TRIGGERnometry - Immigration is the Most Important Issue We Face

00:00:00.000 This is of an historical, unprecedented nature.

00:00:03.600 If you've got 250,000 to 300,000 people net coming into a country every year, that is extraordinary.

00:00:19.420 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:22.260 I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:23.660 I'm Constantine Kissen.

00:00:24.700 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:30.240 Our brilliant guest today is the host of the New Culture Forum right here on YouTube, Peter Whittle.

00:00:35.440 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:36.260 Thank you very much, Constantine Francis. Great to be here.

00:00:39.620 It's fantastic to have you.

00:00:41.040 Slightly novel experience, but you know, great. All the better.

00:00:44.780 You're in the other chair now, Peter. The interrogation will begin shortly.

00:00:48.740 But no, look, it's great to have you on. You have a great program here on YouTube.

00:00:53.340 not only interviews in a similar vein to what we do but also you make documentaries and all sorts

00:00:58.580 of other stuff uh before we get into all of that tell us a little bit about who are you who am i

00:01:04.300 how are you where you are what has been your journey through life because it has been an

00:01:07.400 interesting one i thought i thought you're going to say it has been a long one it has been a long

00:01:12.280 the longer it is the more interesting it usually is as well isn't it whippersnappers no um yeah i

00:01:17.360 Well, basically, first of all, I've always been interested in politics.

00:01:22.160 I mean, I think for about 12 or 13, we had the kind of family,

00:01:26.480 my family used to talk about politics a lot,

00:01:29.900 not in a kind of terribly informed way,

00:01:32.600 but they used to talk about current events.

00:01:35.560 And I grew up in London.

00:01:38.980 I'm a born and bred Londoner.

00:01:41.180 And my parents were from Peckham.

00:01:42.900 and they moved out when I was just a baby

00:01:45.940 to a place called Shooters Hill, South London.

00:01:49.500 Yeah, I know it.

00:01:50.180 You know it?

00:01:50.760 Right.

00:01:51.240 A lot of people don't know it, actually,

00:01:52.760 but it's one of the highest points in London.

00:01:55.060 And, you know, so then I've lived and worked in London

00:01:57.840 almost my entire life,

00:01:59.620 apart from five years when I spent in Los Angeles.

00:02:02.560 But essentially, yeah, college, all of that.

00:02:07.220 um but i suppose my life in terms of work right alone has been essentially in a kind of creative

00:02:16.780 media field i think i got the tail end of when the media was sort of good when tv was still good

00:02:24.540 uh certainly for making documentaries and i used to work for something called the south bank show

00:02:30.260 which is a older viewers will absolutely know it was like a an iconic program and then after that

00:02:36.920 covered the new uh arts culture film theater all of that for um the sunday times and people like

00:02:46.360 this and and then i suppose what brought me to a point with starting the new culture forum which

00:02:52.640 we did in 2006 was that it just i did not like the way things were going i mean we didn't know

00:03:01.800 then what would be coming down the pipeline you know but this at the time I was I had this kind

00:03:08.280 of I came came back from America and I thought I don't like how this country is is going what does

00:03:17.160 that mean Peter uh because 2006 it's way before what we now call woke culture or this sort of

00:03:25.280 or not well no not really I mean there was already a kind of thing in the air you know that there was

00:03:30.720 There was a set of orthodox views, and it went through the cultural section of our society,

00:03:38.900 went through all the institutions, really.

00:03:42.200 And I'm sort of thinking, well, actually, we've got to sort of challenge this in some way.

00:03:46.920 We've got to challenge these orthodoxies.

00:03:48.680 What were they?

00:03:49.880 So multiculturalism was great, climate change, all the things that are still the case now.

00:03:57.940 immigration was an unalloyed good

00:04:01.120 also that

00:04:02.840 basically we should

00:04:04.100 not Britain was bad

00:04:06.540 but that somehow or other patriotism was bad

00:04:09.020 all of those things

00:04:10.960 which in fact pretty much

00:04:12.980 are in place now with knobs on

00:04:14.840 before that

00:04:18.360 I was still in America

00:04:19.680 when 9-11 happened

00:04:22.260 while I was living on the west coast

00:04:24.120 it was like a kind of epiphany

00:04:26.880 because I'd kind of dropped out of being interested in politics.

00:04:29.360 I used to be active in the Tory party and everything.

00:04:31.740 And I dropped out of it because I was far more interested

00:04:35.480 in my media career and doing all that stuff.

00:04:38.680 And 9-11, suddenly it was like this,

00:04:43.000 I think Christopher Hitchens said the same thing,

00:04:46.040 that it was like this epiphany,

00:04:47.400 the time has come to get serious, actually.

00:04:50.380 This was serious.

00:04:52.320 And it was from that moment on, actually,

00:04:54.500 that I really started to become much more involved again.

00:04:59.560 Started the NCF a few years after that.

00:05:03.780 That's a bit of a whirlwind tour.

00:05:05.400 A hell of a lot else has gone on.

00:05:07.040 But I mean, you know, I hope it gives you an idea of where I'm from.

00:05:10.020 And you were involved in politics directly as well at one point.

00:05:12.820 Yeah, I was, yeah.

00:05:13.480 UKIP for six years.

00:05:17.260 Six years, about 2013, I think.

00:05:20.220 And I became their culture spokesman.

00:05:22.940 people used to find that hilarious you know what culture what does that mean you know basically

00:05:27.740 they thought we would all have union jack waistcoats and you know and and all of that

00:05:33.020 bulldogs and all of that but i was asked by them you know because of the ncf new culture form would

00:05:38.500 you would you uh be our culture spokesman it was very wide it wasn't just like the arts and

00:05:43.580 everything it was all these cultural issues which you guys talk about on your program and we do

00:05:48.220 all the time, because they are the big issues of our time.

00:05:53.560 And so I did that.

00:05:55.240 And then I became deputy leader of UKIP

00:05:58.200 and then basically stood for the mayoralty in London, 2016.

00:06:04.440 Got onto the London Assembly,

00:06:06.020 that body that nobody's ever heard of, even in London.

00:06:10.100 So I was up against Sadiq Khan all the time and all of that.

00:06:14.140 But I would say with UKIP,

00:06:16.080 um for about two years in the middle of that it was absolutely fantastic it really was you know

00:06:24.700 it was we were right in the middle of and had indeed i would say caused some of the main events

00:06:31.980 of the time i did the referendum and um i think that there were very good people involved and you

00:06:39.340 really felt that uh this was something that was making a difference in fact of course it did make

00:06:44.280 a difference. So I think, particularly I think 2015-16 was a fantastic time in UK.

00:06:52.360 Peter, can I challenge you a little bit on this idea that it made a difference? Because there's

00:06:55.980 no question that the referendum was a huge event in human history, I would argue, in terms of the

00:07:02.180 cascading consequences around the world, potentially. But one of the issues we're seeing

00:07:07.200 now is one of the principal arguments in favour of Brexit was the ability to control immigration,

00:07:12.400 something that I personally, I voted remain,

00:07:14.840 but the idea that a country should control its borders

00:07:16.960 doesn't seem particularly controversial to me.

00:07:19.300 Racist.

00:07:22.520 It started with me to go on.

00:07:24.160 Yes, exactly.

00:07:25.760 But here we are now.

00:07:27.560 It's 2021, almost 2022.

00:07:30.940 Brexit was delivered.

00:07:33.280 Boris Johnson is in power on the basis that he would deliver Brexit.

00:07:37.060 Are we controlling our borders?

00:07:38.440 Of course not.

00:07:39.060 I mean, and I don't disagree with you at all.

00:07:43.960 I think that that is about something else.

00:07:49.400 We should be able to with Brexit, definitely,

00:07:54.440 or indeed, you know, actually, even before Brexit,

00:07:57.580 we could have controlled them more.

00:07:59.700 But I would say that there isn't the will to do it,

00:08:03.320 and that goes across the whole establishment, really.

00:08:05.960 and i don't know whether you remember but just i think a week ago before filming this uh it emerged

00:08:14.160 that the head of the border force was pretty anti-borders now even for someone like me who

00:08:21.280 thinks that the establishment's riddled with left liberal people even that you sort of think surely

00:08:27.220 not i mean surely not there was this guy the quote was the borders are a pain in the ass i think is

00:08:33.280 But then I think he started going on as we're all mammals or something, or we're all species or something like that.

00:08:39.720 But what it didn't do is instill any confidence that this person actually really believed in his job.

00:08:45.800 And you sort of think, well, actually, you're not about to take people on who are very, very rigorous about immigration, are you?

00:08:54.740 And that, I thought, was very, very telling.

00:08:57.920 I think that immigration is probably the most important issue, actually, that we face historically.

00:09:07.400 So it's not that Brexit was never going to control immigration.

00:09:14.020 You've got to have the will to do it.

00:09:17.440 I mean, to his credit, Nigel has been going down to the south coast and filming all of that.

00:09:24.560 But I wouldn't say that's a failure of Brexit.

00:09:27.240 it's a failure of our entire political class. Peter why do you think it's one of the most

00:09:32.780 important if I think you said the most important issue of our time? I think it is and I think it

00:09:37.800 is actually for most people it's of historic proportions I mean I'm not anti-immigration

00:09:50.120 at all I don't think I know anyone who is actually in principle and it would be hypocritical because

00:09:56.640 I went and I went to another country, you know, be utterly hypocritical. I think that what we're

00:10:03.320 seeing is, you know, this is of an historical, unprecedented nature. If you've got 250,000 to

00:10:10.880 300,000 people net coming into a country every year, that is extraordinary. We now, that is

00:10:20.300 normal now no one really even reports it very much and so many of the issues that we

00:10:29.180 talk about whether it's housing whatever it is cultural change whatever it is um all of these

00:10:35.040 things uh are absolutely um there's no point in even discussing them if you're not going to at

00:10:42.940 least look at immigration too and when i was on the london assembly for example five years i was

00:10:49.920 on it not once did immigration get discussed and london basically has been transformed by

00:10:57.000 immigration within a generation and um i think you know that economically it's incredibly important

00:11:06.100 but also culturally it's important i don't see why people should be sort of feel inhibited or

00:11:12.060 rather should i i say i do know why they should be inhibited because they're frightened of talking

00:11:17.160 about. It's the same old thing.

00:11:19.080 They're going to be called this, that, and the other thing.

00:11:21.540 So in fact, I'd say that there's

00:11:23.020 less talk about immigration

00:11:24.980 now than even 10 years ago

00:11:27.100 actually. I don't know if you

00:11:29.060 feel like that. I agree. Less talk.

00:11:31.240 It's just like, oh, well, that's just the way it is.

00:11:34.140 What it seems

00:11:34.980 to me is this. We had the referendum

00:11:36.780 which was ostensibly about immigration.

00:11:39.300 It was about controlling our borders.

00:11:40.880 It was about people saying that

00:11:42.700 actually, as an island

00:11:44.880 and as a nation, we should be able

00:11:47.040 to decide who enters a country and who doesn't. Freedom of movement doesn't work. And that's

00:11:51.240 something I believe in. And actually, my mother is an immigrant, right? And I do not believe it's

00:11:55.540 racist in any shape or form to say that. But it seems to me what we have is we have the vast

00:12:01.360 majority of the population who believe that. And then we have the government and the political

00:12:06.680 class who are not wishing to enact what the public want. And that seems to me a very major

00:12:12.880 problem in our society well it is as i say it's one of the main ones yeah but in fact you could

00:12:17.980 go through a whole raft of issues where that is the case uh where the majority of people feel one

00:12:23.520 thing uh they watch these illegal uh you know landings coming in saying what is going on why

00:12:31.880 why is it so difficult to stop this if you look back over the past year what a government can

00:12:37.760 really do when it wants to you know so you don't you could go back and say well what about the

00:12:44.160 war same thing a government can do something when it wants to and extraordinary levels of

00:12:50.680 regulation have been put in and with covid and all of that and whatever you think about that

00:12:55.920 the fact is is that it can be done and yet we can't do this simple thing we can't do this simple

00:13:02.440 thing like control our borders but what we have now is even more interesting in that we have a

00:13:07.580 home secretary who talks tough but actually doesn't seem to be controlling or isn't controlling the

00:13:12.800 borders at all whereas before we had people fudging the issue and being mealy mouthed now we have

00:13:18.380 someone who talks tough but doesn't deliver no it's uh all window dressing i'm afraid it was

00:13:24.400 it's the same generally with the this government for me uh you know when we had the cultural attacks

00:13:31.780 of last year and statues and all of that being attacked.

00:13:37.240 What did they really say?

00:13:39.000 I mean, you know, they sort of say, oh, this is bad and oh, we can't, you know.

00:13:43.180 There's no sense really in which they're taking this very seriously.

00:13:46.220 Not really.

00:13:46.940 I don't even think they understand it.

00:13:49.680 This is the amazing thing to me, Peter, and, you know,

00:13:52.620 neither Francis or I are conservative.

00:13:54.760 No.

00:13:55.640 Certainly in the party sense, we both have conservative values

00:13:58.620 on certain things.

00:13:59.400 But I thought that the political situation in 2019 when the Red Wall collapsed and working class people came over to the Tory party on a number of issues.

00:14:11.360 Obviously, Brexit was one of them.

00:14:12.840 But also, I think it was a pushback against what people now call the woke agenda, woke culture, whatever.

00:14:18.300 People felt very strongly that they were going to vote for a party that doesn't buy into this stuff.

00:14:24.500 And yet here we are two years later.

00:14:27.560 People voted for that.

00:14:28.760 I mean, if I was a Red Wall voter, I don't imagine I'd be feeling that this government is delivering.

00:14:35.100 And they'd be right to feel that.

00:14:36.920 Yeah. So the problem for me there is there is no democratic way out at the moment for people who have these concerns as you do.

00:14:44.760 No. You know, there's a lot of talk. You'll be aware, you know, if you swim in these political ponds that we're in, there's a lot of talk.

00:14:54.540 Why can't all the small parties get together?

00:14:56.700 The fact is, is that, look, with UKIP and then with the Brexit Party, I suppose,

00:15:04.160 they did what they were meant to do.

00:15:06.040 They were extremely effective pressure groups that became elected,

00:15:10.700 or at least in the case of UKIP became elected.

00:15:13.560 What they did, they frightened the Tories.

00:15:16.660 Simple as that.

00:15:17.580 Frightened Cameron because the one thing that moves these people

00:15:21.900 is when they fear for their seats, for their electoral seats.

00:15:27.660 And they saw UKIP going up and up and up like that.

00:15:31.560 So what I've been saying over the past year to anyone who will listen

00:15:34.540 is basically we need somebody to do this,

00:15:37.220 but for these issues we're talking about now.

00:15:40.940 When it comes to the Tories,

00:15:43.280 I genuinely think many of them don't quite get it.

00:15:46.360 I mean, you know, when you talk to them, bless them,

00:15:49.920 They sort of say, yes, oh, it's all a load of nonsense.

00:15:54.380 You know, political correctness has gone mad.

00:15:56.800 You know, and you sort of think you don't quite get what this is.

00:15:59.460 I mean, for me, what we're living with at the moment

00:16:02.480 is an outright attack on our civilization, actually.

00:16:07.380 And I think that they don't grasp that.

00:16:11.160 When you go further up, people like Boris and people like that,

00:16:13.840 obviously these are intelligent people, for goodness sake.

00:16:17.180 It's just a matter of expediency.

00:16:18.860 This requires real courage to actually face these sort of things.

00:16:23.480 What are you going to do?

00:16:24.180 You know, if you've got universities that don't believe particularly in free speech

00:16:29.340 and actually impose the opposite,

00:16:31.400 you've got a border control chief who doesn't believe in borders,

00:16:34.480 you've got a police force which appears to have been entirely captured

00:16:39.360 by this kind of woke mentality.

00:16:43.760 No wonder people feel, not just frustrated,

00:16:46.800 but actually sort of they feel unhelped and powerless and there's no one actually really

00:16:53.900 basically answering their fears and their worries but I think it's I'm afraid it's down to

00:17:00.660 the government in that way you know that they just simply haven't got the guts or the knowledge

00:17:07.920 really to do what needs to be done and then that is a whole different argument about what you should

00:17:14.460 do should you start new institutions should you start new universities i i noticed you've had

00:17:19.920 um catherine stockholm recently she's gone to austin isn't it university it's not quite started

00:17:24.920 yet but this is what we've got to do you believe that new institutions oh yes you're never going

00:17:30.880 to reform these things why not because um it's too ingrained now you know it's it's all of it's

00:17:40.040 too ingrained. You are just going to have to offer alternatives. Well, look, we're sitting

00:17:45.560 in one, aren't we? You know, when it comes to media, we're, you know, trying to, you

00:17:52.200 fellas, we're trying to offer something else. I would say, in fact, this is the new form

00:17:58.200 of public broadcasting, actually, stuff you would never see anymore. So there's that.

00:18:03.580 But I think when it comes to universities or, you know, other institutions, we have

00:18:08.500 got to start really seriously thinking right we've got to start creating our own things you know

00:18:14.760 very very difficult to do America tends to be much better at that kind of thing

00:18:19.440 they've got more money they've got more people willing to put their money where their mouth is

00:18:25.340 than we have but to go back to my original point yes I think you know people often tend to focus

00:18:35.380 on Boris and say, well, he's always been a metropolitan liberal and all of that.

00:18:38.920 That might well be true.

00:18:39.680 But I think a lot of it there is just simply not really the will, you know.

00:18:48.640 Whatever you think of Macron, he came out during the cultural kerfuffle last year and

00:18:58.500 said, you know, this does not happen in France.

00:19:00.920 We do not take statues down.

00:19:02.860 We do not do this, that, and the other.

00:19:04.380 the front bubble. And you sort of think, why can't our senior politicians just simply give people

00:19:11.520 reassurance in that way? And they just can't. And why is that, Peter? Who are they afraid of?

00:19:19.200 I think that they are basically afraid of the people that they mix with. Seriously. I mean,

00:19:26.360 it just comes down to that. I think also, as I said, there's a great inability to understand.

00:19:33.200 And if you were to say, like I've just said about the attack on Western civilisation, which I think is happening, if you were to say that to many senior lawyers, they would say, yes, you know, oh, and it's terrible.

00:19:47.260 They don't really, I don't think they really take it on board.

00:19:51.220 on the issue of immigration

00:19:54.460 I think it's our good old fashioned friend

00:19:56.560 fear of being called

00:19:57.880 racist or inappropriate

00:19:59.480 plus the civil service which is absolutely

00:20:01.740 solidly not on board with it

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00:20:21.220 Hey, Konstantin, do you like Christmas?

00:20:24.560 No. In USSR, we cancelled Christmas and we had Lenin Fest instead.

00:20:28.900 What's that?

00:20:29.520 We celebrated glorious leader and rewrote story of Jesus to make it better.

00:20:34.240 Really?

00:20:34.880 Yes. In our story, three wise men were killed and gifts meant for Jesus redistributed to glorious workers of the Soviet Union.

00:20:42.320 Jesus was put on gulag for having wrong opinion. As we call it in Russia, happy ending.

00:20:47.700 Right.

00:20:48.680 Well, if you do want to celebrate the festive season,

00:20:51.320 then there's only one way to do it.

00:20:53.560 Grab yourself a ticket to our final live show of the year

00:20:57.240 at the Leicester Square Theatre on Saturday, December the 11th.

00:21:01.620 Yes, it is discussion with one of our favourite guests, Aisha Akanbi.

00:21:06.260 She's almost as good philosopher as Vladimir Lenin.

00:21:09.720 Yeah, exactly.

00:21:11.700 Our two previous shows sold out completely, and this one will as well.

00:21:16.480 Grab your ticket now before it's too late.

00:21:19.720 Click on link below.

00:21:21.260 During interval, there will be special entertainment.

00:21:24.020 I will ride bare with my shirt off.

00:21:26.600 I didn't realize we were going for that demographic, mate.

00:21:29.340 Oh, yes, we are.

00:21:30.660 X.

00:21:31.900 You say it's an attack on our civilization.

00:21:35.280 Those are very bold words, Peter.

00:21:37.060 I mean, you've given a couple of examples.

00:21:38.700 You've given the universities with the problems with freedom of speech,

00:21:42.300 which I completely agree with.

00:21:43.600 You gave the example of the head of the borders

00:21:47.620 Statues

00:21:48.940 Statues

00:21:49.680 Police

00:21:50.220 Police

00:21:50.900 What else is there?

00:21:53.460 Well, I would say this is not some conspiracy theory I'm talking about at all

00:21:57.940 It's not a conspiracy theory

00:21:59.600 It doesn't have to be

00:22:00.520 I think that when you look at the way in which, for example

00:22:06.000 Creativity in the arts

00:22:09.820 Literature, film

00:22:11.920 uh paintings all of these things music um one by one they've sort of been picked off so in

00:22:19.380 america at the moment classical music is very much under the hammer as being an expression of

00:22:24.500 white supremacy right um now if you say that even though in your mind you're thinking what a crock

00:22:32.740 of crap that is to say that at the same time you'll be thinking well if i maybe go against

00:22:38.160 saying that i will get it in the neck you know from the usual people particularly if i'm on

00:22:42.240 twitter and all of that so fear plays a part but the problem is with these things is is increasingly

00:22:48.900 uh when it comes to any uh creative endeavor of the sort that underpins our civilization

00:22:56.200 um it's increasingly about you can't write about that uh you can only write or paint or whatever

00:23:06.460 it is your lived experience right that kills creativity and even though people might say oh

00:23:14.500 it doesn't really because um you know you can always say yeah no it does because also people

00:23:20.360 who might want to say something else for example are just simply not going to bother they're not

00:23:25.840 going to go go there also it leads to enormous self-censorship too i mean i think that the arts

00:23:32.320 for example could really be you know killing themselves at the moment

00:23:36.820 so and i think that you might say well people say well i don't really care about the arts you

00:23:42.880 know why should we pay for them anyway well you know i mean the fact is is that they're a huge

00:23:47.140 part of our civilization and our achievements and we're seeing them basically being chipped

00:23:52.700 chipped away at and the thing that i find really frustrating with the arts and particularly with

00:23:58.680 comedy but it goes right the way through i'm i'm a huge theater lover i love going to the theater

00:24:04.640 one of the i used to but i don't anymore yeah and i think part of the reason is is because i sit down

00:24:10.160 and i and i watch something i just want to be told a story i want emotions i want characters i want

00:24:16.460 i want to live in a different world for two and a half three hours what i don't want is a tedious

00:24:23.560 lecture and it sometimes feels that you go you go to watch these things and I'm being told how to

00:24:30.200 live and that to me is not art I don't want perfect people no I mean it's not yeah but they're not

00:24:36.580 also perfect are they that's the thing I think it I mean when it comes to I was a film critic for

00:24:41.680 what 20 years for all sorts of different people um and uh I've always loved them I've lost interest

00:24:47.520 a bit lately I have to say because I'm not interested in Marvel comics and that's the

00:24:52.440 mainstream output now isn't it yes it is and i just can't get into it but you sort of know when

00:24:57.960 you're being lectured and it's sort of got this rather wearing type of predictability about it

00:25:05.740 here we go i think that that with the theater you mentioned for example when did you last see

00:25:11.940 a political drama at the theater francis that sort of i don't know even sort of

00:25:18.420 of gave a kind of balanced view of i mean could you imagine a play which i would have thought

00:25:26.600 would be quite good dramatically actually about sort of working class people in the red wall

00:25:32.900 who voted for brexit um it wouldn't have to be just about it could be the background to the play

00:25:39.340 like you know and you've got to have a drama and everything doesn't have to be crude but the idea

00:25:44.740 that that would happen is sort of unthinkable.

00:25:46.840 Yeah.

00:25:48.040 Well, you see, that's wrong, isn't it?

00:25:50.560 It's completely wrong.

00:25:51.940 You know, I mean,

00:25:52.860 I remember when we first started the New Culture Forum,

00:25:55.620 one of the reasons I did was

00:25:56.540 I went to interview Nicholas Heitner,

00:25:58.820 who at the time was director of the National Theatre,

00:26:02.040 and he'd come out with this thing,

00:26:03.940 and he said, what we need in British theatre

00:26:06.440 is we need good, naughty, you know, right-wing plays, you know,

00:26:13.240 to mix it up a bit.

00:26:15.440 And I sort of thought, that tells you everything, that phrase.

00:26:18.360 You know, naughty, you know.

00:26:20.180 It's sort of basically, just let a few in.

00:26:24.440 And that was back then.

00:26:26.340 But I think the chances now of having real variety of thought,

00:26:31.520 you know, in something like the theatre, is just gone.

00:26:35.120 It's gone.

00:26:36.400 It's interesting you say that, Peter,

00:26:37.980 because a good friend of ours, Jeff Norcott, the comedian,

00:26:41.340 he made a career...

00:26:42.900 He was a great comic before, but he made a TV career, you might say,

00:26:46.940 by focusing on the fact that he voted Brexit

00:26:49.520 and he was the sort of humanised face of Brexit in the comedy world

00:26:53.960 where he's a lovely guy, Jeff, and so he's a lot easier to hear than maybe.

00:26:58.640 But then everyone just went, oh, okay, so we've got that covered now

00:27:02.580 and that's it.

00:27:04.520 And it seems like culture has been pigeonholed in this very narrow way.

00:27:08.980 It's interesting what you say about cinema as well

00:27:10.640 because I used to go to cinema all the time.

00:27:12.900 I used to watch the BBC all the time

00:27:14.780 I used to do all that stuff

00:27:17.100 And now I really don't

00:27:19.280 Well you see I don't know whether people

00:27:20.620 I read an article I think it was

00:27:22.760 I can't remember Celia Walden I think it was

00:27:24.840 But she wrote

00:27:25.800 She wrote an article quite recently

00:27:27.880 I thought you know that's really you put your finger on it

00:27:30.300 You wake up in the morning

00:27:32.760 What is going to be wrong with something

00:27:34.760 I liked yesterday

00:27:35.740 What should I

00:27:39.000 Feel guilty about

00:27:39.820 But you know

00:27:42.560 i feel that you know it's like one's hinterland is being scraped away so you can actually list

00:27:49.700 what don't you do anymore what don't you i mean i'm interviewed on the channel victor um davis

00:27:56.900 hansen you know we've had him on yeah and uh he was saying i don't you know i don't i don't watch

00:28:02.720 the super bowl anymore i don't uh certainly don't watch the uh news network news i don't watch the

00:28:09.040 Oscars.

00:28:10.180 That's the same for me.

00:28:11.700 I don't know about you.

00:28:12.780 I don't watch TV, mainstream TV anymore.

00:28:15.940 It's not good for your mental health.

00:28:19.500 But also just, you know, I used to like,

00:28:22.160 have I got news for you?

00:28:23.520 Yeah, it was great.

00:28:24.340 I used to kind of quite like it.

00:28:25.360 And you sort of think, no, why should I watch

00:28:28.660 and laugh along when you so disapprove

00:28:31.720 of the likes of me?

00:28:34.200 Why should I?

00:28:35.040 And it's the same when you get people in film and showbiz in America

00:28:40.440 who come out with this deplorables line and make such a fuss about it.

00:28:45.160 And you sort of think people will stop buying tickets, you know,

00:28:48.920 eventually, if you do this, if you carry on.

00:28:51.680 Because they're going to sort of, people have hardened,

00:28:53.180 their attitudes have hardened.

00:28:54.080 Why should I indirectly give you money?

00:28:58.080 You think I'm shit.

00:28:59.920 You know, it was a couple of months ago.

00:29:03.040 So I got the guys, we had a big screen in our last studio

00:29:07.240 and I got the big screen up and I put on,

00:29:09.340 I mean, it's going to sound very nerdy,

00:29:11.320 but I put on Prime Minister's questions

00:29:13.960 between William Hague and John Prescott,

00:29:17.640 Deputy Prime Minister.

00:29:19.180 And this won't say much to our American audience,

00:29:21.380 but it's fascinating to watch

00:29:23.360 because it's this very posh, extremely articulate William Hague

00:29:27.940 debating with a working class, inarticulate.

00:29:32.400 well, you could argue inarticulate John Prescott,

00:29:35.240 and they're both playing their character.

00:29:37.480 And John Prescott doesn't go,

00:29:38.960 oh, you're oppressing me, the working class man,

00:29:41.220 because you're making fun of my grandma.

00:29:42.880 He goes, well, you're making fun of my grandma,

00:29:44.620 but my judgment is...

00:29:45.620 And there was a kind of mutual appreciation.

00:29:49.900 Well, that would have been what, 20 years ago?

00:29:51.440 Yeah, it was 1998, maybe.

00:29:54.320 Well, people are still adults, you see.

00:29:56.460 Well, I was going to ask you, I mean,

00:29:58.780 that's a funny quip, but do you think maybe,

00:30:01.600 Is it social media that's done this to us?

00:30:04.560 Not entirely.

00:30:05.660 I think it certainly hasn't helped.

00:30:08.740 You mean the general deterioration in public discourse?

00:30:13.780 Yeah, like everything is fight now, and it's fight to the death.

00:30:18.900 Yes, I think that's true.

00:30:24.200 Social media is part of it.

00:30:26.180 Although there's, I think, been a slight change in the sense that, as well,

00:30:29.300 is that people, because of the kind of cult of narcissism,

00:30:34.160 they sort of feel, you know,

00:30:36.480 they're not used to being criticised anymore,

00:30:40.060 not just on social media,

00:30:41.240 but the way that many kids are brought up now.

00:30:44.540 And so, you know, there's this whole thing of, you know,

00:30:48.360 being kept safe from things that you don't like or disagree with.

00:30:52.760 It makes people, therefore, very angry when they're disagreed with.

00:30:55.940 Very, very angry.

00:30:56.900 So I think that might be one of the reasons.

00:30:58.580 And I think as well that when it comes to Parliament,

00:31:01.960 I would say there has been a kind of deterioration in colour of people.

00:31:06.860 I think very visibly, you know, over the past sort of 10 years.

00:31:13.520 I agree with that.

00:31:14.640 I completely agree with you that there has been...

00:31:16.480 Why would you go into it?

00:31:18.300 I mean, why would you go into it if you're going to have everything you've said,

00:31:24.200 you know, just brought up from like 10 years ago?

00:31:27.280 What kind of a person is still going to go, yeah, I want some of that?

00:31:31.020 And you're going to be badly paid and you're going to be criticised

00:31:33.840 for every single thing you say or do.

00:31:36.060 You're going to become a hate figure, particularly if you're on the right,

00:31:39.840 I would say, or if you're on the far left, you're going to become a hate figure.

00:31:43.320 You're going to get people sending you death threats

00:31:45.140 and rape threats every day on Twitter.

00:31:47.220 You're not being remunerated for it particularly well.

00:31:51.660 What's the appeal?

00:31:52.700 Yes.

00:31:53.280 What's the appeal?

00:31:53.960 I think it has, you know, it has deteriorated, definitely.

00:31:59.280 I don't know what, I mean, just to propose this, what we've been discussing, I don't

00:32:02.720 know whether you guys get this, I'm sure you do, but on this point of the political

00:32:07.640 class, not, absolutely not really responding to people, you get emails, don't you, and

00:32:14.020 letters, I certainly do, all the time.

00:32:16.600 And people are genuinely bewildered and genuinely just so upset.

00:32:26.080 During the whole stuff, we started this campaign, Save Our Statues.

00:32:30.480 When we did that, the visceral hurt people felt

00:32:38.040 at the kind of landscape heritage being attacked was huge.

00:32:45.320 you know

00:32:46.020 but you see

00:32:46.800 the thing is Peter

00:32:47.520 and I'm sorry to interrupt

00:32:49.280 but the reason is

00:32:50.460 is the far left

00:32:51.280 you're not the interviewer

00:32:51.900 yeah

00:32:52.200 yeah

00:32:53.240 but I know

00:32:54.160 but I like

00:32:54.980 listening to people talk

00:32:56.700 and hearing their points of view

00:32:57.660 it's why we do this

00:32:58.480 but

00:32:59.260 I think what the far left

00:33:01.180 don't get

00:33:01.800 for instance

00:33:02.240 when the

00:33:02.560 when the statue of Churchill

00:33:04.280 was attacked

00:33:05.000 my grandfather

00:33:07.360 volunteered

00:33:08.200 to go and fight

00:33:09.980 he could

00:33:10.360 he could have

00:33:11.040 he was building

00:33:11.840 mosquito planes

00:33:12.820 during the war

00:33:13.740 he was a master carpenter

00:33:14.800 he didn't have to go and fight but he volunteered to go and fight the nazis and fought right the way

00:33:22.340 from italy right the way down to north africa and fought in the battle of el alamein yeah

00:33:27.020 to basically save the west and then when i saw that statue being attacked and defaced of churchill

00:33:36.160 to me it was not only were they disrespecting my country not only were they disrespecting a

00:33:42.680 political symbol, they were disrespecting my grandfather and his memory. And they don't

00:33:47.260 understand that. They don't get that. Because to them, I think they're utopians. They want to live

00:33:54.460 in this world without borders. They want us to live in this place where we overcome racism and

00:34:00.820 all these different things. But the reality is it's not the real world. They've been indoctrinated

00:34:06.400 in utopianism. Do you not think that is? I totally get the point about your grandfather.

00:34:11.180 and i feel that when you look at the the white poppy thing yeah you know i sort of think that's

00:34:17.080 a kind of implied insult actually because it's implying that people who wear red poppy somehow

00:34:21.920 love war you know no i think the thing is really on that point francis is it's i don't think to say

00:34:30.860 that they are utopian is sort of it gives them a kind of it's it's too nice i mean in the sense

00:34:40.840 you could say oh it's great to be idealistic and okay they might get it wrong but they're idealistic

00:34:46.800 i don't think that you see i think that it's it's it's a lot of it is hate uh i think that

00:34:53.020 you know one of the things that we've talked about a lot of the ncfs or over the years is the

00:34:58.160 kind of culture of self-hatred um it attack anything which is to do with the nation uh

00:35:06.760 Anything which has to do with the traditional family,

00:35:10.000 anything which has to do with basically the way we might do things.

00:35:14.440 So in other words, I don't think they're motive.

00:35:16.680 To say that I'm, you know, it's utopian, we want to live in a world like this,

00:35:20.580 I'm not so sure.

00:35:21.760 I think a lot of it is based purely on resentment and anger and dislike.

00:35:28.420 Dislike of what they are, dislike of, you know, the country.

00:35:33.100 Do you not think, so for instance, when it comes to the BLM thing,

00:35:36.760 for example. Now, the people at the top may be like that, but there's a vast swathe of people.

00:35:42.740 I think BLM is deeply sinister as an organization because what I think they did is they exploited

00:35:48.860 black people's pain of the fact that they've had racism, particularly when you look at the

00:35:54.560 first generation of immigrants who came to this country in the 50s or 60s or 70s. They faced

00:35:59.200 awful, awful racism and prejudice. And what they did, I think, was essentially weaponize that pain

00:36:06.340 in order to try and fulfil their political ends.

00:36:10.060 Yeah, I think that I agree with that.

00:36:12.540 But I think also it's interesting because obviously growing up in 70s,

00:36:15.860 yes, Britain was far more casually racist then.

00:36:18.280 There's no good getting away from it, you know.

00:36:20.360 But it certainly isn't now.

00:36:23.380 And it seems that what's happening, it's the same with Stonewall

00:36:27.200 and the gay thing, is that essentially when things have actually

00:36:30.020 improved a huge amount, of course then people start

00:36:32.840 to lose their point.

00:36:34.760 So suddenly, it's even worse.

00:36:37.660 I mean, if an alien came down now and looked at Britain,

00:36:41.540 they would sort of think, God, what is this racist cesspit?

00:36:43.980 You know, because everywhere, in every newspaper,

00:36:47.960 you know, every newspaper, it's racism, racism, racism.

00:36:51.380 Whereas we all, I think, would believe and concede

00:36:54.020 that actually this is a remarkably tolerant country

00:36:57.540 and, in fact, certainly isn't maybe what it was like

00:36:59.960 when immigrants first arrived.

00:37:02.440 you know certainly I would say therefore that the people who protest not just BLM but just

00:37:10.620 generally what we're dealing with at the moment are people who on the whole just do not like

00:37:18.180 their culture they do they do not like their country they do not like the society

00:37:24.660 I think people who really have a strong sense of, you know, injustice and, you know, wanting to make things better for ordinary people, I think you can tell those people, those sincere people, you can.

00:37:40.040 And that used to be Labour, actually.

00:37:42.360 My parents were patriotic.

00:37:46.640 They liked the Queen, and they felt part of something.

00:37:54.360 We, they used we all the time.

00:37:55.880 Well, we don't usually, we tend not to be like that.

00:38:00.320 What they meant was the country, the British.

00:38:04.300 But they were Labour, they voted Labour.

00:38:05.940 And they weren't sort of like absolute believers in the kind of free market, evangelical, sort of evangelical, oh, the market will solve everything and all of that.

00:38:20.040 They certainly weren't.

00:38:20.880 They had a very strong sense, actually, of justice in that way, which I think was very strong in the Labour Party.

00:38:27.620 I'd say up to about 60s.

00:38:30.020 but you know and then basically you know like so many people they went over they went over to

00:38:36.140 to satire because labor was becoming already then in hock to these sort of smaller influential

00:38:46.060 groups and you know just becoming unrecognizable so it used to be low i think there was a genuine

00:38:52.100 i think in fact i find it very very moving if you go back to the beginning before you know

00:38:57.600 the very beginnings of the trade unionist movement

00:39:00.080 and also the way in which working people

00:39:03.440 used to have classes in literature

00:39:07.700 and in mining communities and things like that.

00:39:11.840 All of these things is just wonderful, aspirational.

00:39:15.060 It's good to know this stuff.

00:39:17.200 Good to know this stuff.

00:39:18.760 That's entirely gone, I think, to the point where I think

00:39:21.420 actually people probably don't even know existed, really.

00:39:26.020 Peter, let me ask you something.

00:39:27.360 because I agree with you on the resentment point, actually.

00:39:30.120 I do think this is what drives a chunk of that.

00:39:33.660 Stephen Hicks, I don't know if you've had him on your show.

00:39:35.640 He's a Canadian philosopher.

00:39:37.300 I should introduce you.

00:39:38.740 He's very good.

00:39:39.640 We're going to have him on the show very soon again.

00:39:42.700 He talks about the fact that there are different traditions on the left,

00:39:45.380 and one of them is solidarity-based,

00:39:47.880 what you're talking about with your parents,

00:39:49.400 and the other one is the resentment left.

00:39:51.520 And they've come in, undoubtedly,

00:39:53.900 and they've made their impact on the world, which is fine.

00:39:57.140 People are allowed to have whatever, in my opinion, their political views.

00:40:00.980 That's absolutely fine.

00:40:02.100 The question for me is why are these people being indulged?

00:40:08.700 Why are these people being given the opportunity?

00:40:11.400 We had, as you sit here now this morning,

00:40:13.420 there's a story that the Imperial War Museum

00:40:15.440 had an anti-Churchill woke rap performed on Remembrance Sunday, right?

00:40:25.020 Now, people are allowed to perform anti-Churchill woke raps.

00:40:28.820 That is the country we live in.

00:40:30.400 You would defend free speech, I'm sure, as much as I would.

00:40:32.860 Absolutely, yeah.

00:40:33.580 But why is that happening at the Imperial War Museum?

00:40:37.140 Like, that's what I don't understand is

00:40:39.380 I understand people having a resentful view of society,

00:40:42.620 and we've covered it on the show a lot,

00:40:44.080 the breakdown of the family, all sorts of other factors

00:40:46.460 cause people to not like their circumstances,

00:40:49.560 to be upset, to be traumatized from childhood.

00:40:52.180 That's fine. They're allowed to feel that.

00:40:54.180 Why are the adults in the room pandering to that?

00:40:58.580 Well, I would say that, you know, in the case of the Imperial War Museum

00:41:02.060 or almost any museum you want to mention,

00:41:05.980 I think that there has been, all of our main institutions

00:41:14.040 have sort of been captured.

00:41:17.020 What I think was very telling is that during the BLM thing last year,

00:41:23.720 It was the speed with which all of these institutions suddenly started saying, we're decolonizing, we're decolonizing.

00:41:31.400 You had the death of George Floyd, then you had, you know, these statues and the BLM and everything.

00:41:37.320 And then this started to happen very, very quickly, almost identical.

00:41:41.260 So they had the British library decolonizing its collection.

00:41:46.180 This is like the spine of the culture, the British library, going through the spine.

00:41:51.480 And essentially, we're going to sort of start, you know, tinkering with that.

00:41:56.260 And then you had it the same with the National Gallery.

00:41:59.100 We're looking at all of our slavery routes.

00:42:01.660 You had it with National Maritime, all of them.

00:42:04.940 And, you know, you almost, you can, there's one a week.

00:42:08.560 I would say that the same sort of people run them.

00:42:14.000 They have, broadly, they dislike, I think, our heritage.

00:42:19.640 The National Trust, of course, being another.

00:42:21.480 brilliant one um they are full of guilt um and also they tend to be quite ignorant actually

00:42:29.640 of the very thing they're meant to be curating um but i think in answer to your question that's

00:42:36.520 what it is really that the all of these these institutions obviously universities too essentially

00:42:44.120 what people feel the people who run them is essentially the same and so therefore

00:42:52.200 they were all jumping on this opportunity um and it will go on um you ask why are they being

00:43:00.260 indulged i mean i would say to you know you're talking about people with influence

00:43:05.100 and power you know aren't you i mean these people are influential they're in powerful positions so

00:43:12.560 So it's, you know, they've got the power.

00:43:16.520 They've got the influence.

00:43:19.860 All that most people can do, I think, is to just withdraw, boycott.

00:43:29.160 Or they can withdraw, for example, with the National Trust.

00:43:31.780 They can say, that's it.

00:43:32.500 I'm not, you know, I'm canceling my membership.

00:43:35.460 Or, you know, if this happens, say, like at the Imperial War Museum, don't donate.

00:43:42.560 You know, people have a lot of power in this way.

00:43:46.620 You know, if they do it on a big enough scale.

00:43:49.620 Same works for corporations as well, same for companies.

00:43:53.420 You know, I stopped using Gillette.

00:43:55.700 No, I did.

00:43:56.820 I started using this thing called Harry's.

00:43:58.820 Do you know Harry's?

00:43:59.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:59.900 It's a small thing.

00:44:00.660 They made hay while the sun shone during that period.

00:44:03.980 And good luck to them.

00:44:05.620 They've probably gone woke now too, but anyway.

00:44:08.460 Someone used to start real man razors.

00:44:10.420 No, no, but you can sort of do, I think this is one area, you know, where you can sort of like, because people say, what can we do about it?

00:44:18.140 They say, well, just stop using X or stop going to Y or withdraw your, you know, any support you give to this.

00:44:26.280 And eventually, eventually it will have an effect because money means a lot to these people.

00:44:33.520 Hey, Constantine, do you love trigonometry?

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00:45:32.740 See you there, guys.

00:45:34.740 it's sad though Peter isn't it it's sad it's tragic it's tragic to see where the BBC is to

00:45:42.680 see so what what they create the output that they make because you're you're an Englishman

00:45:48.600 I presume at one point you loved what the BBC made oh I quite well you if you were you know

00:45:53.900 people of my I was about 60 people of my generation uh you know you were shaped by the BBC

00:46:01.320 The comedy.

00:46:02.320 Well, the comedy, but also like the proms

00:46:05.420 and these great drama series.

00:46:07.880 But that is just not there anymore.

00:46:11.320 It's just not there occasionally.

00:46:13.800 We were talking before we came on about a good documentary that you saw.

00:46:17.260 You know, occasionally, but just basically,

00:46:20.480 I can't help feeling that the cultural damage they do

00:46:23.420 is now greater than any benefit, you know?

00:46:26.780 And I think what was shown now was the way in which they,

00:46:29.560 along with like the museums we're talking about last year with the proms uh they really did think

00:46:36.600 you know they did it again this is a perfect opportunity for us to refresh the way we do

00:46:41.740 last night as well because they hate i'm sure the movie hate doing the last night of the proms

00:46:46.120 oh blokes with with union with union jacks and all the rest of it so essentially uh you know but

00:46:53.620 obviously what happened there is that people uh you know rallied on social media if nothing else

00:46:59.080 but enough to make them change their mind.

00:47:01.600 Peter, do you think this civilization, the Western civilization,

00:47:09.120 do you think that you're being punished for your success?

00:47:13.520 Do you think that's it?

00:47:14.280 I think that there is a...

00:47:16.280 I think there's an element of sort of cultural envy in it, I think.

00:47:22.140 But I think it's a bit of that,

00:47:26.900 But also, it's just perhaps that we have, we've sort of basically become too comfortable in a way.

00:47:38.220 That's not to say that there isn't sort of hardship in society.

00:47:42.000 And of course, there isn't inequality more, I think, than, you know, like a few decades ago.

00:47:47.640 But I think that it is probably a lot to do with that.

00:47:50.840 but also I think it is just our kind of self-criticism

00:48:00.180 and our sort of basically self-hatred

00:48:03.820 is sort of being utilised

00:48:07.040 President Trump, whatever you think of him

00:48:13.040 he made two great speeches I think

00:48:15.560 and one of them was the one he made in uh poland in 2017 and he said the biggest question of our

00:48:23.460 time is does the west have the will to survive and i think he was absolutely correct there

00:48:29.520 to identify that because all the stuff we've been talking about um is all essentially comes

00:48:36.280 under this one banner i think i think writing civilization is a fantastic thing and it's not

00:48:43.900 without faults or whatever but the faults are always pointed out to us so i don't worry about

00:48:48.720 you know taking that on i think it's a it's a it's a wonderful thing um and i just wish that

00:48:54.280 the people who were in control of it felt the same way it seems more and more that we're and

00:49:01.520 this particularly affects the arts going back to the arts that we're operating in a culture of fear

00:49:06.380 people are terrified to put forward another point of view another way of seeing the world

00:49:11.200 particularly artistically when the industries around the arts

00:49:16.200 and the arts themselves are cripplingly woke?

00:49:19.740 Oh, well, they are particularly bad.

00:49:22.160 I mean, they always were when I was working in them.

00:49:25.040 But, you know, they are particularly bad.

00:49:26.880 I think there was some, there was a letter done to the Times

00:49:32.340 by all these big honchos in the arts during the referendum campaign.

00:49:38.500 and it was sort of like, God, thousands of them, you know,

00:49:42.260 actors, actresses or whatever.

00:49:44.340 And they were all, to a man and woman, absolutely anti-Brexit

00:49:51.740 and they put forward these sort of ideas,

00:49:54.520 oh, we're going to be impoverished.

00:49:56.280 Get this, our creative imagination as a country will be impoverished.

00:50:02.040 What are they talking about?

00:50:03.860 You know, I mean, this is, you know, the EU had been around for, what, 50, 60 years.

00:50:10.780 And hello, what, I mean, what about Shakespeare?

00:50:13.400 You know, what about Dickens?

00:50:15.100 What about whoever else you want to mention who predated the EU?

00:50:20.120 But no, this is what they sort of felt and what they wrote.

00:50:24.540 And it is sort of particularly in the arts.

00:50:28.500 Hence, you will not see that play I mentioned earlier.

00:50:30.740 or you know increasingly as well they're not going to take on radical islam are they you know

00:50:38.880 there are consequences there are consequences um so i think there's a lot of self-censorship

00:50:45.220 probably going on um and but i think the difference now and uh you know lionel shriver

00:50:51.340 she was talking about this when she came on you i know you've had on she uh saying you know it's

00:50:56.760 this stay-in-your-lane thing as a writer.

00:51:00.640 So basically, so what that means is as a white woman

00:51:05.000 of a certain age, she, you know, she cannot write about,

00:51:08.640 I don't know, an asylum seeker from Syria or something.

00:51:12.640 She can't, you know, she can't do it.

00:51:15.200 In this new kind of world in which we live.

00:51:18.680 I mean, to me, that's just absolute impoverishment

00:51:22.260 of the imagination and in every way.

00:51:25.800 It is an impoverishment of the imagination

00:51:27.900 and it's enforced impoverishment

00:51:30.040 because the greatest form of censorship is self-censorship.

00:51:33.760 We know that.

00:51:34.560 We had David Baddiel on the show, you know,

00:51:36.600 lefty, liberal, comedian,

00:51:39.060 and even he said that he's self-centred

00:51:41.100 when he was writing his material

00:51:42.560 in a way that he didn't do before.

00:51:45.580 Yes.

00:51:46.500 I suppose that's very honest of him to say that.

00:51:49.020 I mean, I don't think it's necessary.

00:51:51.320 I don't know whether he should have said that

00:51:52.900 or indeed whether he should do it.

00:51:57.220 But, I mean, I think, you know, if you start,

00:52:01.060 if you want to have any kind of effect,

00:52:03.760 you've got to be authentic, haven't you?

00:52:05.880 And you've got to be authentically yourself.

00:52:08.220 Yeah, but Peter, that's easy for us to say.

00:52:10.760 It's much harder for a comedian who wants to have a mainstream career

00:52:15.020 because the moment you become authentic, they'll push you out.

00:52:19.060 They'll push you out.

00:52:19.860 And we knew when we started Trigonometry,

00:52:21.560 We had an episode called The Truth About Trigonometry

00:52:24.540 chronicling our history of the show

00:52:26.840 and all the struggles we've been with.

00:52:28.440 The reality is when we sat down in a pub

00:52:31.040 three and a half years ago to start this,

00:52:34.040 I said to Francis, they're going to try and destroy us.

00:52:36.280 I said it to him that day because I knew it would happen

00:52:39.180 because it's what happens to anyone

00:52:41.360 who tries to be authentic and say the truth.

00:52:45.700 I mean, you mentioned radical Islam.

00:52:47.220 Look at the last month in this country.

00:52:49.520 So David Amos gets murdered.

00:52:51.200 He gets murdered by, as far as we know, an Islamist terrorist.

00:52:56.940 What do MPs talk about?

00:52:58.080 Are they talking about radical Islam?

00:52:59.940 Are they talking about counter-terrorism?

00:53:02.520 No, they're talking about online anonymity, right?

00:53:05.660 So they're not...

00:53:06.380 If our members of parliament are not going to have an honest conversation

00:53:10.080 about who our enemies are, what they want to do to this country,

00:53:13.840 who it is that's actually killing one of their colleagues,

00:53:16.920 how are you going to expect a liberal comedian to be truthful?

00:53:20.520 Right. But you asked me like earlier, you know, who's, why is this?

00:53:25.800 You know, why are we indulging?

00:53:27.440 So if you take the people who would like presumably commission comedians

00:53:33.060 or hire comedians, who are they?

00:53:36.340 You had a chat with one of them, didn't you?

00:53:37.680 Yeah, I did.

00:53:38.260 But why are we indulging them?

00:53:40.260 Well, because they've got the power.

00:53:42.160 They've got the power.

00:53:43.320 I mean, Francis had a chat with one of them the other day.

00:53:45.520 Tell Peter what happened.

00:53:46.320 Yeah, so I was talking to one of them.

00:53:47.840 And he was going to me, because I did my comedy set at this TV showcase thing,

00:53:53.000 and he came up to me and he was, oh, I enjoyed your set.

00:53:55.360 It was different from what you normally hear from comedians.

00:53:59.180 And he was like, so what do you think about the comedy industry?

00:54:03.020 I went, well, it's fundamentally biased, isn't it?

00:54:05.580 And he was like, well, how do you mean?

00:54:06.700 I said, well, look, you've got Stuart Lee.

00:54:08.180 Stuart Lee would identify as being a left wing, very left.

00:54:12.260 You never get a Stuart Lee of the right, do you?

00:54:15.380 And he went, no, you wouldn't.

00:54:16.320 And he went, but what's the problem with that?

00:54:17.620 And I went, well, it's biased, doesn't it?

00:54:19.160 It's not balanced.

00:54:20.540 And he went, oh, yeah, I suppose you're right.

00:54:23.300 He says, well, so what would the Stuart Lee of the right talk about?

00:54:26.040 I went, well, you talk about BLM, for example.

00:54:29.360 You talk about how these people are trained Marxists.

00:54:32.440 You talk about how they want to abolish capitalism.

00:54:35.760 Well, living in a country that gives them the very fruits of capitalism.

00:54:38.940 And he got very, very shaky at this point, shook my hand and then left.

00:54:44.520 Really.

00:54:45.780 Well, there you go.

00:54:46.600 And that's the people who are deciding what comedy is.

00:54:48.720 So I guess all I'm saying,

00:54:49.960 and this is not specifically about David Baddiel or anyone else,

00:54:52.800 it's like, I mean, as an individual performer,

00:54:56.540 you understand art.

00:54:58.440 What are you supposed to do?

00:54:59.340 You can do this.

00:55:00.480 Yeah, sure, you can go on YouTube and start a channel

00:55:02.620 and ruin any chance you ever had of a mainstream career

00:55:05.800 until you get so big they have to get you in.

00:55:09.200 But that is not a path that many people are going to be willing to walk.

00:55:12.560 No, look, I totally understand.

00:55:15.440 I had one of these panel discussions recently.

00:55:18.560 It was at the, you know, the great thing,

00:55:20.920 the Institute of Ideas, Battle of Ideas.

00:55:23.520 And, you know, and there was one guy who's saying,

00:55:26.220 you know, we've lost our guts and we've got to have courage.

00:55:28.780 And I at the time said, look, it's all very easily said and done.

00:55:32.000 But, you know, if you are, if you're not in the public eye,

00:55:34.620 I say, and if you are, if you've just got a steady job,

00:55:39.320 you've got a family, it's all very well to become a hero

00:55:41.840 and everything like that.

00:55:42.880 You're more likely, I can understand why people would go

00:55:45.260 along and do the unconscious bias training and all of that i can i can understand that even though

00:55:49.960 i think it's appalling but i can totally get it so um i'm not sort of saying i'm not being too

00:55:55.420 harsh i think on i hope on people but i think that really we've sort of identified it's just

00:56:01.140 that people who would hire and fire you or people who will commission you or people who decide what

00:56:07.340 exhibits should be in museums and people who publish books and people who commission dramas

00:56:15.080 and people who make films, all of these people,

00:56:18.620 they're the ones who essentially, I think,

00:56:20.780 would be quite similar, I think, in a way to what your guys said.

00:56:25.960 And the worry is as well, so Ben Shapiro is starting

00:56:29.560 a conservative film company, an arts company, et cetera.

00:56:35.000 And look, good luck to Ben.

00:56:36.780 And I hope he's a success at it,

00:56:38.600 and I hope he produces great films and great art.

00:56:41.960 I don't want to live in a world like that, Peter.

00:56:44.180 No, no.

00:56:44.620 I don't want liberal arts.

00:56:45.720 I want art.

00:56:47.120 I just want art.

00:56:48.720 Yes.

00:56:49.460 Well, yes, I mean, I totally get it.

00:56:54.360 But I think that, unfortunately, everything is being politicized now.

00:57:00.540 And this is a big quandary.

00:57:02.240 I mean, this is a big quandary for many people.

00:57:03.820 What do they do?

00:57:04.780 Do they actually give up doing these things?

00:57:09.260 Do they go off and sort of like...

00:57:12.700 There's a great book out called The Benedictine Option

00:57:16.720 by Rod Dreher, an American writer.

00:57:20.940 And he's essentially saying,

00:57:22.340 how do you live in this kind of society?

00:57:24.620 How do you live in a decline?

00:57:26.040 Well, you can go off rather like the name of the rose,

00:57:29.360 you know, the monks.

00:57:30.040 You can go off and you can actually sort of get together

00:57:32.940 the very best, actually, of what we've got

00:57:35.500 and you can just love it

00:57:36.820 and you can live amongst beauty and all of that.

00:57:39.360 Or, you know, essentially,

00:57:40.860 You just keep trying to fight what you think is wrong.

00:57:44.760 You say, I don't want to live in a world like that.

00:57:46.740 Well, what do you do?

00:57:48.100 Do you stop doing your show here?

00:57:50.700 No, you don't.

00:57:51.660 You know, you still do it.

00:57:53.580 So I say you should go on.

00:57:55.180 I know that I couldn't sort of just,

00:57:58.100 and I have friends who've more or less done that.

00:58:00.060 They've decided to, you know, have a nice, quiet life.

00:58:05.040 That's not fair to them.

00:58:06.860 But they, you know, they don't want to, they've had enough.

00:58:10.860 Whereas I sort of think, well, actually, I'm just going to be shouting at my non-existent TV.

00:58:16.680 You know what I mean?

00:58:17.240 You sort of think, actually, no, no, I'm just going to be too angry.

00:58:19.840 Yeah.

00:58:20.840 I'm not a kind of angry person.

00:58:24.340 I think I'm not going to speak for you, but for me, it's an inability to shut up.

00:58:31.100 I just can't.

00:58:32.280 Shut up.

00:58:32.900 Yeah, I just can't.

00:58:34.360 When I see these people, I just, I'm just, Francis, don't fuck it up again.

00:58:39.340 Don't do it again.

00:58:40.280 things that no yeah i've started speaking before i know i'm back where i started yeah well i i think

00:58:46.660 the answer peter if we can sort of chart one before we wrap up is the reality is the the truth

00:58:55.360 out in the end it just does and the success of the new culture forum trigonometry and all sorts

00:59:01.380 of other things you know you can see this you know three years ago francis and i would never

00:59:06.860 have had an agent who can help us get our live shows out into the big theatres now we do we've

00:59:13.480 got tv commissioners and they're very very you know they're very few and far between and very

00:59:19.460 reluctant and all of that but once it happens once you break through once you show that you've got

00:59:26.300 the numbers the people want to watch that instead of that crap that they're putting out money talks

00:59:32.640 and i think eventually that's what will happen well i mean i don't know you know the agent you

00:59:36.400 mentioned say or the commissioning uh they you said like this kind of solitary figures maybe

00:59:41.080 uh what these people should do is they should event they should band together and start bigger

00:59:46.160 agencies you know and and be quite unapologetic we uh you know we we've got no truck with any of

00:59:52.380 this time this is what we are you know that's i think to bring us right back to what we started

00:59:57.740 on uh that is i think what people have got to do in the few in the long term future well we shall

01:00:03.660 see what happens peter but in the meantime keep up the good work thank you very much i've had such

01:00:08.200 a lovely time thank you very much no it's been an absolute pleasure it's been wonderful it's been

01:00:12.240 great and we do still have uh questions for our local supporters of course uh but before that

01:00:19.080 our final question as always is what is the one thing we're not talking about as a society

01:00:23.900 that we really should be uh i would say uh this society would be demographics

01:00:29.060 tell us more oh okay i thought it was one of these it's just a word it's just a word um i was you

01:00:36.640 know basically enormous demographic change um and because all of our politicians are short-term

01:00:43.500 merchants um it's always like kicked into longer 50 60 years time uh you know we're not going to be

01:00:51.140 here and all the rest but um what the implications are generally for our society when there is

01:00:58.440 considerable demographic change and um i think that uh you know when the census comes out in

01:01:04.220 london for example we'll see a dramatic change uh there already was in 2011 and i think you'll

01:01:12.260 see that even more um i'm not by the way saying uh that it's got to be a negative thing um i have

01:01:18.880 my views on it but we should at least be talking about it i think uh from what angle peter what

01:01:24.260 Well, I mean, the effect, for example, on whether we can, you know, say like what our religion will be, what traditions we will still have or not.

01:01:38.380 Can I make that a bit more concrete?

01:01:40.760 So are you saying that you have concerns about the impact of mass immigration?

01:01:46.600 Yes.

01:01:46.900 And how that will transform this country 50, 60, 70, 80 years down the line?

01:01:51.800 Yes.

01:01:52.100 I mean, you know, it's not just an economic thing.

01:01:54.440 It's also a cultural thing.

01:01:57.180 And, you know, I think that, you know, this basically,

01:02:01.780 because nothing is happening with migration,

01:02:04.820 there are going to be obviously big changes.

01:02:07.000 They should at least be discussed, should they not?

01:02:09.940 You might want a country that sort of rather is identifiably Britain

01:02:13.340 or you might not care about it.

01:02:15.220 But whatever it is, we are not talking about it.

01:02:18.860 It is the most taboo out of all the taboos,

01:02:22.000 really, isn't it? Why do you think

01:02:23.920 that is? That and whether trans women are real women

01:02:25.820 Yeah, exactly

01:02:26.580 I think

01:02:30.000 very much for the same

01:02:31.780 sort of reasons we've gone through

01:02:33.840 everything we've discussed

01:02:35.060 fear that, you know

01:02:37.800 fear of being called racist

01:02:39.880 all of this stuff

01:02:41.060 Peter, it's been

01:02:44.120 absolutely wonderful

01:02:45.440 if people want to find you online, where is the best place

01:02:47.920 to do that?

01:02:49.780 What kind of site?

01:02:50.820 um no um well basically i'm on twitter yes but the new culture forum is uh newcultureforum.org.uk

01:03:02.700 and of course you're on youtube yes when you said what kind of society i thought you were

01:03:06.560 about to give us your grinder name anyway peter wittle thank you so much for coming on it's been

01:03:12.060 a pleasure thank you for watching and listening uh to this as well and we will see you very soon

01:03:17.600 with another brilliant interview like this one

01:03:19.440 or Raw show, all of them go out

01:03:21.600 at 7pm UK time. And for those of you

01:03:23.580 who like your Trigonometry on the go,

01:03:25.540 it's also available as a podcast.

01:03:27.400 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:03:30.400 We hope you've enjoyed

01:03:31.640 this incredible interview.

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TRIGGERnometry - December 02, 2021

Immigration is the Most Important Issue We Face - Peter Whittle

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