The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Everyone Is Getting This Wrong ｜ Interview with Katharine Birbalsingh CBE

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, I'm joined by Catherine Burblesing, the founder and headmistress of the Michaela School

00:00:05.420 in Wembley, London. And this is a remarkable school because it is expressly founded on very

00:00:12.360 conservative principles, shall we say, and sort of traditional levels of discipline,

00:00:17.260 which a few years ago caused a bit of a stir in the media, didn't it?

00:00:21.340 Well, we're always causing a bit of a stir, I think, in the media ever since we

00:00:24.340 tried to open. It took us three and a half years to open and we eventually opened in 2014.

00:00:28.340 Right, right. And I got into a lot of trouble because I spoke at the Conservative Party

00:00:32.740 conference in 2010 and then was essentially kicked out of the profession because you're

00:00:37.520 not allowed to side with the right when you're a teacher. Or a conservative.

00:00:41.760 Yeah. Okay, so would you like to just tell us a little bit about the school itself,

00:00:46.800 just for anyone who doesn't know about it? Yeah, so there's three things I'd say that

00:00:50.180 really distinguish us. We have traditional discipline, traditional teaching and traditional

00:00:54.360 values. And we take all of that stuff very seriously. So people say I'm the strictest

00:00:58.960 headmistress in Britain, which I'm quite happy to be known by that name. People sort of think

00:01:05.540 strict means that you're mean. I would say that it means you love the children enough to keep your

00:01:10.080 standards really high for them. And that discipline is what's needed in all of our schools. And then

00:01:16.680 traditional teaching, again, I think that's what's needed in all of our schools. And used to be the

00:01:22.120 case, 60, 70 years ago, what I'm saying was perfectly normal 60 or 70 years ago. Nowadays,

00:01:28.300 I'm a complete radical for expecting that children should do as they're told and do their homework

00:01:33.800 and turn up on time. And they don't all have some variety of need that needs to be met, because if

00:01:41.300 they're not on time, it must be because of some unmet need, as opposed to, no, they just got up late.

00:01:45.600 And so there's the discipline, then there's the teaching. And the teaching, what do I mean by

00:01:52.040 traditional teaching? You stand in front of the class, you lead the learning, you are the authority

00:01:56.880 in the class. And that's a key word, authority, because we've lost our understanding of what it

00:02:00.860 is to be an authority as adults who are meant to lead children. It shouldn't be the other way around.

00:02:06.340 And to make sense of this to the ordinary listener, you go into a classroom, you'll often see desks that

00:02:13.120 are grouped together, and the children are facing this, that, and the other way, and the teachers

00:02:17.100 over there, as opposed to the desks being in rows, facing the teacher, teachers at the front, driving

00:02:23.260 the bus, and all the children get on the bus and go with the teacher. That's what should be happening.

00:02:27.640 That isn't the case. It's actually the children driving the bus, and obviously we're going in all

00:02:30.980 the wrong directions as a result. And then there's the traditional values, which I think have all but

00:02:37.620 disappeared in Britain. I mean, not just in our schools, but everywhere. So what are traditional

00:02:43.080 values? I often call them small c conservative values. Values that I would say used to span both

00:02:50.020 the right and the left politically. And for some reason, the left have completely abandoned all

00:02:54.320 these values. So now they seem to be the home of the right. Things like personal responsibility. If I

00:02:59.300 haven't done my homework, that's on me. It's not because my dog ate the homework, my brother stole

00:03:03.880 my homework. It's me that's responsible. Things like a duty towards other people. So when you get a

00:03:10.040 detention, you're not just letting yourself down. You're letting the whole class down. You're letting

00:03:13.180 your form tutor down. You're letting your head of year down and so on. You're letting your family

00:03:17.760 down. And then sacrifice. So you might sacrifice something that's important to you for the sake of

00:03:24.580 the whole. That allows us all to be able to get on with each other. So part of that very much,

00:03:30.140 I would say, is our dedication to the country. Patriotism. We have a British flag that flies

00:03:36.780 outside the school. We sing God Save the King, Jerusalem, and I vow to thee my country.

00:03:43.340 We learn Kipling's If and so on. And once I had a Sunday Times journalist who came in and

00:03:50.140 saw this happening and he said, Catherine, do you deliberately try and be controversial?

00:03:54.000 And I said, it was always this deep shock at the idea of singing God Save the King or

00:04:00.460 reciting Kipling. Reciting any poetry for that matter. So we're just traditional in the way

00:04:05.860 teaching them gratitude, teaching them kindness. There's a sense of decency that used to be 60

00:04:13.900 or 70 years ago, I'd say, perfectly normal. Nowadays, it's considered to be quite controversial.

00:04:18.720 So, I mean, I've got four children and that sounds like music to my ears. And also it sounds

00:04:25.500 like what a right-wing educational program should look like. So I was really surprised to see you

00:04:32.500 get so much pushback from the right. Now, I understand that recently you did a debate with

00:04:36.640 Connor Tomlinson on The Spectator that never got released. Why do you think that was?

00:04:41.820 Well, first of all, I'd say that it wasn't really a debate. I'd say it was a conversation. I don't

00:04:48.100 really like debates. I have participated in them in the past and I don't like them because the idea

00:04:52.860 is that you go to be able to stand your ground and argue with the other person. I didn't go to

00:04:59.180 stand my ground with Connor. Connor had put out a couple of videos about the school, about Michaela,

00:05:05.120 our school, and I thought he was incorrect in some of the things, the assumptions he was making.

00:05:09.480 And I went along to have a conversation with him. So, you know, just like I've come along to have

00:05:13.120 a conversation with you. I mean, in some ways, I think people might think that you and I are on

00:05:18.000 opposite sides of the table. I don't actually know. I mean, you look surprised when I say that.

00:05:24.040 I don't know. But I'm always willing to go and talk to people. So I thought,

00:05:28.900 Connor's misunderstood our school. I want to talk to him. And so Michael Gove was kind enough to

00:05:34.660 invite us on The Spectator. And we both went and we all spoke in good faith. Connor and I had a

00:05:40.940 conversation, which I think ended quite nicely with me inviting him to the school and him inviting

00:05:46.240 me to dinner. It was all very nice. I think he learned a lot about me and I think I learned about

00:05:51.380 him. And Michael Gove was also involved in that conversation. He wasn't just chairing. At one point,

00:05:57.260 the two of them had got into it so much, I was going, hello, I'm over here kind of thing. So it came

00:06:02.920 as a surprise when The Spectator did not want to publish. Now, Connor was very angry about this.

00:06:08.500 Just a quick aside. Michael Gove is the editor of The Spectator.

00:06:12.660 So when we say The Spectator didn't want to publish, we say Michael Gove didn't want to

00:06:16.940 Well, I don't know. I don't think so. And you know, I've since seen Connor. And Connor said to

00:06:22.280 me that he doesn't actually, he used to think it was Michael Gove. And he doesn't think it's

00:06:25.600 Michael Gove anymore. And he thinks it's people above, you know, Gove. So, and I think,

00:06:31.440 I think that's probably right. Just because Michael Gove on the time, on the evening when we were

00:06:36.760 talking, was so keen. You know, Connor kept saying, are you going to publish? Are you going

00:06:40.260 to publish? And he was very suspicious of them not publishing it. And Michael Gove kept saying,

00:06:45.600 yes, definitely. So I just, why would he have invited us on? It wouldn't make any sense.

00:06:50.120 I agree.

00:06:50.480 And I also think the conversation was quite a nice conversation. I, you know, I don't,

00:06:56.440 I don't really understand why, but you know, the thing is, as far as I'm concerned,

00:07:01.760 The Spectator had the right not to publish whatever they don't, you know,

00:07:04.400 they're a private organization. They can do what they like. I, you know, I've been on the media

00:07:08.640 many times. I have been stood down for so many things. Things have been recorded before and

00:07:12.980 they don't publish for whatever reason. And I sort of just shrug my shoulders and continue.

00:07:17.880 But yes, what was interesting was what Connor was saying about us. And I do think he was just

00:07:23.500 wrong. So what was his convention?

00:07:25.520 So, and it's not just him. There are lots of people on the right who these days do come out

00:07:33.920 after me, which is interesting because I'd say five, six years ago, it was only the left that was

00:07:39.260 attacking me. Now I get attacked by both. For instance, there is a lovely photo of Roger Scruton

00:07:47.120 when he came to visit our school. I had him come and talk to the children about fox hunting because

00:07:51.420 I thought, well, inner city kids, they don't know much about fox hunting. He's this great lover of

00:07:55.060 fox hunting. You know, this will be great. And it was lovely.

00:07:58.660 That is controversial, just in case anyone's wondering. To be a fox hunting advocate.

00:08:03.580 Yes, indeed. Indeed. Yes, indeed. And well, that was Roger Scruton. And he gave me his lovely book

00:08:09.540 on fox hunting, which of course is all the more precious to me now that he has passed on. And

00:08:14.760 we had a wonderful time with him and we took a photo. And at some point at that time, I put it

00:08:21.240 on Twitter, X now. And as I've always done, I put photos of the kids up all the time saying,

00:08:27.760 look at us going to the football, look at us doing this, that and the other. And that photo every now

00:08:35.500 and again rears its head by someone saying, look at this teacher. So they don't recognize him as

00:08:41.260 Roger Scruton. Look at this teacher with all of these immigrant kids. I'm being quite nice in the

00:08:48.800 way that I say that. They say other things that are not so nice. And they're very rude about my

00:08:53.100 children. And they're very rude about Roger Scruton for that matter. And so that's one way,

00:08:59.980 just the kind of just naked kind of racism where they really come after us for just being kids in a

00:09:06.660 photo with this white teacher who is Roger Scruton. And then Connor, who wasn't doing that sort of

00:09:13.640 thing, but what Connor was saying was he was making various assumptions. So he was saying that the

00:09:18.720 reason why we have to be so strict at Michaela is because we have this mixed intake. And I have to say

00:09:25.400 there are very few white children at Michaela. Most of them are brown and black from a wide variety of

00:09:30.460 backgrounds, Middle Eastern, Indian, Caribbean, African, you know, they come from a wide variety.

00:09:37.820 So I looked up some stats and apparently it's 98.8%.

00:09:41.000 Right. Okay. Well, I didn't know that. But yeah, that would, yeah.

00:09:43.360 I'm sorry. I'm not trying to...

00:09:44.660 No, no. It is mainly. And why is that the case? Because in Brent, where we are, those are the

00:09:49.720 children. And it has to be said that the white middle classes who might live nearby choose not to

00:09:54.540 send their children to Michaela. And that's because the white middle classes don't like what we

00:09:59.400 offer. You know, they don't like the strict discipline. They don't want, you know, they're

00:10:03.660 more the sort of guardian reading types who would never in a million years choose a school like

00:10:07.540 ours. So, I mean, I get all sorts of people on the right accusing me of having murdered all the

00:10:12.900 white children. I mean, it's completely ridiculous. I mean, it's...

00:10:15.820 Nonsense.

00:10:16.920 Yes. Yes. So there's that. Connor, of course, is not one of those people. But Connor was making

00:10:21.560 the assumption that the reason why we have strict discipline is because we have to, because of

00:10:28.120 the intake. And at one point, we got into a bit of a ding dong where I was saying, but have you

00:10:33.500 ever seen a white majority school? Because if you went into a white majority school, you would find

00:10:37.660 terrible behavior, just like you find terrible behavior in all the schools, whatever their

00:10:41.680 intakes, you know. Then the attack on me was, you just hate white children.

00:10:45.340 Well, hang on. I'd like to pause on that bit, because one of the things that I think that

00:10:50.820 Connor and people of his generation don't understand is if you were to go back 50 years or so,

00:10:58.120 the regime that you're running at the school was normal, right? It was completely normal

00:11:04.540 for all the white kids in Britain. They were all meant to be schooled in this way. And so

00:11:10.740 you're not actually doing anything specifically because they are minority or ethnic minority

00:11:15.420 children. It's that the standards and the nature of education in this country has changed

00:11:22.720 so dramatically.

00:11:23.720 That's right. And so, and I think you speak to part of the heart of the problem where

00:11:28.640 ethno-nationalists, when they're saying, well, actually, and I'd be interested in your view

00:11:33.260 on this, that all we need to do is get rid of the immigrants. If we get rid of the immigrants,

00:11:37.120 then England will be wonderful. And I sort of think, but do you know that it's more complicated

00:11:41.440 than that? I mean, I understand the worry that some of the ethno-nationalists have with too much

00:11:46.520 immigration. I am not pro-mass immigration. I understand that the immigration that's been

00:11:52.080 happening since 1997 is massively problematic and that the numbers that came from 1948 to 1997

00:11:57.060 are the same that's come in the last, however, few years.

00:12:01.300 It is the Norman Conquest.

00:12:02.580 Yes. Or whatever the various stats are, it is absolutely the case that there's far too much

00:12:06.820 immigration and that something needs to be done about that. But I do think that this idea that

00:12:12.340 we're just going to, we'll make it all better. We'll just put everybody on a helicopter. So

00:12:16.340 that's the other thing is that there are some of the people on X who tell me I should need to be

00:12:20.100 on a helicopter and they want to send me home. And I think it's a bit of a fantasy world.

00:12:29.440 You know, so I saw you commenting on Steve Laws and his opinions on these things. And you were saying

00:12:35.920 it's a bit of a, he's just living in a bit of a fantasy. And I mean, it's all well and good. I mean,

00:12:39.720 we like to watch Disney and we like to watch, you know, all sorts of, we read fantasy books,

00:12:44.300 we enjoy them. But I think we all need to be a bit grown up about this and we need to think,

00:12:48.940 well, actually, how can we all get on with each other? Yes, there needs to be a national

00:12:52.700 conversation about immigration. Yes, there needs to be a conversation about the mass

00:12:56.880 immigration that's going on. That's a problem. But we also need a conversation about how can we

00:13:02.260 all get on. And so our school, where Connor was wrong is that discipline is discipline that I

00:13:07.740 would put in any school. If I was running a school, majority white kids, it would be exactly

00:13:11.120 the same. And guess what? It would be a very successful school, just like my current school

00:13:15.980 is. And we get a thousand guests every year. And all of your listeners are welcome to come and visit

00:13:21.740 us. You just go on the website, you sign up, anybody can come and see it. And the reason why

00:13:25.220 we've always done that is because I'm trying to show people what is possible in education.

00:13:30.320 I go around to education conferences all the time, talking about our methods deliberately

00:13:34.660 so that other schools can copy us. And some schools have, lots of teachers have. I get letters

00:13:40.280 from all sorts of people everywhere saying, oh my goodness, this works so well. Thank you so much.

00:13:46.000 And they take those methods and they use them in their own classrooms and they change their

00:13:50.060 classrooms for the better. So this has nothing to do, those methods that I've just spoken to you

00:13:54.960 about has nothing to do with the intake that we have. Having said that, where there is some truth

00:14:02.820 is that I do think that in a country that it has a variety of people from different places,

00:14:11.200 you do have to make a bit more of an effort to make sure that we can all get on with each other.

00:14:16.780 And either we do that or we say, no, let's just hire a whole bunch of helicopters and send them home.

00:14:23.560 But then you have to think, well, who are you sending home exactly? Are you sending home people

00:14:27.880 with British passports so Britain isn't their home? If they've lived here for 30 years, is it not their

00:14:32.160 home? If all their ties are to England and they're born here and their children are here and they've

00:14:37.780 brought up their whole families here, are we saying that they're not British because their parents

00:14:43.400 weren't British or their parents before that aren't British? Is that what we're saying? Are we going to

00:14:47.480 just raise all the mosques to the ground and all the temples to the ground? Are we just going to ban

00:14:51.820 any religion apart from Christianity? I mean, look, you know. There are going to be people who say yes

00:14:56.320 to all that. Right. Okay. Fine. But is that really going to happen? It is going to happen. No, no, no.

00:15:00.460 So I don't think there's any point in us talking about that as an option. What we should be talking

00:15:04.500 about is a positive vision for how we can create a country where we don't get white people hating

00:15:14.360 themselves, where white guilt is the name of the game and where black, brown and white people can

00:15:21.540 all get on with each other. And the problem with the left is that they like to pretend that that's

00:15:24.780 all fine. And that's because they live in Hampstead and they've got one black friend who went to Eton

00:15:28.300 and that's all lovely. And, you know, that's fine. You know, good luck to them. But the fact is,

00:15:32.880 I recognize that it's a lot more complex than that. And so we are very good at Michaela at ensuring

00:15:40.760 that our diverse population has a love for Britain, has a real knowledge of British history

00:15:47.360 and what Britain is and what it is to be British. And the fact of the matter is, is that the vast

00:15:55.940 majority of schools don't do that. They just don't do that. And so when Connor is saying,

00:16:00.820 oh, Michaela is the problem, I'm thinking to myself, we're the one school in Britain that's

00:16:06.160 actually teaching British history properly. We're the one school in Britain that has the kids

00:16:10.600 singing, God save the king, Jerusalem, I've added thee my country every week. We're the one school

00:16:16.260 in Britain that flies one flag, which is the union flag outside. We're the only school, right?

00:16:20.780 So this idea that actually teaches chronological British history properly, where they know it

00:16:26.740 inside out. And if you come and talk to my kids about British history, they will have a showdown

00:16:30.400 with anybody out there and win it. I tell you, they will. And that there's a real sense of we are

00:16:35.280 British together. And that unifies us. And they understand that. Now, the idea that you all should

00:16:42.880 be attacking us, it's just ridiculous. Because what, as far as I'm concerned, the internationalists

00:16:48.320 should be saying, why is there no Michaela in Blackpool? Why is there no Michaela in Hull?

00:16:52.360 We want this for our white kids, as you just said, right?

00:16:55.340 No, absolutely.

00:16:55.940 But they're not saying that. Which sort of makes you think, well, why? Why are they

00:17:00.880 not saying that?

00:17:01.220 I can tell you. So I feel like you've had to get this off your chest.

00:17:07.320 So that was...

00:17:09.160 Yes.

00:17:10.460 Normally you have to coax these things out of people. So I think the problem is that people

00:17:18.780 of Connor's age, they don't understand what English, in particular, schools used to be

00:17:23.360 like. And actually what...

00:17:25.260 And are right now.

00:17:26.220 And are right now. I mean, I think, I take it you watched Adolescence.

00:17:30.240 Yes.

00:17:30.900 My God. Ignore the plot. Look at the school.

00:17:33.960 Well, I can tell you it's worse than that.

00:17:35.700 So when I was watching...

00:17:37.160 I've got four kids.

00:17:37.920 I was thinking, everybody's shocked by the behavior in Adolescence. I'm watching it thinking

00:17:42.980 these kids are actually behaving really well.

00:17:44.800 Yeah, compared to a lot of state schools.

00:17:48.560 Loads of them.

00:17:49.560 Yeah.

00:17:50.200 Loads.

00:17:50.600 And this is all a part of the sort of loosening of bonds and the breaking down of barriers

00:17:56.420 and the reduction of order to complete chaos. And so the teachers, as you say, have no

00:18:00.680 authority. And one thing that I thought people didn't take away from Adolescence is just look

00:18:05.140 at the dilapidated state of the country. Like that's an accurate representation of this

00:18:08.840 country right now.

00:18:09.720 Exactly.

00:18:10.340 And everyone's focused on the narrative, but it's like, no, no, no, look at what they're

00:18:14.000 in. I mean, the police officer hates the school when he goes to the school, you know?

00:18:17.000 And so that was a great representation of what is essentially the problem. It's the loosening

00:18:22.420 of all of these borders and barriers that were actually good for the children, right?

00:18:27.520 And so I actually was very surprised when Connor misinterpreted what I think you are doing,

00:18:33.300 Michaela, because I view you as basically doing what you can with what you have, right?

00:18:39.120 I mean, you're not in charge of the immigration policy.

00:18:41.000 You're not in charge of the demographics of Brent or anywhere in London or anywhere in the

00:18:46.640 country. And so in this situation, what is the best option? And I do agree that the Michaela

00:18:53.000 School is the best option in this situation. And I think a lot of people are just, I think

00:19:00.300 a lot of people feel very insecure with the way that the country is and the future of the

00:19:03.760 country. And I think they're right to feel this way. And I think that from this insecurity,

00:19:08.720 they lash out at whoever it appears to be in a position of authority, even if it's just

00:19:14.560 the headmistress of school.

00:19:15.760 Yes. No, that's right.

00:19:17.480 But they act as if you're in charge of the Home Office.

00:19:20.100 That's right. Well, they're angry. And that's what the left doesn't understand, because with

00:19:23.520 all their insanity that they're doing, they're creating a massive problem with a whole bunch

00:19:28.240 of people who are very resentful, which I understand. I get that resentment. I get it.

00:19:32.620 And I get the sense of insecurity. And they're looking at their country and they're thinking,

00:19:36.200 well, wait a minute, even 25 years ago, it didn't look like this. And so what on earth

00:19:41.760 is going on? And we keep voting in different people hoping that they're going to fix things.

00:19:45.940 And actually, they just make things worse and worse. So I get that. But it's not just

00:19:51.640 the politicians. So what I would say that I think everyone is missing is what is going

00:19:56.700 on in our schools and what is going on in our homes and how we have lost control of the

00:20:02.160 idea of being the authority. And I think, so this is where I have real disagreements with

00:20:07.720 the ethnic nationalists. They just look at the ethnic minorities and they say, oh, it's

00:20:12.500 all your fault. You know, it's because you're here. That's just too simple an explanation.

00:20:17.900 I get mass migration is a problem. But things were not like this in 1985. It wasn't like this.

00:20:24.500 And in 1985, there were immigrants here. So there were immigrants and there was...

00:20:30.460 Just to be clear, you're completely correct that the social liberalization of Britain

00:20:36.000 has happened probably within my lifetime. I remember when I was quite young, having much

00:20:42.740 more strict teachers than I had when I left school. It was a process of social liberalization

00:20:48.600 that I personally have lived through. And I don't think it was for the better.

00:20:52.060 Because whenever you... I always advise people, look, read something from a hundred years ago

00:20:56.540 and you realize that the very... the grammar, the syntax, the nature of the thoughts that

00:21:01.560 the people are putting to paper are more complex, they're richer, and they're more sensitive in

00:21:07.120 many ways. It's because of the strict environment they grew up in where they had to pay attention

00:21:12.020 not just themselves, but to the group as a whole, the community as a whole, and take personal

00:21:17.780 responsibility for the quality of the community. Exactly. And so this all is very apparent to me

00:21:23.840 that it has been this general loosening of society.

00:21:28.460 And that loosening of society hasn't happened because of immigration.

00:21:31.260 No, no, not at all.

00:21:31.900 In fact, those immigrants from Nigeria and Jamaica, they came here with very strict ways of being.

00:21:38.380 Yes.

00:21:38.700 They would go into schools and think, oh my goodness, actually, things are very loose here

00:21:41.960 in comparison to what we knew at home.

00:21:43.460 Yeah, but they didn't used to be. This sort of loosening... the strict standards in the

00:21:48.500 schools were a product of the British Empire, which was obviously a product of Britain and

00:21:51.740 England.

00:21:52.100 Yes, indeed.

00:21:52.680 They were our standards.

00:21:53.620 Exactly. You're right. You're right.

00:21:55.020 They're not alien to us.

00:21:56.260 Yes.

00:21:56.580 And so this is why I've invited you here, one of the reasons, because I was a bit frustrated

00:22:00.920 with Conor's position on it. It was like, no, Conor, this is how you should have been

00:22:05.100 raised, right?

00:22:05.800 Exactly.

00:22:06.140 You know, even if you were in, I don't know whereabouts he went to school, but even if it was, you

00:22:10.100 know, somewhere in the northeast or something, whether you're in Cornwall or something, where

00:22:12.880 every child is white and has a thousand years of indigenous ancestry.

00:22:17.800 That's how we thought that had to be done. And so it's wrong that we don't raise our own

00:22:22.400 children this way. And I tell you, as a dad of four kids, I want discipline.

00:22:26.040 I want strength.

00:22:26.500 Well, indeed. I think of my own father when I showed him our book list for the books that

00:22:32.340 the children were going to read and what we were going to study. And he looked at it and

00:22:34.840 he said, oh, this really reminds me of my British school in British Guyana.

00:22:38.120 This is similar to that, which of course, all the other schools, you know, around, they're

00:22:45.520 not teaching this. They're teaching a curriculum that if people really delved into, they would

00:22:50.660 be horrified by what our schools are teaching. And that's what's important is that we don't

00:22:56.800 realize that schools are the silent engines in the background changing the country. And people

00:23:02.600 are totally distracted by the immigration question, which of course, I understand why.

00:23:09.060 But you've also got to ask yourselves the questions, but why are our politicians doing

00:23:13.100 this? Why are our media class behaving as they are? Why are the journalists writing as

00:23:18.280 they are? Because they were all educated in our schools. That's why they got these ideas

00:23:24.240 from somewhere. Why do white people in Britain feel so guilty that they're behaving in ways

00:23:29.340 that are completely inexplicable, right? Because of our schools. Our schools have taught them

00:23:34.140 to be a certain way. And it's not just the schools. The media is teaching them to be that

00:23:37.720 way. Our general culture is teaching them to be that way.

00:23:39.340 But again, all of those people are the product of the schools. I mean, the irony is the communists

00:23:44.460 fully understood this. There's a French communist called Louis Alphazer who described what you're

00:23:50.000 talking about as ideological state apparatus. So the schools, the churches, and any other

00:23:55.840 big public institution that basically everyone goes through is what he calls an ideological

00:24:00.840 state apparatus. And what this does is essentially kind of formats the people into a particular

00:24:06.040 kind of worldview that they carry with them forever as they go into the world. And so they

00:24:11.700 were, as a communist, he was like, well, we have to be in these and we have to be changing

00:24:16.260 things. And now if you look at it, three quarters of teachers vote Labour. So I think mission

00:24:20.880 accomplished by the communists. And what is very frustrating is the right doesn't understand

00:24:26.440 this point in particular, that if you aren't producing people who you could call conservatives,

00:24:33.520 as in people who have not just a patriotism, but a proper and comprehensive understanding

00:24:38.860 of the history and the cultural boundaries that made you what you are and not something else,

00:24:45.300 then you can't, you don't have an ideological state apparatus that is producing those people

00:24:50.880 to become the civilization in the future. And so it is literally like putting it through,

00:24:56.840 I don't know, a prism or something, right? You're putting the culture into the prism

00:25:00.720 and it comes out in a different way. And you're like, okay, but I wanted the previous thing.

00:25:05.080 Why aren't I getting it? It must be something on the other side. And it's like, no, it's

00:25:08.340 because it's going through the prism. And you don't control the education. Conservatives

00:25:12.660 just do not go into education. And it's like, no, this, if you think about British schools

00:25:17.420 a hundred years ago, they're the most conservative things you can think. Exactly.

00:25:21.200 I know. Like I said, I remember when I was about, you know, 10, 12 years old, having

00:25:25.060 really conservative schoolmasters, but now it's liberal women controlling schools. And

00:25:29.500 it's like, okay, but we've let that go. We've dropped that ball. And what kind of output

00:25:34.080 do you think liberal women are going to produce when it comes to the education of future generations?

00:25:38.620 liberal men. I mean, I have to say. But it's mostly women, isn't it? It's something

00:25:42.340 like two thirds women. In terms of teachers, but there's, in terms of who's running our

00:25:45.200 primary schools, for instance, they're mainly men. Sure, sure. But the teachers themselves

00:25:48.440 and they deal with on a daily basis. No, that's true. But it will be the leaders of the school

00:25:53.160 who will set the culture of the place. That's also true. And the fact is, I would say it's

00:25:57.360 a combination of very liberal. I mean, liberal is, you know, some very leftist people who

00:26:04.100 are running our schools and, and who are teaching in our schools. And it's not just that they're,

00:26:12.000 they feel that in order to be a good teacher, you really need to radicalize the children and

00:26:18.360 make them into these radicals who are going to overthrow the establishment. And that, you

00:26:24.320 know, I sort of think our job is to teach maths and English and science.

00:26:27.600 But you can see the communist, you can see the communist influence there, right? Because

00:26:30.460 that's a communist opinion. Yeah. Even, even a liberal would say, well, no, we live in a

00:26:35.260 liberal democracy. So we don't want to, you know, you're not a revolutionary in a liberal

00:26:38.980 democracy. If you're a liberal, only the communists. And this comes from a long line of communist

00:26:43.020 ideological thinking that, oh, we have to weaken the, the, the substructure of society in order

00:26:49.220 to be able to bring about finally a communist country. I mean, this is, this is a very well

00:26:53.720 documented series of communist intellectuals who've come to these conclusions. And here we are,

00:26:58.260 where this is the normal view in British schools.

00:27:01.660 Yes. Although I wouldn't, it's not like anyone is sat there going, ha ha, how do we turn them

00:27:05.860 into communists? I, I, I think the teachers think they're doing the right thing. And they think

00:27:11.340 they're making the children into better people by teaching them about white privilege or having

00:27:19.060 the different groups. That's it. You're, you're the LGBT group. You're the Muslim group. You're the

00:27:23.360 Hindu group. Everyone has their victim status. Um, you have children from different backgrounds

00:27:28.920 and let's all bring our flags in and celebrate where we're actually from. And I sort of think,

00:27:33.260 well, that's it. And don't teach them any British history. And if you do, it's always about how Britain

00:27:37.740 was really bad. Um, and so all anybody's ever hearing is Britain's a terrible country. All these

00:27:43.880 other countries are good. Um, of course, all the children are going to grow up disliking Britain,

00:27:49.320 feeling uncomfortable with it. And then everybody turns around and says, why is this going on in

00:27:54.000 our country? Why, why is the media talking the way that it is? Why, why, why, why do we have these

00:27:59.220 problems? And I think, well, it's just obvious the schools have made it that way. And, um, and I know,

00:28:04.680 you know, people will now attack me for, for being just quite honest about what is going on in our

00:28:09.560 schools. People just, they don't realize. And I also think, you know, I meet people all the time in

00:28:14.360 their fifties and sixties who have, uh, children who are perhaps 15, 20, 25 years old. And they'll

00:28:22.180 often say to me, my children are a bit estranged in a way. You know, I try and say something about

00:28:28.480 how I find it odd that drag queens are, are, are, are reading to toddlers and they, they call me a

00:28:33.780 Nazi. Or I look at, and I think, oh, it's a bit odd that we have so much immigration. And they say to me

00:28:39.800 that, you know, I hate black people. And I think, but, but that's not true. And I find it difficult

00:28:44.960 to speak to my children and, um, they never understand why. And when I, um, when I say to

00:28:50.840 them, when they say to me, well, what's going on? And I say, well, it's obvious to me. And they say,

00:28:54.940 well, what's going on? And I say, well, you sent them to school. And then what they say is, no,

00:28:58.380 but I sent them to a really good private school. We saved up our money and we sent them to this

00:29:02.820 excellent private school. And I say, well, all the more so then that's why your child feels the way that

00:29:07.760 they do. And the, the, the kind of, the indoctrination is so deep that, um, you know,

00:29:14.800 often these sorts of people will say, well, I was a Marxist when I was at university, so they'll get

00:29:18.340 over it. I don't think they're going to get over it. I think this is wedded to their identity that

00:29:22.700 they believe in order to be a good person, they have to think in this way because the identitarians

00:29:28.800 have taken over our, our, our country. They, they, they, we can only see everything through this

00:29:34.880 grievance identity politics lens. Um, everybody's competing for who's got the biggest victim card.

00:29:41.460 Um, they've been brought up with that from such a young age that that's how they see everything.

00:29:46.480 Can I just pause you on that? Because this is an issue that I, that has actually, um,

00:29:51.360 there are numbers in on this. Um, younger generations are like millennials are not growing

00:29:56.140 more conservative as they get older. Right.

00:29:58.120 And I, I, I think that the, the sort of Gen X and boomers don't understand why that is,

00:30:03.620 um, because the, the boomers in particular had a very conservative generation that raised them

00:30:08.960 and a lot of their culture is, you can see in effect, essentially rebelling against the

00:30:14.420 conservative nature of, uh, particularly Britain, but also American culture and Gen Xs, which with

00:30:20.320 that cohort, um, we still lived in the shadow of a conservative culture as in the schools were

00:30:26.600 relatively conservative. Yes. The culture itself was still relatively conservative, actually.

00:30:31.040 Yes. Um, it was not. And Christian. And Christian. And it was not nearly as licentious as things are

00:30:36.160 now. But if you think about it from the millennial perspective, you don't remember the conservative

00:30:40.960 culture. So the, the boomers and the Gen Xs, when you've gone through the education system and you

00:30:46.640 realized, oh no, all of this communist nonsense is, is nonsense, doesn't work. Uh, you at least have

00:30:51.900 a framework to fall back on. That's right. Right. Okay. Well, I can, but it, but if you've never really

00:30:55.780 grown up in a conservative culture, if you don't have that framework embedded in you, even if you're

00:30:59.840 rebelling against it and it's come back to the realization that this was great, well, then you

00:31:04.580 can only double down on your progressive views. Yes. And I think that's what we're saying now.

00:31:09.140 Yes, that's right. I mean, um, I think, uh, our generation, you know, they, we, we, we just took

00:31:16.520 for granted, you know, you could play around with things and you could rebel. And we took for granted

00:31:21.180 the Christian roots of the country, the conservative, the natural conservatism that was

00:31:25.580 there. Um, and we all just sort of did what we wanted and we're all free. It's all about freedom

00:31:32.260 and liberalism, which I understand you have, you have rejected liberalism now. I have entirely, yeah.

00:31:36.960 Which is good to hear. Um, that sense of freedom, um, before collective duty, um, has, uh, really

00:31:46.180 destroyed our souls. And that has nothing to do with immigration. That has to do, I think, really

00:31:51.780 moving away from the second world war. You hate totalitarianism. How do you stop it? Well,

00:31:56.980 totalitarianism is bad because you've got the collective who then oppress, you know, so we all

00:32:02.780 have to be individuals who are free, who can do what we like. And you do you and you live your best

00:32:07.540 life as opposed to, no, I've got duties to people. I've got responsibilities. Actually, I've got to

00:32:12.860 sacrifice sometimes things that are important to me and I'd love to just be able to hang out with

00:32:17.600 my mates all the time, but I'm going to be a duty. I'm going to, I'm going to think of my duties as a

00:32:21.560 father, as a husband, as, as someone who has to go out to work every day and earn a living and,

00:32:27.060 and support my family because that's what's right and, and, and proper, you know, um, we, we've lost

00:32:32.700 all of that. And the thing is, is that the things that I'm saying really ought to be music to any

00:32:38.080 conservative, anyone who would consider themselves conservative and to a liberal, obviously they won't

00:32:42.840 like it. And so in terms of your listeners, I mean, I sort of think it's irrelevant what, what,

00:32:48.660 who I'm teaching. I mean, we've got the kids in Brent who we're teaching and isn't it better that

00:32:53.860 all of us should feel as if we're British? I mean, because we're not getting on a helicopter. I mean,

00:32:58.020 we're not going anywhere. Let me, let me pause you there again. Um, I think, I think that's the,

00:33:03.120 the crux of the issue, isn't it? Um, in the circumstances in which you find yourselves,

00:33:07.880 yes, it is obviously better to have this very traditional interpretation of education, uh,

00:33:14.740 imposed, honestly, quite unflinchingly on whoever comes to the country, regardless of who they are,

00:33:21.120 where they've come from. And that, that is the only way integration could happen because otherwise I

00:33:26.860 think we can agree what we see now is essentially ethnic enclaves. Yeah. You could, what you could

00:33:31.620 fairly describe as colonies. I mean, I grew up on a colony, uh, in a British colony in Germany for

00:33:36.760 about eight years. Right. And I don't speak any German. I don't speak any, I went into the German

00:33:42.660 countryside and to the German towns and cities all the time. Like every weekend I'd get on a bus

00:33:47.740 or get on a train, go to a German city. And yet I didn't need to ever learn any German. And you get

00:33:52.760 this, like a friend of mine called Ed Dutton went to, uh, went to Manchester the other day. Uh, and he

00:33:59.700 found people who'd been, who British citizens been here, God knows how many decades don't speak any

00:34:04.960 English because they don't need to in their own communities. It's exactly the same issue. So

00:34:08.240 if, if you were going to have, I mean, we have immigrants, whether we like it or not. Right.

00:34:13.480 So exactly. Unfortunately, you know, you're a headmistress and I'm a podcaster, so we're not

00:34:18.020 in charge of that, but what would be the best thing to do in your position? Well, it would be to

00:34:22.180 impose actually a very pro-British, strict old English style education on the newcomers and say, no,

00:34:28.400 this is how these things are done in this country. They're done this way for a reason. There are all

00:34:32.060 these benefits that come from it. And actually it's irresponsible of us to not do this. So in

00:34:38.200 the circumstances, I think you are genuinely doing the best that can be done. And had Britain done

00:34:42.800 this from the start, from 1975 or 1965, um, you know, had Britain done this and that, and that's

00:34:50.640 the point really. The problem is, yes, mass migration is a problem. I get that. Fine. But aside from that,

00:34:56.540 we've agreed on, you know, yes, we get that. There are immigrants to the country. Therefore,

00:35:01.540 what should we all be doing? The point is, what do we believe in as a country? Where is the strength

00:35:07.860 to the country? If all the country is doing is constantly apologizing for itself, if all white

00:35:13.140 people are doing, I'm constantly thinking, what is wrong with white people? The next thing, you know,

00:35:17.380 they want to bring immigrants, put immigrants into the countryside. We must make it more diverse.

00:35:22.020 I mean, what is, I'm constantly looking and thinking, what is wrong with white people? Maybe

00:35:27.300 you can tell me, Carl. I just, I am, I'm totally baffled by all of it. And the thing is, is that some

00:35:34.740 of those white people then say it's the fault of the immigrants. And I'm always thinking, do you not

00:35:38.640 see who's in the main making these decisions? It tends to be white people, you know, and then we need

00:35:43.720 to look at the differences. And this is where, you know, it's all very well and good saying, okay,

00:35:48.240 people from different diverse backgrounds, it's more difficult for them to get along. I agree.

00:35:53.280 But it's also the case that atheists and Christians might have difficulty getting along.

00:35:56.980 It's also the case that Protestants and Catholics might have difficulty getting along.

00:36:00.280 Historically have.

00:36:01.140 Indeed. It's also the case that Keir Starmer is a white English man, right? Doing things that,

00:36:10.040 I mean, ultimately, I sort of want to ask you, who would you prefer running the country? Keir

00:36:14.220 Starmer and Jess Phillips, or Zia Yusuf and Suella Braverman? Who would you prefer?

00:36:20.360 If I had my choice between the two, I would obviously go Zia Yusuf and Suella Braverman,

00:36:26.440 because, of course, they're going to create an order that would be much more amenable to what I

00:36:34.140 think should be the case. But the, I think it's worth taking a step back here, because

00:36:39.120 it is, I'm trying to think of a way of putting this that isn't inflammatory.

00:36:48.260 Go on. I look forward to it.

00:36:50.320 It shouldn't be that there are any schools that are 98% ethical.

00:36:54.180 I understand that. And I agree with you.

00:36:56.280 And, like, my choice shouldn't be two English people or two foreigners, and I should, you know,

00:37:01.840 non-English people, and I shouldn't, in an ideal world, I shouldn't want to prefer the

00:37:06.020 non-English people to be in charge, because they would be politically better. I appreciate

00:37:10.460 that's where we are.

00:37:11.540 Okay. And then you need to ask, so what's going on? So we've already discussed the schools,

00:37:14.780 and we've discussed the culture. So the point is, it's a lot more complicated than just talking

00:37:20.120 about immigration.

00:37:21.200 Well, it's been a long process of self-abnegation, where the white British population essentially

00:37:27.160 lost complete confidence in itself.

00:37:29.480 And then ask why. So we've lost our conservatism, we talked about Christianity, and we haven't talked

00:37:33.220 enough about Christianity. Because the loss of Christianity in this country, the church bells

00:37:36.840 used to ring, right?

00:37:37.980 I agree.

00:37:38.240 I agree.

00:37:38.540 They're not ringing anymore.

00:37:39.780 I agree. But there's also, it's not just a loss of Christianity. It's a loss of self-confidence

00:37:48.200 in being able to build a constructive order, being able to put up boundaries and say, no,

00:37:53.880 this is right and the other's wrong.

00:37:55.420 But why did we have that confidence before? So our generation, you see, we were able to move

00:38:00.540 away from, look, I'm not a Christian, just for the record, you know, but the fact is

00:38:04.240 that our generation were able to play with liberalism, and we were able to become liberals

00:38:09.400 and think, oh, freedom, that's what matters, right? But we had the grounding of Christianity

00:38:14.420 there. And so the sorts of values that I've just described to you that we have in our secular

00:38:20.400 school are historically Christian values. I mean, that's what they are.

00:38:24.240 But just, I don't think Christianity is a panacea on this either, because there are interpretations

00:38:31.580 of Christianity that definitely can go very left-wing in their universality and in their

00:38:39.220 turn-the-other-cheek nature, right?

00:38:43.060 Yes, but that's post, I would say that that's post-Christianity. That's not actual Christianity.

00:38:47.380 That's the thing. That's a debate that Christians can have. I don't think it's just a panacea,

00:38:52.880 though. I think the main issue is a kind of liberal racial guilt that white people feel

00:38:59.500 they're following.

00:39:00.920 Yes.

00:39:01.220 Because honestly, and again, I don't really know how to put this.

00:39:07.420 Go on, I don't mind, you won't offend me. I can take it.

00:39:11.360 It's not about you.

00:39:12.360 Oh, right.

00:39:12.720 It's, we are so intransigently liberal that we can't accept the supremacy of the British

00:39:22.020 system.

00:39:23.180 Yeah.

00:39:23.660 The British educational system was superior to other educational systems.

00:39:27.180 Yeah.

00:39:27.560 And therefore, the people who built that system must have had something, not necessarily genetically,

00:39:33.480 but something about their historically contingent circumstances that was more advantageous than

00:39:40.240 other peoples, right? So whether that's the place, whether that's the events that made

00:39:44.360 the country what it is, and I'm not ruling out, you know, biological explanations either.

00:39:53.240 I'm not advocating those. I'm not advancing them. But the point is, we refuse to believe

00:39:58.840 that we could be better than other people, right? That's the problem. Whereas I think

00:40:03.680 it's demonstrable just from the desirability of Western countries, and particularly English-speaking

00:40:08.360 countries. The system that we have is clearly better than the alternative. You know, it used

00:40:13.540 to produce the most incredible people in the world, and they created the world's largest

00:40:18.960 empire. And they had, and if it was just, if it was just like a Mongol case of, yeah,

00:40:23.600 okay, went over and sacked loads of cities, then fine, you could agree that that wouldn't

00:40:27.480 be very advantageous. But evidently, we created prosperity as well. We created the height of

00:40:35.780 intellectualism. We created education, you know, industry, roads, rails, all this sort

00:40:40.980 of thing. So it's not just that the system was more powerful. It's that it was generatively

00:40:49.640 better for everyone, I think.

00:40:52.860 Well, I mean, that is a discussion that people can have. Is it? I mean, you know, this is

00:40:56.880 always my feeling that, you know, countries ought to have agencies. So I'm certainly not

00:41:00.880 advocating for colonialism.

00:41:03.040 No, no, no.

00:41:04.160 But I can understand what you're saying.

00:41:06.180 Let me, yeah, let me just make sure I'm very clear here, though. I'm not advocating for

00:41:10.840 any kind of, you know, racial supremacism or anything like that. But there has to be a kind

00:41:15.120 of national self-confidence. And the British national self-confidence came from essentially

00:41:20.700 thinking of themselves as being better than everyone else. And the...

00:41:25.000 You have to think that you're better. I mean, I don't know if it's so much better, but just

00:41:28.520 this is our country. We believe... So I always think of it like my school.

00:41:32.780 Yeah.

00:41:33.260 This is our school. These are our values. This is our ethos. As you'll know, we ended up

00:41:37.720 in...

00:41:38.780 Surely you hold to this because you think they're better than the alternatives.

00:41:42.740 Well, yes. I mean, we've chosen that ethos because we think it's better, I suppose.

00:41:45.560 The main thing is that it's our ethos. I'm not going to allow one child to say, well,

00:41:53.340 I know we signed up for a school that doesn't have prayer, but we're going to insist that

00:41:57.880 we have prayer and I'm taking you to court for it. I'll go, I'll fight you all the way

00:42:01.020 and did, right? Because that's not right. It's not right for one child to undermine everything

00:42:08.180 that we have worked for for a decade and a half to build up our school and establish it

00:42:13.840 with a very clear ethos. And for that ethos to be completely undermined because she doesn't

00:42:19.200 like it, you know? And that sort of respect and deference, I would say, used to be very

00:42:26.060 much the case when I think about my own parents and when they came to Britain in the 60s.

00:42:31.920 You know, my Caribbean parents...

00:42:34.060 Just to really hammer on this one, I think that we are reluctant to admit the influence that

00:42:43.840 cultural chauvinism has in the life and death of nations. So I think it's normal for at least

00:42:53.360 European nations to have this kind of particularity and self-preferencing that is not necessarily

00:43:00.700 a narrative that is strictly accurate, but serves as a kind of binding agent and propellant

00:43:08.680 for upward motion in the culture itself. For example, the competition between Britain

00:43:13.100 and France. Like, there's not really any point trying to say who's better, but every Brit

00:43:17.700 and every Frenchman has an answer as to which one's better. Do you see what I'm saying?

00:43:21.740 Sure. So obviously, I agree with having a sense of pride in your nation, but I don't think

00:43:27.420 the conversation that we're having needs to rest on the idea of we're better than everybody

00:43:31.160 else. It's just simply, we believe in who we are and we know who we are. The problem

00:43:36.680 with Britain right now is we literally don't know who we are. We don't know what we believe,

00:43:40.480 apart from our culture is to celebrate everybody else's culture, but we don't actually have

00:43:45.760 a culture of our own. There's something wrong with that.

00:43:47.720 But the reason that we're so celebratory of other cultures is because we intrinsically,

00:43:53.480 at least the white British elite, intrinsically have a sense of guilt. And Orwell spoke about

00:44:01.080 this at least. And I think that comes from their fundamental commitment to the moral principle

00:44:09.140 of equality in the face of the supremacy of the British Empire. It's just not a tenable prospect

00:44:17.000 to say, oh, we're all equal, actually, if British people rule the world. You can say what you

00:44:24.080 like, but you can profess anything you want. But at the end of the day, it's still the Brits

00:44:30.520 who are running the world and everyone's speaking English. So it's one of those. And so the reason

00:44:35.480 that I think we're so self-destructive when it comes to our own culture is a legacy of empire

00:44:42.480 in which essentially we were trying to prove that actually we are all equal. And so, you know,

00:44:48.460 we'll bring in as many people as we can and we'll give them all their cultural trappings and allow

00:44:52.520 them to do whatever it is they want. And we will, in fact, destroy ourselves in order to create this

00:44:57.520 kind of equality. And now we're 80, well, how many, 50 years out from decolonization. And we're looking

00:45:06.300 around and saying, okay, well, are we, are we equal yet? And well, in some ways, yes, in other ways,

00:45:14.560 no. But I, I think that the fear of feeling ourselves to be a powerful group in the world

00:45:24.660 and the knowledge that what can be done when British people actually are self-confident

00:45:32.000 is not, is, is the opposite of equality, right? It's a, we will, we'll end up. Possibly. I mean.

00:45:38.880 Well, we, we did historically. Yes. And there is a guilt around that, that somehow as white people,

00:45:45.120 you inherit this guilt for what ancestors may or may not have done. It's not guilt because the,

00:45:51.700 the average Brit certainly doesn't feel guilty of the empire. They think the empire is a good thing.

00:45:55.780 And the polling is still very consistent. Yes. But some of the people in positions of power

00:45:59.800 feel like that. But the reason, the reason they feel guilty is because they hold morally to a

00:46:06.500 liberal doctrine of equality. Yes. I agree. I agree. And that, that comes from Christianity.

00:46:11.100 That's an inheritance of Christianity. Yes. But that's the point. No, that is post Christianity

00:46:15.260 because Christianity says we are equal in the eyes of God. That is not the same as being equal,

00:46:21.260 right? In the real world. And so we think because we don't have God anymore, we lost God. So we can't

00:46:26.100 be equal in the eyes of God anymore. Instead, we're just equal. That means we're all the same.

00:46:30.460 Men and women are the same and are interchangeable. Everyone's just the same. It's totally ridiculous.

00:46:35.800 I mean, and so that's why I say it's post Christianity. If we were thinking like Christians,

00:46:41.420 then we would understand that what Christianity meant when it talks about equality, when you're

00:46:46.120 equal in the eyes of God, that means that you're, you're morally equal, that we all suffer from

00:46:50.920 original sin. That's what Christianity is saying. And we all suffer from original sin,

00:46:55.260 meaning we're all flawed. It's much easier to sit on the sofa and watch television than it is to go

00:46:59.460 to the gym. You know, it's much easier to eat the brownie. I ate some shortcake on the train on the

00:47:03.760 way over here. And I was thinking, and a hot chocolate, which is just terrible. I should have

00:47:06.760 done it, but I did. And because it's so much easier because we all suffer from original sin.

00:47:11.120 And I know that about children, right? I know that if you put two toddlers in a room with a toy,

00:47:16.440 they're going to bash each other, right? And unless you teach them how to be good and how to share,

00:47:21.860 they'll never learn how to do it. Now, unfortunately, a whole bunch of people on

00:47:27.180 the left believe in original virtue instead of original sin. And so they, no matter all the

00:47:32.980 evidence of all the toddlers and all the children in the world, doesn't matter. They are absolutely

00:47:37.520 convinced that children are just born wonderful and lovely. And all we need to do is all sit

00:47:42.880 together in a classroom. And if anybody misbehaves, it's because they have an unmet need. That's what

00:47:47.880 they say. And then what we need to do is meet the needs of all the neurodiverse children and all the

00:47:52.440 different ethnic children and all the different, you know, there's so many different children I

00:47:57.280 can possibly keep track. When actually, children are children. It doesn't matter what race, what

00:48:01.340 religion, what neurodiversity. It doesn't matter. Children are children. They're all naughty. And all

00:48:07.480 you need to do is praise them and punish them. And guess what? It works. A traditional way of merits

00:48:13.080 and demerits. You do something good, you got a merit. Do something bad, you get a demerit. And

00:48:17.360 guess what? All the children behave. I mean, that's what happens when you're consistent and

00:48:21.880 you're conservative in the way in which you deliver these things.

00:48:25.040 I mean, just to go just down that rabbit hole a second. I think the idea of freedom is the worst

00:48:32.760 thing to be applied to a child. We have got this absurd perspective that children need to be able to

00:48:39.860 explore. No, no, no. Children need boundaries and reliability. They need to know that yesterday

00:48:44.060 will be like today and today will be like tomorrow. And they need to know exactly where the boundaries

00:48:49.080 are if they're going to be happy, healthy and wholesome, right? And so on that, we completely

00:48:54.380 agree. Yes. Completely agree.

00:48:56.140 That consists, today will be like tomorrow, you know. Exactly, yeah.

00:48:58.660 Like, tomorrow will be like today. The fact is that they need that consistency from classroom

00:49:03.360 to classroom. They need it from the family to school.

00:49:05.880 And everyone. Yeah, their entire life.

00:49:07.160 Their whole lives. And they just know. And that way, over time, you build habits. That's what one

00:49:13.360 should be doing. That as adults, we hold on to that authority. And unfortunately, we have confused

00:49:19.420 authority, being in authority with authoritarianism. So we all think we don't want to be like Hitler.

00:49:24.000 Hitler was in authority. No, actually, he was an authoritarian. Parents, mums and dads are just

00:49:29.220 in authority. And it's our job not to be friends with our children. It's our job.

00:49:33.360 That's another point that I hate so much. Sorry to interrupt. No. I remember when I was

00:49:37.920 about 21, 22, and I was at university, I think it was. And I remember my dad, for the first time

00:49:43.520 ever, called me mate. I was like, no, dad, I'm your son. Yeah. And I didn't understand the

00:49:47.780 significance of it, but it drove me crazy. Yes.

00:49:50.420 He's all right, mate. I'm like, dad, I'm your son. You call me son. And, you know, I could see him a

00:49:54.540 bit taken aback by it, but I, you know, he then called me son. He doesn't call me mate now.

00:49:57.640 But like, it really bothered me. And I don't know why. I didn't know why at the time, but

00:50:03.840 obviously I've worked out now is because there is a hierarchy. I will always be a son. He will

00:50:07.660 always be my father. Exactly. And there are, there are moral intonations attached to these

00:50:11.860 labels that imply a specific relationship. Exactly. And what mate does is it equalizes

00:50:16.340 everything. It reduces everything down to as if we're not father and son. I'm sorry, I'm not having

00:50:21.240 it. I didn't realize at the time. Exactly. But you're absolutely right. These social hierarchies

00:50:25.420 are very important and important for the kids as well. That's right. And we've all lost that.

00:50:29.540 I agree. And that's nothing to do with immigration. No, I agree. Immigration is a symptom of the

00:50:33.760 decline, not the cause of the decline. Exactly. And the, and this is what I was, I've been trying

00:50:39.140 to say this to people on the online right where it's a look, what would you have you do in this

00:50:43.760 situation? You know, you, you can say, oh, I've got a fancy wishlist of deporting everyone tomorrow.

00:50:48.640 So, okay. Well, they're just wasting their time. Exactly. TikTok. Let me know. Exactly. It's just silly.

00:50:53.220 It's a silly conversation. We need to be grownups about this. And what we all ought to be thinking

00:50:58.180 about, whether you're an ethno-nat or a leftist, what we all ought to be thinking about is what is

00:51:04.520 the positive vision for the country? How do we make it so that we can get along? Yes, we can have the

00:51:09.660 conversation about mass migration and what's happened recently and what we do with illegal

00:51:14.620 migrants. I understand that. Put that aside. How do we get on? Because it's simply not the case

00:51:20.020 that it's reasonable for people who've been living here for 50 odd years to then say,

00:51:25.360 oh, we're putting you on a helicopter to wear. It's just not a reasonable thing to do.

00:51:29.160 And it's not going to happen. Yeah. It doesn't matter whether it's reasonable or not. Is it

00:51:33.580 politically actionable? Yes. And I don't see it on the table from any of the parties at the

00:51:38.100 moment who are about to form a government. Right. So, okay. You know, fancy wishlist off the table.

00:51:42.980 Indeed. We need a settlement for now. Exactly.

00:51:45.180 What kind of settlement do you want? And I'm of the opinion that the light touch from the

00:51:51.260 ideological state apparatuses has allowed us to see, like, machete fights in the streets

00:51:56.520 of Birmingham. I think it's the reason for the rise of knife crime. I think it's the reason

00:51:59.900 for all of the drugs and the, like, sexual assaults and all of these other terrible things.

00:52:06.120 And I think it's because of a system that is generally permissive, mostly to immigrants,

00:52:12.000 but also to the white kids. It's permissive to everybody, but where I would agree with

00:52:17.440 you on the two-tier justice stuff is when it comes to hate crime and all of that stuff.

00:52:20.320 It's not just that. But everyone is allowed to just behave in any which way they want.

00:52:24.100 I mean... It is, but I do detect it to be worse towards the immigrant communities because

00:52:28.340 this lack of authority, it's very clear to me that the white authorities don't feel like

00:52:34.400 they have the authority to police the immigrant communities.

00:52:37.240 Yes. It depends on what you're talking about. Yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to sort of murder...

00:52:41.980 You know, then that's different. But when you're talking about expressing one's views,

00:52:46.920 political views, or what comes to protesting, or comes to demonstrating one's religion in the

00:52:53.140 street, for instance, then there is a two-tier system going on.

00:52:57.420 But it's not just that. I mean, I recall during the Southport riots, there was a video of a police

00:53:02.140 officer who had failed to engage properly with the Muslim community. And he turned around to these

00:53:08.900 white protesters and said, look, you know, we can't do anything about them, lads. And he was

00:53:13.080 speaking in the collective we, so he is with the white people. They aren't policed by the same

00:53:20.660 police officer. And, you know, there was another incident where they asked them to put the weapons

00:53:25.140 in the mosques, for example. It's like, sorry, you're the police.

00:53:27.660 Yes.

00:53:28.100 Yes.

00:53:28.440 They're armed.

00:53:29.360 Yes.

00:53:29.720 Disarm them. That's your job. But there's clearly a lack of moral authority. And this

00:53:34.040 is, you saw this in the complaint about the Israeli football fans coming over.

00:53:39.380 Yes. No, no, no. But those are all, I agree with you.

00:53:41.100 Yeah. But I think this pervades all of society, really.

00:53:44.480 No, but for instance, if someone was murdered, you know...

00:53:47.060 Yeah, I'm not saying they wouldn't be arrested on murder.

00:53:48.820 You know, if it's a white guy who's been murdered or a black guy who's been murdered, the detective

00:53:52.820 who comes out is investigating that murder with the same fervor as he would either in either

00:53:57.300 situation. You're talking about politically charged situations that have to do with race

00:54:02.440 or religion, which I agree with on what you're saying.

00:54:04.560 Look at the grooming gangs, for example. There's definitely a reluctance to investigate that.

00:54:08.020 And that's a pretty heinous crime.

00:54:09.280 Yes. Yes.

00:54:10.180 Like, so there's a lack of moral authority that the white authorities have over the ethnic minority

00:54:15.700 communities, which I'm not saying is your fault or anything like that.

00:54:18.880 Yes.

00:54:19.040 But it's definitely a feature of the country at the moment. And it's like, right, okay,

00:54:22.480 that needs to be solved, you know?

00:54:23.940 Yes. No, and I agree entirely about the grooming gangs that were saying that.

00:54:27.120 I know, I know.

00:54:29.300 Well, what's even worse? Not only that it happened, but what has happened since?

00:54:32.340 Yeah, it's mad.

00:54:32.940 You know, it's not all we talk about and it's not, people are not outraged and our politicians

00:54:39.660 just want to just push it under the ground. I mean, it's just awful.

00:54:43.180 I wasn't trying to put you on the spot on that in particular.

00:54:45.320 No, but it's a good point. I take it.

00:54:47.980 Thank you. But this is the issue. And the reason they feel this way is because I think

00:54:54.640 fundamentally that would feel to them like an inequality. They would feel like the white

00:54:59.560 man imposing what we perceive, I mean, us two perceive to be the correct ordering of

00:55:04.580 the world on a minority community that doesn't necessarily agree, but frankly shouldn't be

00:55:11.420 given the option, right?

00:55:12.500 Well, it's the fear of being called racist.

00:55:14.560 Yes.

00:55:15.160 White people have been, are so terrified about being called racist that they'll do anything

00:55:20.180 to avoid being called that word.

00:55:22.140 But the problem that they have is, it kind of is racism.

00:55:27.200 Yes, that they are racist.

00:55:28.600 No, no, no.

00:55:29.180 No, no, they are being racist because they're unable to hold ethnic minorities to the same

00:55:33.540 standard as they would do white people.

00:55:35.060 But also the standard comes from the white English.

00:55:38.540 So, go on.

00:55:39.520 So, it is a standard that belongs to a race.

00:55:44.000 And if you're implying, if you're, you know, let's say you've got, you know, a very traditional

00:55:48.680 Pakistani Muslim community, the standard is not theirs.

00:55:53.040 Like, they don't have the same standards for anything, actually.

00:55:56.700 You know, they've got a completely different culture.

00:55:58.460 And if they're essentially a kind of ethnic enclave in this area, that's got a racial dimension

00:56:03.260 to it.

00:56:04.400 And so, if we're trying to improve.

00:56:07.060 I mean, I'm sure some of them, that's the case.

00:56:08.880 You wouldn't say that's the case for all Pakistani heritage people.

00:56:12.860 What?

00:56:14.540 What would I not say?

00:56:15.720 Well, I don't know.

00:56:16.420 I think I have two Pakistani heritage friends who, well, are just like any of my white friends,

00:56:22.520 really, in terms of the way they behave and think and so on.

00:56:25.680 I mean, obviously, they were brought up here.

00:56:27.740 Exactly.

00:56:28.040 They were born here.

00:56:28.920 But that's the point about integration, right?

00:56:30.640 Yes.

00:56:30.720 They may not even speak Urdu or whatever language that they speak in Pakistan.

00:56:38.480 But you've got areas of the country where that's not the case, right?

00:56:41.740 There's no integration.

00:56:42.980 And these people are very...

00:56:44.560 And so, it's taken on the aspect of an enclave.

00:56:47.320 So, everyone in there is essentially a kind of colonist from Pakistan.

00:56:52.240 I mean, this is why you have these MPs in Birmingham saying, we need to build an airport

00:56:55.060 in Miripur.

00:56:55.800 And it's like, who possibly thinks that that would be necessary?

00:56:59.760 Why is that our problem?

00:57:00.960 Exactly, right?

00:57:02.080 But then, so, for us to say, right, we've got these English standards, we've got this

00:57:06.320 English discipline, we've got this order of the universe that was developed by the English

00:57:10.880 in England, and we would like to impose it upon you, that kind of is a form of racism,

00:57:16.660 right?

00:57:17.060 That's us, the English, saying, you have to do these things our way.

00:57:22.260 And so, the left kind of have a point that that's racist.

00:57:25.900 I don't think that's racist.

00:57:26.700 I do my school the way I do, it's our ethos.

00:57:29.680 If you want to come to my school, then you need to follow our ethos.

00:57:32.560 If you want to live in Britain, then you need to follow the British rules and ethos and

00:57:36.440 culture and so on.

00:57:37.720 I mean, that seems pretty straightforward to me.

00:57:39.640 I completely agree with you, but those things didn't spring out of the earth fully formed.

00:57:43.720 They're the product of a people and a continuum over time.

00:57:46.540 And that's what the left are getting at.

00:57:48.360 And that's one of the things that, on the conservative side, we don't really understand

00:57:51.840 that when we say things like that, because I agree with everything you're saying here,

00:57:55.180 obviously, but when we say that, it's actually not unreasonable for the people on the other

00:57:59.900 side of the argument that we're saying it to, to say, oh, right, so you've got this kind

00:58:04.540 of ethnic particularity in chauvinism in the very nature of the thing that you're trying

00:58:08.700 to impose.

00:58:09.280 And until we can be brave enough to say, well, if you think that's racist, fine, but

00:58:14.560 we're still going to do it this way either way, because this is how it's done here.

00:58:17.960 So it's true that the left attacked me, for instance, for having not allowed prayer at

00:58:24.980 Michaela.

00:58:26.900 And they have this sense of you've got to give every ethnic minority everything they

00:58:31.420 want.

00:58:32.140 Whatever they want, you've got to give it to them.

00:58:33.920 And I mean, I have to say, it's not just to do with prayer.

00:58:35.640 It has to do with neurodiverse pupils, or it has to do with LGBTQ pupils, or whatever

00:58:41.700 it is.

00:58:42.260 You've just got to hand over.

00:58:43.740 There's no sense of, no, we need order.

00:58:46.360 We need to know who we are.

00:58:49.240 And you're not, you're not setting up a madrasa and imposing Quranic law, right?

00:58:53.860 No.

00:58:54.480 So, so you're, that, that would be an Arabic interpretation of what order looks like.

00:59:00.120 Yes.

00:59:00.440 You're, you're taking an English interpretation.

00:59:02.260 Yes.

00:59:02.480 So one of the things I think that is difficult for us to properly accept is that there is

00:59:08.560 a temporalized nature to the order that we're creating, right?

00:59:12.780 It's not just a random universal thing that everyone adheres to.

00:59:16.100 Actually, it's ours.

00:59:17.240 It's particular to us.

00:59:18.660 And we are going to impose it, you know, they are going to call us racist and we have to

00:59:22.520 just be like, we don't care what you think.

00:59:23.840 Well, and I don't see why it's so controversial.

00:59:25.840 This is England.

00:59:27.540 Well, I agree.

00:59:28.160 I mean, why, why wouldn't it be English?

00:59:30.620 It shouldn't be controversial at all.

00:59:32.480 And the thing, what I should say as well is that there are lots of ethnic minorities who

00:59:35.780 would agree with you.

00:59:36.700 I know.

00:59:37.000 You know, they look, you know, when you come to England, you, you know, it's funny because

00:59:41.480 my own father, my parents live in Canada and my own father, when I showed him a video of

00:59:46.740 our school, he said, but where is this?

00:59:49.200 And I said, it's in London.

00:59:51.180 He said, but how is this London?

00:59:52.660 You know, because he hasn't been to London for many years and because he was looking at

00:59:56.200 the children and he said, there must have been a lot of immigration.

01:00:00.040 He was so shocked because he remembers London from the 60s and the 70s and the 80s.

01:00:04.980 So he was just like, he just couldn't understand.

01:00:07.840 You know, the fact is that even ethnic minorities would like England to be English.

01:00:12.360 I know.

01:00:12.780 And the fact is that England can only be English with a small number of immigrants.

01:00:20.340 That's the thing.

01:00:21.120 And you can have some immigrants, but if you have too many immigrants, then it changes the

01:00:25.740 nature of the country.

01:00:26.880 And what the identitarian leftists don't really understand, the multiculturalists, and I have

01:00:35.480 to say, you know, I would tend to say that we are a multicultural school and I know that

01:00:39.720 probably brings you out in hives.

01:00:41.120 But the thing is, is that I'd say it's a patriotic multiculturalism.

01:00:44.780 I don't know.

01:00:45.480 I don't know if I'd describe your school as multicultural because you're literally rejecting

01:00:49.020 all the tenets of multiculturalism.

01:00:50.620 Well, not all of them.

01:00:51.780 So what I mean is, the Muslim girls wear their hijabs.

01:00:55.400 The Sikh children wear their bangles.

01:00:58.140 Well, maybe you are multicultural.

01:00:59.780 So it's not, you know, we're not hard assimilationists.

01:01:03.700 We are allowing a certain, because where the conversation needs to be had is, are we really

01:01:09.260 saying as a country we want to raise all the mosques and the temples to the ground?

01:01:12.260 Or are we saying people are allowed their different religions?

01:01:15.260 But there is, because what we say is, of course you're allowed your own religions and so on.

01:01:20.540 You're just not practicing them in the school.

01:01:22.980 And of course you're allowed to eat whatever it is you want to eat at home, the different

01:01:27.140 foods that you eat.

01:01:27.860 But you're going to eat the food that we eat at school.

01:01:30.420 And we have a family lunch where everyone serves each other from the same pot of food.

01:01:34.960 And it's like a family dinner.

01:01:36.340 So we have an ethos and we have a way of doing things.

01:01:42.040 So yes, there is an overall culture that everyone participates in.

01:01:46.420 And that's why I would call it a patriotic multiculturalism, where the patriotism comes

01:01:50.600 before the multicultural.

01:01:52.540 But that there are different cultures that are there, obviously, because they go off.

01:01:56.700 Some of them go off to mosques.

01:01:57.960 Some of them go off to temples.

01:01:59.020 Some of them go off to church.

01:02:00.040 And that's fine.

01:02:01.620 And that's good.

01:02:02.320 And so on.

01:02:03.700 But that their allegiance when they're in the school is to the school and to the ethos

01:02:09.400 of the school.

01:02:10.480 And the problem that, you know, I always say, where is your heart?

01:02:14.380 You know, home is where the heart is.

01:02:16.440 And if your heart is with Britain, then your home is with Britain, right?

01:02:20.240 If your heart is not with Britain, then maybe that's not your home.

01:02:23.520 Agreed.

01:02:24.360 And that's where I think the conversation sort of needs to start.

01:02:28.140 So it's not, I don't necessarily think, because there are different things.

01:02:32.420 What makes you English?

01:02:33.260 I do think that English, look, in 1985, all of us brown and black people understood that

01:02:39.380 English meant white English.

01:02:41.160 Everybody knew we were British.

01:02:43.820 You know, English, white English people were English.

01:02:46.640 Like, and nobody had a problem with that.

01:02:48.420 And I don't understand why it's suddenly become a problem now.

01:02:51.380 It was all understood that we were British.

01:02:54.040 And then that Fraser Nelson and Constantin Kissin discussion came out.

01:02:58.800 And the thing is, I understand why Fraser was saying that, because he was thinking, well,

01:03:01.760 I'm Scottish, but my children are different from me because they were brought up in England.

01:03:05.340 So they have English cultural, an English culture to them that he does not have.

01:03:11.660 So I'd say, yes, there's being ethnically English, but there's something else.

01:03:16.200 Like, where I get worried about the ethnic nationalists, they're saying all that matters is your

01:03:19.120 ethnicity.

01:03:20.120 That is not all that matters.

01:03:21.000 Obviously, there is the culture of England.

01:03:23.300 There is the Rolling Hills and the Wordsworth and the Shakespeare and the pubs and the pints

01:03:27.960 and the baked beans and so on.

01:03:30.120 There is something to what it is to be English.

01:03:33.200 And then there is also the ties that you will have to people in England, you know.

01:03:39.300 And if you have no ties to people who are in England and you don't speak English, you don't

01:03:43.820 mix with English people, you don't know anything about her history and her culture and what

01:03:49.100 it is to be English, then it is a bit odd to be arguing, well, I'm British at all.

01:03:54.740 Because, well, you're living in England, but you're just a bit of a passenger.

01:03:57.980 You're sat here for the moment until you get up and go somewhere else.

01:04:00.360 And that's a bit odd.

01:04:01.500 I think passenger is a good way of describing it as well.

01:04:04.420 But no, no, I think you're exactly right on this.

01:04:07.060 I think the real problem is demographic insecurity.

01:04:10.020 I guess we're probably running out of time, so finish on the point that you raised.

01:04:15.980 There has to be a limit to the amount of immigration.

01:04:18.700 Because at the moment, it seems like England is probably about 70% English, which is obviously

01:04:26.260 unprecedented and has not been uniformly spread across the country.

01:04:29.660 So you have areas which are highly diverse with zero English people.

01:04:33.140 And this is something that I think a lot of the sort of ethno-nationalist types are correct

01:04:42.380 to be very, very concerned about, right?

01:04:45.060 I get it.

01:04:46.040 This is not something that we can carry on forever.

01:04:47.820 But it's not your fault.

01:04:48.620 So I don't know why they're going on as if it's your fault.

01:04:50.780 And honestly, I do think you're doing the best that you can in the circumstances.

01:04:54.060 But from a political perspective, yeah, okay, you know, we need to talk about that.

01:04:57.200 You know, obviously we need to get political parties that will actually end immigration

01:05:00.880 and things like this.

01:05:01.600 Okay, fine.

01:05:02.760 But there's no point going after a headmistress of the most conservative school in the country.

01:05:07.900 The one school with the union flag flying outside where we sing God Save the King.

01:05:11.840 I mean, that's the thing.

01:05:12.820 Where we teach chronological British history properly.

01:05:15.680 Where the children really know what it is to be British.

01:05:19.020 You know, that's the thing.

01:05:20.440 You're attacking the one school that's doing this properly.

01:05:23.240 And who's trying to spread the word about it.

01:05:25.220 And people come, teachers come and see that and think, my goodness, look at how this works.

01:05:30.060 And I...

01:05:31.500 Every school in England used to be like this.

01:05:33.900 Yes.

01:05:34.280 And my dad, my mum went to schools exactly like this.

01:05:37.060 Yes.

01:05:37.360 Highly strict.

01:05:38.480 You know, you've got the...

01:05:40.000 And you can read it in any kind of description from like the 1930s or 40s or something like

01:05:45.340 this, of just normal English life in every village.

01:05:48.900 Every school is like this.

01:05:50.360 Yeah.

01:05:50.480 And so to be shocked that you're doing this and from the English nationalist perspective

01:05:56.840 is like, no, no.

01:05:58.160 The shock is that we're not doing this everywhere else.

01:06:00.940 That's right.

01:06:01.660 And we've done it at great cost.

01:06:03.440 You know, we've had to fight tooth and nail to be able to survive.

01:06:07.220 First of all, to set up.

01:06:08.860 The leftists came for us in every possible way to try and stop it.

01:06:11.980 This is amazing that we managed to get off the ground.

01:06:14.140 And then to have survived this long.

01:06:15.920 I mean, it has been a real fight.

01:06:18.760 So...

01:06:19.360 And why?

01:06:20.280 Because I believe that schools should be disciplined spaces with traditional teaching,

01:06:26.900 traditional values that are small C conservative, that embrace that traditional Christianity.

01:06:33.200 They're not Christian, we are secular, but that those Christian values very much exist in our

01:06:39.380 school and should exist in our country.

01:06:41.560 And unfortunately, we don't have the backbone to stand up for any of this anymore.

01:06:45.480 So no wonder everyone's walking all over us and that that is the problem.

01:06:48.520 And what we need to do is understand who we are, believe who we are, and then stop squabbling

01:06:54.040 all over all of this stuff about we're just being distracted by the immigration conversation,

01:06:58.980 which I understand does need talking about.

01:07:00.640 But if that's all we're talking about, we're missing what's actually going on under the

01:07:04.580 carpet in our schools, in our culture every day, which means you could put all the immigrants

01:07:09.860 on helicopters out of here.

01:07:11.720 And I'm telling you, England would be in big trouble with the culture that we've currently

01:07:15.900 got, where everyone hates each other, and no one's able to talk to each other.

01:07:21.480 I guess we'll leave it there.

01:07:22.460 All right.

01:07:23.060 Thanks, Carl.

01:07:24.380 Thanks so much for coming in.

01:07:25.540 Thank you for having me.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - February 05, 2026

Everyone Is Getting This Wrong ｜ Interview with Katharine Birbalsingh CBE

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