TRIGGERnometry - Kate Andrews on the Gender Pay Gap, Feminism, Socialism & the NHS

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is the

00:00:11.800 show for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing

00:00:16.540 about at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts our fantastic expert

00:00:23.300 guest this week is the associate director of the institute of economic affairs okay andrews

00:00:28.500 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:29.560 Thanks for having me.

00:00:38.860 Oh, it's so great to have you.

00:00:40.000 We've been trying to get you on the show for a long time now.

00:00:41.940 I'm very happy to be here.

00:00:42.780 Oh, we're really excited to have you.

00:00:45.500 Before we get into the interview, just tell our viewers who you are, how are you, where you are,

00:00:49.600 a little bit about kind of your political evolution as well, perhaps.

00:00:52.380 Sure.

00:00:53.380 My name's Kate.

00:00:54.720 I'm the Associate Director, as you said, of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

00:00:58.500 I'm American. I came to Scotland in 2008 to study, spent four years there, went back to the States

00:01:06.460 for a little bit and ended up coming back to work at the Adam Smith Institute. I know you guys

00:01:09.760 interviewed Sam Bowman. He used to be their executive director. I was there for two years,

00:01:13.660 moved over to the IEA. I guess as a kid, I was always very interested in what was happening in

00:01:19.300 politics and particularly policy, actually. I like sort of the nitty gritty details from a

00:01:24.020 strangely young age. But I think that my philosophy definitely developed over the

00:01:29.980 course of university. I actually did an internship at the IEA. And that's when I

00:01:35.220 realized, oh my gosh, libertarianism, classical liberalism, individualism, it

00:01:40.460 brought together things that I firmly believed and was always trying to put

00:01:43.800 into a political slant, but realized that there was a philosophy behind it too.

00:01:48.620 And then I decided, why not do it for a job? Although it wasn't that easy. Like,

00:01:53.720 my visa is the bane of my existence but uh you know i took some effort but uh here i am

00:01:59.320 brilliant we're very glad you're here uh let's get straight into it one of the things that you

00:02:04.620 are known i think for talking about i see you on tv quite regularly talking about the gender pay gap

00:02:08.880 uh in doing the research for this i was looking on youtube and pretty much every video that is

00:02:13.680 entitled anything like smart woman destroys radical feminist with facts has you as the

00:02:19.480 smart woman cast in it i did not upload those videos and i i hate those headlines i think

00:02:24.840 they're so i i hate the age of clickbait but i yes i have seen some of those so you've never

00:02:29.340 destroyed a snowflake i wouldn't word it like that i wouldn't word it like that i'm sure i've

00:02:35.400 been destroyed too you know you you win and you lose some oh i get destroyed every episode

00:02:39.940 i look forward to that part of this one yeah um but yeah so i that's actually you know we don't

00:02:45.960 do that either like with this show we don't put stuff out like yeah no i know it's it's much more

00:02:50.400 thoughtful which i find more interesting so do we so do we and i think that you're gonna grow slower

00:02:55.480 uh doing that it's much faster to just go destroys this destroys that but i think

00:03:00.200 the benefit of kind of cultivating an audience that's interested in nuance and a genuine

00:03:04.360 conversation that's much better so anyway you're destroying people online is what we started with

00:03:09.480 uh on the gender pay gap so why don't you destroy us about the gender pay gap or tell us rather

00:03:14.460 what it is what are your thoughts on it why are you critical of this concept so the gender pay

00:03:19.780 gap is the average difference in the pay of men and women who are working uh this is different

00:03:25.840 from equal pay equal pay is is asking the question uh are men and women who are doing the same job

00:03:32.560 under the same circumstances with the same background is one getting paid more because

00:03:37.180 they're a man is one getting paid less because they're a woman whereas with the gender pay gap

00:03:40.940 you're looking at averages. So people often say, so are you saying that there's no gender pay gap?

00:03:45.880 No, I'm saying that there are an infinite number of gender pay gaps, because you can calculate that

00:03:50.540 average amongst anyone you want. We could do a gender pay gap right now between us.

00:03:55.100 I'd rather not.

00:03:56.820 Or for a charity, so you might turn out well on that one. You know, we could calculate a gender

00:04:01.920 pay gap between the boss and the junior researcher who's 22 years old who's just started. We could

00:04:07.500 calculate a gender pay gap between people who work at Goldman Sachs versus people who work at

00:04:11.480 the IA or Oxfam or any other charity. So for me, the question on the gender pay gap is what are

00:04:17.060 you actually measuring? Obviously, some of those calculations are going to be a lot more meaningful

00:04:21.820 than others. And often, you find with a lot of these gimmicky campaigns and efforts, they're going

00:04:28.500 to great lengths to make the worst calculation possible, to come up with the biggest statistic

00:04:33.260 that they can. And that's where myself and I think a lot of other young women now are trying

00:04:38.300 to step in and saying, wait a second, this isn't true. You know, statistics can tell you anything

00:04:43.120 they want, but what's the most factual analysis we can get on this? And that's where we step in

00:04:49.080 and we try to come up with some more legitimate figures. Well, the media concept of the gender

00:04:52.920 case, the way they present it, I don't think they would ever elaborate on it that way, but the way

00:04:56.560 they present is essentially for every pound that a man earns a woman earns whatever 77 83

00:05:03.660 that's the idea uh and what you're saying is what what they're doing is essentially they're adding

00:05:11.100 up the all the earnings of men on average they're adding up the earnings of women averaging that

00:05:15.460 and comparing the two and that doesn't reflect things like choices uh take time off work career

00:05:21.460 choices you know things like that right that's definitely true but even those statements women

00:05:25.800 are earning X amount of pence to the pound or the dollar. Those are just false. Well, that's

00:05:31.920 essentially implying a question of equal pay, right? For every pound a man earns, a woman will

00:05:36.720 earn X. No, that's not true. You then have to ask yourself, what is the circumstance? Because it

00:05:42.700 could be that for every pound a woman earns, who is a CEO at a bank, a man earns X percentage less,

00:05:49.380 right? So I think that statement in and of itself is extremely misleading, if not downright wrong.

00:05:55.800 So, let's look at the figures in the UK.

00:05:58.880 The most popular statistic used, well, not necessarily most popular, but the one you'll

00:06:03.720 see perhaps on the big media screens is 18.4 percent.

00:06:09.040 That is the gender pay gap in the UK.

00:06:11.180 That statistic is calculated by the Office for National Statistics, which does a really

00:06:14.320 good job of calculating the pay gap.

00:06:16.380 But that combines full-time workers and part-time workers.

00:06:19.920 We know that women are significantly more likely to work part-time and that those jobs

00:06:23.580 tend to pay less.

00:06:25.220 So I think in and of itself that is a really unfair calculation.

00:06:28.420 You're not comparing like for like.

00:06:30.280 If you just separate part-time workers from full-time workers, that's all you've done.

00:06:34.720 You still have not taken into account age, job, background, children, anything.

00:06:39.660 You get 9.1% pay gap for full-time workers, negative 5.1% pay gap for part-time workers.

00:06:47.220 So that's a pay gap in favor of women.

00:06:49.000 So part-time workers who are female actually out-earn their male counterparts.

00:06:52.540 On average.

00:06:53.540 Yes, exactly.

00:06:54.680 So just by doing that one thing, you've cut the pay gap in half for full-time, and you've

00:06:59.340 actually shown that women are doing better on average in part-time work.

00:07:02.640 So that just goes to show how manipulated these statistics can be when you just are

00:07:07.900 taking one thing into account.

00:07:10.860 Then when you start to go into age, start to go into background, you know, the pay gap

00:07:15.180 gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

00:07:17.520 So in the UK, women between the ages of 22 to 39 are basically earning the same as men.

00:07:22.760 The pay gap is negligible.

00:07:24.340 2015, women aged 22 to 29 were earning slightly more, tiny percentage. Right now, men are earning

00:07:30.880 2%, 2.5% more. That's a negligible statistic. So we can actually say that the gender pay gap

00:07:38.440 has been eradicated for men and women between the ages of 20 and 40. That's a huge part of

00:07:43.680 your working life. That's absolutely fantastic. I think the pay gap that still exists after that

00:07:49.860 age has a lot to do with maternity leave and the fact that women take years off work on average

00:07:55.600 compared to men. It has to do with a lot of choices that women are making in terms of jobs

00:08:00.540 and work culture and what they value. It has a lot to do with whether or not you're willing to

00:08:05.360 work overtime, willing to work weekends, that feeds into job culture and all that. None of those

00:08:10.400 things, and job, the actual job that you choose to do, none of those things are calculated in the

00:08:15.340 pay gap. So even the very basic statistics we have are showing a pretty good picture

00:08:21.400 for women. The pay gap's the lowest it's ever been on record since they started calculating

00:08:25.260 it in the UK. And, you know, that hasn't taken into account very important things.

00:08:30.120 So if that's the case and you're saying that it's negligible, then why are we constantly

00:08:36.220 getting bombarded with these facts and statistics about how women are being out-earned by men,

00:08:42.460 we live in an unfair society, we live in a sexist society.

00:08:45.880 Why are we getting that story?

00:08:48.760 Well, I have two theories.

00:08:50.620 One's generous and one isn't.

00:08:52.600 Which one do you want first?

00:08:53.840 Let's go both as well.

00:08:54.780 Okay, I'll start.

00:08:55.680 I think the generous one is that it's 2018.

00:08:59.420 It's an important year.

00:09:00.500 It's 100 women.

00:09:01.420 100 women?

00:09:02.180 It's 100 years.

00:09:03.360 It's 100 years since women got the vote in the UK.

00:09:07.200 And something still doesn't feel quite right.

00:09:09.180 You know, as a woman in 2018, you still recognize that a lot of the cards are stacked against you.

00:09:16.920 You know, look at domestic violence stats.

00:09:19.880 Look at rape statistics.

00:09:22.200 Compare men and women walking home alone on any given evening.

00:09:25.680 You know, women have their car keys in their fingers and men don't.

00:09:29.760 Something still doesn't feel right, doesn't seem fair.

00:09:32.460 And I think that that very legitimate feeling that we can all pretty much agree on,

00:09:37.600 then people want to harness that and say, well, what are we going to do about it?

00:09:43.440 And unfortunately, people go to the gender pay gap because they think it's something that they

00:09:49.160 can really easily solve through legislation. They think, well, I want to see results. I want to get

00:09:54.340 a law passed. I want to get something done. Let's focus on the gender pay gap because we can make

00:09:59.220 the state make big business publish their pay gap figures. You know, we can do something and say we

00:10:04.400 got a win we got a policy win but of course that that has no meaningful impact on the things that

00:10:10.080 I think women are still actually facing and the disadvantages that we have in society so I mean

00:10:15.640 that would be my generous reading of it that people just want to do something about the

00:10:19.080 unfairness that they still see in the world so they latch on to the pay gap even though that's

00:10:23.540 not where we need to be latching on to if anything we can say this seems to be going extremely well

00:10:29.120 there's still some things we could do to help women and work for sure but this is not the major

00:10:33.700 area. We need to look at violence. We need to look at Jarlswood Detention Center, where

00:10:38.240 immigrant women are kept and detained and treated horribly. You know, that's what we

00:10:41.700 need to look at. My last generous reading is that, you know, it's a lucrative and popular

00:10:49.420 business to be promoting victimhood culture. And the larger the statistic, the more media

00:10:56.600 attention you'll get. You know, if you look at a lot of these articles across the spectrum,

00:11:01.180 It's no particular publication.

00:11:03.380 You know, EasyJet was a really good example

00:11:05.700 when businesses had to publish their pay gap figures

00:11:08.020 for the first time back in April.

00:11:10.380 You know, every headline was EasyJet has 52% gender pay gap.

00:11:15.380 Massive.

00:11:16.520 You had to get to Article 6, sorry, Paragraph 6 or 7,

00:11:20.320 if it was in the article at all,

00:11:22.460 where it said actually the reason that they have this pay gap

00:11:26.100 is that they pay their pilots 100 grand a year,

00:11:28.680 They pay the stewards $25,000 a year.

00:11:32.380 6% of their pilots are women.

00:11:35.000 94% are men.

00:11:36.820 This is double the worldwide average of female pilots.

00:11:39.800 They're actually doing really well.

00:11:41.700 They can't hire more female pilots because they don't exist.

00:11:44.880 They implemented a program years back with their own profits off their own back to bring in more women by 2020.

00:11:51.000 This is a company that is doing everything it can to encourage women, support women, and to pay them fairly and equally.

00:11:56.900 and this is the reason for their pay gap but that was not at the top of the

00:12:00.900 article that was if you're lucky at the bottom and so those big statistics sell

00:12:05.600 I think there's a real effort right now to press the reset button on the gender

00:12:10.400 pay gap it really wasn't that long ago you know 40 years ago where you could

00:12:14.780 see a genuine pay gap that was based on discrimination that women got paid less

00:12:19.340 than men and that has closed so dramatically for a lot of reasons

00:12:23.720 including the fact that women are getting better educated they're more

00:12:26.360 educated than men on average, and they're going on to do those top jobs.

00:12:30.340 You know, they're extremely motivated.

00:12:31.780 There isn't that glass ceiling anymore.

00:12:34.360 And you know, that pay gap has been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, which is great

00:12:38.480 news.

00:12:39.480 It's a wonderful story to tell, especially young women.

00:12:42.360 And a lot of these groups that do very well perpetuating that victimhood mentality need

00:12:47.400 to press a reset button.

00:12:49.020 They need to be able to say that something's still wrong here in order to have relevance.

00:12:52.820 And they've been really successful.

00:12:54.420 I mean, up until April, the pay gap, the biggest one you could come up with was 18.4%, but that's quite misleading.

00:13:01.620 You know, we've got this great story about 9.1%, negative 5.1%.

00:13:05.520 And then they get these big businesses without much context at all to publish their pay gap statistics.

00:13:10.980 And now they can say 52% gender pay gap, 70% gender pay gap.

00:13:17.080 It's as if, you know, the past 50 years didn't exist.

00:13:20.920 And that's great for them.

00:13:23.160 It's a really bad message for normal women

00:13:24.800 who are just going to work in the morning,

00:13:26.280 pouring a cup of coffee,

00:13:27.700 now thinking to themselves,

00:13:28.800 oh, I work for Easy Chat.

00:13:29.860 Are they discriminating against me?

00:13:31.580 No.

00:13:32.360 They want to perpetuate you.

00:13:33.660 They want to bring you up.

00:13:34.620 They want to propel you to top spots, actually.

00:13:37.760 But if you just read the headline,

00:13:39.540 a lot of people do,

00:13:41.160 you're going to have a pretty negative attitude.

00:13:43.380 So that's my slightly more skeptical perspective.

00:13:46.000 I think they're trying to push the reset button

00:13:47.600 to make this issue still relevant.

00:13:50.320 I think it's really terrible for young women,

00:13:52.520 especially to see this because that's not what's really happening for them when they get out of

00:13:58.740 university when they're going into the workforce they're in a great position do you believe in the

00:14:03.160 glass ceiling for women or do you think that I mean because that's been talked about a lot

00:14:07.040 the fact that there's not that many female CEOs it's predominantly male dominated do you see that

00:14:13.000 as being a real problem in industry at the moment or do you think we've sort of evolved past that

00:14:17.640 I don't see it as being a problem in industry. I think there's an issue culturally. So businesses

00:14:23.340 know that diversity will make them profitable. They know that diversity helps them. It brings

00:14:28.980 them profits. It helps them to succeed.

00:14:30.760 Sorry, but can you if I interrupt? How? How do they know that? Is there some kind of study

00:14:34.700 that shows that?

00:14:35.320 Yeah, I mean, there's a whole array of evidence that the more diverse your boards are, your

00:14:38.800 staff is, the more likely you are to see that translate into profits.

00:14:41.900 Yeah, diversity equals profits. And businesses know this. And a lot of them are desperate

00:14:47.500 to bring up women and I don't think that glass ceiling exists inside business now don't get me

00:14:53.600 wrong there's always going to be that jerk you know usually a man some jerk who doesn't think

00:14:59.700 that women are as good as men that happens that's why we have one who don't think that women can

00:15:17.420 cut it and they're always gonna be jerks and that's why we have equal pay

00:15:21.700 legislation because if that happens to you that's illegal and you can go to

00:15:25.340 court and you can sue them which is exactly what you should do but generally

00:15:29.000 speaking this is not the attitude in workplaces workplaces want to elevate

00:15:32.600 and lift women up I think if we do have a problem and I I think we probably do

00:15:37.040 to some extent it's much more cultural it's the fact that there are studies that

00:15:43.340 show that, you know, if a man and a woman are doing a very similar job, getting paid

00:15:48.520 similarly, working similar hours, women are still likely to do significantly more housework

00:15:53.400 and home chores than a man.

00:15:56.680 It would be ridiculous to pretend that we don't—we're not sitting here thinking it,

00:16:01.200 right?

00:16:01.340 But subconsciously, most of us still think that women are going to be the primary caretakers.

00:16:05.740 It's just the downright assumption.

00:16:07.780 If a couple has children, the woman's going to stay home to some extent and look after

00:16:11.560 the kid.

00:16:11.960 you know it's mom who gets called by the school nurse it's not dad and I think

00:16:17.300 culturally we have not evolved as much as we'd like to pretend and it means that

00:16:22.760 women are taking years off of work it means they're not going to be promoted

00:16:26.780 in the same way their lifelong earnings are not going to be as high they're not

00:16:30.560 going to become the CEO because they've taken all this time out of the company

00:16:33.680 and I think businesses are a lot if they have the money and not every business

00:16:38.060 does but if they have the money you see great examples of businesses bending

00:16:41.060 over backwards to have daycare on site, very generous paternity as well as maternity pay.

00:16:47.460 But not every business can do that. And, you know, culturally, we just haven't advanced enough

00:16:52.340 to be able to say, well, you know what, the man's earning a bit less, maybe he should be the one to

00:16:56.900 stay home. When shared parental leave was brought in in 2015, you know, this was a great step,

00:17:02.520 right? You can genuinely divide up who's going to take leave now. And I think it was reported

00:17:06.740 early this year or maybe late last year that two percent of men who are eligible have taken it up

00:17:11.780 not that's a choice and that's a choice that we are making as individuals no employer

00:17:16.580 is enforcing that um but you know these are really hard conversations well do you think that's just

00:17:22.060 culture though because you know we've had evolutionary psychologists on the show and

00:17:25.620 you know other people who would say you had diana she's fabulous diana's great now i'm not sure that

00:17:30.500 she necessarily said this but my sense of what she was saying was she was talking about the fact that

00:17:35.800 some of these things are evolutionary biological and some of them are evolutionary psychological so

00:17:42.200 essentially i think a lot of people would say well women are better adapted at looking after

00:17:48.280 kids they're more likely to want to do it than men and this is not just down to culture it's

00:17:53.160 down to thousands and thousands of evolution do you think that's an element or do you think

00:17:57.960 it's just culture we would be really silly to ignore the choices that people are obviously

00:18:03.960 choosing to make. So Sweden provides the perfect example of this. In Sweden, they brought in shared

00:18:10.140 parental leave really early on, very progressive back in the 70s. And they reassessed it in the

00:18:14.800 90s. And they realized that an overwhelming majority of women were still taking the bulk

00:18:18.900 of the time off. And so they brought in what I like to call forced dad leave. They basically said,

00:18:24.400 if the dad doesn't take a certain percentage of this time off, you're going to lose some of your

00:18:28.040 benefits. You're not going to get the same number of days off. You're not going to get the same

00:18:30.960 subsidies. And still in Sweden, you have the majority of women taking the time, the majority

00:18:36.920 of time taken up by women. And some people are forgoing their benefits because the women want

00:18:41.720 as much time with their newborn as possible. We'd be silly to ignore that. And I think we're going

00:18:46.680 to come to this a bit later on, but that's a really hard one because on the one hand, it's

00:18:52.360 really stupid to ignore what majorities are telling you. On the other hand, I believe very

00:18:57.060 strongly in rejecting stereotypes whenever possible and treating people as individuals.

00:19:02.240 So it's a really hard one to balance, especially in terms of public policy. But I think you create

00:19:07.640 an atmosphere, you create public policy based on giving everyone the opportunity to do what they

00:19:12.840 want to do, which is why I think shared parental leave in the UK is so fantastic. And there's some

00:19:18.200 issues there. Paternity leave is not as well paid as maternity leave. I would like to see it be

00:19:22.000 better paid. We need to address that. But you create the opportunities, and then you let

00:19:26.440 individuals do what they want to do. And we shouldn't be surprised when more women take that

00:19:31.640 time off than men. I think where I don't think it's just biological, but it's cultural pressures

00:19:38.980 as well, is when you see how women's behavior changes based on what she thinks society wants

00:19:45.640 her to do. So I don't remember the name of the study, but the New York Times had a fantastic

00:19:50.120 piece not too long ago, where they flagged up a study where young women, fairly young women,

00:19:55.960 were asked about their career ambitions, what they wanted to be paid, and what they wanted to achieve

00:20:00.420 professionally. Write it down. And then when they were told that a prospective life partner might

00:20:07.680 see the answers, they downgraded their expectations for both their job and their salary.

00:20:14.300 Oh, wow.

00:20:15.200 With the assumption that a man would be intimidated by her ambitions. The same

00:20:22.560 piece flagged up a different study where they showed that successful men were very happy for

00:20:29.620 their female partner to make money, very happy for her to be successful, just as long as she

00:20:34.000 earned slightly less than he did. And, you know, this is something to tackle. And, you know, I

00:20:41.360 think that is cultural and it's something that we need to be extremely aware of. I'm 28 and the

00:20:48.200 The expectation on women in their 20s is absolutely hilarious.

00:20:51.860 So when you're 22 and you've graduated from university, everyone's like, be single, have

00:20:56.380 a great time, don't get, you know, don't get bogged down, just go out and be single.

00:21:00.980 And then at 25, it's like, have you met someone?

00:21:03.680 And then, you know, at 28, 29, 30, it's like, so where's, where's the ring?

00:21:08.200 Where are the kids?

00:21:09.400 Apparently, you're supposed to be all three of those things in like an eight year time

00:21:13.160 period.

00:21:13.920 It's a joke.

00:21:14.760 It's an absolute joke.

00:21:15.720 but let's not pretend that that expectation isn't being put on women in particular um is there a

00:21:20.440 men to some extent there are other pressures on men but again there are biological differences

00:21:24.240 there like a woman has a certain time whether a man doesn't and that's always going to be the

00:21:27.980 pressure isn't it although quality of sperm does degrade so there you go well it's uh you learned

00:21:33.240 something that's what women are thinking about when they meet with the bar yeah but yeah there

00:21:38.720 you're right there is uh there is a biological clock that's ticking um but also you know what

00:21:44.240 if she's not so bothered about having kids? What if that's not the priority? And yet everyone's

00:21:48.400 putting that upon her. So, you know, I think all of these things factor into the gender pay gap.

00:21:53.600 And they're really interesting to discuss. And we need to tackle a lot of them public policy wise,

00:21:58.340 culturally. I just think that always the blame is put on employers. And they're probably the least

00:22:04.560 blame. You know, I think they're the ones who are actually creating the opportunities for women.

00:22:09.040 And in terms of public policy and culture, that's where we need to make the adjustments to help them.

00:22:13.860 And so that really frustrates me.

00:22:16.060 And it's not, I mean, yeah, demonizing business is not ideal if the business hasn't done anything wrong.

00:22:20.580 But it's about the women, really.

00:22:22.620 It's about the women going to work in these places and how they're going to feel day in, day out.

00:22:26.960 If they're just having really large misleading statistics in their head.

00:22:30.980 Because somebody put them there and they're unfair.

00:22:33.880 So I can guess what your answer is going to be, but I feel necessary to ask it anyway.

00:22:39.020 Do you believe in quotas?

00:22:40.780 As in, so.

00:22:41.880 That is a hard no.

00:22:44.060 That is a hard no for me.

00:22:46.660 Quotas are the worst.

00:22:49.220 No, I don't believe in quotas.

00:22:51.520 Quotas are essentially by definition suggesting that women can't achieve as much as men without help.

00:23:00.020 This is deeply insulting.

00:23:02.160 And as a woman, how could you ever feel confident that you had earned your position within a company, as an elected representative, on a board, wherever it is?

00:23:14.020 How could you feel confident that you earned it if you had a quota system in place?

00:23:18.460 Am I there because I'm great, because I crushed it, because I'm the best?

00:23:22.980 Or am I there because I was a box-ticking exercise?

00:23:25.740 and I do not want to sit down at the table

00:23:28.080 with my male colleagues looking at me

00:23:30.140 wondering if she was a box ticking exercise

00:23:31.940 I want them to know I'm there because I'm good

00:23:34.400 I would feel horrific

00:23:37.720 being promoted under a quota system

00:23:39.620 I'd feel absolutely horrible

00:23:40.580 It's interesting how this cultural meme

00:23:44.300 of the gender pay gap

00:23:45.640 has become so powerful

00:23:47.560 because I'm just thinking in my head

00:23:49.060 if I go on stage tonight in a comedy club

00:23:51.600 and I go hey I just spoke to Kate Andrews

00:23:54.380 and she says there's no gender pay gap i would be booed off stage probably you would i'd love to be

00:24:00.400 i'd start the booing yeah you would well i feel a lot of that comes down to all these misleading

00:24:06.820 statistics right and people think you're just crazy to deny a 70 percent gender pay gap because

00:24:11.340 if there is a 70 percent gender pay gap and it's based on actually equal pay issues and

00:24:16.280 discrimination that's horrific um so you know a lot of people just won't know the details of it

00:24:20.840 which is why it's important to share this.

00:24:23.620 But I also think, again, if we're being generous,

00:24:26.080 it goes back to that issue of people feeling like,

00:24:28.920 well, you know, let's not beat up on women.

00:24:31.580 They don't have a UZ all the time.

00:24:33.540 But wouldn't it be so much more productive

00:24:35.360 to talk about areas where we could really use

00:24:38.360 better public policy,

00:24:39.680 where we could use better support of the law

00:24:41.500 to help us, you know,

00:24:43.380 when it comes to really serious issues like crime?

00:24:50.840 so what is the role for feminism is there a role for feminism in your opinion in kind of in the

00:25:00.880 west now today do you think we need something else there is a role for feminism if used correctly

00:25:06.840 but has not been used correctly for a very very long time and i get very frustrated when people

00:25:13.560 say well feminism is just believing that men and women are equal so if you're not a feminist you

00:25:19.060 don't believe that. That has not been the definition of feminism for a long time.

00:25:24.880 You cannot have the opinions that I have, which are about statistics and calculations and

00:25:30.100 economics, about the gender pay gap, and be accepted in feminist circles. You just can't.

00:25:37.020 You're not allowed. You have internalized misogyny, which is something people say to you.

00:25:44.840 Honestly, it's baffling, but people really do say that.

00:25:47.720 If you don't fit their very limited criteria of what it means to be a feminist,

00:25:52.840 then you don't get to be part of the club.

00:25:55.200 And, you know, most women don't identify as feminists in the UK.

00:25:58.980 The majority don't anyway.

00:26:00.500 And there's a reason for that.

00:26:01.920 And it's because, of course, women don't fit into these little boxes you want to fit them into.

00:26:05.160 We're people. We're human.

00:26:07.460 You know, I thought we were trying to show the world

00:26:09.980 that women are breaking out of that stereotype of being Barbies,

00:26:12.940 is that we're real, treat us as real people.

00:26:16.240 And, you know, I feel like the feminism ideology

00:26:20.180 in the UK and the US, very much in the Western world,

00:26:22.940 is actually really about being something very specific.

00:26:26.760 And I just, I can't sign up to it.

00:26:28.720 I did not applaud David Schwimmer

00:26:31.120 when he invited a chaperone to his meeting

00:26:34.020 with a woman at his hotel

00:26:36.940 because she might feel uncomfortable.

00:26:38.760 You know, I do not applaud men

00:26:40.640 going back to the Victorian era.

00:26:43.080 I can't get on board with, you know,

00:26:46.060 the major spokespeople of feminism like Lena Dunham

00:26:48.620 who think that having sushi on college campus cafeterias

00:26:52.800 is cultural appropriation.

00:26:54.980 These are not the issues that I want to be discussing

00:26:57.300 when it comes to women and our advancements.

00:27:00.360 So, you know, feminism has really let me down in that way.

00:27:03.000 And I've been thinking recently, this year actually,

00:27:05.720 about trying to reclaim it and what that might mean.

00:27:09.120 Because when the pay gap reporting measures came out and when they were trying to press that reset button, I got really emotional about it.

00:27:16.200 I was like, no, you can't do this. We're doing too well. You can't take that away from us.

00:27:20.800 We need to share those stories. And so there would be real merit in trying to reclaim it.

00:27:26.060 But it's an uphill battle and I don't really know where to begin.

00:27:29.380 So you're saying that, you know, feminism, in a sense, focuses on the wrong issues.

00:27:34.260 What should it be focusing on?

00:27:35.800 I think it should be focusing on the very serious issues related to our safety and our

00:27:41.920 health that we still face in the States and in the UK and in the West.

00:27:46.480 It should be significantly more focused on what's happening around the rest of the world

00:27:51.220 where women don't have the right to health care, don't have the right to drive, don't

00:27:55.320 have the right to wear the outfits they want, don't have the right to a fair trial, don't

00:27:59.600 have the right to vote, you know, these are the stories that we should be flagging up.

00:28:03.360 Well, exactly. Like in Iran right now, women are risking their lives not to wear a headscarf.

00:28:07.120 And then you see feminists talking here about, you know, cultural appropriation because of sushi or whatever.

00:28:13.020 And you just kind of, you go, how do these things coexist in this world?

00:28:16.620 Where are your priorities? Exactly. Yeah, it's really depressing.

00:28:20.800 You know, the Me Too movement started out very organic.

00:28:25.060 I liked it when it first began

00:28:27.160 because it was women sharing their stories

00:28:30.500 in a very open, very honest way about sexual assault.

00:28:34.520 You know, I'm not going to keep this to myself anymore.

00:28:36.660 I'm not embarrassed.

00:28:37.520 I refuse to hold on to that shame.

00:28:39.880 I'm putting it out into the world so people can hear my voice.

00:28:42.120 What a wonderful thing to do.

00:28:44.000 And then how quickly did that get hijacked

00:28:46.060 by people who wanted to talk about the gender pay gap,

00:28:49.220 by, you know, actresses who think that wearing a couture dress,

00:28:53.540 which essentially costs what most people's average salary is,

00:28:56.700 you know, to talk about issues of the pay gap and to wear all black and whatnot.

00:29:00.120 You know, why don't you just bring some of those women from Iran?

00:29:03.020 Why don't you bring detainees who got out of Yarlswood onto the red carpet with you?

00:29:06.960 That would be much more meaningful than these silly campaigns.

00:29:12.060 And, you know, I find the state of it really depressing,

00:29:15.560 which is why I think, you know, some of the best work being done

00:29:18.740 is the work that's highlighting to young women how well they're actually doing,

00:29:22.340 is the genuine charity work reaching out to developing countries

00:29:25.940 and countries that are suffering under oppression

00:29:27.600 and doing what they can to help women there.

00:29:30.300 It's not coming from the feminist movement.

00:29:31.720 So how do you identify yourself?

00:29:33.420 If you're not a feminist, if you had to put an easy label on yourself?

00:29:37.260 She told you. She's got to internalise misogyny.

00:29:39.460 Yes. Exactly.

00:29:43.800 I'll just have to go outside and ask the men out there

00:29:46.520 who pay me to say what I say, what my ideology is.

00:29:51.120 Give me a sec.

00:29:53.960 Yeah, how do I describe myself?

00:29:56.380 To be honest, I'll give credit to somebody else, and I don't think she knows this,

00:30:02.040 but I spoke on a panel about feminism years back,

00:30:06.200 and I was there with Professor Emily Scarbeck.

00:30:09.680 She used to teach at King's College London, and she's now, I believe, at Brown.

00:30:14.900 And I was on the panel with her, and I mean, she's a real economist.

00:30:17.540 She knows herself.

00:30:18.680 She knows her numbers.

00:30:19.280 and she was talking about the pay gap from that perspective.

00:30:22.160 And she was asked how she described herself.

00:30:24.040 And she said, you know, I call myself an individualist

00:30:28.020 because I think it encompasses everything that is good about feminism

00:30:32.080 but also allows me to recognize that stereotyping is wrong,

00:30:36.760 that everyone has their own point of view,

00:30:38.380 and that every circumstance is unique.

00:30:40.200 And that really stuck with me,

00:30:42.160 and that is what I would call myself now when it comes to cultural issues.

00:30:47.160 I'm an individualist.

00:30:48.320 because to go back before about biology and you know what do women really want what do men want

00:30:53.740 you know I'm I'm classically liberal I believe in free people people you know having every

00:30:59.720 opportunity given to them and then making their own choices as long as it doesn't harm anybody else

00:31:04.780 and I think individualism encompasses that I don't want to stereotype I think it's I think

00:31:11.740 it'd be very dangerous if we assume that because she's a woman she'll want to have lots of babies

00:31:15.800 and she won't, you know, she'll want a nice work-life balance.

00:31:18.340 I think it's dangerous to assume that a man, you know,

00:31:20.700 is going to be really competitive and wants to work evenings.

00:31:23.460 We have to try to treat people individually.

00:31:26.360 So that allows me to believe in equality of the sexes.

00:31:30.540 It allows me to think that men and women are capable of doing the same things.

00:31:34.420 But to speak to you and speak to you and speak to you behind the camera

00:31:37.820 and speak to everybody out there.

00:31:39.340 You don't have to speak to him.

00:31:41.140 He's a producer. He doesn't matter. We're the stars.

00:31:43.720 No, he's an individual.

00:31:45.040 Not to me.

00:31:47.060 Anyway, carry on.

00:31:48.980 I feel bad every time you do that

00:31:50.660 because he doesn't get a chance to reply.

00:31:53.120 You can insult me because I'll make fun of you the next time.

00:31:55.780 That's why I insult him.

00:31:57.400 Because he can't get away.

00:31:58.000 We can see it in his eyes.

00:31:59.880 He's just going after you.

00:32:02.600 Yeah, it allows me to treat everybody

00:32:05.900 and look specifically and differently.

00:32:09.020 And it allows me to acknowledge their circumstances

00:32:11.200 and interact with them in that way,

00:32:13.660 which is so much nicer.

00:32:15.040 than putting people into boxes.

00:32:17.260 One of the things I really abhor,

00:32:21.180 I think it's probably the right word, about the feminist movement

00:32:23.660 is, like you said, it's just, if you challenge them in whatever way

00:32:27.820 or you disagree with them, like my girlfriend is currently

00:32:30.860 in the last year of her doctorate, incredibly intelligent

00:32:32.880 through a psychology degree,

00:32:36.240 and she says that she disagrees with ABCD&E

00:32:38.880 of the modern feminist movement,

00:32:39.940 but she would never, ever voice those opinions

00:32:44.060 because she would fear being slandered, having labels attached to her.

00:32:48.340 Do you think that's part of the problem with the movement?

00:32:50.480 Is the moment you say, well, look, I disagree with this,

00:32:53.440 immediately you get six people jumping down your throats putting labels on you

00:32:57.060 and it's not a real discussion anymore.

00:32:59.380 Oh, yeah, there's a lot of name-calling.

00:33:00.980 But we're just living in a world where everyone wants to label each other.

00:33:04.360 It is a consequence of identity politics that, you know,

00:33:08.940 there is a real desire to understand you based on very very superficial things um like like you

00:33:16.800 know she's a feminist i understand what that ideology means and so i i can put her here and

00:33:22.140 i get that and um you know i i don't think it allows you to get to know the individual and

00:33:27.160 there's definitely that threat i mean if she did come out and start talking about that she probably

00:33:31.160 would get called names uh and you know have a tougher time of it than if she just put her head

00:33:36.540 down and believed it, but didn't want to weigh in on the discussion. We have more young women

00:33:41.860 talking about it, though. And not just young women, we have women across the spectrum talking

00:33:45.380 about this and how they don't like being stereotyped. And that's great. I do think

00:33:50.660 it is becoming slowly but surely an atmosphere where women can voice their dissent a little bit

00:33:56.740 more against what you're supposed to say, what you're supposed to do, and supposed to be as a

00:34:02.360 woman i mean this is crazy i thought we fought against this uh but yeah you know it would be

00:34:07.700 rough that's not gonna lie it is fascinating how that works isn't it because for decades i think

00:34:12.340 the feminist movement the radical feminist elements of the movement have been shutting

00:34:16.400 people down based on identity politics if a white man like francis was to say something

00:34:20.960 and challenge them right that's what the response would be you're a white man you shouldn't be

00:34:25.000 allowed to say this and now what you're seeing is radical feminists who are trans exclusionary or

00:34:30.380 whatever they don't believe certain things that they're supposed to believe according to the

00:34:33.760 modern diversity agenda they are the ones that are being shut down because they're a straight white

00:34:39.460 middle-class woman and that's now become a label that can be used as a pejorative it's amazing

00:34:44.720 yeah and where does this end who's going to be allowed to speak at the end of all of this well

00:34:48.340 that's the thing about identity politics is that the more you can break it down and the you know

00:34:53.280 the more boxes you can tick and the fewer boxes you fit into will define your privilege uh but

00:34:58.600 You know, this is a crazy way to look at the world.

00:35:01.620 What is somebody's background?

00:35:03.180 You know, regardless of their skin color or their gender and things that we can see on the outside, what have they been through?

00:35:08.760 What has their experience been like?

00:35:11.100 And this frustrates me because as somebody who believes in including trans women, very much so in the conversations about women,

00:35:20.260 I would much prefer to speak to radical feminists about their opinions rather than to judge them

00:35:26.820 on who they physically are.

00:35:29.700 You know, I want to debate.

00:35:31.440 I want to have those conversations.

00:35:32.660 They're interesting.

00:35:33.300 They're important.

00:35:33.820 We need to have that publicly.

00:35:35.620 We need to get that out there.

00:35:37.260 So let's debate it.

00:35:38.420 But I just can't imagine ever looking at you or you or sitting across from someone

00:35:41.740 and assuming that I can shut them down because of what is being presented to me.

00:35:46.980 It's horrible.

00:35:48.260 It's very bad for public discussion.

00:35:50.260 And you've said in the past, I think I saw one of your interviews, that this is part of a leftist kind of movement or ideology.

00:35:57.760 What's the link there between feminism and this kind of left-wing ideology?

00:36:02.540 Well, I think, no, not at all.

00:36:04.400 I think, you know, I think over the past few decades, it's essentially become an arm of a left-wing movement.

00:36:12.020 Because if you look at what they're calling for, they're calling for much more intervention.

00:36:18.200 They want government to step in frequently to solve the problems.

00:36:22.740 And they've gone far past the law, which, I mean, I completely agree with.

00:36:26.860 We need to protect people under the law from harm.

00:36:29.500 But, you know, they want the government to legislate around business.

00:36:32.100 They want it to legislate around all kinds of things.

00:36:34.160 And, you know, that's very—traditionally very left-wing.

00:36:39.040 And especially the way that politics pans out in the states as well,

00:36:43.700 to say that you are, say, a feminist Republican.

00:36:47.860 People would look at you and think that that couldn't go together.

00:36:50.920 And that shouldn't be the case.

00:36:52.600 You should be able to be a feminist anything,

00:36:54.480 if we're going back to the original definition.

00:36:56.760 But I think that proves that we're not at that original definition anymore,

00:37:01.140 because people would just think you had contradicted yourself.

00:37:03.740 and i know that you're a fan of uh socialist paradises uh

00:37:17.080 yeah well i mean i love them in theory because real socialism hasn't been tried

00:37:22.340 yeah yeah definitely um my uh for the regular views all know my mother is uh from a socialist

00:37:30.940 paradise. Which one? Venezuela. We're doing really well at the moment, guys. A million percent

00:37:36.540 inflation. How many people got that in their maths test? Right. So would you like to give a little

00:37:42.320 bit of background to our viewers? I mean, because what's happening in Venezuela is starting to

00:37:46.800 become more and more worldwide and that people can see for themselves. Yes, thank goodness that

00:37:53.280 it's becoming more covered by the media. I mean, it wasn't that long ago, five, six years ago,

00:37:58.920 where you had very prominent U.K. politicians,

00:38:02.020 very prominent philosophers like Noam Chomsky

00:38:04.020 talking about how Venezuela showed us that another way was possible.

00:38:07.360 And they meant that in a good way,

00:38:08.900 not that another way is possible, you know, here's utter travesty.

00:38:14.760 It's really horrific what's happened under the socialist policies.

00:38:18.820 Chavez is definitely responsible,

00:38:21.240 but it's become much worse as well under the current president, Nicolas Maduro.

00:38:24.920 Over the course of a decade, they seized over 1,000 companies in the private sector, just

00:38:33.960 a huge array of nationalization.

00:38:36.580 Since oil prices have tanked, the way that they were able to sustain their economy a

00:38:40.560 bit has completely crashed.

00:38:42.720 And now you have over 2 million people fleeing Venezuela and an estimated 2.5 million more

00:38:49.500 by 2020.

00:38:50.500 So to put it in perspective, this kind of mass emigration from Venezuela is on the same scale as the Syrian crisis.

00:38:58.660 And we need to treat it as such.

00:39:00.540 It is a human rights disaster what's happened there.

00:39:03.820 It is socialism in every way.

00:39:08.560 There's nothing about it that wasn't real.

00:39:10.660 There's nothing about it that, you know, you can blame on the capitalists.

00:39:14.320 This is what happens when you believe that through force, the state can control our lives.

00:39:21.540 And it's really sad.

00:39:23.500 And, you know, I actually think most people know this deep down.

00:39:29.060 You know, I don't think most people really do think that Venezuela shows us that in other

00:39:33.700 ways possible.

00:39:35.820 And it's not to say that we can't have a debate about more intervention versus left

00:39:42.180 intervention, higher taxes versus lower taxes. It's not about that. This is about the way that

00:39:48.620 you control the means of production. They always jump around about what the new socialism is. And

00:39:54.340 I've heard a lot recently that Scandinavia is actually what we should aspire to, because that's

00:39:58.300 socialist. I mean, the Scandinavian countries are fundamentally capitalist. They understand that

00:40:04.320 the very best way to create wealth is through a capitalist system. Then we can talk about

00:40:11.940 redistributing it. You might think taxes should be a bit higher. I might think they should be a bit

00:40:15.720 lower. You might think the safety net should be bigger. I might think it should be smaller.

00:40:19.660 But we can have that debate once that wealth has been created through capitalism.

00:40:23.480 And, you know, in Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, you know, they're fundamentally

00:40:27.740 capitalist. If you look at Sweden in particular, their education system is based on that very

00:40:34.460 famous socialist thinker Milton Friedman. You know, they have significantly more private provisions

00:40:40.020 in their health care system than we do in the U.K.

00:40:42.960 You know, these are—a few of them don't even have a minimum wage.

00:40:47.000 You know, these are not countries that are socialist.

00:40:50.520 So I'm not trying to shut down the debate between the left and the right.

00:40:53.760 That's a necessary one. It's a valuable one to have.

00:40:57.240 You said earlier in the discussion that, you know, these—

00:41:00.960 actually, when we first started, we were talking about these videos

00:41:03.400 that talk about destroying feminism, whatever it is.

00:41:07.880 And one of the reasons I don't like clickbait

00:41:10.180 is because none of these ideas ever get destroyed.

00:41:14.240 And, you know, I think people who believe in individualism

00:41:18.260 and liberty and free markets and free people

00:41:21.340 thought that they had won that argument.

00:41:23.540 They thought they had destroyed socialism.

00:41:26.220 But it always rears its ugly head.

00:41:28.820 And we're fighting the battle once more.

00:41:31.460 So you've never destroyed the other ideas, the other side.

00:41:34.800 You're always having to make the arguments,

00:41:36.380 which is why free speech is so important it's why you know not telling people that they can't voice

00:41:41.460 their opinion because of what they look like or who they are is is important it's you know we have

00:41:47.480 to keep talking about it because nothing ever is destroyed and one point that i was going to ask

00:41:55.120 is whenever i bring up the subject of venezuela people go oh but it wasn't allowed to succeed it

00:41:59.940 was you know those capitalist pigs in washington they were the one who brought down the system

00:42:04.260 They were the ones who said, oh, you can't succeed or implemented strategies so that the economy failed.

00:42:10.460 Is this true?

00:42:11.560 I mean, a lot of that, I think, is just pure conspiracy theory.

00:42:14.620 If you want to criticise the US for sanctions against certain countries, fine.

00:42:19.020 I think there's an argument to be made that actually the best way to help a country develop out of socialist policy

00:42:27.740 or help a developing country just rise up in general is to trade with it.

00:42:31.260 You know, trade is one of the best ways that we can help liberalize countries.

00:42:35.760 But in the case of Venezuela, I mean, you are talking about a real dictator as well.

00:42:39.700 And I think U.S. foreign policy remaining extremely strong and against that is vitally important.

00:42:44.940 This idea that the U.S. government made them nationalize all their private companies, you know, made them ration food, made them turn into a socialist paradise is absolutely ridiculous.

00:42:56.220 And it's a pretty weak cop-out.

00:42:57.780 I mean, just say it's bad.

00:42:59.560 Just say it didn't work.

00:43:00.340 Just say that you can still hold very left-wing views, very progressive views, high-tax, high-intervention views, and acknowledge that Venezuela, North Korea, Mao's China, the Soviet Union didn't work because socialism and the extension of communism don't work.

00:43:21.020 They don't just not work.

00:43:22.480 They kill hundreds, 100 million people, I think is the current estimate around.

00:43:26.880 So let's just be honest about that, get that out of the way.

00:43:30.100 and then we can have a legitimate policy debate about tax rates.

00:43:33.400 Isn't that the fundamental issue with socialist thinking

00:43:36.000 is once you get to a certain point

00:43:37.540 and you want to redistribute wealth at that level,

00:43:40.700 you have to do it by force

00:43:42.060 because there comes a point where people are like,

00:43:43.640 well, I'm not giving away 90% of my wealth.

00:43:46.180 Isn't that fundamentally the flaw?

00:43:47.880 Like, as someone who comes from Russia, the Soviet Union,

00:43:50.540 like, it's basic, it's elementary to me.

00:43:53.200 And to see in the West this rise of socialism as this cool thing,

00:43:57.300 it baffles me. It makes no sense to me.

00:44:00.240 It makes no sense. I mean, it's hard to imagine getting behind an ideology that requires force.

00:44:06.320 As you say, there's no way for it to work without that element of force.

00:44:12.100 And that's really—it's very worrying that people think that this is cool and trendy.

00:44:17.300 But I think that's because communism seems to be maybe the only ideology I can think of right now anyway

00:44:23.780 that gets away with not having to deal with its real world examples, it gets a pass.

00:44:29.060 And I don't really know why that is.

00:44:31.880 Because, you know, you can criticize capitalism all day long.

00:44:34.960 No one gets upset when you criticize capitalism.

00:44:37.360 And it's good that we do, right?

00:44:38.800 It's good that we critique it.

00:44:39.860 I think it's the best system we've come up with to generate prosperity, generate wealth, lift people up.

00:44:45.160 But it's not perfect.

00:44:46.460 We'd be crazy to say that it's perfect.

00:44:47.960 um and you know we we're you can't criticize communism because it's never really been tried

00:44:53.780 and and that's dangerous because you have to be able to criticize something based on its real

00:44:58.840 world examples i think the issue there is actually most people don't any have any conception of the

00:45:03.200 young people particularly they haven't really studied history well enough to and and i don't

00:45:07.660 blame them like there's parts of the world that i don't know anything about the reason i know about

00:45:11.240 socialism is that i experienced it myself right if you probably don't go around saying that

00:45:16.340 something's really cool that you know nothing about yeah there was a horrific poll done in the

00:45:21.820 states not too long ago where young where people a range of people at different age points were

00:45:27.640 asked um if more people died under george w bush or stalin and no millennials it wasn't 50 but it

00:45:36.360 was something like 30 percent of millennials thought that more people had died under george

00:45:41.100 w bush no than stalin no yes yes jesus fucking christ yeah it's concerning right yeah so that's

00:45:48.900 i don't think george w bush is that competent stalin was very good yeah yeah he was mate he

00:45:55.100 was efficient yeah he was very very good

00:45:57.160 do you think there is i mean the counter argument to everything that we're joking around about it

00:46:10.060 But the counterargument there would be, you know, I put this to, I guess, a couple of weeks ago.

00:46:16.600 Capitalism for young people, their experience of capitalism, if you enter the workforce after the financial crisis, you're kind of going, well, I can't buy a house.

00:46:25.120 I can't even buy a flat.

00:46:26.820 I probably can't even buy a room in a flat at this point.

00:46:29.600 Right. I'm really struggling, particularly someone like London.

00:46:32.960 My job prospects are uncertain.

00:46:35.160 The economy, I don't know what's happening with it.

00:46:37.280 But I'm kind of like going, well, you know, I think the point that Tom Slater from Spike touched us, it's difficult to expect people to be capitalist when they have no capital.

00:46:47.140 Absolutely. It is.

00:46:48.360 And so isn't that the reason that people are going, well, we need something else?

00:46:52.160 They're not necessarily going socialism is this great new thing.

00:46:54.980 They're going, well, this thing didn't work.

00:46:57.160 Let's try something else.

00:46:58.400 Socialism is the alternative.

00:46:59.920 Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that.

00:47:01.600 I don't think it totally justifies turning to something that has been tried and tested and failed.

00:47:05.860 But there is a lot of merit in saying, I don't like what's happening.

00:47:08.960 This isn't working.

00:47:10.400 And, I mean, there are a lot of issues that government needs to sort out, that we need

00:47:14.760 to liberalize the planning system so we can build more homes.

00:47:17.760 You know, the productivity puzzle hasn't been solved.

00:47:21.140 And there are a lot of reasons for young people to feel like the deck's stacked against them.

00:47:24.900 In many ways, it is.

00:47:26.260 We have a huge issue of intergenerational unfairness.

00:47:29.180 And it's what we should be tackling right now and continues to get ignored.

00:47:32.820 So I think those qualms are completely legitimate.

00:47:35.500 And it's good that we can criticise that and then look to public policy to address an array of issues that have to be addressed.

00:47:42.540 So what would you suggest? How can we go about solving this mess?

00:47:45.740 Is there certain things that we could do?

00:47:48.140 Oh, my gosh, what a question.

00:47:50.060 No one ever asks about what we can do, do they?

00:47:52.000 Yeah, let's be positive.

00:47:54.240 Well, I think for young people, the biggest question is housing.

00:47:57.260 Yeah, for sure.

00:47:59.180 And to me, it's not simply done, but there is a simple solution.

00:48:04.200 Kill old people.

00:48:05.500 No, no, not, no.

00:48:07.860 They're going to die by themselves, it's fine.

00:48:09.700 Gosh, no, honestly, the way that people have been making those arguments in the Brexit debate is so many flashbacks.

00:48:19.140 It's disgusting. It is genuinely disgusting.

00:48:21.480 Yeah, it's normal.

00:48:22.240 Francis is a prime example of this.

00:48:26.140 The biggest issue is that demand has heavily outweighed supply.

00:48:30.580 And, you know, we need to build more homes.

00:48:32.980 And the Adam Smith Institute did a report a few years back when I was working there where they calculated that if you were to liberalize 3.7 percent of London's green belts, all within 10-minute walking distance of a train station, you could build a million homes.

00:48:49.520 We will not solve the housing crisis until those homes are built.

00:48:52.660 You can tinker at the edges all you want, but, you know, the government's now questioning their help-to-buy scheme, thinking they were helping young people get on the housing ladder.

00:49:00.440 They actually realize now, it was pretty much Economics 101,

00:49:03.360 but they realize now that that was further distorting the housing market,

00:49:06.680 bringing in money when there wasn't the supply to meet it.

00:49:10.280 It just causes house prices to rise more.

00:49:12.060 Every single time.

00:49:13.920 They teach you that literally at A-level economics.

00:49:16.660 Yeah, it's really baffling the policies they bring in when this is fundamental stuff.

00:49:23.840 But I think whichever political party is willing to do this,

00:49:28.760 is willing to build more homes and address the housing crisis in a meaningful way will win in a

00:49:34.080 landslide. It's just not obvious who's going to do it. And obviously, there are political sensitivities

00:49:38.100 in every party about why you can't. But whoever can overcome that hurdle, any party, I think,

00:49:43.480 will win in a landslide. But the Conservatives can never do it, because if they say that they're

00:49:47.340 going to build on the green belt, they will alienate 80% of their core votes? It would be

00:49:53.740 it would be difficult to do but i'm not convinced they could never do it i think if you

00:49:57.900 did it um if you really targeted communities and made those communities feel like they had some

00:50:02.300 control over where the houses were being built and what they looked like i think you would

00:50:06.860 actually potentially get more popular support okay so we have to let all people live right yes we

00:50:11.580 really do you've made me forget the question i was going to ask you and we've come false

00:50:19.100 with this geriatric genocide conversation that would make for a good clickbait video would it

00:50:25.000 k andrews in support of old people living yes yes key key key last word there i was going to ask

00:50:32.720 you about austerity and cuts because i think that's fundamentally an issue where young people

00:50:36.560 don't realize that they're actually advocating it against something that's in their favor

00:50:41.340 the conversation about austerity makes no sense because the point of cuts and austerity even

00:50:46.920 though the cuts were actually very minor in terms of the percentage of, right?

00:50:50.860 And this is something most people don't realize.

00:50:52.260 I think like 50% of the budget was destroyed in this process.

00:50:56.140 Yeah, so during the time of the coalition government, between 2010 and 2015, on average,

00:51:02.400 spending was cut 0.5% every year.

00:51:05.020 Right.

00:51:06.100 That was it.

00:51:07.020 Exactly.

00:51:07.560 0.5%.

00:51:08.440 I'll tell you why I think young people feel very strongly about this, and they've got

00:51:12.780 some legitimate grievances.

00:51:14.420 the cuts were disproportionate to young people. So young people as you say are trying to get into

00:51:22.340 the workforce after the financial crisis that you know everything's blown up where do we go from now

00:51:26.660 or where to go to now and all of a sudden you have university tuition fees come in which is a policy

00:51:32.920 I'm in favor of but they came in very quickly with no time to save. So you know people are

00:51:37.520 dishing out for that they're struggling to get on the housing ladder struggling to get on the jobs

00:51:41.020 ladder. And meanwhile, the benefits for older people were completely protected. The triple

00:51:46.460 lock on pensions, winter fuel allowance, all of it's protected. And so while the cuts were

00:51:51.480 quite minor compared to what people actually think they were, they were disproportionate.

00:51:56.680 And younger people would have felt them more. And I think that, again, you know, just goes to this

00:52:01.400 issue of intergenerational unfairness. That was going to be my point, which is young people are

00:52:06.040 going to be the ones that are paying off this massive debt. They really are, which is why,

00:52:10.000 I don't think that we can be bribed with £10,000 as the Resolution Foundation wanted

00:52:16.360 to hand out to all 25-year-olds, and IPPRs recently put out a report saying the same

00:52:21.120 thing.

00:52:21.760 We can't be bribed with a one-off £10,000 payment to pay off trillions and trillions

00:52:26.900 of pounds down the road.

00:52:27.900 That's all going to be on us.

00:52:30.600 And yeah, I mean, austerity is very much something that young people should favour, which is

00:52:36.500 essentially just responsible spending.

00:52:38.020 right um but because of that disproportionate aspect i think again understandably so you know

00:52:45.820 you're paying high tuition fees you're in debt you don't have a fantastic job or it's not the

00:52:49.860 job you wanted you can't get on the housing ladder you're working very hard and someone comes along

00:52:54.200 and says i'll give you a house or i'll wipe your debt i'll wipe your tuition fees i'll help you up

00:52:59.880 and you go yes please yes please that sounds great because nobody else is helping and the

00:53:05.880 policies are not stacked in my favor and they have a point so do you think uh corbyn's gonna win

00:53:11.960 i don't make predictions after after the past two years how can anybody make a prediction

00:53:18.680 yeah hey everybody predicted trump would get elected just very few people predicted it before

00:53:23.360 the election yeah that's very true i put money on him to win did you yeah i've never but i didn't

00:53:28.540 think he was going to win um i've never i had never bet anything before this um uh i'm not

00:53:35.060 I'm not a betting kind of gal.

00:53:36.920 I did not think he was going to win.

00:53:38.540 I thought Hillary Clinton was going to win.

00:53:40.360 But the odds were wrong.

00:53:42.340 And I was just like, he's got a better chance than what they're giving him.

00:53:46.040 It's a good deal.

00:53:46.900 Yeah, exactly.

00:53:47.740 I was like, I don't think it's, I think this is wrong.

00:53:51.220 And so I put a tenner on it.

00:53:52.880 How much did you get back?

00:53:54.300 I don't remember.

00:53:55.140 It was like 40 quid or something.

00:53:56.360 It was very exciting.

00:53:57.280 That's a good deal.

00:53:57.980 Yeah.

00:53:58.480 But, I mean, a lot of people around me were not happy that night.

00:54:01.640 So I was like, guys, 40 quid.

00:54:03.820 And that didn't seem to solve the problem.

00:54:07.680 But yeah, no, I didn't think he was going to win.

00:54:08.880 See, there's the solution.

00:54:09.940 Bet on the guy you don't like.

00:54:11.400 And when he wins, you're going to be happy either way.

00:54:14.180 Yeah.

00:54:14.780 It's true, yeah.

00:54:15.720 That's good thinking.

00:54:16.560 It's a silver lining.

00:54:17.680 I don't know.

00:54:18.480 I do think there's a chance that the Conservatives will end up handing Brexited Britain over to the Labour Party.

00:54:25.700 But it's near impossible to say who the leaders would be at that time, what the situation will be like, how the public feels about Brexit.

00:54:32.240 that, I mean, I am very happy to say, I don't know.

00:54:35.960 This is a show about experts, and I am not one.

00:54:38.420 But that's part of being an expert.

00:54:39.740 When it comes to making random predictions.

00:54:41.920 But I think that's part of being an expert.

00:54:43.580 I think more people need to say, this is what I know, and this is what I don't know.

00:54:46.880 I agree.

00:54:47.340 And I think that has got to be a part of our conversation.

00:54:50.540 Everybody's always trying to have an opinion about stuff they don't understand.

00:54:53.380 And it's really great that you would say that.

00:54:55.680 Well, I think if you have a philosophy,

00:54:58.580 you can kind of always intuitively know how you're going to feel about something.

00:55:01.520 and it's great to express an opinion

00:55:03.320 but you have to know

00:55:06.120 the line between opinion and fact

00:55:07.520 and you have to try to be, you know, we all make mistakes

00:55:10.140 and that's fine and you can correct yourself

00:55:12.360 and we should be nicer to people who do correct

00:55:14.160 themselves as well, it shouldn't, you know, be like

00:55:16.200 destroyed, takedown, you should

00:55:17.940 it's a thoughtful conversation. Unless it's Owen Jones

00:55:19.980 Oh, I like Owen Jones

00:55:21.780 Do you? Why do you keep destroying him then?

00:55:24.220 I don't keep destroying him

00:55:25.920 I think he punches back pretty well

00:55:27.600 He's very nice

00:55:30.040 off camera

00:55:31.140 But, you know, I think it's just important to recognize what your opinion is and then what an actual fact is.

00:55:35.560 Sure.

00:55:35.920 It's great to put forward your opinion, but don't confuse it with facts.

00:55:39.500 Yeah.

00:55:40.180 All right.

00:55:40.520 Well, listen, we've done feminism.

00:55:41.660 We've done killing old people.

00:55:44.220 So that's not been controversial.

00:55:46.100 Let's talk about the NHS and your views on that.

00:55:49.160 Our NHS.

00:55:50.460 Because that's not going to trigger anyone in this country, is it?

00:55:54.120 Tell us your views.

00:55:55.200 I don't actually, I'll be honest with you, I don't know a huge amount about what you think about the NHS.

00:55:59.200 but a viewer and a friend of ours keeps messaging me

00:56:04.020 when I said that you were coming on.

00:56:05.580 He was like, you've got to ask her about the NHS.

00:56:07.880 Did he mention I don't like it?

00:56:09.320 He did mention that you don't like it.

00:56:11.900 Well, actually, it's actually not the NHS that I don't like.

00:56:15.100 Right.

00:56:16.000 It's the attitude towards it.

00:56:18.180 So the UK essentially created the principle

00:56:23.160 of universal access to health care back in the 40s.

00:56:26.680 And that's a very important principle.

00:56:28.200 I'm from the States. We don't have universal access to health care. I think that's a bad thing.

00:56:32.360 I do not advocate bringing the U.S. system anywhere else in the world. It's also extremely

00:56:36.520 expensive and unnecessarily so. The problem with the NHS is that since its founding,

00:56:43.920 nobody's been able to criticize it. It has become this godlike entity. People write songs about it.

00:56:53.280 people do dances at Olympic ceremonies about it. That was weird in 2012, sitting in the union bar

00:57:00.660 watching like nurses do flips during the opening ceremony for the Olympics. And the rest of the

00:57:06.360 world was looking at you guys being like, really? The NHS is part of your opening ceremony? It was

00:57:11.400 strange. People treat it like it cannot be touched. And this is crazy. It's a health care service.

00:57:18.620 You know, you have to be able to speak about it honestly

00:57:21.320 because it's only as good as the care it delivers to its patients.

00:57:26.520 And, you know, I don't think it's radical to talk about what Germany's doing.

00:57:30.860 So what are the hard truths about the NHS?

00:57:32.780 Because, look, I'll give you an example.

00:57:34.400 Two or three years ago, I was playing basketball.

00:57:36.600 I jumped up. I miscalculated.

00:57:38.400 I landed straight down on my arm.

00:57:39.960 I looked down. My arm was kind of zigzag-shaped like that.

00:57:42.340 I'm so sorry.

00:57:43.000 That's fine.

00:57:43.620 And, you know, look, I'm just playing basketball like an idiot.

00:57:47.460 suddenly three hours later but an ambulance comes takes me to the hospital about like 10 people are

00:57:53.560 running around straightening my arm giving me ketamine or whatever it was knock me out that

00:57:59.420 was fun um yeah but but essentially i get all that treatment here i am i'm an idiot i broke my arm

00:58:05.440 i get this amazing treatment from doctors who genuinely really care you can tell that they're

00:58:10.680 there because they love doing what they do they love taking care of people what's wrong with that

00:58:14.560 system why do you want to why do you want me to walk around with a broken arm Kate I don't want

00:58:18.640 you to walk around with a broken arm um I I just recognize that every other developed country in

00:58:25.400 the world apart from the U.S. has developed a system that would have done exactly the same

00:58:30.400 thing for you except it would be better how well in many situations it would be so one of the areas

00:58:35.960 where the NHS does best is actually an emergency care like if you break your arm they're very good

00:58:40.420 picking you up and fixing it. It does a lot worse when it comes to longer-term illnesses and quite

00:58:46.860 serious illnesses like cancer, stroke survival rates, things like that. So on average, the UK

00:58:53.260 ranks in the bottom third of international health system performance. It's on par with the Czech

00:58:59.540 Republic and Slovenia in terms of health care outcomes. Of great countries? Great countries,

00:59:05.120 but not what we would think of as being, you know, world-class when it comes to health care output.

00:59:09.020 It could never be confused with Belgium or Switzerland or France.

00:59:13.800 You know, thousands more people die when it comes to the five most common types of cancer in the UK

00:59:19.940 than they would do on the systems in Switzerland or Germany.

00:59:23.680 And the problem is not the universal access, that's great, it's how the health care is actually provided.

00:59:29.300 Almost every other developed country has recognized that you need a combination of state subsidy

00:59:35.240 to make sure everyone can pay for health care, have access to it.

00:59:37.940 And then private provisions from the private sector, which are good at efficiency, actually delivering the health care.

00:59:44.280 And it looks nothing like America.

00:59:46.800 You know, it's a very different, inclusive system.

00:59:50.020 And here in the U.K., it's so centralized and it's so bureaucratic and it's so deeply inefficient in the provisions of health care that people end up getting worse treatment.

01:00:00.580 And, you know, I don't think that the NHS is going to fundamentally change tomorrow into some mainland Europe dream system.

01:00:06.440 you know I but it's crazy to me that we can't even talk about those systems without people

01:00:12.660 screaming that you want the American system and that we can't just be honest about health care

01:00:17.600 outcomes in the UK I mean what is the point if you're not getting really good treatment and so

01:00:22.960 it's the attitudes that bother me not the NHS itself so you've mentioned about Switzerland

01:00:27.880 about Germany what are their systems because I've always been a little bit in the dark about them I

01:00:33.680 don't fully understand them how different how are they different to the nhs for example all the

01:00:38.900 systems are different but if we focus in on switzerland which would be my preferred system

01:00:42.880 for the uk and for the us it's basically universal insurance so there are private providers of

01:00:49.000 insurance and private providers of health care provisions the state tops everyone up to make

01:00:53.780 sure that everyone has access to buy that health insurance it's compulsory and then you go out you

01:00:59.100 buy your health insurance and you have significantly more patient choice and control

01:01:03.140 over what kind of health care you're getting access to. You get access to it faster. You have

01:01:08.580 more choice. There's a wider range of provisions for you. It's a very nice combination of private

01:01:14.500 services and public services coming together to deliver health care. And how much would that

01:01:18.340 kind of insurance cost for? So it ranges, but there are serious regulations on what you can

01:01:23.540 charge. It's not a deregulated system by any stretch of the imagination. And they spend

01:01:28.760 slightly more on health care. They spend one to two percentage of their GDP more on health care,

01:01:34.440 which is why I've always said I'm not fundamentally opposed to the NHS having more money.

01:01:39.280 But who's spending that money? Is the money following the patient or is the money following

01:01:43.860 the bureaucrats? And if we were to restructure so it followed the patient, it would probably be

01:01:48.420 quite well spent so I'm not a radical on this one I mean this is this is what I

01:01:53.640 find funny is that it's probably the topic that is most dangerous to touch

01:01:57.060 people get most upset about and even more than feminism and the gender pay

01:02:01.260 gap are likely to say that you are quite an extreme radical on but I just don't

01:02:05.880 think France is radical like I don't think Switzerland's radical I don't

01:02:08.940 think it's crazy to talk about these things there are other health care

01:02:12.740 systems outside of the UK, and the attitude during the NHS's 70th, it was as if, if you

01:02:20.380 lived in these other countries, like babies weren't born, people didn't get access to

01:02:24.540 treatments, like what do you think happens there? Australia is a really good example,

01:02:29.460 you know, similar population size, similar money going into their healthcare system,

01:02:33.200 and they get better results. So let's try to learn a few things. Just because we're leaving

01:02:37.580 the EU doesn't mean we don't have something to learn from Europe. And this would be a great

01:02:41.360 area where we could probably pick up a few tips don't you think a lot of the

01:02:45.500 celebration the NHS fundamentally comes from a distrust towards a government

01:02:50.060 because I think the counter argument to what you're saying is okay let's bring

01:02:53.900 in private practice private companies and of course that's fantastic but a lot

01:02:58.000 of people go hang on that is just a way for you to start charging and once you

01:03:02.800 start charging then fees start going up and before you know it we're in the

01:03:06.920 american-style system i mean take for example our universities like when i went to university it was

01:03:12.160 one thousand pounds a year now it's nine thousand well that's the fear that's absolutely the fear

01:03:17.340 and the american system is very easy to point to and that escalates the fear that people have any

01:03:22.460 concept of uh of you paying for your health care upsets people but what we have to realize is that

01:03:28.580 we are all paying for health care the nhs is not free the average family and i think this is a

01:03:33.980 conservative estimate, because it's from a few years back, spends on average, through

01:03:37.820 their taxation, £4,000 a year on health care, on the NHS.

01:03:42.360 So it's not free.

01:03:43.640 The question you have to ask yourself isn't, is it free or am I paying?

01:03:47.660 It's, how far is that £4,000 getting me right now?

01:03:51.060 And how far could it get me under a different system?

01:03:53.980 And what would the outcomes be like?

01:03:55.960 And I think that's how you have to frame it.

01:03:58.420 And it's very disingenuous to say that it's free here and that it's not free in the States,

01:04:03.420 because that's just that's not true money's coming from somewhere um but yeah i mean the

01:04:08.340 states is just it's it's a really easy way to dismiss any argument around health care which is

01:04:13.940 um unfortunate because nhs needs a bit of help right now yep and uh we need a little bit of

01:04:20.100 help because our time's almost up so uh that that segue that made no sense no it didn't make no

01:04:26.120 sense that was terrible i was just trying to find a way to link what you'd said to the fact that it's

01:04:30.420 It's getting worse as well. Just ask the final question.

01:04:33.700 It's getting worse. Thanks for helping me out, mate.

01:04:36.380 I thought improv comedy was supposed to be about a yes and,

01:04:39.020 then you just went straight.

01:04:40.260 No, it's about destroying. It's about the funniest person winning.

01:04:43.500 Right, ask the question.

01:04:44.460 How come I didn't win that one, then?

01:04:45.860 Anyway, our time's up.

01:04:47.720 So the last question that we always ask is,

01:04:50.480 what is the one thing that we're not talking about

01:04:52.540 that we should be talking about?

01:04:53.600 I think the way in which ideology is helping to realign politics.

01:05:04.700 So by that, I mean, I don't think that the definitions of left and right are very helpful anymore.

01:05:10.180 And I think that this is actually going to translate to party politics pretty soon.

01:05:15.160 I think the rise of Trump, the rise of Corbyn, a lot of these different phenomenons are coming together.

01:05:21.540 And it means that the way that we define ourselves and our parties and our politics is going to change.

01:05:26.740 And the real expert on this is Dr. Steve Davies at the IEA.

01:05:31.380 And he's got some fascinating theories about the realignment in politics.

01:05:35.240 And people should be listening to those because I think it's going to happen sooner than we think.

01:05:39.360 And for a lot of people who are quite tribal in their political beliefs, a lot's going to change go out the window.

01:05:45.100 Fascinating. Well, we'd love to get him on the show then.

01:05:47.060 Sounds like you're great, but we will.

01:05:48.580 All right. Well, thank you very much for coming on.

01:05:50.600 your twitter handle is uh at kate a-n-d-r-s okay we'll put that in the bottom of the video

01:05:57.460 follow kate for kate andrews was taken was it yeah obviously i'm not over it

01:06:03.360 is there anything that you'd like to promote have you got a book or anything else that you

01:06:08.120 would like oh my gosh i don't have a book i don't know if i have a book in me that's yeah i'm always

01:06:12.940 really in awe of people who write books that's uh that's great and well i'd flag up the um ia

01:06:17.840 podcasts where IA conversations on

01:06:19.980 iTunes. You can listen to Steve Davies

01:06:21.900 and his realignment theories and all other

01:06:23.880 kinds of things about how we're going to live to 700 years

01:06:25.900 old. Perfect. We'll put that in

01:06:27.940 the video as well. That sounds good to me. We're going to live

01:06:29.880 to 700 years old and then

01:06:31.560 Francis is going to kill us all.

01:06:33.820 All of us.

01:06:35.240 And take all your houses.

01:06:36.880 And take the houses. That's how it works.

01:06:39.460 If you enjoyed this week, as always,

01:06:41.360 follow us at

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01:06:45.260 We're on Facebook as well. Subscribe to

01:06:47.100 the youtube channel obviously and if you already subscribed the most important thing click that

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01:06:56.980 it's been absolutely great thank you so much for coming on and you need to up your game for next

01:07:01.620 week right i'll see you soon thanks bye

TRIGGERnometry - October 01, 2018

Kate Andrews on the Gender Pay Gap, Feminism, Socialism & the NHS

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