00:07:05.740Yeah, because, you know, these days people think liberalism is, well, or progressivism, right?
00:07:13.440People think that slowly making everything more free for everyone is somehow liberty.
00:07:22.060But it's obviously the actual inherently by offering loads of free things via the state, you're actually violating other people's liberty, right?
00:08:55.720And coupled with a sort of almost, well, complicity in expanding regulatory framework is like a steadily growing, I don't know, wave of control over the sort of minute details of everyone's lives.
00:09:22.480And I just think, like, that's not a society I want to live in.
00:09:25.300I believe in fundamentally transferring, devolving as much power, political power, to the individual and to local communities to make decisions for themselves.
00:09:37.060Do you think, like, we're talking about liberalism and how that term has been redefined now.
00:09:40.840Do you think it's become essentially a different way of saying left wing?
00:09:44.000because i'll give you an example i was recently added to a list by chortle this comedy yeah review
00:09:50.320website of comedians who are pushing back against the liberal consensus yeah right and they had this
00:09:56.300whole list and then a guy a very good comedian gary delaney who watches our show sometimes and
00:10:02.540he read it and he went this isn't a list of people pushing back against the liberal consensus
00:10:07.140this is a list of people who are liberal pushing back against authoritarian exactly no well that's
00:10:12.160the thing. And that's why I was saying before, is that we need to reappropriate and reassociate
00:10:20.120the word liberal with the true sense of the word, actual old school classical liberalism.
00:10:28.140And because it's not a fair state of affairs that people who go around thinking that they are
00:10:39.880liberal, you know, are able to use that term and actually have successfully appropriated it from
00:10:47.520people who actually are liberal-minded. And from your brief experience of working in the arts,
00:10:53.680have you noticed that it's not the most liberal of industries, although it claims to be?
00:10:57.940Well, that's definitely, I mean, I've been doing stand-up now for, well, eight months or something,
00:11:06.440and done sort of 60 gigs or something.
00:11:13.160And I have definitely just noticed from other people's material,
00:12:02.120I mean, it's not like, it's just a weird, I mean, obviously I'm, you know, very new to it, and I'm not left-wing, I consider myself a liberal in my own heart, but I would say a classical liberal outwardly.
00:12:55.660Because I think these sorts of things, particularly such monumental decisions, it requires you to speak up.
00:13:02.300Well, the interesting thing that's happening now is actually that some of those people who are pushing back against this supposedly liberal consensus are starting to get traction because that's what they're doing.
00:14:52.140But I also think as well that it's not just that element of it, although that is a massive problem.
00:14:57.860I think as well it's that people who want careers, especially comedians who want careers in the mainstream media,
00:15:03.840they are really loathe to come out because it means that they're going against a general consensus,
00:15:08.800which as a result means that their opportunities will be limited.
00:15:11.200Well, exactly. And obviously that has crossed my mind.
00:15:17.760But I think it matters more to me that we fix society and we correct these, that we course correct into a sort of freer world than my short-term financial or career gain.
00:15:36.620but maybe and i was saying this before i am optimistic i do think you know people like
00:15:41.520yourselves going out and and and and having these conversations which need to be had
00:15:46.280is going to wake people up people will be properly woke yeah yeah well it's like you you've been um
00:15:54.220you you've kind of come out and started talking about i guess that's the freedom that comes with
00:15:59.020having a gold mine wow god i don't have a gold mine i'm kidding but this is what we should do
00:16:05.480man when trigonometry becomes a big success guys when you give us loads of money on patreon
00:16:09.240subscribe star we're gonna buy a fucking gold mine yeah yeah we're gonna go out to where ghana
00:16:14.400is it yeah well no i i i think well there's lots of there's lots of gold everywhere just you know
00:16:19.100just just uh buy low so high that's buy low but that's what that's what we're gonna do man buy
00:16:25.580a gold mine i'm jewish i've got i've got the natural skills yeah trading in precious metals
00:16:31.540Yeah, exactly, mate. You're like, I was going to make a comparison between the pig and the truffle that you just hunt it out.
00:16:37.280I really don't think that is a good...
00:16:38.620No, that's not that. It comes across as deeply anti-Semitic.
00:17:34.340I mean, there's not even the illusion of free speech now, right?
00:17:39.940People are just, I mean, the police are so politicized about this.
00:17:43.460I mean, we've got knife crime going through the roof,
00:17:45.780and they're going around chasing people on,
00:17:50.080calling people up on tweets and jokes they've told,
00:17:53.180or hate crimes, which essentially is just a crime, right?
00:17:57.880But they're trying to attach more gravitas to it by what you're thinking, right, which is the motivation for it, which is prosecuting people for their thoughts indirectly, right?
00:18:16.600We also have this hate incident thing now as well, which that is the thing that really blows my mind, which is essentially that if you do something and I perceive that you did it.
00:18:27.520Well, that's what I mean. Yeah. And the thing is, like, they can't normal crime if it's committed. Right.
00:18:33.640They have to investigate and they have to establish whether it happened or not.
00:18:36.740But with hate incidents, because they're not crimes, they don't need to establish what happened at all.
00:18:42.180So if I say you're immediately guilty. Yeah. So if I say something happened, it happened.
00:18:46.520Yeah. And then that goes into recorded statistics. And then we have an epidemic of hate in Britain.
00:18:51.920What are you talking about? Well, and then that that justifies their narrative to say,
00:18:57.260oh, well, Brexit has caused a spike in hate incidents,
00:21:51.180their worldview and and and look i think i've met a lot of people uh you know remains some of my
00:22:00.540family also um they remain and and and and i think it's a lot of people who who have have kind of you
00:22:07.340know they've done well for themselves they're on the art they've got you know you know um a house
00:22:12.740or a mortgage you know they read the ft uh and you know they they almost they almost don't want
00:22:19.720to mess with what they've got. And, you know, they've made plans for a future in the European
00:22:27.980Union. They don't want... I mean, the FT predicted that they thought that London house prices
00:22:33.040could be hit with a 47% crash in the event of a no-deal Brexit. So obviously, that's
00:22:40.980going to influence the thinking of people who own houses in London, which is, I don't
00:22:47.900think a coincidence why so many people, you know, in Parliament and in the media and people
00:22:55.260who are doing well for themselves have some London property, maybe that's their sort of
00:23:01.400side business is a bit of property development, that they're all, you know, frightened of
00:23:06.240Brexit, right, because they want to continue what they've been doing.
00:23:11.180But I think it actually kind of reminds me of de Tocqueville, right?
00:23:17.020He's saying you've got to step outside of what might be in your interest in your short-term financial interest
00:23:27.000and do what's right for society and the country as a whole.
00:23:33.920And I just think that we have to put the country first.
00:23:37.720Well, see, the thing is, like, before Brexit, I may not have agreed with what you're saying, principally because I may not share your economic analysis, right?
00:23:47.280I might think, well, I'm not sure that Brexit will be good for the economy.
00:23:50.600But now that we are where we are, I struggle to defend an anti-Brexit argument on the simple basis that we had a vote, we made a decision, we have to steer it through, irrespective of how I personally feel about it.
00:24:05.080Yeah. And actually, what's interesting is, from a statistical perspective, in any binary referenda, there will be a large portion of essentially don't knows, right?
00:24:18.800And because there's no don't know option, they will invariably go for the status quo.
00:24:23.560And I think that works out to like 32% of...
00:29:56.100And it seems, you know, it's just never good enough for some people.
00:30:02.140And, yeah, I think we've got a lot to congratulate ourselves on, you know, the strides we've made in women's liberation and, well, you know, anti-slavery and all these things.
00:30:23.340But there's still slavery and oppression of women and gays going on in so many other countries around the world, which people just don't like, you know, that's what really people should be protesting.
00:30:33.340They should be standing outside the embassies of, you know, Saudi Arabia and, well, not just Saudi Arabia, but, you know, there's so many more important things to be up in arms about which are going unchallenged.
00:30:53.940I'm pretty sure there's never been more slavery in the history of the world.
00:30:57.220No, there are more slaves in the world than there ever have been.
00:33:54.020arguments breakups and all that stuff to the point where like they call you every day to find
00:33:58.440out what's going on what you're planning on doing to check your thinking uh uh and um and so you
00:34:07.340kind of you know tell them what so it's very like intense and takes up a lot of time uh you know
00:34:12.600not just filming but you know sharing your thinking with them uh and um and so i've experienced you
00:34:21.120know how bad things could get in this country but um but uh but yeah i i think it's a weird like
00:34:27.380i mean this isn't how they would sell it but i i kind of have obviously thought a lot about it
00:34:32.260and it almost it's quite kind of post-modern in a way because it creates two realities within one
00:34:39.380reality and the the reality on camera becomes a reality in and of itself which everyone who's
00:34:45.620involved is kind of complicit in and doesn't speak about the things which they might all know isn't
00:34:51.100true, because it's kind of like in the interest of furthering the storyline.
00:34:58.400So obviously the production don't like that, but like a lot of people I know have kind of
00:35:04.520maybe had relationships of convenience and camera airtime, right?
00:35:12.420But then, you know, if you're both willfully involved in something like that, then soon
00:35:18.940it becomes real and then you're like well what is you may have got together for that reason but
00:35:24.040then you know you're still together so are you actually together i mean it's a head fuck yeah
00:35:29.080this is why when francis and i decided to do the show we made a clear distinction in the beginning
00:35:33.600that we become lovers yeah we would never let our true feelings about each other
00:35:38.100affect our professional relationship it's a tricky business yeah but it's funny to the extent to
00:35:44.740which all tv is massaged as someone who's done a bit of it i know like when you go on good morning
00:35:48.900britain it's not like you just walk into a room and start talking they want the headlines there's
00:35:53.620quite a lot of prep they call you up before when you're sitting there they're doing your makeup
00:35:57.980there's a particular person who's very clearly very skilled psychologically comes in and just
00:36:02.980chats to you as like as while it's happening yeah and what they're trying to do is tease you just
00:36:10.120past the point which you were prepared to go to so that you say a thing that's a little bit extra
00:36:16.280Yeah, because all they care about is getting their show, those clips, in the headlines, right?
00:36:22.420And they'll keep badgering you to get that point that they want that little headline snippet which they can use and get in the Daily Mail.
00:36:31.500Which I think why new media like podcasts like YouTube is having such a breakthrough because, as you say, it allows for an authentic conversation.
00:37:35.020We were kind of sort of the first shows like that, which kind of catapulted all of us into sudden, I don't know, well, I guess fame or whatever.
00:37:49.260You know, we were recognized everywhere we went.
00:37:53.240And certainly some people were stable enough to deal with that and certain other people didn't, you know, weren't.
00:38:02.980and I saw a lot of people kind of break down from the show
00:38:11.200and the sort of whole fallout from it.
00:38:32.140there's no such thing as an ugly billion yeah that's probably true actually i imagine
00:38:38.680not that you're ugly all right even the producers laughing you're fucking fired at
00:38:45.480all right but no but yeah sorry let me just finish this question right like what is the
00:38:52.660the thing that drives people crazy or that makes people go off the rails when that happens well
00:38:58.660Well, okay, so I think the nature of these shows presenting themselves and the actual end product as reality,
00:39:11.240you know, them dealing with the cast members, you know, and saying it all has to be real,
00:39:17.600it leads certain people to almost become caricatures of themselves.
00:39:21.560And when their lives become so deeply intertwined with what's going on on screen and the chaos and drama that comes with that, they kind of lose track of what is real and what isn't and who they really are.
00:39:39.900So they lose self-awareness, and it's been quite interesting.
00:39:47.380Obviously, a lot of the cast, well, pretty much all of the cast I knew before from childhood, right, from school and stuff like that.
00:39:58.480And so it was interesting to see some people and how it affected them.
00:40:05.760I'm not going to obviously name names.
00:40:08.220Well, you obviously are just off camera.
00:40:09.900It's fine, he's going to spill the beans.
00:47:23.220Yeah, so I've got a two-week run at the Pleasance Ace Dome from 11 p.m. to 12 p.m., so be there, book tickets on my Instagram from the 9th to the 25th, but not the 13th.