TRIGGERnometry - Britain Is Headed For A Financial Meltdown

00:00:00.000 It's impossible to be anything other than extremely pessimistic about the future of Britain.

00:00:07.120 We've destroyed what used to be the best economy in Europe and it's been destroyed by disastrous government policy from both Labour and the Conservatives.

00:00:15.940 The political establishment has effectively lied to the public by selling them a vision of this country that can't be afforded.

00:00:22.940 And that is a ticking time bomb. The House of Cards will crumble because of the debt crisis.

00:00:27.740 When you travel to America, they can't believe how poor the British middle classes are.

00:00:32.880 They cannot believe what the average wage in Britain is. And they look at us and it's pathetic, frankly.

00:00:38.760 In other words, the government can't keep the peace and can't put criminals in jail, but it can put you in jail.

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00:01:52.060 Alistair, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:54.080 Well, thanks for having me.

00:01:54.980 It's great to have you on.

00:01:56.120 You are one of the most interesting commentators in British journalism for my money.

00:02:01.200 I love reading your column. You have a French accent.

00:02:03.980 We won't hold that against you.

00:02:05.180 Thank you. I really appreciate it.

00:02:07.520 Most people do, you know, or they think I'm Belgian or something.

00:02:10.240 Yeah. Well, I would hold being Belgian against you, but having a French accent is tolerable,

00:02:15.220 particularly given some of your interesting opinions.

00:02:17.120 So it's great to have you on the show.

00:02:18.880 You've been writing a lot about something that our former guest Liam Halligan has been writing about as well,

00:02:24.340 which is that economically things are just heading in this country in a very bad direction.

00:02:29.220 And most people aren't aware of this because most people don't look at bond yields and all of these other things.

00:02:34.080 But I think you make a very credible case for why we're actually heading for a financial meltdown.

00:02:38.540 Yes. I mean, I think the situation is grave.

00:02:40.860 I think it's very, very bad.

00:02:42.780 It can be summarized very simply.

00:02:45.400 Public spending is growing and growing and growing.

00:02:47.740 And on all trends, it's going to explode in the coming years in Britain.

00:02:51.380 But revenues, the amount of money the government can raise, is hardly going to go up.

00:02:56.900 And that is a short road to something that's very close to national bankruptcy.

00:03:01.940 Now, governments don't technically go bankrupt, especially a government like the British government, which has its own currency.

00:03:07.300 But you can get quite close.

00:03:08.860 And it's impossible to be anything other than extremely pessimistic about the future of Britain,

00:03:14.820 because we are wedded to some ridiculous, obsolete model, which basically says you've got this thing called the NHS,

00:03:21.560 the national health system, which is basically a state-funded socialized medicine.

00:03:26.500 And the money needed for that keeps on going up and will rise and rise and rise and rise.

00:03:32.140 All the forecasts are that it will hugely increase over the next few decades because the population is getting older and older.

00:03:38.980 So that's what you've got on one side.

00:03:40.380 You've also got a welfare state that's totally out of control.

00:03:43.140 You've got six and a half million adults on out-of-work benefits, six and a half million adults on out-of-work benefits.

00:03:49.840 We've basically introduced universal basic income without telling anybody it's possible to not work in this country

00:03:55.280 and to be able to survive on benefits.

00:03:57.960 So you've got those two problems on the spending side.

00:04:01.880 And on the revenue side, you've got an economy that's basically been destroyed by a 25-year slide into soft social democracy,

00:04:10.540 disastrous managed policy, disastrous regulation policy, disastrous tax policy.

00:04:15.280 The entrepreneurial spirit of the economy has basically vanished.

00:04:19.520 There's no Elon Musks in Britain.

00:04:21.660 Companies are leaving.

00:04:22.640 Entrepreneurs are leaving.

00:04:23.900 Rich people are leaving.

00:04:25.460 The incentive structure is completely wrong.

00:04:27.340 So you've got this economy that's barely grown, and you've got the demands from the public sector on this shriveling private sector

00:04:34.220 that keep going up and up and up and up.

00:04:36.400 And that's the recipe for total disaster.

00:04:38.980 And by the way, you even have mainstream economists now saying things like that.

00:04:42.560 And, you know, the official fiscal watchdog, the Office of Budget Responsibility,

00:04:47.980 all these sorts of people agree that there's going to be an explosion in public spending as a result of the structure of the welfare state,

00:04:54.320 as a result of the fact we're still stuck in 1945 or 1946, whenever the NHS was invented and whenever the modern welfare state was invented.

00:05:02.680 And at the same time, the economy is knackered, right?

00:05:05.160 We've destroyed what used to be the best economy in Europe, the best economy in Europe,

00:05:09.440 and it's been destroyed by disastrous government policy from both Labour and the Conservatives.

00:05:14.740 And when I moved to this country in 1995 from France, when I left France, I was 17 and I came here to study.

00:05:21.860 When I left France, it used to be a socialist dump, right?

00:05:24.840 There was no opportunity.

00:05:26.000 It was a disaster.

00:05:27.360 I came here.

00:05:28.300 I moved to London.

00:05:29.140 It was like a completely different universe.

00:05:32.320 It was like El Dorado, right?

00:05:34.080 People were running around, you know, earning money.

00:05:36.880 People were ambitious.

00:05:38.220 You had these things called investment banks.

00:05:40.080 You had the city.

00:05:40.760 It was incredibly exciting, you know?

00:05:42.240 And Britain was an outlier.

00:05:45.600 Britain was a Hong Kong of Europe, right?

00:05:47.460 It was this incredibly strong, performing country that had been turbocharged by the Fascia Revolution, which had just changed everything.

00:05:54.860 And he was attracting the best and brightest from all over the world.

00:05:57.540 You didn't have the levels of immigration you've got now, but you had very talented people coming here.

00:06:02.160 And all of that's been eroded, not just eroded, actually, throttled and destroyed.

00:06:08.100 And it's a tragedy, and I blame the politicians of both parties.

00:06:13.000 I think we had this unique opportunity in the 80s where we were lucky.

00:06:17.880 We stumbled on a great leader, Maurice Thatcher, and there's some good people.

00:06:22.940 They saved this country from oblivion, which is where we were going in the 1970s.

00:06:26.400 But tragically, Blair came along, and it was a false promise.

00:06:31.460 Blairism was a false promise.

00:06:33.220 It was this idea that you can gradually embrace more and more government intervention and regulation and so on, but not actually throttle the actual economy, the underlying private sector.

00:06:45.140 But slowly but surely, slowly but surely, we became Europeanized in our public spending, in our tax system, and in some ways we're worse than parts of Europe.

00:06:54.940 We're not quite as bad as France yet, but we're quite similar, and our rate of growth is pathetic.

00:07:01.380 And GDP per capita, which is the amount of money the economy produces per person, is barely going up or even falling.

00:07:08.640 And the pie, therefore, is not really going up, but the number of people, because of extremely large amounts of immigration, has gone up, which means there's less for every person, which means society is changing.

00:07:21.060 And instead of society accepting capitalism and growth and all that, it's become a zero-sum game.

00:07:26.820 People are fighting for the same or smaller pie.

00:07:30.060 And when that happens, you get sort of the rise of left in populism, the rise of Corbynism, jealousy, envy, you know, demands for wealth taxes, you know, laws and private schools, all the kind of stuff that you hear about today.

00:07:46.060 And therefore, unless we have a massive, massive change politically, culturally, psychologically, philosophically, this country, I fear, is now in a decline that's going to be very difficult to reverse.

00:07:58.380 Well, this is one of the reasons that, I don't know if you agree with this, but I'm becoming a bit of what I call an accelerationist, which is essentially, I think things are very bad and heading in a bad direction, but most people don't know it yet.

00:08:13.980 They feel it, and they don't quite know where to place their blame, therefore, you know, they'll be told by some people, well, it's all Britain's problems are to do with illegal immigration, for example.

00:08:24.960 Now, illegal immigration is a problem that needs to be dealt with, but I keep saying to people, you do realise that when we deal with illegal immigration, that isn't going to change the economic reality of this country, even one bit.

00:08:35.500 Yes. I mean, it might change it slightly, but it won't change the big picture.

00:08:39.420 And likewise, you know, on the left side of populism, it's sort of the bank. I remember this famous, I think, Harry and Paul sketch, the bankers, the wankers, the wankers, the wankers.

00:08:50.220 Yeah, the bankers bonuses, the bankers bonuses, right? It was all that.

00:08:53.520 Yes. Well, firstly, if the bankers, the bonuses, the bankers, the bonuses, it's disgusting.

00:08:58.660 And secondly, if the Tories are really serious about it, they tax the bankers, the bonuses to 90%.

00:09:03.720 And this is what we've ended up in.

00:09:08.080 But actually, I almost think things have to get a lot worse for people to realise that neither of these two populist messages are what the truth is.

00:09:16.020 The truth is you have to grow the economy and we're not doing that.

00:09:19.180 Yes. I mean, the fundamental problem of this country is that we're living beyond our means.

00:09:24.100 We're living as if we're a rich country.

00:09:26.320 We have expectations of the public sector, of the National Health Service, of the state pension, of the benefit system, of everything.

00:09:34.040 We're a very prosperous country.

00:09:35.720 But we're not anymore, right?

00:09:38.460 We have barely grown for years.

00:09:41.260 Our expectations have continued rising, but the reality hasn't caught up.

00:09:47.220 And this gulf is growing and growing and growing.

00:09:49.560 And as you say, we do have an illegal immigration crisis.

00:09:53.440 I think that's going to be a catalyst for radical political change.

00:09:56.480 But that ultimately is not the fundamental problem, though we are spending far too much money, for example, on welfare benefits for immigration, immigrants.

00:10:07.680 But we're also spending far too much money on benefits for UK-based people.

00:10:11.020 In fact, we're predominantly spending too much money on UK-based people.

00:10:15.060 And that's the issue.

00:10:16.060 Alice, so you've used the words we're not a prosperous country.

00:10:19.120 What does that actually mean in real terms?

00:10:21.060 It means that the amount of money available for each person is barely going up anymore.

00:10:27.460 It means that when you travel to America, you'll see that they're living in bigger houses.

00:10:31.380 They've got more cars.

00:10:32.480 They've got air con.

00:10:33.900 They're able to spend a lot more money.

00:10:35.780 They can give massive tips in restaurants.

00:10:37.980 You know, they can buy a lot of stuff.

00:10:39.760 And we look at these people and we think, hey, wait a second.

00:10:42.700 Look how rich these people are.

00:10:44.120 And it used to be the case, you know, if you were British and you went to America in the 1950s, 1960s, you couldn't believe it, right?

00:10:50.520 They were eating steak and they all had two cars and all that sort of stuff.

00:10:53.820 And then the gap narrowed.

00:10:56.480 We became more like America in terms of being prosperous.

00:11:00.520 But in recent years, that gap has grown again quite dramatically.

00:11:04.560 You know, the top 25% of Americans, even the top 50% of Americans, are much wealthier than the richest people in Britain.

00:11:13.840 In fact, you know, they can't believe how poor the British middle classes are.

00:11:17.960 They cannot believe what the average wage in Britain is.

00:11:19.960 They cannot believe how the top 10% or top 5% live in this country.

00:11:24.060 They live much better.

00:11:25.400 We have been left behind.

00:11:26.980 You know, and the reason is their productivity has gone up.

00:11:29.900 They've got incredible companies.

00:11:31.620 They've got entrepreneurship.

00:11:32.980 They've got problems.

00:11:33.680 Of course they've got problems.

00:11:34.760 And it's not great being in the bottom 5% or 10% in America.

00:11:37.420 It's terrible.

00:11:38.180 But, you know, if you're the middle class, the upper middle class, the top 25%, top 50%, you're much, much better off in America.

00:11:44.480 And also, the Americans, you know, they've got massive amounts of savings for their retirement, all that sort of stuff.

00:11:50.200 And they look at us and it's pathetic, frankly.

00:11:52.720 And we need, you know, there's no reason why we can't be much richer.

00:11:56.400 There's no reason why our economy can't grow much faster.

00:11:58.960 But we've fallen into this ideological trap and also a form of stasis where vested interest groups block all change.

00:12:08.380 So a combination of this, you know, you can't really change anything.

00:12:12.380 You can't build anything in Britain.

00:12:13.720 You can't change any laws.

00:12:14.800 You can't change any rules.

00:12:15.980 You've got that on the one hand.

00:12:17.180 And on the other hand, you've just got a ruling class which believes it's either a ruling class is either defeatist and doesn't believe that we can change or it's just completely wrong about everything.

00:12:26.760 And I think it's a combination of those two things.

00:12:29.380 We've got a very, very bad ruling class in Britain at the moment.

00:12:32.680 We've got an elite that's failing this country.

00:12:36.140 You know, their economic views are wrong.

00:12:38.320 Their philosophical views are wrong.

00:12:39.820 Their views on free speech are wrong.

00:12:41.200 You know, all of that.

00:12:42.320 And we need a new counter-elite, really, that can introduce a source of radical reforms that are required.

00:12:49.160 I like the fact that you said the word ideology.

00:12:51.860 Now, there'll be people, Alistair, who's going, look, how much of the 2008 economic crash is to blame for this?

00:12:58.440 Because wages haven't risen in real time since that event.

00:13:02.980 How much of this crisis stems from that particular moment?

00:13:06.860 Yes.

00:13:07.080 Well, a lot of it stems from that, but it didn't need to stem from that.

00:13:10.580 That's a key point.

00:13:11.520 So the Americans had that crisis.

00:13:14.080 You know, but what did they do?

00:13:16.340 They purged the system.

00:13:17.960 They reformed the banks very quickly.

00:13:20.140 They just moved on.

00:13:21.000 They did what Americans do.

00:13:22.440 You know, you fire a lot of people, you start some institutions, you change everything very, very quickly, you fire CEOs and so on, and you just move on.

00:13:29.100 And we got stuck.

00:13:30.460 You know, we nationalized banks, and then we passed all sorts of stupid laws.

00:13:34.740 I blame the Conservative Party for that.

00:13:37.180 The coalition government of 2010-2015 fell out of love with the city.

00:13:41.300 Now, the city is the most important part of the British economy, the financial services industry, the banking industry.

00:13:46.100 But the Tories regulated to death as a result of the financial crisis.

00:13:51.480 You know, they thought they needed a kind of, it was revenge almost against the financial system for the crisis.

00:13:59.220 And that was a disaster for this country.

00:14:00.980 So the economy never recovered.

00:14:02.480 We've never recovered from the financial crisis in terms of the economy, unlike America, which has just bounced back, and like most other countries, it's just bounced back.

00:14:10.080 And we haven't recovered philosophically and ideologically, because that crisis was pinned in Britain by self-serving politicians on the capitalists, right?

00:14:21.040 Everyone said, oh, this is a crisis of capitalism, capitalism is rotten, doesn't work, look, we've had to bail out all these people, it's corrupt.

00:14:27.660 You know, well, wrong.

00:14:28.900 This was largely, actually, the crisis of central banks getting it all wrong with interest rates and manipulating monetary policy to try and create permanent growth, which you can't do.

00:14:38.960 And it was also a crisis of regulation, failures among regulators, and of course, banks made mistakes, companies make mistakes and fail.

00:14:46.460 But there was a different way of doing that.

00:14:48.220 You could have done it without all these handouts, with far, far fewer bailouts.

00:14:53.440 And I think bailing out the city was a disaster philosophically for this country.

00:14:57.640 And the thing you said at the very beginning, I think, I don't think people understand the levels of debt and the speed of which is rising that we're in.

00:15:09.440 I think I was reading Liam's column, 81% of new borrowing is now spent on paying off previous borrowing.

00:15:16.880 Yes.

00:15:17.320 So this is absolutely, you're absolutely spot on.

00:15:19.980 So people realize they're not getting richer, right?

00:15:22.260 Right.

00:15:22.540 So people realize, you know, their wages are not really going up when, you know, because of inflation and higher house prices, all that sort of stuff.

00:15:28.820 They also realize more and more people are on benefits.

00:15:31.780 And they realize nothing's working.

00:15:33.380 They realize the hospitals aren't working.

00:15:35.880 The prisons aren't working.

00:15:37.000 You know, we're freeing criminals early.

00:15:38.400 It's crazy.

00:15:39.840 The courts aren't working.

00:15:41.720 Nothing's working.

00:15:42.700 That's broken Britain.

00:15:43.500 But what they don't realize is that on top of that, the debt is spiraling out of control and the government's got a massive hole in the public finances.

00:15:51.060 It has to borrow more and more money just to stand still.

00:15:55.020 And that is a ticking time bomb underneath this whole rotten edifice, right?

00:15:59.680 The House of Cards will crumble because of the debt crisis.

00:16:02.840 And we must hope somehow that there's a silver lining to that, that this coming implosion will at least force political change.

00:16:12.100 But there's a big danger.

00:16:13.100 There's a really big danger because when you have a fiscal crisis, it's not always the conservative parties with a small c that triumph, right?

00:16:22.940 It's often the populist left.

00:16:24.420 So if you want to turbocharge the growing far left in Britain, which is probably already at 15%, really, if not more, well, wait until the fiscal crisis comes along.

00:16:34.560 We'll have all these guys like Jeremy Corbyn, the far left leader, the Green Party, which is basically a socialist revolutionary party in Britain.

00:16:42.660 You have all these people blaming business, blaming capitalism, blaming banks, as they always do.

00:16:48.840 And I think the anti-capitalist sentiment will start rising yet again.

00:16:56.260 And so this is quite dangerous.

00:16:57.820 So on the one hand, this kind of crisis will help the forces of opposition, primarily Nigel Farage's reform party.

00:17:04.500 On the other, I think they'll also help the far left.

00:17:07.380 And Alistair, can you, these are all words and words and realities of different things.

00:17:13.620 Can you explain to people what a fiscal crisis looks like?

00:17:17.980 What does that mean if you're an ordinary person who goes to work, comes home, has dinner with the wife and kids, etc.?

00:17:24.420 What does a fiscal crisis mean for our country if that happens?

00:17:28.400 Yes.

00:17:28.700 So a fiscal crisis is when the government has to either pay more and more and more and more money to borrow or it simply can't borrow anymore.

00:17:37.440 And let's say you have to pay more and more and more money.

00:17:39.700 Let's say you end up paying 10% a year on your debt.

00:17:43.300 Well, the problem with that is, first of all, you run out of money to spend on anything else.

00:17:47.440 So you're forced to make cuts to public spending just to pay your interest payments.

00:17:52.100 But at the same time, mortgages and other forms of debt, credit card debt, everything goes up together, right?

00:17:57.500 Because it all sort of follows in some way the government's interest rate.

00:18:02.520 So suddenly you're going to have a massive housing crisis.

00:18:05.160 You're going to have people who, when they roll over their mortgages, mortgage rates will be much higher.

00:18:09.220 You know, people who borrow money on their credit cards, well, they're going to have to pay more.

00:18:12.620 So it's going to be a catastrophe for everybody, basically.

00:18:15.380 But there's also be these huge cuts to public spending.

00:18:18.100 And it could be even worse than that.

00:18:19.080 I'm sorry to interrupt just on the cuts.

00:18:20.880 I think a lot of people have been convinced that what we had was this great period of terrible austerity in which budgets were slashed.

00:18:29.240 And look, there are individual areas where that did happen.

00:18:32.940 There were some budgets that were very significantly cut.

00:18:35.220 But broadly speaking, we barely reduced our expenditure during this great era of austerity.

00:18:40.640 What you're talking about is going to make austerity look like a walk in the park.

00:18:44.200 No, you'd have to have real austerity, right?

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00:20:50.720 The second element of a fiscal crisis is if the government literally can't borrow at all.

00:21:00.260 So it goes to the markets and says, I need to borrow 20 billion pounds this week,

00:21:03.020 and the markets say, no, sorry.

00:21:04.780 So a combination of those two things has to trigger one response,

00:21:08.300 which is massive cuts to public spending, right?

00:21:10.400 If you have a fiscal crisis, you have to have massive cuts to public spending.

00:21:13.340 So maybe you've got to cut the state pension,

00:21:15.740 dump the triple lock, obviously,

00:21:16.900 maybe cut the wages of public sector workers, you know, 5% cuts across the board,

00:21:21.440 that sort of thing.

00:21:22.620 You know, here's 5 billion cuts to this and 5 billion cuts to that.

00:21:25.620 And most likely what governments do in these cases is also to put up taxes.

00:21:29.740 Now, I hate putting up taxes.

00:21:31.200 Taxes are already a record high in this country.

00:21:33.480 But anyway, that's probably what would happen.

00:21:35.460 Maybe VAT value added tax would go up, maybe 2%, 2.5%.

00:21:39.020 Maybe income tax would go up.

00:21:40.380 You know, so you have those two things at the same time.

00:21:44.580 So obviously you'd have a recession in year one

00:21:46.380 before the economy then starts to kind of restructure itself and recover.

00:21:51.040 And the last time we had a fiscal crisis in this country

00:21:53.280 wasn't actually during the financial crisis, really.

00:21:55.880 It was in 1976 when the Labour government at the time

00:21:59.720 was forced to ask for a bailout from the international lenders

00:22:04.440 led by the International Monetary Fund,

00:22:06.040 which is basically the IMF, this body that normally lends money

00:22:10.220 to poor countries that go bankrupt.

00:22:12.300 Now, this time around, UK debt is so large

00:22:15.380 that the IMF would not be able to bail us out.

00:22:17.780 Well, too large.

00:22:19.340 And in any case, you know, there's other reasons

00:22:21.960 why they might not do it.

00:22:23.120 But we are getting closer to that sort of crisis.

00:22:27.300 So what will happen if the IMF can't bail us out?

00:22:29.940 What will happen?

00:22:31.100 We'll make all these cuts and we'll have to borrow

00:22:32.720 from the private sector.

00:22:33.480 And, you know, we just have to hope that the interest rate

00:22:36.840 is not too high.

00:22:38.880 But why wouldn't it be too high?

00:22:40.960 Who wants to lend money to a bank?

00:22:42.020 Because when you slash public spending by £50 billion in one day

00:22:45.940 and put up taxes by £30 billion in one day

00:22:48.060 in your emergency budget, then they might believe you.

00:22:51.400 Yeah, they might.

00:22:52.900 Isn't that a recipe for social unrest, though?

00:22:55.380 It is, of course, a recipe for social unrest.

00:22:57.500 And the reason it's a recipe for social unrest

00:22:59.240 is that the political establishment has effectively lied

00:23:02.740 to the public by selling them a vision of this country

00:23:06.200 that can't be afforded.

00:23:07.780 This is why I say we've been living beyond our means.

00:23:11.000 We cannot afford the NHS as it currently is.

00:23:13.740 We cannot afford the state pension as it currently is.

00:23:16.220 We cannot afford all these benefits.

00:23:18.300 We cannot afford this stuff.

00:23:19.520 We just can't, right?

00:23:20.540 There's not enough money.

00:23:21.980 We're borrowing huge amounts of money

00:23:23.460 just to pay for this spending.

00:23:24.840 It's absurd.

00:23:25.820 It's utterly absurd and entirely reckless

00:23:28.460 that at this stage in the economic cycle,

00:23:31.620 we are still borrowing this amount of money.

00:23:33.320 So just wait until there's a real crisis.

00:23:35.440 OK, so the public is going to be very, very angry.

00:23:38.000 And they're going to start looking for scapegoats

00:23:40.920 and you're going to have all sorts of issues there.

00:23:42.600 But I think the Labour Party,

00:23:43.760 if it happens under Labour's watch,

00:23:46.000 the Labour Party will be annihilated.

00:23:48.020 I just don't think it's going to survive.

00:23:49.940 And so really, Labour have inherited this crisis.

00:23:54.840 Is Rachel Reeves helping?

00:23:58.340 So Labour have inherited this crisis, yes,

00:24:00.820 but they've made it much, much worse.

00:24:03.240 So the previous Conservative...

00:24:05.140 I've got a lot of criticism

00:24:06.860 of the previous Conservative government.

00:24:08.440 I think it failed.

00:24:09.880 I think what it did to the country

00:24:13.060 was on balance very bad,

00:24:14.760 apart from a couple of things.

00:24:16.100 But at least they were proposing

00:24:20.280 freezes to public spending

00:24:21.960 or even cuts in some areas.

00:24:23.260 That would have stabilised the public finances.

00:24:26.620 When Rachel Reeves,

00:24:27.760 the current Labour Chancellor,

00:24:29.740 came to power,

00:24:31.080 she massively increased public spending immediately

00:24:33.240 and then massively increased taxes.

00:24:35.760 And that led to an explosion

00:24:37.940 in the black hole

00:24:38.700 at the heart of the public finances.

00:24:40.680 She wrongly blamed the Conservatives for that.

00:24:42.320 That was wrong.

00:24:42.980 It was her fault.

00:24:43.620 It was her doing.

00:24:44.740 The taxes she raised

00:24:45.940 and all these warnings around the taxes

00:24:48.640 and the talking down of the economy

00:24:50.780 and the endlessly blaming the Conservatives

00:24:52.320 and so on

00:24:52.680 had a real effect on growth,

00:24:54.520 further depressing growth,

00:24:56.380 further reducing tax revenues

00:24:58.400 compared to what they would otherwise have been.

00:25:00.560 And you've ended up

00:25:01.400 in a very bad fiscal place.

00:25:03.280 I blame Labour for that.

00:25:04.940 It's Labour's fault.

00:25:06.000 Now, they're preparing a new budget

00:25:08.120 where they're going to put up taxes again

00:25:10.060 by another massive amount of money.

00:25:12.060 And I can guarantee you

00:25:13.080 we are already on the wrong side

00:25:15.600 of this so-called Laffer curve.

00:25:17.260 Basically, we're at a place

00:25:18.720 where when you put up taxes,

00:25:20.240 you get very little extra money.

00:25:22.060 Sometimes you can even get less money

00:25:23.620 than you would have

00:25:24.420 had you actually cut the taxes.

00:25:26.300 This is where we are in this country.

00:25:27.740 We are in a very dangerous place

00:25:29.760 where you can't really just put up taxes

00:25:32.140 and put up taxes and put up taxes

00:25:33.360 and hope to just collect more and more money.

00:25:35.920 The economy is at breaking point.

00:25:37.980 We are reaching the maximal amount of taxation

00:25:40.740 that you can extract

00:25:41.680 from a very, very weak private sector.

00:25:44.340 So what you're saying sounds,

00:25:46.580 and this is pretty much what I've thought.

00:25:48.520 And I've got no,

00:25:49.700 I don't have any training in economics

00:25:51.480 and business or whatever it is.

00:25:53.080 But to me, what you're saying is common sense.

00:25:55.760 Eventually, there's only so much juice

00:25:58.060 you can get from the squeeze in the orange,

00:26:00.380 pretty much.

00:26:01.340 So then I look at Rachel Reeves

00:26:03.220 and I look at the Labour Party

00:26:04.580 and I think to myself,

00:26:06.180 why don't they understand this?

00:26:08.300 Is this incompetence?

00:26:09.760 Is this ideology?

00:26:11.180 Or is it a mixture of the two?

00:26:12.860 It's a mixture of the two.

00:26:14.220 So when they arrived,

00:26:15.180 they were incredibly arrogant.

00:26:16.920 They thought they were morally righteous people.

00:26:20.320 They were holier than thou.

00:26:21.300 They were better people.

00:26:22.320 So therefore, by definition,

00:26:24.000 everything was going to work much better.

00:26:25.340 They just walk into the government

00:26:27.000 and they just tell the civil service

00:26:28.600 and the civil service was cheer,

00:26:29.660 hooray, finally some good people.

00:26:31.300 And we all work together

00:26:32.300 and the economy will start booming

00:26:33.720 and we suddenly start building

00:26:35.060 all these new houses

00:26:35.900 and all that sort of stuff, you know?

00:26:38.320 Obviously, completely delusional nonsense.

00:26:40.480 So that was the first problem.

00:26:42.000 Secondly, ideology.

00:26:44.020 The current ideology,

00:26:46.100 the current dominant ideology

00:26:47.380 in this country

00:26:49.140 just does not deliver growth, right?

00:26:51.000 So what do you have?

00:26:51.840 You've got net zero.

00:26:53.540 Net zero is a complete disaster.

00:26:55.140 Complete disaster.

00:26:56.220 We are producing,

00:26:57.540 we're shutting down

00:26:58.140 all our oil and gas fields.

00:26:59.720 You know, we're producing

00:27:00.400 less and less electricity.

00:27:01.800 We are burdening ourselves

00:27:02.940 with this obsessive desire

00:27:04.640 to reduce carbon emissions

00:27:06.080 at any cost.

00:27:07.180 And the cost is vast.

00:27:08.840 And this is crippling the economy.

00:27:10.300 So that's the first problem.

00:27:11.040 You can't return to proper growth

00:27:13.040 without ditching net zero, right?

00:27:15.480 First thing.

00:27:16.200 Second, regulation.

00:27:17.420 Everything is regulated.

00:27:18.800 There's far too much regulation,

00:27:20.160 far too much red tape

00:27:21.120 on every aspect of life.

00:27:23.540 Third, tax.

00:27:24.580 You can't be waging war

00:27:26.580 on the so-called rich

00:27:27.560 when it is the rich

00:27:28.500 that basically deliver

00:27:29.600 all the innovation,

00:27:30.820 all the new companies,

00:27:31.880 the growth,

00:27:32.680 and so much,

00:27:33.780 such a disproportionate share

00:27:35.040 of tax revenues.

00:27:36.660 The tourists and Labour

00:27:37.980 have been chasing away

00:27:38.980 the so-called non-doms,

00:27:40.760 which are these rich people

00:27:42.020 who base themselves in the UK.

00:27:43.620 They've been chasing away entrepreneurs.

00:27:45.400 They've been discouraging

00:27:46.760 risk-taking and entrepreneurship.

00:27:48.740 You know, where's Elon Musk?

00:27:49.780 Where's the British Elon Musk?

00:27:50.940 You know, every day almost

00:27:52.420 you hear of another company

00:27:53.640 that's decided not to invest in Britain

00:27:55.380 or another British company

00:27:57.020 that's decided to move to America

00:27:58.700 to list on the New York stock market,

00:28:00.460 not on the London Stock Exchange.

00:28:02.220 This is a complete disaster.

00:28:03.660 And this is ideology.

00:28:04.660 And then it's this generalised climate

00:28:07.060 in this country, right?

00:28:08.060 There's too much crime.

00:28:09.360 There's too much disorder.

00:28:10.480 Everything's messy.

00:28:12.020 Prices are too high.

00:28:13.580 You know, nothing works.

00:28:14.900 The public sector doesn't work.

00:28:16.220 Why do you want to live here

00:28:17.040 under all these circumstances?

00:28:18.480 Yes, obviously,

00:28:19.440 Britain remains quite a civilised place

00:28:21.260 and, you know,

00:28:22.320 parts of the UK are still beautiful

00:28:24.160 and, you know,

00:28:25.200 people enjoy the arts and the culture

00:28:26.600 and all that sort of stuff.

00:28:27.560 But there comes a time

00:28:28.500 when these sorts of advantages

00:28:30.280 pale in comparison

00:28:31.800 with the hard reality,

00:28:32.860 which is why do you want to come here

00:28:34.380 and pay so much tax?

00:28:35.540 You know, makes no sense.

00:28:36.560 Well, and you mentioned,

00:28:37.960 Francis,

00:28:38.520 and you both mentioned

00:28:39.400 ideology and incompetence.

00:28:41.240 But I think there is

00:28:42.380 a much more powerful third force

00:28:44.120 that you alluded to earlier,

00:28:45.600 which is,

00:28:46.500 I believe the reason

00:28:47.680 the Labour government

00:28:48.500 is only using one of the levers,

00:28:50.660 which is trying to increase taxes,

00:28:52.460 the other levers

00:28:53.120 are not available to them.

00:28:54.480 They know they cannot reduce

00:28:56.140 public spending

00:28:56.980 because, for them,

00:28:58.640 that's electoral suicide.

00:28:59.660 And so when they even

00:29:02.420 attempt to do any of that

00:29:04.280 or even hint at attempting

00:29:05.940 or even talk about attempting

00:29:07.740 any of that,

00:29:09.040 the entire left wing

00:29:10.380 of the Labour Party

00:29:11.160 comes out and says,

00:29:12.440 you know,

00:29:12.680 you're going to kill the poor,

00:29:14.040 you're going to do this,

00:29:14.840 you're going to do that.

00:29:15.940 And so the fact that you say

00:29:18.060 we're living beyond our means,

00:29:19.940 they can't go to

00:29:21.860 let's reduce spending,

00:29:23.520 which, you know,

00:29:24.320 if you think about it

00:29:24.960 on a household level,

00:29:26.320 if you come home

00:29:27.100 to your wife tonight

00:29:27.740 and say, you know,

00:29:28.600 sweetheart,

00:29:29.140 my salary's been cut in half,

00:29:31.020 so we're going to have

00:29:31.600 to tighten our belts,

00:29:32.300 you might not be happy,

00:29:33.140 but she'd probably understand

00:29:34.300 and you'd work together

00:29:35.660 to work things out.

00:29:36.880 But if you came home tonight

00:29:37.980 and said,

00:29:38.260 my salary's been cut in half

00:29:39.380 and she went,

00:29:40.560 I'm entitled to the lifestyle

00:29:41.900 that you've provided me

00:29:43.080 to this point,

00:29:45.180 you've got a problem.

00:29:47.220 And that's where I think

00:29:48.220 the Labour Party is.

00:29:49.200 The person that they've got at home

00:29:51.420 does not want to recognise

00:29:52.600 the consequences

00:29:53.340 of the salary being cut in half.

00:29:54.940 Yes, I mean,

00:29:55.480 that's, I'd say,

00:29:56.020 a combination of ideology

00:29:57.260 and self-interest

00:29:58.520 and political self-interest.

00:29:59.920 And you saw that

00:30:00.680 the current chancellor,

00:30:02.300 Rachel Reeves,

00:30:02.900 was trying to cut taxes.

00:30:04.860 Sorry,

00:30:05.260 was trying to cut spending,

00:30:06.380 I mean, obviously,

00:30:06.940 she was not trying to cut taxes.

00:30:09.060 Wishful thinking creeping in here.

00:30:10.460 So she was trying to cut

00:30:11.440 a bit of public spending

00:30:13.000 and she was defeated

00:30:13.900 by the Labour MPs

00:30:15.360 who just rebelled, basically.

00:30:16.680 They just said,

00:30:17.040 no, sorry,

00:30:17.500 we're never doing that.

00:30:18.640 And now they're going

00:30:19.240 to try again, by the way.

00:30:20.360 They're going to have another go

00:30:21.060 at trimming

00:30:21.500 some forms of public spending.

00:30:23.620 But the reality is

00:30:24.360 there's going to be

00:30:24.920 a fiscal crisis

00:30:25.580 and suddenly they're going

00:30:26.580 to have to do this.

00:30:27.620 And their base is going

00:30:28.840 to loathe them for it, right?

00:30:30.860 And the public is going

00:30:31.620 to hate them

00:30:32.060 because they've been lying

00:30:32.900 and saying you don't have

00:30:33.560 to do it.

00:30:34.860 But you're right, yes.

00:30:36.520 Electoral self-interest

00:30:37.260 is a major problem

00:30:38.080 for the Labour Party

00:30:38.760 if your voting base

00:30:40.980 is basically people

00:30:42.240 who are net tax consumers.

00:30:44.180 You can divide the country

00:30:45.240 into two groups.

00:30:46.460 Net tax contributors,

00:30:47.900 people who pay more tax

00:30:49.640 than they take out

00:30:50.400 in other benefits

00:30:51.560 or services,

00:30:52.140 and net tax consumers.

00:30:54.640 And the problem in Britain

00:30:55.420 is there's too many consumers,

00:30:57.860 right?

00:30:58.120 Too many people

00:30:58.960 are taking out more

00:31:00.160 than they put in.

00:31:01.360 It's that simple.

00:31:02.420 And the mathematics

00:31:03.280 of that is toxic.

00:31:04.700 It basically means

00:31:05.580 that both the centre-right

00:31:07.640 and the centre-left

00:31:08.500 end up becoming

00:31:10.200 a proponent

00:31:10.820 for an ever-larger

00:31:11.700 welfare state.

00:31:12.560 Which is what we've got.

00:31:13.500 Which is what we've got.

00:31:14.260 So the question then is,

00:31:16.060 I mean,

00:31:16.980 I don't know your politics

00:31:18.620 exactly,

00:31:19.220 but I imagine

00:31:19.700 based on what you've said,

00:31:20.600 you're not a fan of Labour,

00:31:21.380 but you're not a fan

00:31:21.940 of the Conservatives,

00:31:23.500 that only leaves

00:31:24.420 for someone who's...

00:31:25.240 Well, I supported Conservatives

00:31:26.140 at the last election

00:31:27.280 and previous elections.

00:31:29.180 We forgive you.

00:31:30.020 Yes.

00:31:30.460 Well, I supported them

00:31:31.700 because I...

00:31:32.940 Repent.

00:31:33.780 Well, I spent my whole time

00:31:35.560 criticising them.

00:31:36.400 And then I supported them.

00:31:38.020 And the reason I was criticising them

00:31:39.780 was not because I disliked them.

00:31:41.480 I liked a lot of them individually.

00:31:43.080 But because I thought

00:31:43.800 they were going terribly wrong

00:31:45.280 because they were turning their back

00:31:46.460 on free market principles

00:31:47.460 and on genuine

00:31:48.600 Conservative philosophy.

00:31:49.800 And I thought

00:31:50.220 that was a catastrophe.

00:31:50.800 And I was convinced

00:31:52.060 the Labour government

00:31:52.760 would be a complete disaster.

00:31:53.860 I wasn't one of those people

00:31:54.800 who claimed totally wrongly,

00:31:56.220 in my view,

00:31:56.800 there's no difference

00:31:57.500 in Conservatives and Labour.

00:31:58.420 There is a big difference.

00:31:59.640 And I think

00:31:59.980 these Labour governments

00:32:00.840 have been a catastrophe.

00:32:01.940 I understand.

00:32:03.120 But I think

00:32:03.980 part of the way

00:32:04.920 you framed it there

00:32:05.760 is interesting

00:32:06.620 because of the question

00:32:07.600 I was about to ask you.

00:32:09.860 Abandoning free market principles.

00:32:12.240 And yes,

00:32:13.180 there's a difference

00:32:13.880 between Labour and Conservatives.

00:32:15.240 But a lot of people

00:32:15.820 would say the difference

00:32:16.580 between Labour and Conservatives

00:32:17.740 is the speed

00:32:18.880 at which they arrive

00:32:19.820 at the same destination.

00:32:21.200 That's exactly what happened

00:32:22.200 in recent years, yes.

00:32:23.420 After the Conservative Party

00:32:24.480 embraced Blairism

00:32:25.520 and basically gave up

00:32:26.840 on its previous belief system.

00:32:28.920 Okay.

00:32:29.380 So we are now where we are.

00:32:31.340 If your projections are correct,

00:32:33.700 which I have no reason

00:32:34.880 to think they're not,

00:32:35.980 we are going to arrive

00:32:37.280 in a fairly radical moment.

00:32:38.700 And as you say,

00:32:39.580 there are two possibilities.

00:32:40.740 There is the rise

00:32:42.220 of the far left,

00:32:44.360 you know,

00:32:44.640 the fringes

00:32:46.200 of the Labour movement,

00:32:47.540 the Green Party,

00:32:48.900 you know,

00:32:49.180 Jezbollah,

00:32:49.920 whatever you want to call it.

00:32:51.340 And then on the other side,

00:32:52.360 you've got reform.

00:32:53.840 Now,

00:32:55.200 my looking at reform's

00:32:57.540 commitments at this point,

00:32:59.240 those free market principles,

00:33:00.680 which I know

00:33:01.100 Nigel Farage holds very dear,

00:33:03.620 they don't seem

00:33:04.360 to be super present either.

00:33:05.740 I mean,

00:33:05.940 there is a lot of all things

00:33:06.960 to all men

00:33:07.400 going on in reform as well,

00:33:08.520 don't you think?

00:33:08.900 I think a few weeks ago,

00:33:11.840 reform started

00:33:12.860 putting out

00:33:13.900 some left-wing policies

00:33:14.820 to try and outgun Labour,

00:33:16.440 to try and grab more

00:33:18.180 of the old

00:33:18.580 working class electric.

00:33:19.840 I think that was

00:33:20.660 probably a mistake.

00:33:22.280 On balance, though,

00:33:23.300 they are talking now

00:33:24.180 about cutting welfare spending

00:33:25.600 quite heavily.

00:33:26.840 They've just announced

00:33:27.700 they're going to be working

00:33:28.440 on a project

00:33:29.080 to look at that.

00:33:30.560 And they're also generally

00:33:31.640 speaking about

00:33:32.160 cutting public spending.

00:33:33.400 I think they are now

00:33:34.940 much more aware

00:33:35.680 of this possibility

00:33:36.520 of a fiscal crisis,

00:33:37.440 which is why they are now

00:33:38.740 preparing for an election

00:33:40.160 in 2027,

00:33:41.560 which would be

00:33:41.920 two years earlier

00:33:42.720 than the date

00:33:43.580 at which it has to happen.

00:33:44.880 So I do think

00:33:45.720 they are aware

00:33:46.660 that they need to

00:33:48.020 have another rethink

00:33:49.740 and get back to basics,

00:33:51.040 I think,

00:33:51.640 on all of that stuff.

00:33:52.820 But look,

00:33:53.360 the bottom line is this.

00:33:54.480 Reform are massively ahead

00:33:55.480 in the polls

00:33:56.000 at the moment, right?

00:33:57.380 On current trends,

00:33:58.720 reform is the most likely

00:34:00.200 to win the next

00:34:01.060 general election,

00:34:01.700 which obviously

00:34:02.160 would be an earthquake

00:34:03.300 in British

00:34:04.580 and in world politics.

00:34:05.820 But I think

00:34:06.780 we mustn't underestimate

00:34:08.360 the chance

00:34:09.100 of the left

00:34:10.140 somehow managing

00:34:11.360 to pull a rabbit

00:34:12.520 out of a hat.

00:34:15.280 You know,

00:34:15.780 Jeremy Corbyn

00:34:17.060 is going to eventually

00:34:17.960 launch a new party.

00:34:19.360 And it doesn't matter

00:34:19.960 how chaotic it is

00:34:20.980 and how contradictory

00:34:21.740 and whether they have

00:34:22.460 a name or whatever,

00:34:23.340 that doesn't really matter.

00:34:24.800 They've got at least

00:34:25.620 15% of the population

00:34:26.800 that are immediately

00:34:27.520 going to back

00:34:28.180 a sort of

00:34:28.840 Corbyn-Green alliance.

00:34:30.160 That could grow

00:34:30.820 to 20%.

00:34:31.900 But isn't that good

00:34:33.820 for reform?

00:34:34.720 In the short term,

00:34:35.600 that's excellent for reform

00:34:36.580 because it's basically

00:34:37.580 destroying the Labour Party.

00:34:39.240 So the Labour Party

00:34:40.280 is just sinking

00:34:40.840 and it's fragmenting

00:34:42.880 the left, yes.

00:34:44.320 Completely fragmenting

00:34:45.200 the left

00:34:45.480 because the Liberal Democrats

00:34:46.640 are also gradually growing.

00:34:48.860 There's a high chance

00:34:49.700 that the Liberal Democrats

00:34:50.580 become the official opposition

00:34:52.220 after the next election.

00:34:53.580 You know,

00:34:53.720 you might have a reform government,

00:34:55.180 a Liberal Democrat opposition.

00:34:57.300 On current polling,

00:34:58.540 that's what it would be.

00:34:59.540 But this is where

00:35:00.720 I think things get

00:35:01.520 slightly more exciting.

00:35:03.080 I think the Corbyn Party

00:35:04.740 could yet have a higher

00:35:05.900 share of the vote

00:35:06.640 than the Liberal Democrats

00:35:07.980 at the next election.

00:35:09.260 So I think the left

00:35:09.940 is fragmenting.

00:35:10.860 The right fragmented massively,

00:35:12.740 which meant that Labour

00:35:14.380 won the last election.

00:35:15.680 But now, paradoxically,

00:35:17.240 the right is less fragmented

00:35:18.580 than the left

00:35:19.460 because reform is so dominant.

00:35:21.680 But the Conservatives

00:35:22.400 are still at about 18%

00:35:23.520 or so in the polls.

00:35:24.960 So that's a question.

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00:36:56.120 So, what do you think

00:36:57.740 is going to happen?

00:36:58.560 Bitcoin is sort of inevitable

00:36:59.960 at this point.

00:37:01.060 I think it would come down

00:37:02.340 to precious metals.

00:37:03.640 I hope we don't go cashless.

00:37:05.740 I would say land

00:37:06.680 is a safe investment.

00:37:08.300 Technology, companies,

00:37:09.460 solar energy.

00:37:10.440 Robotic pollinators

00:37:11.840 might be a thing.

00:37:13.080 A wrestler

00:37:13.520 to face a robot?

00:37:14.780 That will have to happen.

00:37:16.360 So, whatever you think

00:37:18.240 is going to happen

00:37:18.980 in the future,

00:37:19.860 you can invest in it

00:37:20.860 at Wealthsimple.

00:37:22.120 Start now

00:37:22.700 at Wealthsimple.com.

00:37:24.160 And how much of this

00:37:26.040 which we see

00:37:27.460 with people

00:37:28.140 supporting hard-left parties

00:37:29.760 is ideological?

00:37:33.100 Like, you've always had

00:37:33.880 your socialist,

00:37:34.500 socialist workers parties.

00:37:35.820 And how much of this

00:37:37.100 is just economic illiteracy?

00:37:38.740 Like, people don't understand

00:37:40.600 what it means

00:37:42.360 to run a country

00:37:43.200 or how you effectively

00:37:44.440 have to balance the books.

00:37:45.900 Yes.

00:37:46.140 I mean, the far-left

00:37:46.860 support the omni-cause nowadays.

00:37:48.940 So, they're no longer

00:37:50.260 purely economic.

00:37:51.100 You know, the old Marxist parties

00:37:52.640 were very kind of materialistic.

00:37:54.720 It was only bad economics, really.

00:37:56.580 You know, in a way,

00:37:57.620 it was a nice message.

00:37:58.380 It was, you know,

00:37:58.940 we're going to make sure

00:37:59.520 the poor become rich.

00:38:00.540 That's quite nice.

00:38:01.980 In reality,

00:38:02.980 it led to catastrophe,

00:38:05.280 death, dictatorship,

00:38:06.580 and so on.

00:38:07.300 Everyone was equally poor

00:38:08.720 is the ultimate issue.

00:38:09.600 That's what happened, yes.

00:38:10.660 And equally unfree.

00:38:12.200 But the left now

00:38:13.520 has mutated.

00:38:15.080 It's woke.

00:38:16.640 It's got all sorts of hatreds.

00:38:18.560 And it embraces

00:38:19.240 what I call the omni-cause.

00:38:20.200 Other people call it the omni-cause,

00:38:21.320 which is this ever-changing

00:38:22.400 set of left-wing beliefs.

00:38:23.820 Right now,

00:38:24.340 it's hatred of Israel.

00:38:25.820 But before that,

00:38:26.720 it was hatred of bankers.

00:38:28.360 It was BLM.

00:38:29.980 You know,

00:38:30.240 it just changes

00:38:31.000 depending on the moment.

00:38:32.500 As you can see,

00:38:33.100 Greta Thunberg

00:38:33.680 basically switching

00:38:34.440 from being a net-zero advocate

00:38:35.800 to being an anti-Israel activist.

00:38:38.700 So they are kind of

00:38:39.860 fueled and fired up

00:38:40.840 by quite a lot of stuff.

00:38:42.240 And those people

00:38:43.040 genuinely believe

00:38:44.000 that there's no difference

00:38:44.800 between the Tories and Labour,

00:38:46.120 which is why they're willing

00:38:46.960 to vote for a far-left party

00:38:48.360 regardless of what that means

00:38:49.960 as a general election.

00:38:51.600 Of course,

00:38:51.940 they'd hate the Reform Party.

00:38:53.900 But they really don't care

00:38:55.340 if Labour win or not anymore

00:38:56.340 because they've become

00:38:57.320 so left-wing,

00:38:57.980 so disengaged.

00:38:59.800 By the way,

00:39:00.380 there are, of course,

00:39:01.120 lots of economic reasons

00:39:02.020 for the growth of the far-left.

00:39:03.060 So it's part of a cultural thing,

00:39:04.820 but it's partly an economic thing.

00:39:06.680 The cultural thing

00:39:07.800 has also got to do

00:39:08.980 with changing belief system

00:39:10.860 among younger people

00:39:11.700 when it comes to the environment,

00:39:13.540 which they prioritise

00:39:14.460 above everything else.

00:39:16.480 You know,

00:39:16.900 even they say

00:39:18.080 they don't have children,

00:39:18.840 for example,

00:39:19.280 because they care so much

00:39:20.380 about the environment.

00:39:21.640 But also,

00:39:22.820 you've got the whole

00:39:23.600 cultural rejection

00:39:25.380 of nation-states.

00:39:26.400 So these people

00:39:27.080 believe in open borders,

00:39:28.840 they believe that,

00:39:29.720 you know,

00:39:30.060 you should have

00:39:30.620 unlimited immigration,

00:39:31.600 that citizenship's meaningless.

00:39:33.240 So all those sorts of things.

00:39:34.820 But then you've got

00:39:35.460 the economics.

00:39:36.360 The economics is probably

00:39:37.380 largely about two things.

00:39:39.060 One,

00:39:39.480 housing availability.

00:39:41.200 There's just not enough homes

00:39:42.540 built in this country

00:39:43.900 given the explosion

00:39:45.780 in the size of the population

00:39:46.840 and also other forms

00:39:48.260 of social change

00:39:49.020 like people living longer

00:39:50.420 or people living

00:39:51.340 as singles

00:39:52.720 and stuff like that.

00:39:53.860 And secondly,

00:39:54.640 wages.

00:39:55.360 Wages have just not kept up.

00:39:56.520 So because these people

00:39:59.200 see that

00:39:59.720 and they don't really

00:40:00.560 have an economic theory

00:40:01.760 of how the world works,

00:40:03.120 they just assume

00:40:03.780 capitalism has failed

00:40:04.760 or lost in late-stage capitalism

00:40:07.240 or something like that

00:40:08.320 or they assume

00:40:09.200 that the rich

00:40:09.660 are taking all the money

00:40:10.460 or something.

00:40:10.840 That's what I was going to say.

00:40:12.080 It's worse than what you say.

00:40:13.040 It's that what they assume

00:40:14.360 is they've been robbed.

00:40:15.600 Right.

00:40:16.300 And there are a lot of commentators

00:40:17.980 who will tell them that.

00:40:18.860 The reason you are poor

00:40:20.040 is the rich,

00:40:21.240 the rich,

00:40:21.560 and I do think

00:40:28.880 that inequality

00:40:29.740 is a massive problem

00:40:30.660 in this country.

00:40:31.160 We can't deny that.

00:40:32.080 Yeah.

00:40:32.360 So I don't call it inequality

00:40:33.800 because I don't have

00:40:35.200 a problem with inequality.

00:40:36.120 I think inequality

00:40:36.800 is normal.

00:40:38.080 I think inequality

00:40:38.540 is good even

00:40:39.100 when it emerges.

00:40:41.320 Why is it good?

00:40:42.100 It's good if it emerges

00:40:43.360 spontaneously

00:40:44.060 from differential contributions.

00:40:46.240 If you're an incredibly

00:40:47.180 successful sports star

00:40:48.480 and tens of millions

00:40:49.660 of people are willing

00:40:50.280 to pay

00:40:50.740 your YouTube channel

00:40:52.920 or whatever it is

00:40:53.600 to watch you,

00:40:54.680 then I have no problem

00:40:55.400 with that person

00:40:55.820 being very, very rich,

00:40:56.960 much, much richer

00:40:57.780 than somebody else.

00:40:58.960 So that form of inequality

00:41:00.080 doesn't bother me.

00:41:01.500 But there's an artificial

00:41:02.640 kind of inequality

00:41:03.540 that's created

00:41:04.780 via fake policy

00:41:06.120 and that's what I object to.

00:41:07.540 And that artificial,

00:41:08.800 malign form of inequality

00:41:09.900 comes from

00:41:10.920 terrible education systems

00:41:12.900 that drag down the poor

00:41:14.020 in this country,

00:41:15.400 in the UK,

00:41:15.960 especially the white

00:41:16.720 working class,

00:41:17.360 which is terrible at school.

00:41:18.720 So therefore,

00:41:19.260 their future prospects

00:41:20.220 are massively limited.

00:41:21.500 You've got a welfare state

00:41:22.460 that's basically a trap.

00:41:23.980 The welfare state

00:41:24.740 encourages people

00:41:25.900 not to work

00:41:26.540 in many cases,

00:41:27.480 encourages people

00:41:28.320 to exaggerate

00:41:29.280 their lack of health,

00:41:30.940 for example,

00:41:31.360 especially mental health.

00:41:32.540 So that's creating poverty.

00:41:35.180 There's monetary policy,

00:41:37.160 i.e.

00:41:37.600 what central banks do.

00:41:39.100 So you've had years

00:41:40.080 and years and years

00:41:40.700 of monetary manipulation

00:41:42.080 by central banks.

00:41:42.960 Central bankers think

00:41:43.900 they're like this new

00:41:45.420 elite class.

00:41:46.720 They're almost godlike

00:41:47.560 in their beliefs.

00:41:48.240 They think that they

00:41:48.980 can just stop,

00:41:50.240 that they can create

00:41:50.980 perpetual economic growth

00:41:52.320 just by fiddling with

00:41:53.200 interest rates

00:41:53.720 or printing money,

00:41:55.140 quantitative easing,

00:41:55.880 that sort of stuff.

00:41:56.660 I think that's been

00:41:57.080 hugely disruptive

00:41:57.920 to the economy

00:41:59.080 over the last 20,

00:41:59.720 30 years.

00:42:00.460 It's put up the price

00:42:01.380 of certain assets.

00:42:02.380 It's put up the price

00:42:03.160 of housing.

00:42:04.120 It's made it much

00:42:04.900 less likely for young people

00:42:06.020 to be able to afford

00:42:06.760 to buy their own homes.

00:42:07.720 So that's another reason,

00:42:09.060 another policy creating

00:42:10.820 the wrong kind of inequality.

00:42:12.420 You've got another,

00:42:13.340 the wrong kind of inequality

00:42:14.420 simply caused by

00:42:15.600 lack of economic opportunity,

00:42:17.440 right?

00:42:18.100 If there's a lot

00:42:18.640 of economic opportunity,

00:42:19.960 social mobility

00:42:20.540 can be maximised

00:42:21.560 so people can climb.

00:42:23.660 You know,

00:42:23.980 if there's not much

00:42:24.580 social mobility

00:42:25.140 because there's not

00:42:25.820 much opportunity,

00:42:26.960 but if there's barriers

00:42:27.580 to entry,

00:42:28.500 there's closed shops,

00:42:29.680 there's laws that prevent

00:42:30.740 you from entering

00:42:31.700 a particular business area,

00:42:33.600 well, clearly that's going

00:42:34.460 to also maximise inequality.

00:42:36.140 It's going to freeze

00:42:37.740 the society in that aspect.

00:42:39.420 And again,

00:42:40.300 that will hurt the poor.

00:42:41.920 So there's good inequality,

00:42:43.520 which is the by-product

00:42:44.960 of a real free market.

00:42:46.340 You know,

00:42:46.520 if you work hard,

00:42:47.200 you can make money.

00:42:48.060 If you're lazy,

00:42:48.840 you don't make money.

00:42:50.300 But there's bad inequality

00:42:51.680 that's caused by

00:42:53.420 stupid public policy,

00:42:55.380 flawed ideology,

00:42:56.320 flawed economics,

00:42:57.300 that kind of thing.

00:42:57.980 And that is a problem here.

00:42:59.280 And that is clearly

00:43:00.140 one of the things

00:43:00.860 fuelling the rise

00:43:01.780 of the anti-capitalist far left,

00:43:04.080 fuelling the omni-cause,

00:43:05.180 it's fuelling malcontent

00:43:06.760 and social chaos.

00:43:09.120 Imagine,

00:43:09.640 so let's do a little

00:43:10.720 thought experiment, Alistair.

00:43:11.800 Let's say reform get in

00:43:13.900 a sizable majority

00:43:15.060 and then we have 20%

00:43:17.580 your party,

00:43:18.800 Jezbala,

00:43:19.200 whatever you want

00:43:19.620 to call them.

00:43:20.540 How much of an impact

00:43:22.140 can they make?

00:43:23.160 How much of an impact

00:43:24.640 can they make

00:43:25.400 on reform,

00:43:26.980 on public policy,

00:43:28.200 on spending,

00:43:29.000 et cetera?

00:43:30.460 It all depends

00:43:31.580 on the professionalism

00:43:33.600 and organisation

00:43:34.300 of a reformed government

00:43:35.560 if that were to be

00:43:36.740 what materialises

00:43:38.060 at the next election.

00:43:39.260 Because for a reformed

00:43:40.420 government to succeed,

00:43:41.320 there's two very big challenges

00:43:42.620 for Nigel Farage, right?

00:43:44.640 First challenge,

00:43:45.840 win the election.

00:43:46.820 That would be an astonishing

00:43:47.820 thing for him

00:43:49.120 to win the general election.

00:43:50.360 People are starting

00:43:50.840 to speak about it

00:43:51.580 as if it's normal,

00:43:52.380 obvious.

00:43:52.900 It's not normal,

00:43:53.520 it's not obvious.

00:43:54.420 It's a massive challenge

00:43:55.700 for him.

00:43:56.520 At the moment,

00:43:57.060 it looks like he might

00:43:57.800 be able to pull it off.

00:43:58.980 But the second

00:43:59.640 massive challenge

00:44:00.480 is that he'd have

00:44:01.360 to seize control

00:44:02.300 of the British state

00:44:03.740 and actually impose

00:44:05.580 the sort of change

00:44:06.880 once in a generation,

00:44:09.160 more frankly,

00:44:09.720 once in a hundred year

00:44:10.660 level of change,

00:44:12.440 the kind of stuff

00:44:13.000 you saw in the 1940s.

00:44:15.240 A more radical,

00:44:16.740 more compressed

00:44:17.660 period of change

00:44:19.380 than even the 1980s

00:44:20.500 under Thatcher.

00:44:21.500 You'd have to change

00:44:22.100 everything, right?

00:44:22.820 Scrap tons of laws,

00:44:24.600 restructure the constitution,

00:44:26.380 complete a change

00:44:27.000 of civil service,

00:44:27.700 which is completely broken,

00:44:30.200 get rid of the

00:44:31.640 Human Rights Act,

00:44:32.520 quit the ECHR,

00:44:33.980 quit all these

00:44:34.460 international treaties,

00:44:35.740 right?

00:44:35.940 And you'd be declaring

00:44:36.680 total ideological war

00:44:38.600 on the blob,

00:44:40.860 on the ruling

00:44:41.720 dominant ideology

00:44:42.480 of this country.

00:44:43.540 And that's going to be

00:44:44.220 very, very tough.

00:44:45.000 So that is Farage's

00:44:46.620 massive challenge.

00:44:47.580 Prepare.

00:44:48.440 How can you prepare?

00:44:49.420 How can you find

00:44:50.020 lots of very talented

00:44:50.780 people outside of politics

00:44:51.980 to bring them in

00:44:53.040 so that they can

00:44:53.660 effectively launch

00:44:55.140 a hostile takeover

00:44:56.260 of the British state

00:44:58.020 after the general election

00:44:59.380 and actually push

00:45:00.640 through change

00:45:01.100 rather than be defeated?

00:45:02.120 Like Liz Truss came along

00:45:03.600 and she was crushed.

00:45:05.080 She was gone within weeks.

00:45:06.340 How do you avoid

00:45:07.180 that sort of scenario?

00:45:08.220 Trump won in America,

00:45:09.800 was largely defeated

00:45:10.800 by the blob,

00:45:12.420 by the civil service

00:45:14.040 and so on.

00:45:15.100 And Trump too,

00:45:16.220 on the other hand,

00:45:16.960 has seized control

00:45:17.800 of the machinery of state.

00:45:19.040 He was very well prepared

00:45:19.980 in advance.

00:45:21.140 You know,

00:45:21.320 he had orders

00:45:22.340 that he was just ready

00:45:23.080 to sign on day one,

00:45:24.060 day two,

00:45:24.420 day three and so on.

00:45:25.460 That's how you do it.

00:45:26.960 But you need quality people

00:45:28.440 and there's not enough

00:45:29.560 quality people

00:45:30.140 currently in British politics.

00:45:31.220 There's some quality people

00:45:32.340 in the Conservative Party.

00:45:33.720 We must hope

00:45:34.300 that everyone on the right

00:45:35.520 kind of unites

00:45:36.200 in some sort of way

00:45:37.200 so that at least

00:45:38.940 there's enough.

00:45:39.080 You talk to a lot of people

00:45:40.240 in both the reform

00:45:41.340 and the Conservatives.

00:45:43.020 It's my,

00:45:44.840 I think about these things

00:45:46.700 logically,

00:45:47.260 which usually fails me

00:45:48.280 because a lot of the

00:45:48.900 human behaviour

00:45:49.740 is not very logical.

00:45:50.780 But logically,

00:45:51.820 I would think

00:45:52.680 as reform,

00:45:53.920 if reform continues

00:45:55.220 to do well

00:45:56.100 and the Conservatives

00:45:57.860 continue to struggle,

00:45:58.920 you would imagine

00:46:00.080 that many of the people

00:46:01.180 within the Conservative Party

00:46:02.460 would jump ship

00:46:03.300 because it would be

00:46:03.900 the logical thing to do.

00:46:05.040 Do you sense that

00:46:06.060 that is what will happen?

00:46:07.180 I think it will happen,

00:46:08.840 but it's not really happened

00:46:10.520 in any major way yet.

00:46:12.880 No.

00:46:13.080 The reason is

00:46:13.660 they're just biding their time.

00:46:15.200 I mean,

00:46:15.440 their strategy

00:46:16.100 is that they think

00:46:17.100 there's no need

00:46:18.360 for them to move fast.

00:46:20.600 They don't think

00:46:21.340 there's a first move

00:46:21.980 of advantage in doing that.

00:46:23.380 They think there's

00:46:23.840 a first move of cost

00:46:25.100 because, you know,

00:46:26.000 everyone will hate you,

00:46:26.760 your old friends

00:46:27.280 will hate you,

00:46:27.680 that sort of stuff.

00:46:28.280 It's better to wait

00:46:28.920 until other people

00:46:29.520 do it first.

00:46:30.460 There's a danger there

00:46:31.260 because Farage is trying

00:46:33.560 to bring in people

00:46:34.260 from outside politics

00:46:35.100 so if you're not careful,

00:46:36.320 he's going to found new people

00:46:37.400 before those Tories

00:46:38.300 actually join him.

00:46:39.260 But I think on balance,

00:46:41.180 his big challenge now

00:46:42.780 is to further expand

00:46:44.380 his share of the vote

00:46:45.100 and that now means

00:46:46.240 further shrinking

00:46:47.520 the Tory share of the vote

00:46:49.160 which remains

00:46:49.840 still quite high

00:46:50.900 at about 18%.

00:46:51.860 So I think, yes,

00:46:53.360 more Tories

00:46:53.800 will probably join reform.

00:46:55.240 The problem

00:46:55.520 with the Conservative Party

00:46:56.260 is basically one-third

00:46:57.540 of the Conservative Party

00:46:58.520 are real Conservatives,

00:47:00.840 you know,

00:47:01.040 free mortis,

00:47:01.820 Conservatives,

00:47:02.340 Libertarians,

00:47:02.680 whatever,

00:47:03.720 coalition of those

00:47:04.540 kinds of people.

00:47:05.440 A third are centrists,

00:47:06.980 they're basically careerists,

00:47:08.180 they do whatever

00:47:08.700 the party leader

00:47:09.420 tells them to do.

00:47:10.440 And a third are basically

00:47:11.440 Liberal Democrats,

00:47:12.320 Social Democrats,

00:47:13.220 who basically

00:47:13.840 are not Conservative,

00:47:15.280 you know,

00:47:16.140 who were against Brexit,

00:47:17.460 who like international

00:47:19.100 human rights treaties,

00:47:20.680 who like all that

00:47:21.640 sort of stuff.

00:47:22.100 So that party

00:47:24.020 was always a completely

00:47:25.260 unstable coalition,

00:47:26.360 which has basically

00:47:26.940 ruined the last few years

00:47:28.180 of their government.

00:47:29.640 But, I mean,

00:47:29.960 every party

00:47:30.680 is an unstable coalition

00:47:32.120 in some form or another,

00:47:33.720 surely, Alison.

00:47:34.400 I mean, Labour

00:47:34.900 is an unstable coalition.

00:47:36.480 Yes, no,

00:47:37.000 you're right about that.

00:47:38.020 But I think

00:47:38.600 there was really,

00:47:41.000 really striking

00:47:42.240 ideological differences

00:47:43.600 within the Conservative Party

00:47:44.840 on essential questions.

00:47:46.780 If you go to the Labour Party,

00:47:48.300 they all believe

00:47:48.900 that the state is good,

00:47:50.180 that the NHS is good,

00:47:51.420 the government needs to grow,

00:47:53.020 paying taxes is a good thing,

00:47:54.480 right?

00:47:54.720 But they disagree

00:47:55.260 about the details.

00:47:56.680 In the Conservative Party,

00:47:57.600 they literally disagreed

00:47:58.580 about everything.

00:47:59.400 They disagreed

00:47:59.820 about first principles.

00:48:01.060 They disagreed

00:48:01.540 about philosophy.

00:48:02.280 You know,

00:48:02.420 do you join the EU?

00:48:03.260 Do you leave the EU?

00:48:04.320 Should you have a wealth tax?

00:48:05.900 Yes, some Tories

00:48:06.540 believe in a wealth tax.

00:48:08.280 Or do you not have a wealth tax?

00:48:09.720 Should you cut tax?

00:48:10.580 Should you put up tax?

00:48:11.300 I mean,

00:48:11.480 these are hugely

00:48:12.340 consequential differences.

00:48:13.960 I think they're

00:48:14.420 non-reconcilable differences,

00:48:16.540 which I think,

00:48:17.660 if reform want to have

00:48:19.380 any chance of succeeding,

00:48:20.580 they need to make sure

00:48:21.360 that they are united

00:48:22.240 on all the basic principles,

00:48:23.540 at least.

00:48:23.800 But, you know,

00:48:24.980 you look at reform,

00:48:25.840 is it Jake Berry

00:48:26.860 who has transitioned

00:48:28.800 over to reform?

00:48:30.540 And you go,

00:48:30.980 this guy's a proponent

00:48:32.140 of net zero.

00:48:33.080 You know,

00:48:33.300 he's a big fan.

00:48:34.220 You go,

00:48:34.560 what's happening here?

00:48:36.180 Surely that's fundamentally

00:48:37.400 incompatible.

00:48:38.640 You've got to hope

00:48:39.300 that he was in the second category,

00:48:40.900 the centrist,

00:48:42.260 careerist category,

00:48:43.040 and that he's changed his mind.

00:48:44.000 Isn't that worse?

00:48:45.380 Right, well,

00:48:46.040 look,

00:48:46.480 that is,

00:48:47.060 well,

00:48:47.260 reform faced two problems.

00:48:48.740 Reform faced a number

00:48:49.660 of possible risks.

00:48:50.940 One of the risks

00:48:51.600 is that they become

00:48:52.360 another concerted party,

00:48:53.760 you know,

00:48:55.060 and so,

00:48:56.060 you know,

00:48:56.300 they better not do that.

00:48:57.280 Another risk,

00:48:57.820 of course,

00:48:58.060 is they don't find

00:48:58.560 enough competent people,

00:49:00.060 you know,

00:49:01.260 and there's other risks,

00:49:02.380 or that they inadvertently

00:49:04.520 attract some dodgy people,

00:49:06.380 which for us

00:49:07.000 is obviously very keen

00:49:07.800 not to happen.

00:49:09.820 In an era

00:49:10.560 when free expression

00:49:11.620 feels under threat,

00:49:12.660 the Battle of Ideas

00:49:13.820 festival stands out.

00:49:15.500 Its motto is

00:49:16.500 conversations for the public,

00:49:18.380 with the public,

00:49:19.240 in public.

00:49:20.380 Co-organizers

00:49:21.180 Alistair Donald

00:49:21.980 and Ella Whelan

00:49:22.900 say the festival

00:49:23.700 aims to tackle everything

00:49:25.100 from the vibe shift

00:49:26.500 of a second Trump presidency

00:49:28.000 to the fracturing

00:49:29.340 of global alliances

00:49:30.340 and the challenges

00:49:31.500 of economic

00:49:32.260 and tech innovation.

00:49:33.840 Over two-pack days,

00:49:35.100 the 18th and the 19th of October

00:49:36.860 at Church House in London,

00:49:38.480 you can join around

00:49:39.580 a hundred discussions

00:49:40.620 on politics,

00:49:41.560 science,

00:49:41.980 culture,

00:49:42.340 law,

00:49:42.520 and more.

00:49:43.380 We at Trigonometry

00:49:44.040 are regular attendees

00:49:45.140 at the Battle of Ideas.

00:49:46.620 It's one of the few places

00:49:47.980 where we know

00:49:48.660 we'll find proper debate,

00:49:50.260 lively discussion,

00:49:51.180 and people unafraid

00:49:52.140 to speak their minds.

00:49:53.660 If you believe

00:49:54.240 in free debate

00:49:54.940 and want to explore

00:49:55.820 the toughest issues

00:49:56.780 facing society,

00:49:58.140 this festival

00:49:58.920 is for you.

00:50:00.180 Put your tickets

00:50:00.800 at battleofideas.org.uk

00:50:03.100 and use code

00:50:04.480 TRIGGER25

00:50:05.720 for a 20% discount

00:50:07.660 on all tickets.

00:50:08.920 That's

00:50:09.140 battleofideas.org.uk.

00:50:12.680 Let's go back

00:50:13.520 to my original question,

00:50:14.580 which is

00:50:15.060 the 20%

00:50:15.900 your party

00:50:16.480 Jezbel are.

00:50:17.480 How much of an impact

00:50:18.900 and effect

00:50:19.480 can they have

00:50:20.160 on UK politics

00:50:21.100 and the way

00:50:21.460 we run this country?

00:50:22.340 They can have

00:50:22.600 a very large effect

00:50:24.160 on British politics

00:50:25.060 but not necessarily

00:50:26.000 on what happens

00:50:26.840 in terms of public policy

00:50:27.840 and in terms of the government.

00:50:29.060 If you've got a strong,

00:50:29.980 well-organised,

00:50:30.740 majority government,

00:50:32.080 then government

00:50:32.620 could ignore those people,

00:50:34.380 fight them

00:50:34.920 on the airwaves

00:50:36.120 in terms of argument,

00:50:37.740 set the debate,

00:50:39.000 shift,

00:50:39.840 you know,

00:50:40.380 shift sentiment

00:50:41.320 in a more

00:50:42.240 right-waist direction,

00:50:44.500 that kind of thing.

00:50:45.840 But if you've got

00:50:47.020 a far-left party

00:50:47.680 at 20%,

00:50:48.380 clearly it will

00:50:49.240 make a big impact

00:50:50.100 in terms of

00:50:50.560 grassroots movements

00:50:51.680 and in terms of

00:50:52.780 the long-term

00:50:53.940 political structure

00:50:54.640 of this country,

00:50:55.340 yes.

00:50:55.580 So let's,

00:50:57.160 I love your articles,

00:50:59.240 Alistair.

00:50:59.620 I really do.

00:51:00.320 I think they're

00:51:01.260 really well-written.

00:51:02.540 They're a little bit spicy,

00:51:04.500 slightly provocative

00:51:05.420 at times,

00:51:06.380 which I like.

00:51:07.620 That's great.

00:51:08.320 Which I very much enjoy.

00:51:09.920 There was one article

00:51:11.120 in particular

00:51:11.860 that stood out,

00:51:12.800 which was,

00:51:13.460 you used the phrase

00:51:14.440 anarcho-tyranny

00:51:15.500 and you were saying

00:51:16.540 this country is descending

00:51:17.820 or is in the process

00:51:18.900 of descending

00:51:19.380 into a state

00:51:20.480 of anarcho-tyranny.

00:51:21.860 James O'Brien

00:51:22.560 was frothing at the mouth,

00:51:23.680 which personally

00:51:24.120 made us all very happy.

00:51:25.300 Yeah, no,

00:51:25.700 I was quite happy

00:51:26.280 about that.

00:51:27.400 So explain what you mean

00:51:28.900 to me,

00:51:29.340 what you mean by that,

00:51:30.220 because when I read

00:51:30.800 the article,

00:51:31.380 I was like,

00:51:31.680 oh, this is a bit far.

00:51:32.840 And then the more I read,

00:51:34.480 the more my blood

00:51:35.780 started to chill slightly.

00:51:37.460 Obviously,

00:51:37.820 I was tongue-in-cheek

00:51:38.560 slightly.

00:51:39.260 Yeah.

00:51:39.920 But the serious point is

00:51:42.540 this country is a weird

00:51:44.220 mix of chaos,

00:51:46.100 lawlessness,

00:51:47.480 hard-working,

00:51:49.060 law-abiding people

00:51:49.940 being criminalised

00:51:51.740 because of some

00:51:52.540 dumb tweet

00:51:53.180 that they might have

00:51:53.680 put out

00:51:54.120 or something they've said

00:51:55.180 that sort of stuff.

00:51:56.220 You know,

00:51:56.480 massive amount of shoplifting,

00:51:57.820 people getting their mobile phones

00:51:58.920 stolen,

00:51:59.400 that sort of thing,

00:52:00.360 graffiti,

00:52:01.280 litter,

00:52:02.240 nothing's working.

00:52:03.220 So that's the chaos bit,

00:52:04.380 the anarchy bit.

00:52:05.360 And the tyranny bit

00:52:06.220 is basically

00:52:07.300 that this kind of

00:52:09.000 increasing oppression

00:52:10.200 in certain areas.

00:52:12.120 And obviously,

00:52:12.860 the war on free speech

00:52:13.640 is a very important

00:52:15.000 part of that.

00:52:16.520 In other words,

00:52:17.540 the government

00:52:18.160 can't keep the peace

00:52:19.520 and can't put criminals

00:52:21.020 in jail,

00:52:21.480 but it can put you

00:52:22.420 in jail

00:52:22.980 if you're Graham Linehan.

00:52:24.580 Yeah,

00:52:24.760 that is exactly right

00:52:26.320 and that is a tragic situation.

00:52:27.980 It's a study in contrasts

00:52:30.180 and it's not one

00:52:30.960 that I like.

00:52:31.660 I don't think

00:52:32.180 that's the direction

00:52:32.720 this country should go in.

00:52:34.120 I think it's very,

00:52:34.700 very dangerous.

00:52:35.800 I think the free speech thing

00:52:37.280 isn't a joke.

00:52:38.260 I think it's very serious.

00:52:39.640 I think it's a travesty

00:52:40.720 that so many people

00:52:41.440 are being prosecuted

00:52:42.200 for what they're saying.

00:52:43.360 I think the whole world

00:52:44.340 is noticing.

00:52:45.580 Things have gone wrong

00:52:46.520 over the last 20 years,

00:52:47.420 basically.

00:52:48.080 Some of this stuff

00:52:48.580 was originally

00:52:49.000 well-intentioned,

00:52:49.940 blah, blah, blah,

00:52:50.480 right, clearly.

00:52:52.300 But I think,

00:52:53.140 unfortunately,

00:52:54.860 it's gone terribly wrong.

00:52:56.060 And I think the only solution

00:52:57.100 is to adopt

00:52:58.560 a US-style protection

00:53:01.600 for free speech,

00:53:03.420 by which I mean

00:53:04.260 the kinds of rules.

00:53:05.260 I don't mean the First Amendment

00:53:06.320 because you can't do that

00:53:07.200 in Britain.

00:53:07.660 We don't have

00:53:08.060 a written constitution.

00:53:09.200 You can pass a law,

00:53:10.340 but it's never going to be

00:53:11.320 a part of the constitution.

00:53:12.940 But you should pass a law

00:53:14.280 protecting free speech.

00:53:15.260 You should basically copy

00:53:16.320 the rulings of the US Supreme Court,

00:53:18.660 their guidance,

00:53:19.840 when it comes to

00:53:20.640 what should be legal

00:53:21.320 and what should not be legal.

00:53:22.400 Because obviously in America,

00:53:23.680 yeah, even in America,

00:53:24.940 some forms of speech,

00:53:25.940 if they're inciting immediate

00:53:27.560 and likely violence,

00:53:29.340 obviously you can't do that.

00:53:30.960 You can't shout fire

00:53:32.120 in a crowded theatre,

00:53:33.060 that sort of thing.

00:53:34.280 But other than that,

00:53:35.400 all speech should be permissible.

00:53:37.720 But what's really worrying

00:53:38.780 is talking about free speech.

00:53:41.180 We saw Zach Polanski,

00:53:42.620 the new head of,

00:53:43.360 the new leader

00:53:43.840 of the Green Party,

00:53:45.500 on, I think it was,

00:53:47.120 Newsnight,

00:53:48.240 and they were talking

00:53:48.980 about the arrest

00:53:49.580 of Graham Linehan

00:53:50.240 and he said he's supporting it.

00:53:52.380 Now I accept

00:53:53.140 proportionality of police response

00:53:54.700 is a conversation

00:53:55.440 we need to have.

00:53:56.160 Well, do you think

00:53:56.900 this was proportionate?

00:53:58.400 I think it was proportionate

00:53:59.540 to arrest him.

00:54:00.260 I think there's a pattern here.

00:54:01.060 Five armed police officers

00:54:02.240 turning up.

00:54:02.700 Well, that's the bit

00:54:03.400 that I don't understand

00:54:04.240 why they were armed.

00:54:04.960 And again,

00:54:05.560 I'd need to hear

00:54:06.040 about the police response.

00:54:06.840 I think there were five,

00:54:07.580 presumably.

00:54:08.740 I mean, this is a new phenomenon,

00:54:10.300 which is left-wing

00:54:11.380 political operators

00:54:12.340 openly being authoritarian,

00:54:14.720 openly calling

00:54:15.520 for the arrests

00:54:16.300 of people who say

00:54:17.960 things they don't like.

00:54:19.280 And let's be clear,

00:54:20.160 Graham Linehan said

00:54:20.780 nothing wrong.

00:54:21.680 It was not offensive.

00:54:23.000 There's absolutely

00:54:23.500 nothing wrong

00:54:24.100 in what he said, right?

00:54:25.420 That was a case

00:54:26.360 of persecution

00:54:27.120 that was entirely unfair.

00:54:28.620 It was entirely wrong.

00:54:29.360 There's no defence for this.

00:54:30.540 And obviously in America,

00:54:31.440 you'd be laughed

00:54:32.240 out of court, right?

00:54:33.060 Obviously,

00:54:33.380 that would never be prosecuted.

00:54:35.560 And I think it's very worrying

00:54:37.000 that the far left

00:54:37.720 is becoming so authoritarian.

00:54:39.700 But it is, right?

00:54:41.000 What starts with speech

00:54:42.520 goes on with other things.

00:54:43.720 I mean, the far left

00:54:44.460 wants to shut down

00:54:45.260 private schools.

00:54:46.000 They don't want to allow people

00:54:46.680 to educate their children

00:54:47.480 the way they want.

00:54:48.520 They want to tax them,

00:54:50.620 expropriate their property.

00:54:52.100 They want a wealth,

00:54:53.540 confiscate their wealth,

00:54:54.380 that sort of stuff.

00:54:54.880 And they don't want them

00:54:55.760 to be allowed to say

00:54:56.420 what they want.

00:54:57.020 That is not a liberal movement,

00:54:58.640 right?

00:54:59.320 The woke-infused far left

00:55:01.220 is a very dangerous

00:55:02.420 set of people

00:55:05.540 and very dangerous

00:55:06.280 set of parties.

00:55:07.520 I mean, don't forget,

00:55:08.100 on free speech,

00:55:09.020 the woke believe

00:55:09.620 that speech is basically violence.

00:55:11.560 And they believe

00:55:12.220 on an inherently racist

00:55:13.400 and oppressive society.

00:55:14.940 And that the only people

00:55:16.520 who've got the ability

00:55:17.440 to say anything

00:55:18.000 are actually oppressors.

00:55:19.600 And this is a very,

00:55:20.760 very twisted way

00:55:21.600 of looking at the world.

00:55:23.260 And it's a total rejection

00:55:24.620 of Western values.

00:55:25.980 The far left

00:55:26.600 is anti-Western.

00:55:27.920 Now, by the way,

00:55:29.020 there's the growth

00:55:30.000 of fascism

00:55:30.940 on certain fringes

00:55:32.320 in America,

00:55:32.840 for example.

00:55:33.400 I totally against that also.

00:55:34.480 That's also very,

00:55:35.300 very dangerous.

00:55:36.320 I agree with you completely.

00:55:38.020 And I think

00:55:38.480 one of the things

00:55:39.660 that's in stark relief

00:55:40.840 for us all today,

00:55:42.840 because we're recording this

00:55:44.340 the day after Charlie Kirk

00:55:45.620 was murdered in America,

00:55:46.880 is we don't yet know,

00:55:48.980 and we may know

00:55:49.500 by the time this episode

00:55:50.320 is released,

00:55:50.900 who it was that killed him,

00:55:52.560 what they were motivated by.

00:55:53.580 But the one thing

00:55:54.220 that I think

00:55:54.700 is we've all given

00:55:56.620 this linguistic

00:55:58.200 shenanigans a pass.

00:56:00.640 We've all said,

00:56:01.320 oh, you know what?

00:56:03.500 Some students are saying

00:56:05.100 words of violence,

00:56:06.360 but they don't really mean it.

00:56:08.040 And they're calling us

00:56:08.720 these people Nazis

00:56:10.220 or those people Nazis.

00:56:11.120 They don't really mean it.

00:56:12.500 But I think

00:56:13.240 we're now

00:56:13.900 through the looking glass.

00:56:15.720 And we now have to

00:56:16.700 actually recognize

00:56:17.560 the reality of where we are,

00:56:19.040 which is when people say

00:56:20.360 that someone is a Nazi,

00:56:23.140 or when people say

00:56:24.320 that language is violence,

00:56:26.180 and therefore,

00:56:26.740 logically,

00:56:27.820 you are entitled

00:56:28.580 to defend yourself

00:56:29.600 against that language

00:56:30.580 with violence.

00:56:31.860 We are in a very,

00:56:33.520 very bad place.

00:56:34.760 Yes.

00:56:34.960 And I think it's time

00:56:36.020 where I really,

00:56:37.420 really agree

00:56:38.340 with what you've said today

00:56:39.420 is it's time

00:56:41.140 to stop pretending

00:56:42.240 that these words

00:56:43.220 don't mean

00:56:43.840 what the words mean.

00:56:45.700 I'm a journalist.

00:56:47.040 I can tell you

00:56:47.580 words mean what they mean.

00:56:49.480 Words matter, right?

00:56:50.880 It's all in the words.

00:56:52.220 And the far-left ideology

00:56:53.980 that is generally known

00:56:55.420 as wokeism

00:56:56.060 or whatever you want

00:56:57.060 to call it,

00:56:57.920 is a very bad

00:56:58.960 set of beliefs.

00:57:01.060 It's a belief

00:57:03.780 that completely demolishes

00:57:05.100 every single foundation

00:57:06.200 of Western society,

00:57:07.000 and it was designed

00:57:07.740 to do so, right?

00:57:08.980 And Marxism

00:57:10.400 only destroyed

00:57:11.140 part of society.

00:57:12.980 This is a comprehensive

00:57:14.160 destruction

00:57:14.700 of all aspects

00:57:15.680 of Western society,

00:57:16.800 everything.

00:57:17.700 And it needs to be fought.

00:57:19.000 It needs to be taken

00:57:19.520 very, very seriously.

00:57:20.860 The idea that

00:57:21.660 the war on woke

00:57:22.440 has been won

00:57:23.040 is wrong.

00:57:23.740 Yes, Donald Trump

00:57:24.460 is in the White House,

00:57:25.640 but that doesn't mean

00:57:26.300 that the war on woke

00:57:26.940 has been won.

00:57:27.780 In Britain,

00:57:29.040 wokeery is still

00:57:29.660 a very dominant ideology.

00:57:30.960 It's still the official

00:57:31.700 ideology of the public sector,

00:57:33.220 right?

00:57:33.380 The police are arresting people

00:57:35.100 for having said something

00:57:36.700 that someone thinks

00:57:37.440 isn't very nice.

00:57:38.640 This is very dangerous.

00:57:40.040 And as you say...

00:57:40.760 Let me challenge you

00:57:41.660 a little bit on that,

00:57:42.460 though, Alistair.

00:57:42.980 Do you not think,

00:57:43.820 though,

00:57:44.360 the way I was just on

00:57:45.920 with my very good friend

00:57:47.000 James Orr

00:57:47.560 and his new podcast,

00:57:48.740 which everyone should check out,

00:57:49.800 and we talked about this,

00:57:50.780 and he was asking me

00:57:51.620 about this.

00:57:52.480 My sense, though,

00:57:53.360 is that the wokeness

00:57:56.400 was metastatic.

00:57:57.980 It was a metastatic cancer.

00:57:59.860 There was a central tumour,

00:58:01.100 and then you've got

00:58:01.840 all these other tumours

00:58:02.720 that have spread

00:58:03.260 into other parts

00:58:04.060 of the body politic.

00:58:05.520 But I do think

00:58:06.640 the central tumour

00:58:07.640 has been removed,

00:58:08.900 more or less,

00:58:10.020 which is the ideology

00:58:10.840 is bankrupt,

00:58:11.720 is discredited,

00:58:12.780 which is why

00:58:13.940 when Graham is arrested

00:58:15.160 by the police,

00:58:16.160 you have the police

00:58:16.900 coming out saying

00:58:17.820 to the politicians,

00:58:18.740 you need to change the law,

00:58:19.880 and you've got Labour

00:58:20.600 politicians saying,

00:58:21.660 yeah, I think we need

00:58:22.240 to change the law,

00:58:23.360 because the power

00:58:24.600 of the central tumour

00:58:25.620 is no longer there.

00:58:26.680 These other tumours

00:58:27.600 are starting to fall out

00:58:28.840 one by one.

00:58:29.780 Do you not think that's true?

00:58:30.760 So I think that's

00:58:31.660 slightly too optimistic

00:58:33.000 for me.

00:58:33.620 Okay.

00:58:34.060 I'll tell you why I agree

00:58:35.040 and why I disagree.

00:58:36.060 So I think the anti-workforces

00:58:38.860 have won a massive victory

00:58:40.240 when it comes to

00:58:40.760 gender ideology.

00:58:41.600 Yes.

00:58:42.440 And I think,

00:58:43.260 by the way,

00:58:44.100 that only happens

00:58:45.000 because of the sensible left.

00:58:47.260 So it's not the right

00:58:48.160 that won it,

00:58:48.660 it's a left.

00:58:49.240 It's J.K. Rowling,

00:58:50.060 she's a hero in my view.

00:58:51.280 Rosie Duffield.

00:58:52.360 Yes, and all these people.

00:58:53.400 We can go down there.

00:58:53.920 They got together,

00:58:54.680 the few people on the right,

00:58:55.760 and they managed

00:58:56.280 to defeat gender ideology.

00:58:57.740 In America,

00:58:58.340 Trump has really pushed that.

00:58:59.920 And gender ideology,

00:59:00.920 when normal people

00:59:02.020 actually understood it,

00:59:03.360 was hated,

00:59:04.200 because, you know,

00:59:04.820 people realised

00:59:05.380 how demented it was,

00:59:06.860 anti-natural

00:59:07.640 and all the rest.

00:59:08.820 So that aspect

00:59:09.860 of the woke revolution

00:59:11.520 is in retreat.

00:59:13.660 On speech,

00:59:14.880 I think Britain

00:59:15.680 is just a crazy outlier.

00:59:18.100 So the restrictions

00:59:19.220 on speech in Britain

00:59:19.880 are so ridiculous

00:59:20.680 that they've overreached.

00:59:23.200 So there is going

00:59:23.840 to be a backlash.

00:59:24.900 But I don't really think

00:59:26.840 that the overall ideology

00:59:27.980 has been properly damaged.

00:59:29.800 Because when you look

00:59:31.000 at the arguments,

00:59:31.980 people say,

00:59:32.600 okay, fine,

00:59:33.160 in this particular case,

00:59:34.140 we shouldn't have arrested

00:59:34.880 this person.

00:59:35.800 But nonetheless,

00:59:36.480 in all these other cases,

00:59:37.820 it's still valid.

00:59:38.700 And I don't think

00:59:39.340 that's a proper defence

00:59:40.140 of free speech.

00:59:40.880 That's just

00:59:41.580 a sort of recalibration.

00:59:43.960 It's the woke overreach,

00:59:45.540 so now they are

00:59:46.340 kind of slightly

00:59:47.240 moving back.

00:59:48.920 And then I think

00:59:49.460 there's other areas

00:59:50.300 where the woke ideology

00:59:51.280 is still completely

00:59:52.020 out of control.

00:59:52.720 For example,

00:59:53.720 this whole idea

00:59:54.520 of colonialism

00:59:56.080 and settler states

00:59:58.940 and exploitation

00:59:59.840 and paying reparations

01:00:01.500 for slavery

01:00:02.020 and all that sort of stuff.

01:00:02.920 That is still growing.

01:00:04.600 That has not been defeated.

01:00:06.400 And the entire

01:00:07.100 left-wing hatred

01:00:08.340 of Israel,

01:00:09.080 for example,

01:00:09.780 is based specifically

01:00:10.780 on that ideology.

01:00:11.860 That ideology defines

01:00:13.260 Israel as a settler state,

01:00:15.000 which by definition,

01:00:16.500 axiomatically,

01:00:17.840 is committing a genocide.

01:00:19.580 You don't have to prove it.

01:00:20.440 You don't have to show

01:00:20.940 any evidence.

01:00:21.600 It's just happening

01:00:22.160 by definition.

01:00:23.620 And those people

01:00:24.600 also think that America

01:00:25.660 and Australia

01:00:26.140 and New Zealand

01:00:26.640 and Canada

01:00:27.120 are invalid constructs.

01:00:29.220 And that stuff's

01:00:30.080 gaining ground.

01:00:31.360 And so, you know,

01:00:32.680 I look at the world

01:00:33.460 and I see,

01:00:34.480 OK,

01:00:35.040 the woke are not

01:00:35.700 winning every battle

01:00:36.560 and they're being

01:00:37.900 pushed back in some areas,

01:00:39.300 even defeated

01:00:39.820 when it comes to

01:00:40.340 woke ideology,

01:00:41.040 but our side

01:00:42.960 is not winning

01:00:43.480 on everything.

01:00:44.080 And also,

01:00:44.500 by the way,

01:00:44.740 on economics,

01:00:45.580 right?

01:00:46.100 I think more and more

01:00:47.500 young people in America,

01:00:48.860 in this country,

01:00:49.560 elsewhere,

01:00:50.180 are describing themselves

01:00:50.940 as socialists.

01:00:52.320 And that's,

01:00:52.740 of course,

01:00:53.220 you know,

01:00:53.460 Marxism,

01:00:54.360 traditional Marxism

01:00:55.320 is basically

01:00:55.820 the economic wing

01:00:56.840 of the woke movement.

01:00:58.600 That's how it all started,

01:00:59.740 but that still remains essential.

01:01:01.360 In New York,

01:01:01.940 you've got that socialist

01:01:03.480 candidate who's probably

01:01:04.500 going to win.

01:01:05.340 Zoram Amdani.

01:01:06.160 Indeed, yes.

01:01:07.000 And he's a woke

01:01:07.940 revolutionary, basically,

01:01:09.560 and he's now going to

01:01:10.500 launch it on economics.

01:01:12.160 On crime,

01:01:12.960 even on crime,

01:01:14.220 you know,

01:01:14.920 of course,

01:01:15.380 there's been pushback

01:01:16.100 and, you know,

01:01:17.040 everybody realizes it.

01:01:18.180 Many people now realize

01:01:19.560 that defunding the police

01:01:21.080 is literally utter idiocy.

01:01:22.980 I mean, madness.

01:01:24.120 But nonetheless,

01:01:24.980 you know,

01:01:25.500 there's a lot,

01:01:26.360 there's still a lot of work

01:01:27.580 to be had, I think.

01:01:28.360 So, yeah,

01:01:28.860 I think it's a mixed picture.

01:01:30.260 It's a mixed picture.

01:01:31.620 Before Alistair answers

01:01:32.760 the final question,

01:01:33.700 at the end of the interview,

01:01:34.820 make sure to go to

01:01:35.700 triggerpod.co.uk

01:01:37.180 to hear him answer

01:01:38.500 your questions

01:01:39.480 and see this.

01:01:40.980 What's the most

01:01:41.820 high-impact reform

01:01:43.160 the UK could make today

01:01:44.720 that we'd still

01:01:45.620 thank ourselves for

01:01:46.680 in 10 to 20 years?

01:01:48.260 Do you think

01:01:48.700 it would be viable

01:01:49.440 for the UK

01:01:50.040 to create a sovereign wealth fund

01:01:51.600 using shale gas?

01:01:52.680 And why do you think

01:01:53.360 that net zero energy

01:01:54.480 and security

01:01:55.360 has taken over the West?

01:01:57.580 Alistair,

01:01:58.280 it's been an absolute pleasure.

01:01:59.760 Thank you so much

01:02:00.500 for coming on the show.

01:02:01.680 Last question's always the same.

01:02:02.860 What's the one thing

01:02:03.280 we're not talking about

01:02:04.040 that we really should be?

01:02:05.540 I think we're not

01:02:06.480 talking enough

01:02:07.120 as a society

01:02:07.820 about the return

01:02:08.780 of anti-Semitism

01:02:09.480 in Britain and the West.

01:02:11.840 I think that's

01:02:12.640 an incredibly dangerous,

01:02:14.260 toxic,

01:02:15.360 hateful belief

01:02:16.160 that a lot of us

01:02:17.460 thought had been vanquished.

01:02:19.540 But in fact,

01:02:20.160 it turns out

01:02:20.540 it hasn't been vanquished.

01:02:21.480 There's a poll in,

01:02:22.240 a recent poll,

01:02:23.480 a YouGov poll in the UK

01:02:24.440 which shows that

01:02:25.340 21% of the population

01:02:26.540 now are basically

01:02:28.380 anti-Semites

01:02:29.900 in the sense that

01:02:30.420 they believe in

01:02:30.880 at least four

01:02:31.560 anti-Semitic tropes.

01:02:32.960 45% of the population

01:02:34.900 believe that

01:02:36.160 Israel is

01:02:37.760 treating Palestinians

01:02:38.840 in the same way

01:02:39.960 as the Nazis

01:02:40.600 treated the Jews

01:02:41.440 which is obviously

01:02:41.960 completely absurd.

01:02:43.960 And, you know,

01:02:44.980 there's more and more

01:02:45.460 acts of violence,

01:02:46.780 more and more

01:02:47.660 criminal anti-Semitic acts

01:02:49.640 that barely go reported

01:02:50.860 anymore.

01:02:51.340 They've been normalised

01:02:52.300 and there's been

01:02:53.700 this normalisation

01:02:54.580 across the middle class

01:02:55.660 and across the elites.

01:02:56.600 And I think

01:02:57.020 there's no country ever

01:02:58.660 that has survived

01:03:00.520 unscathed

01:03:01.260 from allowing

01:03:01.900 anti-Semitism

01:03:02.440 to grow

01:03:03.920 in this country.

01:03:05.080 And by the way,

01:03:05.640 this, you know,

01:03:06.620 is not just anti-Semitism.

01:03:08.060 You know,

01:03:08.180 any country

01:03:08.760 that turns against

01:03:10.280 successful

01:03:11.720 integrated

01:03:12.780 patriotic minorities

01:03:13.880 is a country

01:03:15.320 that's going down

01:03:16.320 the drain, basically.

01:03:17.560 Do you think

01:03:17.880 this is an Israel-specific

01:03:19.720 phenomenon, though?

01:03:21.080 Or do you think

01:03:21.720 it's more to do

01:03:22.500 with the economic realities

01:03:23.980 that people are struggling

01:03:24.920 and so they're looking

01:03:25.540 for an explanation?

01:03:26.460 I think Israel

01:03:27.300 is a lightning rod,

01:03:28.900 but I think

01:03:29.560 it has

01:03:30.640 lit up

01:03:31.900 underlying

01:03:32.900 beliefs

01:03:33.860 that hadn't

01:03:34.600 really gone away.

01:03:36.300 And I think

01:03:38.120 what we see

01:03:38.680 is very ugly.

01:03:40.260 And, of course,

01:03:41.300 you can criticise

01:03:41.880 any country.

01:03:42.640 I criticise Britain

01:03:43.340 all the time, right?

01:03:44.040 I criticise the British

01:03:44.840 Prime Minister

01:03:45.220 all the time.

01:03:45.700 It doesn't mean

01:03:46.020 I hate Britain.

01:03:46.620 I love Britain.

01:03:47.900 But what the criticism

01:03:49.100 of Israel we see

01:03:50.080 is not fair.

01:03:51.940 You know,

01:03:52.540 it's not

01:03:53.220 grounded in reality.

01:03:55.200 It's hysterical.

01:03:56.920 It's incredibly biased.

01:03:58.500 There's incredible

01:03:59.780 double, triple,

01:04:00.620 quadruple standards.

01:04:02.420 It's almost demented.

01:04:04.080 And that form

01:04:05.260 of hysteria

01:04:06.040 is prejudice.

01:04:07.320 It's not

01:04:07.800 the rational criticism

01:04:09.140 of a particular

01:04:10.180 set of policies.

01:04:11.180 And that's all

01:04:12.080 feeding into

01:04:12.840 ancient hatreds,

01:04:14.460 both traditional

01:04:15.340 ancient hatreds

01:04:16.040 that have always

01:04:16.500 existed in Britain.

01:04:17.420 Britain invented

01:04:18.220 the blood libel

01:04:19.100 800 years ago

01:04:21.100 or 900 years ago

01:04:22.000 in Norwich.

01:04:22.480 And of course

01:04:24.440 also more recent

01:04:25.640 arrivals

01:04:26.160 that are sometimes

01:04:27.240 anti-Semitic.

01:04:28.140 So you've got

01:04:28.640 that combination

01:04:29.200 of things.

01:04:30.800 And what's most

01:04:31.600 scary, I think,

01:04:32.440 is the levels

01:04:33.960 of prejudice

01:04:34.440 that have crept

01:04:35.240 into, I think,

01:04:36.080 the upper middle

01:04:36.620 class again

01:04:37.320 and the ruling

01:04:38.540 elites.

01:04:39.460 And I'm very,

01:04:40.320 very worried

01:04:40.720 about that.

01:04:41.220 I think

01:04:41.580 there's a red

01:04:44.100 light flashing here.

01:04:45.540 And, you know,

01:04:46.000 I used to be

01:04:46.680 an optimist.

01:04:47.880 I used to be

01:04:48.520 like Matt Ridley,

01:04:49.180 a rational optimist,

01:04:50.020 but I now consider

01:04:50.840 myself a rational

01:04:51.460 pessimist.

01:04:52.480 I think

01:04:52.900 there's a lot

01:04:53.560 of things

01:04:53.860 going terribly

01:04:54.420 wrong in this

01:04:55.620 country and in

01:04:56.180 the world.

01:04:56.680 And I think

01:04:57.180 human nature

01:04:58.160 tends to revert

01:04:59.340 to the mean

01:05:01.260 and that's not

01:05:01.960 a particularly

01:05:02.360 good place

01:05:03.060 to end up.

01:05:04.160 Well, there you

01:05:04.380 go.

01:05:04.560 That's your

01:05:04.860 positive message

01:05:05.600 for the day.

01:05:06.580 Head on over

01:05:07.040 to Substack

01:05:07.680 where we ask

01:05:08.340 Alistair your

01:05:08.880 questions.

01:05:11.240 As an experienced

01:05:12.240 editor of a

01:05:12.880 non-French media

01:05:13.880 publication,

01:05:14.660 could Mr. Heath

01:05:15.300 offer an honest

01:05:16.340 opinion of the

01:05:17.460 political landscape

01:05:18.200 in France,

01:05:19.240 how we got here

01:05:20.260 and what to expect

01:05:21.380 in the near future?

01:05:22.480 A claims

01:05:35.260 program for

01:05:36.160 harmed Canadians

01:05:37.040 has begun as a

01:05:38.340 result of a

01:05:39.080 landmark tobacco

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01:05:41.720 regularly before

01:05:42.760 November 20th,

01:05:44.040 1998 and were

01:05:45.740 diagnosed with

01:05:46.760 lung cancer,

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01:05:49.140 emphysema,

01:05:49.960 or COPD,

01:05:51.540 you may qualify

01:05:52.320 for a significant

01:05:53.320 payment.

01:05:54.500 To learn more,

01:05:55.400 call 888-482-5852

01:05:58.980 or go to

01:06:00.020 tobaccoclaimscanada.ca.

TRIGGERnometry - September 14, 2025

Britain Is Headed For A Financial Meltdown - Allister Heath

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