Laurence Fox： ＂They Came After My Family＂
Episode Stats
Words per minute
192.9644
Harmful content
Misogyny
10
sentences flagged
Toxicity
105
sentences flagged
Hate speech
32
sentences flagged
Summary
Francis and Constantine are joined by returning guest Lawrence Fox to discuss the impending apocalypse, culture war and how to survive in a post-apocalypse world. Also, Francis discovers that he's not as bad looking as he thought he was.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishin.
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And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
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Our brilliant and returning guest today is a singer-songwriter, actor and one of our
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favorite human beings in the world, Lawrence Fox. Welcome back to Trigonometry.
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And I should explain, before we start, we are, of course, immediately in the post-lockdown situation.
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We've all got crazy haircuts. France has lost weight, which was never going to happen otherwise.
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And the world's about to explode. How have you been?
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Well, yeah, just in anticipation of the apocalypse, which seems to be heading our way soon.
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And which you predicted the last time you were on the show. I mean, I say that with a smile. I don't know why.
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I know. We always do well in an apocalypse, don't we?
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Yeah, we do. Well, I don't know why I said we do. And to quote Batman, some people just want to watch the world burn.
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And that is, of course, the three of us. Not actually, because last time you were then being serious, you know, you said you see a fight coming and here it is.
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Yeah, it's not good, is it? I feel like it was already possibly too late back then, in a way, because you could see that people lost their good faith and they didn't want to talk anymore.
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And, you know, as you go into those arguments and people are just looking to to find the tiny disagreement that they can turn into a little hand grenade that they can then turn into from a skirmish into a war.
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And, you know, I think we're probably we're getting there.
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I mean, no one's going to feel relaxed because we're in the middle of a lockdown.
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But the lockdown and the combination of the, you know, the tension, this building is.
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and Lawrence you have been dare I say on a little bit of a journey I mean
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euphemistically um how are you and how have you found it um I'm all right now it was pretty uh
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surprising actually before but then I suppose on one level I was already poking the elephant wasn't
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I well give us a bit of the chronology Lawrence because when we interviewed you I believe that
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I think it's accurate to say that was the first long form interview that you'd done talking about the whole culture war stuff and your thoughts on it.
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And from there you go, you do a bunch of other podcasts and eventually you end up on Question Time, which is where I think the journey, as Francis described it, really starts.
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And we might even include a little clip of that at the top of this.
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and then i went to um liverpool on the train and got to question time and they they perhaps sort of
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everyone's there with their sort of assistants and you know people with little briefcases and
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lawyers things and following around their their contestants and briefing them and stuff like that
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and then um i sort of took one look at the drinks table and thought no i won't do that because they
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lay out a load of booze i think they probably want to kind of get people going yeah so you do a george
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best basically do george best and uh or an oliver reed and um then yeah i mean i just i just said
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what i thought which i would have said at a tv if i was staring at the tv watching it do you know
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what i mean i would have said exactly the same thing and then you forget that millions of people
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are watching it because you're just sort of responding how you'd respond and then i went
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Okay well you're now racist because you mispronounced
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and I went to my room and I took one brief look
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at twitter and i thought why have i got 75 000 twitter followers and um then i woke up next
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morning and i had like 100 and something else and it was all kind of fairly good natured at
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the beginning i didn't feel too like i was being jumped on and then sometime the next afternoon
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it started getting really quite nasty and i started going oh i might have to have an a have
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an opinion about some stuff and then it slowly descended into sort of a a major pylon and a sort
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of you know the bad faith pylons that twitter are famous for they just you know you want to be
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people want to misrepresent you in the media or do it the same so i then got very shocked um so
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then went to see my doctor because i was having massive panic attacks and she gave me some pills
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and it culminated in equity, the Actors' Union,
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of them saying, you know, I'm a disgrace and denounce.
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when you used to watch the tube strikes and stuff,
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using really emotive language and you'd think, cool, whatever.
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But then someone says to me, that's a big deal, actually,
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You don't want that at the top of when someone Googles you.
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Well, right, that would be the equivalent of Bob Crow
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denouncing his own transport stuff or whatever union he was set of.
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Lawrence Fox is the worst train driver we've got.
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World's shittiest train driver award goes to Lawrence Fox.
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I've always wanted to fight that prick, yeah.
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Lots of, you know, my family didn't know what to do, really.
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People came after my family, came after my loved ones.
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And I thought I have to do something practical.
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They attacked, you know, they attacked, they tried to draw divisions between my family members.
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You know, people would, the media would comment on various parts of my, you know, relationships I was having within the family that they just weren't informed about.
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So it's, and I then got some calls from my family saying, what are we going to do about this?
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Because this is really upsetting for everybody.
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And I threatened to sue equity for defamation because I think at the end of the day, you know, what they said to me was was unfair.
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I didn't think I was really I mean, I admit, you know, it's a fairly controversial thing to say that Meghan Markle as an actress may have an ego that may, you know, and want to be center of attention, which is sort of what I was saying.
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I didn't really have any interest in the color of her skin or anyone else's skin, really, because I just it's not really I know it's really bad to say that, isn't it?
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I mean, the thing I actually said at the time is,
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and this is purely a reflection of my ignorance about Meghan Markle.
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I don't watch that many movies with her in them.
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I didn't realize that she was quote-unquote black.
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I just want to say I'm a massive fan of you, Meghan.
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Very progressive, especially down below the waist.
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But this is the point is, like, I didn't know that she was black.
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I think there have been rumblings in the press of the fact that she was being treated different.
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So the last time I'd seen Meghan Markle was at her wedding.
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And that looked like a pretty nice shindig to me.
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And you made that point on Question Time about actors,
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and go to the Bahamas for a three-week beach holiday, right?
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And as you said, that's not really about race, is it?
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delay and also that when you're finding things to divide people it's it stops conversations so
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you know if you subjectivize something like race which you've got to do because you've got if
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someone says you the only lived experience you have in life is your own that's it there is no
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other lived experience but your own and you know you can sort of see into the windows of other
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people's that you know really well but um so you one wasn't denying uh subjective feelings of
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I mean, Francis and I both have met real racists,
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so i mean they do exist the question is is one stupid racist reflect reflective of society that's
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that's really the question that you were addressing yeah and that and it's um it becomes
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an agenda then slightly it feels to me so if you're going to talk about systemic racism then
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at some point i'm going to need some facts that's i'm just going to need it because i can't take
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your word for it if that's not my lived experience now i'm you know i qualify that by saying i don't
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I haven't had the lived experience of, you know, I was speaking to a friend the other day.
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He said, you've not been called a packie and been told to go home.
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But apparently, I read yesterday that that's gaslighting other ethnic minorities.
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And you're like, if the Home Secretary, who's brown, has a view and says, I was called a packie in the schoolyard,
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and then you're going, she's now the Home Secretary,
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That would point towards the fact that possibly this country is quite progressive in terms of how we handle race.
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So essentially race is now an opinion rather than a colour of your skin, it seems to me.
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Because when you were talking about it, did you feel that you sort of stumbled into a landmine issue or onto a landmine issue without being fully aware of what would happen?
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Yeah. I thought it was a fairly sensible comment. I mean, I didn't look at it for a long time. And then I looked at it much later on and I thought, yeah, no, I do believe that. I stand by that. There's nothing. I mean, I maybe shouldn't have banged my head on the desk because that was just slightly disrespectful. But it was frustrating. And you're being walked into an argument that the minute you accept the argument exists, you've lost the argument because I didn't accept the terms of the argument that she was laying down.
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It was a lecture, and, you know, nothing bristles
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Absolutely, and then there was, obviously, the Sikh comment,
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00:12:39.980
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00:12:44.100
it actually really really went to the next level and it all became very very vitriolic would you
00:12:52.320
like to tell us about what happened there well the seek comment was um in a in a podcast and you
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know also listen the thing about podcasts is that their opportunities because they're long-form
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discussions they're opportunities to talk you don't turn up with the finished article of your
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ideas do you don't turn up and go right uh this is my position on x y and z you talk to learn to
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understand to gain more insight and knowledge so I did think when I saw 1917 I thought it felt
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slightly tokenistic that there was just one Sikh soldier I thought you could have a platoon in the
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back of that truck and you know and so it's a fairly innocuous statement I mean helpful
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possibly not was Sam Mendes trying to do something really good and to point out yeah absolutely but
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again it was a bad faith argument it's like you know what i meant you know and but this is what
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i said to you at the time man is like i knew exactly what you meant and the funny thing about
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that is obviously people won't know this but you were the one that recommended i watch 1917 before
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that you actually gave me a dvd of it to watch and you said this is a great movie yeah it is go go
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watch it and i did uh but the with the thing with that comment was i think everybody knew exactly
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what you meant uh including many Sikhs who came out and supported you but but you can't give an
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inch to these people if you allow them even any opportunity to misinterpret something you say
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they will go for you i think that's right and that's fine because people are in charge of
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themselves know their own agency and that's cool where it stops being fine is the media so um i
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remember david walliams then um charming dude that he is with possibly no dark past
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standing on um standing on the stage at the national television awards talking about how
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empty my diary was and he was slightly hissed in a way he was food it wasn't appreciated and then
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he went on to make a joke about caroline flack straight after and then caroline flack he's in
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a slightly different position to me emotionally for whatever reason we're two separate individuals
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went on to take her own life and i would say that that that the the media and herself and all of
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everything but are culpable in some aspect of that and including david welliams and david
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welliams's approach was just to turn off twitter for seven days and then get back to posting
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pictures of his dog so yeah i think that it's important that we we are we're able to just
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freely express ourselves in good faith and and that seek comment was you know people knew people
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knew what i was saying but you know i had to go on this i went on good morning britain i think
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ultimately what i really should have done was just shut all the doors to everything and and hunker
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down but because of this thing about the fact that they won't let you go they're like dogs
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wild dogs coming after you you have to fight back you do which i did fight back for a while but then
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i looked at the seat comment and i thought you know what that i could i could misinterpret that
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and in order to reduce flames and energy and heat and anger because that's what you want to do in
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life that's what i want to do in life uh while still maintaining the right to freedom of speech
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I thought I will just say, look, I think everyone who died in war
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and everyone who served in war is a really bad thing.
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And, you know, it just re-energizes them to come.
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So you can't really, once you've been tarred and feathered,
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all you're doing is getting more tar and more feathers
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So, you know, like, that's why Trump is so successful,
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You say anything to him, and he's just like, he doesn't care,
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And Lawrence, I was going to ask as well, with social media, do you think that what social media does is it makes it very, very easy to demonise someone?
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Because sitting opposite from you, I get the fully rounded human being.
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But on Twitter, you just get the avatar with a little picture.
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Therefore, it makes it so much easier to create in my mind who you are.
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i had to turn it off at one point because i was going geez i'm never going to get another job
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and um you know but it still happens the problem is once you stifle a really little debate like
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about nuance if you take something nuanced and someone takes a very strong position on a very
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nuanced issue then when you get to the big issues you're fucked because you know and so it's it's in
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bad faith this thing and i know i keep saying it but i'm done with that conversation so it and
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that's really sad and that's why we're heading towards where we're heading probably this well
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last weekend depending you know is that people are just putting down words and they're picking up
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aggression and anger and violence and you know and where's that going to lead us and the point
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you made about the media i think is very powerful right now but actually you reminded me when you
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talked about the david williams joke that joke land as comedians we can you you know when a joke
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works or not that joke died yeah well it died on its ass but here's my point i i only found out
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about what happened and read about it and watched it because i saw a newspaper article which said
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david williams brilliantly destroys laura or something along those lines they they just lied
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they just fucking lied they took something that happened and they misrepresented it as the
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opposite yeah how's how does that how does that happen david welliams largely succeeds
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david welliams is largely peaceful character assassination of laurence fox um you know it's
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really bad i'm all right because i i have a really good support network but you do have to think
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about the people that aren't all right and you do have to think about that you know what a likelihood
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of people appearing in reality tv shows ending up with severe mental health problems you know
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and how much of this is Twitter's responsibility.
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they said, I was like, I've just got to get off Twitter.
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The smartest, cleverest people are trying to keep you on there.
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So I think the only constant I can find in the whole thing,
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either it's the it's the outrage media that have just gone they've got dealt their hand and their
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hand is like the 10 of truth the jack of honesty and the six of um whatever and and they just throw
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it down and they go right what do i want to do here and i suppose they've always done it but
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it's probably got more power now it's got more reach you've got more shares everything i say
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for example is digitally permanently there it isn't like people use saying all those it isn't
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yesterday's tomorrow's chip paper even it's there for you to see but i mean i would rather
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speak a lot and get a few things wrong than not speak at all ever
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when you started saying, you know, your opinions,
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is the most liberal and inverted commas industry there is.
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if you disagree with any of what they say or think.
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Have you found that your bookings have gone down?
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Acting is the most liberal, compassionate business
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00:22:27.740
that I've noticed now, because I've started to look at it,
00:22:30.000
is I don't look at the ones that do the, I'm responsible.
00:22:38.300
And I've started to see, and you start to notice
00:22:41.420
And then you start to look what sort of parts they play
00:22:45.640
And you start to go, oh, okay, so there is something going on.
00:22:52.240
But, you know, we are, I think, a lot of films now,
00:22:58.100
They're much less sort of, I don't know, testosterone-y
00:23:09.860
And hence, you know, the films have a slightly different quality to them.
00:23:24.640
And then the rest will be sort of complex dramas that, you know, it's like watching your best friends.
00:23:31.220
So it's like, I don't, I want to be transported when I watch films.
00:23:34.260
So I've started watching older films again now.
00:23:36.720
I mean, older films for me, like, you know, Good Will Hunting or something like that,
00:23:43.820
I mean, I watched Mrs. Doubtfire the other day and I was triggered.
00:23:47.440
Mate, you watch anything from like 10 years ago and you're going, what, they made this?
00:23:53.640
But, you know, as you were talking there, it reminded me of something because I talked a lot to my grandparents and parents about life in the Soviet Union.
00:24:05.900
And the stuff you're talking about where you have to look for who's not signing up to a cause is exactly what we had.
00:24:13.380
Like I get messages now from people going, oh, you know, by the way, this other comedian, he's one of us.
00:24:21.260
Like, why do we have to speak in hushed tones and private messages about us?
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Like, there's something seriously fucked up here.
00:24:29.880
If people like us have to, you know, gather in private and, you know, keep our voices down, which is what's happening.
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But what's so good is now we're living in the world where people have the most information they've ever had.
00:24:42.360
So that's a good thing when people use it well, and it's a really bad thing when people use it badly.
00:24:46.560
But ultimately, you know, if it all goes wrong, we can just go and live in chairs.
00:25:05.040
I'm not sure we're going to get visas for that, mate.
00:25:18.440
But you've got, throughout history, there's been sort of crazy doomsday cultist lunatics.
00:25:23.540
And they have to be countered with, you know, fairly rational, reasoned, sensible thought.
00:25:30.220
But it's exploding now because I think people forget as well.
00:25:33.240
A friend of mine said to me the other day, he went, I didn't realize how thick some younger students were.
00:25:39.920
Because he said they just didn't, they've not been taught this stuff.
00:25:42.800
So I was taught at school about the Soviet Union
00:25:48.400
and we studied it in crystal metal and all this stuff,
00:25:53.820
But I know about it and I know the motives behind it
00:25:56.180
and you can see the trajectory of how these things play out.
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to fail his first attempt at learning or something.
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You know, it's sort of, there's a sort of, I don't know,
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He's got some fairly decent left-wing arguments.
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And, you know, my mate Paul has got some good left-wing arguments.
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But, you know, the screechy, screechy, fuck you, fuck you stuff is like,
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You know, you scream at me all you want at the end of the day.
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Either I turn you off or, you know, I can turn you off.
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so aggressive and so it doesn't feel like there is a conversation to be had and it also feels like
00:27:16.760
people are taking sides as well like you know corporations are taking sides individuals are
00:27:22.140
taking sides there and they're sort of weighing up who's going to win and go um i'll be on that
00:27:26.560
side and ultimately you know it does it feels like those with those that are willing to uh fight in
00:27:32.440
the cruelest and nastiest way are probably going to win but ultimately the best reaction the best
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generals in response are the ones that are much more cold and much more measured you know and
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they just go this is how I will defeat you in the long run but I've got a feeling it will get bad
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I don't feel it's it doesn't seem like it's getting any less bad does it you know it's I feel
00:27:55.420
very depressed about it and I feel sad for my kids you know and you know I just said I said the other
00:28:01.240
day about this taking the knee thing I was like I totally stand by anyone's right and desire to
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take the knee i'm just not going to do it because and i was walking around the park with that dude
00:28:11.880
amru because he started slagging me off on twitter and he lives in near where i live and i was like
00:28:17.240
why don't we just get together for a chat and he is a left-wing trans person yeah yeah yeah he he's
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got a lot of intersections going on and uh he was slagging me off and i was like hi man nice to meet
00:28:31.920
you and i think that disarms people sometimes and i said um listen don't you don't need to hate me
00:28:38.820
we can talk why don't we go for a walk you've got a dog i've got a dog so we go for a walk he
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explains to me that um you know why taking a knee is a good idea and i said to him okay i take that
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on board but you have to understand that in our sort of all the way up from sort of feudal culture
00:28:55.360
through the middle the middle ages up to today where you're taking a knee to get knighted by
00:28:59.700
the Queen as part it's ingrained in every sort of person in English culture that taking a knee has
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totally different significance than it does to where what it does for you know people in America
00:29:11.040
perhaps or people somewhere else so there is an argument there for someone to defend the right to
00:29:15.740
say well I see it as an act of subservience rather than an act of solidarity it's it's that's okay
00:29:22.060
in my view anyway Amri then says to me um so good to talk to you this is in public he's going so
00:29:28.920
good to talk to you i recommend you read this book so i go great i'll get that book and i'll
00:29:34.920
read it uh i recommend you read douglas murray the madness of crowds and he went no i'm not going to
00:29:42.140
read that transphobe stuff and i mean read douglas murray and uh there's nothing transphobic about
00:29:48.340
man at all in fact the his chapter on trans issues in the in the madness crowds is so sensitively
00:29:55.780
handled that i thought wow that's incredibly withheld for you know someone who can be quite
00:30:02.620
pointed like douglas and and and i just thought that's there we have it the difference between
00:30:07.940
you and me amru is i'll read your book but you won't read mine and therefore you know when it
00:30:14.280
comes to a fight which no one wants you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back
00:30:19.260
if you come from a place of reason because they don't care what the rules are i think it's quite
00:30:24.180
deliberate, I think it's the way that the ideology is designed. It's designed in such a way that it's
00:30:30.880
closed off to external information. Because if you argue, as they do, that words are violence,
00:30:37.200
that by saying that you don't think that, you know, if you just say that you're a woman right
00:30:42.980
now, like that, you've become a woman, for example, right? That is erasing the identity of somebody,
00:30:51.440
And if that's the case, well, if I thought that reading a book
00:30:56.380
maybe I wouldn't want to read that book either.
00:30:58.220
So if you think in that way, it all internally within that system makes sense,
00:31:05.060
It's designed to prevent new information from coming in.
00:31:12.480
It's an impenetrable, very dangerous religion,
1.00
00:31:19.740
The problem is they can't live up to their own edicts.
00:31:34.600
that he had to build his own penis out of whatever
1.00
00:31:39.240
in socks when he blacked himself up for stuff.
0.99
00:31:45.420
You blacked your own knees up in your ripped jeans.
00:31:48.280
Like, you really went to town on this look, Trudeau, you know.
00:31:51.700
And I just think it makes sense, and therefore it's very difficult to live in a world.
00:31:59.460
So in my sense of, oh, woe is me, Lawrence, I'm like, how can these people constantly
00:32:05.840
come up with new edicts that they break day after day after day, throw themselves endlessly
00:32:42.520
you worry about where that groundswell manifests itself.
00:32:46.180
And, you know, you go and try and pull down the wrong statue
00:32:48.920
with a few people that are fiercely patriotic in, you know,
00:33:08.520
Francis, before you jump in, just very quickly,
00:33:10.540
I should say we're recording this on a Friday before a weekend.
0.99
00:33:14.900
Who the fuck knows what's going to happen, man?
0.98
00:33:28.400
of what will be the long-term consequences of these actions.
00:33:31.400
So they pulled down the Edward Coulson statue now.
00:33:55.820
which will then really rankle with the other side.
00:33:59.420
But people don't seem to want to acknowledge that.
00:34:04.580
because also as much as there's an argument for removing it,
00:34:07.380
It's an argument for leaving it in place, right?
00:34:10.720
The argument for leaving it in place is, you know,
00:34:13.260
you take your children to the statue and they go, who's that?
00:34:16.100
And you go, this guy was a famous slave trader.
00:34:21.160
So there's a great, there's a solid argument for that.
00:34:23.740
But there's also a solid argument for removing it.
00:34:25.960
But whatever the argument is, it needs to be a democratic process.
00:34:29.640
Because once the mob take over, it's like, hang on a minute.
00:34:36.340
I mean, I don't know the history of the statue,
00:34:38.500
so I think they had been lobbying the council to have it removed and whatever.
00:34:42.440
They had a vote on it, and it was 54% of people didn't want it removed.
00:34:47.460
And maybe, look, if they had a vote now, I'm sure it would be removed.
00:34:50.920
And your point about the democratic process is absolutely right.
00:34:53.900
It's interesting that you mentioned that there's an argument for keeping these things up,
00:34:57.460
maybe with a plaque that explains who this person was, what they did, etc.
00:35:01.140
Because I went to school, and in my school, one of the alumni was Douglas Haig, who was the commander of the British Armed Forces in World War I, responsible for the over-the-top tactics, etc., which largely acknowledged as being terrible, having led to the deaths of thousands of young British men for no purpose whatsoever.
00:35:52.020
and i've i've got a horrible feeling that it's been this has been going on for years this
00:35:58.180
deliberate indoctrination and removal of any form of ability to think for yourself critically think
00:36:04.760
and you're just sat there you know i have lots of conversations with people where they're like
00:36:08.400
they'll just spew things that aren't true at me and i'll have to go okay but this is the thing
00:36:14.540
this is the truth it's like having an argument with someone who's screaming in your face and
00:36:18.500
you video it on your phone and you then you show it back to them and they went i wasn't angry with
00:36:22.380
you and you're like okay where i don't even know where we begin so yeah educate educate educate
00:36:29.940
kids are curious creatures i care mainly i the reason why i actually say this stuff is because
00:36:35.060
i have children i don't really care so much for myself but i'm looking at this going god if it's
00:36:39.880
this bad now what's it going to look like when they're young adults i don't want them getting
00:36:44.280
into a scrap so sort of vainly and stupidly i thought well maybe it's worth lobbing my five
0.61
00:36:50.040
eggs into this conversation but um oh boy have they tried to make me pay for it it's been painful
00:36:56.700
and lawrence do you regret getting involved in this conversation no no truth is the truth man
00:37:02.880
you gotta stick to the truth truth is what what matters truth information allowing people to work
00:37:07.380
out what to think argue the shit out of it fight with each other disagree don't fight physically
0.63
00:37:12.780
but really allow it to happen, allow these conversations to happen.
00:37:17.140
If they don't happen, other things happen, and that's what happens.
0.98
00:37:22.240
It's not shite at all because this is why we started the show.
0.98
00:37:26.260
We started the show two years ago on a much smaller scale,
00:37:29.140
but we've gone through exactly the same thing with our careers.
00:37:34.400
But I've got to be honest with you, and I've said this to people in private,
00:37:38.660
but I'll say it to you now, I think we're failing.
00:37:47.140
I don't think us talking about it is going to stop it.
00:37:53.760
That's a Russian in you coming out again, mate.
1.00
00:37:56.160
I'm going to write a three-and-a-half-hour play about it
00:37:59.360
where the protagonist shoots himself at the end.
00:38:08.780
That's the first time Francis has elevated himself
00:38:10.880
above the level of wank jokes in about three months.
00:38:27.600
But all I can see now as I look into the future is
00:38:30.900
how do you stop the violence in the short term?
00:38:43.140
Whether you believe in it or not, it's the only answer.
00:38:45.500
Because what are we going to come out of this with?
00:38:48.040
We're certainly not going to come out of the situation
00:38:50.460
that we've just been through with a great faith in scientists.
00:38:53.020
Oh, it's like, don't worry, I'm a scientist.
1.00
00:38:59.960
You know, scientists are the new estate agents nowadays, aren't they?
1.00
00:39:06.040
we've spent a long time looking for science we have to turn around and look to the to the values
00:39:11.220
of the real values that society was built on and those are judeo-christian values and that's you
00:39:16.720
gotta look up there and look at what was said by him and what was said by the people that followed
00:39:21.060
him that's what i reckon that's my view and that's not coming from a person who's like profoundly
00:39:25.940
religious i'm just going there is a manual they wrote a book about this before you know and and
00:39:32.380
try and bring some of those those values back you know very complex things within the bible
00:39:38.060
are really tricky to get your head around and they can educate and you know all you can do is
00:39:42.700
educate your kids educate the people around you like i've i've sort of took took a bit of a break
00:39:47.240
off twitter and i've started using our family whatsapp group instead so i want to share this
00:39:53.220
information because you know you're not going to get back but you can still disagree you know and
00:39:58.540
just gather with all sorts of people and always offer them your good faith that's the only thing
00:40:02.920
i can think because you know it's going to be abused regardless by a small minority but i think
0.98
00:40:07.940
they are a small minority i don't think people are as stupid as the media think they are and i
0.98
00:40:12.120
don't think people are as sheepy as um the media and the twitter think they are and i think people
0.98
00:40:17.480
think that twitter's real world absolutely isn't you know think about all the people that don't
00:40:21.580
tweet man i got a stack of letters a stack huge stack of letters just from people saying thank
00:40:27.500
you so much for saying that you know and it's like 33 Cosgrove Lane Lincolnshire you know and
00:40:33.060
it's like someone getting fucking cancelled right now the police were called 33 Cosgrove Lane
0.95
00:40:40.020
Lincolnshire this morning reports of a man um yeah so I think there's a there's a very look
0.96
00:40:47.360
the the more peaceful side of the argument is quieter it doesn't want to get into trouble
00:40:53.800
i'm in trouble i mean i'm not i mean i am but i'm not ultimately i'm not because i'm not i'm not
00:40:58.840
i know that i'm not trying to operate my heart in a negative and malicious way i'm unable to
00:41:03.560
cause other people harm i'm trying to go let's not cause each other harm and in spite of all of
0.97
00:41:09.540
the shit that has been chucked at me i'm grateful for that shit actually because it makes you
0.97
00:41:13.640
stronger and you know you i just don't feel you can do that alone as i've said before i'm just
0.99
00:41:18.500
like when i felt like that i'm like that help me please get me out of this i don't go like
00:41:37.680
than being anyone else, as Oscar Wilde said, isn't it?
00:41:42.000
there are some people who use what is happening
00:41:45.520
very cynically as a way to promote their career?
00:42:25.780
and I'm never going to change his mind about me,
00:42:27.440
but it will never stop me inviting him to go for a walk.
00:42:31.580
And you hope that in some recess of my brain stuff that he says,
00:42:36.060
he said something really interesting to me about racism, right,
00:42:40.260
He said it's like mosquito bites being subjected to racist attacks.
00:42:53.180
And that really stuck with me. And I thought, that's a really brilliant way of explaining it. And I've taken that away. And I've thought, yeah, we should be more, we should be gentler and more understanding and more aware of these issues, because they do cause people great hate.
00:43:08.020
but on when i returned with you know well later on around our little walk around the park and i
00:43:14.120
spoke about the you know what kneeling potentially would mean to you know someone who born english
00:43:21.780
went to an english school you know whatever color that they are it's like no don't agree
0.93
00:43:26.840
and i'm like okay well then you know we're fucked then aren't we but you've got to keep talking to
0.92
00:43:32.080
them because you've got to love them love that i love your what is it love the enemy well i'm
0.99
00:43:37.220
really good what is it i'll stab him in the face hello love your enemies yeah you know you do it's
0.95
00:43:43.940
there's there's no other way what do you want to do i build a heart full of hatred for these people
1.00
00:43:48.080
i'm like no fuck off i love you it's fine do what you want do your worst as well and i remember
0.99
00:43:55.220
always remember this quote we were talking to count dankler the guy who made the pug video
0.99
00:43:59.920
and he said something that always stuck with me.
00:44:02.720
He said, we don't really believe in forgiveness anymore.
00:44:08.940
There is no forgiveness in that religion, is there?
1.00
00:44:12.020
Because it's so immediate and the intersections are so constant.
00:44:18.340
Someone was saying to me that within ISIS as an organisation,
00:44:22.380
if you're not the most hardcore terrorist,
0.95
00:44:26.020
then you'll kill the slightly less hardcore one.
0.99
00:44:32.660
And, you know, so they incentivize you becoming more and more crazy and insane.
00:44:38.420
And, you know, look, they're cancelling their own now.
00:44:40.800
So hopefully they'll, you know, go and all go off to Chaz for summer.
00:44:51.460
Do you know how transformational that would be for so many people
00:44:54.080
to go and actually see their little utopia play out in all its horror
00:45:29.980
Do you know how mental what has just happened is?
00:45:56.040
And it's obviously a stupid little game because the moment the power companies turn off the electricity and the city stops taking away the trash and...
1.00
00:46:06.120
I was going to talk about something that happened, but I can't even be bothered.
00:46:12.440
It's a game that they play and they pretend that it's real, but it's not.
00:46:15.820
And I don't know what to do about it because it's just, how can you not laugh at it anymore?
00:46:52.380
yeah no i i think yeah i think you're right and then part of me thinks that's that i mean the
00:46:57.020
really cynical horrible part of my brain thinks that's all part of the idea all part of the plan
00:47:01.600
was to was to put people into that position and then wind them up and see what happened you know
00:47:10.760
because i mean at the end of the day what how many i mean look lots of people have died and
00:47:14.380
it's a fucking horrific tragedy and it's really bad for old people but is the reaction proportionate
1.00
00:47:18.960
to the danger i don't know certainly not the reaction was certainly proportionate to what
0.99
00:47:24.180
niall ferguson said the danger was but in with hindsight are we going to look back and say the
00:47:28.440
reaction was proportionate to this danger i think possibly not your full great outdoors comedy
00:47:32.660
festival lineup is here on september 11th through 13th at arendale park three nights five shows
00:47:39.700
huge laughs september 11th through 13th buy tickets now at great outdoors comedy festival.com
0.99
00:48:03.020
Death, my career, and the future of the country.
00:48:08.760
Them both getting into their little scientific suits,
00:48:48.340
before there was any lockdown, before we had COVID-19.
00:48:51.780
This was always going to be the final destination.
00:48:54.740
And it's the product of 30 or 40 years of the long march to the institutions
00:48:59.500
indoctrinating young people into thinking or not thinking and feeling everything.
00:49:09.700
Maybe it accelerated the process, but I don't think it's the lockdown what did it.
00:49:15.360
I think it's the fact that for 40 years they've been making this happen.
00:49:21.380
ultimately we live in the freest, most democratic situation
00:49:26.520
And, you know, if you're still moaning about things,
00:49:33.940
my kids can't even believe that I didn't have an iPhone when I was a kid.
00:49:49.140
It was too expensive to call on a landline to, you know, wherever he was filming.
00:49:54.940
So there is an element of being a bit spoiled, I think.
00:49:57.980
And I don't like the argument that we're not doing enough to try and reduce inequality
00:50:05.420
because none of these conversations seem to be about reducing inequality at all.
00:50:09.560
They seem to be about maximizing it and maximizing division.
00:50:15.940
I think the Wokey bunch are exactly what they accuse you of
1.00
00:50:20.060
to the very core, and it starts off with racism, you know?
0.88
00:50:28.840
It's so easy to, you know, throw it all at somebody else,
00:50:34.120
Yeah, I mean, I wish I could go like, there's an answer,
00:50:40.040
I mean, you know, people probably try and cancel me again,
00:51:40.720
the remain second referendum all of that shit people downvoted the video some of them some
0.98
00:51:47.080
people upvoted the video and appreciated that we had a conversation that was it that was it yeah
0.97
00:51:52.420
like he lord adonis is like lord voldemort to to the pro brexit crowd we had him on the show we had
00:51:59.080
a great respectful conversation we agreed with some of the things she said we disagreed with
00:52:03.500
other stuff we've had socialists on the show we've had people all from all over the political
00:52:08.820
spectrum and that's why the cynical part of my brain goes it's just an excuse they just don't
00:52:15.580
want to have the conversation because they'd lose the conversation it's like you know if you ever
00:52:20.660
try and engage people like that you just stay quiet and wait for them to tie themselves in and
00:52:24.180
not you know that's that's what happens anyone who acts in bad faith you just go tell me why
00:52:29.880
sorry and then they'll expect they'll say something really compassionate start off with
00:52:34.520
something very compassionate like you know we just need to really support each other i just
00:52:37.960
don't believe we support each other enough and i'm like in what way do i agree with you what what
00:52:42.440
what do you think we should do to support each other he's got no idea mate he's told him dead
00:52:48.560
inside exactly because it's like you the only thing you can be in control of is yourself
00:52:52.780
and they don't want to be in control of themselves do they they want to be in control of you and me
00:52:57.300
and i'm like no i'm not up for that thanks chaps um bye no and we've come to the end of uh the
00:53:06.480
interview it's been absolutely brilliant lawrence but we always ask one question at the end uh
00:53:10.940
that is what is the one thing we're still not talking about that we ought to be talking about
00:53:16.400
as a society um kids education how to educate your children you know don't leave your children
00:53:26.940
to be educated by someone else educate them yourselves as much as possible surround your
00:53:31.020
children with adults, surround them with diverse opinions and diverse, you know, not the diverse
00:53:36.200
colours and all of this stuff. God, that sounds so patronising, but it's like, I don't want to
00:53:40.120
have to point out that diversity includes different coloured skin. Of course it does.
00:53:46.900
Yeah, make sure your kids are equipped to deal with the world, because they're the ones that
00:53:51.740
are going to have to deal with what comes next. That's a very good point. Lawrence,
00:54:03.640
And it's important that, you know, I just say I've seen your journey
00:54:07.660
and I think a lot of people, a lot of people respect you tremendously
00:54:13.700
I respect you tremendously for speaking on this issue
00:54:18.440
Thank you and well done for doing what you're doing
00:54:22.320
Well, make sure you go and check out Lawrence's, all of his work.
0.99
00:54:25.480
white lines is fucking smashing it white lines is smashing it yeah white lines is smashing it
0.98
00:54:30.360
let's see whether my opinions get me into the second series
1.00
00:54:33.860
gotta say being half south american i do love white lines
00:54:38.000
see we've gone back to that kind of basement level of humor as i promised you would happen
00:54:44.660
uh the lockdown has served you well mate very good um and uh i've just broken social distancing
00:54:50.440
on camera so uh we're cancelled officially thank you very much for tuning in we'll see you in a
00:54:54.980
couple of days with another brilliant interview and of course check out our live streams if you
00:54:58.840
haven't already that's where all the top level banter happens thank you very much and we'll see