Julia Hartley-Brew is a broadcaster, journalist and radio talk show host. In this episode, she talks about the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, and why she thinks the liberal left are not learning the lessons they should be learning.
00:00:00.000Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishan.
00:00:09.260And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:15.000A fascinating guest we have for you today. She's a broadcaster, journalist and radio talk show host.
00:00:21.160Julia Hartley-Brew, welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:23.420Thank you very much indeed. I hope I am fascinating. I'll do my best.
00:00:26.580Well, we'll find out very quickly. But there are many fascinating things to talk about. Just for disclosure for our viewers and listeners, we're recording this on the Thursday after the Tuesday on which the election happened in the US and the first day of lockdown here in England as well.
00:00:42.320obviously things are going to change by the hour so we won't get into the nitty gritty of it but
00:00:47.520let's talk about the u.s election first it was a very unexpected result no matter who wins the
00:00:53.300election just in terms of how the vote broke down and it seems to me that you know the pollsters got
00:00:58.420it wrong again didn't they well you say unexpected i have to say every single guest i've had on my
00:01:02.880show for the last few months talking about the upcoming election i said what about the shy trump
00:01:07.820voter and they all poo-pooed it and everyone said oh no no no uh that the pollsters have dealt with
00:01:12.880that they're not going to get it wrong like they did in 2016 with trump versus hillary clinton
00:01:17.700and i just kept thinking i've just got a funny feeling about this i was watching everything
00:01:23.540that was going on with black lives matters and there's running street battles and and all of the
00:01:28.440ongoing insanity of diversity politics and trans this and trans that and i just thought i mean i
00:01:33.980spent a couple of years of my childhood in living in America in the Midwest and I've always had an
00:01:39.820interest in American politics and I just thought I'm not sure this is going to be going down very
00:01:45.460well with the ordinary American voter in the same way that telling a load of British people you're
00:01:50.860all nasty horrible racists and the country's terrible and everyone's having a terrible time
00:01:55.680and we're all going to die I just don't think that's how most people think about their country
00:02:01.380certainly not Brits and Americans, who are very proud of their countries, like most people of
00:02:07.120their country. So I always thought that there was a very strong possibility that Trump could do it.
00:02:13.240I didn't want him to do it. I'm not a Trump fan at all. If I was an American, I'd vote Democrat,
00:02:18.280no question at all. I'd struggle with Joe Biden, but I'd hold my nose and do it anyway.
00:02:24.300So I wasn't that surprised. If we had to put our money on it right now on Thursday afternoon,
00:02:29.960it's Joe Biden isn't it and if I'd had to put money on it before election day I'd have said
00:02:35.660Joe Biden but I would have been terrified out of my life that I was going to lose that money and
00:02:41.260when it looked like at one point in the early hours of Wednesday morning that Donald Trump was
00:02:45.520going to win I have to say I was the least surprised person on the planet. And Julia why
00:02:50.440is it that in particular the liberals they don't seem to be learning their lessons it's time and
00:02:56.720time again. It's the election of Donald Trump, or it's Brexit, or it's Jeremy Corbyn losing to
00:03:02.320Theresa May, the loss of the Red Wall. Why are they not learning the lessons?
00:03:07.380They're not learning the lessons because their view is, and we know this all the way along from
00:03:12.540Brexit in 2016 onwards, is that they fundamentally think that the voters are stupid. Everyone other
00:03:18.800than them, you know, God forbid, people who don't even have a university degree. We've had that
00:03:24.100snotty attitude uh since the 23rd of june 2016 haven't we um and and their view is that you know
00:03:30.760it's like hillary clinton and the deplorables who voted for donald trump they despise ordinary
00:03:36.260people they think they're not as good as they are they think they're uneducated idiot racist
00:03:43.240nasty people who who need to be told what to do and who need to be educated in what the right
00:03:49.820thing is to think and when you start from that attitude you're going to find it impossible to
00:03:55.520understand people's point of view now I grew up on the liberal left I'm constantly told I'm a
00:04:01.060right winger I don't think I'm right wing I think I'm right I mean these liberals I mean these are
00:04:07.580the people that think someone is far right I've had that people use that term about me they think
00:04:12.700these people are far right because they think maybe it's not a good idea to have hundreds of
00:04:18.020thousands of of migrants uh coming to the country and and even illegal immigrants coming on boats
00:04:23.420across you know from france or or from mexico into america um they think these are terribly
00:04:29.040terribly extremist views when they're not as we know these are incredibly mainstream views and i
00:04:35.280think the reason why you know the liberal liberals sort of wokeocracy in america and in britain have
00:04:40.760so many similarities they have the same attitude towards voters in that way but they also they
00:04:45.900don't get it it's not how they think they don't understand that people think that way they don't
00:04:49.920know why they think that way they they think it's impossible to comprehend why anyone would vote for
00:04:55.720Donald Trump or or would vote for Nigel Farage or Boris Johnson and and that's because always they
00:05:01.720don't want to listen to what those people are saying and what those people are saying is we
00:05:07.140don't want to be patronized by you lot anymore we'd like to be free to live our own lives and
00:05:11.740make our own choices and run our own businesses and do what we want to do without you interfering
00:05:17.360nanny state in our lives. And that's just a message that the liberal left are just
00:05:23.380unprepared to hear. They've just put their fingers in their ears for four odd years
00:05:27.860and they're going to keep doing it. I don't think there's going to be a single Democrat
00:05:32.120who, even when Joe Biden is being inaugurated and Donald Trump is still shouting from the
00:05:39.200sidelines on Twitter about how he's been, you know, defrauded of a second term. The fact that
00:05:46.700Donald Trump got three million more votes than he got in 2016, despite everything he has said and
00:05:53.940done and tweeted since 2016, not a single Democrat is going to learn that lesson and think,
00:06:00.500maybe we are not actually putting out a message that can reach middle America. And I think the
00:06:06.800Labour Party, exactly the same in the UK. They are going to lose election after election after
00:06:12.100election. And at no point are they going to say, maybe it's not them that's the problem. Maybe it's
00:06:17.660us. Julie, you know, one of the interesting points you bring up there is that there's been a sort of
00:06:23.200narrative that essentially the future is left in the sense that the demographics of the United
00:06:28.120States and the UK are changing in such a way that essentially will become harder and harder for
00:06:33.200right-wing parties to win. One of the things we saw with this election is actually Donald Trump
00:06:37.960increased his vote share with everyone except white men, which seems to shatter that whole
00:06:43.280narrative. It's something we've been talking about on the show for quite some time. On the
00:06:47.120wall behind us, we've got pictures of our former guests, several people of color there who are
00:06:51.460very critical of woke politics, the way that the left has shifted over the years. Do you think
00:06:57.380this election signifies a shift in that sort of narrative as well well i mean one would hope so
00:07:03.240again i find it very i think i think very sinister uh and unpleasant that people will talk about you
00:07:09.720know the latino vote the african-american vote the even the women's vote i the idea that you
00:07:15.940should be voting because of i don't know having fallopian tubes or testicles a particular shade
00:07:22.560of your skin i think is really quite a bizarre idea um obviously it wasn't a surprise to me
00:07:27.980again that you know really african-americans evangelical christians um very much more on
00:07:33.260the conservative right in terms of a lot of their values um we're talking about latinos again
00:07:38.840the catholic very much on the conservative right this notion that the democrats have got the you
00:07:44.580know the black and the ethnic minority votes they're theirs they're theirs they're theirs not
00:07:49.220because they're the right representatives for them but they're theirs by right they own those
00:07:53.840votes and the criticism they give of the of those who don't conform the attacks on on women
00:08:01.300republicans uh and a you know latino or black republicans or gay republicans it is are off the
00:08:09.500scale compared with those on say white male republicans and we see the same in the in the
00:08:14.560UK as well I mean the this Margaret Thatcher not included and I remember a guardian list of
00:08:20.360the 100 most influential women we didn't include Margaret bloody Thatcher the first female prime
00:08:28.100minister and regarded widely I mean I didn't you know I would I wouldn't have voted for I was she
00:08:33.460was far too right-wing for me when am I in my teens and 20s but I mean the idea that she shouldn't be
00:08:39.100on that list in i don't know top three is absurd but she's just discounted because she's not a
00:08:44.660proper woman because she's on the right and we've had the same with theresa may we've had the same
00:08:48.740with um ethnic minorities in the cabinet rishi sunak as chancellor priti patel uh and the
00:08:54.200before him and priti patel as home secretary well they don't count i mean they're i mean they've got
00:08:59.980darker skin but they're not really ethnic minorities because they've got the wrong
00:09:04.040political views. And again, it's the liberal left not getting it. You don't bloody own a vote because
00:09:10.440of the colour of someone's skin. And they're going to have to get used to that. But Julia,
00:09:14.420I don't think they're going to get used to that. And do you think there's going to be this attitude
00:09:17.980amongst the liberal left? Let's say Biden does win. We've solved the problem. We're never going
00:09:23.460to face it again. And we're all going to go back on as we used to be. Yeah, see, we got it right.
00:09:28.680yeah exactly um i think yes they're an awful lot who who uh who are not going to as i say they're
00:09:34.080not going to get the real message there um i mean yes again the democrats have won the popular vote
00:09:40.780in the united states whatever happens in the final few states the battleground states that
00:09:44.920are going to declare they will have won the popular vote is it seven times out of the last
00:09:48.920eight elections and and not very often actually getting the white house as a result but they are
00:09:53.780going to have to understand that you need to have a sort of coalition you can't just win with you
00:09:57.440know the east coast and the west coast and and certain ethnic minorities or the young who largely
00:10:02.940don't go out and vote you are going to need to bring along you know all those middle states
00:10:08.120as well and it's the it's the attitude it's not that sort of oh look they're never going to vote
00:10:14.280for us it's we don't care almost whether they vote for us or not and that I think is a very
00:10:19.600strange attitude because that you know there are many millions more of these people as we've seen
00:10:26.060in the the rust belt you know that they are now the deciders of the elections we know how new
00:10:30.660york's going to vote and how california is going to vote it's those uh swing states where it really
00:10:35.120matters um again i just don't see the democrats once they're in office realizing what's gone wrong
00:10:41.860and bearing in mind that even biden wins and then you know maybe after a year or two he stands down
00:10:48.500through ill health kamala harris is president you still got a lame duck presidency the republicans
00:10:54.080going to keep control of the senate um they've got they've got huge control for decades ahead
00:10:59.400of the supreme court a six to three conservative majority um it doesn't matter who's in the white
00:11:06.340house to a certain extent for quite a long time the agenda's been set for decades ahead and
00:11:10.820the democrats it's their fault they did that they they created donald trump in the same way
00:11:19.140The left, Tony Blair and Blairism, they created Nigel Farage and ultimately Boris Johnson's premiership.
00:11:29.000If they don't like it, well, they should look at themselves in the mirror first.
00:11:34.200Yeah, they're very good at that, aren't they?
00:11:38.060But were you keen to carry on with the election?
00:11:40.320Yeah, there was one thing that I really wanted to touch on.
00:11:42.960And for me, we always seem to, you know, never get into what this attitude actually is.
00:11:49.220And for me, it's contempt of white working class people.
00:24:54.600their health is going to be affected, mental health,
00:24:56.940it seems nobody's standing up for them.
00:24:59.200No, well, I'm going to have to say, we at Talk Radio are trying very hard to do so.
00:25:03.380And what's interesting is all of the presenters have sort of come to this conclusion completely separately.
00:25:09.000We've never had a meeting. We've never been told to say it.
00:25:11.520On the contrary, I think quite a lot of people are in charge of that.
00:25:14.360Guys, can you run it in a bit? But we are all so passionate about this because we're clever enough and sensible enough to look at the actual numbers.
00:25:21.620I'm a political editor for 10 years of a national newspaper.
00:25:24.540I know what I'm being lied to, but I know what I'm being lied to by a government minister or advisor.
00:25:30.320I really do. I mean, we've got Nigel Farage, the Brexit party.
00:25:35.460They've said they're going to relaunch as reform UK, which is all very well,
00:25:39.860except, of course, we don't have a general election until 2024.
00:25:44.520Got local elections. We assume they're not going to be cancelled again in 2021 in May.
00:25:49.800And they say they're going to stand in those.
00:25:51.380Now, that may focus a few minds when it comes to particularly the Conservatives who voted for this, but certainly not the Labour Party.
00:25:59.260They love it. They think that that will just take Tory votes.
00:26:04.980This is the issue. Even the MPs I've spoken to on and off air who are saying, why are you voting for this lockdown?
00:26:11.900Why do you think there should be one? And they'll say, you hear it again and again, I do it with a heavy heart.
00:26:17.320um i wouldn't be willing to vote for another one if on december the second you know they want to go
00:26:22.400into another one another lockdown i would not be willing to vote for that but you know we're going
00:26:26.020to come out on december the second to into tier three which is pretty much a lockdown to intents
00:26:30.900and purposes um and and and they they keep saying that well you know i'm just not sure about things
00:26:38.140now well i keep saying well let me send you let me send you the information that you can then be
00:26:43.280sure about and it's not some it's not some random on twitter who's sending this stuff i'm talking
00:26:48.660about you know uh conversations with professor carl hennigan the professor of evidence-based
00:26:54.000medicine of oxford university he's not a crank he's one of the most eminent in his field and he
00:27:00.620is tearing his hair out um not wanting to get involved in the politics but sort of can we just
00:27:06.480he doesn't i don't care what the policy is but can it be based on the facts as opposed to spin
00:27:12.300that's all he wants. And that's all I think we all want. It is what we want, Julia. But you
00:27:16.640mentioned December the 2nd, which is formally when this lockdown is supposed to end. Do you
00:27:22.640think there's any chance of it ending on December the 2nd at all? Well, the legislation that was
00:27:28.720voted for by MPs, although not by 38 MPs who voted against it and 60 who abstained, heroes all,
00:27:34.780by the way, history will judge them very kindly. The legislation automatically falls on that day.
00:27:41.300um that was the only way i think getting that through it depends what's happening doesn't it
00:27:45.800with the r rate and with infection rates we know there's a time lag in terms of death
00:27:49.300if you are testing every single person who comes into hospital and if you've got a a pcr test for
00:27:55.680covid which is is so um it's just i'm trying to think of the correct word here but it so useless
00:28:03.540frankly that it will pick up um the remains of a viral infection from six months ago um when you're
00:28:10.360not even infectious at all and it's certainly not causing you any illness then i'm afraid you know
00:28:14.200we're probably not going to see those death rates going down because right now i mean if i get i i
00:28:19.620had the i had the virus back in march who knows maybe i would test positive uh in in a pcr test
00:28:25.120for covid right now if i get hit by a bus uh tomorrow i go into hospital and while i'm being
00:28:30.600treated they test me and i come up positive for covid and i then die i will be in those daily
00:28:35.260statistics a couple of days later as a covid death i mean that is how insane our our statistics
00:28:42.340are right now um so i'm i'm not confident that the numbers are going to look sufficiently low
00:28:49.480by december the 2nd the the government's going to feel they can they can you know release us
00:28:54.700back into the wild but julia sorry to interrupt i mean it's a problem of the public because i
00:29:00.640have people tweeting me all the time saying one death is too many no it isn't is it one death
00:29:06.480isn't too many the death of a 95 year old who's been in a care room for two years and has been
00:29:11.460bedridden with dementia who has had on off respiratory diseases and got six other underlying
00:29:17.020conditions dying of covid a couple of months earlier than they would it's tragic for their
00:29:21.880family but the idea that we should shut down the country because of that is absurd 1700 people die
00:29:29.080every single day in this country. COVID ain't even in the top 10 killers, right? Even right now,
00:29:35.400while we've got apparently a COVID crisis and a second wave, we have got to get this in perspective.
00:29:40.340And I think the British public need a little bit of education about, you know, how many people
00:29:45.560die every single day when we don't have a pandemic. Julia, just very quickly on that point
00:29:50.820about the extension of the lockdown. I mean, I don't think I'm putting words in your mouth if I
00:29:55.780say that you believe the government have already been lying to us about the figures right so what's
00:30:01.780to stop them doing it again i what's the incentive for them not to lie to us again i just don't see
00:30:06.320it this this is the thing i i'm i'm question what their incentive is right now as i say i'm not a
00:30:11.620conspiracy theorist at all i'm a cock-up theorist the thing is a very accurate representation
00:30:18.080and yes prime minister very accurate representations of how things do work in
00:30:22.160government rather than big conspiracies behind the scenes that russians or or whatever um i i think a
00:30:28.900lot of this is about frankly arse covering um we are talking about we've you know a higher per capita
00:30:33.620death rate than a lot of other countries that's actually got very little to do with government
00:30:38.000policy and dates and kinds of lockdown it's more to do with our demographics uh the you know the
00:30:42.740obesity the ethnic minority population big cities having a major you know big hub airport like
00:30:48.460Heathrow all of those other reasons and why that's probably happened but I think there is a real
00:30:53.220feeling that the public inquiry is going to be very very harsh in a couple of years time and
00:30:57.200people are starting to cover their backs and when you've got the likes of Keir Starmer and others
00:31:00.680saying oh all these people are dying isn't this terrible isn't this terrible there is a rush to
00:31:04.940be seen to be doing something doesn't matter what it is do something and I think the idea has been
00:31:13.220all along we'll do a lockdown we'll do another new set of measures and then at the time when
00:31:19.440infection rates will be going down anyway we will we'll come out and it'll look better and then
00:31:24.960we'll have Christmas because the Prime Minister knows well there's not a chance in hell that he's
00:31:30.680going to be able to keep to lockdown even the rule of six for most families on Christmas Day
00:31:36.120I haven't met a single person who has the tiniest ink of a plan to keep to that rule.
00:31:43.480So we're going to have to be out of lockdown by Christmas Day.
00:31:45.860We're going to have to be out of rule of six, at least for a few days over Christmas,
00:31:49.100because you cannot have a law which, you know, 60 odd million people break on one day,
00:31:54.900because that makes the law look like the ass it really is.
00:31:58.600That's my only hope that we will come out of it.
00:32:01.480But the fact that Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, this morning has announced an extension of the furlough,
00:32:05.980scheme to march. I mean, what do you need a furlough scheme to march for? If we're coming
00:32:14.160back out on December the 2nd would be my first question. Do you have a business? Do you want to
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00:33:04.060and julia don't you think in a way that the this entire coronavirus crisis is a sort of the new
00:33:13.460brexit isn't it it's divided people we've even got epithets being held covidiots i think is is
00:33:19.500is the term being used for people who are skeptical about lockdown i thought the virus
00:33:24.360was meant to bring us together and i have to say i mean i say i was ill with the virus i caught the
00:33:30.140virus on the 14th i know i know which which event i caught it at and i was ill by the by the 16th
00:33:35.800of march so a week before we went into formal lockdown and i'm sick as a dog for three weeks
00:33:40.160and um i know it's not a hoax i know it's real um one of the things i kind of did hope though
00:33:45.580after all the divisions over brexit and 2019 i mean that was i was worse than 2016 in terms of
00:33:51.880those divisions um in terms of getting that through in the election and jeremy corbyn and
00:33:56.200the anti-Semitism I mean there was so much horrible stuff around and I did think in March you know
00:34:00.820what there's one good thing that's going to come out of this it's going to bring the country
00:34:04.720together first we've got a real problem and we can all unite about what the real problem is
00:34:08.940and second you know we you know we're all in this together you know I love the announcements
00:34:13.420Rishi Sunak made about you know the help the business the furlough scheme and yet taxes are
00:34:17.660going to go sky high but you know what we are all in it together and and since then it really doesn't
00:34:22.680it's really really has changed and it doesn't feel like that at all and it's fascinating because you
00:34:27.540say how much the dividing line actually an awful lot of it has come down uh on very similar lines
00:34:34.340to the remain leave debate and i think a lot of that is down to two things one um private sector
00:34:40.620v public sector um and two middle class uh v working class because if your experience of
00:34:46.440lockdown is uh you get to keep your job or you're an 80 percent pay and furlough and you've got a
00:34:51.820nice home and a garden and your kids are at a half decent school where they provided lessons
00:34:55.660and you got to spend some lovely afternoons in the park over the summer probably not that worried
00:35:01.340about lockdowns if however you're in the private sector or you're living you know three kids and
00:35:06.100you in a in a block of flats uh in in the city with no outdoor space you're going to feel rather
00:35:11.180differently about it and i think the public sector private sector divide very much and working class
00:35:16.600middle class divide very much in evidence on brexit as well and i think we are yeah we're
00:35:21.660back into that territory yet again and and do you think as well i thought i just find myself so
00:35:29.120worried about the economy and the long-term implications of it we don't seem to be discussing
00:35:34.760it all that much and how we're my show we discuss it every but but why is it why is it that your
00:35:42.940show is one of the few places that it's being discussed and it's not a bigger issue because a
00:35:47.400lot of people are going to come back after furlough and their jobs or even certain industries dare I
00:35:52.260say might not even exist anymore I mean leisure industry travel industry tourism industry
00:35:57.400pubs restaurants film theatre I was doing a BBC show this morning politics live after my radio
00:36:06.860show and and they were talking everyone was talking about the furlough scheme and oh 80%
00:36:10.760and wasn't that better than 67% for tier three
00:36:13.500in terms of helping people on their wages?
00:36:15.900And I was sitting there thinking, you're all insane.
00:36:19.020And I said, you know, most people can't live on 80% of their pay.
00:36:22.020They struggled through in the first lockdown.
00:36:25.380And by the way, they didn't have to have the heating on
00:52:01.780um i know i know one couple who do but there are a couple who frankly even the ruler six
00:52:07.200wouldn't bother them they don't go out um i've got to be honest with you i mean i don't go to
00:52:13.060the pub after 10 o'clock very often because i get up for work at 4 40 um but i'd like the pub to be
00:52:17.980open for other people um i i think it's strange how many people are quite happy to take away other
00:52:22.840people's freedoms ones that they don't use and say well this doesn't matter and again it's this
00:52:26.860idea isn't it that oh well you know what your right to have a pint of 10 15 at night it doesn't
00:52:32.500override the right of granny to live which is a nonsense thing to say utterly meaningless um but
00:52:38.320but also it's not it's about the right of the person pulling the pint to still have a job and
00:52:42.260pay their rent the next day i mean it's more more significant than that um yeah i i i think as we
00:52:48.460know with polling you can get a 70 majority for anything if you ask it the right way um and and
00:52:54.800And if the four questions you ask before the do you support lockdown are about losing your job,
00:53:02.340are you willing to have a lockdown if it meant that you and your friends and family are highly likely to lose your job?
00:53:10.320And even if you don't, that you will be paying much higher taxes for years to come to pay for all those who have lost their jobs and the furlough schemes and everything.
00:53:19.880And it may not save a single life. Do you now support lockdown?
00:53:23.300I don't think you get to 70% very quickly.
00:53:26.480And also the other thing there is that there seems to be quite a significant inconsistency
00:53:30.140between the number of people who apparently support lockdown
00:53:33.300and then equally the number of people who say that they don't comply with lockdown themselves.