TRIGGERnometry - Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry： Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq

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00:01:44.380 They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights.

00:01:49.580 Not at all.

00:01:50.200 Yes, they do.

00:01:51.100 There's loads of gay people who use this phrase.

00:01:53.400 Okay, they may do.

00:01:54.220 Come back to the police.

00:01:54.980 You've got your definition.

00:01:55.260 Come back to the police.

00:01:55.940 I'll come back to the police.

00:01:56.720 Right.

00:01:57.360 The instructions police officers get, they're explicitly told not to treat people equally.

00:02:02.500 Explicitly.

00:02:03.520 Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's demented.

00:02:06.640 It's absolutely demented.

00:02:07.780 That's the quote from the police.

00:02:09.500 No, okay, and it may be, and it may be because you found one document where some guy who's

00:02:14.700 writing some guidance for police is, the idea.

00:02:17.320 College of Police and Guidance.

00:02:18.300 Okay, okay, wait a minute.

00:02:19.240 This is how police officers are trained, okay. Have you looked into this? Not as deeply as you. Well, I think you should

00:02:24.860 Well, maybe I should. There's a double standard is what I'm getting at

00:02:30.580 See, what if I make a good point? You just got to go, you know, well, I don't have read the guidance

00:02:35.600 What the weaponizers have done is

00:02:39.960 But this is what they do. You talk to the real issue and you just go, no

00:02:43.480 This is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to weaponize it

00:02:49.240 Alistair Campbell, long time coming. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:54.080 Nice to be here.

00:02:54.920 Great to have you.

00:02:55.740 Thank you.

00:02:56.780 So, Alistair, let's kick it off. You have always been fiercely critical of populism.

00:03:03.520 Why is that? Because we're living in the populist age now. What's the problem with it?

00:03:10.140 Well, it depends what you define populism as.

00:03:13.340 I define populism as a form of politics that seeks to exploit rather than solve.

00:03:21.480 That's my view of populism.

00:03:22.840 I know that the traditional view of populism is, well, it's kind of, you know, the people against the elite.

00:03:29.460 Okay.

00:03:30.020 I think that's a post facto rationalization to make the populists feel better about the way they do politics.

00:03:37.460 But at heart, populism means to me a form of politics

00:03:41.220 that is not about solving problems, it's exploiting them,

00:03:44.000 and that's not about meeting challenges together,

00:03:46.280 it's about driving people apart.

00:03:48.020 That's my take on populism, that's why I don't like it.

00:03:51.360 And why do you think we've got to this place

00:03:53.280 where we're living in the age of populism?

00:03:57.240 There's so many reasons.

00:03:58.680 I think, look, I think people,

00:04:03.300 there are some very effective political operators

00:04:05.700 who have worked out that their route to power

00:04:09.480 with the views that they hold

00:04:11.660 and the characters that they have

00:04:13.420 is this form of populism that I've defined, okay?

00:04:16.600 Trump, most obviously, Nigel Farage here.

00:04:19.980 You know, we know who they are

00:04:21.220 and they're all over the world.

00:04:22.180 I think they're much better organised

00:04:23.720 than the centre-left.

00:04:28.240 I mean, one of the things I find is comical

00:04:31.240 about the populist right

00:04:33.140 where nationalism is so much of what they're for

00:04:36.780 is actually they fight it on a global level.

00:04:39.940 They're a globalist organisation fighting against globalism.

00:04:45.140 But I think you've got to go back probably as far as definitely the crash.

00:04:52.880 I think the crash was, you know, 2008, etc.,

00:04:56.660 was a massive driver of populism, and I'll come back to that.

00:05:00.700 But I think you probably even go back further than that.

00:05:03.140 And I can remember me thinking, do you remember the Seattle protest when China came into the World Trade Organization?

00:05:13.060 Massive, massive protest.

00:05:14.840 And it was the trade unions, it was ordinary people, it was workers.

00:05:19.280 And they were massively protesting against the Americans letting China into the WTO.

00:05:25.320 And I remember we were thinking, because we thought at the time,

00:05:27.940 globalization was going to be part of our economic success story as well.

00:05:31.180 but I think that was a big driver within the American populism because that was what then

00:05:36.260 opened the door to Trump to say these people have given your jobs away to China okay so I think you

00:05:40.620 put that followed by the crash followed by I think a sense in politics democratic politics

00:05:50.820 that it wasn't producing the kind of leaders that made people feel that's my leader I can

00:06:00.660 follow that person i think tony probably was the last one in the uk context cameron a bit but not

00:06:08.420 really not really so i think tony is probably the last one here you look at the french context i

00:06:14.900 actually thought i think macron is an exceptional political figure in all sorts of ways but for some

00:06:19.780 reason and i think a lot of it driven by populism the french have rejected him big style she probably

00:06:25.220 You've probably got to go back to Chirac, really, for a French president that the French thought, like him or dislike him, I feel like he's our leader.

00:06:37.640 So I think then that opened that.

00:06:38.960 So once you've got a sense of leaders that the public don't respect, because the great thing that, I mean, I understand most of what Thatcher stood for, most of what she did.

00:06:49.880 But when Thatcher was prime minister, I didn't think it's ridiculous that she's the prime minister.

00:06:55.220 I think our politics has suffered massively from having, you know, we know who they are,

00:07:00.600 certainly Johnson, certainly Truss, Prime Minister thinking, you know,

00:07:04.360 it is ridiculous that they're our Prime Minister, OK?

00:07:07.240 And Johnson, of course, classic populist.

00:07:09.820 Absolutely.

00:07:10.340 When I said, you know, see a problem, how do I exploit it, not solve it?

00:07:15.160 I mean, that guy did not believe in Brexit.

00:07:18.300 And yet he was one of the prime deliverers of it because he saw a challenge, a problem for others.

00:07:24.600 how do I exploit it? Because what was his big motivation? It was to become prime minister.

00:07:30.080 And then what happened after that? He didn't really care.

00:07:33.680 Do you think part of the problem as well is that when we saw the banks being bailed out,

00:07:39.540 a lot of people thought, well, hang on, they've made all these mistakes and they're getting

00:07:45.560 away with it scot-free.

00:07:47.300 That's what I meant by the crash.

00:07:48.420 What you had was socialism for the banks and austerity for the people.

00:07:56.080 The banks who caused it and then the people who didn't.

00:08:03.380 And, you know, how many people have gone to jail

00:08:05.580 through the global financial crisis, right?

00:08:08.420 And then, whereas the people have paid a massive price.

00:08:11.840 Now, and then what happened is, because this is just the way politics works,

00:08:14.700 politicians got blamed for not holding the bankers property to account

00:08:19.220 politicians got blamed because whenever there's an economic hit

00:08:22.520 it's politicians who tend to cop it but i completely agree with you

00:08:25.260 people even if they didn't identify you know you didn't have people sitting

00:08:28.980 around saying well this is terrible you know

00:08:30.500 this is socialism for the banks and austerity for us

00:08:33.060 but they did think well hold on a minute these guys have completely f***ed up

00:08:37.620 they're getting bailed out with our money and even though

00:08:41.440 and i remember alistair darling chancellor at the time and you know

00:08:44.500 So, I mean, that was a very, very stressful time for those guys.

00:08:48.880 But I remember talking to him about it's a very hard thing to have to explain

00:08:52.680 that this is going to be bad, but if we don't do this, it's going to be even worse.

00:08:58.440 But there's no doubt that was a driver.

00:09:00.220 I think that was a driver of a lot of the polarization that we feel now as well.

00:09:04.660 Because that is the thing that allowed the populists to say

00:09:07.800 the reason they're helping out the banks is because these are the elitists.

00:09:13.460 and you, the people, are paying the price.

00:09:16.820 But who were they, the leaders?

00:09:18.380 You know, bankers, traders, business people,

00:09:21.360 people like Trump, people like Farage.

00:09:24.000 They're the people.

00:09:25.000 This is why it's such a con that people like them

00:09:28.860 have managed to portray themselves

00:09:30.680 as being on the side of ordinary people.

00:09:33.040 And I think the reason Farage is in trouble at the moment

00:09:34.720 and the reason Trump's actually politically

00:09:36.600 in quite a lot of trouble, even though he doesn't care

00:09:38.360 because he's going to go anyway,

00:09:39.880 and it's just about getting rich,

00:09:41.080 is because people are, I think, working out

00:09:43.840 They're not motivated by you, the people's interest.

00:09:46.420 They're motivated by their own.

00:09:48.400 We'll come back to those two.

00:09:49.700 But do you not think, I mean, you say it was the bankers,

00:09:52.180 and it was the bankers, absolutely.

00:09:53.800 But it was democratic politicians in America,

00:09:56.560 Bill Clinton in particular, who repealed Glass-Steagall,

00:09:58.920 which was put in place to prevent another great financial crisis.

00:10:02.640 And the same thing happened here, under the Blair government,

00:10:05.240 I think it's fair to say, right?

00:10:06.360 So the politicians opened the door to allow these people

00:10:10.320 to act in ways that were damaging.

00:10:11.900 and then you had this great collapse, which, as you rightly say,

00:10:14.920 we ended up paying, and neither the politicians who opened the door

00:10:18.460 to nor the bankers who took advantage of it suffered at all.

00:10:21.240 I think quite a lot of the politicians did suffer.

00:10:24.240 It depends how you define suffering.

00:10:26.920 They didn't suffer like the people suffered.

00:10:29.280 No, but they paid a price.

00:10:33.260 They paid a price. A lot of the politicians did.

00:10:36.820 I would argue, for example,

00:10:39.160 that you know i think the labor government accepted that i i kind of felt this at the time

00:10:45.160 in the whole globalization thing i remember actually tony and i didn't argue about that

00:10:48.760 much because i broadly agreed with most of the things that he was doing but i was worried at

00:10:52.500 one point i only know this because it's in my diaries i can't remember the conversation

00:10:56.360 but saying that this globalization thing fine and if you just track back a bit one of the things we

00:11:05.040 had to do as an incoming Labour government was to dispel as best we could this idea that Labour

00:11:11.000 can't run the economy. And Gordon, you know, first step, Bank of England Independence, we did pretty

00:11:17.120 well in the economy for quite a long time. And so that, as that was happening, part of what we were

00:11:22.620 showing was an understanding of the way that the global economy was changing, adapting, and we had

00:11:27.840 to adapt to that as well. And I sometimes worried, and I said this at the time, I'm not sure we're

00:11:32.960 educating people enough about the potential downside of globalization alongside the evident

00:11:40.100 upside from which we're benefiting right now. And I think that was a problem. I think, I mean,

00:11:45.080 I cannot pretend to be an expert in financial services regulation, but I know that I think

00:11:50.680 there are people who were experts at that time and who were doing the policy at the time who

00:11:54.720 think that maybe we didn't regulate carefully enough. But again, you've got to understand that

00:11:59.820 We, as a leftist-centre government, a Labour government,

00:12:03.760 we were kind of always conscious of the fact

00:12:05.760 that we're going to get accused of being over-regulatory.

00:12:08.040 And so maybe we didn't regulate enough on that.

00:12:10.560 But I agree with you. I'm agreeing with the premise.

00:12:12.420 I think that the crash was the big driver.

00:12:16.560 But I think in the American context, you go back even further.

00:12:19.580 I think you go back to American-Chinese relationship.

00:12:22.980 Well, very much on that point.

00:12:24.480 It's interesting that I completely agree with an economic analysis.

00:12:27.560 And we and I have been one of the people who's been saying for a long time that people don't realize we are poorer today than we were before the crash on a per capita basis.

00:12:36.140 Most people don't know this, but they feel poorer.

00:12:39.240 And one of the reasons there is rising tension, rising disquiet, discontent, etc.

00:12:43.960 But it's interesting how sometimes people, I think, on the left or center frame this issue because you said, well, allowing China into the World Trade Organization,

00:12:52.820 which, by the way, the idea was the Chinese are going to join,

00:12:56.100 hold hands, sing Kumbaya, we're all going to trade.

00:12:58.180 Well, that's not what happened.

00:12:58.940 They stole all Western technology and they screwed everybody over.

00:13:02.380 And you say, well, it gave Trump the opportunity to say

00:13:05.580 you shipped off the job to China.

00:13:07.600 But they did ship the jobs off to China, right?

00:13:10.640 That's what happened.

00:13:11.700 There were definitely, I don't think we're disagreeing that much.

00:13:14.780 I mean, I think that what I'm trying to do is to give you

00:13:17.000 an understanding of the motivations for the policies

00:13:19.520 they were pursuing at the time.

00:13:20.940 No, no.

00:13:21.240 And agreeing that there were consequences.

00:13:22.940 My point is something else, Alistair.

00:13:24.140 My point is, the framing is, this was a mistake because it allowed Trump to say this.

00:13:29.740 And I'm saying it was a mistake because it was a mistake.

00:13:32.000 Yeah, okay.

00:13:32.820 But then, you have to then, at the same time, enunciate what the policy otherwise would have been.

00:13:41.460 Should have protected key industries.

00:13:43.280 Yeah, possibly.

00:13:43.960 But what does that mean in the modern industrial age?

00:13:46.860 It means that you would have been slightly less prosperous.

00:13:50.080 You would have had a slightly lower GDP, which is a hard sell,

00:13:53.620 but you would have not had whole regions of America

00:13:56.540 and the north of England effectively losing the entire employment.

00:14:01.260 And what would have happened on the bigger picture

00:14:03.460 in terms of the relationship between China and the rest of the world?

00:14:07.340 So if you look at the kind of example,

00:14:08.660 I'll give you another example just to show you the kind of realpolitik of this,

00:14:11.740 where again, I think I'll acknowledge that we were,

00:14:15.800 well, I don't know whether the word is naive or we made mistakes

00:14:18.940 or whatever you take our relationship with russia okay so we met putin before he became president

00:14:25.580 and based partly on advice but also based on you know seeing the guy's eyeballs and talking to him

00:14:33.260 i think tony reached a judgment that this could be okay this could work okay we were very right

00:14:39.900 at the forefront for example of trying to persuade the rest to make them g7 into g8 okay back then

00:14:46.460 that felt like the right decision and it felt like that was taking us and them in a better direction

00:14:53.180 you look at that decision today or you look at the german relationship in relation to the energy

00:14:57.500 markets today and you think what were you guys doing so when on our podcast we interviewed

00:15:02.540 the widows both of litvinenko and of navalny we've talked to them both they both said we think you

00:15:07.900 were naive right okay now and that's a perfectly good judgment they both lost their husbands

00:15:13.500 because these guys killed them.

00:15:16.180 And yet there we were, you know,

00:15:18.320 toasting each other with vodka

00:15:19.540 and Tony was playing this silly snooker game with him

00:15:22.840 and, you know, all sorts of stuff.

00:15:24.240 We got closer.

00:15:26.060 So all I'm saying is that you make the decision,

00:15:29.180 you take the strategic choice at the time

00:15:30.640 and then the consequences are sometimes...

00:15:32.820 Alison, we haven't brought you here

00:15:34.020 to debate you about the faults of the Blair government.

00:15:36.940 No, but I'm saying...

00:15:37.420 We don't have enough time.

00:15:38.280 I'm kidding.

00:15:38.900 I'm kidding.

00:15:39.600 I'm kidding.

00:15:40.100 I'm kidding.

00:15:40.620 I'm kidding.

00:15:41.220 Honestly, I'm kidding.

00:15:42.300 I'm just talking about the framing

00:15:43.760 because populism is a really important issue.

00:15:46.540 I agree with you that a lot of the populism,

00:15:48.440 by the way, we haven't talked about left-wing populism

00:15:50.380 and there's a lot of that going on at the moment.

00:15:52.620 That doesn't offer any practical solutions either

00:15:54.440 as far as I'm concerned.

00:15:55.820 It's a really important issue.

00:15:57.500 The issue I'm honing in on is how we talk about it

00:16:01.220 because what I'm hearing a lot from you

00:16:03.940 and other people in your space is

00:16:05.900 the problem is not the problem.

00:16:07.860 The problem is it allowed Trump to say it's a problem.

00:16:10.280 The problem is it allowed for us to say it's a problem.

00:16:12.120 No, I'm saying both things, really.

00:16:13.380 I think I'm saying both things.

00:16:14.480 But I think you have to see, in a way,

00:16:16.160 you do have to make judgments like that in politics

00:16:17.960 because nothing that a politician does at any moment of time

00:16:22.460 stays in that time.

00:16:23.840 Of course, of course, of course.

00:16:25.220 I mean, the truth is that Trump is in part a consequence of,

00:16:29.900 I think it's a consequence of the fact that America had a black president,

00:16:32.300 in part.

00:16:33.400 I think one of the reasons that Hillary got rejected

00:16:35.640 was because people thought, Jesus, they gave us a black guy.

00:16:38.980 I'm not taking a woman as well.

00:16:40.180 Some people, okay?

00:16:41.720 So you have consequences.

00:16:43.260 So I'm happy to defend the stuff that we did,

00:16:46.120 but I'm also happy to admit that in some of these situations,

00:16:50.160 and a lot of this goes to the conflict and the tension you sometimes get

00:16:54.700 between the promises you make and the nature of the promise

00:16:58.680 in which the public expects you to make them,

00:17:01.560 and the reality of the complexity of life.

00:17:04.160 I totally get it.

00:17:04.780 I'm making a slightly different point, though.

00:17:06.680 Now, I've got your point.

00:17:07.340 You've got my point.

00:17:07.980 I've got your point.

00:17:08.340 Well, the reason it's important is the issue I'm about to bring up, which I think is another

00:17:12.120 huge driver of populism, which is the scale and pace and type and quantity of mass immigration

00:17:18.980 into Britain, into America, into many European countries, and the scale of illegal immigration

00:17:23.980 that we've had.

00:17:24.620 So, I came to Britain from Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, in 1996.

00:17:29.840 When I came, net immigration into Britain was about 55,000 a year.

00:17:34.480 And at the time, 3% of the British public thought immigration was a major issue.

00:17:39.300 It wasn't an issue, basically, in 1990, no one cared.

00:17:42.820 And then we had, both under the Labour and the Conservative governments, a huge increase

00:17:48.540 in mass immigration.

00:17:50.220 And now we are at a point where even illegal immigration is now basically at the point

00:17:54.600 where legal immigration was in 1996.

00:17:57.020 We have tens of thousands of people coming here every year, we're not removing them.

00:18:01.480 So we've got about a million illegal immigrants in Britain.

00:18:04.240 removing about 10 000. so even if we never let another one in it would take us a century

00:18:09.680 to address that problem on current trends we can talk about economics and it's massively important

00:18:16.480 but i think we all have to accept that those policies and the fact that that has happened

00:18:21.760 must be inevitably a huge driver of resentment distaste distrust and people like nigel farage

00:18:29.200 may you may say they're exploiting it other people would say they are reacting to the

00:18:34.400 public they get it yeah yeah these policies that have been pursued by left and right-wing governments

00:18:40.480 that have changed the face of the country the trigonometry merch store is built on shopify

00:18:46.160 because the moment someone's actually ready to pay shopify makes sure they can and if they've

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00:19:13.800 slash trigger. Well, you can have a debate about the, what the country has become and what the

00:19:22.820 country is becoming um so you know for example i'll give you i was in france last week in the

00:19:29.280 french world cup team um now france has got its own populist politicians left and right

00:19:35.440 melanchol on the left in particular and uh le pen and bardella on the right i would argue that

00:19:42.100 racial integration has been less successful in france than it has here um and yet they have the

00:19:49.680 team that when's it's going out before the final or not before after after okay so then the final

00:19:55.600 of the world cup not before before okay so then they have the the football team that may by the

00:20:01.040 time this goes out be on its way to winning the world cup um what how many players did they have

00:20:07.420 the other day in the in the lineup one white player in the starting lineup uh the last game

00:20:12.600 they played that is i i look at that and i think france should be really proud of that a lot of

00:20:20.560 people i know in france look at that and think that's not france okay so you can have different

00:20:26.640 debate about what you think your country represents what again what i'll accept is and i can remember

00:20:33.220 having massive arguments at the time when we we were i talked about you know we wanted to get

00:20:39.320 Putin into the G8. We wanted enlargement in the European Union. We were a big supporter of

00:20:44.040 enlargement. I think enlargement was a good thing to do. Now, unintended consequences.

00:20:49.940 I can remember having huge fights in briefings that I did. I can remember one in particular

00:20:53.960 almost came to blows because we were relying, as you do in government, on an assessment of how

00:21:03.400 many our experts and, you know, and they're clever people and they study data and all that sort of

00:21:08.360 stuff. And they were suggesting that, I can't remember what the numbers were, but X number

00:21:13.780 of polls, X number of this, X number of that would come to work in Britain. Massively underestimating.

00:21:20.800 They said 13,000 and then a million came.

00:21:23.380 Well, is that right?

00:21:24.180 Yes.

00:21:24.400 Which, well, I might have seen different pages.

00:21:26.160 They said that if you, so what happened was, just for people who don't remember, the UK

00:21:31.100 and Ireland, I think, were the only two countries in the EU at the time that didn't introduce

00:21:36.400 transitional controls, and the advice was 13,000 people a year would come, and a million came.

00:21:43.240 Do we have a million polls?

00:21:44.700 A million people from the country.

00:21:47.640 I can't remember the numbers.

00:21:49.000 We can fact check it, but it was that order of difference.

00:21:51.200 But I'm talking about the advice that we were getting.

00:21:54.960 Was that underestimated?

00:21:56.460 100%.

00:21:57.080 Absolutely accept that.

00:21:59.360 Did that lead to problems related to community cohesion?

00:22:04.860 Yeah, it did in some places.

00:22:06.400 In other places, it didn't.

00:22:08.960 But did it lead to, and I know you're going to disagree with this

00:22:14.620 because you're going to say I'm doing the same thing as saying

00:22:16.240 the problem isn't the problem, it's the consequences.

00:22:20.080 But did the immigration debate within our politics

00:22:24.620 become swamped with exaggerated figures, exaggerated consequences?

00:22:31.200 I think it did.

00:22:32.220 It's that, I think, as much as the numbers that fuel the problems we have now.

00:22:36.400 So, for example, you take an issue like, you know, live very, very recently, the whole, you know, the grooming gangs issue, terrible, terrible, terrible problem. Lots of mistakes made along the way. But the way that it's now become identified purely, virtually purely within our debate is an issue of Muslims, as opposed to some of the worst grooming gangs being, you know, white people in white communities.

00:23:01.640 I think that is a problem

00:23:05.340 and of course it's very, very hard

00:23:06.620 you know, well, who's the worst grooming gang

00:23:09.920 you know, you just want

00:23:11.540 I want to have a debate

00:23:13.520 where we can actually say

00:23:14.620 these are real problems

00:23:16.460 once you've got a politics

00:23:19.580 that's been defined

00:23:20.840 through a certain prism

00:23:22.440 and the prism at the moment

00:23:23.720 because of our media

00:23:24.540 because of people like Farage

00:23:25.660 and so forth

00:23:26.100 it's defined in a certain way

00:23:27.440 I think that's what I mean about

00:23:29.520 the problem becomes worse

00:23:31.000 But I would, it's actually something different that I disagree with you on there.

00:23:35.520 My reading of it, and we've covered the grooming gangs issue from 2019, because when we first

00:23:40.600 discovered what was going on, I was horrified.

00:23:43.060 And I remember writing, I think it was to Sarah Champion, inviting her on the show.

00:23:47.460 And she had had so much hate for even raising this issue.

00:23:51.700 She said, I just don't want to talk about it anymore because...

00:23:54.600 I get that, I get that.

00:23:55.340 And so the reason that people are talking about it with the level of anger and resentment

00:23:59.940 is not just what happened, it's also the fact that actually

00:24:02.660 when people tried to have a very reasonable debate,

00:24:05.660 they were suppressed.

00:24:07.260 That's what happened.

00:24:07.960 They were suppressed.

00:24:08.660 You used the phrase there, reasonable debate.

00:24:11.580 Sarah Champion was a Labour MP trying to raise this issue

00:24:13.780 in her local community.

00:24:14.420 I know who Sarah Champion is and I know what she was trying to do.

00:24:17.700 And I also accept, I do agree with you,

00:24:20.460 that there have been times,

00:24:23.700 probably particularly when it's been related to race,

00:24:26.540 but also I think we're seeing it in other issues,

00:24:28.800 I think we're seeing it in relation to the trans debate.

00:24:30.800 I think we're seeing it in relation to maybe less the kind of gay rights debate.

00:24:34.720 But I think particularly if you're talking about race,

00:24:36.200 I think there have been times when the fear of the consequence of ventilating the debate

00:24:44.700 stops you having the debate in the first place.

00:24:47.080 And I agree, and I think that's wrong.

00:24:48.340 And that's why you get the radicalisation, is my point.

00:24:50.880 Because when people aren't allowed to speak, and they're suppressed, and they're prevented from...

00:24:55.180 I never buy this idea that they're not allowed to speak.

00:24:57.480 Sarah Champion.

00:24:58.700 When you're hounded out of public life

00:25:00.820 or out of speaking in public about a really important issue

00:25:04.060 to the point you don't ever want to talk about it again.

00:25:07.220 Yeah, that is, I'm not defending it.

00:25:09.140 Then your other people who are more extreme are going to come along.

00:25:12.440 I agree, yeah, but that's what happened.

00:25:14.060 Right, what I'm saying is that if your political debate generally

00:25:18.740 has become more toxic, and we can blame whoever we want, right?

00:25:23.840 And you probably might think it's more people on the left.

00:25:25.780 No, I think it's technology, actually, mainly.

00:25:27.820 Okay, it may be, but that's another issue we haven't really confronted.

00:25:31.220 But let's focus on this.

00:25:32.140 Okay, so focus on this.

00:25:33.460 I would say that because the debate generally has become more toxic,

00:25:37.940 because we do have a branch of politician

00:25:42.000 that when something really bad happens,

00:25:46.440 doesn't think, shit, that's really bad, what can I do to help?

00:25:50.320 Actually thinks, what can I do to exploit?

00:25:53.320 That is why, partly I think, why we got into the mess.

00:25:55.760 Recently, the Southampton and Belfast stuff, where technology played a big part.

00:26:01.520 But that was a classic example where politicians and political figures

00:26:05.780 who knew absolutely nothing about beyond a small set of facts,

00:26:14.280 but they just wanted the one or two facts within that cohort of facts,

00:26:19.200 then to go out and create riots.

00:26:21.900 OK, that is a that is a creature of the toxic to my mind of the toxicity of populism.

00:26:27.860 And so that we don't. And this is look, we've all got to own up to our responsibility in this.

00:26:33.900 Social media has played a massive part. Yeah. The way we do our politics has played a massive part.

00:26:37.640 Yeah. And the way, you know, one of the things I've thought about a lot since doing this podcast with Rory Stewart,

00:26:45.040 because, you know, most of my life I spent trying to destroy Tories.

00:26:48.300 That sort of motivated me, you know, how do we get the Tories out of power and keep them out of power?

00:26:54.320 And that attitude, which is still very strong within me to some extent,

00:26:58.640 but what the podcast has taught me, I think, is that it's really not a good way to address problems.

00:27:05.400 So, and that's why I really, really hope Andy Burnham is able to stick to this style that he's got.

00:27:13.100 I think it's going to be hard.

00:27:14.360 Very hard.

00:27:14.920 because he's talking about more collaborative,

00:27:17.140 more respect for each other.

00:27:18.300 They all say that, and then they come in and suck.

00:27:19.920 I don't think they say it.

00:27:21.820 What about David Cameron?

00:27:22.880 He came in, and we're going to work to blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:27:25.400 No, no, it's so hard to do,

00:27:26.820 but my point is I think Andy's,

00:27:28.620 I think, put it this way,

00:27:29.760 I think it's become an ingrained part of Andy's politics.

00:27:34.280 So, because he's done a different job.

00:27:36.320 He's being a mayor.

00:27:37.020 It's a different sort of job you've got to do.

00:27:39.460 But, so I think the,

00:27:40.720 and i accept because i'm you know i'm very labor and uh i do feel that the country's been dragged

00:27:50.040 way too far to the right i know that there's there's this problem on the left as well i do

00:27:55.900 accept that but i think in terms of and i don't want to play the blame game but if you say let's

00:28:01.720 say let's say that it's it's let's say those people who say they think it's a good thing

00:28:05.900 that we're now in the era of populism,

00:28:07.960 that we've got this populist debate right.

00:28:09.520 The ones that I think have been most successful

00:28:12.520 at changing the nature of that political debate,

00:28:16.060 I think they are on the right.

00:28:17.420 And I think in our country,

00:28:18.780 a lot of them is to do with the media.

00:28:21.840 I think...

00:28:23.520 Who was I with the other day?

00:28:24.540 I was talking to about Murdoch.

00:28:28.420 God, who was it?

00:28:29.960 Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian Prime Minister.

00:28:32.160 And he said,

00:28:33.900 you wouldn't have had Brexit without Murdoch

00:28:36.120 and you wouldn't have had Trump without Murdoch.

00:28:37.780 Now, I don't know if that's true or not, and none of us know.

00:28:40.080 But there's a guy who's been Prime Minister for Australia.

00:28:43.820 He's quite a bright guy, a very bright guy.

00:28:46.160 And it's a fair point.

00:28:47.880 It's a fair point.

00:28:48.860 It may be.

00:28:49.700 It may be. But it's not a fact, but it's a...

00:28:51.220 It may be. But the issue I'm trying to raise with you,

00:28:53.380 and by the way, look, we don't come at it from a right or left perspective.

00:28:57.500 The issue I'm trying to hone in is something that really bothers me

00:28:59.900 as someone who had dissident family in the Soviet Union

00:29:02.160 who were prevented from saying their opinion in public.

00:29:04.760 The reason the show really started with us

00:29:06.740 is we really don't like the culture

00:29:08.960 of not allowing people to express their concerns.

00:29:11.480 And I think it's important, right?

00:29:13.260 I would put it to you, you don't get Brexit

00:29:15.400 if people's concerns about mass immigration in the 2000s

00:29:18.920 and if people's concerns about things

00:29:21.340 like the grooming gangs and other things

00:29:22.940 are not deliberately suppressed.

00:29:25.120 People are not smeared as being racist

00:29:27.020 for their opinions about not wanting illegal immigration.

00:29:30.360 All of these things, in my opinion,

00:29:32.160 whether you like them or not are acceptable reasonable positions which by the way as you

00:29:37.080 well know left-wing politicians here and in the united states used to express i mean the idea

00:29:41.940 that you can't have an open border has been universally accepted across the political

00:29:47.080 spectrum and then suddenly we're supposed to pretend that it's normal that we've got tens

00:29:50.960 of thousands of people coming in legally i'm a legal immigrant to this country i don't understand

00:29:54.740 why we have more than one illegal immigrant coming into this more than zero like it shouldn't be

00:29:59.200 happening um so my point to you is if we didn't have the suppression of the debate and if we had

00:30:05.080 as you say politicians who said you know what these grooming gangs that sarah champion is raising

00:30:10.080 this really is terrible we're gonna get into it we're gonna get stuck in we're gonna deal with

00:30:14.380 it we're gonna stop this ever happening again it's a travesty and i don't disagree with you

00:30:18.240 right i don't disagree with you then you wouldn't get so much populism is my point

00:30:21.400 if we didn't have mass immigration you didn't have grooming gangs and you didn't have them

00:30:25.520 being covered up. Is that fair? Well, the honest chance, I don't know. I don't know. Because let

00:30:31.180 me just go back. You said something interesting there. You said that we were coming exactly how

00:30:36.400 you described it, but Brexit happened because we allowed mass immigration and people. Oh,

00:30:40.920 we didn't allow people to be angry about that. Okay. It's not that we didn't allow people to

00:30:45.820 be angry. It's that when I remember in the 2000s, under the Blair government, I remember Greg Clark

00:30:52.220 being on question time saying you know i realize people have these concerns but there's also

00:30:57.340 you know and and all of this stuff it was talked about like people have concerns but

00:31:01.020 action wasn't taken it wasn't taken we were promised the people of this country were promised

00:31:05.820 immigration down to the tens of thousands they were promised it by labor politicians

00:31:10.060 conservative politicians they voted against it in 2010 2015 with brexit 2017 2019

00:31:16.060 over and over and it just kept going up and up and up and you can understand why people get angry

00:31:21.020 can't you in that situation yeah i can but at the same time i can i can hold to the view

00:31:27.260 that i think some of the anger is justified but a lot of it is exaggerated and exploited and and

00:31:32.700 those are both true and evidently yeah and let me just make it the other point i was going to make

00:31:36.220 so i think it was the 2001 campaign so we win the election 97 massive majority and part of the

00:31:42.460 debate on immigration was i go back to my point about you know we needed immigration for the

00:31:46.380 economy at that time that's the message we get every business the whole time and we were trying

00:31:50.140 to be the party the the business friendly labor government um but i can remember i i and this

00:31:56.860 isn't just the diaries i remember this margaret mcdonough who was general secretary of the labor

00:32:01.980 party sadly died since um i remember her coming in and she margaret was one of those people who

00:32:08.620 even when we were in government she was out canvassing every single weekend

00:32:11.900 right she was she was an on the ground labor person i mean i'll be honest once we got into

00:32:17.660 And once Tony Blair got into government, you know, he didn't do that many constituency surgeries.

00:32:22.440 You know, he was busy. He did loads of stuff.

00:32:24.680 I was, you know, you do, you have to force yourself not to be attached to some extent.

00:32:30.060 And Margaret was out every single weekend.

00:32:32.340 And I can remember she came back from one weekend.

00:32:34.780 She'd been in Kent.

00:32:36.540 And she was like, you know, this debate on immigration is becoming a real problem.

00:32:41.500 We have got to do something about this.

00:32:43.640 now I think our response to that at that time was political as opposed to policy

00:32:49.980 that's what I'm saying yeah and I think that is true I think that is true because I think

00:32:54.340 I think it was so I think if from memory I can't remember what the policy was at the time

00:32:58.600 but I can remember going through the 2001 campaign we had a very very bespoke messaging campaign

00:33:04.620 for some of these areas where it was a problem now did we deal with the fundamentals we tried

00:33:11.280 We tried.

00:33:13.080 And even now, even now today,

00:33:17.140 I follow German politics very, very closely.

00:33:19.620 And the debate that's happening,

00:33:20.600 and okay, there's Merkel.

00:33:24.280 Verschaffendass, a million Syrians are going to come in.

00:33:27.280 There are going to be consequences,

00:33:28.320 and there have been consequences.

00:33:29.460 But even today, the German debate,

00:33:32.140 in terms of one of the reasons

00:33:33.420 why the German government is not doing well

00:33:34.840 is because the economy is not doing very well.

00:33:36.300 And one of the reasons why the economy is not doing very well

00:33:38.180 is because they're not getting the right balances

00:33:39.860 in the labor market.

00:33:41.300 So on what the politics are saying, push them all out.

00:33:46.140 And the economics are saying, hold on a minute,

00:33:49.200 we're an ageing population, we're going to need more people

00:33:51.820 coming in, working, paying taxes, et cetera.

00:33:54.260 So the realities of these debates are not going to go away.

00:33:58.180 No.

00:33:59.000 And you said that when you first came here in 1996,

00:34:03.520 immigration was not up here in terms of...

00:34:05.200 It was 55,000 a year, yeah.

00:34:06.760 No, but in terms of where it was in political issues.

00:34:09.400 Oh, yeah, 3%.

00:34:10.240 right okay and now it's it's right up there now it's up there in part because of facts

00:34:17.280 but it's where i think it's um where the populist bit i i find offensive is the way it's then been

00:34:24.800 exploited fine and that's where we you know but isn't the issue is that if if you guys

00:34:30.640 and the conservatives and everybody if you'd fix the facts there'd be nothing to exploit

00:34:34.400 i'm not even sure that's right you know if you why not here's something nobody tells you about

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00:36:36.040 it before it's gone. If you'd fix the facts, there'd be nothing to exploit.

00:36:44.280 I'm not even sure that's right, you know. If you'd fix... Why not? Well, because... So if you'd...

00:36:49.760 your judgment depends what your judgment of what you want the facts to be i don't want 55 50 000

00:36:55.360 people coming into this country illegally every year and i don't want them to be allowed to stay

00:36:59.840 here once they come right okay is that a fair position well no it well it might be a fair

00:37:05.040 position depending on where you put it in a bigger context so but what's the benefit of illegal

00:37:09.440 immigration we can separate mass immigration and maybe it's good for the economy but illegal

00:37:14.640 immigration why is it happening and why is no one stopping it well that is happening because of all

00:37:19.280 that very, very difficult cultural economic flows

00:37:23.440 right around the world.

00:37:24.380 And we can go, you know, wars and famines

00:37:26.320 and climate's going to make it worse, by the way.

00:37:28.420 So that's happening.

00:37:30.040 I actually, my, if I were still involved today,

00:37:34.120 I honestly don't think we're going to address this stuff

00:37:38.080 country by country.

00:37:39.880 I think there is going at some point

00:37:42.060 have to be a kind of, some kind of,

00:37:44.440 whether it's a European level

00:37:45.700 or some kind of even broader international level,

00:37:48.020 We're not going to be able to deal with this in the way that we think we can.

00:37:51.360 But so I think you say, so for example, let's take a hardline Brexit position or even a restore position where they're basically saying, OK, somebody turns up in Calais and some smuggler gets hold of them and they put them on a boat.

00:38:05.360 OK. Now, should they be coming into this country?

00:38:08.700 No. OK. Should we as a country have legal, decent, humane routes for people who.

00:38:16.980 Like we did for Ukrainians, yes.

00:38:18.640 Or like we've done through time.

00:38:20.320 For Hongkongans.

00:38:20.720 Like we've done through time for people genuinely fleeing persecution.

00:38:24.180 There should be, okay?

00:38:25.440 Would you be happy with a judgment that said,

00:38:28.520 because we don't think any of them should come,

00:38:32.540 that we as a government should be able to do anything to stop them?

00:38:36.620 Yes.

00:38:38.160 It's our country.

00:38:39.240 Sing them?

00:38:40.380 I don't think it needs to come to that.

00:38:42.340 No, it doesn't need to, but if that is...

00:38:44.120 Well, hold on. You're using an extreme example.

00:38:46.200 No, I'm using extreme examples because that's what the extremists say.

00:38:49.620 But no one here is extremist.

00:38:51.280 We're having a debate with us.

00:38:52.220 No, but you're basically, what I think you're doing is saying this is,

00:38:57.520 we can agree that they shouldn't be coming.

00:39:01.660 Okay.

00:39:02.440 Where I think, but you're making that sound as quite a simple thing to bring out.

00:39:06.960 Which it is.

00:39:07.520 Which I believe it is, for the reasons I can explain.

00:39:09.660 Okay, okay.

00:39:10.140 So the Australians fixed this problem.

00:39:12.000 Yeah.

00:39:12.260 They had tens of thousands of people coming.

00:39:14.200 then Tony Abbott came in and he fixed it very very little damage was done in the process they

00:39:20.060 I think they had to turn some boats around some of the people smugglers capsized a few but they

00:39:24.680 rescued most of the people there was some unpleasantness about holding some people on

00:39:28.500 the island and blah blah blah but overall they dealt with their legal immigration problem I know

00:39:33.440 you don't like Trump there's lots of things to dislike about President Trump the one thing

00:39:37.000 they've been able to do is close the border it's doable if you have people in charge of your

00:39:41.020 country who say this is our country we are going to police its borders like we've done for thousands

00:39:47.220 of years okay come on that's a reasonable position it's a very reasonable position and i'll tell you

00:39:51.400 how i would um today so i've been talking to the very good guy called gerald knauss who's a german

00:39:58.440 and really studies this stuff in detail and he's he's got a proposal which i think has a lot of

00:40:05.120 merit which essentially is if you're going to start from a position of they cannot come okay

00:40:09.300 then there has to be this is why i'm afraid i think brexit has been such a disaster lots of

00:40:15.340 reasons i think it's been a disaster but one of them is you should be able to have sufficiently

00:40:20.880 good relations with some of the countries within the european union definitely right that anybody

00:40:26.360 who come goes straight back okay that is the only way you can fix this right now and so i think is

00:40:33.780 that doable i think it is probably doable it's not doable in the context of this toxic political

00:40:39.640 environment that we've got but it hasn't been done before either right it wasn't being done

00:40:44.260 before directly because because we were we were i'm being very frank about this we were we were

00:40:50.640 we were we wanted immigration but what about illegal immigration no but it was fairly low

00:40:57.500 actually under your government illegal illegal illegal immigration and you were deporting

00:41:01.740 people. And this government is deported more than the last lot. I guess the bigger point I'm trying

00:41:11.360 to make to you is that you have to put this in the context of the kind of country that you're

00:41:17.980 trying to create. And what I worry about you, and you're right about the Australians, but Australia

00:41:22.300 is a different geography. It's a different geopolitics. And there was, he took a lot of

00:41:27.260 flak for doing what he did fine i think within the where we are right now i let's agree on the

00:41:34.740 premise that none of them need to come okay okay and the people who come to this country should be

00:41:38.960 the people that we want to come okay let's agree on that and then let's then i think try to build

00:41:47.340 the relations with other european countries that essentially say this is a problem we've got to

00:41:51.940 crack together because what you've got to do is you've got to stop giving the motivation for

00:41:55.420 coming so then the stuff so the stuff that shabana mahoud is doing where she's trying to send a

00:42:01.780 message okay look at the reality of the political problems that she's facing because of that

00:42:06.800 so that's what i'm trying to say to you is it is not as easy as it sounds well it depends if you're

00:42:13.940 a labor home secretary it's difficult because there's a lot of people on your side who are

00:42:18.040 actually quite happy with illegal immigration i don't think they're happy with legal immigration

00:42:21.320 Okay, they will tolerate it because of other beliefs that they have

00:42:25.220 about the importance of care and compassion, et cetera.

00:42:28.360 Is that accurate?

00:42:29.480 No, I don't think many people on the left are happy with legal immigration.

00:42:31.160 So what are the political problems that she has?

00:42:33.760 Why are they happening?

00:42:35.100 Well, because the political problems that she's having are happening

00:42:38.040 because of a lot of MPs thinking that there's a real danger

00:42:43.580 that we are being driven here by an unfair politics of the right

00:42:47.240 and that actually within this you're going to project

00:42:50.500 a very bad image of the United Kingdom,

00:42:52.860 and there are people that we should be coming in

00:42:54.400 who won't want to come as part of it.

00:42:56.560 Illegal immigrants who should come, but won't want to come.

00:42:59.300 No, no, no, I'm not talking about illegal immigrants.

00:43:00.100 Oh, you mean other people?

00:43:00.860 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43:01.540 Or just about the same.

00:43:03.000 In other words, she's trying to say

00:43:05.860 it should be harder for you to come here and stay here, okay?

00:43:09.800 Yeah.

00:43:10.220 And she's bringing forward policy proposals on that.

00:43:12.640 And I think the politics of that are proving difficult

00:43:16.080 because of people's fears about us actually saying

00:43:21.220 we're putting up the barriers to the lot of you.

00:43:23.960 But we should be putting up barriers to illegal immigration,

00:43:27.980 except where we choose to let people in.

00:43:31.220 That's what she's saying.

00:43:32.760 But why is she facing problems from the Labour Party

00:43:34.820 for saying this reasonable thing?

00:43:36.240 This is the point you've made, because there is their fear

00:43:39.980 that this is then actually sending a broader message

00:43:43.120 about what sort of people we are, what sort of country we want to be.

00:43:46.080 in relation to legal immigration.

00:43:48.140 But isn't the message we're sending

00:43:50.020 is we're sensible people who will protect their country

00:43:52.680 while choosing the people who come here

00:43:55.040 based on what we want?

00:43:56.220 Yeah.

00:43:56.500 So why is the Labour Party not willing to accept it?

00:43:58.760 Doesn't make any sense.

00:44:00.180 Does it make sense to you?

00:44:02.940 It makes sense.

00:44:03.800 These are all like, I feel like we're having some,

00:44:06.040 like, I'm saying like very reasonable things, aren't I?

00:44:09.460 Yeah, but you're saying them,

00:44:10.640 you're saying moderately reasonable things.

00:44:13.320 In an unreasonable way.

00:44:14.460 No, not even in a reasonable way, but in a way that I think sometimes underestimates.

00:44:20.240 The difficulty or the challenge?

00:44:21.940 And the political consequences.

00:44:23.080 But what I'm saying is, why are there political consequences in a Labour Party for doing a moderately reasonable, sensible thing?

00:44:30.640 Because some of them don't think it's moderate and reasonable.

00:44:34.860 They will say it's moderate and reasonable to do everything you can to stop illegal immigration.

00:44:38.980 But they don't want to do it.

00:44:39.840 But they don't think it's moderate or reasonable for Britain

00:44:44.900 to put up the barriers on people that we do want here,

00:44:47.240 that we deter from coming here, by putting them in the same boat.

00:44:50.880 But why would stopping illegal immigration...

00:44:54.880 Are we going round in circles here?

00:44:55.800 Yeah, we are, because what I'm trying to say is very simple.

00:44:58.820 Why would...

00:44:59.160 You're asking me to speak for the entirety of the parliamentary Labour Party.

00:45:02.080 I'm asking you to confront a reality which I think exists

00:45:05.300 on the left of British politics, which is there are a lot of people

00:45:07.840 who are very comfortable with illegal immigration

00:45:09.840 because it makes them feel like they're good people.

00:45:12.580 It makes them feel like they're not those evil Farage and right-wingers.

00:45:16.020 They're good moral people,

00:45:17.280 and therefore they're prepared for our country to have an open border.

00:45:19.720 But I think that most of the Labour MPs

00:45:22.980 who were elected at the last election,

00:45:25.000 I don't put them in that camp at all.

00:45:27.440 Because the other thing that's going on with the Shabana Mood

00:45:30.160 is it's happening in the context of this churn and change

00:45:32.740 within the Labour Party.

00:45:34.160 So you've got Keir Starmer going, Andy Burnham's coming in,

00:45:36.480 and people are manoeuvring and people are trying to play their role

00:45:42.720 in shaping the future of the Labour Party.

00:45:44.420 I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with you.

00:45:47.220 I don't think you are, but I think you're covering for these people

00:45:49.720 and the extreme views that they have.

00:45:51.480 Maybe that's because I'm covering for them.

00:45:54.080 If you said there's racists within the right of British politics

00:45:57.160 who want to deport everyone, I'd say, yeah, clearly.

00:45:59.960 But when we talk about the far left in this country,

00:46:03.020 people want to pretend it doesn't exist

00:46:04.560 and they don't have this radical agenda.

00:46:06.480 when it comes to immigration.

00:46:09.800 So for example, for me,

00:46:11.440 when you talk about the radical agenda on the left,

00:46:16.980 I'd be far more upset, for example,

00:46:20.540 about the way that antisemitism developed

00:46:24.780 on the parts of the far left.

00:46:27.960 I think some of the way that,

00:46:30.240 I mean, I abhor so much of what, for example,

00:46:33.260 the Israeli government has done and is doing.

00:46:36.300 But at the same time, I really worry about the extent that in some parts of the left,

00:46:41.200 that has turned into a little bit of a resurgence of the anti-Semitism that we saw during the Corbyn.

00:46:46.500 Alistair, I've been hogging the mic for ages, and I don't want to go around in circles.

00:46:49.860 But the reason I'm...

00:46:51.280 No, I know the reason.

00:46:52.480 I'm not sure you do.

00:46:53.620 Let me just lay it out, right?

00:46:55.220 My point, the populism conversation is very important.

00:46:58.140 I am not a fan of populism because I agree with you that populism very often is about not solutions,

00:47:03.800 but signalling in order to get elected

00:47:06.760 to then not be able to actually do the things you claim to do.

00:47:08.880 Or even not to get elected, just to make money.

00:47:10.900 Fine. Actually, we'll talk about the money part in a bit.

00:47:13.420 But whatever.

00:47:14.740 It's not actually likely to solve the problems this country faces.

00:47:17.760 And I want to solve the problem this country faces, as you do, right?

00:47:20.980 But the point I'm trying to make to you is

00:47:22.720 Shabana Mahmood is trying to deal with the issue of illegal immigration.

00:47:26.880 Other people pretend or try to deal with the issue of illegal immigration.

00:47:30.280 And until they do, populism is not going away, because populism is not actually being driven by the evil right wing, it's being driven by the reality that we have tens of thousands of people coming in, we're paying billions of pounds just for hotels and now HMOs and all these other things.

00:47:48.920 You have people committing crimes, heinous crimes, that yes, they're amplified by the media, but we'd want the media to cover what's happening, right? Until you fix that, this isn't going away.

00:48:00.280 Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you, but let me say as well, just on the PLP, I don't talk

00:48:06.120 to as many MPs as I used to.

00:48:07.380 Okay.

00:48:09.520 Right now, if I was an MP, would I be broadly backing Shabana Mahmood and what she's trying

00:48:15.140 to do?

00:48:15.440 Yes.

00:48:17.300 Do I think that the people who are trying to block her from doing that are doing so for

00:48:25.440 sort of...

00:48:26.160 Ideological reasons.

00:48:27.360 No, I don't think it's ideological.

00:48:28.140 I think you're saying it's more sort of virtue signaling

00:48:30.740 and trying to say that's a divide that we want to have with the right.

00:48:35.160 I don't think that's a good divide to have with the right.

00:48:36.320 No, I think they believe in compassion

00:48:38.340 and they think that a good person doesn't deny anyone entry into this country.

00:48:42.500 I don't think that.

00:48:43.420 So what do they think?

00:48:44.600 Well, you'd have to get them on.

00:48:45.920 I mean, what I feel you're doing is you're asking me to...

00:48:49.420 I'm seeing if you're willing to acknowledge that on the left

00:48:53.100 there exists an ideological extremism about these issues that I think exist.

00:48:56.680 You don't think it exists, that's fine.

00:48:58.140 No, I don't think many of those Labour MPs are ideologically extreme on this issue.

00:49:02.780 I think there is ideologically extremism.

00:49:06.040 I relate it more to other issues.

00:49:08.880 But I think what Shabana Mahmood is trying to do is address the issue,

00:49:16.180 address it in a fair, reasonable, legal way.

00:49:19.580 I would like there to be much more of an international

00:49:24.960 and particularly European approach to this,

00:49:26.840 which I think we could do, which will be based upon the idea, actually, nobody needs to come here.

00:49:33.700 And I think you do that by, and this is part of what she's trying to do on the policy front,

00:49:38.260 is signs of deterrence. No point coming here.

00:49:41.780 But you'll only get that message through eventually if people actually think,

00:49:46.600 if I go there, I'm going to go to Denmark, I'm going to go to Germany.

00:49:50.120 I'm not going to go to Rwanda, I'm going to go back where I came from in the European Union.

00:49:54.360 and i think that is uh but you know we lost the dublin convention and that's gone and i think that

00:50:01.500 the anyway i think we're going around in circles on this but you can't expect me to defend

00:50:07.320 positions of you've got to talk to them let's talk about underwear nobody wants to nobody

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00:50:42.900 There is apparently a technical term for what this creates and that term is zen-like separation,

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00:51:28.520 A lot of people in this country, particularly working-class people, feel that the left have

00:51:33.180 abandoned them. They look at the Labour Party, particularly under Corbyn, and they go,

00:51:38.580 not only do you not represent me, I think you actually hold me in contempt,

00:51:43.320 because I've got a lot of mates who feel that way, and they're the people who flock to her.

00:51:48.000 reform they're the people who are flocking to restore um

00:51:55.120 no you hear people saying that for sure for sure so the question then is does jeremy corbyn did

00:51:59.760 jeremy corbyn have contempt for those sorts of people i don't think he does i don't think he

00:52:03.280 does i'll tell you what i think people felt i can remember this but i you probably know i support

00:52:08.160 bernie football club i go to bernie a lot mate i'm west ham we've got the same colors we're both

00:52:11.600 First game of the season.

00:52:15.580 But I can remember going to Burnley a lot during that Corbyn period.

00:52:22.700 And even somebody like me, who has been right in the centre of the establishment,

00:52:32.280 there's certain things you've got to do, OK?

00:52:35.160 If you're a leader of the Labour Party, I don't care what your views are,

00:52:40.600 if you're at an official government function

00:52:42.660 and the national anthem is being sung,

00:52:44.340 you sing it, okay?

00:52:46.720 Unless you want to come out and say,

00:52:49.020 as part of your politics,

00:52:50.600 if I become prime minister,

00:52:52.360 I'm absolutely determined to get rid of the monarchy.

00:52:55.480 And, you know, so I'm not, you know.

00:52:57.420 But so that, I think that first go,

00:53:00.420 people were thinking,

00:53:01.540 this guy is not serious.

00:53:04.880 That was a big,

00:53:05.480 and I don't think he understood

00:53:06.220 why that was such a big thing at the time.

00:53:07.700 Do you remember that church service he went to?

00:53:10.120 And then I think there's a thing about our military

00:53:13.980 that I think people like the military, respect the military,

00:53:19.640 want the military to be properly supported by their politicians.

00:53:23.340 Which it needs to be for our national security.

00:53:25.600 Totally.

00:53:25.700 And if they felt that, I guess they, I think there was a feeling,

00:53:31.120 I don't think this was just in working class people, by the way,

00:53:33.960 but a feeling of, you know, well, who's, you know,

00:53:37.320 you saw some of the stuff with um was it the salisbury attack was he leader of the labor party

00:53:42.680 then when it was like you know well we've got to get we've got to get this properly investigated

00:53:46.600 and it's like hold a minute you've got the intelligence our intelligence service is saying

00:53:49.640 this russians are saying this and you say well you know could be one could be the other um i think

00:53:55.880 that sort of stuff got through but i don't think i look i know a lot of working class people who

00:54:00.040 really really like jeremy corbyn because they felt he's he's for us he stands for us he's not

00:54:06.520 you know they look at people like me some of them or certainly tony and the thing you lot left us

00:54:13.960 they do say that okay now i don't think we did but i understand why because of what their lives

00:54:20.280 have become i think i think for a lot of those people we made their lives the policies that we

00:54:24.840 pursued made their lives a lot better okay and i can point to tons of stuff that we did

00:54:29.960 but did within what they saw of us did they think there was a sort of disconnect i think

00:54:35.880 that disconnect was there and then I think it grew and I don't think I wouldn't just put it on

00:54:40.360 Jeremy Corbyn far from it no I'm not putting it on Jeremy Corbyn I'm putting it on the left in

00:54:44.960 general for instance we can talk about progressive progressivism wokeism for example

00:54:49.540 terms like white privilege like a lot of my mates and people that I know and people who listen to

00:54:54.780 his podcast I remember I was walking down the street in North London there's a guy this is a

00:54:59.800 number of years ago came up to me and uh you know Labour and he was talking about growing up on a

00:55:04.480 council estate in Middlesbrough single mum and he wanted to talk to me about white privilege and

00:55:09.360 at one point I thought mate I'm not the one saying these views he was like why am I privileged

00:55:14.000 because I'm white when I grew up in poverty real poverty and I looked around and most of the people

00:55:20.820 I knew came from poverty we had no privilege and yet people within the Labour Party people within

00:55:27.120 the intelligentsia the modern left are pointing the finger at me and telling me I'm privileged

00:55:31.140 And that really angered people.

00:55:32.800 Yeah, I get that.

00:55:33.540 But were they really pointing the finger at me?

00:55:35.360 Yes.

00:55:35.700 Yes, they were.

00:55:36.820 Yes, they were.

00:55:37.740 I'm not sure.

00:55:38.340 Oh, come on.

00:55:39.780 Come on.

00:55:40.240 I'm really not sure.

00:55:41.020 You see, this is what I think.

00:55:43.280 Come on.

00:55:44.260 No, I think this whole woke debate is, I find it, and what does it even mean?

00:55:51.100 Woke is about believing in playing a role in trying to deliver some kind of social justice.

00:55:57.760 That is what woke is meant to mean.

00:55:59.860 Woke has become a catch-all term of abuse.

00:56:02.860 Not really.

00:56:03.400 Yes, it has.

00:56:03.900 I can define it for you if you like.

00:56:05.520 Go on, then define it.

00:56:06.200 It's a hierarchy of oppression.

00:56:08.600 It says different groups are oppressed at different levels,

00:56:10.860 and I can look at your skin colour and immediately tell

00:56:13.720 whether you're an oppressor or you're oppressed.

00:56:15.960 You happen to be a straight white man, therefore you're the oppressor.

00:56:19.040 I happen to be a black trans lesbian, therefore I'm oppressed.

00:56:22.660 Right?

00:56:22.820 And that's the way this debate is being done.

00:56:25.100 And by the way...

00:56:25.540 That's the way the debate is being done.

00:56:26.740 Hold on, Alistair.

00:56:27.160 Hold on.

00:56:27.500 The debate.

00:56:28.200 Alistair, chill out.

00:56:29.180 Not only is it the way the debate is being done,

00:56:31.460 we see it in policing.

00:56:33.020 Not only in the way the policing is being practised,

00:56:36.400 but in the instructions police officers get.

00:56:38.680 They're explicitly told not to treat people equally.

00:56:41.700 Explicitly.

00:56:42.700 Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's dementing.

00:56:45.880 It's absolutely dementing.

00:56:47.020 That's the quotes from the police's own instructions.

00:56:49.540 And it may be, and it may be because you found one document

00:56:52.420 where some guy who's writing some guidance for police is...

00:56:55.700 It's the College of Police and Guidance.

00:56:57.540 Okay, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute.

00:56:58.600 This is how police officers are trained.

00:57:00.420 Okay, okay.

00:57:01.500 Why are you saying okay like I'm saying I'm making something up?

00:57:04.340 Because I think, you know, I'm not saying you're making up.

00:57:06.420 Have you looked into this?

00:57:07.260 Not as deeply as you have.

00:57:08.160 Well, I think you should.

00:57:09.100 Well, maybe I should, but I...

00:57:10.440 Because then you wouldn't dismiss the factual things I'm saying out of hand,

00:57:13.620 which is what you're doing.

00:57:14.080 Let me just, let me dismiss it in my own way.

00:57:16.160 Go ahead.

00:57:16.540 Right, okay.

00:57:17.880 He's going to hog the microphone.

00:57:18.940 I know.

00:57:19.700 This is outrageous to me.

00:57:21.040 You haven't looked into this.

00:57:22.040 Well, because, no, I'm aware of the issue.

00:57:24.940 So why are you dismissing it?

00:57:26.100 Because I think two things.

00:57:29.240 First of all, I think...

00:57:30.780 That's what people mean when they say woke.

00:57:32.320 It's not a catch-all phrase.

00:57:33.980 They mean two-tier treatment.

00:57:34.920 It is a catch-all phrase.

00:57:35.360 No, they don't.

00:57:36.320 They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights.

00:57:41.060 Not at all.

00:57:41.660 Yes, they do.

00:57:42.560 There's loads of gay people who use this phrase woke.

00:57:44.880 Okay, they may do.

00:57:45.660 Come back to the police.

00:57:46.540 You've got your definition.

00:57:46.720 Come back to the police.

00:57:47.420 I'll come back to the police.

00:57:48.180 Right.

00:57:48.720 So, two big points I would make about the police.

00:57:52.020 And they may sound slightly contradictory.

00:57:55.200 the first is i think the police get a very very hard time in our country i agree okay uh and i am

00:58:02.400 broadly supportive of most police officers but like any organization there are some really bad

00:58:08.480 people in there and they've got to be reached absolutely the first thing the second thing

00:58:13.200 i would say is that if there is a race issue within policing in this country it is not directed

00:58:21.920 against white people it's directed against both people both groups but if if you have to make

00:58:27.760 a judgment as to who comes off worse in our policing and criminal justice system

00:58:32.000 it is not in the why do you have to make that judgment why i'm making that judgment because

00:58:35.440 you've just made a judgment wait what you've just made the judgment based upon let me add

00:58:39.600 two words to my sentence let me add two words to my sentence why do you have to make a judgment

00:58:44.320 about which race should get preferential treatment when the standard should be i'm not

00:58:48.640 I'm saying that's what happens.

00:58:51.460 The standard should be that we're all equal under the law.

00:58:54.220 Correct.

00:58:54.540 But the guidance currently is to many police forces in this country

00:58:58.380 that we're not all equal under the law.

00:58:59.720 They're saying you treat people differently in the way that you handle them.

00:59:02.760 That is people not being equal under the law.

00:59:04.980 You have to be conscious.

00:59:05.520 You have to be conscious of certain things.

00:59:07.620 You have to be conscious of how you deal with them.

00:59:09.860 Look, I've not got into it as deeply as you

00:59:12.080 because when that was happening,

00:59:14.320 I can't remember whether it was around Southampton or it was around...

00:59:17.480 I can't remember even when that came to light, right?

00:59:20.740 But as that was happening, I thought, here we go again.

00:59:24.240 We are going to get something taken out of context,

00:59:27.500 twisted into a debate that says the police are all anti-white.

00:59:29.960 But no one is saying that.

00:59:30.940 Yes, that's exactly what was being said.

00:59:33.180 Let me correct myself.

00:59:34.380 No one in this room is saying that.

00:59:36.360 But that's why we're having this particular debate.

00:59:39.200 We're having this debate because the police guidance in this country

00:59:42.500 is to treat people differently.

00:59:43.940 Well, the police all operate and should operate under the law, treating everybody equally.

00:59:50.740 Okay.

00:59:51.040 But I could say the same.

00:59:51.920 Does that mean that, for example, policemen aren't told that...

00:59:56.000 So let's just give you an example.

00:59:57.880 When the Henry Novak situation, okay?

01:00:01.640 Now, they all get trained and they all get guidance.

01:00:04.600 And what it seems to me, I don't know because I wasn't there and I didn't follow the court case

01:00:09.260 and I haven't read the transcripts.

01:00:10.480 But from what I have gathered from that,

01:00:13.140 that policemen trained arrive at a scene,

01:00:17.740 they have been conditioned to expect something

01:00:22.140 by what they think has been happening,

01:00:24.300 and they then go and deal with it in the way they deal with it.

01:00:27.920 Quite quickly, it seems to me, realise they made a mistake

01:00:30.460 and then try to get back in a decent place.

01:00:35.120 As a result of which, not just they,

01:00:39.000 but police officers who were not even there,

01:00:42.200 including one that has actually retired from the police force,

01:00:46.180 is then being hounded.

01:00:47.660 Well, that's obviously wrong.

01:00:48.400 Yes, of course it's wrong.

01:00:49.340 But my point is that I think that if I'm...

01:00:53.160 That's why I think these debates,

01:00:54.120 you've got to be really careful about how you conduct them.

01:00:56.040 And we are very careful about it.

01:00:57.280 That's why I'm talking about specific guidance.

01:00:59.700 And let me make one other point.

01:01:01.940 This show has a lot of police officers who listen to us.

01:01:05.300 I had a guy come up to me,

01:01:06.300 He actually used to do close protection for prime ministers.

01:01:09.960 I think he did Keir Starmer.

01:01:11.500 The police officers who listen to us and who write in to us

01:01:14.100 and who come up to us in the street,

01:01:15.660 they all say that the College of Policing

01:01:17.640 and the guidance police officers received

01:01:19.380 is absolutely rife with this stuff.

01:01:22.080 Okay, in which case I...

01:01:23.760 With DEI and the idea that different groups of people

01:01:25.600 should be treated differently.

01:01:26.940 And I really hope people like you should take it more seriously.

01:01:30.240 I really think you should.

01:01:31.360 Because, again, I'm making very reasonable points.

01:01:34.160 This is not... I'm not having a go at you.

01:01:35.680 I'm not saying you're woke or anything like that, but I think sometimes people dismiss these things out of hand when there's quite a lot of evidence now that in hiring, in quotas, in policing, in many different areas now, we do not have equal treatment for different groups.

01:01:50.880 Well, I would argue, I would argue that I could find, you could find cases where you mentioned the DEI thing. I think the extent to which Trump in particular, but it's happening here as well, has weaponized this DEI debate, not to create equality, but actually to create division, to create hate, to spread hate. I absolutely despise the way that they do it.

01:02:15.360 So I guess that pushes me into a place where I'm going to be more sympathetic towards somebody who comes along to me and says,

01:02:23.500 you know what, I'm a young black woman, and actually I feel I don't get treated well by the police.

01:02:28.960 But it shouldn't do.

01:02:29.900 I know it shouldn't.

01:02:30.820 It shouldn't do, Alistair, because this is a problem.

01:02:33.020 But I think that is closer.

01:02:34.300 Can I just make my point?

01:02:35.560 Because those people who were the traditional Labour voters, like people I grew up with,

01:02:40.340 Like, the bloke that I'm talking about grew up in Middlesbrough

01:02:43.340 who just go, Labour don't represent me.

01:02:45.800 Yeah, but hold on, hold on.

01:02:46.920 We can all, we'll all have met people who tell us all sorts of things

01:02:49.700 when they stop us in the street, OK?

01:02:52.060 I'll give you another one. You talk about the white working class.

01:02:54.020 I've got loads of football matches, OK?

01:02:56.240 And you'll hear lots and lots of white working class people say

01:02:59.460 they don't like the way that they're treated by the police

01:03:01.500 when they're just trying to have a day out of the football, OK?

01:03:04.000 My point is that the way you were framing this for me

01:03:08.240 is how I was taking this.

01:03:10.340 is that because of DEI,

01:03:14.420 the policing in this country has become two-tier,

01:03:18.740 crazy used, by which we mean...

01:03:20.680 I didn't say two-tier.

01:03:21.280 Oh, sorry, I thought you did.

01:03:22.220 Well, maybe you were quoting something else.

01:03:24.040 Oh, yeah, sorry, carry on.

01:03:25.040 So, but, okay, two-tier policing,

01:03:27.740 two-tier care, all this stuff.

01:03:29.240 It rhymes, so that's why it took off, I think.

01:03:31.040 Well, yeah, for sure.

01:03:32.240 And that's how populist communication works.

01:03:34.780 It's the way non-populist communication works.

01:03:35.880 That's how old communication works.

01:03:36.500 Exactly, exactly, okay.

01:03:37.700 But so, and I would argue that the real, if there is two-tier policing, okay, and let's agree that there is.

01:03:46.380 Okay.

01:03:46.880 And let's agree that it's all bad.

01:03:48.900 Of course.

01:03:49.460 Okay, right?

01:03:50.580 It's bad when black people are not treated fairly, right?

01:03:53.260 Correct.

01:03:53.560 So it's also bad when other groups of people are not treated fairly.

01:03:56.060 That's all I'm saying.

01:03:56.860 What is not bad is if when the police are out doing a pride march, that they're basically told,

01:04:04.780 just, you know, you have to understand what they're protesting for.

01:04:07.920 You have to understand that they're doing something a bit different

01:04:10.100 to that march you did last week, which was Tommy Robinson's mob.

01:04:14.260 So I think that's what that guidance is about.

01:04:16.380 That's not what that guidance is about.

01:04:17.180 Well, OK, I'll go away and read it. How about that?

01:04:19.580 Yeah, that's great. I'd appreciate that.

01:04:21.040 I have a lot of... I've worked with the police.

01:04:24.220 Of course.

01:04:24.740 And I've worked with the Police Federation,

01:04:26.400 and one of the reasons I do work with the police

01:04:28.580 is because I think they get treated really badly by the media.

01:04:31.660 I couldn't agree more.

01:04:32.200 By the public.

01:04:32.740 I couldn't agree more.

01:04:33.400 I was talking to a police guy the other day

01:04:38.680 who is not even in a big city, okay?

01:04:42.780 He's in quite a small town.

01:04:45.180 And he told me that in the last week,

01:04:49.000 he'd been spat at eight times.

01:04:51.680 Nobody here thinks that's obviously disgusting.

01:04:54.080 Right, no.

01:04:54.480 And I didn't ask him, I didn't ask him,

01:04:59.080 what was the colour of the people who were spat at you?

01:05:01.340 Well, obviously, why would you ask that?

01:05:03.260 But he told me.

01:05:04.200 Okay.

01:05:04.640 Okay.

01:05:05.180 And he said they were all but one were white.

01:05:07.160 Yeah.

01:05:07.420 Okay.

01:05:07.720 It's a majority white country, of course.

01:05:09.460 Yeah.

01:05:09.720 Okay.

01:05:10.100 But my point is, I could take that if I wanted to, and I could build a debate about it.

01:05:15.240 But that's not what you're doing.

01:05:16.900 No, it's not what you're doing.

01:05:17.940 I know it's not what you're doing.

01:05:19.080 But I'm saying the people that we were talking about earlier, that is what they do.

01:05:23.280 That is what's happened in the United States.

01:05:25.220 And that's why you then end up with our souls like Pete Hexerth removing the pictures of people like, you know.

01:05:34.400 Why have we brought Pete Hexerth? We're talking about Britain, mate.

01:05:37.100 We're talking about our country.

01:05:38.120 We're talking about DEI.

01:05:39.520 In this country.

01:05:40.420 Okay.

01:05:40.720 We're talking about this country, right?

01:05:42.140 We're talking about populism.

01:05:43.100 In this country. We're talking about this country, right?

01:05:45.740 And I'm not talking about abroad.

01:05:46.720 And the only point I made to you is.

01:05:47.740 You didn't stop me talking about Germany.

01:05:49.900 I just don't.

01:05:51.160 The issue is that people always go to Trump or head sexo.

01:05:54.840 They've been asked because they're so powerful in our debate.

01:05:56.880 We're just talking about policing in this country

01:05:58.860 and other areas where there hasn't...

01:06:01.500 You know, the BBC has internships for only non-white people, etc.

01:06:05.100 Like, this has been going on.

01:06:06.540 We started with woke.

01:06:07.440 Remember, this is how this bit of the conversation started.

01:06:09.940 It's not a...

01:06:11.240 Look, there's probably some people who use it as a catch-all phrase

01:06:14.300 in the same way, by the way, that people on the left

01:06:16.560 use the word racist as a catch-all phrase

01:06:18.400 to describe people who are actually racist

01:06:20.260 and also people who oppose mass immigration.

01:06:22.560 There are some people who do that, right?

01:06:24.060 Just because some people use a word inappropriately

01:06:26.440 doesn't mean that that word is wrong, right?

01:06:28.400 So I gave you a definition of woke.

01:06:30.660 No, but let me just jump in there, though.

01:06:31.660 Okay, so you're doing, say it's left and right,

01:06:33.620 and it's sort of both sides, isn't it?

01:06:34.720 It is.

01:06:35.700 I don't think you have that.

01:06:37.440 So let's say there is a media of the left, okay?

01:06:40.280 A media of the left.

01:06:41.000 A media of the left, say Guardian, Mirror, yeah.

01:06:43.560 They don't do that.

01:06:45.220 What?

01:06:45.640 I don't think they do that.

01:06:46.500 Does the media of the right do that in relation to woke?

01:06:48.280 Alistair, the media of the left and the people on the left and the influencers and the political figures and commentators, including people like David Lammy, called conservatives who were pro-Brexit.

01:06:59.000 Now, Francis and I both voted Romain, OK? They called them worse than Nazis.

01:07:03.300 Do you remember David Lammy said the ERG are worse than Nazis?

01:07:06.860 No, I don't remember that.

01:07:07.960 He did that on the Andrew Marr show. We'll put a clip in here.

01:07:10.260 OK.

01:07:10.540 Right?

01:07:11.080 By implication, you're comparing the ERG to the Nazi party or at least to the South African racists.

01:07:17.560 Now, whatever you think about the ERG, that was an unacceptable comparison, wasn't it?

01:07:21.620 Andrew, I would say that that wasn't strong enough.

01:07:24.760 In 1938, there were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

01:07:34.620 And Churchill said no, and he stood alone.

01:07:37.120 He did?

01:07:37.520 We must not appease.

01:07:40.180 We're in a situation now, and let me just be clear, I'm an ethnic minority.

01:07:44.180 We have in the ERG, in Jacobs Rees-Mogg, someone who is happy to put onto his webpages the horrible, racist AFD party, a party that's Islamophobic and on the far right of the German system.

01:08:02.060 They're happy to use the phrase grand wizard.

01:08:06.060 KKK is what it evokes to me when I think of that phrase and the deep south.

01:08:10.480 I'm sorry but very very seriously of course we should not appease that of course we should not

01:08:16.640 appease that people on the left and people on the right use these terms in order to smear their

01:08:22.020 opponents and to misrepresent the debate that's what they do okay that's what everyone does so

01:08:26.020 what we're saying what you're saying essentially something else no what you're saying is they're

01:08:30.200 both as bad as each other that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying I think is that these

01:08:34.760 people have more power in this debate than these people that's what I'm saying and I don't the

01:08:39.840 The right-wing media has more power than the left-wing media.

01:08:41.660 The right-wing weaponization of their definition of woke

01:08:46.580 has had way more cultural influence

01:08:49.500 than anything these people have said.

01:08:50.820 Some people might argue that's because it's accurate

01:08:52.860 to what's happening on the ground.

01:08:54.220 When new institutions are infested with DEI,

01:08:56.960 when British history is being denigrated,

01:08:59.200 when, you know, we're recording this before the Norway game, right?

01:09:02.500 England playing Norway.

01:09:03.320 The Norwegians walk around in helmets, right?

01:09:06.240 With the horns.

01:09:06.980 Scots walk around in kilts.

01:09:07.980 Right, but hold on a second.

01:09:09.140 The Norwegians are walking around in helmets, which is a throwback to the Viking Age.

01:09:13.380 Vikings, as you well know, were raping, pillaging, including this country.

01:09:17.160 No one is asking them for reparations.

01:09:19.640 British people are being told they need to pay reparations all day, every day.

01:09:23.780 How many British people?

01:09:25.940 All British people are being told that we need to pay reparations.

01:09:28.380 No, how many British people are demanding that?

01:09:32.660 Labour MPs, like what's her name, something, Rebel Ribeiro?

01:09:35.960 What's her name?

01:09:36.400 she's saying that we need to pay reparations it's an ongoing live debate it's not that big

01:09:42.300 it's not that big if you don't even know the name of the mp who's calling for it she's just

01:09:46.400 not very important to me but i remember she's important a labor mp is calling for this country

01:09:51.060 to pay reparations okay yes reparations will involve some form of money but it's got to

01:09:56.700 involve complete system change we cannot be content with people handing us essentially

01:10:02.280 scraps off their table when you look at what they're sending and say that we are okay and let

01:10:08.600 people bypass us and the community people and i think the community is so important i want you

01:10:14.600 to all know that it was the community that came to me to set up the all-party parliamentary group

01:10:19.800 for african reparations people go on the bbc and explain why it's important it's it's been a live

01:10:25.640 debate you can't deny that no i i would like you no one's asking norwegians for reparations or the

01:10:30.360 italians for the roman invasion right so so you put all this together people get a picture don't

01:10:35.560 you think yeah well you get whatever picture you want out of a very complicated landscape

01:10:39.800 history's what's wrong with this history because i think it well one i think it trivializes history

01:10:45.080 i think there is i think look history is very very important within current politics totally

01:10:49.240 agree okay uh and history ultimately is about judgment of course is our history a sort of you

01:10:55.000 know wonderful perfect story of the greatest country in the world no no more any more than

01:10:59.240 the americans of course the debate around the 250th anniversary of america this is why i worry

01:11:03.640 you say don't go on about hexa than trump but the picture of america that trump is trying to

01:11:10.200 we are talking in his case about the erasure of history the erasure of history but why are we

01:11:15.480 talking about another country we're talking about this country you know comparing to england i'm

01:11:20.040 saying other countries are are not forced to apologize for the history in the way the british

01:11:25.640 some do the australians are just the australians did a massive apology recently for their history

01:11:30.760 fine australia but australia is part of the angler's fear this is happening everywhere

01:11:34.520 in the angler's fair okay there's a there's a double standard is what i'm getting that

01:11:39.560 okay i don't know see what if i make a good point you just go okay

01:11:46.840 because i mean i don't know if this is what you do but it's like

01:11:49.240 we're you make the point we have the debate about the point and then you make the point again and

01:11:53.400 No, I'm just asking you to concede that I'm right on this.

01:11:56.100 That's all I want.

01:11:57.820 I think on a lot of things that you say,

01:12:00.040 you may have some right on your side,

01:12:01.840 but I think you way oversimplify quite a lot of these issues

01:12:04.020 to make it feel...

01:12:05.920 I'm happy for you to explain why it's more complicated.

01:12:08.700 But you don't.

01:12:09.320 You just say, okay, I haven't read the guidance.

01:12:11.780 Because history is complicated.

01:12:13.700 Of course.

01:12:13.980 We have loads of historians on the show for that reason.

01:12:16.080 Yeah, exactly.

01:12:17.500 So anyway, talk to them about it.

01:12:18.920 It's better.

01:12:19.160 You're the one who keeps saying you don't want to hog the mic

01:12:24.300 No, no, I want to hog the mic

01:12:26.040 I'm worried about you

01:12:27.680 So for the point that I was going to talk about

01:12:31.160 And you were like, okay, it's anecdotal evidence

01:12:32.740 All right, fair enough

01:12:33.520 But you cannot deny that a large part of why populism has flourished

01:12:38.440 Is because the working class feel angry and alienated

01:12:42.000 In particular because they feel that the Labour Party no longer represent them

01:12:46.460 We have to accept that that is a mainstream position.

01:12:49.280 And the Conservative Party.

01:12:50.260 Well, exactly.

01:12:51.400 But it's a lot of people...

01:12:53.200 Yeah, it is.

01:12:53.680 No, we have to...

01:12:54.920 What I would say, we have to accept

01:12:57.580 that large swathes of the British public

01:13:01.580 and the European public and the American public

01:13:03.880 are losing faith in the ability of politics

01:13:08.220 to deliver the improvements in their lives

01:13:11.480 that politicians keep promising.

01:13:12.840 Right.

01:13:13.660 And we had a long period of Labour government

01:13:17.020 We had a long period of Tory government.

01:13:18.400 We've now had a Labour government again.

01:13:20.520 And they both have been caught up in that.

01:13:23.880 Alongside that, we have a less tribal population

01:13:29.420 that just as it shops around for which TV programmes to watch

01:13:34.640 and who to date and all this other stuff that technology has brought,

01:13:39.420 we've also, we're seeing an erosion or certainly a slow

01:13:43.300 but accelerating breakdown in political tribalism as well so that people no longer think i am labor

01:13:50.820 i am tory i am lib dem they think well i'm going to just you know take a look we also have i think

01:13:56.980 as a consequence of the nature of our the media in this country i think we have a

01:14:02.740 a really well-developed cynicism and i think it's gone from skepticism to cynicism

01:14:07.940 about the ability of anybody to do anything good for them the political parties have got

01:14:12.660 to address that they've got to deal with that my point is populism is not the answer right-wing

01:14:17.620 populism is not the answer left-wing populism is not the answer look i agree with you you don't

01:14:21.380 need to explain to me why right or left-wing populism is not the answer like everyone can

01:14:25.940 drink now my mother's venezuelan i've seen left-wing populism in action i know where it leads

01:14:30.420 it's nowhere good which is why i'm terrified of polanski and again people drink again i used to be

01:14:35.460 a teacher i taught for 12 years in deprived communities from places like newham and lambeth

01:14:40.580 really poor places the thing is and when i talk to people in those communities particularly white

01:14:46.420 working class people there was an anger so i'll give you an example this is a stat the the people

01:14:52.960 the cohort that do the worst in schools in this country oh yeah are white working class boys

01:14:58.540 i never once in my 12 years of education ever attended anything which dealt with that now if

01:15:05.260 that was any other cohort or part of the kids that we taught,

01:15:11.120 that would have been spoken about honestly.

01:15:13.080 Where were you teaching?

01:15:14.200 I was teaching in Newham and I was teaching in Lambeth.

01:15:16.200 But the London Schools Initiative that we did

01:15:18.140 was in part about addressing that.

01:15:20.480 That was a very, very big part of that.

01:15:22.780 And that was one of the big, one of the reasons why we got,

01:15:25.420 we actually, one of the sort of North-South divide, so-called,

01:15:28.820 is because actually the standards in London went up a lot better

01:15:31.060 and that was because of the specific London strategy

01:15:33.280 we brought forward, which was partly about that.

01:15:35.260 so I think this is one of those I think you'll be very don't get me wrong I

01:15:40.080 think that there's no doubt I go into schools all the time okay and you hear

01:15:45.200 it from headteachers everywhere the where we're really really struggling as

01:15:48.700 a white working-class kids okay so we agree on that and I would also agree

01:15:55.540 but I don't think it's because there's a kind of hierarchy necessarily I think a

01:16:00.340 lot of it is I think I think for example they talk a lot of them will tell you

01:16:04.060 You know, some of the Asian kids in particular

01:16:08.760 got parents who are absolutely driven

01:16:11.860 in a way that, you know,

01:16:13.760 a lot of the white working-class parents aren't

01:16:15.560 in terms of, you know...

01:16:16.580 Totally fair, and immigrants,

01:16:17.920 first-generation immigrants in particular.

01:16:19.620 You have got to get an education.

01:16:21.420 This is your route to a better life, et cetera.

01:16:23.540 Now, when I was growing up,

01:16:27.060 and, I mean, you know, both my parents were Scottish,

01:16:29.640 and I remember, you know,

01:16:30.720 when they were obsessive about education,

01:16:32.640 education and scotland had this amazing reputation for education that's gone that's gone so something

01:16:40.000 so we i'm not disagreeing with you about the that being a a specific problem uh what i and in terms

01:16:46.960 of what government policy solutions should be right now i don't think they're big enough and

01:16:53.040 bold enough uh i i i mean i honestly do worry about the the nature of of the education that

01:16:59.760 that we're giving kids at the moment,

01:17:00.840 because I don't think it's remotely...

01:17:03.020 It's so divorced from the pace

01:17:05.860 at which the world is developing and changing.

01:17:08.600 So, you know, anyway, we're violently agreeing.

01:17:11.680 Yeah, we are violently agreeing.

01:17:13.380 But also, I'll be honest with you,

01:17:14.900 I think a lot of these,

01:17:15.920 shall we just call them progressive strategies,

01:17:17.720 are actually deeply unhelpful.

01:17:20.240 So, for instance, this was about six, seven years ago,

01:17:22.960 I attended a seminar, well, I didn't attend,

01:17:24.720 I was forced to attend, on how to teach black boys.

01:17:27.660 and I got so angry because halfway through it was basically this woman at the front explaining to me

01:17:34.900 why I needed lower educational standards to teach the black boys in my classroom

01:17:39.360 and I remember at the end putting my hand up and going would you deliver this seminar at Eton

01:17:45.920 College where I know black boys go to have you been asked she was like no and that was it was

01:17:51.940 it was like oh but you know you could you know you have to expect this there needs to be different

01:17:55.860 standards and i'm like no the standards should be applicable it shouldn't matter whether it's a

01:18:01.360 black boy an asian boy a white girl but treat everybody exactly the same when you come through

01:18:08.220 the doors of the classroom there is no color there is i'm treating you fairly look that sounds

01:18:14.940 bonkersville to me right that's what people mean by two-tier that's what they mean yeah okay yeah

01:18:19.220 But you'd nonetheless agree that where the data is showing you

01:18:25.540 in so many schools that something is going wrong

01:18:28.500 in the education of white working class kids,

01:18:30.340 there have to be strategies to address that.

01:18:33.420 And that's what Francis is saying is there isn't.

01:18:36.160 So when we talk about white working class boys underperforming,

01:18:40.260 oh, it's the culture, it's the parents, it's the whatever.

01:18:42.520 For every other group, there's a government programme

01:18:44.300 that says this particular community is marginalised

01:18:46.580 and we need to help them.

01:18:47.260 And that's what people mean by two-tier.

01:18:49.500 That's what they mean.

01:18:50.460 They might.

01:18:50.920 Some of them do.

01:18:52.040 Yeah.

01:18:55.120 We don't.

01:18:56.440 Listen.

01:18:57.960 We don't.

01:18:59.580 What I love about the way you speak, right,

01:19:01.800 none of us can speak for everybody.

01:19:04.520 That's what they mean.

01:19:05.700 Who are they?

01:19:07.020 A lot of the people who speak about these issues.

01:19:10.440 Right, that's what they mean.

01:19:11.340 What they mean is there is different treatment of different groups

01:19:15.160 and they connect it to work.

01:19:16.540 But remember, we started this with woke.

01:19:18.500 Woke, in my definition that I gave you, is a hierarchy of who's more oppressed than whom.

01:19:23.760 And therefore, different people get different treatment.

01:19:26.320 And what people are saying is the government policy in schools, in policing and everywhere else is a product of that worldview,

01:19:34.260 which is implemented in the school system, in policing, in government, in the BBC, etc., through DEI and other initiatives, which are explicitly designed to do this.

01:19:44.520 Well, the school I was in three days ago, the head was very, very clear with me.

01:19:51.520 It was a very mixed, multiracial, multicultural school in London.

01:19:55.360 He was very clear with me.

01:19:56.520 He says that where we're putting most of our energies right now

01:19:59.680 is with special educational needs and white working class kids.

01:20:04.820 And does that mean?

01:20:07.160 But the other thing I think you've got to understand or accept

01:20:09.960 is I mentioned the difference with France, okay?

01:20:13.500 I think we have developed multiculturalism in a way that we should celebrate and I think it is

01:20:20.720 I think it is an incredible success story of this country what do you mean by multiculturalism what

01:20:25.120 I mean by the fact is what I mean by multiculturalism what I mean by multiculturalism and maybe this is

01:20:29.160 this is particular because all my kids went to schools in in London that you talked about you

01:20:34.440 both said you know you've got to be kind of blind to color I think in the schools I'm talking about

01:20:39.600 But there is a blindness to colour.

01:20:41.620 That's monoculturalism.

01:20:43.800 That's when everyone's British.

01:20:46.580 They're not all British.

01:20:48.640 Let me give you a very example.

01:20:50.500 I remember my mum, who's now dead, but she...

01:20:53.480 My daughter, Grace, was still at school.

01:20:56.600 She's in her 30s now.

01:20:57.740 This is a long time ago.

01:20:58.640 So it was already good by my perspective, right?

01:21:02.120 And some of my daughter's best friends were from Kosovo

01:21:04.240 because we had the war in Kosovo

01:21:06.200 and lots of Kosovoans came over.

01:21:07.660 Dua Lipa being one of them.

01:21:09.600 and they were at school together uh and then you have the and then so my my daughter's uh circle

01:21:18.240 of friends i remember she came around with her friends four or five of them and my mom was there

01:21:24.000 right in her 70s or 80s whatever it was and grace later when they're all gone my mom was asking them

01:21:32.080 about them and she was saying and grace mentioned lauren and my mom said which one was lauren and

01:21:42.240 grace and went through all these different descriptions and explanations and the one who

01:21:47.520 said this and the one who said the one who stood there what she didn't say was that she was black

01:21:53.360 she was the only black girl in that small group of kids right and that's what i meant by maybe

01:21:59.680 Maybe that's mono, multi-racist, multi-ethnic society.

01:22:04.280 But that's why I also see the distinction between...

01:22:06.380 Because the reason that Angela Merkel and David Cameron

01:22:09.180 all came out and said multiculturalism has failed

01:22:11.280 is what they were saying is, in a multi-ethnic society,

01:22:14.140 which no one here has a problem with, right?

01:22:16.140 It would become silly.

01:22:16.980 Well, some people do.

01:22:17.620 No one here, here.

01:22:19.240 Oh, here.

01:22:19.800 No one here has a problem with.

01:22:22.180 The issue is, do you encourage everybody

01:22:24.380 to buy into a single culture?

01:22:25.980 Or do you kind of say, well, you just get on with it

01:22:28.100 and, you know, you can stay whatever culture you came from

01:22:30.980 three generations ago and not integrate.

01:22:33.220 You can't do both.

01:22:34.120 No, you can't.

01:22:34.560 I can tell you as an immigrant myself, you can't do both.

01:22:37.140 You either integrate or you don't.

01:22:39.120 You either integrate or you don't.

01:22:40.560 You either teach your children that they're British

01:22:42.620 and to become more British, or you don't.

01:22:45.380 And that's where a lot of the community...

01:22:47.800 I really don't agree with that.

01:22:49.500 What do you mean?

01:22:50.520 What do you mean you don't agree with it?

01:22:52.920 I think if...

01:22:53.980 Well, look, I mentioned my parents are Scots.

01:22:56.640 Okay.

01:22:57.080 Okay?

01:22:57.520 Well, I can see you're non-integrated

01:22:59.020 because you don't support England, mate.

01:23:01.980 There you go.

01:23:02.480 There you go.

01:23:03.260 That's my point.

01:23:06.420 You've retained your identity as Scottish.

01:23:08.900 Correct.

01:23:09.040 And that's fine.

01:23:09.660 Yeah.

01:23:09.900 Right.

01:23:10.520 What's wrong with retaining my identity as...

01:23:13.360 Because Scotland is part of the British Isles.

01:23:15.060 And if you were Russian,

01:23:16.800 if I were Russian and I taught my children

01:23:18.560 that they're Russian and that's what they are

01:23:20.840 and they didn't...

01:23:21.460 Well, no, you're teaching them British,

01:23:22.500 but you're teaching them that they've got Russian heritage.

01:23:24.340 That's right.

01:23:24.960 That's exactly what I mean,

01:23:25.700 but they're British first.

01:23:27.360 yeah and that's what that's what I'm saying okay multiculturalism is when you really don't care so

01:23:31.580 much about the British part and it's your ethnic identity your religious identity that's most

01:23:35.580 important but I don't I don't that what you what you shouldn't do is make people feel they either

01:23:40.880 have to forget or minimize no no no okay well let's let's agree okay yeah we're agreeing well

01:23:46.600 yeah yeah kind of kind of kind of you've been very generous with your time and they've been

01:23:53.440 great sport we appreciate you coming on we'd love to have you back back on again at some point

01:23:57.340 if you'll tolerate it.

01:23:59.800 Let him talk a bit more the next time.

01:24:02.280 The next time.

01:24:03.580 The next time.

01:24:04.180 Let him talk now.

01:24:05.260 Let him talk now.

01:24:07.040 So this is a question.

01:24:09.160 If you were in charge of the Labour Party,

01:24:12.120 I think the way to solve populism

01:24:14.560 is to engage with the working class voters

01:24:17.280 who feel left behind,

01:24:18.360 who feel that the left haven't represented them,

01:24:21.580 have ignored them.

01:24:22.880 Now, you can make the arguments

01:24:24.320 of whether they have, whether they haven't.

01:24:26.200 But the reality is, that's the way they feel.

01:24:30.420 If you were the leader of the Labour Party,

01:24:32.540 let's say you're Andy Burnham,

01:24:34.460 you're from Wigan, where my dad's from,

01:24:36.500 how do you engage with those people

01:24:38.460 when we can look and we can say this objectively,

01:24:41.160 and I think it's fair,

01:24:42.440 Keir Starmer certainly hasn't done that,

01:24:44.420 Corbyn hasn't done that,

01:24:45.580 really no Labour leader has done that since your boss.

01:24:49.520 A lot of MPs do it.

01:24:51.540 Don't rule out the role of MPs

01:24:54.960 because they're living in those constituencies.

01:24:56.880 Agreed, agreed.

01:24:57.360 And they're the ones who probably should be doing a better job

01:25:00.120 of making sure the leadership gets exactly what's going on in these places.

01:25:03.820 Look, I think you can see that Andy Burnham is to some extent doing that already,

01:25:07.240 trying to do that as part of his messaging.

01:25:09.120 You know, he's talking about the places that have been left behind.

01:25:11.580 As he said, what he'll find once he becomes prime minister

01:25:15.240 is bloody hard to engage with a lot of people.

01:25:18.300 You've got to be doing that in different ways.

01:25:20.020 But I think that I wouldn't disagree.

01:25:23.200 I wouldn't disagree.

01:25:23.900 I think that the, if you think about why a lot of people have, I mean, let's be honest,

01:25:30.780 most of the support that's improved reformed reputation and standing up until the current

01:25:37.280 day buckle, where I think they're in real trouble, by the way, but part of that for

01:25:41.180 now, is actually there's been Tories going to reform.

01:25:45.720 Most of the people who vote in reform, most of them, very substantial majority, have never

01:25:51.100 voted Labour and say they never would.

01:25:53.900 OK, but some people have gone from Labour to reforms.

01:25:57.820 You've got to think about how do we get those people back?

01:26:01.500 How do we maybe get some of these people to think about voting Labour?

01:26:05.200 And how do we get people who are just fed up with politics generally

01:26:07.820 to be more inspired by what we're trying to do?

01:26:10.140 So that's a big part of what Burnham has to do.

01:26:13.060 What I wouldn't do is accept the narrative that we've, as it were,

01:26:19.300 deliberately left you behind.

01:26:21.320 What I think they should do, and I hope will do,

01:26:24.440 is actually to focus far more.

01:26:26.760 So, for example, in education, and to be fair to Bridget,

01:26:30.240 I think she's tried to do this,

01:26:31.320 but I don't think that she's really cut through on it,

01:26:34.440 is actually to be saying, look, we've got to be open

01:26:37.860 about the extent of the problem with white working-class kids,

01:26:40.300 and this is how we're going to try to address it.

01:26:42.360 So you do have to engage more with both of the kids

01:26:44.080 and their parents on that.

01:26:45.520 I think in relation to, you know, the community,

01:26:48.900 We're all very kind of local in the way we live our lives.

01:26:52.620 Most people are, it's about their communities.

01:26:54.800 And I think you've really got to understand why people feel

01:26:58.640 that when they see their dirty streets,

01:27:02.500 when they are aware of low-level crime,

01:27:05.140 when they're aware of a high street that used to be kind of vibrant,

01:27:09.640 but then what you can't do is say,

01:27:11.560 that's because we've left you behind.

01:27:13.600 I think you've also got to confront people

01:27:15.040 with the reality of the choices that we all make.

01:27:17.500 So, for example, the high street, to me,

01:27:20.460 and the sort of mess that it's in,

01:27:22.140 it's the consequences of all sorts of things.

01:27:23.780 But one of them is the fact that we spend all our time

01:27:25.400 on the bloody internet barn on Amazon.

01:27:27.200 Another one is that we've liberalised gambling

01:27:29.460 to an extent that is off the scale.

01:27:32.860 So there's these gambling shops everywhere.

01:27:35.880 You've got the vapes.

01:27:37.160 And then you've got the charity shops

01:27:38.480 because charity has become such a fundamental part

01:27:42.780 of delivering basic public services.

01:27:44.740 so you've got to be addressing all of the issues that have led to something that everybody sitting

01:27:51.300 in their community thinking I don't like the look of this I don't like the feel of this so we're

01:27:55.280 agreeing as well yeah but I'm keeping silent okay but the problem is is and no political party has

01:28:04.720 done this because I feel that there is a problem in politics with honesty in that and this is why

01:28:10.320 And that created a vacuum, which is what populism has filled, which is no political party has actually, very few people in politics have had the balls or the talent to go, this is why we are where we are.

01:28:25.880 And these are the solutions so that when people feel that things are going wrong, they don't understand why they don't understand why there's more potholes in the road.

01:28:34.320 They don't understand why they feel poorer, why they go to the supermarket and their money doesn't go as far as it can.

01:28:41.600 But what they do get from that is a feeling that they're being screwed.

01:28:45.120 So when a populist comes along, whether it's Zach or Nigel, whoever else, the feeling is ripe to be exploited.

01:28:53.780 If that's how you want to frame it.

01:28:54.700 Well, I think one of the really important roles

01:29:01.820 of a political leader that's not been played very well

01:29:05.120 for quite a long time is that,

01:29:08.080 and I don't want this to sound patronising,

01:29:10.400 it's not meant to,

01:29:11.080 but I think one of the roles of a political leader

01:29:13.000 is to educate the public about the reasons

01:29:18.220 why decisions are being made.

01:29:20.340 I think we've got to, and Thatcher used to do that,

01:29:23.080 Tony used to do that, okay?

01:29:24.400 Clinton used to do that.

01:29:26.880 Reagan used to do that.

01:29:28.760 Now, in a very kind of folksy sort of way,

01:29:30.820 but you set out big arguments about why things are as they are.

01:29:37.520 Now, in the knowledge that you'll do that

01:29:41.220 by possibly making a 60-minute speech,

01:29:44.380 doing a 60-minute interview, writing a book,

01:29:47.260 in the knowledge that that is going to get distilled

01:29:49.560 into that on social media, that by one opponent, that by another.

01:29:53.860 You've got to be bigger and better than all of that.

01:29:56.020 Yeah, it's hard.

01:29:56.820 And even though Trump is a nightmare, and I hate most of what he stands for,

01:30:03.360 he has at least shown a way of how you can message.

01:30:06.540 And it's easy if you're the American president and you don't care about telling the truth and all that.

01:30:10.040 But I think our politicians in Europe underestimate the extent to which they still have the power to do that.

01:30:17.700 I think they've all got too scared to challenge, too scared to tell the public.

01:30:24.620 Sometimes you've got to face up to this.

01:30:26.880 I don't think we're remotely honest at the moment with the public about the nature of our security situation,

01:30:32.280 both on defence in relation to the Russian threat.

01:30:35.720 I think we're going to face some really, really difficult choices pretty soon.

01:30:40.660 And the economics of our country.

01:30:42.020 And the other one that we haven't really talked about

01:30:44.860 is I don't think we're being,

01:30:46.680 I think we're walking away from the climate debate,

01:30:49.040 which I think is as dangerous as anything we face.

01:30:52.840 So I think there is, and I think the public,

01:30:54.660 if you're, if you talk about being,

01:30:57.280 and of course, honestly, there is, you know,

01:31:00.340 in politics and that people say they're all liars,

01:31:02.860 they're not all liars,

01:31:04.200 but what they are in all the parties is part of a team,

01:31:09.120 should be part of a team.

01:31:10.440 So sometimes you can't necessarily always say what you totally think.

01:31:15.060 You can't always give out every angle of every problem

01:31:18.900 that you're trying to highlight.

01:31:20.580 But you can do far more than we get in the debate now.

01:31:24.060 So I would hope, I really want Andy Burnham

01:31:29.000 to be a bit like Mark Carney is being in Canada.

01:31:33.320 Mark Carney in Canada is setting out some really big choices

01:31:37.480 that Canada's facing and he's saying where he wants to go.

01:31:40.440 and he's saying where he wants to lead.

01:31:43.420 And I think we've got to get back to that kind of approach in politics.

01:31:46.280 He's still very good at the tweet and he's very good at the 30-second TikTok video.

01:31:50.500 But this bigger stuff is where I think our politics have gone on, the lack of it.

01:31:53.980 And the real challenge Labour are going to have is dealing with economics

01:31:57.780 because this country is on a precipice when it comes to economics.

01:32:02.260 And to be fair, the Tories didn't want to talk about it either.

01:32:05.760 But we're going to have to tackle it soon or we're in real danger of going bankrupt.

01:32:10.440 well look at the debt man it's crazy the debt is crazy i agree with that i agree with that

01:32:15.540 and he's but but that's another one i mean if i it is an extraordinary thing that keir star has

01:32:20.500 gone from a landslide to leaving the door in two years it's extraordinary right i think if there

01:32:24.760 was one there's not one moment there's there's you know it's a kind of whole catalog catalog of

01:32:30.580 stuff good and bad that you can point to so well that was important but i think if i had to pick

01:32:34.760 one it probably was the moment at which he got defeated on welfare yes yeah oh yeah yeah because

01:32:43.480 people thought okay and even though people might most reasonable fair people think that if you're

01:32:50.040 really struggling you should be entitled to get benefits and if you're old and sick and all that

01:32:53.720 stuff they get that but it just felt oh hold on a minute you've put our national insurance up

01:32:59.720 because she said there was this black hole and now we've got this big problem with defense which we

01:33:03.560 understand that we've got to pay for it like this i don't i don't really understand it yeah uh i

01:33:08.840 think that i think that was so that's back to the point about the mps yeah and that was back to the

01:33:12.760 point about the mps just these mps you should be talking to honestly you've been very generous

01:33:16.840 can we touch on one or two other things you mentioned just because i think they're really

01:33:20.120 worth exploring as long as it doesn't take 20 minutes going around in circles with your view

01:33:24.280 then you're just going to have to admit when i'm right okay okay you're right excellent so you

01:33:30.360 mentioned the climate uh obviously a very big discussion it's bloody hot at the moment um

01:33:37.400 you say that we are kind of running away from what we should be doing what do you think we should be

01:33:41.720 doing well your boss just just to add this your old boss tony blair's come out recently and basically

01:33:47.240 said the way net zero is being pursued is not going to work yeah you can't you can't reduce

01:33:53.000 consumption you can't phase out fossil fuels quickly these these are all points that a lot of

01:33:58.680 people like to actually agree with in the country now about net zero and stuff you don't agree with

01:34:02.360 with him no i don't what do you think we should be doing uh i do think the future is renewables

01:34:07.160 and i think we've got a there's all sorts of stuff we can do i think that you see i i think the net

01:34:12.360 zero it's really really interesting this because you're right the debate has feels like it's

01:34:19.000 shifted okay it has shifted well the polling hasn't the polling hasn't i saw a massive global

01:34:24.680 poll the other day about, you know, if you ask people, the general view about the level

01:34:30.760 of concern about the climate has not shifted. What's shifted, people hate the phrase net

01:34:35.740 zero.

01:34:37.200 Well, they don't hate the phrase net zero, they hate the policies of net zero. They're

01:34:41.040 concerned about the climate, but they don't want our economy to be destroyed by net zero,

01:34:44.880 which is a reasonable position.

01:34:46.600 So you have to build a strategy around your, well, I think it is about building your economy

01:34:52.960 and your energy around renewables.

01:34:55.400 And where Tony's right is you can't do that overnight,

01:34:59.220 but you can't lose sight of the need for the transition.

01:35:02.600 And so I think I was at this amazing,

01:35:04.820 if I can use your podcast to ask people to listen to one of our episodes.

01:35:09.960 We did an episode recently with the European Energy Commissioner,

01:35:12.380 Dan Jorgensen.

01:35:14.220 So this is a guy who sort of lives in the detail of this.

01:35:16.780 And he was just giving so many examples

01:35:18.580 of where the transition has been done right.

01:35:21.400 is it being done right in britain i think it's been done i think i think the overall goal is

01:35:28.620 right i think the strategy is right but i think it's the politics are proving very very difficult

01:35:32.980 um well the reason i ask is britain responsible i mean we produce one percent of global carbon

01:35:40.980 emissions we probably import another one percent so let's say we're responsible for two percent

01:35:45.520 When other countries, China with 30%,

01:35:47.720 India is going to have to burn more fossil fuels

01:35:51.680 to feed their people and to grow their economy

01:35:54.940 to catch up to the rest of us.

01:35:57.340 It sort of feels a little bit like we're tinkering at the edges

01:36:01.940 and really making a huge negative impact on our economy

01:36:04.700 to not make any impact on climate at all.

01:36:07.260 And I think that's why net zero is becoming unpopular.

01:36:09.220 Would you agree?

01:36:10.600 I'm not convinced net zero is becoming unpopular

01:36:14.540 in the way that you say that is.

01:36:15.880 I think some of the policies are...

01:36:17.760 We have the highest industrial electricity price in the developed world.

01:36:20.700 And that's why you should listen to the guy Jorgens,

01:36:23.100 because he gives a really...

01:36:24.060 It's a very, very...

01:36:25.380 The energy market is so complicated, the way that it runs.

01:36:29.940 So it's not...

01:36:31.160 That is not the biggest driver of it.

01:36:32.980 But listen to him.

01:36:34.340 He knows more about it.

01:36:35.180 It's not a day.

01:36:36.260 But what I...

01:36:38.000 Sorry, I forgot your question there.

01:36:39.580 This is what you do.

01:36:40.400 You wear me down.

01:36:41.660 You wear me down.

01:36:42.660 Excellent.

01:36:43.260 That's what we do.

01:36:44.540 it was about the unpopularity of net zero linked to its economic impact is what i was saying okay

01:36:50.160 people are upset about it because it's some people damaging the economy some people are upset it's

01:36:53.800 true well i think anything that damages the economy people get you know why we're doing that

01:36:57.160 but what the the weaponizers have done is that come on but this is what they do when you say

01:37:03.840 the real issue and you just go no this is a terrible problem and the reason it's a terrible

01:37:07.840 problem is it gives nigel farage an excuse to weaponize it the problem is a problem because

01:37:11.900 is damaging our economy no the the our economy has to become a modern renewables based energy

01:37:21.820 driven economy your point was about the one percent okay we're one percent yeah yeah right

01:37:27.740 and one of the things this guy dan yorgensen said actually yes china is emitting more but china is

01:37:33.340 also driving the renewables agenda in a way that is off the scale good we need to be part of that

01:37:39.500 India, actually, yes, you're right.

01:37:41.520 There's going to be this.

01:37:42.040 Other countries who have got far bigger energy needs than us

01:37:47.460 are actually both creating more emissions

01:37:50.800 and driving faster forward on renewables.

01:37:54.720 And where I really did disagree with Tony in his essay

01:37:58.460 was when he made the 1% point.

01:38:04.460 And yet he's the guy who back in the day,

01:38:08.380 rightly in my view was saying that just because we are only this in relation to the size of the

01:38:15.760 global economy does not mean that we can't take a lead in the time on overseas aid and development

01:38:22.320 which we did and i would i think that is that we should still be using arguments like this just

01:38:27.460 because we are no longer one of the biggest powers in the world does not mean we're not still seen as

01:38:32.620 leader. Do you think changing our energy policy in such a way that reduces our economic prosperity

01:38:55.820 is an acceptable price to pay for this no but it's but no i don't i don't but it's but i don't

01:39:03.100 believe it's necessary like you don't think it's had a negative economic impact so far i think

01:39:08.780 energy prices have yeah but they're not related to net zero no it's a very small part of the the

01:39:15.500 stuff that's driven up our energy prices so no it's not you've got to you this is why i say these

01:39:20.940 things are you know you've got to address this in in in the round and our economy we're energy is

01:39:27.100 going to become the big challenge for all of our countries and you know so there's trump saying

01:39:32.300 drill baby drill uh we don't have there even if we wanted to frack on the level that they do we

01:39:38.060 don't have the reserves we have oil in the north sea the oil in the north which had milliband

01:39:42.700 just check out the the order in the north sea is the the one it's not going to come in if you

01:39:48.620 wish to go and drill all this stuff away they say drill baby drill in the orc it's gonna be years

01:39:52.540 before you get it that's fine it's not fine if you can do other stuff with the money you've got

01:39:56.780 which is what which is renewables but the problem the orc is important to our energy because of the

01:40:02.380 wind that blows there okay you we're gonna have much that is gonna be much more important to our

01:40:07.900 long-term energy needs than uh we just had an energy expert called scott tinker on the show

01:40:12.620 it's not out yet but if i may plug in which he talked about the fact there's no such thing as

01:40:16.540 renewable energy because it takes so much raw material to build the wind turbines which then

01:40:21.420 have to be okay okay honestly that's that's like that's like saying look it's a label

01:40:29.980 like net zero is a label but it's what the label let's let's just say oil wind and solar every

01:40:36.620 time but no but the reason when solar alistair you're being picky now the reason it's important

01:40:41.020 is that these things are not renewable they cost energy to produce everything it costs

01:40:44.940 is energy to turn those lights on.

01:40:47.380 That's a very good point, Alistair.

01:40:48.620 You're right.

01:40:48.840 Okay, okay.

01:40:50.160 You know what?

01:40:51.660 You know, you've been a very good sport.

01:40:53.220 We appreciate you coming on.

01:40:54.740 Alistair, thank you for being here.

01:40:56.240 Last question is always the same.

01:40:58.580 What's the one thing we're not talking about

01:41:00.220 that you think we should be?

01:41:01.500 Do you mean we today?

01:41:02.780 I mean we as a country, as a nation,

01:41:05.360 as a body politic.

01:41:08.020 Well, weirdly, I'm going to say

01:41:10.780 that I don't think we talk enough about politics.

01:41:13.240 in the context of why politics matters,

01:41:20.200 why politics, for all its faults,

01:41:23.140 is so necessary and important,

01:41:25.440 and why we need to encourage more and more people

01:41:29.620 genuinely to be engaged in politics.

01:41:32.400 I mean, really engaged in politics.

01:41:34.580 Because I worry that the way our debate is going,

01:41:40.060 the real the the thing that's underlying a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about

01:41:44.340 isn't just labor or tory or green or reform whatever it's actually whether democracy is

01:41:51.160 going to survive and whether people are going to think well you know say we like about putin but

01:41:56.760 say we like about g but they've done stuff way better than we've done etc etc so i i think that

01:42:03.000 we we don't talk enough about yeah why why democratic politics really matters and why

01:42:09.800 we've got to fight for it harder than we do.

01:42:12.140 Alistair Campbell, thanks for coming on.

01:42:13.660 I'm sorry, we're not going to get to your questions

01:42:15.660 because I hugged the mic.

01:42:16.660 It's my bad.

01:42:18.320 All the best.

01:42:19.460 I would have done them, but he's...

01:42:21.340 Oh, would you?

01:42:22.860 Okay, let's do the matters.

01:42:24.640 You're a man of your word.

01:42:25.960 Okay, let's do the bonus questions.

01:42:27.780 Bring us the phones.

01:42:30.780 With hindsight on the Iraq dossiers in W&D,

01:42:34.160 what would you now do differently

01:42:35.880 on facts, risks, and moral trade-offs?

01:42:39.800 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - July 15, 2026

Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry： Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq

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