Look at the UN is it like that they can sit around and put out you know another accord saying that they are against the war in Ukraine and it doesn’t make a difference or you know they demand a ceasefire in Palestine and it doesn’t make a difference you know actually this rules-based order that we were that we’ve kind of grown up on it doesn’t it doesn’t people don’t care about it anymore but on culture there is an opportunity isn’t there I mean I I think you know the discussion about what’s the point of the UN is is a bigger one probably for another day but on the point of culture that’s the Well, to me that was the point is here’s the thing everyone can agree is that even if you betray human rights when you bomb a city you shouldn’t bomb the culture that was put there 2,000 years ago. Everyone used to agree on that and the issue is that they’ve gone beyond that brief. like just they’re not going to bomb it because they’ve got a video games wing or because they’re talking about AI like no but I think the the idea I suppose whether or not it actually is the reality I I think that the idea is that if you designate sites like for example the city of Palmira in Syria if you designate sites as world heritage and that doesn’t just include economic protection and support it does also include massive amounts of international recognition and contributes to a wider conversation about protecting certain cultural heritage sites. So you’re saying this goes beyond this particular ethnic group that you’re killing and is actually everyone’s culture and heritage. It I think that there are very very legitimate criticisms to be made about the funding issues, the bloating issues, the effectiveness of certain declarations or certain edicts that don’t prevent war and don’t do this, don’t do that. Absolutely 100%. But at least the purpose the the idea underpinning this organization of promoting dialogue through culture and a shared appreciation of natural and historical value. I think we can all agree that it is a good idea. Inevitably what’s going to happen next though Felicity surely is that at some point I’m not saying in the next election but you know perhaps the one after that the Democrats will get a president and then they’ll reverse it again won’t they? I mean that’s what’s going to happen. Yes. I mean that’s what happened when Biden was in power. He reversed it. I think they were then in a rears and had America had to pay like millions of pounds back into the organization. So I guess it’s that constant flip-flopping and that’s why um as Harriet was saying it came as no surprise to UNESCO that this was going to happen. It wasn’t really a surprise to anyone that Trump was going to do this. But yeah, I’m sure it will just flip-flop back when well I mean if there is ever a Democrat president who comes back, but yeah, we’ll have to see. Okay, up next. Could lime be squeezed out of London? That’s after this. [Music] Okay, Felista, you are finishing the show. What do you think this week should be remembered for? Bikes in Belgravia are turning Joan Collins sour. Um, I had a dreadful time getting here on and I’m sorry if you don’t live in London, Manchester, Nottingham or Milton Kees, which I think are the cities in the UK that have line bikes. But no, Milton Kees had lime. Yeah. Well, I I’ve Googled that um when I should have been u um moving faster. Uh um I uh but not texting while lying. There’s there’s these free ebikes and they’re the scourge of cities. They’re really useful, but they’re used by irresponsible people who’ve making and that’s me at loads of me people like and it would be horrible if this happened, but I think I’m saying this so I’ll try really hard for it not to happen. Please can I not die on a line with a meal deal in the basket because like there’s there’s a world in which that would be so bleak. It would be really bleak. So, it’s good to have this on record because I spend a lot of my life in a lime with on a lime with a meal deal in the basket. Comedian Ivo Graham speaking to Mel Gedro on her podcast Where There’s a Will, there’s a wake on Tuesday. Felicity, what’s the story? The story is that Joan Collins um has a bit of a B in her bonnet this week. Um she wrote Dame Joan Collins, please. Sorry. Sorry. See the Dame Joan Collins. Yes. Um she penned an article this week in the Spectator um lamenting an invasion in her very posh London neighborhood um but also across London more generally um about an invasion of lime bikes. Um she says she’s been almost run over twice. Um she’s tripped over discarded cycles and the riders seem to care not for road rules, pedestrians safety or anyone but themselves. Yeah, it was a wild uh tract. Several news outlets are reporting the surge in the dangerous crossings of immigrants coming to our shores and the cost of giving them sucker, she said. But in the next sentence, but I’m seeing an invasion of a different sort. That’s extraordinary column. But what is it about line bikes that she dislike so much? Well, they’re quite a Marmite topic and it sort of feels like people are falling into two camps. You either love the line bikes or you hate them. Um, if you hate them like Joan Collins, um, it’s that uh they are piling up everywhere. So, I I think it’s starting to change now, but be uh to begin with with line bikes, you could just sort of leave them anywhere and you would use your um phone and the a code that would would let the company know you’d left them. But this means that they’re just sort of piling up everywhere. I think some councils are now bringing in parking bays where they have to be parked in a specific bay. Um but people are driving them very very quickly. Um so there’s been lots of accidents and accidents are actually on the rise and celebrities are sort of talking out about this. So Ian his slop is another celeb who’s who’s kind of furious. He’s he was hit by one. On the other side there are loads of celebs who love them including uh Harry Styles um who was seen riding around with James Cordon on a line bike. Um Olivia Rodrigo. Uh Timothy Shalamé turned up to the UK premiere of his um Bob Dylan film on a line bike. Yeah. He got a fine, didn’t he? Because he didn’t park. Just dumped outside the idea square. But some lots of young people um see them as, you know, very green. They’re good for the environment. They’re cheap. You well cheapish. You can get across one side of the capital to the other. Um so it just depends where you are. You either love them or you hate them. I mean, couldn’t the same be said, Harriet, about bikes. I mean, I’m just thinking about this from the perspective of Lime who might be listening to this thinking, well, hold on. We’re providing a service. It’s up to people who rent our bikes as to whether they drive them badly or they park them in the wrong place. for asking them not to or they don’t wear a helmet. That’s the same as a bike. Well, it’s not quite the same because they’re so much more powerful than a bike and they’re so much heavier than a bike. So, actually, uh, London Centric, which is, um, Jim Waterson’s publication, he was the media editor of the Guardian, he now runs this London publication, has been doing a lot of reporting on line bikes, and an investigation came out in March. Uh they hired 50 line bikes uh in central London and asked a mechanic to test each one and they found that nearly half the bikes had some mechanical issue like a loose kickstand or a broken wheel. Uh nearly 20% had missing parts and more worryingly 14% had brake problems or brakes that weren’t working. The mechanics said that 12% of the bikes should have been removed from the streets immediately. But even after reporting all these issues to Lime, most of them remained available to hire by members of the public and looked fine to ride. So Lime’s not actually regulated when it comes to ensuring safety and maintenance of the bikes in London. Now, on Lime’s side, it says that safety is its highest priority and that it regularly checks the bikes, but it doesn’t take them out of circulation even when it gets reports from users of of faults because they think that customers might be overstating the severity of the problem. So, they said that they will mark the bike for inspection, but they don’t remove it from service unless additional reports are received, but they didn’t say how many reports. The other thing that’s come out is this thing that a surgeon has been calling lime lime leg. So an NHS doctors are saying that there have been more motorbike style leg brakes experienced by lime customers because they’re really really heavy. The the weight and the speed of them means that a small accident that you’d have on a normal bike, like a relatively minor accident, might transform into like a really life-changing injury. So there are big concerns about safety that I think are worth they’re worth considering before you get a line bike. So yes, so this is the issue that if a line bike is to fall on your own leg uh perhaps because the brakes are faulty, but perhaps just because you’re cycling badly, Jamie, it it can break your leg in a way that a normal bike can’t. But I suppose again that’s about you preparing to understand that you’re driving an electronically powered bike. It’s not a bike. It’s different. Yeah, I think there’s a kind of personal responsibility aspect. I guess the thing that we’ve not touched on is um the issues for blind people and disabled people. Um obviously it is beginning to change but initially when they came you you could just leave the bikes wherever. Um that was part of the appeal of them was that they were dockless rather than dock full I guess. Um and the the the fact that they were dockless often meant that that people were just leaving them on the street and if you’re blind that’s quite a hazard. Um similarly if you’re in a wheelchair that makes it quite difficult to get round particularly on pavements in London that aren’t necessarily the the most well paved. Um so there is a question about accessibility and about um regulation on on that in that regard. They are also quite expensive in comparison to public transport. Um I think it’s like £825 for a 25minute journey which is obviously a lot more than the bus. Um but you can get um lime passes, lime prime I think it’s called. you know, any kind of lime um pun that you want to use. Uh that will reduce the kind of permanent cost of them. It does seem to be a kind of generational thing, right? You know, Joan Collins and Ian Hishop are hardly the the young guns that they once were cutting about London. It does seem to be young people that seem to to be using them more and more. So yeah, lime lime claims lime claims that nearly half of Londoners aged between 18 and 34 hire a lime bike in any given week. So there is a reason that the number of journeys on line bikes has increased by like 85% last year. It’s they’re clearly they are filling a gap in the transport network and they are democratizing cycling. But it does make sense that the older generations would have more of a problem with them because if a a really dangerous bike is flying past you, you’re more likely to suffer an accident than a younger person who can like jump out of the way. And I think the pro one of the problems is is the speed. like a lot of people who are using them because they cost this amount of money. Like time is money. So you’re going to run a red light, you’re going to go super fast. There’s a lot of not just about line bikes, but ebikes in general are being used by people who work for fast food uh delivery companies like delivery and Uber Eats. And it makes sense for them if they’re getting paid by how many number of deliveries they make to go as fast as they possibly can. So it’s they definitely are a hazard and it makes sense that they’re more of a hazard uh for older people or or disabled people. They’re also an environmental hazard as well. So hundreds of them are being dumped in rivers and canals and the batteries that power them, they have these substances that if the bikes are submerged in the water, then they can seep into the water system. Uh so in Nottingham for example, which is a seems to be a particular hot spot, one charity says that they’re pulling eight or nine line bikes out of the canal every week. Why are people dumping them in the in the water? The consensus seems to be that they’re dumped by people who steal them rather than paying customers. The problem with line bikes, but why not just dump them on the side of the road like every other criminal? Because you bit of fun, mate. Have a bit of fun. Throw your bike in the water. Come on. Yeah. Live a little. I don’t know why people would be throwing lime bikes into seems mad to me. When you were a child, Ollie, you didn’t do some sort of kind of like mindless vandalism for fun. You put the traffic cone on the statue’s head, but the police officer can retrieve the traffic cone. You don’t throw it in the river. It’s also about hiding evidence because if you I don’t know if you’ve been in London recently, any of you guys, but I guarantee How out of touch do you think I am? I do live in the Southeast. I don’t know if you’ve been in London recently. I go to London. I saw you at the park two weeks ago, but I was going to I just can’t I can’t hire a line bike where I live, although I have seen them dumped in the woods around here. So, that does it does hint at what you’re saying. People are calling it the soundtrack of the summer in London that there’s a certain noise that stolen line bikes make when they come down the street. So, it’s this like beeping sound. So, they’re being stolen on on a kind of a scale that we can’t really imagine. And I think a lot of it is to do with the battery because these really powerful lithium batteries. They if you kind of remove the battery case from the bike and override the safety feature, you can then either sell it online and they’re worth like more than £300 or you can use them to convert pedal bikes into electronic bikes with Wow, that’s really components. I mean, a cool bit of criminality. Sorry. Obviously shouldn’t do it, but it’s that’s amazing. It’s it’s actually contributing to a massive rise in fires because of these secondhand batteries with no like safety standards and components. But um there is a big argument if you’re a criminal and you see and it is in London they’re just scattered everywhere. If you remove the battery and sell it or convert a pedal bike into an electronic bike and you make a substantial profit and then you might chuck the bike into the canal or the river to kind of remove any evidence of criminality. they are contributing to a real like a really worrying increase in fires because of this battery because of this secondhand battery situation. I mean it does seem felicity like the solution to a lot of the problems we’ve been illustrating is simply more regulation. Why is there not more regulation and do you think there’s some coming? Um yes definitely. I think it’s it’s happened really really quickly. It’s sort of it is an invasion in some ways in that it’s just it it’s happened it’s like a revolution. It’s a green revolution. a green revolution with toxic batteries being thrown into the river kind of. But it’s it’s happened so quickly that I don’t think anyone’s really had a chance to um implement the the regulations that we need. But I I think that’s coming. I mean, you’ve already seen I think Brent Council tried to get rid of them entirely. It was so fed up. Um and the company that’s based in San Francisco, I think they know that there is this real push back. They know how it’s affecting dis um disabled people and they’re doing more to work with charities. Um, so I think I think change is coming. I refuse to believe that um something that could be so good for the environment that could, you know, reduce cars on our streets and bring down pollution is is just going to be, you know, all the benefits are going to be obliterated by like mindless thugs and vandals. I think this is a good thing, but I also do have sympathy with people like Joan Collins who see them littering up the streets, but it’s just the revolution is it’s going to take time people, but it’s it’s it’s happening and I think that’s overall a good thing. And if Dame Joan is listening to this and wants to correct the record, please come on the show. I would love that. Uh, in the meantime, my thanks to Dame Felicity, Dame Harriet, and Sir Jamie. You can follow this show for free. You can get every episode as soon as it’s released. Just search for The Week Unwrapped wherever you get your podcast and then tap follow, even if you’re a even if you’re wearing the shoulder pads. You can also get six free issues of The Week magazine with the trial subscription if you go to theweek.com/subscriptions. In the meantime, I’ve been Olly Man. Our music is by Tom Morby, the producer Ollie Pit at Rethink Audio. And until we meet again to Unwrap next week. Bye-bye. [Music] Even if you’re a Oh, don’t worry, Harriet. It’s for the old people. Joan Collins’s biggest hit was called The That’s what she’s known for. Oh, yeah. I’m sensing a real generational divide between you and me. India.