Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Something interesting I read this morning - the greens have 200 more councillors than reform.
Though the way the media talks you'd think farage was now president.

As said they are going to be painful in some areas. Lincolnshire is going to suffer and the north east is really going to be sabotaged too.
But... There's hope. Lots of people do reject labours failures a bit more sensibly too.

Only 10% of seats were in play this time.

[Sheilbh]

So the Green breakthrough in recent years is real and sustainable:


The Greens have about 900 councillors and lead three councils. They don't have any mayors.

But this is the first real breakthrough for Reform on a night when only 10% of councillors were up (plus some mayoralties). They're up to about 800 councillors, lead ten councils and have two mayors. Of that, they won 700 councillors last week.

We need to talk about the Greens but I think that a lot of the "what about the Greens" is a bit of cope to be honest that isn't honestly reckoning with what's going on. I think it's a theme for broadly liberal opinion or the last ten years or so and why it's been so often blindsided by things that are obviously happening.

Also part of the lack of talk is also because of the Greens' strategy. They're hyper-local, with deep grass-roots. They also don't like "leadership" framed media strategies so rotate the leadership - which sometimes means their best media performers (Caroline Lucas, say) are sidelined because they're not party leader but also that party leaders basically get four years or so by the end of which probably just as they've learned how to do media well, they get replaced. That's got pros and cons.

I think across Europe there'd be a lot to learn by thinking about the Greens and the radical and far right in a similar way. They're all new, radical parties opposed to the traditional party "establishments", opposed to "traditional" ways of doing politics and they actually breakthrough at similar times. In the UK both get their big breakthrough in the first European Parliament elections with PR in 1999 - which produces both Lucas and Farage as national figures.

In a way I think they probably need to/are learning from each other. The Greens could do with a bit of the media strategy, working out the best media performer and just putting them in all the slots available - like Farage's parties do with him. Similarly Reform are now trying to build those grass-roots activists. It's almost like the Greens need to learn how to be a national party and Reform how to be a local one.

Although again I think the big picture is fragmentation:


And separately saw this from Reform Lincolnshire MP on their victory there:

Richard Tice MP 🇬🇧
@TiceRichard
Reform control the Mayoralty and County Council in Lincolnshire with myself as local MP

If you are thinking of investing in solar farms, Battery storage systems, or trying to build pylons

Think again

We will fight you every step of the way

We will win

Greens and Reform breaking through truly is a red-brown/horseshoe theory alliance of NIMBYs

[Jacob]

They don't like batteries? Is that purely based on "it's green"? Or is there some semblance of other reason?

[HVC]

They don't like batteries? Is that purely based on "it's green"? Or is there some semblance of other reason?

Gateway infrastructure?

[Sheilbh]

They don't like batteries? Is that purely based on "it's green"? Or is there some semblance of other reason?

I think probably six of one/half dozen of the other with being anti-net zero measures (and there's some argument to be had here with the current government - see Blair's recent intervention) and also NIMBYism.

Even on the pro-net zero side of politics there's a big NIMBY fight. I think pylons are a really good example. Basically we need to massively increase grid capacity for energy transition and very, very quickly to hit the government's targets (which everyone in the sector says are impossible). The quickest and cheapest way of doing it is through overground pylons (like most every other country in the world). But it's fiercely opposed by basically everyone but the government. Parties that back energy transition (Lib Dems, Greens, most Tories) and ones that think net zero is not the right polciy (some Tories, Reform) frame it as about pylons being ugly and dangerous for wildlife and advocate for underground cables (like a lot of our grid, for those reasons) but that's hugely more expensive.

Although in this case it's battery centres like this:


And as with wind farms and solar there is often an added element that these are normally built in rural constituency and they're not popular. But building anything is pretty unpopular.

Edit: Although I'm generally a bit dubious on "left behind" theories, I think there is a little bi of that in some of the building projects for energy transition.

[Sheilbh]

Totally different - but after Mr Bates and Adoloscence, Suspect is excellent.

With Mr Bates and Adolescence, I find it slightly maddening that it apparently takes a well-acted TV drama for things to cut through, even if they are really well documented and have lots of journalists covering it well. But perhaps it's always been the way, thinking of Cathy Come Home (maybe we need to return to weekly TV plays and try to conjure the spirit of Dennis Potter ).

Suspect is enraging though, even so many years after the event. I know I say it every time but it is an indictment of this country and the Met that Cressida Dick's career didn't end then (especially as between then and becoming Met Commissioner she was in several liaison roles with the intelligence agencies). I'd add the fact she's now Dame Cressida and it's Lord Blair is also just generally damning of the failing upward British establishment culture.

[Gups]

It's not like local authorities are the decision makers on those kind of projects. I guess Twice could waste a lot of public money on judicial review but that's about it.

[Syt]

I find it slightly maddening that it apparently takes a well-acted TV drama for things to cut through, even if they are really well documented and have lots of journalists covering it well. But perhaps it's always been the way, thinking of Cathy Come Home (maybe we need to return to weekly TV plays and try to conjure the spirit of Dennis Potter ).

Back in the days you'd have Uncle Tom's Cabin. I think presenting it as narrative is more likely to get people emotionally involved and invested in the portrayed subject matter. In Germany the Holocaust miniseries stirred a re-evaluation of the period in the 70s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_(miniseries)

[...]

Georg Leber and other SPD politicians viewed the US broadcast of the miniseries. Leber praised it after returning home, and his party urged its broadcast in Germany.[13] Broadcast on WDR,[14] the viewership was estimated to consist of up to 15 million households or 20 million people, approximately 50% of West Germany's entire adult population. Judt described the public interest as "enormous".[12] 32% of all West German televisions showed the first episode, and 39% the last. Trade union meetings were canceled "so that people could see it, because otherwise they would disappear at nine o'clock anyway", DGB said. University seminars discussed the series. Single people gathered to watch it together "because they would not have been able to stand it alone at home", a pastor said.[13]

Before the first episode of Holocaust, education departments distributed brochures and organized seminars. After each part was aired, a companion show was aired in which a panel of historians answered viewers' questions by telephone. Thousands of shocked and outraged Germans called the panels. The German historian Alf Lüdtke wrote that the historians "could not cope" because thousands of angry viewers asked how such acts had happened.[15] Despite the late broadcasting times almost half the audience of the miniseries watched the panels, and 30,000 callers—four times the amount during similar programs in the United States—overwhelmed stations' telephone lines.[13]

During an introductory documentary, Final Solution, that preceded the first broadcast of the series in Germany, bomb attacks were made on transmission towers near Koblenz and Münster. Security increased at television stations and towers, and the publicity reportedly increased viewership of the miniseries.[13] Peter Naumann, a right-wing terrorist with two accomplices, was responsible. At the Koblenz transmitter, the supply cables were damaged, and the transmitter failed for one hour. Several hundred thousand television viewers could not see the program during this time. Naumann later became a politician with the NPD.

[...]

[Sheilbh]

Back in the days you'd have Uncle Tom's Cabin. I think presenting it as narrative is more likely to get people emotionally involved and invested in the portrayed subject matter. In Germany the Holocaust miniseries stirred a re-evaluation of the period in the 70s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_(miniseries)

Yeah - the stuff on that German series is fascinating, I didn't know.

I don't disagree and there is a history of it here as well - Jimmy McGovern's Hillsborough transformed the public understanding of what happened there. It's how Ken Loach got his start in the 60s with Cathy Come Home. And there's a long-standing tradition of Victorian/19th century moral literature which I think Uncle Tom's Cabin fits into.

I have a few issues with it though. I think Uncle Tom's Cabin is an interesting example becase while it's pushed back against now the reception at the time was hugely significant and positive for a cause that we still think is morally correct. But other 19th century moral novels have not endured because their cause has fallen out of favour but they were similarly impactful. The moral narrative was a key way messages around abstinence/prohibition were spread and popularised, as well as, say, "white slavery" about prostitution. If we still agree it's an important narrative clarifying morality, if we don't then it's a moral panic.

I thought Adolescence was great drama - I think the response (e.g. the government going to make it mandatory viewing in schools) is a bit mad. It feels possibly like it'll be looked back on a little like "Just Say No" and I think it could actually introduce a range of young men otherwise nowhere near the manosphere to it

But I also slightly worry that it is structurally liberal which isn't necessarily helpful. TV narrative will always want to focus on a character or a few characters. It will want stories about individuals and will frame it around individuals and their choices even if it's within a wider context. As someone on the left I always lean more to structural forces and I'm not sure narrative is necessarily the best way to explore/explain that? But maybe I'm wrong - I think some of the great Victorians thought they could depict a society and I've never read it and it's on my list - but my dad's favourite book was The Ragged Trouserered Philanthropists which definitely does this.

Edit: And having said all that I'd add that I actually think one of the problems for the left/liberal side of things - especially in the US - is that I think we have vacated the language of morality/are uncomfortable making moral arguments. It's more partisan but I think of Harold Wilson's description of the Labour Party as "it is a moral crusade or it is nothing" - I think we need to be able and to be comfortable to call out things that are wrong and that are evil and lies in explicitly moral terms.

Apropos of nothing, nice to see small group from the Ukrainian military taking part in the UK's 80th anniversary of VE day parade. Obviously very well received by the crowds:

[Valmy]

And separately saw this from Reform Lincolnshire MP on their victory there:

Richard Tice MP 🇬🇧
@TiceRichard
Reform control the Mayoralty and County Council in Lincolnshire with myself as local MP

If you are thinking of investing in solar farms, Battery storage systems, or trying to build pylons

Think again

We will fight you every step of the way

We will win

Greens and Reform breaking through truly is a red-brown/horseshoe theory alliance of NIMBYs

LOL.

So Reform here is "you know the most stupid British thing imaginable? We are going to do it." Not really much of a reform.

[Josquius]

LOL.

So Reform here is "you know the most stupid British thing imaginable? We are going to do it." Not really much of a reform.

Thus was it always so. Their name is a joke.
Though this is an area where their hypocrisy really shines.
They're all super neo-liberal, regulation bad, the smaller the government the better, etc.... except...when it comes to the right to build on your land. Then its completely the opposite.

I thought Adolescence was great drama - I think the response (e.g. the government going to make it mandatory viewing in schools) is a bit mad. It feels possibly like it'll be looked back on a little like "Just Say No" and I think it could actually introduce a range of young men otherwise nowhere near the manosphere to it

I believe this is a bit of misinfo floating about. The government/producers of the show have said Adolescence is freely available to schools that want to show it, not that its mandatory viewing.
As lovely as the show is I couldn't imagine many schools finding the time to show a full miniseries of hour long episodes!

But I also slightly worry that it is structurally liberal which isn't necessarily helpful. TV narrative will always want to focus on a character or a few characters. It will want stories about individuals and will frame it around individuals and their choices even if it's within a wider context. As someone on the left I always lean more to structural forces and I'm not sure narrative is necessarily the best way to explore/explain that? But maybe I'm wrong - I think some of the great Victorians thought they could depict a society and I've never read it and it's on my list - but my dad's favourite book was The Ragged Trouserered Philanthropists which definitely does this.

The trouble there is as much as reality tends to be based far more about structural forces, that's not a way to tell stories that really appeal. I do like this sort of story personally. But its a fact of psychology that people do tend to relate more to personal faces being put on the intangible forces.
I think this is where the multiple interpretations of Adolescence's ending could be an issue. Might have worked better had they been blunter about it?
I'm referring to the end where dad and mam are depressed and chatting wondering where they went wrong with the murderer, their daughter comes in and is nice, "How did we make her" "Same we we made him".
Watching this I took it that there was a bit of an issue in the dad's work really taking off and him being absent at a key part of the boy's life whilst he didn't have that for the girl.
My GF on the other hand saw more important that the boy was kind of an echo of his dad with his temper and everything whilst the girl was just like the mam and it was more about toxic feminity/masculinity.
There's aspects of both and more besides there...
...and both do sort of dilute the "It could happen to anyone" message.

We need to talk about the Greens but I think that a lot of the "what about the Greens" is a bit of cope to be honest that isn't honestly reckoning with what's going on. I think it's a theme for broadly liberal opinion or the last ten years or so and why it's been so often blindsided by things that are obviously happening.

I can see that argument.
But more importantly it points towards how mainstream practically can actually cope.
Its not that everyone is becoming irredeemably fascist... people are going for more left wing parties too. Yet the narrative always seems to be about trying to shoot for the same place as Reform. Challenging them on their chosen battleground of stupid strict immigration policies.
When rather... thats clearly just a symptom of the actual problems. Immigration can't be ignored certainly. But a better fit for Labour in avoiding a loss of voters would be in fixing the underlying problems.

[Sheilbh]

They're all super neo-liberal, regulation bad, the smaller the government the better, etc.... except...when it comes to the right to build on your land. Then its completely the opposite.

So far they've called for the nationalisation of British Steel, letting the privatised water companies go bust and then nationalising them (rather than in effect bailing out feckless owners) and Farage has even been praising Arthur Scargill.

Now there may be good reason to doubt the sincerity of that - but they're not positioning themselves as neo-Thatcherites as they were when they were trying to win red trousered seats in the Tory shires.

I thought Adolescence was great drama - I think the response (e.g. the government going to make it mandatory viewing in schools) is a bit mad. It feels possibly like it'll be looked back on a little like "Just Say No" and I think it could actually introduce a range of young men otherwise nowhere near the manosphere to it

I believe this is a bit of misinfo floating about. The government/producers of the show have said Adolescence is freely available to schools that want to show it, not that its mandatory viewing.

Fair correction.

As lovely as the show is I couldn't imagine many schools finding the time to show a full miniseries of hour long episodes!

I think you overestimate how much teaching they really need to do in guidance/PSHE - or had a very different experience than me

The trouble there is as much as reality tends to be based far more about structural forces, that's not a way to tell stories that really appeal. I do like this sort of story personally. But its a fact of psychology that people do tend to relate more to personal faces being put on the intangible forces.

Yeah - I absolutely agree. That's my point.

I think narrative is often structurally liberal. It is most often about individuals. I think part of it is also simply that society is more fragmented so I think we've lost the hubris of the great Victorian novelists (and moralists) who thought they could capture an entire society so you could see the processes and forces in play. I checked and it makes sense that my counter, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, is Edwardian - 1914 so maybe the last novel before that world ends.

Edit: Incidentally because I feel he's becoming an irritation for Starmer - I do basically agree with Blair's comments on Net Zero and, especially, his comments this morning about a risk for progressive parties generally:

If you end up just being the managers of the status quo and the status quo isn't working for people, they're going to put you out.

As people keep signalling their dissatisfaction at the ballot box, I'd go the step further that my biggest worry (especially reading the Guardian regularly ) is that we're allowing the Trumps and the far and radical right to own change and I just think that's fatal for the left.

[Sheilbh]

Micro-story but one I found kind of fascinating for the wider themes:

"Five gays with a laptop" vs Mark Rylance: The Battle For Brockwell Park
Plus: An interpreter shortage halts Westfield chair-chucking trial and the Standard continues to lose money.
Jim Waterson
May 7
   
When an anonymous social media account popped up last week defending music festivals in south London's Brockwell Park, many locals smelled a rat.

SayYesLambeth claimed to be a grassroots account representing the silent "majority" of people who secretly want big, noisy summer events to go ahead in one of London's biggest public spaces.

Activists who are taking Lambeth council to court over the for-profit festivals, with the support of Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance, immediately looked for signs of nefarious influence or political links. London Centric's inbox filled up with readers asking us to investigate — leading us to track down the self-described "five gays with a laptop" who are behind the group.

It's all part of the Battle For Brockwell Park, which London Centric can reveal will come to a head in court next Thursday and could cause a range of major London festivals to be cancelled. As a result, the outcome of this one legal case is likely to shape the events scene in all parks across the capital for many summers to come. And at the centre of this row is a much deeper divide that has come to define London life – the "NIMBYs"" and the "YIMBYs", and who gets to decide how the city's neighbourhoods are shaped and used.

Scroll to the end to read an interview with the people behind the campaign group, details of the legal case that could change Londoners' summers, and why Sadiq Khan's office appears to be tentatively siding with the pro-festival faction.

[...]

The battle for Brockwell Park: Is a pro-festival group an online disinformation front — or are they for real?
   

The metal barrier, in a picture taken by Protect Brockwell Park.

Last month five members of a gay rugby team met for a drink in the Arch bar under Clapham High Street railway station. While there, they started talking about media coverage of a forthcoming legal challenge that could result in the cancellation of Mighty Hoopla and other festivals that are due to take place in south London's Brockwell Park later this month.

"All of us live and die for Mighty Hoopla," said David, a member of the group who lives in Brixton. He said the friends had seen isolated posts backing the two-day LGBT-friendly music festival, which attracts a combined 60,000 people, but noticed that "no one had organised" a formal campaign in support of it.

Believing that their voice was being excluded from the debate, they decided to anonymously register @SayYesLambeth on social media platforms and published an open letter claiming their views represented "the young people, the renters, the workers, the small business owners".

"Our whole scene and culture is about to be deleted because of people who complain about noise when they live in central London," claimed David. He said attempts to restrict festivals in parks are part of a wider issue around London becoming an ageing city where younger people cannot afford to buy a home and pubs shut early due to tight licensing conditions prompted by complaints from neighbours.

This perception may not have been helped by the fact that Oscar-winning actor and director Mark Rylance, himself a local resident, joined the fight against the festivals last month, saying they cause harm to "the grass, trees and plant life for months if not for ever".

"The generational element of it is really important," David told London Centric. "We're all in our early 30s. We're sitting there going 'all of us are renters, none of us have a chance to buy these big houses in Herne Hill, and after Covid it feels like once again our freedoms are being taken away."

David, who asked that his full name was not published due to his work in the civil service, was surprised by the subsequent backlash. The influential local website Brixton Buzz described SayYesLambeth as "slightly less than opaque" and pointed out that one of the first social media accounts that engaged with the account was a local Labour councillor, suggesting the whole campaign could be "astro-turfed by someone from within the Town Hall".

"We see people saying no to things all the time"

London Centric was intrigued by the claims – not least due to the healthy debate raging in our comments section when we recently reported on the legal case over festivals in the park – so we set about finding out more.

David insisted the group is just "five gays with a laptop trying to make our voices heard". Other members of the group initially agreed to on-the-record interviews and provided their identities, only to back out amid the online backlash from anti-festival campaigners. The members said they were not affiliated with the council and have personally voted for both Labour and the Greens. They rejected accusations of a relationship with Superstruct, the private equity-backed festival promoter that stands to make millions if the Brockwell Park events go ahead, saying they had had no contact with them – a claim supported by a spokesperson for the promoters.

Indeed, London Centric has yet to find anything to suggest SayYesLambeth is run by anyone other than an informal group of rugby-playing friends. They don't dispute the anti-festival campaigners' argument that the grass in the park is churned up and the local area is disrupted by the events. But they believe the disruption is overstated and the damage to the park is a fair trade-off for the fun and culture the festivals bring to the area.

However, the group have their sights on a wider set of issues – more housebuilding and later opening hours for pubs – that speak to one of London's most crucial divides, seeing themselves as an answer to what they regard as increasing NIMBYism. David said: "It just annoys me that we see people saying no to things all the time."

"We're not against Mighty Hoopla"

Lucy Akrill, the co-founder of the Protect Brockwell Park organisation and the woman who prompted the group's campaign, doesn't see herself as a NIMBY. Wandering around the park on Tuesday she showed London Centric the still-visible damage to the park's grass from last year's festivals, just days before the promoters are due to start setting up again. It's been a busy time for the Protect Brockwell Park group, which has been receiving a lot of press attention in recent weeks.

"This park isn't sustainable, ecologically, for the events as they're being run," she said, pointing out a copse of trees which has "bat roosting potential", an area that has been a "swamp" all year, and concerns about the reduced number of birds in the park since the events started taking place in nesting season. She suggested there needed to be a reduction in the number of festivals, fallow years to let the ground recover, and a full planning process for events to let residents object to the back-to-back festivals.

"We're not against Mighty Hoopla," she said. "We want people to enjoy Mighty Hoopla. What we're saying is, is this park a suitable venue annually for Mighty Hoopla and City Splash and Across The Tracks and Wide Awake and Field Day within nine days?"
   

150 Protect Brockwell Park supporters lie down on the grass to spell out 'No Walls' this weekend.

She is the local resident who spotted what she believes is a previously overlooked legal issue with the way music festivals are held in Brockwell Park and many other parks across the capital. Festival promoters, to save costs, try to cram as many events as possible into a short period of time to spread the cost of building temporary staging and security measures. Planning permission is only required if an event takes over an area for more than 28 days. The Brockwell Park promoters previously argued that their back-to-back events easily fitted within this timeframe.

Akrill noticed that their assessment did not include the set-up and take-down time, meaning that a large chunk of the park is really fenced off for around 38 days — suggesting the events were potentially being held on an illegal basis. After hiring a barrister who came to the same conclusion, her group has raised almost £35,000 from local residents to take Lambeth council to a judicial review over its refusal to demand a full planning application. The case is due to be heard in court next Thursday, several days after the festival organisers are due to start building the stages for Mighty Hoopla and the other festivals.

If the judge sides with Akrill's group then the festivals could either need to rapidly obtain planning permission or face cancellation at a few days' notice. The people putting the stages together could have to stop work immediately. The ramifications could spread to other London parks where promoters take over parks for weeks before and after events.

Akrill's concern with SayYesLambeth is that it could be a group "posing as young people who want to take us on" while possibly having links to local councillors. "It feels like the people in licensing know that the strongest argument against us is through the festival goers," she said.

She doesn't buy the argument that this is a demographic issue, a fight for the use of London's public spaces between rich older NIMBYs who have gentrified areas and younger people who want to enjoy life in a city that is hard to survive in without much money. She said she believes that the majority of the local population wants to curtail the events, and that the groups most affected are people living in nearby social housing blocks who lose their nearest green space for more than a month. (The exact proportion of the park that is taken out of action by the festivals is a matter of some dispute and ranges between 20% and 40% depending on which calculation you prefer.)

Akrill instead wants to win over the people who go to Mighty Hoopla and other events to her cause: "I believe that people love the festivals. It's an opportunity to get together with like-minded people. But how would they feel if we said 'can you do it every other year?'"

"What do you want to spend your summer doing?"

To complicate matters, festivals in parks has become a local political issue, especially as the Green Party looks to make breakthroughs on Labour-dominated councils across London. Last week a by-election in a council ward next to Brockwell Park saw the Greens gain a seat from its rivals, with a campaign that emphasised damage to Brockwell Park as its top issue.
   

The successful leaflet of Green councillor Paul Valentine.

At the same time, the aims of the SayYesLambeth appear to be politically influenced by the YIMBY movement, a loose alliance of policies that supports housebuilding, economic growth, and reducing the power of locals to object to developments on their doorstep. Even if they aren't formally connected to Labour, the group's objectives chime with the dominant thinking in the Labour government.

London Centric asked Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London who has pledged to overrule local councils on licensing issues and prioritise the capital's nightlife, whether he backed the SayYesLambeth group.

In response City Hall provided London Centric with a carefully-worded statement from deputy mayor for culture Justine Simons, which emphasised the positive side of the events: "London is a global music capital and festivals offer the opportunity for many thousands of visitors to enjoy some of the world's biggest artists, boosting our economy and providing jobs. Festivals can have a significant impact on their local area and that is why it's important that councils continue to work with residents to ensure concerns are heard and addressed to deliver successful events."

David, one of the gay rugby team behind SayYesLambeth, insisted there is no deeper meaning to their campaign. Mighty Hoopla, he said, is "honestly the best day of the year" where he gets to drink Prosecco with friends, wear glitter, and party in a safe space where "if I want to hold someone's hands or kiss someone no one judges me."

He concluded: "What do you want to spend your summer doing? I want to spend it having a good old dance. I can't get a ticket to Glastonbury for love nor money, this is at the end of our street and it's affordable. We're part of the community as well as everyone else. If that park gives up eight days for young people who want fun then I think that's a fair trade off."

On Thursday, a judge will decide whether that will be a possibility this year.

[Gups]

This is close to me. I'm with the campaigners. The odd even is OK but a chunk of the park is closed for more than a month and looks dreadful for ages afterwards.

[Josquius]

We have the same thing here.
We have had festivals on the town Moor lately and quite a group pushing back against them saying they're bad for the environment.
This is where nimbys really annoy me.
I can't stand dishonesty.
They're concerned for their own convenience but make excuses about other things.
It's not like the town Moor is particularly environmentally rich or used for much else. It's just a big field for cattle grazing.
But who knows. Maybe there are real concerns. But with people masking their actual motivations and my minimal interest I really don't know.

Nice to hear the Yimby movement is a notable enough thing.

I think you overestimate how much teaching they really need to do in guidance/PSHE - or had a very different experience than me

From my experience of PSE watching a 4 part series would be way too much work for the teacher.