TRIGGERnometry - April 14, 2021


Neil Oliver： ＂Scotland is a Country Split Down the Middle＂

Hosted by
Francis Foster Konstantin Kisin
Mentioned
Neil Oliver Norman French Brexit James IV Berlinie Trigger Alex Salmond Beautiful Noise Margaret Tudor Billy Connolly Jerry Sadowitz Hamza Youssef Jimmy Savile Carrie King Donald Dewar Gordon Brown Robert Barnes Mike Graham Henry VIII Jeff Wayne and 15 more
＂Our Report Found No Evidence of Widespread Institutional Racism＂ - Mercy Muroki Teacher Cancelled by Eton for Controversial Lecture Speaks Out

Episode Stats


Length

57 minutes

Words per minute

162.52

Word count

9,319

Sentence count

285

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Scottish historian and TV presenter Neil Oliver returns to the show for the second time to discuss the Alex Salmond inquiry, the scandal surrounding the First Minister, and the ongoing corruption investigation into the Scottish government by the Scottish Parliament.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
00:00:08.000 I'm Constantine Kissin.
00:00:09.320 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:14.380 And a fascinating guest we have for you today. He's returning to the show for the second time.
00:00:19.520 Scottish historian, TV presenter Neil Oliver. Welcome back to Trigonometry.
00:00:23.780 Oh, thank you very much for having me, gents. It's good to see you both.
00:00:27.220 It's good to see you and to have you back.
00:00:29.240 Listen, since we last spoke, we talked mainly about history and the pandemic and things like that.
00:00:34.900 But there's been a lot going on in your country, in Scotland.
00:00:39.000 I lived there for many years and I have no idea what's going on.
00:00:42.160 And we were just looking at it going, we need someone to explain it to us.
00:00:45.240 And here you are.
00:00:46.560 Oh, my goodness.
00:00:47.120 Well, in the beginning, the earth cooled.
00:00:51.640 And part of it for me, I would say right from the top, you know, you say my country of Scotland,
00:00:56.860 And of course, I was born and I live in Scotland, but the whole thing for me is underwritten by the fact that my country is Britain.
00:01:07.220 That is and that's not or it never used to be a political statement.
00:01:11.420 I was born, well, 54 years ago and just quietly, without any particular reason by osmosis or whatever, absorbed an understanding that I was British, born in Britain.
00:01:24.780 And it's very important to me that that situation prevails
00:01:30.480 Apart from anything else
00:01:33.680 I'm often characterised as being anti-Scottish independence
00:01:38.040 In truth, I'm not actually anti-anything
00:01:42.260 First and foremost, I am just for the United Kingdom of Britain
00:01:46.840 Because that's where I was born
00:01:48.460 And that nationality is part of my identity
00:01:52.500 and I simply refuse to have any group of politicians
00:01:57.280 here today gone tomorrow
00:01:59.780 strip me of what I understand to be my nationality
00:02:03.660 and replace it with another without my consent
00:02:08.100 and so yes there's a great deal happening up here
00:02:13.120 on account of the Scottish government
00:02:16.700 in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood
00:02:20.600 and i am i am confused and dismayed by by a lot of it but but my stance is and always has been
00:02:29.660 that i am i am for britain that's that's being british is what i understand about myself
00:02:35.180 touche neil uh what we like to do here at trigonometry start the interview by asking
00:02:40.060 a slightly insensitive question uh to to get the guests nice and warmed up and so we've managed to
00:02:45.560 do that but it seems like uh you guys are having some sort of like live action macbeth reenactment
00:02:51.080 in scotland uh so can you tell us more about what's happening there i suspect you're probably
00:02:56.460 referring to the um this what is generally known as the alex salmond inquiry which has yes it's
00:03:04.240 been uh it's been a shakespearean uh drama uh played out across what feels like years
00:03:10.540 and it has, well, you know, it has run its course
00:03:15.580 in terms of the Salmond Inquiry has run its course
00:03:19.500 but having said that, it remains unclear exactly what it decided.
00:03:26.560 The Inquiry's own committee seemed to decide
00:03:30.440 that the First Minister had misled Parliament
00:03:35.780 But then there's another judgment came in from an independent inquiry that said differently.
00:03:45.880 So exactly what has been decided at the end of the months, years of wranglings around what Alex Salmond was first of all alleged to have done, then his name was cleared in court, and then this whole inquiry into the way in which he was investigated by government has run on and on and on.
00:04:04.900 It has taken on layers of Byzantine complexity.
00:04:08.700 I think anyone outside of Scotland would struggle,
00:04:14.040 would struggle to have followed the twists and turns of it.
00:04:18.200 You know, you'd really have to be an obsessive.
00:04:20.420 You'd really have to be invested in the whole imbroglio to keep up with it.
00:04:27.900 And I don't claim to have followed every twist and turn.
00:04:31.140 What I take away from it, though, is the extent to which this Scottish government has chosen secrecy over openness.
00:04:42.120 There has just been, from the beginning, there were efforts made and a concerted attempt to keep as much as possible under wraps.
00:04:51.600 And this from a government that had said all along or said in the past that it was always going to be open,
00:04:56.740 all was going to be open with the people of Scotland
00:04:58.880 that it had nothing to hide, that everything would be there
00:05:00.860 to be looked at and discussed
00:05:02.340 the First Minister said exactly that
00:05:04.820 that she intended to
00:05:06.260 cooperate with the inquiry completely
00:05:09.080 and fully and that nothing would be off limits
00:05:10.740 and yet it has just been a culture
00:05:12.960 of secrecy and obfuscation
00:05:14.920 and hiding behind
00:05:17.040 legalities
00:05:18.340 legal minutiae and there has just
00:05:21.000 been this constant attempt to keep as much information
00:05:23.220 it would appear as possible
00:05:24.580 away from the general public, certainly from the Scottish public.
00:05:29.160 That's what I have taken away from it.
00:05:30.800 And that is what dismays me that we live,
00:05:34.080 that we're living with a government that is so secretive
00:05:36.980 about how it goes about its business.
00:05:40.120 And Neil, do you think that this has irreparably damaged
00:05:43.780 Sturgeon's premiership?
00:05:46.000 Oh, gosh, no.
00:05:48.320 I think she continues to be, I would say, in a fairly unassailable position.
00:06:01.060 The Scottish National Party is so strong, has taken such control over so much in Scotland.
00:06:09.280 The Crown Office, which is the Scottish equivalent of the CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service, has been working in concert with the Scottish government.
00:06:19.960 Therefore, you cannot say with any confidence, in fact, you can't say at all that there's separation of powers in Scotland.
00:06:27.200 One of the principles of Western liberal democracy and governments thereof is that the legislative and the executor and the judiciary are separate from one another.
00:06:37.160 That's not the case in Scotland.
00:06:38.480 there's no second chamber in the Scottish Parliament
00:06:41.860 no House of Lords or its equivalent
00:06:43.760 and the doings, the business of government
00:06:47.300 is supposed to be scrutinised by committees
00:06:49.060 and it was said long ago
00:06:50.780 when the devolution settlement was put in place
00:06:54.980 that the committees would have all the teeth they needed
00:06:58.340 properly and effectively to hold the government to account
00:07:02.560 but the Salmond Inquiry has absolutely laid bare the fact
00:07:06.580 that the Scottish Parliament cannot hold the Scottish government
00:07:10.480 to account, as far as it would appear,
00:07:14.480 the Scotland Act and the devolution settlement,
00:07:18.620 which was the product of the Scotland Act,
00:07:21.560 is not fit for purpose.
00:07:23.720 And I find it harrowing.
00:07:26.700 I feel that we live in something that's nudging towards a failed state,
00:07:30.840 a banana republic where bananas don't grow.
00:07:33.120 we'll wait for global warming now then we'll see bananas in scotland uh but but neil you make it
00:07:42.040 sound as if scotland is in some kind of political crisis which from the outside no one would you
00:07:48.540 know it seems that you know sturgeon has had a very good war in terms of the you know the
00:07:53.180 coronavirus is it really that bad up there uh well it depends what side of the line you're standing
00:07:59.220 on. I'm sure those who support the Scottish government and those who support the Scottish
00:08:05.360 National Party will be very happy with what has happened. But Scotland is absolutely a country
00:08:13.320 that's split down the middle. 14 years of the Scottish National Party has seen to that. Scotland
00:08:19.780 is a divided place. The Scotland that I grew up in, well, it's unrecognisable now. The atmosphere
00:08:28.300 beer is one of bitterness, constant anger, division, clannishness, feelings of being on,
00:08:37.480 you know, of two, fundamentally two tribes, you know, being on the barricades, hurling
00:08:41.860 whatever ammunition they can at one another. And there's a feeling that that situation just becomes
00:08:48.040 ever more, ever more entrenched. You know, you say that Scotland had a good, or the Scottish
00:08:54.340 government had a good covid well they didn't the the deaths such as they're being tallied are
00:08:59.820 obviously everything's on a smaller scale in scotland we've only got five million of a population
00:09:04.180 compared to you know 60 odd million in england or in the rest of the uk so the numbers are always
00:09:09.840 smaller but examined proportionally our death tolls have been the same the situation in the
00:09:15.300 care homes was desperate more people died proportionally in the care homes in scotland
00:09:20.460 than did so in the rest of the UK and when I last looked at the figures and I don't look at them on
00:09:25.360 a daily basis but we seemed to be you know one of the worst places in the UK or the worst place in
00:09:32.240 the UK in terms of Covid infections or cases or however they're counting and categorising it
00:09:39.780 today or this or this morning and so we haven't had a good Covid we've had the same Covid as
00:09:44.760 everybody else in the UK because of devolution the First Minister here Nicola Sturgeon has been
00:09:50.560 able to plough her own furrow up to a point or to an extent and so there have been different
00:09:56.860 dates about when we would open this or close that and you know if you were allowed six people we
00:10:02.120 might be allowed eight or you know there's been variations almost just for the sake of variation
00:10:06.320 But as a place to be, as a place to live now in 2021, Scotland is a sad and angry and frightened place with, you know, with lots of people full of dismay and apprehension about what the future must hold.
00:10:25.680 That broadcast was brought to you by the Scottish Tourist Information Board there,
00:10:29.720 Neil. Well done. But it's obviously a difficult time. And you feel very strongly about the
00:10:36.280 independence issue. And I actually wanted to ask you, is there anything beyond independence itself
00:10:42.200 that underpins that divide? Is there a religious or ethnic or sort of political, like what is the
00:10:50.620 divide about? Or is it purely about, do you want Scotland to be independent of the United Kingdom?
00:10:57.240 That is the, that's the fracture. That's the fault line, I suppose, along which the country has most
00:11:04.880 obviously split. You know, Scotland, like anywhere, I mean, it's not unique to Scotland, but it's a
00:11:11.680 place of many tribes, if you like. You know, it's difficult to talk of one Scotland. Historically,
00:11:20.120 it was a place of clans, a place of tribes, you know, going back further beyond, before the time
00:11:26.120 of the clans. And as you travel through what is a relatively small place, there's a great variety
00:11:32.960 in the population of Scotland. The north is very different from the south. The east is very
00:11:37.960 different from the west. Yes, there has, of course, courtesy of sectarianism between Catholic and
00:11:43.660 Protestant, there's always been a religious element to certain unhappinesses in Scotland.
00:11:50.120 But, you know, the people of Orkney and Shetland, for example, have always walked a different road than the rest of Scotland
00:11:58.220 The people of the borders are very different from the people in the north-east or in the north-west 0.94
00:12:03.820 The islands out to the west, the Western Isles, it's a different culture, a different group out there
00:12:09.280 You know, there's always been a kind of a Gaelic dominance out in the Western Isles or into the west
00:12:17.160 There's always been pockets of Gaelic culture
00:12:19.260 So Scotland is an enormously varied place
00:12:23.020 Which makes it very difficult when you start talking about One Scotland
00:12:27.440 At the last referendum in 2014
00:12:30.540 The result was 45-55
00:12:34.500 55% of those voting favouring remaining in the United Kingdom
00:12:40.020 But it's definitely worth pointing out that of 32 local authorities in Scotland
00:12:45.380 28 opted for remaining part of the United Kingdom
00:12:50.240 and only four, only four local authorities out of 32
00:12:54.200 had a majority in favour of leaving the union
00:12:58.020 and that's very significant
00:12:59.980 you know, the heartland of the independence vote
00:13:02.680 has always been Glasgow, East Dumbarton, Dundee
00:13:07.220 you know, that's always been where the hardcore of independence has been
00:13:11.660 down in the south-west of Scotland, over on the borders
00:13:14.120 the north-east, the north-west
00:13:15.220 not so uh so it's a very um it's a but that's that those kind of those kind of local divisions
00:13:23.280 differences in local communities they're always there they're in every country it's the same in
00:13:27.120 england same in wales same in ireland there's there's great differences but the fundamental
00:13:32.200 fracture across which that has broken scotland's back is the issue of independence and there's a
00:13:39.220 terrible sense of
00:13:40.500 hopelessness about it really
00:13:42.840 I believe that that
00:13:45.180 split is and always was
00:13:46.840 roughly 50-50 depending
00:13:49.140 on what day of the week or what year
00:13:51.040 you wanted to take a
00:13:53.260 referendum, hold a referendum or take
00:13:55.220 a straw poll, it would
00:13:57.100 drift slightly either way but it's more
00:13:59.120 or less half and half, half the country
00:14:01.020 in favour of one, half the country in favour of the other
00:14:03.000 which means that whatever happens
00:14:05.020 if there was a referendum tomorrow
00:14:07.060 that came down slightly in favour of
00:14:09.180 independence you've still got half the country unhappy and that's very difficult uh for that's
00:14:16.260 that's a very difficult um foundation upon which to build anything cohesive i've always said it's
00:14:23.640 a bit like if you if you're trying to fly a light aircraft you know a wee cessna or something and
00:14:27.520 you've got a dead elephant strapped to one wing it's going to be really difficult to fly the thing
00:14:32.540 because it's so unbalanced and so if there if there is a subsequent referendum or if there
00:14:38.980 are more referenda in the years ahead i think it will always split roughly 50 50 so it's always
00:14:45.500 going to be a pyrrhic victory for whoever carries the day and i said right back in well before the
00:14:51.740 2014 referendum it's probably a question better left unasked because the answer is just going to
00:14:58.160 make everyone unhappy and so it has done neil as an englishman i don't understand what you're
00:15:04.340 talking about with referendums making people unhappy or splitting the country we've got
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00:16:19.340 Excellent.
00:16:22.300 But it's very interesting, the points you make.
00:16:25.480 One of the points that I wanted to make is how much of the sort of anti-union feeling has been exacerbated,
00:16:32.520 exacerbated number one by Brexit and number two by, what, 12 years now
00:16:37.420 or 11 years now of Conservative rule?
00:16:40.160 Would it be more palatable to remain within the Union
00:16:43.220 if number one, we were still in the European Union
00:16:45.360 and number two, if we had a Labour Party in charge?
00:16:49.040 You've just added another layer of complexity and incomprehensibility
00:16:52.920 to the whole thing there.
00:16:54.280 It's what I bring to the podcast now.
00:16:56.420 Because I'll tell you why.
00:16:58.060 I'll tell you why.
00:16:58.580 In 2014, or in the run-up to that first, that referendum on the Scottish question, it was clear that were the Scots to favour independence in 2014, it would have taken Scotland out of the European Union.
00:17:17.920 So a vote for Scottish independence in 2014 was a vote to leave the EU.
00:17:24.780 It was inevitable.
00:17:25.580 And then attempt to rejoin. That was the plan, right?
00:17:29.720 Well, yes, but that's, you know, that's jammed tomorrow.
00:17:34.220 That's something that might happen.
00:17:37.280 There's plenty of evidence up front because of Catalonia and the Basques in Spain and France
00:17:43.520 that, you know, the idea of allowing a separatist country back into the European Union,
00:17:48.980 as far as a country like Spain was concerned, might have been a red rag to a bull.
00:17:52.780 But anyway, but the point was the Scottish National Party, the independence campaign was predicated upon if you vote for independence, you're voting to leave the European Union. That's what would have happened. Yeah, at some point down the line, they may or may not have been able to rejoin the EU.
00:18:09.120 And at the time they were saying, well, if that's it, that's the way it has to be. So it was effectively a, you know, a skexit. It was Scotland leaving the European Union in 2014. That's what would have happened if Scotland had voted for independence.
00:18:22.220 And then 2016, of course, the Brexit referendum in the UK, the decision was taken to leave the European Union. And at that point, at that point only, did the Yes campaign or the Scottish government take up the cudgels based on the fact that Scotland was being, quotes, ripped out of the European Union against its will.
00:18:45.460 well, the Scottish government would have ripped Scotland
00:18:47.960 out of the European Union against its will
00:18:50.240 if they had got independence in 2014.
00:18:52.460 So that was a pretty fast turnaround through 180 degrees.
00:18:57.140 And I think as much as anything else, it was political expediency
00:18:59.780 when they took up the cudgels for that reason and in that way.
00:19:06.380 But you're right.
00:19:07.580 I mean, when you said that about the country being divided,
00:19:09.820 I think referenda
00:19:11.940 are
00:19:12.160 my instinct is against
00:19:15.680 I think when you give people
00:19:17.960 binary decisions to make
00:19:19.580 you better have a very good reason for doing that
00:19:22.300 you know there are
00:19:23.900 questions you know do you turn around to your
00:19:26.060 wife after 20 years and say
00:19:27.780 do you really love me
00:19:29.060 I mean what why would you
00:19:31.440 why do you ask the question
00:19:33.200 it's not going to it's probably
00:19:34.620 it's probably going to cause problems asking a question
00:19:37.760 like that and the Brexit
00:19:39.700 question, the Scottish independence question, it was guaranteed to cause nothing but hurt and so
00:19:45.000 it has done. Neil, you're a historian and actually it just occurred to me that that would be a really
00:19:50.740 interesting thing to talk about and I know you're very passionate about Scotland remaining as part
00:19:57.760 of the UK but give us a historian sort of neutral observer from a vantage point. The argument
00:20:03.820 historically about Scotland being with England or not being, like, what is the history of Scottish
00:20:10.520 and English, you know, coexistence, if you like? Oh, my goodness. Let me, I mean, before anybody
00:20:16.840 else says it, you know, I'm not, I am not a historian. I'm an archaeologist, and I love
00:20:21.220 history. And I've, you know, I've spent, you know, I've spent 20 years, 30 years, you know,
00:20:27.460 being fascinated by history. So I speak from that. I'm an enthusiast. I've got an enthusiast's
00:20:33.020 perspective rather than i'm not an academic historian i'll make that i'll make that quite
00:20:36.820 clear myself um there's been something like a scotland for a thousand years there's been an
00:20:44.240 entity understanding itself actually first of all as alba which is hence the you know alex salmon's
00:20:51.100 breakaway independence party that he has now um set up in competition to the to the scottish
00:20:55.740 national party but for for over a thousand years there's been a geographical entity understanding
00:21:01.800 itself as a place Scotland and likewise for England so in the European context these are
00:21:08.340 very old countries which sounds like a funny thing to say in a way you think all countries
00:21:12.340 are probably the same age but they're not you know there's only been Germany as we as we know
00:21:15.700 it today since about 1870 1871 when it was unified in the form that we recognize likewise Italy
00:21:21.480 Italy is about the same age and other European countries are the same age or younger still
00:21:26.500 So there's a great depth of history for both Scotland and for England. And they co-existed happily and unhappily for even longer than that, ever since the time of the Norman conquest in 1066, which was effectively a kind of a French takeover at the boardroom level of the United Kingdom.
00:21:52.680 and thereafter that French, Norman French presence
00:21:57.000 began to have an effect not only in England
00:21:59.280 but in Scotland as well
00:22:01.020 Robert Bruce, the iconic legend of Scottish history
00:22:06.120 and Scottish independence is Robert de Brice
00:22:08.200 he's descended not that far away
00:22:10.880 not too many generations away from Norman French
00:22:14.860 and by the time Robert Bruce was in play
00:22:18.080 there had been many Scottish monarchs
00:22:20.240 who had imported Norman French into, you know, into Scotland to be their allies.
00:22:26.060 And in many ways, the wars of independence that ensued between Scotland and England were a fight between rival French families to some extent.
00:22:38.480 Edward I, Robert Bruce, there was much more going on than anything that was just straightforwardly traditionally Scottish in inverted commas or English in inverted commas.
00:22:49.320 And they came closer in terms of marriage over the years
00:22:56.380 In the 16th century, Margaret Tudor, who was Henry VIII's sister
00:23:03.480 Married King James IV of Scotland
00:23:05.960 So the English rose and the Scottish thistle were entwined at that point
00:23:12.780 In the early 1500s
00:23:14.680 then in 1513 there was a catastrophic disaster for a Scottish army that invaded England
00:23:21.660 a catastrophic Scottish defeat and it so hollowed and damaged the confidence of Scotland
00:23:28.980 that given that they were already bound by marriage it nudged Scotland further down the
00:23:33.740 road towards Union when Elizabeth died without an heir you know when her long reign came to an end
00:23:39.760 she was succeeded by James VI of Scotland who became James I of England and so that brought
00:23:45.720 the two crowns together for the first time and then in the late 17th century Scotland had got
00:23:51.060 into a disastrous overseas expedition to Darien in the Panama, the Narrows of Panama in South
00:23:58.040 America, lost a quarter of its wealth, just you know lost all in one go, it was a catastrophic
00:24:03.800 economic disaster and in the aftermath of that Scots who had lost out hugely in that debacle
00:24:11.720 of an attempt to set up Scottish colonies in South America were coaxed into supporting the
00:24:17.140 dissolution of the Scottish Parliament and joining together with the English Parliament in 1707 to
00:24:22.840 create the Union of Parliaments. So at that point on Scotland and England were not just joined by a
00:24:28.960 monarch but they were joined by a combined parliament so it's been a so it's been a story
00:24:33.920 spanning centuries and then the 300 the three centuries that have that have elapsed since that
00:24:39.400 union in 1707 saw Scots come to prominence Scots were very active participants in the in what
00:24:46.660 became the British Empire they were you know they were enthusiastic partners in everything that the
00:24:58.960 the British flag from the Union Jack and from slavery and colonialism
00:25:03.840 and other aspects of British history that have been painted very darkly
00:25:08.060 in recent times, you know, is disingenuous and extreme
00:25:10.820 because Scotland was always intimately involved in all of that.
00:25:14.140 It was an enthusiastic and committed partner in all of it.
00:25:19.540 And then you come down to the more recent period, you know,
00:25:23.160 the political past.
00:25:25.600 When I was growing up, when I was in my, oh, where are we now?
00:25:28.760 I suppose in my teens, 20s and 30s, traditionally Scotland was a country that was dominated by Labour. Scottish Labour bestrode Scotland like a colossus. And it was always hugely significant in terms of UK elections, the fact that Labour was always able to depend upon this Scottish bloc vote for Labour. It made Scottish Labour very influential in that regard.
00:25:52.860 And when devolution came around in the late 1990s, the Labour Party were confident that devolution would entrench their position.
00:26:02.860 The Scottish, under Donald Dewar and the rest, they saw no reason to believe that Labour's dominance of Scotland would ever change.
00:26:10.640 But the version of proportional representation that they set in place, the devolution settlement, the Scotland Act, was fatally flawed.
00:26:17.800 And those flaws have been exposed in more recent times and the way in which the SNP has been able to establish a majority of itself in the Scottish Parliament is a product of the faults that were there in the Scotland Act and in the devolution settlement and in the choice of proportional representation that was made at that time.
00:26:36.900 So, sorry to bore you rigid with that.
00:26:39.900 You're not.
00:26:40.580 With that history lesson.
00:26:42.340 Francis, let me finish this.
00:26:43.620 It's been a long, it's been a long dance.
00:26:46.660 It has been a long and complicated dance, you know, good times, bad times, all the rest of it.
00:26:53.140 And then, you know, finally with, you know, by 2014, you know, Scotland's or some Scots sought divorce from its partner of 300 years.
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00:28:34.960 Neil, let me follow up a little bit on that, because I lived in Scotland from about 2000 until about 2008, 2009, something like that. And so I saw the S&P just starting to make its first big waves. And one of the things, look, it's not my fight. It's not for me to decide the future of Scotland, even when I lived there.
00:28:53.300 But what I did notice was a sort of strange thing where, and I don't, as I said, I don't have a particular position actually on the independence question. It's not something I know really enough about. But what I did definitely see was this was a time when Tony Blair, who had strong Scottish links, was prime minister. Gordon Brown was a Scottish chancellor of the Exchequer. John Reid was a Scottish home secretary. Many of the great offices of state in the United Kingdom were filled by Scots.
00:29:21.280 and and when one scot went he'd often be replaced with another scot and yet at the same time I saw
00:29:27.680 this sort of narrative about how Scottish people are underrepresented not being given enough
00:29:34.180 influence or power that Scotland is being ignored down south like have you noticed that as well
00:29:40.600 or did I just make that up no that was always that's I mean I grew up I grew up through through
00:29:46.600 all of that in scotland it was it was always um it was always the case that was being made you know
00:29:52.480 through the through the thatcher era and more recently that um that the allegation was always
00:29:58.060 made that that scotland would vote one way and and too much of the rest of the uk would vote for
00:30:03.680 for a conservative government and so you know so having voted labor you know scots would would end
00:30:09.740 up with a with a conservative government or or indeed you know even under you know snp uh holding
00:30:16.220 sway in the Scottish government there's still a you know been a for a long time there's been a
00:30:21.460 Conservative government in Westminster but I mean at the personal at the personal level I can tell
00:30:27.100 you that I have never lived a single day in Scotland under a government that I voted for
00:30:32.560 and I'm 54 I've never not one not one day not one day have I lived under a government that I've
00:30:39.420 actually voted for so I know for you know for different reasons than maybe that you know that
00:30:44.120 mainstream, but I know exactly what it feels like to go to the, you know, to go to the
00:30:49.220 polling booth every four or five years and walk away disappointed. I know what that is
00:30:54.400 like. But yes, that's always been the case. You know, Scotland has a different political
00:30:59.680 heritage. You know, there's a different, you know, there's different aspects of character
00:31:06.160 for a lot of Scots. I mean, that is the case. And the devolution settlement was supposed
00:31:12.960 to create a situation where whatever parliament was in Holyrood,
00:31:16.240 there wouldn't ever be an absolute majority.
00:31:19.060 The proportional representation system that we put in place
00:31:22.140 was supposed to mitigate against that so that whatever assembly
00:31:26.780 came together in Holyrood would always proportionally represent
00:31:30.460 the many different facets of Scottish political life.
00:31:36.780 But that is not what it actually delivered,
00:31:40.120 As has been made plain by the way in which nationalism is coming increasingly to dominate every aspect of Scottish life
00:31:50.460 And Scottish nationalism has always been a minority pursuit in Scotland
00:31:55.440 And when I was growing up, the SNP was very much a fringe organisation
00:32:00.540 It was almost a protest group
00:32:02.940 So small and inconsequential did it tend to be in the scheme of things
00:32:07.880 but the devolution settlement that created the Holyrood Assembly
00:32:14.160 had cracks and fissures within it
00:32:16.920 and the SNP have risen up through those cracks
00:32:20.000 like hot water coming up in thermal springs
00:32:23.460 and it's come out on the surface
00:32:24.400 and here we are with a Scotland that is dominated disproportionately
00:32:29.140 by the Scottish National Party.
00:32:32.900 And Neil, you were talking about the slow dance.
00:32:35.940 Don't you think that Scotland, it's inevitable that you're going to do a slow dance to an exit from the union?
00:32:44.320 I don't believe in inevitable. I don't believe in inevitable.
00:32:47.480 That's the Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek. I don't believe in the unwinnable situation.
00:32:53.220 And I think anybody that looks ahead with a crystal ball is insane.
00:32:57.980 I don't believe the polling, how anyone can still be a pollster?
00:33:02.120 i i do not know you know because i mean i worked in i worked in newspapers and i've been around
00:33:09.360 polling and you know the first thing a polling company asks you when you approach them for a
00:33:13.480 poll is what answer do you want you know what do you want this poll to tell you and they'll just
00:33:18.240 go away and they'll and they'll and they'll give you that result so all the polling that's out
00:33:22.560 there now around everything that was around brexit that's around support for lockdowns
00:33:26.880 around support for vaccine passports and all the rest of it all of it on a on account of polling
00:33:32.140 and depending on what you're looking at you'll see that oh yeah there's been a swing to a vote for
00:33:37.860 an increased support for for independence or separatism in scotland i don't buy it i talk to
00:33:44.380 people i can only really like everyone else i can only honestly uh reflect back the the the opinions
00:33:51.640 that I hear now I'm quite I'm quite recognizable in Scotland and you know where I live and a lot
00:33:57.040 of people come up to me and talk to me people from all sorts of walks of life all ages both sexes
00:34:02.780 all through the classes people come up to me and and air their views and my straw poll tells me
00:34:08.600 that there is still to this day a majority in favor of remaining in the United Kingdom in Scotland
00:34:14.160 now that's I can I'm honestly hand on heart I am reflecting to you what I understand to be the mood
00:34:21.340 of the people in Scotland, and regardless of what's said
00:34:24.580 about who's going to hold majorities here, there and everywhere,
00:34:28.200 that's down to the inadequacies of the devolution settlement.
00:34:34.020 As I understand it myself, based on the people that come up
00:34:37.600 and talk to me, there's a majority in favour of remaining
00:34:40.380 in the United Kingdom and Scotland.
00:34:41.740 So in answer to your question, no, nothing's inevitable.
00:34:43.920 I don't believe in the Kobayashi Maru.
00:34:47.360 Well, that told me, Neil.
00:34:48.820 Thank you very much.
00:34:49.700 But there are things that are happening in Scotland
00:34:53.800 that just leave me open-mouthed.
00:34:56.340 The hate speech bill.
00:34:58.280 Is it Hamza Youssef who has brought in this hate speech bill?
00:35:01.960 And forgive me, I may have got this wrong,
00:35:04.000 but from what I understood from the bill,
00:35:06.120 you can get arrested for things that you say
00:35:09.260 in the privacy of your own home
00:35:11.280 if it gets reported to the police.
00:35:13.120 Well, it's still in the process.
00:35:15.660 So the hate crime bill has gone through a consultation process.
00:35:21.280 It's been approved by a vote in the Scottish Parliament,
00:35:25.800 but it's yet to get, what is it, the royal assent.
00:35:29.020 So it's not the law of the land yet.
00:35:32.640 But yes, hypothetically, if I was to say something in my house,
00:35:39.120 you know, sitting on the couch with my wife and kids,
00:35:42.600 I could say something and one of my kids could repeat it outside in the playground at school.
00:35:49.820 Well, if they ever go to school again, depending on who overheard what one of my children said I had said.
00:35:59.500 Hypothetically, I could go to jail for seven years for something that I said while sitting on the couch watching telly in the privacy of my own home.
00:36:07.980 The hate crime bill has been extremely controversial.
00:36:11.000 I've never been a political person
00:36:15.800 I've never joined a political party
00:36:18.380 I hold politicians in general contempt really
00:36:22.280 I'm cynical to the point where it almost chokes me
00:36:25.620 When I have to make a decision about who to vote for
00:36:27.920 Every general election
00:36:29.080 Like Billy Connolly I believe that the spoken desire to be a politician
00:36:32.060 Should bar you for life from ever being allowed to be one 0.99
00:36:34.700 That said, I've drifted into paying more and more attention
00:36:39.240 to things political as the years have gone on I only became aware of the hate crime bill in truth
00:36:44.240 because I realized that so many unlikely bedfellows were getting together to say this is a disaster
00:36:50.620 waiting to happen you know it was figures from the church it was the police it was people from
00:36:56.200 the legal fraternity it was authors comedians politicians all sorts of people were coming
00:37:05.600 together you know this this unlikely confederacy formed when it was in the consultation period
00:37:10.740 saying you've got there's holes in this this legislation is so sloppy so loose so open to
00:37:18.260 to dangerous misinterpretation it's a disaster waiting to happen there's a lot of the disquiet
00:37:24.900 rotates around the notion of stirring up hatred that's that's the language that's involved if you
00:37:31.780 if you say something or do something and someone who hears you say it believes in their heart that
00:37:38.020 you were stirring up hatred then potentially you're in trouble and the onus would be on you
00:37:43.800 to prove that you had not intended to stir up that hatred and it might have passed me by but so many
00:37:50.980 different groups people that you would never have expected to hear speaking together on the same
00:37:54.860 subject were saying you can't have that the notion that you might stir up hatred it's it's so vague
00:38:00.900 you could drive a coach and horses through the gaps in it,
00:38:04.280 tighten that up or take it out altogether.
00:38:07.340 And so I thought, goodness me,
00:38:08.780 there truly must be something questionable about this.
00:38:12.320 And, you know, there's been various amendments made
00:38:14.920 and things taken out,
00:38:15.860 but in the form that it went through for approval
00:38:18.640 by the Scottish Parliament, which it got,
00:38:21.540 everyone voted for it,
00:38:22.880 with the exception of the Conservative MSPs,
00:38:25.760 SNP, Labour, Lib Dem and Green,
00:38:27.520 they all nodded it through.
00:38:28.860 It was shameful that they voted through this flawed, dangerously untidy, sloppy legislation, and we'll see what becomes of it in the years ahead.
00:38:41.680 But yes, hypothetically, the danger that it poses to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, is alive and well in Scotland, and we're all worried sick about it.
00:38:54.240 Neil, I've gigged many times in Scotland.
00:38:57.060 I've gigged in the stand in Glasgow many times.
00:38:59.940 I'm going to be honest with you, it's my favourite comedy club in the UK.
00:39:03.860 Brilliant. The crowds are amazing.
00:39:06.340 You're much freer than you would be in she-she liberal London 1.00
00:39:09.480 where everybody takes a fence and grabs their handbag
00:39:12.020 because you start to go into choppier waters.
00:39:15.600 How can it be that a land like that where there's a love of jokes,
00:39:21.220 there's a love of banter that has produced incredible comedians,
00:39:24.860 transgressive comedians,
00:39:25.980 people associate Billy Connolly now as being this cute cuddly comedian he wasn't in his pump
00:39:30.820 Jerry Sadowitz why have you suddenly gone down this route well that is the question that everyone
00:39:37.540 on my side of the debate wants answered it was always I mean there were so many reasons when I
00:39:44.720 when I would when I would go on holiday in my teens you know when I was a student and and shortly
00:39:50.580 thereafter and I'd be whatever I'd been the Greek islands or I'd be Spain or whatever it was always
00:39:55.580 it was always a joy to be identified as somebody from scotland because it as soon as people
00:40:02.300 realized people from all over all over europe they associated you're from scotland and they
00:40:08.840 they expected you to be funny and they expected that right off the top they could uh you know
00:40:14.700 they could uh they could um take the pee out of you and you know they could have they would expect 0.82
00:40:19.440 to be able to have great fun with you that you wouldn't take offense that you were up for a laugh
00:40:23.400 it was all it was and we were we were regarded as being sort of free thinking open uh you know
00:40:29.240 liberal tolerant people and it was it was a joy it was a joy to be associated with that
00:40:34.600 and i have lived to see scotland go through this metamorphosis where now there's this puritanism
00:40:40.500 has come through there was always puritan aspects to scotland you know scotland was one of the few
00:40:46.000 countries in europe that took calvinism to its breast you know while other countries in europe
00:40:50.560 were saying you know over my dead body there's there's always been that element in that joylessness
00:40:55.880 it's part of the gaiety of the nation it's part of the rich tapestry that is scotland but there
00:41:00.000 were always these small minded calvinist joyless you know just you know go home and live in your
00:41:06.460 miserable wee house and drink a cup of tea and and watch a soap opera on the telly and that's 0.88
00:41:10.580 good enough for you there was always that element but it was drowned out by the by the broader
00:41:15.500 picture of Scots who were
00:41:17.420 ready for a joke, ready for a laugh
00:41:19.740 didn't take things too seriously
00:41:21.440 were passionate about a discussion
00:41:23.540 passionate politically
00:41:24.700 enjoyed nothing more than having a right good square
00:41:27.720 go of a debate in a pub or over a
00:41:29.740 dinner table or whatever and then would just
00:41:31.540 move on from it and then
00:41:32.920 five days later have the same fight again
00:41:35.560 and
00:41:36.380 just go through it all again
00:41:38.780 and now with the
00:41:41.500 hate crime bill and other legislation
00:41:43.120 there is just this sense of
00:41:44.900 the Scottish government, of the Scottish National
00:41:47.580 Party wanting to put a lid
00:41:49.380 on what has always been Scotland
00:41:51.160 shut the door, draw the curtains
00:41:53.400 keep yourself to yourself
00:41:55.220 be secretive, you know
00:41:56.980 there's just this
00:41:58.440 claustrophobic, joyless
00:42:01.300 atmosphere that has
00:42:03.200 established itself like
00:42:05.260 damp in Scotland
00:42:06.600 and it's dispiriting in the extreme
00:42:09.640 and yes you're absolutely right
00:42:11.240 it was no surprise
00:42:13.240 that say the Edinburgh Fringe, you know,
00:42:16.140 was regarded around the world as somewhere that you would come to
00:42:19.380 to see or to listen to the best fun comedy on the planet.
00:42:23.080 And now a situation has been created where somebody's saying
00:42:26.940 something that could be construed as stirring up hatred.
00:42:30.660 God knows.
00:42:31.560 I mean, how many different ways could you interpret
00:42:33.620 a statement like that?
00:42:35.600 Could see a comedian end up in jail.
00:42:39.140 That's why I've been encouraging him to go back to Scotland
00:42:41.560 so I can have the podcast to myself.
00:42:43.240 Well, you joke, but actually, Neil, you know, the last time we were able to do Edinburgh as comedians was 2019.
00:42:50.240 I took my show to Edinburgh and as part of the show, I made a number of, you know, it was a show about the importance of freedom of expression.
00:42:58.680 And so I deliberately went out of my way to show that certain very offensive words can be uttered in a particular context.
00:43:06.520 And I would have jokes to support that and to take the audience on a journey from, well, I'm not sure freedom of speech is important, all the way to, well, here's some examples and here's how you go with it.
00:43:18.700 But in order to do that, I had to bring up very offensive things and to talk about them comedically.
00:43:24.780 Now, I'll be honest with you, if I was doing that show now, I would not come back to the Edinburgh Fringe.
00:43:30.100 Well no, well
00:43:31.960 We're yet to see
00:43:34.320 We're yet to see, as I say
00:43:35.440 The hate crime bill's not there yet
00:43:38.100 But that was one of the loudest groups
00:43:40.240 That spoke out in consternation
00:43:42.280 And alarm when this thing was going through
00:43:44.120 Its consultation period
00:43:46.400 Were comedians
00:43:47.880 That was one of the things that was grabbing
00:43:50.260 Headlines the length and breadth of the UK
00:43:52.560 With comedians saying
00:43:54.260 I'll never be able to go back to Edinburgh
00:43:55.940 I can't go and do
00:43:57.440 I can't go and do a you know such and such a show because I could end up in jail and it would even
00:44:04.940 be it wouldn't you wouldn't even have to say it in in in Scotland I mean I've you know I've been
00:44:10.400 doing stuff on you know I've been doing stuff on you know I just I talk to talk radio on a weekly
00:44:15.880 basis you know that that gets broadcast nationally and you know hypothetically Mike Graham or another
00:44:22.980 of the another of the djs could could find themselves accused of stirring up hatred in
00:44:27.040 scotland although they're taking part in a broadcast from london the the the sloppy nature
00:44:34.060 of the legislation that has gone through frightens everyone to death and for someone you know like
00:44:42.320 me i mean i i i revel although i've never been political i revel in arguing i love arguing with
00:44:50.900 people and i love you know i would take up a position on a on a topic just so that i could
00:44:57.860 have a fight about it i don't mean fisticuffs i just mean a verbal exchange because that's in
00:45:03.460 it's in my nature to do that and to you know to express opinions and i love being i love being
00:45:08.640 in the cut and thrust of all that you know heated debate and all the rest of it and and that that
00:45:15.600 that the opportunity to have something as simple and joyful
00:45:19.320 as a heated argument about a topic,
00:45:24.420 about whatever gender or race or religion
00:45:28.420 or all the stuff of life,
00:45:31.100 but you couldn't have that debate in Scotland from now on
00:45:34.000 because you could open your mouth,
00:45:35.780 be accused of stirring up hatred
00:45:37.140 and be in Berlinie for seven years.
00:45:39.920 Berlinie being a prison in Glasgow.
00:45:42.480 Oh, I'm well familiar with it.
00:45:44.260 No, but Neil, it's an interesting moment we're in because I feel like Scotland is not really an exception on this front.
00:45:59.320 You have some stuff going on that maybe we don't quite yet.
00:46:03.260 But broadly, we seem to be in a very particular moment in history where we are repeating a lot of the mistakes that have been repeated at these peak moments of madness in the past.
00:46:16.980 How do you look at it from, you know, obviously an archaeologist, but an enthusiast of history?
00:46:21.600 Like, what is the moment we're in?
00:46:23.600 What are some of the parallels?
00:46:25.180 What should we be wary of as societies in the current climate?
00:46:28.460 I think, well, it can only be a cumulative, can't it? It must be a cocktail of many elements. I think in no small part, it has to do with the fact that, broadly speaking, since the end of the Second World War, the people of Western Europe, and certainly this archipelago, have broadly lived in peace.
00:46:55.260 You know, and that threat has been something that happened elsewhere
00:47:01.260 And I suspect with that comes a dangerous complacency
00:47:05.760 And we've lived with and we've enjoyed freedoms that are unique
00:47:12.320 Not just in the world, but unique in history
00:47:14.840 As many people have said, you know, life has been almost intolerable
00:47:20.360 For 99% of the human species for 99% of the time
00:47:24.740 and what evolved very, very recently in our part of the world
00:47:31.080 was unique and so vulnerable.
00:47:36.140 And if too many, I suppose if too many generations go by
00:47:40.160 without the necessity to defend and be aware of the uniqueness of our position,
00:47:48.780 I suppose it's too easy to grow up thinking that that which is here now
00:47:54.340 will always be here as though tolerance and freedom and the ability to travel around and
00:48:00.400 do what you like and say what you like and travel internationally and take all advantage of all of
00:48:07.460 those freedoms you might think that they're natural but they're not nothing about the way
00:48:12.560 that we've lived in our part of the world for a hundred years has been natural it's extremely
00:48:17.140 unnatural it's blessed and and been wonderful but it's an incredibly fragile flower and it's only
00:48:26.340 when that when that when that beautiful thing is snatched away from people that they realize that
00:48:30.820 the snatching away is even possible I don't think it occurs to people you know we live we live in
00:48:36.440 something that is held aloft by by by centuries of of hard-won struggle you know we're in a penthouse
00:48:44.600 flat with a fantastic view and the the ossified desiccated bones that are holding us up are made
00:48:51.620 and shaped by the suffering of generation after generation and it's a it's been a story of triumph
00:48:57.800 and disaster but it's left us held up somewhere in the sky and if you knock out if you knock out
00:49:05.040 those layers below us that tower that's been holding us up we will not remain suspended in
00:49:09.660 mid-air you know our our lovely penthouse with its fantastic views of the world will just topple
00:49:15.380 it'll just drop straight to the ground and there's maybe we're two three generations into
00:49:20.620 soft living maybe all I mean I I caught the the end of of that of those generations that were let
00:49:28.400 loose as a kid I was just sent out the house in the morning and and came back in at night or when
00:49:33.280 I got hungry. But the generations since, and I've seen it with my own children, wrapped in cotton
00:49:40.180 wool, you know, looked after, you know, as though they were fine bone China that was going to be, 0.98
00:49:46.160 you know, terribly damaged if anybody handled it roughly. And I think those generations,
00:49:51.440 maybe a couple of generations have come up risk averse and feeling threat everywhere.
00:49:57.380 and that the advent of something like this, you know, pandemic
00:50:01.620 has just been something that has terrified people
00:50:07.160 and made people think that maybe the world isn't a perfect place.
00:50:09.880 And in seeking safety from it, they've been prepared to surrender.
00:50:14.280 Too many people have been prepared to surrender, well, all of their freedom
00:50:18.200 in order to feel safe from a virus that's 99.7% survivable anyway.
00:50:23.720 and look how quickly
00:50:25.920 look how quickly society changes
00:50:28.000 you know you might have thought
00:50:29.420 five years ago you might have said
00:50:30.600 that changes like we've gone through
00:50:31.740 in the last 12 months
00:50:32.540 would take a generation now
00:50:34.760 you do it on a weekend
00:50:36.180 if you're busy enough
00:50:37.180 and here we are
00:50:38.900 I mean here we are indeed Neil
00:50:42.660 and I suppose the question is
00:50:44.280 how do we row back from this
00:50:46.380 because it seems we're hitting crisis point
00:50:50.080 in Scotland, in England, all over the world
00:50:52.140 do you think there might be a natural
00:50:53.500 backlash against everything that's happening, Neil, just a younger generation of people coming
00:50:58.000 through who are like, well, we've been brought up with safety. We need to rebel against it. We want
00:51:02.980 freedom again. And we've got a generation maybe of younger people. This is just me talking
00:51:08.020 optimistically now, which is unusual for me. You know, talking, thinking about, well, we've got an
00:51:13.680 opportunity now to be different. We want to rebel against our parents. We want freedom. We want to
00:51:18.600 be able to say what we think uh we want to be able to do what we want to do well i think you're right
00:51:24.520 i think it's an obligation to be optimistic uh almost i mean i'm as depressive as the next
00:51:30.820 as the next celtic scott you know i've got i tend towards the dark side all the time
00:51:36.320 and my wife says to me all the time you know you'll lighten up for god's sake
00:51:42.060 because i i tend i tend to the darkness and and and i i do feel that it's it's almost an obligation
00:51:51.820 to to to hope for the best and i would like to think you know i've got i've got kids uh
00:51:59.380 17 15 and 12 and you know we talked to them and i know that they have unconsciously absorbed the
00:52:07.720 the the appreciation of the of the freedoms that we've had you know we've had the kids traveling
00:52:14.080 a bit and they've you know they go to school and they do the normal things you know they've lived
00:52:17.680 in a you know they've lived in a free society where they were able to you know roam around
00:52:21.220 and go to the cinema and go out to eat and see their friends and stay in each other's houses
00:52:24.340 and all the rest of it and they've seen that they've seen that taken away and they balk at it
00:52:28.620 I see them bridle at it and they tell us that their friends their their peers their contemporaries
00:52:33.960 are saying the same and so that you hope you hope you absolutely hope that some of that appetite
00:52:39.060 for freedom has become genetic or epigenetic and that and it's there in people's dna and and
00:52:44.640 ultimately everything's always about the people it's it's so simplistic and cliched to say it
00:52:51.380 but the those making decisions and those those who seek to rule over us are a are a microscopic
00:52:57.760 minority and you've got you know in every country you've got tens of millions of people
00:53:04.320 uh and if and if tens of millions of people are dissatisfied and exercise their uh right to to
00:53:14.120 to live freely uh then you know then that that will prevail you know that that you know freedoms
00:53:21.220 have been taken from people wholesale before but but the desire for freedom is like is like grass
00:53:27.040 through tarmac it just comes back and and it takes so much energy for authoritarian and
00:53:33.360 totalitarian regimes to keep the pressure on that inevitably they always become exhausted
00:53:39.060 it takes too much effort I mean we all know that you know if you're going to have a police state
00:53:44.420 you end up in a situation where you need one policeman for every person at least and it
00:53:49.620 becomes too exhausting and it's it's easier it's easier to be free uh and and i hope i hope that
00:53:57.240 that that people you know realize it's all about looking at what we've had and knowing that it's
00:54:03.860 as fragile as a spring flower you know uh a moment you know as as robert burns said you know
00:54:11.880 like the snow falls in the river a moment white then melts forever you know it's these these
00:54:18.000 freedoms that we have had are
00:54:19.840 fragile and ethereal
00:54:22.100 you seize the flower, its bloom is
00:54:24.040 dead, you know
00:54:24.740 if enough people
00:54:27.460 waken up to the fact that
00:54:30.020 you know, freedoms are
00:54:31.460 fragile, rare
00:54:34.180 and to be cherished
00:54:36.140 and yes, the obligation
00:54:37.880 is to be optimistic
00:54:39.060 and the obligation is to hope that
00:54:41.900 enough people demand
00:54:44.100 the
00:54:46.080 freedom that they have known
00:54:47.160 Neil, thank you so much for that
00:54:50.640 It's been an absolutely brilliant interview
00:54:52.980 Flew by
00:54:53.960 We always finish our interviews
00:54:56.820 With the same question which is
00:54:58.100 What is the one thing we're not talking about
00:54:59.800 That we really should be?
00:55:02.340 The truth
00:55:03.240 I keep hearing
00:55:05.600 I keep hearing most recently
00:55:07.760 On that Royal interview
00:55:08.940 About people talking about my truth
00:55:12.000 Your truth
00:55:13.600 There's only the truth
00:55:16.060 and enough everything everything the kind of society that I want and the kind of society that
00:55:25.260 that I know that the majority of the people that I know and love want is predicated upon everyone
00:55:32.360 having the confidence and indeed taking the responsibility accepting the obligation to tell
00:55:39.700 the truth. Don't just think it. Don't just know it. But every opportunity you get in a public
00:55:46.440 forum, tell the truth. It's like Mark Twain said, if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember
00:55:52.160 anything. Neil, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolutely brilliant
00:55:59.840 episode, as it always is with you. If you want to find Neil on Twitter, go to TheCoastGuy and
00:56:06.040 you'll be able to find him there. You can also check him out on Patreon. If you can spare a
00:56:11.540 little dough, make sure you do because Neil's work is absolutely brilliant. And he has a brilliant
00:56:16.720 podcast out as well. He's one of the best people at talking about history. So make sure you check
00:56:21.740 that out. Thank you for watching and we will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like
00:56:26.700 this one or live stream. Take care and we'll see you soon. Take care and remember they go out always
00:56:32.140 seven o'clock UK time. See you soon guys.
00:56:36.040 We'll be right back.
00:57:06.040 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.
00:57:10.940 The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.
00:57:13.740 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, the Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:57:18.680 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.