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Hi, I'm Anouche. I'm Alver. And I'm Stephen.

And on today's New Statement Podcast, we discussed the aftermath of the police shutting down the vigil for Sarah Everard in London

and you ask us, what should Labour's attitude towards the police be?

So we were calling on a day when MPs are about to debate the police crime-sentencing and courts bill

which is new legislation that would make it easier to crack down on public protests.

Now in a sort of strange coincidence of the parliamentary calendar, this falls in the very, very angry and bitter aftermath of a vigil

for Sarah Everard being held in Clapham Common over the weekend, was shut down by police officers from the Met.

And so apologies for the sound of this podcast as well because Stephen and Alver are in Parliament

and there are protesters outside Parliament as we record as well.

So tensions are very high and the debate seems to go beyond whether or not the Commissioner of the Met

Crescidadic should resign and on to how far police should have rights to break up public protests,

particularly in light of a year that has seen a lot of public protests, you know, from the Black Lives Matter.

I say a year because I now think of years in pandemic terms.

There were the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer and of course you've had all sorts of different demonstrations

...