TRIGGERnometry - Our Honest Opinion on Israel - Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster

00:00:00.960 We survived World War III. 1.00

00:00:02.800 Bit of a damn squid. 12 days. 1.00

00:00:05.400 The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say, is a mainstream position now.

00:00:10.500 But when it comes to the propaganda war, there really is only one winner.

00:00:14.120 They don't understand this.

00:00:16.060 They cannot wrap their head around the fact that people think differently in different cultures.

00:00:22.240 They have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is.

00:00:25.440 Iran couldn't give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians. 0.98

00:00:31.700 To the contrary, the more of them die, the better it is for Iran. 1.00

00:00:35.520 Who is it that's preventing the conflict in Gaza from coming to an end?

00:00:40.600 All right, Francis, welcome back to another episode on Whatever This Is.

00:00:45.380 Good news, we survived World War III.

00:00:48.100 Exactly. It was a bit of a damn squid. 12 days. 0.99

00:00:52.240 Yeah, but there were a lot of people who got very excited about it, which I thought was quite interesting and telling.

00:00:59.080 Because there were people calling for President... Dave Smith called for President Trump to be impeached.

00:01:03.220 Tucker Carlson explained that this was going to cause thousands of American casualties.

00:01:07.640 And really, it was over pretty quickly.

00:01:10.780 And not that big a deal.

00:01:13.620 No, no, but it's always good to hear from the moderates.

00:01:16.000 Yeah, I'm looking forward to World War IV. 1.00

00:01:18.780 That might stretch out to a full two weeks.

00:01:21.220 No, but seriously, we're joking around. 0.99

00:01:23.620 But I just thought it was such a telling moment because it just shows you that the people who are always losing their shit online and in the media, 0.97

00:01:31.740 which increasingly are becoming the same thing, they really don't know what they're talking about a lot of the time. 0.98

00:01:37.100 And there's so many clicks to be had from pretending that you know and from presenting the worst possible scenario

00:01:44.660 and from amplifying and exaggerating the worst voices and doing interviews with the most extreme people.

00:01:52.020 And then you get a very distorted picture of reality being presented to people.

00:01:56.780 Absolutely.

00:01:57.460 And I think you really hit the nail on the head where you were like, we are incentivized.

00:02:01.660 And by we, I mean people in the new media, in the media.

00:02:03.860 But we are too.

00:02:04.520 We could have done those things and got all the clicks from doing that if we'd chosen to.

00:02:08.560 Absolutely.

00:02:09.240 Throwing a little bit of trans in there as well, all of a sudden you're on to a million. 0.91

00:02:13.180 But the reality is, is we're being incentivized much in the same way as the old media was incentivized.

00:02:19.480 If you think about the tabloid press in our country to come up with ever more salacious stories, salacious headlines,

00:02:25.620 because you know that that will generate clicks, it will generate engagement,

00:02:29.880 because what you're doing is not actually giving people information.

00:02:33.820 You're playing on people's emotions.

00:02:36.580 You are triggering people emotionally.

00:02:38.600 And when people react emotionally, what they're not doing is reacting logically.

00:02:43.480 And in many ways, people enjoy being triggered emotionally because it means you're feeling something.

00:02:49.560 You're getting something.

00:02:50.600 It's why if you actually did an entire podcast just presenting people with dry facts,

00:02:56.740 nobody's really or very few people are going to listen to it because actually what people want,

00:03:02.560 whether they're reading, whether they're listening, whether they're watching, is they want to feel something.

00:03:07.620 Right. Stick around because we're going to do a lot of triggering.

00:03:10.060 We're going to talk about all the stuff that outrages you.

00:03:12.740 But actually, I think you make a really good point.

00:03:14.900 And I think it's a worry.

00:03:17.120 However, you wonder what the impact of that will be, because obviously a lot of people said a lot of things

00:03:22.820 and then came out and were completely discredited as a result.

00:03:26.320 President Trump stared them down, in effect, right,

00:03:29.380 because there were a lot of people effectively trying to say he's choosing the wrong path.

00:03:33.560 He was proven entirely correct in the approach that he took effectively.

00:03:37.420 And you wonder what that means going forward,

00:03:40.120 whether that means that people will stop listening to those people as much as they have been,

00:03:44.660 or whether these people carry on as if nothing ever happened

00:03:49.440 and people carry on listening to them as if nothing ever happened.

00:03:52.240 But for me, it was a really important moment.

00:03:55.180 And the whole conversation about Israel is evolving as well, isn't it?

00:03:58.840 It is indeed, you know, because one of the things that I find really interesting about Israel

00:04:03.260 is that people in our space tend to be pro-Zionist.

00:04:07.740 They tend to be pro-Israel.

00:04:09.460 We're both pro-Israel.

00:04:10.200 How are you defining our space?

00:04:12.120 Our space as in kind of the little...

00:04:15.140 That's a very good way of putting it.

00:04:16.220 That's a very good question.

00:04:17.520 By our space, I mean the people that we know in the UK.

00:04:21.320 Oh, okay.

00:04:21.840 That's a very narrow way of looking at it.

00:04:23.240 Yeah, yeah.

00:04:23.740 Now, when I think of our space,

00:04:25.260 I think of like the YouTube channels and the podcasts, right?

00:04:28.980 In that space, I think it's very divided, actually.

00:04:32.280 Yes.

00:04:32.600 And in fact, what I'm seeing when I talk to people, and when I talk to people I describe

00:04:37.300 as normies, and when I ask them about Israel, what I find very interesting is actually how

00:04:43.500 much they disagree with our point of view on Israel.

00:04:47.520 The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say, is a mainstream position now.

00:04:53.360 Within regular people, they will say it's a mainstream position.

00:04:58.480 It's not even a debate anymore.

00:05:01.020 That is actually what Israel are doing.

00:05:03.300 Now, you may ask them, what does that define genocide?

00:05:05.440 They may not be able to do that, but they will say with absolute conviction, this is genocide.

00:05:11.420 You will look at Piers Morgan.

00:05:13.180 Piers Morgan is actually saying Israel is committing war crimes.

00:05:17.760 And I think what Israel needs to be very mindful of is the fact that they may be winning the

00:05:22.980 war against Hamas and against Iran and all of these countries and organizations.

00:05:30.440 But when it comes to the propaganda war, there really is only one winner, and it ain't Israel. 0.60

00:05:34.580 Well, let's go back to talking, because you kept saying our position, and I want to maybe

00:05:40.620 lay out how, I don't know about you, you can talk for yourself, but how I arrived at the

00:05:46.060 position I have on that issue, because people who watch our channel will know that neither

00:05:51.440 you or I ever had a position on Israel.

00:05:53.840 No.

00:05:54.680 And this latest flare-up of the war is obviously very significant, there's very heavy casualties,

00:06:00.560 et cetera.

00:06:00.780 But it's not the first time Israel has been at war, including in our lifetime, really.

00:06:05.300 This has been going on for a long time.

00:06:06.640 So our first encounter with this issue as an issue was, it would have been 2019, I think,

00:06:13.120 the first time we interviewed Melanie Phillips.

00:06:15.340 And as I said, I think to her face when we last interviewed her, I didn't come away from

00:06:21.780 that interview thinking, well, you know, Israel is like purer than pure and whiter than white 0.94

00:06:28.100 and everything is gray.

00:06:29.160 I came away from it thinking, you know, Melanie made some good points.

00:06:34.460 But overall, the creation of the state of Israel is clearly a contentious issue, right?

00:06:39.920 And that was really my entire takeaway from it.

00:06:42.500 And I never really had an opinion.

00:06:43.740 And I didn't have an opinion when October 7th happened, other than October 7th was really

00:06:47.440 bad, obviously.

00:06:48.260 It's a terrorist attack.

00:06:50.000 And then I just, we interviewed people from every side of that conflict, Basim Yusuf, Norman

00:06:55.840 Finkelstein from the pro-Palestine side.

00:06:58.740 And Basim Yusuf was a big eye-opening moment for me, because I remember before we started the

00:07:03.640 interview, it was all friendly, it was all joking around, you know, we're going to have

00:07:07.500 a great conversation.

00:07:08.320 And I asked him what I thought was a very simple and reasonable question to ask, which

00:07:13.260 is ultimately, once October 7th has happened, what do you think Israel should do, given that

00:07:18.620 you are advocating that it shouldn't do what it's currently doing?

00:07:21.840 And he just wouldn't answer the question.

00:07:24.340 And I felt really bad because people who watch our show regularly will laugh at this, but I

00:07:29.060 really don't like the idea of hogging the mic.

00:07:31.100 And I'm always worried about, like, I've been talking for a long time, it's time for

00:07:35.740 you to chip in and whatever.

00:07:37.500 But with him, we just kept going round and round and round around this question.

00:07:41.020 And I kind of realized, first and foremost, that many, many people who are talking about

00:07:46.980 this issue, they simply have no interest in actually being rational about this entire

00:07:54.120 situation.

00:07:54.600 They have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is, first

00:07:58.420 and foremost, right?

00:07:59.780 And then you add on top of that, that I'm pretty certain that if we had had modern technology

00:08:06.460 like the camera phone and the internet, in any other major conflict in history, in which

00:08:12.780 we were involved, the West, I mean, right, we'd be experiencing many of the same things.

00:08:17.700 Because in every war that Britain's ever been involved in, or America's ever been involved

00:08:22.020 or God forbid Russia's ever been involved in, the troops of that country, whichever you

00:08:26.620 align with, have committed war crimes.

00:08:29.760 And if you look at World War II, I mean, Britain and America destroyed 80 German cities, we were

00:08:35.140 dropping, like, way more munitions on Germany than Israel is dropping on Gaza per head of

00:08:39.920 population, to the point where, you know, according to some analysis, it's like several nuclear

00:08:44.500 weapons worth of munitions every month, flattening entire cities.

00:08:49.820 I mean, killing somewhere between three and 600,000 civilians, German civilians, just in

00:08:55.520 the bombing, right, from what I understand.

00:08:57.380 So I think a lot of this is to do with the way that we, on the one hand, living in relative

00:09:03.700 peace and safety, we talked about this in our upcoming interview with Dominic Sandbrook,

00:09:07.080 which is a great interview, are then confronted with the reality of war, if you want, 24-7 on

00:09:14.020 your phone. You put that together, and the emotional reaction of that, coming back to where

00:09:20.420 we started this, is so overwhelming that critical thought, I think, becomes very difficult at that

00:09:26.260 point, right? And I know this, and I'm not, it sounds like I'm saying that the people who support

00:09:32.320 this particular view are, like, stupid. I'm not saying that. I just mean that being confronted with 1.00

00:09:37.360 the reality of war is such a powerful thing, it becomes then difficult to actually think about

00:09:42.540 this from a more historical and rational perspective, which is, what, how does this map

00:09:48.080 onto everything else that's ever happened, and therefore, what is actually right or wrong,

00:09:53.500 or what, do you see what I'm saying?

00:09:54.480 I'm completely seeing what you're saying. I think, look, it's part of the reason why I make sure that

00:10:01.020 none of that content ever gets through to me, because I don't want to give myself PTSD via my phone.

00:10:06.180 It's why, when we were invited to go and see the films of October 7th, I didn't want to go,

00:10:13.320 because I can read about them, and I've read about them thoroughly, and we've read Douglas Murray's

00:10:17.380 book. I know what happened. I know the awful atrocities that were committed. I've read about

00:10:22.040 them. I don't need to actually see them and essentially damage my psyche in order to ingest that

00:10:28.520 content. But also, I think, if you're going to have a strong opinion on this conflict, which you have

00:10:33.840 every right to do, every right, then is your responsibility, and I use that word, responsibility,

00:10:42.480 to understand what is actually happening. I have family in Lebanon. When I talk to my family in

00:10:48.880 Lebanon, they talk about Hezbollah. Hezbollah are evil. They are evil. They are Islamic fundamentalists 1.00

00:10:56.620 who believe in to establish a global Islamic caliphate. Women should be subjugated. Gays should 1.00

00:11:03.460 be killed. They believe in their absolute rule of law. Well, we all agree with parts of it. 1.00

00:11:08.440 Yeah, of course. Of course. The women think. Come on. But the reality is, these people are not good 1.00

00:11:16.560 people, and they have contributed to Lebanon essentially being in a state of civil war for

00:11:22.640 decades now. So this idea that Israel is just psychopathic aggressor that enjoys destroying 0.68

00:11:32.980 Gaza and wiping Gaza off the face of the map, it's a very, to put it kindly, one-dimensional view of the 0.95

00:11:42.280 situation. And I really do believe, if you're going to have a strong opinion about this, have a strong

00:11:47.560 opinion. But make sure you've done the reading. You actually understand the geopolitics behind it.

00:11:52.240 Well, right. And also, the reason I've come to the position that I've come to on it is you just

00:12:00.280 conduct a mental experiment in your head, and you go, imagine that you are the prime minister of

00:12:05.000 Israel on October the 8th. And actually imagine it. Don't say the words. Imagine it. Thousands of

00:12:13.100 your citizens have just been slaughtered or wounded. Hundreds of them have been dragged off as hostages

00:12:18.680 by extreme jihadi fundamentalists, right?

00:12:27.220 And then you go, okay, if that had happened to Britain, or if that had happened to America,

00:12:33.240 or if that had happened to any other country, that you might be a citizen of watching this,

00:12:38.560 A, what do you think your government would do? And B, and this is really important for people to think

00:12:43.380 about, and really be honest, is what would you want your government to do, right? And people go,

00:12:48.980 oh, no, I'd want them to do really, you know, be careful and do this. Really? Is that what we saw

00:12:52.980 on 9-11? We saw the American public be wanting to be really surgical? I don't think so. And my thing

00:13:00.840 with this is, I think the truth is, there's a luxury belief thing going on, which is we sitting in

00:13:07.740 comfort and safety and plenty, are judging Israel, which experienced the most horrific terrorist attack

00:13:14.140 in their history, right? And if we were in their position, I hope we would be as careful as Israel, 0.97

00:13:20.880 but I don't think we would be, is the truth of it. I don't think we would be as careful. I don't think

00:13:25.600 we would be, as the ratio of civilians to combatants killed would be anything like what it is now.

00:13:31.900 And historically speaking, that is how it's gone down. After 9-11, America invaded two countries,

00:13:38.220 one of which had nothing to do with 9-11. That is the level of overreaction we saw there. So you can

00:13:44.780 definitely say Israel is committing war crimes. Every country at war has committed some war crimes.

00:13:50.600 And this food distribution thing is sus. And, you know, the settlers in the West Bank,

00:13:56.740 lots of questions about stuff like that. I think there are very legitimate criticisms to be made

00:14:01.820 of the way Israel has prosecuted this conflict. But as a broad thing, does Israel, is Israel doing

00:14:08.320 what we would do? I don't even know, because I suspect what we would do would be far worse in

00:14:13.320 the same situation. So I'm not going to sit here and in an air-conditioned studio in a place where

00:14:18.820 October the 7th could never happen and judge them for the way that they're prosecuted, for the fact

00:14:23.560 that they're attempting to destroy the people who did this. And to say nothing of the fact that,

00:14:27.740 of course, all the figures that we get told and all the news, etc., are Hamas lies, right?

00:14:33.420 And, you know, there are people like Piers, by the way, who say, well, they should let journalists in.

00:14:38.540 I'm not necessarily against that, although I do think what would happen is basically that a lot

00:14:42.900 of them would get killed because it's a tiny little area, highly urban conflict. Some of them

00:14:47.080 probably get set up or killed by Hamas. And then you've got them being used as a, their deaths being

00:14:51.900 used as a propaganda weapon as well. So anyway, my broad point is I've come to the position in Israel

00:14:57.140 that I have by engaging with the arguments and then going, okay, but what would I do in the same

00:15:03.060 situation? What would my government do in the same situation? And not being a hypocrite and not holding

00:15:08.100 Israel to a different standard that we would hold ourselves to. That's the only thing. So I don't even 0.99

00:15:13.460 consider myself pro-Israel. I don't think I am pro-Israel. I have just looked at the facts of this issue,

00:15:19.060 and that is how I see it in this particular conflict. Israel can be engaged in another

00:15:23.540 conflict. I'd be anti-Israel if I thought it was the wrong thing to do. What I'm saying with pro-Israel 0.96

00:15:28.740 is I believe Israel has a right to exist. Of course. Which we think is a pretty mainstream position.

00:15:37.040 I'm going to be honest with you. Amongst young people, I don't know how many of them do.

00:15:42.480 Well, they are the ones that are then generating this conflict for eternity, because if you don't think

00:15:47.400 Israel has a right to exist, you're putting Israel in a position where it has to continue to fight for 0.81

00:15:52.080 its existence. And then this entire thing is going to keep going. But you look at, for instance, the

00:15:56.520 footage coming out of Glastonbury with Bob Villain chanting death to the IDF. And the fact that it was

00:16:03.420 getting chanted back in a sea of Palestine flags. If you look at the amount of people week on week

00:16:10.420 going to these protests, you know, pro-Palestine action protests, 70 people being arrested,

00:16:16.420 that is telling you something quite fundamental about young people's attitude.

00:16:22.000 Is it?

00:16:23.340 I think so.

00:16:24.360 First of all, I didn't hear much chanting back on the death to the IDF thing. He was notably much 0.97

00:16:30.280 more muted than the other stuff. And by the way, we should talk about that because it's a free speech

00:16:34.220 issue as well. And a lot of people started losing their shit about him. And I thought, you know, 0.99

00:16:39.020 make fun of it, criticize, whatever. But like, if someone went on stage and chanted death to the

00:16:45.460 Russian armed forces, would the people melting down about that, about the chance to, about death to the

00:16:53.180 IDF be having that same reaction? I don't think so. I personally think, I don't agree with it,

00:17:00.280 obviously, but from a free speech perspective, a musician has every right to do that.

00:17:05.440 No, I look, I agree. I agree. And I think it's, I get really uncomfortable when I see people on the

00:17:12.460 right a couple of years ago, screeching about free speech. And I'd be like, yeah, you're right. You

00:17:17.840 know, it's bad that somebody has, gets canceled for their views. And then you flip markedly in a

00:17:25.740 space of, you know, a couple of years and demand and celebrate that this person loses their agent,

00:17:32.980 gets their visa canceled, isn't able to play certain shows, gets deplatformed. And you're going,

00:17:39.200 hang on, you've got to be consistent, which goes back to the emotion part of it. And I do think a lot

00:17:46.540 of people are just governed by their emotions and they can't help themselves. And the moment they see

00:17:52.260 something that triggers them. And look, I understand we all have our triggers. We all have

00:17:56.720 some things that touch us. And then we react in a way that is emotional, not logical.

00:18:02.740 But if you're on the right and you have championed facts, don't care about your feelings.

00:18:08.700 Well, I don't know if this is, that saying applies to this situation. What are the facts here?

00:18:13.340 The facts are, is that free speech is important and you shouldn't cancel people because their speech

00:18:19.000 differs from your speech. That's a fact. And by the way, I imagine his agent knew that this is the

00:18:25.100 stuff he was doing, presumably. Yeah. Right. Because it's not the first time he was doing it. No.

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00:20:01.140 So, Palestine action has been prescribed as a terrorist organization. So, they snuck onto a 1.00

00:20:07.120 military base in Britain and they damaged, I think, some war planes or some planes, which, again, I wasn't

00:20:14.400 certain that they have committed an act of terrorism in doing that because they were sort of just,

00:20:20.020 they sprayed some pain on it. However, what I was very surprised by is like, if I snuck onto a military

00:20:25.680 base and started mucking around, to put it in a very British way, with planes, I'd expect to be

00:20:31.880 shot. Yeah. I don't understand why that didn't happen. Like, so, I don't think they're terrorists, 0.56

00:20:37.620 but they also should have been shot when they entered that base, right? I completely agree. I 0.97

00:20:42.060 don't understand how you can break in to that type of highly classified, I don't even know the word for

00:20:50.340 restricted, whatever. Restricted area and expected damage property, which is important for our national

00:20:58.920 security and for nothing to happen. Yeah. I don't, I don't understand. But it has created this thing

00:21:06.100 where you've got some granny in a kefir sitting there and getting arrested because she supports 1.00

00:21:10.920 this group or whatever. I just, my sense is that once you open the door to the policing of speech

00:21:17.600 in the way that we have seen over the last particularly five years, since the pandemic 0.95

00:21:21.380 especially, now it's just fucking all, it's, it's, it's censorship all the way down. Now, 0.96

00:21:26.940 you're going to get people with this view and that view. And this is, by the way, what we have been

00:21:31.280 saying from the beginning, do not open this door because it will be used against you. And now,

00:21:36.600 you're seeing people on the left, suddenly they're massively pro-free speech. 0.99

00:21:40.680 I go, you're the dickheads that created all of this. When you had the ability to enforce 0.92

00:21:45.300 your views, you did it. Yeah. And now it's being used against you. How do you like it?

00:21:50.240 Yeah. And, and this is what they don't seem to understand. And this is the thing that I

00:21:54.900 really struggle with, with people. I remember one of our guests who shall remain nameless,

00:21:58.660 who basically said, oh, you know what? It's only till my side started getting canceled that I realized

00:22:04.360 cancel culture is a bad thing. I'm like, really? It's only when you saw your friends lose their jobs,

00:22:09.920 their livelihoods, suddenly being unable to provide for their families, having their reputations destroyed,

00:22:14.540 being pushed to the point of a nervous breakdown. You understood that this is bad?

00:22:20.380 But it's also a difficult one, right? Because with Bob, with this Bob Villain guy,

00:22:24.980 like, are you saying his agent should have kept him on? Are you saying the United States should

00:22:31.780 allow him to come and do a tour there and keep his visa? Are you saying concert organizers should

00:22:38.540 maintain his bookings? Like, that's where there is a there is that line about like, people don't you

00:22:45.840 have the right to speak, but there are consequences that people will voluntarily choose to apply,

00:22:51.320 right? And that's the gray area, I think, because I defend his right to say whatever he wants.

00:22:56.720 But then I do also think that if I were organizing a series of concerts, and I thought that his

00:23:04.860 appearance would be detrimental to my business, that would be a decision you'd have to consider.

00:23:10.060 Now, is that cancel culture? I think many people would say, yeah.

00:23:13.520 Yeah, look, it is very difficult. But also as well, look, when it comes to the art,

00:23:19.940 you have to look, and this is just my point, opinion, and people will push back on it.

00:23:23.920 Like, artists have always been transgressive. Artists have always pushed the boundaries.

00:23:29.200 Artists have always said the unsayable. It's part of what great art is. A great art is presenting

00:23:35.680 something, in my opinion, if you think about great comedy, that we may be uncomfortable with,

00:23:41.820 we don't like saying, but we will say it through the medium of the art.

00:23:45.860 I would not go as far as to call Bob Villain's music art. I wouldn't.

00:23:51.760 But it's subjective. There are lots of people who would.

00:23:56.360 I don't know. For me, it's not creative enough to be called art, personally. However, I did the

00:24:03.580 kneecap is different. Kneecap's music is actually really good. It is. Did you know my YouTube

00:24:10.060 history is now all fucked up? Because I just listened to it just to find out what it's all 0.88

00:24:13.860 about. And it's good. And now I've got all these Irish protest songs, like go on home,

00:24:17.820 British soldiers go home that are playing while I'm in the shower. Anyway, my point is, I think

00:24:22.440 you're right, though, which is music, comedy, and other forms of art. They're very good at

00:24:28.420 allowing you to suspend your critical faculties and not think about the content as much as the

00:24:34.160 music. So if you put a nice beat to something, you can pretty much say anything.

00:24:37.520 Kanye West is the ultimate example.

00:24:39.240 Ultimate example. So anyway, this is a very long way of wrapping up the conversation about Israel.

00:24:45.180 But basically, I think, and by the way, something I wanted to say as well is,

00:24:49.780 we didn't really talk about the Israel conversation for a long time on the show,

00:24:55.740 because I really wasn't sure like what I think about it. And I was just listening to different

00:25:00.260 perspectives or whatever. And then at some point, you said something, because I was having all these

00:25:04.220 thoughts in my head. And then you just went, you know, the truth is, Constantine, that a lot of

00:25:08.600 people are just not being honest about that issue. And I think you were totally right about that.

00:25:15.180 Yeah. The moment you saw people engage with it, I remember listening to people of both sides.

00:25:22.620 And I love talking to people and I love listening to people. That's what I really enjoy.

00:25:27.380 This show wouldn't work without it.

00:25:30.400 Yeah. It would just be holding court. But yeah, I really like listening to people and seeing

00:25:36.620 what they think and why they think. And I would talk to them about Palestine and about Israel and

00:25:44.220 the Middle East. And as somebody who has family and knows a bit more about it and was raised by my

00:25:49.160 grandfather who was South American, but was very much an Arab, first and foremost.

00:25:52.940 And then I see people talk about it. And it was all done through the lens of emotion and

00:26:00.960 righteousness. And I was like, OK, but can we just accept about what the Iranians are doing? 1.00

00:26:09.460 And what the Iranians are doing is effectively a program of destabilization 1.00

00:26:13.600 to the Middle East.

00:26:15.240 Let's be even more honest, Francis. Let's just say it like it is. Israel is surrounded

00:26:19.200 until very recently when some of the Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the

00:26:24.900 UAE started becoming more accepting of Israel.

00:26:27.300 And Jordan.

00:26:27.840 And Jordan.

00:26:29.700 The reality is Israel is surrounded by countries that have repeatedly invaded it

00:26:35.300 in an attempt to destroy it and would like it not to exist.

00:26:39.360 If our countries were in that same position, whether it's the United States was at constant

00:26:45.480 threat of invasion from Canada and Mexico or Britain was constantly threatened by, you

00:26:50.860 know, whoever. That would be a very different context in which we'd be operating and we would

00:26:56.220 have a very different posture towards the world and a very different attitude to our

00:26:59.640 neighbors and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:27:01.980 Yeah, of course. And to me, the key to all of this was Iran. The more I looked into it, 0.95

00:27:06.900 the more I saw what Iran were doing. And I was thinking to myself, well, what is Israel 0.98

00:27:11.280 meant to do?

00:27:12.120 Right.

00:27:12.740 What is Israel meant to do? One of your neighbors is advocating that you are wiped off the face 0.98

00:27:19.540 of the earth. It compares you to a cancerous tumor. It funds terrorist organizations across 1.00

00:27:25.400 the region which are trying to kill, rape and essentially wipe you off the map. It's started

00:27:33.340 a proxy war because that's what, let's also be honest about that. October the 7th was

00:27:39.020 done in the most provocative manner possible in order to start a war. And also, let's be

00:27:44.600 honest as well, Iran couldn't give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians. 0.94

00:27:49.280 No. To the contrary, the more of them die, the better it is for Iran. 1.00

00:27:53.580 Yeah.

00:27:53.840 And the better it is for Hamas. 0.99

00:27:55.260 Yes.

00:27:55.800 Hamas are explicit about this. They want high civilian casualties because it helps them do what

00:28:01.040 they are doing, which is win the PR war against Israel.

00:28:03.560 Exactly. So you have all of that happening. So you go, well, and I wouldn't mind if the people

00:28:12.120 on that side were like, look, I accept all of this, but Israel needs to change part of its tactic 0.92

00:28:19.260 here. It needs to change part of its tactic here. I think that is a very important conversation to

00:28:23.920 have and to still be having. Because like you said, every country commits war crimes. 0.63

00:28:30.000 There are things that are happening in Gaza, which are awful and terrible and civilians are dying.

00:28:36.500 Awful. However, however, until you address the issue of Iran and you are honest about what the 0.91

00:28:44.220 Iranians are doing, rather specifically the Ayatollah and his cronies, what they're doing and what they 0.99

00:28:49.720 want. And talking about that problem, honestly, I don't really think we're having an honest

00:28:54.660 conversation.

00:28:55.460 Well, let's be even have an even more honest conversation. I think we don't need to say,

00:29:00.740 however, after we've said terrible things are happening in Gaza, which they are. It's not

00:29:05.960 however, it's an and. And the responsibility for that lies with the people who are preventing that

00:29:12.760 war from coming to an end. Who is that? Who is it that's preventing the conflict in Gaza from

00:29:17.560 coming to an end? It's Hamas. They are the ones that are refusing to release the hostages. 0.83

00:29:22.560 They're the ones that will not hand over the terrorists who took them. They're the ones that

00:29:26.400 won't surrender. And this comparison, people get very triggered when you bring up World War II,

00:29:30.840 but I think it's the perfect comparison for the simple reason that Nazi Germany was a country that

00:29:36.660 was held in the grips of a death cult, right? Adolf Hitler was effectively willing to fight to the 0.58

00:29:42.060 last German. In fact, someone should fact check this, but I'm pretty sure he said at some point,

00:29:47.560 that if the German people cannot triumph in this conflict, they don't deserve to survive, 0.78

00:29:53.280 right? In other words, he was prepared to see all of Germany destroyed in this fight, 0.69

00:29:59.200 right, for the cause. And we had to, we were forced to, Britain, America, the Soviet Union were forced

00:30:06.960 to invade, were forced to destroy, just like Japan, by the very fact that they wouldn't surrender, 0.93

00:30:11.780 right? So if Hamas holds on to the hostages, won't capitulate, won't surrender, and won't hand over

00:30:18.900 the terrorists who took the hostages and who committed October 7th, Israel, for the sake of

00:30:24.060 its own survival, has to go in and try to finish that job, get the hostages back, etc. So the terrible

00:30:30.580 things that are happening in Gaza are terrible, and it's Hamas who should stop them. 0.99

00:30:34.120 Yes. And I agree. But the reality is nobody's prepared to have this conversation. And what

00:30:40.280 people don't understand as well, I remember having a very, I was in a green room in a comedy club,

00:30:47.540 and people, and there was one particular comedian who was, made a beeline for me, and was like,

00:30:52.940 what do you think about the things that are happening in Gaza?

00:30:55.480 You should say, I think they're great.

00:30:58.500 Brilliant.

00:30:59.140 Yeah. Loved every moment, mate. Actually, don't watch Pornhub anymore.

00:31:02.860 Yeah.

00:31:03.160 Just do that.

00:31:03.660 Just got that.

00:31:04.640 But, and I said to him, and he was just like, what do you think? And I said to him,

00:31:08.620 and I said to him, the thing you need to understand is you are looking at this situation through

00:31:14.680 Western eyes. You are looking at it through a Western lens. Hamas do not have your values.

00:31:22.220 Hamas do not think the same way as you do. Hamas's objectives are utterly different to what

00:31:32.740 your objectives would be in that situation. Your objectives would be, let's bring this to an end.

00:31:38.860 People are dying. Innocent people are suffering. They don't think about that. They don't care

00:31:45.040 because they have a higher objective in their eyes. The more people die, the better, because they're

00:31:51.100 going to go to heaven anyway, because they are righteous. And then they are going to be able to

00:31:55.560 achieve their goal. That's all they care about. And to look at it through a Western lens and say,

00:32:01.600 oh, these people are suffering. And, you know, we must bring this to an end as if that's what

00:32:05.800 Hamas wants. Hamas do not care. The Ayatollah do not care. Hezbollah do not care. They don't care. 0.91

00:32:14.900 If anything, they like it. So if you're looking at this situation through a Western lens,

00:32:22.460 and this comes from somebody who has family who are Arabic, who has seen the very real anti-Semitism

00:32:28.820 that lies in the Arab world that we haven't even begun to touch on. You don't understand hatred until 0.79

00:32:35.120 you talk to those people. The reality is your view isn't valid. You're Western. You're not an Arab. 1.00

00:32:43.160 You're not Muslim. And you're not a jihadist. It's as simple as that.

00:32:48.760 Well, and if you look at, I mean, there is not much difference between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic

00:32:56.080 jihad and ISIS. Now, look at what ISIS did when they controlled Swadha territory, right? They raped

00:33:02.960 and butchered people that they didn't consider to be them, the Yazidis and whoever, right? Now, if these 1.00

00:33:09.080 people are your neighbors and they are going to raid across the border, I remember I interviewed

00:33:12.540 Wilfred Reilly. Do you remember it? He talks about Native Americans and the way that they would just

00:33:18.040 butcher people, etc. In a very similar situation, actually, some people might argue like, you know,

00:33:24.340 you've got people from another continent who've come and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:33:27.640 Ultimately, you cannot deal with that through the ceasefire. Like, how can you have a ceasefire with

00:33:38.240 people who want you eradicated? You can if they're prepared to accept certain conditions, right? But

00:33:43.920 they're not. They're not handing over the hostages. They don't want a ceasefire. Hamas do not want a

00:33:50.220 ceasefire and they've demonstrated it repeatedly. If they wanted a ceasefire on day one, they could have

00:33:54.600 just handed back the hostages, said, look, we'll give away, we'll hand over the people who committed

00:33:59.120 this terrorist atrocity for justice, right? Israel would have no, nobody would support Israel bombing

00:34:06.880 Gaza. I wouldn't support Israel bombing Gaza in that situation, would you? No, nobody would. They

00:34:11.820 had that option and they don't take it precisely because they want exactly what's going on right now.

00:34:17.220 They want this. It's them that wants this. Of course, of course. And people in

00:34:24.380 Brooklyn or in parts of North London or wherever it may be, they don't understand this. They cannot

00:34:32.180 wrap their head around the fact that people think differently in different cultures. There's this

00:34:38.520 great liberal lie where we go, oh, everybody's just like us. People are all the same. They're not.

00:34:45.460 People are different. People are different culturally. I even think back in Venezuela. I always

00:34:52.400 remember being really quite horrified, even as a little boy with the attitude over there that if 1.00

00:34:58.800 I screw you over, you're dumb, I'm smart. In Russia, it's the same. Because you let yourself 0.98

00:35:05.220 be screwed over. Therefore, you're dumb. And I was there coming to it from an English perspective going, 1.00

00:35:10.520 yeah, but if we do this, then society can't work. You've got a low trust society. And once you have

00:35:15.580 a low trust society, I mean, I wouldn't have been that articulate as a servant. But I was going,

00:35:20.980 but this can't work. How are you meant to have relationships? How are you meant to run a

00:35:25.660 business? How are you meant to do anything if every time you step into the room and you think,

00:35:31.300 well, he's just going to stab me in the back when my back's turned?

00:35:33.780 Do you know, there's a phrase in Russian, means that something is lying in the wrong way,

00:35:41.840 lying somewhere, like this mug is standing in the wrong way. I mean, basically, I'll say,

00:35:45.540 oh, I stole it because it was not sitting there properly. Do you see what I mean?

00:35:49.500 Yeah.

00:35:49.580 So this culture is pervasive. And it's something actually, I think Jordan Peterson, when I was on

00:35:57.480 tour with him, he talked a lot about the fact that a healthy society and a healthy community in which

00:36:02.740 people voluntarily reciprocate good things towards each other and do good things towards each other

00:36:07.460 as an unhealthy society is one in which they don't, right? So there's a massive difference between

00:36:13.340 cultures. And of course, one of the big concerns with our country at the moment is that it is rapidly

00:36:19.160 heading in a low trust direction, thanks to mass immigration, the decriminalization of crime. 0.81

00:36:26.240 We just had a great episode of Lawrence Newport come out, who basically left the bike to be stolen

00:36:31.400 outside Scotland Yard. The police basically refused to do anything about it. He told them where it was,

00:36:37.180 they refused to do anything about it, etc. And there is, you know, it's time to talk about Britain now.

00:36:43.140 And it does seem like, you know, I almost, I am almost optimistic now, because I just think

00:36:49.800 things will get so bad, they can't not change. But that is where it's headed, right?

00:36:58.920 That is where it's headed.

00:37:00.300 Being sleep deprived messes with everything. Reaction time, memory, decision making,

00:37:05.380 even your emotions. It's like walking around legally drunk. And the long term effects,

00:37:11.140 just as bad as smoking. Most people reach for melatonin. But here's the problem. Melatonin

00:37:17.100 is a hormone. And most supplements give you doses 10 to 50 times higher than your body naturally

00:37:23.160 produces. That's why you wake up groggy, your sleep gets worse over time, and your body stops

00:37:28.800 making melatonin on its own. That's why I use Evening Being by Verso. It's melatonin

00:37:35.340 free using clinically studied ingredients to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer,

00:37:40.740 and get more deep end REM sleep without messing with your hormones. I've been taking it myself. And

00:37:48.060 honestly, I'm falling asleep faster and my mind actually switches off at night, which used to be

00:37:53.540 a battle. Shut it. Of course it did. Head to ver.so and use code trigger to get 15% off your first order

00:38:03.740 or click the link in the description. That's V-E-R dot S-O. Code trigger.

00:38:11.480 And there's been certain markers for me. I find I'm very interested in culture and I'm very interested

00:38:18.000 in how internet culture mirrors what's going on in society, but not in the ways that sometimes people

00:38:26.400 think. Do you remember that clip of Robert Jenrick in the tube talking to people who

00:38:33.400 were just forcing their way through the barriers at the tube station refusing to pay? That went

00:38:40.500 super viral. And you go, why? Because it touched something really fundamental. And by the way,

00:38:48.820 I've seen this happen time and time again. You go to a tube station, people force their way through the

00:38:53.100 barriers. But you know something, Francis, before you go on, I don't know if you remember, I tweeted

00:38:57.240 about this a couple of years back because you and I talked about it. That is a very new thing.

00:39:03.080 It is. It's a very new thing. Yes. So I basically, I used to go on the tube all the time. And then I

00:39:10.320 think at some point, I might mostly cycle around London. Yeah. So I hadn't been on the tube for like

00:39:18.780 a year or a year and a half. And then I went on, middle of the day. And it was, it was a different,

00:39:25.900 it was a different environment entirely. People were not paying. There were kids running rampant

00:39:31.280 all over it, like pressing the stop things on the elevator, like being genuine nuisances. And

00:39:36.500 nobody was doing, it is a very new thing. And it's happened very rapidly. Agreed. Agreed. And

00:39:42.460 it's really interesting because I see this and I talk to people about it. I had a clip from my own

00:39:50.460 like podcast, just go quite viral actually, where Peter Blexley was talking about it and he was getting

00:39:55.380 really angry and people were sharing it all over TikTok. And the reason it's resonated isn't because

00:40:00.860 of the tube. It's because of something very fundamental and people are going, I contribute to

00:40:06.280 society. I pay my way. I do what's right. And this lot don't. And they are allowed to run rampant,

00:40:14.460 behave in a manner that is anti-social, not contribute, and nothing happens. And you know

00:40:19.140 what's interesting? In that generic video and other people have done similar things since,

00:40:23.220 one of the things that shocked me was, look, 17-year-olds jumping over the barriers and being 1.00

00:40:29.780 dickheads, 17-year-old boys are going to do stupid things. And we all have been there. But it's like 1.00

00:40:36.340 people in their 30s going to work but not paying. Yeah. I don't get it. Yeah. And what you see is

00:40:46.420 people literally not doing anything. And this is run rampant through our society. I was in

00:40:51.960 Walthamstow, a very she-she part of East London. There was a group of about, this happened literally 1.00

00:40:57.820 yesterday. There was a group of seven police officers, maybe more, and they were all congregated,

00:41:03.020 talking, having a laugh. Part of me is going, with what's going on in our society, should you

00:41:08.760 really be doing that? Firstly, this guy on a Deliveroo bike cycled past them on the pavement.

00:41:15.680 The police officer went, don't do that. The guy ignored him, carried on cycling. He turned

00:41:21.220 around to his mates. They all laughed about it and carried on chatting. And you go, that is

00:41:27.520 amazing. That, right there, in that tiny microcosm of what I've just seen, sums up so much of what is

00:41:36.020 going wrong. Well, I hope it keeps going because, like I say, I don't think there's any other way.

00:41:40.940 I don't think people are actually going to wake up until things get really bad. I'm convinced of it

00:41:45.780 now. Every time something bad happens now, I celebrate. I'm serious. Yeah. Because I'm just

00:41:52.120 going, if things carry on being quite bad, but not terrible, everyone's just going to keep acting

00:41:58.140 like nothing's going on. That's what they do. And people do this in their own lives. If their lives,

00:42:02.560 if their marriage, if the financial situation is really quite bad, but not terrible, they'll just

00:42:08.120 put up with it. They won't make any changes. They won't try and improve anything. And that's where we

00:42:11.800 are. Yeah. It's like the proverbial alcoholic. You need to hit rock bottom. Right. And to be fair,

00:42:18.200 I mean, we're going down there pretty quickly. We seem to be. And it's something that I think is

00:42:23.700 happening across Western societies. You see the election of Mamdani in New York. And I wrote a

00:42:31.220 piece on my Substack about it, but there's a lot to discuss about it, which I think it's very easy 0.99

00:42:37.620 for people to go, oh, young people are stupid and whatever. But the reality is, it has become very 0.98

00:42:46.320 difficult for young people to lead what we would consider a normal life, even on very high incomes,

00:42:52.900 because of the way that housing is completely screwed up in this country and in the US. But

00:42:58.180 particularly in Britain, it's such a massive issue that people go, oh, you know, these young kids are

00:43:03.780 spending five quid on lattes and whatever. And it's true. But if you can't afford your own property and

00:43:09.740 house prices are going up so much faster than your salary, you might as well have a coffee and you might as

00:43:15.180 well go out for a nice meal because what else are you going to do? Yeah. Yeah. And people don't seem

00:43:19.740 to understand that. I get really frustrated by people on the right when they lambast the young

00:43:26.440 and they go, oh, they're woke and they don't buy into society and they're nihilistic. And I'm like,

00:43:33.420 look, it's like a game. Let's say we get the board out and we're going to play Monopoly and we're

00:43:41.420 going to have a nice game of Monopoly. And we've got all the team involved, all the older ones,

00:43:46.080 and we're going to have a nice game. But we say to all the young ones like Jack, no, mate, you can't

00:43:50.140 play. Jack's our producer. Yeah. Jack's the producer. And this is actually an accurate depiction of our

00:43:54.720 business model. Anyway. And we're going to, but you can't play. And not only are you not going to be

00:43:59.620 able to play, we're going to charge you an exorbitant amount not to play. Right. Eventually,

00:44:04.560 you're going to go, do you know what, mate? Fuck your game. That's what I think of it. 1.00

00:44:10.600 And that is basically what is happening. Yeah. And that is what's happened with woke.

00:44:16.120 And now the woke has kind of lost its energy and its team. It's still there, but it's not,

00:44:21.920 doesn't have the cultural force or relevance behind it. But what we're going to get from the

00:44:26.600 left is something quite different. Well, and the right, because you're seeing an equal and

00:44:30.880 an opposite force on the right now where, you know, I wrote an article a while back about,

00:44:36.340 I think it was the one I called Tucker Carlson and the woke right. But basically, one of the

00:44:40.140 points I made in it was that this new movement on the right, it was sort of looking for how to frame

00:44:45.600 it's who the enemy was. And it kept like talking about globalists or whatever. But now they found

00:44:51.640 Israel and Jews as like the thing to latch onto. They're the problem. As if all of the people's lives 1.00

00:44:57.980 are really caused by that issue, the problems in their lives are caused by the issue, which,

00:45:02.060 of course, they're not. And on the left, you've got that. But plus, they've got all these ideas

00:45:06.180 about socialism and rent control and all of that's really going to fix everything, which,

00:45:10.080 of course, it never does. But I think what I'd want people to understand is that anger that is

00:45:16.320 building on both left and right, it's actually not random. There are good reasons why that's

00:45:21.620 happening. And Matthew Saeed, who's a favorite guest of ours, who we've had on, he had a great

00:45:26.820 article in the Times today talking about basically how people like him, who invested in the housing

00:45:34.160 market 10, 15, 20 years ago, are now in a position of such locked in advantage that it makes everyone

00:45:42.560 else's life very, very difficult who's coming up behind them. And actually, those people do need

00:45:47.760 to pay more in a very particular type of tax, like a land tax, for example, which is actually

00:45:52.700 something that's right-wing and left-wing economists support. Because if you maintain

00:45:58.100 this housing situation where essentially housing prices are going up way higher than people's

00:46:03.140 wages, because in Britain, people's wages aren't going up in real terms, it's no surprise that

00:46:07.960 people aren't having kids. It's no surprise that they're looking for a cause to rebel. It's no

00:46:11.960 surprise that they're voting for lunatics. Why would they want to preserve a status quo that doesn't 0.99

00:46:17.260 work for them? I read a horrifying statistic in that very article. I think it's 21 to 34 year

00:46:23.100 olds, 40% of them live at home with their parents. And then we sit here and go, well, we've got a

00:46:30.120 collapsing birth rate. Well, of course we've got a collapsing birth rate, mate. How are you going to

00:46:33.920 bring up a kid? How are you even going to have sex when you've got your parents next door and your 0.96

00:46:39.160 sister below you? I mean, if you're into that thing, I don't know. But the reality is that ain't 0.63

00:46:43.340 going to happen. It's not going to happen. But also you're not going to mature. I don't know

00:46:47.360 about you, but when I first started living on my own, it forced me to really grow up very quickly.

00:46:51.840 When you live with your parents, lots of things are made easier for you or made possible for you

00:46:56.100 that you're simply prevented from growing into a full-blown adult, right? And so all of those

00:47:01.120 other things go out of the window. And I think it's a massive, massive issue. And this is why

00:47:06.360 when people always call us right-wing or whatever, inequality, particularly when it comes to

00:47:13.020 housing and things like that is a massive issue. And the right mostly wants to ignore it. The left

00:47:18.740 will bang on about it and come up with the wrong solutions. But actually the right answer is you

00:47:23.800 have to make opportunity like that possible because you can talk about pulling yourself up

00:47:30.100 by your bootstraps all day long. But the reality is if you work really hard, you should have the

00:47:36.120 opportunity to get on in life. And that is increasingly being denied to a lot of people.

00:47:40.020 But another thing is Fraser Nelson, former guest of us, infamously, due to a debate him and I had,

00:47:47.660 he wrote a brilliant article that you sent me, which was about the fact that a lot of this is

00:47:51.480 also to do with what's called elite of a production. In other words, if you over-educate, if you educate

00:47:57.740 too many people to a higher education level, university, college, whatever, you then basically have

00:48:04.800 a lot of people who have very high expectations and may even have not skills necessarily, but a high

00:48:09.900 education. But there's not the jobs for them. And they get very frustrated because they're like, look,

00:48:14.520 I'm supposed to have, you know, a hundred grand a year, 200 grand a year job and be able to afford

00:48:19.520 a house and marriage and kids and whatever. And I can't in the big cities, especially, which partly

00:48:24.300 comes back to housing. Absolutely. Because, and I think, look, that's a great point. But also there's

00:48:30.420 something emotional going on here as well, which is that generation have been lied to. When they

00:48:36.120 went to school, they were told, work hard, go to college, get a good degree, you're going to get a

00:48:42.120 great job. They were told that. They were told that by teachers, they were told that by parents,

00:48:48.020 they were told that by elder siblings, because that model worked for their older parents,

00:48:54.800 they worked for their parents, it worked for the older generations, it worked for the teachers.

00:48:58.200 Right. The reality is, is that model no longer works. And again, partly that's because of

00:49:03.940 technology as well, right? Because ultimately we have an interview with Daniel Priestley coming out

00:49:09.080 in which he, I think he's absolutely right. And look at me and you, like the opportunities to make

00:49:16.020 something of yourself are still there, but you probably are not going to get a job that's going

00:49:21.260 to be your stable job for 40 years. The world has changed. So I do think it's probably still the best

00:49:26.760 time to create and build and not have gatekeepers and really make something of yourself, but you're

00:49:34.680 going to have to work so much harder and have so much more success to be able to achieve the very

00:49:38.620 basic things that people 50 years ago just thought was normal. Like, you know, dad goes out to work in

00:49:43.280 a factory, mom's at home, two kids, three kids, house, car, right? That used to be normal. Now you have

00:49:50.680 to be a millionaire to achieve that. Yeah. For a lot of people, that's what it feels like, especially if

00:49:54.920 you're coming up and you don't have inheritance from parents, they're not going to be able to help you

00:49:58.380 out, get on the housing ladder. In London, I mean, look at the housing prices.

00:50:02.640 It's insane.

00:50:03.340 It's insane. So that's where I think a lot of these really stupid and really counterproductive ideas on 1.00

00:50:10.740 both left and right are coming from. It's just the fact that young people are looking into the future 0.99

00:50:14.780 and going, this is really not a society that is looking after me. And by the way, I will say this,

00:50:23.500 you know, we and I are elderly millennials. I don't think we can quite be blamed for this,

00:50:27.240 but I really respect Matthew Saeed for making this point because I think he's a little older than us.

00:50:31.620 People who are rich and in the kind of boomer generations, they've got to realize if you keep

00:50:40.540 screwing young people over because you keep voting for people who only do things that are good for you, 0.76

00:50:45.860 you're not going to find yourself living in a comfortable retirement 20, 30 years from now.

00:50:50.060 Someone's going to have to pay for that. Someone's going to have to wipe your bum in a fucking nursing 1.00

00:50:53.220 home. And it's not going to be these people, right? Because people have forgotten something, 1.00

00:51:00.820 which is for society to work, everyone has to contribute and sacrifice for the greater good.

00:51:07.120 And if the only thing you ever vote for is for your house prices to keep going up and for no one to

00:51:13.660 build a house in your backyard and for you to hold on to the three rental properties that you've had,

00:51:18.660 well, you're going to brew a hell of a lot of resentment in society. It's going to come out

00:51:23.540 one way or another and you're not going to fucking like it. 0.98

00:51:26.100 No. And this is what people don't understand. And then they turn around and they blame young people. 0.99

00:51:31.880 And you know what you're going to get? You're going to get more Zoran Mandanis.

00:51:35.320 You're going to get more Jeremy Corbyns. And they're only going to become more popular.

00:51:40.780 I think what we're going to see as when you look at our electoral systems,

00:51:46.060 more and more, I, and we've spoken about it ad nauseum, but this two party system,

00:51:51.620 it's not fit for purpose.

00:51:53.860 Well, and it is breaking down here in the UK. I mean, reform is leading the polls at the moment.

00:51:57.560 And they are a fairly, you know, as far as a right-wing populist reaction to what's been going 0.99

00:52:04.860 on goes, like you go, thank fuck we've got them. If you look around Europe. 0.99

00:52:09.340 Oh yeah. AFD.

00:52:10.360 Yeah. You know, those boys are a lot more spicy. So with, with, with Nigel Farage and reform,

00:52:15.460 you know, Nigel, I don't know if he said this publicly, but he certainly said to us, he feels

00:52:20.780 like this is, you know, we're drinking at the last chance saloon as a country. And I think

00:52:24.440 he's right. Um, and I am, you know, I have to be honest, um, Nigel. So there's a lot of things

00:52:32.520 to say really about reform. I think the first thing is Nigel is the greatest talent, political

00:52:37.220 talent of his generation. There's no question from a politics perspective from he's incredibly

00:52:42.660 likable. Uh, there are a lot of people who don't like him, but generally speaking, he's incredibly

00:52:48.140 likable. And I think the mood music on him has changed a lot. A lot more people are now

00:52:53.760 receptive to, to him. Um, as for the party policies, there's a lot to like, and there's

00:52:59.680 probably a lot to question in there as well. I mean, I think that obviously dealing with

00:53:03.480 illegal immigration is a massive priority. Everyone would accept that mass immigration 1.00

00:53:07.260 being reduced to something reasonable again, net zero dealing with that as important. But

00:53:12.140 I also look at the economic policy and I go, you are really promising a lot of things to

00:53:17.560 a lot of people and you are effectively, you know, being very high, you know, I'm not either

00:53:24.540 it's not all going to add up or you're going to do a lot of the kind of left wing economics

00:53:29.480 on this and you're just going to go big on everything, uh, giving people money to these

00:53:33.420 people, those people, et cetera. Um, so I think, uh, they are the hope for a lot of people.

00:53:40.800 And I'll be honest with you. I hope they win the next election. I do too. Not necessarily

00:53:44.760 because I, I believe that they will create some kind of utopia. I don't believe that's

00:53:50.020 going to happen. Britain has a very long road to recovery. Um, but I think we've seen that

00:53:56.420 both the conservatives and the labor party are just, they're not going to deliver any

00:54:00.500 meaningful attempt at change. And Starmer's government, if you thought it was going to be

00:54:05.340 bad. So, I mean, look at what they're doing on, on the illegal immigration. Now they're

00:54:11.240 going to reduce it by not reducing it. Well, he said he wants a one in one out policy. I'm

00:54:16.740 going great. You can turn my country into a fucking nightclub. But I, I don't, why would 1.00

00:54:21.740 you want? So their, their idea I think is they're going to bring in asylum seekers and

00:54:27.220 get rid of illegal immigrants. But I, I honestly don't think that's what the British people 1.00

00:54:32.720 wanted. How about, and I know this is controversial, we control our borders and we, we do our best.

00:54:40.960 It's not going to be possible to reduce it to zero. How about that? How about we actually

00:54:45.800 be a country that enforces our borders and goes to illegal immigrants? If you come here 1.00

00:54:52.560 illegally, that is a criminal act. You are not welcome and you will be deported. I know

00:54:58.840 that sounds pretty fascistic. Does it? Every other country in the world does that. Yeah.

00:55:06.200 Except stupid countries in the West. Yeah. But I was being kind of facetious, but you know, 1.00

00:55:11.660 it's, that is a sensible position. That, that's common sense. But the fact that we can't even

00:55:21.320 say it, the fact that we bow down to the French time after time, the fact that we're given the 0.90

00:55:26.780 best part of half a billion quid a year to actually deal with this. And then it's only now that they

00:55:33.420 managed to like slash a few boats to stop people coming. You're going, what is going on? What is

00:55:40.660 going on? It's weak leadership. All right. Bit of an unexpected one for you, but this actually got my

00:55:48.080 attention. The other day I was scrolling online and came across this video from none other than Chuck

00:55:54.020 Norris. Yes, that Chuck Norris. He's in his eighties now. And according to him, he still feels

00:56:00.140 like he's in his fifties. And honestly watching it, I could believe it. The video goes through three

00:56:05.960 specific foods. He says you should avoid like the plague and a few other things he's doing to keep in

00:56:12.000 shape and stay sharp. I was skeptical at first. The stuff he suggests is genuinely simple and actually

00:56:18.720 makes a lot of sense. If you're interested in health, energy, or just curious what Chuck Norris

00:56:24.380 swears by at 80 plus, this is worth your time. Watch the video now at chuckdefense.com slash trigger.

00:56:32.960 That's chuckdefense.com slash trigger. And we put the link in the description below to make it easy.

00:56:40.920 And the economy obviously is in a lot of trouble. Not only that, but the tax situation is such that

00:56:48.420 they're going to have to raise more taxes on more things. And that is going to massively, you know,

00:56:53.040 we know that we are losing entrepreneurs and wealthy people at a rate like you've never seen.

00:56:59.600 It's absolutely crazy. And that's where you hope a reform government might actually implement some

00:57:08.220 pro-business policies that's going to create more jobs for people. Because that's the only way out of

00:57:12.220 this really, is you have to have the businesses of the future and the people who are going to create

00:57:17.320 and start and run them in this country instead of chasing them out. And with this current

00:57:22.780 administration, I mean, to be honest with you, I still meet a lot of people in Westminster who think

00:57:27.660 like, you know, the Tories are going to come back and do, and you just go, I haven't heard from them.

00:57:35.040 Have you?

00:57:36.260 No.

00:57:36.780 Have you heard anything from the Tories?

00:57:38.300 Yeah.

00:57:38.880 Robert Jenner is doing some good stuff, but he's not the leader.

00:57:42.800 No.

00:57:43.000 I don't really hear anything out of the Conservatives. But so, yeah, anyway, we're in a lot of trouble.

00:57:50.040 And like I say, I genuinely, I know this sounds evil and cruel and whatever, but as things get

00:57:55.200 worse, I'm like, well, at least there might be a chance we get out of this.

00:57:58.900 Do you know what it all comes back to and has been the problem that we've spoken about time and time

00:58:04.980 and time again? And it's about all of the issues that we talk about, is there is a lack of honesty.

00:58:11.780 People aren't being honest. They're delusional. We've been living in la-la land for a long time.

00:58:17.480 Whether they're thinking it's girls can be boys, which is the most ridiculous of all the arguments,

00:58:22.760 or what's going on in the Middle East, or the fact that, you know, if you have borders,

00:58:27.020 that somehow makes you akin to Joseph Goebbels, or the fact, you know,

00:58:31.100 the no human is illegal, despite the fact that sounds like something Jeffrey Epstein would say.

00:58:36.140 But all of these things, and you just look through it, and you go,

00:58:40.100 you can only indulge in these types of nonsensical narratives for a period of time.

00:58:47.460 And then, unfortunately, the rubber hits the road.

00:58:50.780 But here's the problem, Francis, is given where we've got to,

00:58:56.140 we are kind of like the alcoholic, and the alcoholic really doesn't want to wake up.

00:59:01.100 Right? Because if we did, we'd have to recognize that we're all living beyond our means.

00:59:07.200 We can't afford the current levels of spending.

00:59:09.640 We can't afford even the shitty public services that we have now. 0.88

00:59:12.840 Yeah. 0.91

00:59:13.140 We can't. We can't afford, you know, the levels of benefits,

00:59:19.140 unemployment benefits and sickness benefits that people are getting,

00:59:22.960 especially the young now, it's absurd.

00:59:25.480 Yeah.

00:59:25.640 We cannot have a country in which that number of people, you know,

00:59:28.860 they're a bit depressed, or they're anxious, or whatever.

00:59:32.020 And they're getting basically paid to not do anything.

00:59:36.040 Like, I remember as an 18-year-old being super depressed.

00:59:40.660 Yeah.

00:59:40.780 Because I was supposed to finish my education.

00:59:42.820 I couldn't afford to.

00:59:44.000 I was really depressed.

00:59:45.140 And then the answer to my depression was to try and work.

00:59:48.720 I had no choice.

00:59:50.220 I had no choice.

00:59:51.260 I'm sure you've been there as well.

00:59:52.740 Of course.

00:59:52.780 Almost everyone has been at a point where they were really depressed or really anxious,

00:59:56.520 and you just have to find a way to deal with it.

00:59:59.360 And you have to find a way to cope and to work through it,

01:00:01.840 or maybe to live with it, and nonetheless keep moving forward.

01:00:04.900 Right?

01:00:05.020 So that's what life is.

01:00:07.200 Life is not about the government, which is other people giving you money,

01:00:11.440 to wallow in your discomfort.

01:00:13.420 That is not to say that there are not many people who genuinely are unable to work

01:00:17.560 because they're mentally too unwell or physically too unwell.

01:00:20.800 But we have stretched those definitions way past their remit.

01:00:24.660 Way past their remit.

01:00:25.960 But that is a truth no one wants to hear.

01:00:28.280 Of course not.

01:00:29.000 Of course not.

01:00:29.720 And that is the issue.

01:00:30.980 The moment you say to yourself, I cannot do this because of X, Y, and Z,

01:00:37.140 what you're doing, it's learned helplessness.

01:00:40.420 That's all it is.

01:00:41.600 And the government is facilitating people to say, I cannot do this.

01:00:47.640 But you know what?

01:00:48.260 If you say you cannot do something, I guarantee you, you won't be able to do it.

01:00:53.020 There are times in all of our lives where you just think, I don't think I can go on.

01:00:59.540 This is too hard.

01:01:01.060 It's too difficult.

01:01:02.200 Too many things are going wrong. 0.65

01:01:03.700 I have sick parents.

01:01:05.440 I've got this. 0.86

01:01:06.140 I've got that.

01:01:06.860 I've got...

01:01:07.880 Okay, but what's the choice?

01:01:10.180 Do you know, I remember going, when I was a student, going to the student employment office

01:01:15.560 just to look at the job office.

01:01:17.600 And I would be sweating just looking at them because I was like really anxious and nervous.

01:01:21.680 I didn't know what I was doing.

01:01:23.220 I did loads of jobs I did not want to be doing.

01:01:26.800 You know, and they weren't like terrible jobs.

01:01:28.340 They just weren't jobs that were suited to my personality or whatever, being a waiter

01:01:32.500 or doing this or whatever.

01:01:33.800 I wasn't very happy during that time.

01:01:36.620 No.

01:01:37.380 I wasn't happy at all.

01:01:38.140 You, I'm sure, had loads of jobs you didn't enjoy doing either, right?

01:01:40.860 But that is part of life.

01:01:43.880 It always has been part of life.

01:01:45.660 My understanding is I think there were fewer people as a percentage on unemployment and

01:01:49.740 sickness benefits in this country after World War II than there are now.

01:01:53.840 And that's when there were people with no hands, no legs, no arms.

01:01:57.580 And suffering from severe shell shots.

01:01:59.880 And PTSD, right?

01:02:01.460 And now you've got someone who's a bit anxious playing on their PlayStation all day.

01:02:05.300 A country can't work like this, right?

01:02:07.940 So, but again, is a Farage government going to deal with that?

01:02:12.180 Because that's going to be unpopular as hell.

01:02:14.300 And the thing is, is when you implement those types of policies, people get hurt.

01:02:21.760 And some people will die.

01:02:22.860 Yeah.

01:02:23.200 And it's awful.

01:02:24.020 Yeah.

01:02:24.460 And it's awful because things will go wrong.

01:02:26.840 People will make mistakes.

01:02:28.060 Right.

01:02:28.380 There'll be somebody with terminal cancer who gets their benefits cuts and will die.

01:02:33.360 And that is terrible.

01:02:34.280 And it's awful.

01:02:35.220 Yeah.

01:02:38.300 But we can't keep going like this because what we're going to do is we're going to

01:02:41.520 bankrupt the country. 0.99

01:02:41.860 We want to kill people with cancer. 0.99

01:02:43.080 We're going to bankrupt the country. 0.99

01:02:45.740 No, but look at Trump and his immigration.

01:02:47.640 Somebody's just died in detention.

01:02:49.160 There are issues that I have with some of the way that it's being prosecuted, right?

01:02:52.560 So it's going to have to be calibrated pretty carefully.

01:02:55.180 But I think the point is the problems have got so bad, it's going to take fairly drastic

01:03:01.600 action.

01:03:02.800 And that is drastic action is always a high risk thing.

01:03:07.580 It's always painful.

01:03:08.900 It's always disruptive.

01:03:10.320 It's always going to hurt people.

01:03:11.780 And you always want to be very, very, very careful, which is why I would much rather

01:03:16.420 we didn't continue building up to things being that drastic, to being so bad that drastic

01:03:22.180 action is necessary.

01:03:23.260 However, I think we're past the point of no return now.

01:03:27.220 That's why I keep saying I'm kind of an accelerationist on this one.

01:03:30.760 I think things need to get so bad, the British public just go, you know what? 1.00

01:03:34.520 Fuck it. 1.00

01:03:36.280 You know, to use the metaphor of addiction, there is something called an intervention when 1.00

01:03:41.860 people, when addicts are so bad and they're so out of control that they stage an intervention.

01:03:47.880 What happens normally with an intervention is your family and friends essentially surprise

01:03:51.480 you in a pretty unpleasant way and go, look, you need to go and get professional help.

01:03:59.960 I think we're at the point now where you say, you look around at the country and go, we're

01:04:04.500 not too far away from that.

01:04:05.820 And you talk about drastic action.

01:04:07.280 I agree with you.

01:04:08.220 But the more you go down this road, the more drastic the action has to be.

01:04:11.660 And it's becoming worse and worse and worse.

01:04:14.800 And I'm looking and going.

01:04:17.460 Pretty soon, it's going to be it might be the case that that medicine is going to be

01:04:22.160 like chemotherapy.

01:04:22.960 It might save your life, but it's going to make you really sick at the same time.

01:04:26.660 Probably.

01:04:27.180 I think that's inevitable.

01:04:29.180 And the hope is.

01:04:30.840 But look, I mean, you probably know more about this with your Latin American roots, but

01:04:36.300 Javier Malay came in in Argentina.

01:04:39.080 You know, he cut like 30 percent of government spending.

01:04:43.560 Like he cut a lot of spending.

01:04:45.580 He cut pensions.

01:04:46.580 He cut benefits.

01:04:47.860 He also cut taxes a lot.

01:04:49.280 And it's working so far.

01:04:51.540 It's really, really working.

01:04:53.060 So I look.

01:04:55.880 I just I don't know, man.

01:04:58.420 Maybe I'm just getting soggy as I get older, but I really care about this country and I

01:05:02.900 want it to be a good place for people to live.

01:05:04.600 I want it to be a good place for my children to live.

01:05:06.840 Britain still, even now, has the potential to be a great country, a great country.

01:05:15.460 It's got highly educated, intelligent, capable people, many of them, many of whom want to

01:05:21.000 get on with life.

01:05:21.980 Many of whom want to work hard.

01:05:23.260 Many of whom have great ideas that they're willing to implement.

01:05:26.040 It's got amazing infrastructure compared to lots of other countries in terms of being

01:05:30.440 able to start a business and do things.

01:05:32.800 It is very compassionate.

01:05:34.040 And we do look after the people at the bottom.

01:05:36.040 It's a great country to be poor.

01:05:37.680 Yeah, it really is compared to most places.

01:05:42.460 But that that British spirit has to be revived.

01:05:47.520 It has to be revived.

01:05:48.920 Otherwise, I just I really don't see a good future for this country.

01:05:53.160 Do you know?

01:05:54.760 I'm patriotic.

01:05:55.920 I love this country. 0.98

01:05:56.720 I know this sometimes comes across gay, gay, gay, what's the matter with you? 0.97

01:06:03.440 Look at you trying to be positive. 0.98

01:06:05.740 No.

01:06:06.560 And and I criticise this country a lot.

01:06:09.680 And the reason I criticise it is because I love it deeply and it breaks my heart to see

01:06:14.060 this.

01:06:14.780 You know what I hate is when I go over to America and my country and my city. 0.99

01:06:20.240 I'm a Londoner is now become the punchline for every crap hack joke from Americans about 0.99

01:06:28.040 how bad this country is, how bad London is, blah, blah, blah. 0.99

01:06:32.840 Well, that's why I was so happy.

01:06:33.880 Mom, Danny got elected because now we're going to stick it back to them.

01:06:37.320 Yeah.

01:06:37.580 Now they're going to find out what socialism really looks like.

01:06:40.140 Exactly.

01:06:40.840 Go on.

01:06:41.160 Enjoy it, mate.

01:06:41.680 And it's just and it's just and they're all there laughing and I'm it's it's tragic that

01:06:49.480 we went from being a country.

01:06:51.020 I remember going to Venezuela in the 90s.

01:06:52.980 I told people I was from London and people go, wow, you're from London.

01:06:56.160 And they want to sit down and talk with me because because of the amazing things this

01:07:00.820 country has created, your scientific and technological innovation, the art, the music, the literature,

01:07:07.540 just the amazing things this country has produced and how it's changed the world to now I'm sitting 0.97

01:07:15.920 in a green room of a comedy club and it's been reduced to a cheap punchline to a crap joke. 0.98

01:07:22.060 That's tragic. 0.97

01:07:23.580 Well, here's another thing, man, I think is the truth is, you know, we just had Ian Dale

01:07:27.180 on that episode.

01:07:28.100 We'll go out in a bit to talk about Margaret Thatcher.

01:07:30.160 He wrote a book about her.

01:07:31.520 And I remember at the end I asked him, so, you know, what was her sense of like what

01:07:37.820 British, you know, what was what was what did Britishness mean to her?

01:07:41.720 And every time we talk about Britishness, it always goes back to, well, this country has

01:07:45.520 a great history.

01:07:46.820 That's not enough.

01:07:48.780 A great history is not enough.

01:07:50.660 We're going to have to forge some kind of forward looking identity.

01:07:53.800 And until we do, I just I don't.

01:07:59.700 And and what that means is maybe is something like happened under Thatcher, which is it's

01:08:05.360 about a go get a mentality.

01:08:06.880 It's about some way of having a positive vision of the future, which we currently don't have. 0.98

01:08:12.140 That's what we need, because this current shit is not going to it's just not going to 0.99

01:08:16.160 cut it. 0.99

01:08:16.960 Yeah.

01:08:17.160 And there's a certain nihilism that I see.

01:08:20.280 And we've covered it amongst young people.

01:08:21.940 But there's look.

01:08:25.460 Words matter.

01:08:27.480 Words have an impact.

01:08:29.660 You know, that saying sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.

01:08:32.820 That's nonsense.

01:08:33.680 And we always know it is.

01:08:34.540 It's something you tell kids.

01:08:35.560 But the reality is names of obviously it's an aspiration.

01:08:38.840 It's not a reality.

01:08:39.720 It's not reality.

01:08:40.800 But it's like if you were constantly talking yourself down, you may not believe it at the

01:08:46.760 start.

01:08:48.340 Oh, but, you know, blah, blah, blah.

01:08:50.080 But eventually you keep saying those mantras and those those sayings about yourself and

01:08:55.100 those narratives, even though they might not be true.

01:08:58.060 Eventually you will start to believe them.

01:09:00.340 So this idea that we're an evil country, we're a terrible country, there's no future.

01:09:04.340 We're in terminal decline.

01:09:05.860 A lot of what was actually said in the 70s before that actually came into power.

01:09:09.780 Well, eventually you go, well, this is all true.

01:09:14.440 And you look at what has actually been a wonderful country.

01:09:18.500 It still is a great country.

01:09:20.200 And you just do it down.

01:09:21.720 You say everything's terrible.

01:09:23.200 Everything's awful.

01:09:24.940 Well, eventually you're going to believe it.

01:09:26.380 Well, in fairness, we have been saying that for the last hour.

01:09:28.840 But that's only because the problems are real and we would like those problems to be dealt

01:09:34.080 with so that we can move forward.

01:09:36.160 That's the reason we're talking about in this way.

01:09:38.220 And I think it's a really important point to emphasize that ultimately this is going to

01:09:42.480 what we need is a revival.

01:09:44.300 Yeah.

01:09:45.100 And we need people to believe in something.

01:09:47.160 But the only way you're going to believe in some lead a revival.

01:09:51.160 Let's be honest.

01:09:52.000 A lot of the time, revival start with young people.

01:09:54.420 They provide the energy.

01:09:55.920 They provide the dynamism.

01:09:57.480 They're the one that go out, start companies, create bands, do this, start, so blah, blah,

01:10:02.480 blah, blah, all these sorts of things.

01:10:04.900 But you're only going to be able to engender that in young people if you give them a chance

01:10:10.740 to be part of society.

01:10:12.360 And if you shut them out and you say you're never going to own anything and you're never

01:10:16.080 going to be able to buy property, whatever else, then they aren't going to play the game

01:10:20.080 because you're not going to let them.

01:10:21.200 Well, see, these are the questions for reform to address.

01:10:24.040 Because, look, clearly, the concerns about immigration are extraordinarily widely shared

01:10:30.520 for very good reasons.

01:10:31.740 Mass immigration has been way too high and detrimental to Britain. 1.00

01:10:35.880 Illegal immigration is completely unacceptable, of course. 1.00

01:10:39.460 But I always keep saying to people within reform, you know, once you've achieved your

01:10:43.660 great British dream of deporting all the illegal immigrants, you're going to have to then 1.00

01:10:47.640 have something beyond that because that's not going to transform the country overnight.

01:10:51.540 It may make you feel better, and rightly so.

01:10:55.800 We shouldn't be spending money on migrant hotels. 1.00

01:10:57.960 We shouldn't be doing all of those things.

01:10:59.460 But that is not going to transform the country into what you want it to be.

01:11:03.220 There's got to be an economic agenda that is actually going to deliver for people.

01:11:07.440 It's going to rebalance the economy.

01:11:09.700 And that's a big, big project.

01:11:11.300 That's a big project.

01:11:13.660 So that revival, it's not going to be an easy job.

01:11:17.460 But the way things are going now, my sense is, you know, some people think there will

01:11:22.800 be an election before the 2029.

01:11:25.320 But if the election is in 2029, my sense is, things are going to be so bad, reform are going

01:11:31.180 to be in with a very good shot.

01:11:33.140 Not least because if, you know, these Zaira Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn and whatever form

01:11:38.420 their own party, they will split the left in a very helpful way for the right.

01:11:42.500 Absolutely.

01:11:43.140 And by the way, this fragmentation of the big political parties, I think it's a good thing

01:11:49.740 that Zaira Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn are forging their own party.

01:11:52.980 And those people who have those views will have their political views catered to.

01:11:57.480 Great.

01:11:58.100 That's democracy.

01:11:59.320 And the same with the people on the right.

01:12:03.180 Well, there are about 57 parties on the right now.

01:12:06.080 And they all start with re.

01:12:07.780 Retrain, reclaim, reform, re-reframe, restore.

01:12:13.200 What's another one?

01:12:14.880 Redraw.

01:12:15.460 Jack, you must know all of these.

01:12:16.540 Yeah.

01:12:17.160 Reinvigorate.

01:12:18.240 I don't think there's one called Reinvigorate.

01:12:20.300 Probably next week.

01:12:21.320 But there are a lot of them.

01:12:23.240 And I'll be honest with you, I don't think it's particularly helpful.

01:12:28.720 Certainly, if you want to see actual change.

01:12:30.940 Like, I don't see how this narcissism of small differences on the right is helping anything.

01:12:38.760 I really don't.

01:12:39.720 There's only, for me, there's only one person on the right who's capable of delivering

01:12:44.060 real electoral success.

01:12:46.240 That's Nigel Farage.

01:12:47.000 Yeah.

01:12:47.500 And you either get behind them or you're just not helping.

01:12:51.500 It's my personal view.

01:12:52.740 I understand there are a lot of people who have questions.

01:12:54.640 Some people want him to go further on certain issues and whatever.

01:12:57.440 But the truth is, come election time, it's either going to be him or Starr, if he's still

01:13:02.220 in power, or Jeremy Corbyn.

01:13:04.820 You know what I found really interesting about that?

01:13:07.560 I've skipped the Conservatives.

01:13:09.160 Yeah.

01:13:09.360 Yeah, because they don't.

01:13:12.160 Let's be honest.

01:13:15.380 I'm not going to say his name, but someone that you were talking to at the Spectator Party,

01:13:22.040 a very senior figure in the Conservative Party.

01:13:24.600 He was talking to me and he was like, oh, so what do you think?

01:13:28.600 And I went, I think the Conservative Party. 1.00

01:13:33.180 I went, I think you're fucked. 1.00

01:13:34.920 He went, why do you say that? 1.00

01:13:35.940 And I went, my dad is somebody who has been a Conservative voter, off and on, for the

01:13:41.840 long majority of his life, over half a decade.

01:13:45.440 You know what he said to me?

01:13:46.700 He said to me, Francis, I'll never vote Conservative again.

01:13:49.780 And I said, my dad is just a regular guy who went to work.

01:13:55.120 There was nothing special about him, but he's the type of person who this country is built

01:14:00.420 upon.

01:14:00.860 Decent, hardworking people, turn up every day, do their best, work hard.

01:14:05.160 Pay their taxes, go on one holiday a year, because, you know, that's all that they had.

01:14:13.680 But they believed in something they believed in this country.

01:14:16.380 And you've got people like my dad saying they're never going to vote for you again.

01:14:19.820 That is a damning indictment of the past 14 years of your government.

01:14:24.520 Yeah.

01:14:25.020 Anyway, the conversation was over.

01:14:27.860 Do you know what?

01:14:28.760 I find increasingly a lot of people within the Conservative Party are starting to understand it.

01:14:33.700 I mean, Jake Berry, who's the former chairman of the Conservative Party, I actually remember

01:14:37.720 arguing with him on Question Time about Net Zero.

01:14:40.080 He's a massive fan.

01:14:40.900 He's just defected to reform.

01:14:43.920 Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

01:14:45.700 But nonetheless, my point is, you will start to see a lot of defections over time, because 1.00

01:14:49.560 a lot of the Tories know they're fucked. 0.99

01:14:51.000 And I do actually hope that happens. 0.99

01:14:54.080 You probably want to see defections from more senior figures who are still MPs, who have

01:15:01.300 more views that are much more aligned with the reform defecting.

01:15:06.700 But I think reform are in with a real shot.

01:15:09.820 And then it's a question, hopefully, if they do get elected, of what are they actually going

01:15:14.320 to do?

01:15:14.820 But we're a long, long way away from any of that.

01:15:17.420 So for the moment, we've got Starmer.

01:15:19.920 He's probably going to keep making things worse.

01:15:21.920 And as I keep saying, maybe that's a good thing.

01:15:24.660 And on that upbeat note, final question is always the same.

01:15:27.940 What's the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be? 0.98

01:15:31.740 Mate, climate change is fucking brilliant. 0.98

01:15:34.340 No, no. 0.99

01:15:35.480 Do you know what?

01:15:36.080 It's too hot.

01:15:37.080 The summer's been incredible, mate.

01:15:39.240 I'm out in the garden.

01:15:40.480 I'm going for walks with my son.

01:15:41.820 It's beautiful.

01:15:42.580 No, I hated every moment.

01:15:44.360 And by the way, have you noticed something, right?

01:15:45.800 I'm going to join Just Stop Oil.

01:15:47.180 Hold on a second.

01:15:48.560 There's solar panels everywhere, right?

01:15:50.220 Yeah.

01:15:50.580 Do you know what I find?

01:15:51.200 It's interesting that you need climate change to make green solutions work.

01:15:55.580 Yeah.

01:15:55.860 Now there's solar panels everywhere, but they actually make sense.

01:15:58.400 Yeah.

01:15:58.940 Climate change is...

01:15:59.660 Look, I'm just saying, scrap net zero, climate change is brilliant.

01:16:02.920 That's what we should be talking about.

01:16:03.740 I'm going to join Just Stop Oil.

01:16:05.080 I'm going to get myself one of those orange t-shirts.

01:16:07.040 I'm going to...

01:16:07.540 You know that's not actually going to help, right?

01:16:09.500 Yeah, but I feel like I'm doing something.

01:16:12.040 All right.

01:16:12.520 What's the one thing we're not talking about, Francis?

01:16:14.680 You know, I go back to an interview with Barry Strauss, the ancient historian, which

01:16:21.860 I always...

01:16:22.080 We're not saying he's old.

01:16:23.080 Yeah.

01:16:23.760 He's a historian of ancient history.

01:16:25.320 Absolutely.

01:16:26.480 And he said something about the collapse of the Roman Empire.

01:16:29.820 And I think you or I went, why did it collapse?

01:16:33.580 And he said a lot of things.

01:16:34.900 And he went, inequality between rich and poor.

01:16:38.160 The rich got richer.

01:16:39.440 The poor got poorer.

01:16:40.760 There was no middle class.

01:16:43.060 And essentially, the vast majority of people stopped believing in the Roman Empire and the

01:16:48.440 project.

01:16:49.740 And then it fell.

01:16:50.560 And I would say to every single person on the right or who's got money and demonizes 1.00

01:16:58.180 young people and looks at them and goes, oh, we're, you know, moaning, voting for stupid 1.00

01:17:02.460 parties with stupid policies. 1.00

01:17:05.580 We either solve this. 1.00

01:17:07.500 And if we don't...

01:17:09.660 It's mum done. 0.86

01:17:10.220 It's all the way done.

01:17:10.980 Exactly.

01:17:12.300 And I finally started making money.

01:17:14.200 So please...

01:17:16.400 Now head on over to Substack where we answer your questions.

01:17:19.520 Tomorrow, we're posting a clip from the Substack portion of our incredible interview with Daniel

01:17:26.180 Priestley.

01:17:27.200 It's where one of our viewers asks the question to Daniel, what's the five things we need to

01:17:33.560 do in order to save the UK economy?

01:17:39.420 Is there any answer to the immigration-induced social collapse in which we find ourselves other 1.00

01:17:44.980 than mass deportation?

01:17:46.460 What does each of you think your blind side is?

01:17:49.020 What is the thing that always gets you even if you know it happens now and then?

01:17:53.460 Do you guys ever get sick of each other?

01:17:55.560 Can you give us any advice on navigating differences that arise in business relationships?

TRIGGERnometry - July 16, 2025

Our Honest Opinion on Israel - Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster

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