TRIGGERnometry - Laurence Fox： Is the Right Going Woke？

00:00:00.800 I started to notice weird things happening with my kids.

00:00:04.420 I said, give me a kiss goodnight.

00:00:06.640 And he went, no, you need to ask my consent.

00:00:09.500 And I was like, do I?

00:00:12.200 And he said, yeah, at school, they said, you've got to ask consent.

00:00:14.720 And I said, I'm your dad.

00:00:16.060 And he said, yeah, but you still have to ask consent.

00:00:18.620 And I went, OK, we're going to have a little lesson on consent here.

00:00:22.640 How do people who are trying to raise awareness of certain issues

00:00:25.880 have a conversation, and what is the best way to approach it?

00:00:29.760 You know, if you give ground to sort of things like non-binary

00:00:32.360 and stuff like that, if you don't just ridicule it immediately,

00:00:36.020 10 years down the line, it's going to be you will have given the ground

00:00:38.600 and we'll be dealing with something else in the Bible that says love your enemies.

00:00:42.420 Because I think just as a philosophical and emotional exercise,

00:00:45.500 it is absolutely where your brain should be.

00:00:48.120 How can I find a love for them?

00:00:50.360 Because if I can love them, then I can listen to them.

00:00:52.540 I see the same tactics now starting to be used.

00:00:55.360 And that, I think, should worry us, actually.

00:00:57.180 Well, no, I couldn't agree with you more,

00:00:58.420 because there's an appetite for revenge that comes when those tactics are used.

00:01:13.020 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:15.540 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:16.800 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:01:17.860 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:23.000 Our returning guest today is an actor, presenter, politician.

00:01:26.580 He's a man of many talents.

00:01:27.540 Lawrence Fox, welcome back.

00:01:28.900 Hi, guys.

00:01:29.380 How are you doing?

00:01:29.940 It's been a while.

00:01:30.760 It has been a while.

00:01:31.640 And you've been up to quite a lot in the time that we haven't spoken.

00:01:34.520 So the first time we spoke, you were an actor.

00:01:37.960 Was I still an actor?

00:01:38.780 Oh, yeah.

00:01:39.340 You were.

00:01:40.020 You were my, I broke my cancellation virginity with you. 0.52

00:01:43.800 You did.

00:01:44.440 You did.

00:01:45.300 We had nothing to do with that, just for the record.

00:01:47.620 You did it all by yourself, Lawrence.

00:01:49.580 I know.

00:01:50.840 And then we spoke to you after all of, after you went on question time and et cetera.

00:01:55.660 And since that time, as I said, you, you've stood for London Mayor.

00:01:58.440 You're now a presenter on GB News.

00:02:00.100 You've started the Bad Law Project and the Reclaim Party. 0.72

00:02:04.240 So you've been up to quite a lot.

00:02:05.620 I have, indeed.

00:02:07.180 It's been a pretty busy time.

00:02:09.000 And it seems to get busier and busier all the time as well.

00:02:11.400 But it's good.

00:02:12.760 I think it's, I think it's, I was thinking the other day whether I missed acting,

00:02:17.320 which I sort of do because it's my heart and soul and I love it.

00:02:21.240 But I was also thinking, what happened?

00:02:23.740 Could I go on a film set anymore?

00:02:25.800 Would people run screaming away?

00:02:28.700 Probably not the sparks and the chippies and your average people,

00:02:31.200 but the closer you get to the camera, how much you go like,

00:02:33.680 no, fascist, run.

00:02:37.520 So, yeah, it's certainly been quite a substantial change.

00:02:43.400 Yeah.

00:02:43.740 Well, once you get involved in politics, these things inevitably happen,

00:02:46.820 don't they?

00:02:47.400 Yeah.

00:02:48.040 But I don't, I don't really want to be involved in politics.

00:02:50.200 I want to be involved in culture.

00:02:52.120 So the politics side of it, I'm less interested in.

00:02:56.500 Oh, you are?

00:02:57.580 Yeah.

00:02:57.840 Because, I mean, you stood for London Mayor and you started a party.

00:03:01.340 I know.

00:03:01.840 It's difficult to, it's kind of hard to.

00:03:05.840 Well, no, but I think, you know, the standing for London Mayor thing was,

00:03:09.900 I was so, I'm still so fed up with the way Sadiq Khan treats people.

00:03:14.420 And I'm, you know, I'm fed up with the way a lot of people are treated.

00:03:17.320 You know, the Oxford thing, I was there the other day at the march

00:03:20.400 when they'd surveyed all their local residents as to whether they wanted

00:03:23.520 their sort of 15-minute city and being able to travel 100 times a year.

00:03:27.440 90% of them said, no, we don't.

00:03:28.820 And they said, well, we're putting it in anyway.

00:03:30.900 So I was, you know, my ticket for the London Mayor with my PR people

00:03:36.160 at the time, I said, I'm going to stand for London Mayor.

00:03:38.040 And they went, you're going to get 2%.

00:03:39.540 And I went, no, I'm not.

00:03:40.640 It's lockdown.

00:03:42.240 Get ready for power.

00:03:43.920 I got 1.9%.

00:03:45.380 Listen to your PR people.

00:03:49.460 You're fired.

00:03:51.500 But, Lawrence, if you're interested in culture,

00:03:55.340 then why have you gone down the political route?

00:03:57.400 Because you do have to have that threat at the end of the day.

00:04:02.580 I mean, I don't think it is ever going to be a substantial threat.

00:04:05.460 But you've got to have, you've got to go.

00:04:07.240 You can't be all bark and no bite.

00:04:09.280 But actually, the biggest changes that we've managed to achieve

00:04:12.580 have been cultural and on the ground sort of activism stuff.

00:04:16.700 You know, the Hampshire police thing with the pride flag swastika, 0.85

00:04:21.880 which got me, as Neil Oliver described it,

00:04:24.120 us like a VC in bar, transphob and anti-Semitic at the same time.

00:04:31.680 So, but we did get the chief constable of Hampshire police removed.

00:04:36.160 And actually, she dropped off her uniform this morning.

00:04:39.020 That was her last day in office.

00:04:40.740 And let's go into that.

00:04:41.800 So the people who don't know, what actually happened around that story?

00:04:44.600 So I posted the meme that had been, I mean,

00:04:49.080 apparently it had been around for a while,

00:04:50.240 but I hadn't seen it during Pride Month of the four progressive pride flags.

00:04:55.840 I think it's even got even more progressive now.

00:04:57.820 There's a ring, there's a circle in it.

00:04:59.180 It's even more migraine-inducing,

00:05:00.740 which happens to form the shape of the Zostika,

00:05:03.540 as making the point that there is only one flag one cannot criticise,

00:05:08.160 and that is the holy pride flag.

00:05:10.080 And I did it because I thought, I bet you this will get me in trouble

00:05:14.440 for criticising the pride flag.

00:05:17.120 And, you know, adding in the fact that it was, you know,

00:05:19.860 you can also criticise the, the only other flag that it was illegal

00:05:22.600 to criticise, I believe, was the, or to face in any way,

00:05:25.920 was the Nazi flag.

00:05:27.340 So I thought, it's double bubble.

00:05:29.320 And true to form, you know, social media went mental,

00:05:32.280 and I had to remove it for hateful content.

00:05:35.360 But what then happened is someone else shared it on their Facebook.

00:05:38.680 You getting in trouble is very interesting.

00:05:42.340 But let's be fair, it's not a unique incident.

00:05:45.440 It's not all about me.

00:05:46.940 Yeah, so a guy called Darren Brady, who was ex-Green Jacket,

00:05:50.940 posted it, and he posted it on Facebook and just went,

00:05:53.400 what are your thoughts?

00:05:54.340 So he wasn't saying, he was actually just trying to get a debate started.

00:05:57.920 Anyway, he got visited by the police on a Sunday morning,

00:06:00.360 three of them, came in knocking on his door.

00:06:02.640 You know, he lives on a quiet road,

00:06:03.880 and it's, you know, wise, three people, you know,

00:06:06.100 neighbours looking out, curtain twitching.

00:06:08.440 And he got visited by the coppers.

00:06:11.280 He said, I'm, you know, I'm not available to talk now.

00:06:14.860 And then he called the Bad War Project.

00:06:17.140 And we went down with the ever-tactful Harry Miller.

00:06:21.860 And myself went down with Alex to film them,

00:06:26.220 the police, as they rearranged the appointment.

00:06:28.320 And the police being the police, weren't expecting that.

00:06:31.040 And instead of de-escalating, they upscaled.

00:06:35.840 So we ended up, I think, with about 11 coppers by that time. 0.95

00:06:39.420 And Darren was arrested.

00:06:41.140 Harry was arrested.

00:06:42.920 I was walking around going, I was the one that did it in the first place!

00:06:45.780 Arrest me!

00:06:46.320 But they refused to arrest me.

00:06:47.780 And at the end of the day, it went a bit mental around the internet.

00:06:51.960 And it cost the chief constable her job.

00:06:56.040 Do you know what?

00:06:56.500 When I was watching it, my initial thought was,

00:06:58.940 this is the weirdest version of Beatles about I've ever seen in my life!

00:07:03.260 Imagine police turning up somewhere, and then Lawrence Fox comes in.

00:07:06.820 Well, that's what we did.

00:07:07.620 We literally walked out of the kitchen.

00:07:09.620 And we were like, I mean, Harry would go straight in,

00:07:12.000 because his bugbear is the police.

00:07:14.680 And I think he's really correct in that.

00:07:16.400 You don't want a political police force.

00:07:17.820 Not a good sign of where society's going if you've got a political police force. 0.89

00:07:21.180 So, yeah, but what was so strange is they couldn't de-escalate it.

00:07:25.460 All they did was they got it more and more wound up.

00:07:28.640 And, yeah, it wasn't good for them.

00:07:32.080 It was a bad day for the police.

00:07:33.140 And it put in people's minds the fact that, you know,

00:07:35.980 are you dealing with an impartial policeman who's policing without fear or favour?

00:07:39.680 Or are you dealing with a political police force

00:07:41.980 that polices one set of people different from another?

00:07:44.560 Which is what we've got in this country.

00:07:46.080 Well, so I'm curious about the approach then,

00:07:48.440 because changing the culture.

00:07:50.920 Yeah.

00:07:51.900 I mean, and there's been a lot of conversation

00:07:54.300 about the smaller parties in the UK.

00:07:57.320 Sort of right-of-centre parties like Reform, Your Party Reclaim.

00:08:02.260 There's others that, you know, they don't all roll off the tongue as easily.

00:08:08.260 But the heritage, there's always conversation about how they should come together,

00:08:12.100 UKIP, whatever is left of that, whatever.

00:08:15.900 You know, coming together and orchestrating some sort of actual rebellion.

00:08:20.020 But you don't think that's really the way to change anything?

00:08:22.060 Well, my thing is, again, you know, in the fact that I don't really like being political,

00:08:26.920 I would much rather we return to a semblance of a solid left,

00:08:31.900 which was a traditional left, not a mad woke left that we've got at the moment,

00:08:36.660 and a sort of solid-ish right.

00:08:39.120 And so I would always much rather put pressure on the Conservatives to be Conservative

00:08:42.620 than I would nick 600 votes or whatever, you know,

00:08:45.740 these little parties are going to do,

00:08:47.260 which is to put a Labour government in, which might be a problem.

00:08:51.420 So I'm more interested in Project Make Conservatives Conservative again

00:08:55.480 than I am in Make Lawrence in charge of anything.

00:08:58.280 Because, you know, as my funder said, primary funder said,

00:09:02.760 when I ran for London Mayor, he said,

00:09:05.520 no one would want you in charge of the tube.

00:09:08.820 No one.

00:09:10.180 So I think it's more, you know, culturally, you can create a bigger change.

00:09:15.500 And also it's waking people up to stuff, you know,

00:09:17.360 because my passion, and Harry's passion is policing.

00:09:21.180 My passion is education, because obviously I've got two kids in school,

00:09:24.920 and I started to notice weird things happening with my kids.

00:09:29.100 So the first one was my eldest son.

00:09:31.860 A few years ago, I said, give me a kiss goodnight, or a hug goodnight, whatever.

00:09:36.320 And he went, no, you need to ask my consent.

00:09:38.000 And I was like, do I?

00:09:41.940 And he said, yeah, at school they say you've got to ask consent.

00:09:44.440 And I said, I'm your dad.

00:09:45.740 And he said, yeah, but you still have to ask consent.

00:09:48.320 And I went, okay, we're going to have a little lesson on consent here.

00:09:52.460 Consent is don't touch a stranger's private parts, all right?

00:09:57.040 That's consent.

00:09:58.020 Don't touch, invade someone's space in that part.

00:10:00.040 I'm your father.

00:10:01.040 So anyway, I wrote to the school and I said, what's going on here?

00:10:04.140 Because he's obviously not understood consent.

00:10:05.840 And they said, well, we don't really get to the sexual part of it until later.

00:10:08.900 And I said, well, you can take it from me.

00:10:10.200 I've just taught both of my children consent, lesson one, in about five minutes.

00:10:15.360 And then I noticed that, you know, I started going, okay, well, where is this stuff coming from?

00:10:21.820 So it comes out of relationship sex education classes and PSHE and stuff like that.

00:10:26.260 So I got some lesson plans from another school and found out what was on it,

00:10:31.360 which is privilege, skin colour privilege, gender ideology,

00:10:34.440 diversity between inclusion, all of the things that you just don't want kids being taught

00:10:39.980 at a young age when they're confused as it is.

00:10:42.980 And so I thought we've got to change that.

00:10:45.580 So we're going to do that as well.

00:10:46.840 That's what we're, which is our next sort of cultural project,

00:10:50.060 which is going to be called bad education.

00:10:52.000 We just like to put bad in front of everything.

00:10:54.020 But I just feel it's a better idea.

00:10:56.220 Yeah.

00:10:56.620 So that being the case, although your children are in private school,

00:11:00.900 and I think, and this is anecdotally, but it's far worse in private school

00:11:05.160 than it is in state school, because I've got friends whose children are in private schools

00:11:09.160 and they say exactly the same thing as you.

00:11:11.240 Yeah, I think that the guilt, well, you know, is it true?

00:11:14.480 I was reading this the other day that all sort of revolutionary movements start

00:11:19.100 in the upper middle privilege, middle class, you know, and I think that's it.

00:11:23.440 There's a lot of guilt in that school.

00:11:25.680 And they, you know, there's a lot of, they do talks about how do I talk to my kid about race

00:11:29.620 and stuff like that.

00:11:30.380 And I'm like, don't have that chat because they're all, obviously these kids are all

00:11:35.160 a multitude of different ethnicities and you should go, how do I talk to my kid about 0.98

00:11:39.140 the fact that he's a fucking millionaire and he's going to bump into a load of people 0.99

00:11:43.380 that aren't in life. 0.99

00:11:45.480 So it's, there's a huge amount of guilt in private schools.

00:11:48.460 And I also wonder whether you'd find, you know, what the ratio of, you know, young

00:11:53.000 trans children would be in inner city poverty ridden schools as well.

00:11:56.540 I don't imagine it would be as high as it is in posh, woke schools.

00:12:00.880 And the problem is as well is that they infuse this ideology into the curriculum whilst at

00:12:05.620 the same time ignoring what the school should actually be there for, which is to educate

00:12:09.980 and teach.

00:12:10.860 Yeah, well, it also, it leaks out of it as well.

00:12:14.280 So you'll have Pride Month or something like that, but people won't take the flags down.

00:12:18.460 So it's sort of, it's always there or Black History Month.

00:12:21.460 It's always, you know, things remain.

00:12:23.840 And I think it's really divisive and I don't like it.

00:12:26.640 And as you say, kids need to be taught to be, actually kids need to be taught to be confident

00:12:30.900 to speak their minds.

00:12:32.380 That's the most important thing you can give a child to do.

00:12:34.680 And they don't really need to be sort of brainwashed into being good little comrades, which is

00:12:41.420 essentially what school can be about a lot.

00:12:45.160 Fortunately, my kids have got me, which is probably quite a pain for them in a lot of ways.

00:12:50.740 And a lot of the parents do part like the Red Sea when I walk into school, except one black 1.00

00:12:56.160 dad who goes, all right, racist. 0.94

00:12:58.620 And I go over and give him a hug.

00:13:00.380 So it's quite fun.

00:13:01.560 But it's, yes, it's strange.

00:13:04.040 The education system is strange.

00:13:05.620 Well, you joke about it, Lawrence, but you've obviously, since you first came on our show,

00:13:10.740 you've attracted a lot of negative attention and criticism and column inches.

00:13:15.260 And you, as your friend, I will say you put your foot in it regularly yourself.

00:13:18.840 And sometimes I open to it and go, mate, did you, really, you had to say it like that?

00:13:25.560 Yeah.

00:13:25.800 Like, how, I mean, are you okay?

00:13:28.620 Like, I saw you tweet something saying, you know, it's the first time I've not been anxious

00:13:32.220 for a long time and whatever.

00:13:34.520 Yeah.

00:13:34.860 How has this been experienced?

00:13:36.820 The whole thing has been for you as a person.

00:13:38.780 Well, it's interesting.

00:13:39.520 I was thinking about this and I was thinking about you and I, and, you know, when we used

00:13:43.340 to walk around Ruskin Park with my dad, do you remember?

00:13:45.540 It's like, in this desire to try and get a conversation going, you need different sorts

00:13:51.940 of activators.

00:13:54.220 And my activation technique is to go, bang.

00:13:57.920 That's what I, that's one of my ways of doing it on social media.

00:14:00.680 And obviously in this experience, you've got more time to express it, but you need to go,

00:14:06.260 look, I'm standing against you so strongly and you've taken a different approach, which

00:14:11.340 is to, you know, is to make sure, you know, I read your thread this morning about,

00:14:15.540 Putin's speech.

00:14:16.400 You take your time to get it down there and you have your sub stack and all this sort

00:14:20.400 of stuff.

00:14:20.840 I'm just using Twitter to go, by the way, guys, there's a wall here that you don't get

00:14:25.900 to cross.

00:14:26.400 And I will defend with, with, you know, not with sort of word violence, if you know what

00:14:32.160 I mean.

00:14:32.800 So in terms of, am I okay?

00:14:36.360 Yeah.

00:14:37.100 No, I am okay.

00:14:37.860 I'm like, uh, I had a, I had a difficult end for last year personally.

00:14:42.640 So that was when I got, um, anxious and then I got, I got put on these, um, anti-anxiety

00:14:48.140 pills and I couldn't get off them.

00:14:49.560 So I had to start running and I managed to run myself out of anti-anxiety.

00:14:54.780 You ran away from the anxiety.

00:14:56.360 Well, I just, it was the only thing that could do it.

00:14:58.160 And who would have thought that there was a, an anti-anxiety tool right there in front

00:15:01.700 of you.

00:15:02.080 And, uh, and all you had to do was put on a pair of trainers and it works a treat.

00:15:05.960 Well, that's, that's good to hear, but I'm curious about, because we're, as we sit here

00:15:09.620 right now and this video will go out, uh, later, but we're, we're in a similar debate

00:15:14.500 with Matt Walsh about how do people who are trying to raise awareness of certain issues,

00:15:19.940 uh, have a conversation and what is the best way to approach it?

00:15:24.160 And him and you would say, you know, you, you, you come out and you're, you're as, as fighting

00:15:30.000 and as strong as you, as you can be.

00:15:31.920 And you articulate the truth without, you know, being overly nice and whatever.

00:15:36.960 Um, and as you say, we, we, we, we've done that in the past ourselves, but now we're thinking

00:15:42.320 about what, what is the most effective way to make an impact?

00:15:46.000 So I'm open to be persuaded that sort of going out and punching is, is the right way.

00:15:51.280 But what, what, what do you think is achieved by doing that versus the approach that perhaps

00:15:56.700 we look at?

00:15:57.280 Well, it's a variety. Uh, you, what you need is a broad church in resistance to the suppression

00:16:02.880 of free expression. So I think there's room for both approaches. And I think actually

00:16:07.820 you need both approaches. I think Matt Walsh and what he's saying, if you think about it,

00:16:12.440 you know, if you don't draw a line at some point and his line, he's very firmly chosen,

00:16:19.000 which is that he would kill. I mean, I think he almost said he'd kill somebody who tried 0.98

00:16:22.720 to indoctrinate his child into gender ideology, but he's really hardcore about it. And that's 0.89

00:16:27.620 his belief. And he has every right to it. If you give ground, you'll get, you know, if

00:16:33.940 you give ground to sort of things like non-binary and stuff like that, if you don't just ridicule

00:16:38.660 it immediately, you're, you're 10 years down the line, it's going to be, you will have given

00:16:43.520 the ground and we'll be dealing with something else, you know? So my position is hold the

00:16:48.300 line over stuff that really, really matters to you. Now, yeah, there's a debate to be

00:16:52.980 had about how one holds the line and, you know, but I think actually it's quite a broad

00:16:57.100 church. So you can have, you can have the more complex way of expressing it. And then

00:17:02.180 you can have the, you know, here you go, mate, in one sentence, this is what I feel,

00:17:06.200 you know, because you see how things are starting to seep into our culture that haven't been

00:17:09.260 in our culture, particularly. Certainly, like when I was in Oxford on the weekend, Antifa

00:17:13.380 were there. And I haven't seen them. I haven't seen them at any other protests they've been

00:17:17.000 to. So, you know, and we've got lots of other debates coming in, which has never been a

00:17:21.720 problem in the UK. Abortion is now suddenly a big deal in the UK. It's never been a problem

00:17:25.580 in the UK. 0.99

00:17:26.580 Well, we import all this crap from America, obviously. But I suppose the reason I'm asking 0.99

00:17:30.960 is, like, you are a hate figure to a lot of people now, right?

00:17:37.900 Because I'm a posh white bloke who doesn't mind talking about anything. 0.51

00:17:40.720 I think that's why people like you as well. You know, and I've said this about you, whether

00:17:44.660 you and I have agreed about stuff or not, like, of all the people we've ever had on

00:17:47.980 the show, you actually have probably as much cut through as anybody with the ordinary person

00:17:52.480 in this country, in my experience. Like, I remember in our old studio that you came

00:17:56.620 to, I used to park my car in this underground garage run by a very

00:18:00.180 normal woman. Just, you know, she just runs this garage. That's all that she does. She's 1.00

00:18:04.560 not an intellectual who's interested in, you know, queer theory or whatever. And with

00:18:09.520 the moment she found out we'd interviewed you, that was it. She thought I could park

00:18:14.440 there anytime for free. She'd pay me to park there. That's what it was like. So you have

00:18:19.780 that cut through, I think. I guess what I'm, I'm just genuinely trying to explore this

00:18:23.620 with you. It's like, if you express things in a way that makes it easy for people to paint

00:18:29.500 you as hateful, which I don't think you are, but people can paint you that way, then it

00:18:33.760 sort of gives ammunition to the antifas of the world, I suppose, would be an argument.

00:18:38.360 They would do it anyway, though. You know, like, I was painted as hateful the minute I

00:18:42.920 opened my mouth and crushed in time.

00:18:44.880 The problem we've got with this is that Meghan has agreed to be Harry's wife, and then the

00:18:50.320 press have torn her to pieces. And let's be really clear about what this is. Let's call

00:18:59.960 it by its name. It's racism. She's a black woman, and she has been torn to pieces. 0.92

00:19:06.580 It's not racism. It absolutely is. No, it's not. We're the most tolerant, lovely country 0.98

00:19:14.220 in Europe. It says a white privileged man. It's so easy to throw the charge of racism

00:19:20.740 at everybody, and it's really starting to get boring now. What worries me about your

00:19:23.180 comment is, you are a white privileged male who has no experience. I can't help what I

00:19:30.280 am. I was born like this. It's an immutable characteristic. So to call me a white privileged

00:19:34.520 male, it's to be racist. You're being racist. You can't help this to me. Okay, okay.

00:19:40.400 So I was called to be denounced the next morning. I was, you know, I was already a figure, and

00:19:45.940 I knew that I was never going to stop saying what needed, what I felt needed to be said.

00:19:51.140 So at the end of the day, when I walk down the street, I get stopped frequently, and people

00:19:56.920 just say thank you very much. And weirdly, disproportionately, by people of colour who go, thank you for talking

00:20:04.060 about us like we're equals, and we don't need to be patronised by the white middle class.

00:20:09.140 And I think in terms of my hate figure, my hate figure status is assured by the fact that I'm

00:20:13.660 straight, white, and male. And the fact that I'm posh doesn't help either. And I don't mind

00:20:19.160 talking about race. I don't mind talking about gender stuff. I don't mind talking about anything.

00:20:24.480 And they're like, hang on, you're the enemy. Shut up. And I'm like, no. 1.00

00:20:28.040 But isn't it also as well, Lawrence, to be fair, it's some of the language that you use in the tweets,

00:20:36.240 where you go, I know what he's saying. I agree with what he's saying. But this could be done in a manner

00:20:42.820 that is less inflammatory.

00:20:45.160 Yeah, but you want the conversation. I mean, I don't want the conversation. I want other people to have the

00:20:48.900 conversation. You know, that's what I want to have. So I mean, give me a tweet, and I'll explain it to you.

00:20:54.680 Right, okay.

00:20:55.860 But we don't do this, though, right? We don't sit, like, we're not, you know, we're not the mainstream

00:21:00.180 media. We didn't come and hit with a bunch of hippies to do anything. 1.00

00:21:02.480 No, no, no. I know.

00:21:03.740 I think you probably know what we mean, though, right?

00:21:05.800 Yeah, yeah, 100%. But I do that deliberately.

00:21:08.500 But this is why I'm not sitting here in the Francis and going, oh, Lawrence Fox says, you know.

00:21:14.260 No, no, I know you're not. I know you're not.

00:21:15.520 You do it deliberately, and we're trying to understand the strategy, I suppose.

00:21:19.320 Well, I think the strategy is you immediately attract the huge amount of interest into what

00:21:26.380 you're saying, and people start debating each other very hard over a certain issue.

00:21:31.000 And also, what you're doing is you're, as I said, you're holding a line. So you're saying,

00:21:36.380 instead of going, I want to have a conversation about whether I think it's all right to transition

00:21:40.740 children, it's like, it's evil and satanic. That's what I think of it. So I just go, well,

00:21:46.420 I might as well, why dither around, get to the point, and just say it?

00:21:51.880 I do think that there are some, you know, I've probably tweeted about 10 times tweets

00:21:58.920 that I've regretted. But, you know, because I could have, I don't regret the point I was

00:22:04.060 trying to make. I just regret the way I expressed it. But, you know, Twitter's Twitter. That's

00:22:08.480 what it is. It's a sort of fantasy land of mad people. 0.98

00:22:11.880 Doesn't bring out the best in anyone, does it?

00:22:13.340 Well, and I suppose that I was, I was interested to know whether there was an effect of the

00:22:19.160 fact that the amount of abuse you get, then sort of transmogrifies its way into the amount

00:22:24.900 of the way you present, you know, because if you're, if you are under that level of sustained

00:22:29.740 assault, you, you like get your maces out and your nunchucks, and you're whirring them

00:22:34.580 around your word weapons to go back at them, because you just go, I am impregnable, which

00:22:40.960 is hard, because human beings aren't impregnable. You know, we're all, we all have feelings,

00:22:45.660 even if you're an alt-right fascist Nazi like me, you know, we still, we still have feelings.

00:22:51.220 So I had to explain this to a woman the other day who I was interviewing myself for their 0.82

00:22:55.360 GB, and she sat down and she just character assassinated me. And, you know, and she got 0.74

00:23:00.280 to the point where she was saying that my mother was a coward. And my mum's dead. She 0.66

00:23:05.320 just died two years ago. And I, and after about 15 minutes of it, and my hand was just

00:23:09.260 going, I just had to stand up. And I just had to go, I've no, no one has upset me that

00:23:14.280 much in years. I'm a human being. You have no right to speak to me like that. You've,

00:23:19.740 you've, you've no argument to make if you can't remember that the person you're speaking

00:23:22.880 to is a human being. So I suppose Twitter is not really, you're not speaking to human

00:23:26.560 beings. You're broadcasting. It's a sort of, you know, I broad, it's a broadcast medium

00:23:31.540 for me. You were also saying in your Twitter yesterday, you were saying, not that I obsessively

00:23:36.240 stalk your Twitter, but weirdly. It's good to know someone reads it. But weirdly, since

00:23:40.600 Elon Musk took over, yours now appears in my feed, which he never did before. And you

00:23:45.600 were saying, I want to engage with people. And I miss it. And as you're following Grace,

00:23:48.860 it's very difficult. You just can't sift it out. And I really miss it, man, because the

00:23:53.180 thing about Twitter is it gives people like all of us an opportunity to connect with that

00:23:58.120 person on the street who's walking along and doing whatever. But once you get to a point

00:24:03.140 where your audience is big enough, you've acquired so many hate followers, it's you end up having

00:24:08.400 to sift through all of it. And as you change, and this is why I am pushing myself to try and

00:24:13.420 be more as and I'm not denigrating another approach, but to be more quote unquote constructive

00:24:18.800 in the way that I conceive of it, because I can see in my own brain the temptation, which is

00:24:25.320 I get a lot of hate. I, I can, I can, I, I look, I'm smart and I can be cutting and funny

00:24:31.460 and whatever. I can, I can make fun of people and I can destroy them, but I don't want to

00:24:37.360 follow that instinct for me more than anything. Yeah. Do you see what I'm saying? And that's

00:24:41.120 why I've, that's why we're having this conversation with you. And that's why we've, we're having

00:24:44.900 this argument with Matt Walsh because I'm trying to work out what the right way forward

00:24:50.160 is. It's not like I've come in and gone, Lawrence Fox must do this or Matt Walsh must do

00:24:54.060 this. Just got questions. Well, the, the interesting to say this, there is an interesting thing.

00:24:58.880 I was good. I would have said it at the end, but we might as well say it now that they're

00:25:02.700 on our side. That's not our side. This is the whole problem. You know, we've got to be

00:25:07.500 human humanity side, but on the side of, of, of loving and respecting people as individuals,

00:25:15.580 you have to also allow them that piece to go about their business. Matt Walsh, if that's

00:25:22.920 his position on transgenderism, it's, it's very entrenched, you kind of have to go, okay,

00:25:28.720 because what happens if you don't, I mean, I'm not saying that you guys do this. I'm saying that

00:25:33.140 a lot of people do do this, is you develop what the, what I would say is the right wing version

00:25:37.700 of what wokeery is, which is the same sense of moral probity and purity and demands for

00:25:44.640 absolute consistency and adherence to a certain set of values and ideals. So I am, that does sort of

00:25:51.000 weigh in my head as well to go, you know, you don't want to be guilty of, you know, attacking

00:25:58.240 other people because they're not quite adhering to your version of how one should and shouldn't

00:26:03.600 communicate. I would say on the freedom of expression side, you need the broadest possible

00:26:08.620 church. And that involves a few, um, punches, a few Matt Walsh's who I don't agree with about a lot

00:26:14.100 of things, but I agree with him on some of the sound of stuff that he says. And it involves,

00:26:18.020 you know, the more, the more reasoned. I mean, even Lex Friedman, who doesn't really sort of,

00:26:23.000 and Joe Rogan, those sort of people who just sort of are reaching out for information. I suppose what

00:26:27.900 you guys do, because you've spoken so much to so many people, is you naturally are absorbing and

00:26:33.200 storing a great amount of information and energy from the people that you speak to. And you, and,

00:26:38.080 you know, so you're probably in a stage of evolution that one would, one gets to when one

00:26:43.160 listens to a multitude of opinions and stuff like that. I think part of the problem as well with

00:26:48.000 Twitter is because it's text-based, you remove 90% of communication because it's literally just

00:26:54.840 reading something. And when people talk about you to me, they're like, he's this, he's that. And I'm

00:27:01.200 like, he's none of those things. Yeah, I know. But you just go on Twitter. He's not a nice guy at

00:27:05.280 all. No, he's not a nice guy. Terrible human being. He's not a handsome. And they just show that,

00:27:11.880 like, and they talk about Twitter. But the problem is, you remove 90% of the communication. Now,

00:27:17.920 as a person, you're very warm. Yeah. You're very open. You're very playful. Those, those are some of

00:27:22.560 the best qualities a human being can have, in my opinion. I love watching you on GB News,

00:27:27.560 where you bring on a person who, shall we just say, is woke or progressive or whatever you want

00:27:32.840 to say. And you have a discussion with them. I find those interviews riveting. Every time they

00:27:36.880 come out, I will sit down and watch it because I think they're genuinely brilliant. Yeah. I love

00:27:40.940 those. I say to the GB News people, never get me on someone I agree with. Yeah. Because I'm only

00:27:46.220 interested in people I don't agree with. Yeah. And it's brilliant. And you're, you're fantastic with

00:27:50.420 them. The thing that sometimes when you see the Twitter aspect, I don't think it represents who you

00:27:56.740 are as a person, if I'm honest. It doesn't marry the Lawrence that I know, with this digital

00:28:04.060 avatar, shall we just say. I think that is my issue with it. I mean, people do say that

00:28:09.140 about me as well. I think, and I think it's fairly fair enough. I suppose, I wonder if I, you know,

00:28:15.700 I reckon there's probably an element of the actor. Yeah. In the performance, you go out and go,

00:28:21.180 Twitter is like your little stage where you sort of perform. So, you know, you've put on a, you put

00:28:26.740 on your armor and you go out there and you deal with it. Yeah. It is interesting. You're not the

00:28:29.880 only people that say this to me. Yeah. I've had a conversation with my brother once in a while.

00:28:33.980 He's like, he just phones out and I get WhatsApp in the morning and he goes, really?

00:28:38.140 Really? Yeah. So yeah, you know, I think, but also bear in mind that I'm quite a substantial and

00:28:50.180 dramatic shift in life, you know, and I'm just coming to terms with what it is that I want to

00:28:58.280 achieve. It takes time. So Twitter for me is a battering ram to work out just to go, right,

00:29:04.720 these are the places that need defending. This is a major, major problem. You know,

00:29:09.540 so if you get the, and it also, I'm a sort of a counterbalance to the fact that if you turn on

00:29:15.740 the mainstream media, they constantly inviting the same people on all the time. So you'll have

00:29:21.080 Yasmin Alibi Brown, who called me a racist on television, live television, you know, and I'm

00:29:25.920 like, what? Where's your evidence of this? And then, you know, the, what's that lady, Dr. 1.00

00:29:31.800 Shola, who's sitting there going, white BAFTAs, it's all white, white, white. And it's just 0.94

00:29:37.420 like, calm down, darling. So I just take the piss at them by putting up a picture of the

00:29:43.240 African Oscars and going, there's a huge lack of diversity. But it's hit and miss.

00:29:50.620 Yasmin Alibi Brown, funny story. Do you remember when I turned down that contract all this many

00:29:55.260 years ago? She was on a show to discuss this and she said, oh yeah, I've seen this comedian

00:30:00.140 and it's really not very nice. And then, and then they played a clip of my standup and

00:30:04.420 they just cut to her going, oh, that was quite funny actually. She'd never seen any of my

00:30:08.140 stuff, but she was quite happy to, to, to say stuff. You know, one of the interesting

00:30:11.840 points you bring up, which I totally agree with and I think is actually important for

00:30:16.020 us ourselves and for everyone watching to remember is like every person is going through

00:30:19.800 some kind of process, you know, and we're all on some kind of journey. Like you didn't,

00:30:26.800 you didn't, you know, you didn't plan to be here five years ago and neither did we,

00:30:31.020 frankly, you know, so we're all constantly trying to work out. And by the way, all of

00:30:34.480 this stuff is like, when I was, how many of us got educated at university about like

00:30:39.960 transgenderism? You know what I mean?

00:30:41.860 I did do a drama thing.

00:30:43.540 Well, it's pretty much, pretty much that.

00:30:45.800 Even at Radon, they didn't.

00:30:47.040 Yeah, yeah, no, it was a joke.

00:30:48.540 It didn't go near it. It was never an issue.

00:30:49.680 And suddenly there's like a big societal issue and we're all supposed to have exactly the

00:30:53.340 right opinion. And if you are woke, you were supposed to go, yes, everyone's transgender

00:30:57.620 and non-binary and fluid and whatever. And increasingly on the rise, like you must use 1.00

00:31:02.540 this language and not that language. And that purity you're talking about, we're all to

00:31:06.380 some extent susceptible to it. And that's why I think conversation is important.

00:31:11.840 Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I, as I said, I only really want to, on the GB thing because

00:31:16.620 it's, you know, it's an hour and you don't really get, I just want people who I, who I

00:31:20.720 don't agree with because I also, I'm, I'm very open to being persuaded of the gray area.

00:31:27.340 No man's land. I will negotiate no man's land with anybody. But what I can't negotiate

00:31:32.420 is my own border, my own personal border. And that is the meaning of words. I don't

00:31:38.860 like words when they're shifted around and really find it appalling that, you know, poor

00:31:43.720 old Roald Dahls having his books rewritten when he was deliberately trying to wind up kids

00:31:47.460 and make them rebellious against their parents by using these sort of quite extreme, you

00:31:52.000 know, what nowadays is seeming extreme and potentially offensive language. And that for me is a border

00:31:57.080 and that we need borders. Everybody needs a border because, you know, as Muskie said the

00:32:03.360 other day, he said, if you've got one world government with one civilization and that falls,

00:32:08.400 then what's going to replace it? You know, civilizations have to come and civilizations have to

00:32:11.880 have to go. And, you know, I think we've, we've, as you say, we have this sort of leaky

00:32:16.780 border, leaky cultural border where things come into this country, which has never really

00:32:21.040 been an issue. And actually, I don't think we're, we're, you know, like since the last

00:32:25.620 time we spoke, I think it's got infinitely worse. And I think I said last time when we

00:32:30.440 spoke, I said, it's going to get infinitely worse. And it's, and it's not even, we're not

00:32:35.060 even anywhere near the peak of it yet. I mean, I think Sturgeon was a, was a marker

00:32:40.600 in the sand that even sane people would turn around and go, it's definitely not a good

00:32:45.520 idea to lock up a rapist with a bunch of women. That's probably a bad idea. And I think the

00:32:50.760 backlash to that was, was good, but I don't think we've reached peak.

00:32:54.700 You don't?

00:32:55.280 No.

00:32:55.620 I mean, on the trans thing in the UK, at least, it seems like we're making good progress,

00:32:59.340 you know, Tavistock being shut down and investigated and so on. But you don't think this is, this

00:33:04.740 is so...

00:33:05.100 The transgender thing is just, is just a vector for it. It's not, it's never been about 1.00

00:33:10.520 transgender rights or gay and lesbian rights, because otherwise, why do you have to lump 0.97

00:33:14.520 them all in together? Because gay, everyone's an individual. So why do you have to, why gays 1.00

00:33:19.320 and lesbians and bisexual and transgender people in a group with a plus plus on the end of it?

00:33:24.260 It's about, you know, it's about power and control. The whole thing, isn't it? It's about

00:33:29.540 authoritarian kind of, you know, communist socialist style, dragging everyone down to being exactly

00:33:35.680 the same sort of thing. And it just uses these vectors to work its way into society. So it

00:33:41.340 started off with, you know, all the Me Too's and the racism and Black Lives Matter and transgenderism,

00:33:46.720 and it's going to move pretty swiftly on to mental health now, which is going to be so

00:33:51.140 impossible to... Which is why I try and start to talk about it a bit more, because I think

00:33:56.720 it's important that we remind everybody that we're human beings, because that's what's most

00:34:02.040 dangerous, is that this, the woke thing, whatever it is, very difficult to quantify it, is going

00:34:09.320 to go into mental health, primarily, I'd imagine. And you won't be able to say anything, because

00:34:14.380 of the damage it will actually physically do to someone's mental health.

00:34:18.340 So you think it's, that's going to become the next battlefield, where people are going

00:34:21.780 to say, you can't say that I have depression?

00:34:23.980 You can't say that I have depression, or what you've just said has given me depression,

00:34:27.880 depression, or has damaged my brain in some way, and has hurt me in a way which is medical.

00:34:33.340 But it's obviously unquantifiable, because it's unquantifiable. And then that's really

00:34:37.900 bad, because if you sort of medicalise it, and you're, it's actually doing someone's actual

00:34:42.880 health, because they'll make it, they'll, you know, they'll sort of cross-pollinate it with

00:34:49.300 your physical health as well. And it'll be like, you just can't say anything, because you're

00:34:53.240 actually really injuring someone. I know the words of violence thing exists already, but it's,

00:34:58.260 it hasn't been properly, that, that rich seam of wokeness is yet to be mined, I don't think.

00:35:04.060 And you're talking about a grey area, aren't you? What are the grey areas for you that are up for

00:35:08.000 debate?

00:35:10.740 Abortion. So, I mean, is one up for debate? The consequences of freedom of speech? Stuff like,

00:35:18.320 can language be violent? Can language be hateful? All of these sorts of areas I'm happy to talk

00:35:25.640 about. What else is a grey area? Sexual politics, I'm happy to be persuaded about. I'm happy to be

00:35:35.000 taught, to talk about privilege. I'm, I'm not that interested in talking about skin kind of privilege,

00:35:40.540 because I don't think it's relevant, because I think, yeah, there are lots of different

00:35:44.280 privilege is. Um, I'll tell you that, those are sorts of areas. Let's talk about privilege,

00:35:48.640 because, uh, to an outsider, and maybe it's objectively true, you are like literally the

00:35:53.560 most privileged person they've ever seen on TV, right? You know, you're a posh white guy,

00:35:59.100 went to Harrow, Radha, actor, you know, from an acting dynasty, blah, blah, blah, right? And that

00:36:06.440 is actual privilege, isn't it?

00:36:07.600 Real, genuine, class A privilege, that is. You know, it's uncut privilege. Um, uh, it's,

00:36:15.020 yeah, absolutely 100%. There's a couple of things that go with it, though. One is it's

00:36:19.500 immutable, so you have no say in it. I didn't give any say in how I was born. And B, it's

00:36:25.460 a socioeconomic thing, and an educational thing, way ahead of the fact that it's a skin colour 0.98

00:36:30.700 thing.

00:36:31.260 Of course.

00:36:31.580 You know, so, so on that level, yeah, I'm very, I, almost one of the, one of the reasons

00:36:37.540 why I do what I do is because I realise how privileged I am. And, you know, unless you

00:36:42.580 get into politics, because you want to get into politics, because you want to have power

00:36:45.940 and control over other people, or, you know, if you're really interested in trade deals,

00:36:48.980 and you're going to affect that, I'm only in it to, to represent the voice of your average

00:36:54.280 Joe, whose voice never gets represented, your Darren Brady, who just goes, what are your

00:36:57.920 thoughts on this transgender thing? So, yeah, I think privilege is real, but also

00:37:03.860 you can, the more you give them the more you give them the more you give them.

00:37:06.360 Well, the question is, what do you do with it? Like, Jordan Peterson interviewed me recently,

00:37:09.620 and we talked about this, which was, privilege exists, different, and it's primarily, as you

00:37:15.800 say, socioeconomic, particularly in this country, and class-based to some extent, which is slightly

00:37:20.400 different, but almost the same. But the question is, okay, well, you're privileged, like, what

00:37:26.280 are you supposed to do, jump off a bridge now? You know?

00:37:29.520 I mean, that's what they want.

00:37:30.560 They would like it.

00:37:31.340 Yeah. But actually, you know, I mean, this is why the conversation we have about privilege

00:37:35.960 is so stupid, because rather than one side pretending that no one's ever privileged, and 0.99

00:37:40.600 the other side pretending that privilege is given to you by virtue of pigmentation in 1.00

00:37:44.860 your skin, actually, you go, well, people grew up in different circumstances. Now what?

00:37:50.100 Now what? What do we do with this now? Now that we've established that different people

00:37:53.920 don't have the same chance in life, which they never, ever in history have done, and

00:37:57.540 never will in the future, ever, because it's impossible. What do we do now? What do we

00:38:01.440 do with it? And I think part of the answer is, you do something that you think is constructive,

00:38:07.420 particularly for people who don't have as much as you, or didn't have the same star in life,

00:38:11.220 isn't it?

00:38:11.640 And also, we've got genetic privilege.

00:38:15.300 Oh, absolutely. Well, some more than others. You're tall and handsome.

00:38:19.220 Darling. I am, you know, I've had a very, very rich friend who got diagnosed with cancer

00:38:26.040 on his 20th birthday and died 20 years later of in absolute uncontrollable agony, having

00:38:31.260 lived in agony for 20 years. But he was minted. Really nice house and lovely cars and everything.

00:38:37.460 Well done, mate. But his life was not privileged in any way whatsoever. So privilege is a very

00:38:43.240 subtle thing. And I think I'm really, you know, you're talking about trying to be constructive.

00:38:49.660 I care about that bit in the Bible that says love your enemies. Because I think just as a

00:38:54.440 philosophical and emotional exercise, it is absolutely where your brain should be. How can

00:38:59.520 I find love for them? Because if I can love them, then I can listen to them. But at the same time,

00:39:05.120 it's very, very, very hard when you are being goaded relentlessly by the other side, or not

00:39:12.780 the other side. It's so difficult, but it does feel like another side.

00:39:17.900 Yeah, of course it does.

00:39:18.420 Yeah, especially someone like me who had their career just ripped away. You know, I was removed,

00:39:23.480 wasn't I? You know, surgically removed very quickly from culture for not having the right 0.97

00:39:27.920 opinions. So it does feel like there is a bit, you know, these, we're being goaded a lot,

00:39:34.200 you know, and, and it's, it's difficult not to retaliate to that. Yeah. But we should

00:39:40.080 actually focus more on trying to love them. Well, this is why, this is why we were having

00:39:44.720 the conversation about Twitter earlier, because I suppose from their perspective, they would

00:39:48.200 say that you are goading them. Yeah. And they are reacting to you. And that's why we get

00:39:53.140 into this. Which I am. Which you are. Yeah. Because I'm using the same, I'm using exactly

00:39:58.120 the same tool back then. I'm pointing out the utter absurdity of what they stand for, and

00:40:03.020 how unbelievably dangerous what they're playing with is. It's extremely dangerous to do what

00:40:08.600 is being attempted, you know, by not even in a democratically elected way. Certainly,

00:40:14.620 you know, Oxford being an example, or what they're filling kids with in schools.

00:40:18.900 Or immigration policy, nobody voted for the policies that we currently have.

00:40:22.040 Exactly. Why don't you, why can't you just take Article 8 and 10 out of the EHCR and just,

00:40:26.720 you know, why doesn't this happen? And you start to realise that actually, this is, you

00:40:30.780 know, there's an established, there's an establishment which protects itself. And no one's really going

00:40:35.900 to take these cultural problems on, you know, because it's too scared of them. But actually,

00:40:41.240 I mean, Lee Anderson said that the Tories will go after the cultural issues, didn't he? Because

00:40:45.200 he said that will have to, that will be one of the things that will get them elected. So

00:40:48.540 even if they do do that, the Tories, my job will have been worthwhile, because I will

00:40:55.100 have played some part in that. Because, you know, I've stoked those culture wars. And

00:41:00.220 I've brought them right to the front of attention. And I suppose if you're asking why, why I do

00:41:04.860 it with such a mallet and a baseball bat, because I don't think there's that much time for this

00:41:11.620 to stop it. We polled the other day a load of teachers, sorry, a load of parents about

00:41:16.940 what their kids are being taught in school. So we gave them options about what we're being

00:41:20.140 taught in school. And 70% of the parents of this generation, 39 to 54, or whatever it

00:41:25.660 is, were absolutely against what was being taught to their kids in school, certainly in

00:41:31.820 regards to DIE, gender ideology, skin colour privilege, that sort of thing. They were totally 0.92

00:41:37.180 against it. But the generation down, 50% of them think it's a brilliant idea. So 50% of them

00:41:43.340 want socialism. That's what they want. They're keen for it. They want the state to be in charge.

00:41:49.900 They want, they don't want any personal autonomy. You know, and that's worrying. So, you know,

00:41:56.060 that's why I say, look, there's with this, there's a war on the suppression of free expression,

00:42:00.380 which is well, which is where democracy dies anyway. And you need in that war, you're going

00:42:05.020 to need, you know, idiots like me who jump out the trench and go whirling towards the enemy, 1.00

00:42:10.460 and you go boom, boom, boom, blast it. So that the generals and the careful strategists can go, 1.00

00:42:16.060 right, well, let's not attack from that side next time.

00:42:20.780 It's an interesting metaphor.

00:42:22.540 So we were talking about freedom of expression and GB news have come under fire, particularly

00:42:27.820 with the case of Mark Stein. You had a very interesting point of view on it. What was it?

00:42:35.020 It was one of the few times I was sensible. Um, I think that, I mean, I think Ofcom as an idea,

00:42:41.340 uh, okay, actually what you're asking a question, let me assume that people don't know what happened.

00:42:45.900 Anyway, Mark Stein was, uh, offered a contract for, uh, that said, because he's a, he's, he's a supplier

00:42:53.420 to the channel. He's not an employee. So they said, right, if you're a supplier to the channel,

00:42:57.260 and you mess up, and you get fine, fine by Ofcom, because you misread a bit of data,

00:43:01.820 or you don't represent the other side of the argument or whatever, you're going to be liable

00:43:05.260 for those fines. That was a negotiation. Number one, Stephen Crowder did the same thing with the

00:43:10.060 Daily Wire. It's like, don't publicize contract negotiations straight away. I think that's a

00:43:14.460 slightly crass thing to do. And it's, it's a sign of weakness. They did treat him appallingly in my

00:43:19.900 view, uh, based on the fact that he had just had two heart attacks and it was really bad. Anyway,

00:43:25.420 my take on it is you should have the other side of the argument. If Ofcom demand that you have the

00:43:30.780 other side of the argument, that's good. And Ofcom are going after this poor, you know,

00:43:34.860 ITV and BBC who after this poor, is it Nicola Bully? Yes. So I don't think Ofcom,

00:43:42.380 I think Ofcom are the enemy, but I think if we care about free expression, then we, we should

00:43:48.220 absolutely represent the other side in, in debate. And Mark made two, uh, had two problems with Ofcom

00:43:58.140 and GB news. I can understand it. If they're going to be fired, uh, find a percentage of their

00:44:03.900 annual turnover when they've already got hope, not hate campaigning 24 hours a day to stop them

00:44:09.500 getting any advertisers. Then I think that, you know, Mark should go, should have maybe just held

00:44:15.340 his hands up and said, okay, let's negotiate this contract. And I, for that, I was vilified by the

00:44:22.060 right-wing wokists who demand absolute moral probity. And you, if you don't agree with us

00:44:28.220 on vaccines, on this, on this, and it's like, you're playing into their hands, guys.

00:44:33.740 Well, the one thing that we celebrate is our, is the fact that all of us are different

00:44:37.820 and, and that we encourage that. It also means that we can not anymore get in line.

00:44:41.660 Yeah. But it's, it's exactly, it's what happens. It's, you know, history is replete with this stuff.

00:44:48.780 So, um, yeah, everyone got very upset with me about that, but I stand by it. I think,

00:44:54.060 you know, I think Mark Stein is a great broadcaster. I think he made it, he, he misread some data

00:44:59.580 on TV and it will have affected people's lives. That's why I stay the hell away from data

00:45:04.780 because I don't know, and you know, I don't do data. You give me, you know,

00:45:08.860 an easy sum and I would get in trouble with it. So, you know, if he chose to do it,

00:45:13.260 they defended him, but they're renegotiating his contract. They have every right.

00:45:16.620 Lawrence, do you think also that's such a good point about the data aspect of it?

00:45:20.540 Because I see a lot of commentators and they say, this is not GB news. This is commentators

00:45:25.340 across the board. They'll go on to talk about one week. They'll talk about vaccines.

00:45:29.660 The next week they'll talk about Ukraine. The next week they're talking about NHS.

00:45:34.300 Then they're talking about the migrant crisis and the week after that, the economy. And I'm like,

00:45:37.980 either you are some next level genius who has a fundamental understanding of each of these

00:45:44.220 subjects brought about by years of discipline, intellectual rigor and study.

00:45:49.260 Or more likely.

00:45:52.140 Or more likely you're, you're, you're grifting the same circle.

00:45:55.260 Yeah. Yeah. And do you, don't you think that is the problem as well?

00:45:59.180 Yeah. And also I think it's a circular thing. So your list of things that they go and talk

00:46:04.300 about and then they start again the next Monday, which is a real shame. Yeah. No,

00:46:09.180 I think one must operate from a, from a position of, you know, Occam's razor is probably quite a

00:46:16.060 good place to start with these things. And then, um, yeah, stay away from data, leave data,

00:46:21.260 because data is easy. Everyone's got a bit of data. I, I, I adopt always just, I, I sort of adopt the,

00:46:28.220 which is, can get me into trouble, the gun to the head philosophy. It's like, yes or no? Bill Gates,

00:46:34.060 yes or no? No. Um, you know, pandemic, is it going to kill 750,000 people? No. You know,

00:46:41.340 it's just, I just, I, I kind of just, I operate on an instinct and my instincts are quite simple,

00:46:45.580 and it's confined to only a few areas really. So I don't go out there and try and bombard people with

00:46:51.820 data. The only data I'm actually interested in at the moment, out of all the data is the excess

00:46:56.380 deaths data. That does interest me because I'm like, hang on a minute. Um, if there's that many

00:47:01.500 excess deaths now, and there were that many excess deaths during what was referred to as a pandemic,

00:47:08.620 then if we'd never declared a pandemic, would there ever have been a pandemic? Do you know what

00:47:15.180 I mean? So I am interested in it on a, on a sort of philosophical level. I'm like, they declared a

00:47:20.140 pandemic, but now we've got a load of excess deaths. Now I wouldn't go into going, it's all

00:47:24.060 vaccine arms, or it's all this, or it's all that. Cause I don't know, but I would go,

00:47:28.780 that's quite interesting. And also why is no one talking about it?

00:47:31.500 I think that's such a profound point. The fact that a, no one's talking about it,

00:47:34.700 but yet as well, there are people on both left and well, they're not left and right.

00:47:38.300 The people on both sides of the argument who purport to know what is actually going on.

00:47:43.740 When you talk to people who actually understand this, they're scientists, they're doctors,

00:47:49.100 they're epidemiologists, whatever. And they will, the people who actually know, will go,

00:47:53.980 we don't know.

00:47:55.820 Multifaceted, hugely, like everything. It's hugely multifaceted and everything affects

00:48:01.500 everything else. It's why it's sort of easy just to fall back and go, what, what do I,

00:48:06.220 I have instincts. And I believe that those instincts have got me into all the trouble

00:48:10.060 I've ever got into. Never listen to them again, you know.

00:48:13.660 But I guess what we're talking about, this is one of the reasons I generally don't do panel shows

00:48:17.500 anymore because you're going to get asked questions about things you don't understand.

00:48:21.660 And there you are in front of a camera having to, you know, pretend to have an opinion about this

00:48:25.820 stuff. And I found that it forced me to have opinions about things I don't have an opinion

00:48:29.980 about. And it's just, so those instincts, we actually, I mean, Brett, Brett Weinstein and I

00:48:34.700 had a discussion about this a long time ago, which is like, how do you know what you think you know?

00:48:38.860 And when it comes to something like the pandemic or COVID or vaccines or whatever is basically,

00:48:44.540 you listen to certain people whom you trust, why you trust them is very, do you see what I'm saying?

00:48:51.020 I do in a way, but actually, I remember getting called by a journalist before they,

00:48:57.100 it was public knowledge that, you know, what was going to happen in terms of COVID.

00:49:02.060 And probably a week before it was announced, and they said, this is what's going on.

00:49:06.220 You mean before the first lockdown?

00:49:07.260 No, no, before it was even an issue. They, a journalist who I knew well phoned me and said,

00:49:12.860 this thing's coming to the UK. It's a mega killer.

00:49:15.020 Well, like in January, 2020.

00:49:16.380 Yeah. And I just said, no, it's not, it's not, it's not going to be that bad.

00:49:22.060 That's what I said. I said, it's just a bit of flu. It turns out I was quite wrong.

00:49:27.100 Yeah. But it, well, you know, I don't know. It's so, I think there's what, you know,

00:49:32.380 how do you know what you know? I think a lot of it's experience. So for example,

00:49:35.900 I realised the other day that I can't watch films that don't start with a man asleep on a bed

00:49:42.380 with a bottle of whiskey next to him, who wakes up coughing, lights a cigarette, gets a call from

00:49:47.820 his divorced wife, who says that he owes her alimony and then he goes and saves the world. Those are the

00:49:53.020 the only films I can watch. And Bruce Willis or Denzel Washington needs to be in there.

00:49:57.500 The narrator says, I wonder why.

00:49:58.700 It's just like that. Right, you've got to go and save the world. And you know,

00:50:02.940 everything bad that could possibly happen.

00:50:04.940 Is that why you're a big fan of Hunter Biden, Lawrence?

00:50:06.860 Oh, Hunter, bless him. Oh, I'm not a fan of his. I've only just got my voice back,

00:50:12.620 actually, from that fake crack. Yeah.

00:50:14.540 And it's still, yeah, still, that really did me. I lost a stone in weight smoking.

00:50:19.020 Did you enjoy having a stint of acting back? Was that?

00:50:22.300 Loved it, but I didn't allow myself to enjoy it too much, because I knew it was a fleeting fancy

00:50:27.260 and a sabbatical away from the cancellation. And you really can't go back to acting?

00:50:31.900 Well, I'd love to. I don't mean like, I don't mean that as in you're not capable of acting.

00:50:35.900 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'd love to. No one would have you?

00:50:38.620 No, God, no. Acting is like, you know, if you're talking about the crucible of all of this

00:50:46.300 inclusivity, acting is where it's at. You know, it's right. It's, you know, you're never going

00:50:53.260 to break that apart. And let me ask you a question on that, because one of the things we found,

00:50:57.420 you know, when we started Trigonometry, two comedians on the British comedy circuit,

00:51:02.780 we were instantly evil, you know, right wing, all this other stuff that's just not true about us.

00:51:08.620 It's been five years. And we start to get messages now from the very people that used

00:51:14.380 to have a go at us going, you know what? I didn't agree with you. But and you know,

00:51:20.700 sort of, do you not get those messages from actors and directors going, you know what? Yeah,

00:51:26.860 yeah, I didn't quite agree. But there's something to this whole, is that not happening?

00:51:32.300 Oh, yeah, a lot of messages from actors saying, I agree with everything you say.

00:51:35.580 Right.

00:51:36.140 But I'm never, ever going to tell anyone I do.

00:51:39.740 So, you know, the censorship in show business is, it's another one of the reasons why I go,

00:51:45.260 yeah, would I love to go back to acting? Yeah. But would I like to stand on set going,

00:51:48.060 I can't say anything.

00:51:52.780 Art is not conducive to that. Art also shouldn't be running alongside culture. Art should be smacking it

00:51:58.860 on that. You know, I think that's probably where my where my attitude comes from, which is that art is

00:52:04.460 meant to expose the ridiculousness of the current culture. And it's actually one of the greatest

00:52:09.980 weapons to stop, you know, mono monoculturism and, you know, sort of this cultural Marxism infecting us

00:52:17.820 all. So it's one of those things where you mock and ridicule it, or you, you carefully attack it,

00:52:23.420 you know, brilliant playwrights have done throughout the years. So, um, it's a shame,

00:52:28.060 actually. I mean, bar a few exceptions, that art is just on a, it's on the same train track,

00:52:33.740 just five feet to the side going, we're against the culture.

00:52:36.940 Well, that art is actually running in front of the train.

00:52:39.420 Yeah, it is. Well, wokeness has to run in front of the train because, you know, look,

00:52:43.580 look at them, that you, unless you're the fastest sprinter towards the, uh, utopia of wokedom,

00:52:50.060 it's, it's game over. Stephen Fry, poor, poor sod.

00:52:53.660 Yeah, he's got, he's got in the shit for actually. 1.00

00:52:56.540 What's he done though? 0.99

00:52:57.100 Well, so, yeah, so, um, we were going to talk about it on our Raw show. So basically,

00:53:01.980 he did a, I think it was a charity dinner or something like that for the MCC, the cricket,

00:53:08.060 I'm not posh enough to know, basically the cricket, whatever it is.

00:53:10.460 Marlaban Cricket.

00:53:11.180 You can do this, Ben Lawrence, come on.

00:53:12.940 Cricket ball.

00:53:13.500 Tell us about the cricket.

00:53:14.540 He did, um, he did this, he did a speech, he made a joke, you know, obviously you want to do,

00:53:20.860 it's to, you're getting paid to do it, he made a joke about women, he said, there's no, you know,

00:53:25.740 I think it was actually pro-women.

00:53:27.260 Yeah.

00:53:27.580 Which was weird, because someone, but again, the Jordan Peterson.

00:53:30.300 What was the joke? 0.95

00:53:30.940 The joke was something like, there are no women here because they're all off shagging or something. 0.92

00:53:33.980 No, no, no, it was, so, okay, it's lovely to be here, there's no women here, 1.00

00:53:38.140 so let's talk about shagging.

00:53:39.580 Oh, right, exactly, there you go. So let's talk about shagging.

00:53:41.580 What, did you get in council for that?

00:53:43.100 No, he then, there's a cricket team, which is called the Abracadabras or something like that,

00:53:48.380 or it had a complicated name and he called it the Aluakbars.

00:53:52.860 Anyway, someone complained and, you know, the Jordan Peterson thing happened, you know,

00:53:57.980 if you talk to a room full of 10 people, someone's going to be offended.

00:54:01.100 But I think the MCC had pushed back. I sense that they pushed back. But Stephen Fry will

00:54:05.900 now have that little taint on his hand that is difficult to remove. And, you know, if you're

00:54:11.500 not running far ahead of them with your new latest idea...

00:54:14.620 You'll never be pure enough for that.

00:54:16.620 No, but we've got to stop it on the other side of the argument.

00:54:19.900 I couldn't agree with you more, because this is why, perhaps, sometimes I can be over-sensitive

00:54:25.900 to people who are anti-woke, going slightly, in my opinion, off the deep end, because I worry

00:54:31.260 about that part of becoming, you know, there is many ways that the right is becoming woke-ified

00:54:38.380 in the same way. Because, as we talked about, you know, when you stare into the abyss, the abyss

00:54:42.860 stares into you, and we adopt the same tactics and the same purity spirals. And to some extent,

00:54:48.780 you could say we're guilty of it, but also people are like, you must use the right pronouns. Well,

00:54:52.860 there are some trans people who say, I'd like to be called she, and I like that person, and I'll call

00:54:57.740 them a she. Fine. Go for it. Well, you say fine. There's a bunch of people online who are like, 1.00

00:55:02.700 no, you are now cancelled! But I also understand their argument. I understand their argument.

00:55:07.100 And I support their argument. So, because if you go, well, if you stay she, and you acknowledge 1.00

00:55:11.180 transgenderism, what's next? So I get what they're trying to do. I do. That's their border. 0.99

00:55:16.220 But I still have the right to choose my words. 100% you do. And the reason I'm sitting in this chair

00:55:21.340 five years from starting trigonometry is at one point, I said, no, no, fuck you. I'm not letting 1.00

00:55:26.460 you, the woke comedian, should tell me what I should say and think. 100%.

00:55:29.820 And I'm going to be like that with the left, right, up, down, whatever. People like us should

00:55:34.620 have the ability to choose their own words and think for themselves. And people can argue and

00:55:38.780 criticize and whatever, but I'm never going to have people telling me what to think or what to do.

00:55:42.540 Which is exactly the right way to do. And we must, that is one of the ways that we love one another,

00:55:47.420 is we say, you have that right. And we protect it for other people. And you know, we,

00:55:52.060 and ultimately you protect it for the, for the horrible people. That's who you're protecting

00:55:56.540 it for. Most weirdly for the people you hate, not hate, but the people that you, you just,

00:56:02.540 you cannot connect with or find any common ground with. You have to protect them. It's

00:56:09.100 your job. It's loving them. And it's really hard. And I just, I don't think, I think it's probably

00:56:15.420 a lifetime's work and more, which is why it exists, this idea, you know, and it just sticks up.

00:56:21.900 Every morning I wake up and I think, love your enemies. What?

00:56:28.300 How? But then you see someone suffer, someone you really don't agree with suffer. And you start

00:56:34.540 to feel a sense of real compassion and, you know, even a warming sense of love. Like I'd hate to see

00:56:41.020 someone who's any of the people that have tried to have me canceled. I'd hate to see any of them

00:56:44.860 suffer. Yeah.

00:56:45.740 I really wouldn't. So, you know, when you were asking about how I am, I think fundamentally how

00:56:50.780 I am is good. I think the, the, the building blocks of my nature and my personality are strong

00:56:56.940 and really good, but I think I'm very sensitive and I think people don't understand I am. And I

00:57:01.420 probably don't do myself any favors on Twitter by going, you know, I'm not sensitive at all.

00:57:05.740 Yeah.

00:57:06.300 So, yeah, I think we need, that's where the ground will be is when we can get to the point

00:57:12.860 of going, I love you. No matter, as long as you're not trying to kill anybody,

00:57:19.420 you know, I love you and I will support you.

00:57:22.060 It comes back to Christ on the cross, forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.

00:57:26.060 Hmm. I think so. I mean, it's not a bad, even if you don't believe in God and you don't have

00:57:30.460 faith, it's not a bad manual for living, like proverbs and all that, and all this sort of stuff. 0.95

00:57:35.740 It's not a bad thing, this idea that somebody else has died so that you can be a bastard to

00:57:43.660 everybody, you know, and it's this modern infection of going, you know, I meet a lot of people who go, 0.84

00:57:49.020 I'm just, I'm just a really good person. You know, I know I'm a good person. I'm like,

00:57:53.260 you're fucking deluded if you think you're a good person. Because if you, if I started spouting 0.99

00:57:59.100 half the shit that went on in my head and just things that people say to you, you know, 1.00

00:58:03.180 you're not a good person. That's why you've got to talk all the time. And you've got to express, 0.99

00:58:06.860 you've got to connect with people because you've got to find how you can be a better person from the,

00:58:11.740 you know, lovely made in the image of Christ that you are, but the fundamentally pretty simple

00:58:17.900 creature that we all are. And I think that's why the, you see,

00:58:23.580 I've been thinking about this a lot. I don't oppose wokeness even as much because of the ideology

00:58:31.900 as I do because of the tactics, right? Because if a woke person came on TV and said, you know what,

00:58:38.780 I believe in intersectionality and transgenderism and all of this stuff. And I could say, well,

00:58:45.100 I don't, let's have a discussion about this. I have absolutely no problem with that conversation

00:58:50.300 happening. What I have a problem with is being made to be evil and a bad person and having my

00:58:55.740 life destroyed. And people who are not in the position of having a big YouTube channel, whatever,

00:58:59.820 having their lives destroyed for wanting to challenge those ideas. It's the tactics that

00:59:04.940 bother me as much as the ideology. And look, people can, people have always disagreed about politics,

00:59:10.380 right? There will always be the, the, the people who are more progressive and they want change for

00:59:15.020 the sake of change, or they believe change is good in and of itself. And there are people who,

00:59:18.940 who think that's less wise to an approach. And that's because people are born with different

00:59:24.700 personality types and their life experiences are different. That will always happen. But the tactics

00:59:29.020 that we've got to a position now where it's like, you disagree with me? What the fuck is wrong with 0.98

00:59:35.180 you? You're an evil person. That's what bothers me. And that's why I am very sensitive to same 1.00

00:59:41.180 things happening on the right or the anti-woke or wherever it is, because I see the same tactics now

00:59:46.860 starting to be used. And that I think should worry us actually. Well, I couldn't agree with you more

00:59:51.180 because there's a, there's an appetite for revenge that comes when those tactics are used.

00:59:55.580 Yeah. So I suppose what I've, I've been trying to do is think about what wokeness is and how,

01:00:04.780 what's good about it. And it's really interesting as a thought exercise, because I haven't really

01:00:09.740 done that. I haven't had time to do it. I've been too busy doing my great tweets, right?

01:00:14.700 And you know, of course you want to make the world a better place. Of course you want to be more,

01:00:19.740 you want to include people more and, and you, and you know, especially the most vulnerable

01:00:24.940 in society. But as you say, that, that's, that may be their agenda deep down. What, what drives

01:00:32.700 them as a human being just as valuable and important as you and I, but those tactics,

01:00:37.660 as you say, are, are, they're, they're, they're disingenuous. They're intellectually corrupt as well. A lot

01:00:45.020 of their, the ways that they do things. And B, they use the, the, the tactics that they use,

01:00:50.140 are tactics you tend not to find being used up till this point that, as we're saying,

01:00:55.340 you get a bit more worried. You know, that Matt Walsh video, which I saw again this morning,

01:00:59.500 when he says what he says about what he would do to someone who came near his children, that is,

01:01:05.420 you know, that you only have to have, he's got a huge following that guy, you know, and it only takes

01:01:11.740 one. We'll play the move forward. Yeah. You know, play the move forward. That's the worry. Yeah.

01:01:16.780 That's the worry. So we, we, we, we gotta, we, we have to just reach across to those that can be

01:01:22.700 reached across to. Yes. And then we'll leave the extremes on either side to cancel each other out.

01:01:30.060 That's what I think they will do. They will just cancel each other out, but we can't,

01:01:33.580 we can't have culture revolving and, and, you know, society revolving around one of these,

01:01:38.700 or either of these extremes at the same time. So everyone in the middle is homeless,

01:01:42.220 which is what we've, you know, you guys started doing this for, which was to have

01:01:46.620 interesting, honest conversations with interesting people, which leads to,

01:01:49.580 which is why people care about what you do, because you're not picking a side.

01:01:52.860 And absolutely. Lawrence says, because I love talking to you about culture and the art,

01:01:58.140 and you did a film, which is My Son Hunter with The Daily Wire.

01:02:03.580 Yeah. No, not with The Daily Wire. I did it with, I did it with, Breitbart released it.

01:02:08.620 Oh, Breitbart released it. Now you've got what is starting to happen in the culture,

01:02:13.660 which is inevitable really, where you've got progressive, where mainstream art is progressive,

01:02:20.620 left wing, woke, whatever you want to call it. And now you've got this other,

01:02:24.860 so you've got art which is starting to be produced by The Daily Wire, etc. Where do you think this goes?

01:02:32.700 Is this a positive thing to have art which is expressly left or right? And is there something

01:02:39.340 that we can do to kind of maybe have art which is apolitical, which is what I think is better?

01:02:45.740 I'm just interested to hear your point of view.

01:02:47.740 I think it's, I think that we didn't notice how political art was, you know? I didn't notice.

01:02:57.260 So, you know, if you look at the films made during the Reagan era, they're very one sort of type of

01:03:03.820 film, you know? And you look at the films made when I was growing up, you know, Bruce Willis,

01:03:07.580 lying drunk on the bed, gets up and has saved the world. It sort of, it imprints in you.

01:03:11.740 I think that with the incredible rise in technology, you, we're going to see films made for a lot less

01:03:18.300 money. Ultimately, you know, you've got that amazing little gizmo there, which, you know,

01:03:22.860 on a film set, I was there when the first slider turned up on a film set, and everyone was like,

01:03:27.660 and I can buy one off Amazon, you know? So I think we're going to see lots more films made.

01:03:32.380 I think what would be, and weirdly, the Hollywood bubble will become just more of a bubble where

01:03:39.180 money is spent on films that not many people watch, and they all give each other a round

01:03:45.180 of applause. So their nature abhors a vacuum, and there will be films that come along. I've

01:03:49.980 someone sent me a script the other day, but we're still in the early stages of the, of the

01:03:54.140 other part of culture because, and they're all about like, I've written a film about the vaccine.

01:04:00.460 Okay, just hit me out. Next one, it's like, I've written a film about a fake pandemic.

01:04:07.900 And I'm like, okay. So it will need, it will need to catch up. But it, I think it's great that you

01:04:14.220 have, you know, in the same ways, we're going to have problems with money soon, aren't we? Because

01:04:18.220 it's going to vanish. We're going to have the black market will start to get bigger, won't it? And,

01:04:23.340 you know, people will start trading in different ways. I think culturally, what we'll see is a,

01:04:29.500 I think Hollywood is funded by the Chinese anyway. So they're never going to run out of money,

01:04:34.460 along with sport and all of these things. So we will, we will see a rise in independent

01:04:38.780 filmmaking. There are some good independent films. The Banshees have been assured it was a great

01:04:42.060 movie. I really enjoyed it. So yeah, you cannot kill art. You can't, but you also,

01:04:49.980 Hollywood is just going to be, I think it's just, I find it so irrelevant, utterly irrelevant.

01:04:58.300 You know, I mean, someone won an award, what's her name? Kate Branchett won an award for a film

01:05:03.660 called Tar. I'm never going to watch this film. And she went, you know, it's, I find it's empowering

01:05:11.420 women and it's great. And I was like, I was in the film with you where you played Queen Elizabeth

01:05:16.140 the first. I mean, is there a better part? Why are you going on about empowering women?

01:05:21.180 You've had the best sodding career ever. Why can't you just go thank you and move on instead

01:05:27.260 of having to politicise it about, you know, women in some way? It's boring.

01:05:31.260 So do you think Hollywood is ultimately doomed?

01:05:33.420 I think Hollywood, no, because Hollywood's Hollywood. You know, there's always going to be the,

01:05:37.100 the same people that go to the national theatre. And I mean, I don't know,

01:05:40.620 I'm unfamiliar with how they're going to do the production of Arthur Melissa the Crucible,

01:05:45.020 but I'm fairly confident they will cross-cast it with the women will be the men and the men 0.96

01:05:50.780 will be the witches and there won't be a single white person in it. So there will be, 0.81

01:05:54.860 there will always be an audience, you know, that sort of grateful national theatre audience.

01:05:58.860 In the same way, you'll get a grateful Hollywood audience that go me and my highfalutin, um,

01:06:03.980 cultural experience and intelligence and, you know, gentle taste buds for,

01:06:09.980 fabulous culture will just carry on applauding it, like clapping seals, applauding an iceberg.

01:06:15.580 But surely when the accountants come in, they are businesses and they go,

01:06:19.820 look, this is a revenue from the latest film.

01:06:23.500 Disney though, how much did Disney lose? What was it?

01:06:27.660 It's in the billions. They lost last year.

01:06:30.300 Really?

01:06:30.940 In the billions. And they're still pumping out all of that, you know, woke kid shows.

01:06:36.220 I saw one the other day. It's the worst thing about Twitter, isn't it?

01:06:39.100 Also, the thing about Twitter is it completely deprives everyone of context.

01:06:44.140 Yeah.

01:06:44.460 So, but I saw a scene, which was actually long enough,

01:06:46.780 of this little kid show where you're sitting there going,

01:06:48.780 you only got the prints because you were white.

01:06:51.420 And it's like, okay, so Disney has lost a lot of money.

01:06:56.220 I bet China pays for it at all, doesn't it?

01:06:58.300 You know, that's why you don't get any Chinese villains in anything anymore.

01:07:01.660 It's all Russian villains now. 1.00

01:07:03.500 You don't get any Chinese villains.

01:07:04.940 So China is subsidizing the culture.

01:07:07.340 Good opportunity for me.

01:07:08.860 What do you reckon? I need to ask you about this.

01:07:11.340 Because I was reading your Putin thing and because that's one of the other things

01:07:15.580 I sort of try and stay out of a bit is the Ukraine situation,

01:07:20.060 because I know all about geopolitics.

01:07:22.860 I understand probably more than someone who knows nothing,

01:07:27.420 but I don't understand it seriously.

01:07:31.020 When I was reading through what Putin was saying,

01:07:33.420 and I was watching what he was saying,

01:07:34.620 he was really going at the culture, wasn't he?

01:07:38.060 Well, he knows who he's talking to.

01:07:39.740 Yeah, so he's trying to talk.

01:07:42.140 Just explain it to me.

01:07:43.180 Well, there is a growing, and as I think all three of us would agree,

01:07:48.300 fairly justified anti-elite sentiment in the West.

01:07:52.460 And he recognizes that that is a process that's going on in the West.

01:07:58.620 And if he can speak to the people who are anti the elite in the West,

01:08:02.860 that means that he can secure support in the West for whatever it is that he's doing,

01:08:07.580 or against whatever it is the elites are doing.

01:08:10.540 I think that's...

01:08:11.500 It's literally that. It's just a clever play.

01:08:13.500 I was just interested.

01:08:14.140 I was like, why is he going after wokeness and culture?

01:08:16.380 So I thought, out of all the things you could go on about.

01:08:18.460 I mean, I don't think he's all that concerned about transgender clinic in Ohio or whatever it is. 0.99

01:08:23.420 That's really not what the Anglican Church doing very stupid things, 0.99

01:08:27.420 as the Anglican Church is doing. 0.98

01:08:29.260 But that isn't really his primary movement.

01:08:32.540 So he's finding it. He's sort of like all successful people.

01:08:37.180 He's trying to find the scene with which he can crack the rock of Western resistance.

01:08:42.380 Yeah, I think that's it. 0.99

01:08:44.220 And of all the criticisms that people can make of Vladimir Putin, he's not a stupid man. 0.79

01:08:49.660 I have many criticisms of the things that he's doing, of course, but he's very smart.

01:08:54.300 And the other thing is, this is the weakness of democracy for all its many huge benefits and achievements.

01:09:04.300 We have short-term leaders who have short-term thinking.

01:09:07.980 Vladimir Putin has been in power since 1999, 24 years.

01:09:12.460 He'll probably be in power for another eight years at least.

01:09:15.900 So that is a period of time when you can consolidate power.

01:09:20.300 You can get rid of anyone who's a problem in various ways.

01:09:24.620 It doesn't have to be violent, but you can make sure that they're not in the room.

01:09:29.900 And then you can implement the agenda that you think.

01:09:33.180 And that means that you can simply...

01:09:36.540 You know that Chinese saying the best strategy in war is to sit by the river and wait for the bodies of your enemies to float by?

01:09:43.020 You can do that if you've got 30 years.

01:09:45.020 If you're Liz Truss and you've got 44 days, probably not.

01:09:49.100 So that's a huge advantage.

01:09:50.540 I mean, we've got to a point in the West where I think we think that the values that we have are perfect.

01:10:00.300 You know, democracy tolerance, like, and they have no trade-offs.

01:10:04.620 Not really.

01:10:05.260 That isn't true.

01:10:06.060 There are no solutions.

01:10:07.100 There are only trade-offs, is my favorite Thomas Sow quote.

01:10:09.900 And so dictatorship on authoritarianism has huge advantages when it comes to situations like the ones that we find ourselves in now.

01:10:17.420 And this is why quite often when countries go to war in the Roman Empire, for example,

01:10:22.940 they would quite often not have democracy or not have the system of government that they would have during wartime.

01:10:29.980 And they would appoint someone who was essentially a dictator to take them through that.

01:10:35.260 And so in times like these, strong leadership has massive advantages.

01:10:39.020 Yeah, that's really interesting.

01:10:41.100 And also the comment about waiting for your enemies to float by, because another thing that is, that I am learning.

01:10:47.420 And I was fortunately told it by a wise man who I, because I've started to consult wise men now, because I think it's probably a good idea.

01:10:55.660 And he said, sometimes the best thing to do is just sit on your hands and do nothing.

01:10:59.180 That's hard for young people like us.

01:11:01.460 Youngish.

01:11:02.060 Well, yeah, because I feel, also, I feel guilt, you know, work guilt, usually.

01:11:07.020 Like, we've got to do something.

01:11:08.180 What are we going to do?

01:11:09.220 And I was speaking to this guy and he said, sometimes it's just, you know, the fight comes to you, man.

01:11:14.820 It's not like you're running around the playground looking for people to punch.

01:11:17.900 There come all, there's a queue of them lining up to punch you in the face.

01:11:21.820 So you don't need to, you don't need to chase the fight.

01:11:24.420 You need to, you know, and that's, I think, actually one of the good things.

01:11:27.440 So I've, not only have I enjoyed talking, but I've also, it is a, it is a, it's a thought I will take away.

01:11:34.560 Because it's like, you don't need to be on a wall footing all the time.

01:11:39.560 Certainly not for cortisol levels and stress levels within you, but you get quite used to them.

01:11:45.320 So, so when you get, when you go on a summer holiday or something and it's like, what we can do is say, have a few beers and go water skiing.

01:11:51.480 It's like, yeah, but, but how are we going to change the way water skiing is done?

01:11:57.680 It's like, yeah, that's what I mean about the process.

01:12:00.580 You know, it's early in my sort of understanding about what I'm meant to be here to do, which is sort of a question that we should all ask ourselves all the time.

01:12:08.880 Yeah.

01:12:09.160 And the problem is, is when you start fusing conflict with your identity and that's the moment you get into somewhere dark because you start thinking, well, what I am here to do is to do X.

01:12:21.640 And all of a sudden when X isn't available, then what is?

01:12:27.400 Yeah.

01:12:27.940 And what are you faced with?

01:12:29.600 And then you realise that actually you're, what you're doing is externalising what is inside.

01:12:36.060 And until you face what's inside, you're never going to be able to solve the external.

01:12:41.660 And yeah, which is true.

01:12:42.660 And it's also like the, you know, exactly, it's sort of the French Revolution thing of once you start chopping people's heads off, in order for the French Revolution to continue and the terror, we have to chop some more people's heads off. 0.63

01:12:53.080 Yeah.

01:12:53.440 You know, it's sort of self-perpetuating.

01:12:55.520 Yeah, I think it's right.

01:12:56.480 But also there is, the counter argument to that is defence rather than attack.

01:13:04.520 You know, it's the shield versus the sword, which one is more useful, but both are required.

01:13:10.860 Well, I think it's something that all of us are trying to navigate.

01:13:13.060 So it's been a pleasure having you back, Lawrence, and talking about all of this.

01:13:16.560 Before we ask questions from our supporters that only they will get to see the answers to on Locals that they've already submitted, we've got one final question for you, which is always the same.

01:13:25.120 What is the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:13:28.780 Well, we just talked about it for ages.

01:13:30.500 We did.

01:13:31.240 It's the worrying rise in right-wing, so-called right-wing wokery and loving our enemies.

01:13:38.660 Amen.

01:13:39.860 Lawrence, folks, thanks for coming back on the show.

01:13:42.280 And guys, thank you for watching and listening.

01:13:44.440 We will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show.

01:13:48.620 All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

01:13:50.360 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it is always available as a podcast.

01:13:54.960 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:13:57.800 Ask Lawrence if Madonna was batshit mental when he worked with her on the film WE.

01:14:03.640 Oh, my Lord.

01:14:04.660 This is behind the paywall, so let it rip. 0.84

01:14:06.700 Yeah.

01:14:07.000 Really?

01:14:07.680 Yes.

01:14:07.960 So...

01:14:08.460 And I'll see you soon.

01:14:22.740 Bye-bye.

TRIGGERnometry - March 16, 2023

Laurence Fox： Is the Right Going Woke？

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