TRIGGERnometry - Reaction to Alastair Campbell, Nigel Farage and Andy Burnham as PM

00:00:01.000 Really, we're just trying to talk to people and find out what the truth is.

00:00:06.000 And that's what, you know, with Alistair, that's what we did.

00:00:08.000 It's also what we did with Nigel Farage.

00:00:10.000 If they're making an argument that you don't think it holds water,

00:00:15.000 is not consistent, then you can't just let it go.

00:00:18.000 You have to challenge it.

00:00:20.000 We have a new prime minister now.

00:00:22.000 He will save the country.

00:00:26.000 Mate, I can't.

00:00:28.000 What about us? Do we get a say in it?

00:00:31.000 The way the current electoral system works is basically you've got children voting for how much candy they're going to get.

00:00:37.000 Yeah. That is the thing that terrifies me the most.

00:00:40.000 You've never seen a country go broke.

00:00:43.000 You've never seen hyperinflation.

00:00:45.000 You've never seen it when things get really bad.

00:00:48.000 And I'm telling you, it's terrifying.

00:00:52.000 All this Andy Burnham looks, he's got nice hair and he wears a T-shirt and he's from the north and he's a nice guy.

00:00:58.820 All of this is about to evaporate because he's going to be confronted with the reality of government.

00:01:06.740 Francis, good to be here with you. Welcome back.

00:01:10.080 Thank you, mate. Delighted to be here. It's been an interesting couple of weeks.

00:01:13.460 It has been an interesting couple of weeks. Last week in particular, I thought, summed up everything we've been trying to build here.

00:01:19.160 when in the same week we interviewed Alistair Campbell,

00:01:22.460 Tony Blair's former spokesman,

00:01:23.960 director of communications,

00:01:25.140 now host of one of the biggest politics podcasts

00:01:27.680 in this country.

00:01:29.140 And then soon afterwards,

00:01:31.180 we interviewed Nigel Farage,

00:01:32.880 who's been under the cosh a fair bit

00:01:35.180 and put some uncomfortable questions to him,

00:01:39.880 but nonetheless had the usual respectful conversation

00:01:42.000 that we tend to do with all our guests.

00:01:44.100 And that really is what we're trying to do,

00:01:47.020 have people from across the spectrum,

00:01:49.160 on the show. And if they make sense, they make sense. And if what they're saying doesn't quite

00:01:53.980 make sense, we probe and challenge and we see what happens. Well, that's it. And the thing that

00:01:58.180 I always wanted to create, and you did as well, was the fact that we never wanted to be, despite

00:02:04.280 what people may think, like a right-wing channel. I was never- It just happened naturally. It just

00:02:09.380 happened naturally, mate. Do you know what I mean? But no, we never wanted that because the moment

00:02:14.560 you create a channel which appeals to a partisan audience, what you automatically do is you

00:02:20.540 give up your independence. You give up your independence of thought. And we never wanted

00:02:24.920 to do that. We never wanted to be on any train, whether it's a left-wing train, the right-wing

00:02:29.640 train. You take, for example, Trump. There were things that we agreed with Trump, but there are

00:02:35.380 also things that we've been publicly pushing back on. For instance, the Iran wall. Neither you nor

00:02:41.920 I think that is a good idea. We both think that it's actually a mistake that will have

00:02:46.760 grave long-term consequences globally and economically. So I was really pleased with

00:02:54.520 that because what it sends is a signal out to people that if you want to come on a show where

00:03:00.580 you will get challenged, but you'll get challenged in good faith, this is the one place where you

00:03:06.220 will come on. We're not going to straw man. We're not going to misrepresent. We're going to hear

00:03:10.320 what you say, and then we're going to push back accordingly if we disagree. Yeah. And to your

00:03:17.560 point about left and right and all this stuff, I have to say, first of all, it's great that Alistair

00:03:23.140 came on. I think it's great that he came on and I respect him for that. And I think it's to his

00:03:28.740 credit that he was able to come on. And one thing that we've tended to experience in the past when

00:03:35.720 we get people on from that kind of worldview is very often if you find that there's a flaw

00:03:42.160 in their argument and you make a powerful counter argument to what they're saying,

00:03:46.160 their reaction is to get nasty and to get personal, to start attacking you, to start

00:03:51.200 trying to smear you, et cetera.

00:03:52.260 He didn't do any of that, which I really respect.

00:03:55.100 And I think that was great.

00:03:56.740 But, you know, the challenge is when people are saying things that don't make sense, you

00:04:04.000 have to you have to push back on that and sometimes people think that we are not you know

00:04:12.200 somewhere in the particular spectrum where they'd like us to be for their own reasons you know

00:04:16.360 people want us to have certain views so they can agree with us or they want us to have certain

00:04:21.080 views so that they can dismiss what we're doing really we're just trying to talk to people and

00:04:25.920 find out what the truth is and that's what you know with alistair that's what we did it's also

00:04:30.220 of what we did with Nigel Farage, by the way, you know, asking him questions about the financial

00:04:34.840 allegations and all of this other stuff. And I think what was interesting to me is that

00:04:41.300 the difference in approach is really not a consequence of how we go into these conversations,

00:04:48.560 but what we get back. Like, you can say what you want about Nigel Farage. He actually addressed

00:04:53.420 our questions. You might not like what he said. You might not believe what he said. But the fact

00:04:58.120 is he addressed the questions that we were putting whereas with Alistair it sort of felt like you

00:05:02.420 were boxing you know jello like you're trying to you're trying to you're trying to hold on to

00:05:07.740 something solid so that you're having the same conversation and that was difficult yeah and look

00:05:12.900 this is what people I think sometimes people look at the content and go well but with this

00:05:19.260 guess you were one way like you said in this guess you're you're another way but what we want to do

00:05:24.920 is be intellectually consistent.

00:05:27.060 If they're making an argument

00:05:28.820 that you don't think it holds water,

00:05:32.180 is not consistent,

00:05:33.780 then you can't just let it go.

00:05:35.660 You have to challenge it.

00:05:37.180 And you have to get to the crux of it.

00:05:39.980 Otherwise, it's going to be fundamentally unsatisfying

00:05:44.560 for everybody involved.

00:05:46.480 Because that's actually how you get to resolve issues.

00:05:51.200 By getting to the crux,

00:05:52.820 by getting to the core,

00:05:53.800 by going, look, what we talked about with Alistair with populism, you make a very good point when it

00:05:59.860 comes to the banking crisis 2008. Of course that's contributed to populism. Practically, I'm sure

00:06:06.420 there wouldn't be one person actually who would disagree with that. And of course social media

00:06:11.480 has contributed to populism. No one would disagree with that. But also there is other parts of the

00:06:18.400 equation that we need to address and we need to be intellectually honest. We're only talking if

00:06:24.520 we talked about social media and the banking crisis. That's only one part of the pie. And

00:06:30.200 there's other parts of the pie that we need to talk about. We need to talk, for instance, about

00:06:35.080 mass immigration, the government response to COVID, quantitative easing, printing all of this

00:06:42.020 money. The fact that where I did an interview with Dominic Frisby, he said that in real terms,

00:06:47.780 the pound sterling has been devalued by about 40 percent since 2020 now you could say well

00:06:55.140 francis aren't you overstating the case maybe maybe dominic's stats aren't completely correct

00:07:01.160 but then you look at the way it feels when you walk into a supermarket just when you go and buy

00:07:07.000 a steak from the supermarket it's now 11 pounds you thought hang on that was six seven pounds

00:07:12.940 even three, four years ago.

00:07:14.560 So all of these things are contributing

00:07:16.720 and we need to be honest about this

00:07:18.580 because if we're not being honest,

00:07:21.260 then we're essentially failing the remit of the show.

00:07:25.040 It's the Francis Foster test of the economy.

00:07:27.140 How much does organic steak at Waitrose cost?

00:07:29.420 Yeah.

00:07:29.720 It's gone up a lot.

00:07:30.620 Marks and Spence.

00:07:33.400 No, I agree with you.

00:07:35.140 And I think one of the things that we were able to explore

00:07:39.440 is the extent to which there is a certain current of thought

00:07:43.820 which just very blindly and I think incuriously says

00:07:47.900 the problem's not the problem.

00:07:50.200 The problem is the people who are talking about the problem.

00:07:53.260 And it just seemed to come up over and over and over again

00:07:56.320 that there's this perception that populism

00:08:00.920 and the frustrations that lots of people feel

00:08:03.300 erupt from nowhere and are used and managed

00:08:07.940 and amplified by bad actors.

00:08:10.100 That was the argument that Alistair was making,

00:08:13.460 which you can always say it's true to some extent.

00:08:17.180 But ultimately, as I said to him,

00:08:19.100 if you dealt with a problem,

00:08:20.300 there would be nothing to exploit.

00:08:21.960 Of course.

00:08:22.880 And it just doesn't feel to me

00:08:25.620 like that portion of the political spectrum

00:08:28.900 is willing to have any conversation sensibly

00:08:31.000 about that reality.

00:08:32.780 And the reason they support reform and other parties,

00:08:36.060 by the way, left and right,

00:08:37.940 is that they are very fed up of the realities that they are experiencing,

00:08:43.720 which is the product of decisions that were made by politicians.

00:08:46.920 That's a fact.

00:08:49.020 And that's just something that I think it explains a lot, actually.

00:08:55.160 I'm being slightly inarticulate here,

00:08:56.840 but I think it explains a lot about the way our debates are being had

00:08:59.580 because it just seems like there's lots and lots of people

00:09:02.500 who have absolutely no curiosity about why it is that their political opponents

00:09:08.280 have a huge rise in popularity.

00:09:11.260 I mean, if you think about, take the bigger context.

00:09:14.480 Forget about the current, you know, Starmer, Burnham, whatever,

00:09:18.180 and just look at a bigger context.

00:09:19.640 Imagine you are Alistair Campbell.

00:09:22.140 You are the director of communications for Tony Blair, who comes in in 1997.

00:09:28.180 And his government is in power until 2008.

00:09:30.480 2008, and eventually the Labour government gets voted out in 2010. At that point, there is no

00:09:36.660 Farage party, really. It doesn't exist. I mean, Nigel Farage exists. His attempts to get elected

00:09:42.700 exist, but he's irrelevant, effectively. There is no right-wing populism in this country. There's

00:09:48.240 no left-wing populism at the time in this country. You have new Labour and you have the Conservatives

00:09:52.640 who are on the ropes. You have the Lib Dems who are actually quite prominent at that time.

00:09:55.460 And in the time since then, which is only 16 years, 15, 16 years, the entire political world has been completely transformed.

00:10:05.460 And yet we are being asked to believe, I think quite incredibly, that that complete transformation of this entire thing is simply a product of the fact that, you know, evil populists came along and started misleading people.

00:10:20.340 Well, that's just not a sufficient explanation

00:10:23.020 for the state of the political climate that we're in.

00:10:26.400 It's just not, objectively.

00:10:28.240 That can't be the only explanation that works.

00:10:31.280 And it's fair to say, yes, as you mentioned,

00:10:34.340 that the fact that we're getting poorer

00:10:37.800 or we're still poorer today

00:10:42.840 than we were at the point of the financial crisis in 2008.

00:10:47.140 That's a big factor.

00:10:48.020 But you can't not also acknowledge that the huge waves of mass immigration, and particularly the absolute joke of the asylum system and the illegal immigration that we now have, is not radicalizing people.

00:11:00.800 Of course it is.

00:11:01.900 And there just does not seem to be a willingness to accept that.

00:11:05.400 And what there is an unwillingness to accept, it's, I always remember in Venezuela when I saw Chavez come to power, but people don't talk about this enough.

00:11:13.860 The reason Chavez and his brand of left-wing populism was so popular was because there had been government after government who had done the exact same thing.

00:11:25.020 It doesn't matter if you voted left or right.

00:11:27.000 You've got essentially corrupt politicians coming in, doing nothing, robbing the country blind.

00:11:33.080 The country would then degrade even more than where it was the year before and the presidential term before until people felt that they had no other option but to elect Chavez because it couldn't get any worse.

00:11:46.240 Well, unfortunately, it got a lot worse.

00:11:48.460 It can get worse.

00:11:49.200 It can.

00:11:49.660 And absolutely it can.

00:11:51.360 But if you look at the UK, for how many years did the population in this country 0.93

00:12:00.300 vote and demand that immigration be lowered? Time after time after time.

00:12:08.100 What was Brexit really? It was really a vote about immigration and lowering immigration.

00:12:13.320 And not only did they ignore it, they tried to thwart it, they tried to subvert it.

00:12:19.400 So what you're essentially saying to a populace is it doesn't matter who you vote for.

00:12:26.460 Kemi Badenow, we talked right, governed left.

00:12:30.140 Well, you gaslit a nation for year after year after year after year.

00:12:36.660 So people will go, why would I vote conservative?

00:12:40.440 Why would I vote Labour?

00:12:42.480 I'm going to go and vote for reform, green, restore, whoever it is,

00:12:48.260 because they haven't let me down yet,

00:12:51.240 but I know that if I vote for you,

00:12:53.060 you will definitely let me down.

00:12:55.200 And that is not an unfair position.

00:12:57.300 Let's be brutally honest about it.

00:12:59.540 No, of course, it's totally understandable.

00:13:02.020 But where Alistair is right, I think,

00:13:04.440 and where we agree with him,

00:13:06.080 is that not all of the people

00:13:08.360 who claim to be the champions of the people

00:13:10.940 are necessarily going to have the policies,

00:13:14.140 at least, that will deliver them.

00:13:15.200 They may even be well-intentioned,

00:13:16.480 But there is, on the left, there's a delusion that you can just keep raising taxes and suddenly

00:13:21.660 all the country's problems will be solved.

00:13:24.520 Gary Stevenson has found himself rather unraveling his credibility and reputation in the last

00:13:29.920 few days.

00:13:30.600 But even now, I see in our comments, I mean, I did a video sort of detailing what is wrong

00:13:35.680 about his worldview.

00:13:37.260 And you see comments from people going, yeah, well, at least he's right about the wealth

00:13:40.960 inequality.

00:13:41.520 Well, first of all, actually, that's not true.

00:13:43.320 The evidence is that wealth inequality has been very consistent for some time.

00:13:47.060 But even if it were, and I totally understand that people,

00:13:50.820 lots and lots of people are particularly locked out of the housing market.

00:13:54.600 It's something we've talked about a lot.

00:13:56.300 But they'll still say, well, at least he's got the diagnosis right,

00:13:59.720 which is very, very good populist tactics.

00:14:03.240 You describe accurately what has happened.

00:14:06.060 But then the solutions that are being offered,

00:14:09.320 in Gary's case, it's a wealth tax,

00:14:11.600 which we know would just make things worse.

00:14:14.420 It would mean that normal people end up paying more tax

00:14:16.680 because you chase out all the rich people.

00:14:18.760 What we should have in our country is as many rich people as possible

00:14:21.580 so the rest of us pay as little tax as possible.

00:14:23.760 That's what we actually want.

00:14:26.560 And likewise on the right, you know, there's...

00:14:30.000 You and I both agreed that, you know, 1.00

00:14:32.040 anyone who's here illegally should be removed, 1.00

00:14:33.660 and that's a big job. 1.00

00:14:35.240 It's a big job.

00:14:36.020 We've got a million illegal immigrants in this country,

00:14:38.260 and at the moment we're removing about 10,000 a year. 1.00

00:14:41.200 We're chipping away, mate. 0.66

00:14:42.580 We're not, though, because we're letting more in than we're deporting. 0.97

00:14:46.280 Okay. 0.97

00:14:46.560 No chipping away.

00:14:47.380 So it's getting worse.

00:14:48.320 That's the point I made to Alistair.

00:14:49.600 Even if we stopped letting anyone in and deported people at this rate,

00:14:54.660 it would take a century to do it.

00:14:57.820 And, of course, that has to be done. 1.00

00:15:00.060 People who are here legally should not be here.

00:15:02.020 They should be removed, and we should have things in place to encourage 0.98

00:15:06.620 not only them to leave, but actually people who are just net takers. 1.00

00:15:11.200 If you are here from a foreign country, you're not a British citizen, you shouldn't have any 0.94

00:15:15.340 access to benefits. And the moment you take that incentive away, lots and lots of people

00:15:19.600 will leave by themselves. But there is this idea on the populist right that the moment you achieve

00:15:26.960 that, the moment you deal with the issue of illegal immigration, which by the way will be

00:15:30.660 very difficult. It needs to be done, but it'll be very difficult. Suddenly Britain will be transformed

00:15:35.360 into this like magical universe of milk and honey.

00:15:38.900 No, it's going to be Enid Blyton part two.

00:15:41.200 Yeah.

00:15:42.560 I'm not convinced that that in itself will solve this country's problems.

00:15:46.840 You have to have a credible economic policy.

00:15:49.300 You have to have a credible approach to government, to the economy.

00:15:53.100 You're going to have to work with the civil service.

00:15:55.720 Sorry.

00:15:57.020 You're going to have to, sure, force some of them to leave, but that's a big job in itself.

00:16:01.200 So you have to have rational, evidence-based policy that's actually going to work.

00:16:06.560 but the populist model is simply to shout about how bad it is and how badly you've been let down

00:16:13.240 and how you got here and you see that on both left and right and that's it's a really good

00:16:17.960 point and whilst you were talking about that an idea came into my head and I want to explore it

00:16:22.660 with you because I've just had it so it may not be it may not be a good idea but but let's play

00:16:28.080 it out it seems to me populists on both left and right are in love with silver bullets they think

00:16:34.660 That if they solve this one thing

00:16:36.500 Everything will be better

00:16:38.280 On the left, it's inequality

00:16:40.440 Inequality is huge, I'm not denying that

00:16:42.900 I think that it is one of the

00:16:44.720 Major issues of our time

00:16:46.080 I think it's incredibly serious

00:16:48.120 Sure

00:16:48.740 But if wealth inequality

00:16:51.260 If you somehow get the magic bullet for that

00:16:53.780 We've still got a whole host of other problems

00:16:56.180 In this country 1.00

00:16:56.880 And again with the right 1.00

00:16:58.960 Mass immigration, illegal immigration 0.92

00:17:01.840 Has, it's a huge problem 0.99

00:17:04.120 It's a huge problem and it's contributed to some really, really serious issues within our country, within our communities, the stability of our country.

00:17:14.740 I agree.

00:17:15.720 But the idea that if you have a silver bullet that solves that, the rest of it is going to be perfect.

00:17:20.100 I'm like, guys, come on.

00:17:21.260 We need to live in the real world.

00:17:22.820 and unfortunately this is the issue because when you are the outsider when you're a disruptor

00:17:29.920 it's very easy to come along and point fingers at people and go this is wrong this is bad

00:17:35.660 it's like walking in on someone's relationship or someone's marriage and going oh you're not

00:17:39.280 doing this right you're not doing that yeah all right that's easy what's actually difficult is

00:17:44.000 to try and fix a relationship from the inside yeah I'm just pointing at one thing and going

00:17:49.360 well, you know, you do this and you do that.

00:17:51.600 Come on, we actually, we're adults here

00:17:54.020 and we need to start thinking about balanced solutions

00:17:57.180 that actually you can execute in real life.

00:18:01.800 Yeah, and this is why, you know,

00:18:03.400 we invite every single leader of a political party

00:18:07.500 in this country of prominence.

00:18:08.620 We either have already interviewed them

00:18:10.100 or are actively trying to interview them all.

00:18:12.800 Zach Polanski, dodging us so far.

00:18:15.500 Ed David, dodging us so far.

00:18:17.020 Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham, dodging us so far.

00:18:19.920 And Rupert Lowe.

00:18:21.600 Every time we interview a politician,

00:18:23.640 the comments are all saying,

00:18:24.820 when are you going to interview Rupert Lowe?

00:18:26.160 It's not up to us.

00:18:26.940 He agreed to come on in February.

00:18:29.320 Still hasn't made it happen.

00:18:30.580 And, you know, I'm hearing a lot of things

00:18:32.580 on the grapevine about how it's actually

00:18:34.380 a reluctance on his part

00:18:35.700 because he doesn't want his arguments interrogated.

00:18:38.700 I don't know if that's true,

00:18:40.060 but that's where we are.

00:18:41.860 Most people think they're informed.

00:18:43.480 In reality, they're selectively informed.

00:18:46.200 Modern media doesn't just tell stories.

00:18:48.100 It quietly decides which ones you never hear about at all.

00:18:51.700 That's why I use Ground News.

00:18:53.600 It's the only app that compares how the same story is covered across the political spectrum

00:18:58.120 and show you what whole audiences are not being told.

00:19:01.300 The Blindspot feed is one of my favorite features.

00:19:04.060 Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored either by the left or the right.

00:19:08.900 Follow along at ground.news slash trigonometry.

00:19:11.400 Take this story.

00:19:12.260 A major U.S. poll found that Republican voters' confidence in Trump's economic leadership

00:19:16.560 has dropped sharply during his second term.

00:19:19.120 That is not a minor data point.

00:19:20.900 If you only read right-leaning publications,

00:19:23.040 you would have missed this completely.

00:19:24.680 On the other hand, look at this.

00:19:26.320 The UAE drops UK from scholarship list

00:19:28.600 over radicalization concerns on university campuses.

00:19:31.840 That's a significant story.

00:19:33.340 Yet coverage from left-leaning outlets

00:19:35.120 was almost non-existent.

00:19:36.460 Ground News puts all of this in one place.

00:19:38.680 Headlines, bias breakdowns, ownership, and context.

00:19:41.920 So you can actually understand what's going on,

00:19:44.780 not just react to what you're told.

00:19:46.320 Go to ground.news slash trigonometry to get 40% off their unlimited vantage plan,

00:19:51.480 the same one we use, and stop being managed by the media.

00:19:55.620 And look, I really do think that if you are a politician, a major politician,

00:20:02.580 I don't think the mainstream media is the place anymore.

00:20:06.400 That if you want to get your ideas across in the most effective way possible,

00:20:11.780 where you're not going to get interrupted, you're not going to get straw manned,

00:20:15.040 You're not going to get misrepresented.

00:20:16.740 You're not going to get talked over.

00:20:18.400 But what about this and what about...

00:20:19.880 No, you will come on.

00:20:21.260 You'll get a fair hearing.

00:20:22.580 And you are going to be heard and listened to

00:20:24.860 by a broad cross-section of society.

00:20:27.660 I remember when we started this show

00:20:29.120 and the comedians in the comedy industry were like,

00:20:32.360 oh, it's all right wing.

00:20:33.480 It's all straight white men. 0.96

00:20:34.760 I went, no, no, it's brilliant. 0.97

00:20:36.640 They didn't laugh.

00:20:37.540 Anyway, we'll move on.

00:20:38.740 But the people that I meet when I'm walking around London,

00:20:41.820 They are people of every creed, colour, hue, background, profession, gender

00:20:48.660 It's all everybody

00:20:50.220 And they all hate you

00:20:51.040 And they all hate me, exactly

00:20:52.180 Equally

00:20:52.600 Equally

00:20:53.240 Some more equal than others in the words of George Orwell

00:20:55.840 But that's why I'm so proud of the platform that we've built

00:21:01.620 Because you can have access

00:21:03.540 And we will be fair

00:21:05.880 So if you want to come on

00:21:08.420 If you want your voice to be heard

00:21:10.360 If you want your ideas to be challenged in the fairest way possible and you're given time where you're not felt like you're rushed or we're going for the soundbite or we're going for the clickbait, this is a place to do it.

00:21:23.920 It is. I agree with you. But I also think we are somewhat victims of our own success because, as you say, you know, we challenge people.

00:21:32.040 We ask them questions, whoever that is. When it was Kemi on the show, Kemi Bednock, we pushed it pretty hard.

00:21:39.800 Nigel Farage at times, especially the last interview, we had to ask him about all these

00:21:43.840 financial allegations and we dug pretty deep.

00:21:45.920 And now, you know, that was a world exclusive interview, by the way, for the very reasons

00:21:49.440 that you say, which is for a lot of people, they know they're not going to get a fair

00:21:54.520 hearing in the media.

00:21:56.160 So they will come to us because they know we will ask them the questions that need to

00:21:59.680 be asked, but we'll do it fairly.

00:22:01.700 So there are people who are willing to do that.

00:22:03.540 But the incentive structures of the internet are such that it actually doesn't quite make

00:22:08.700 sense.

00:22:08.920 So Nick Fuentes was another good example of this when we offered to interview him.

00:22:13.520 He was interviewed by Piers Morgan, but he wouldn't be interviewed by us.

00:22:18.280 And the reason is it actually makes sense.

00:22:19.740 For Nick Fuentes, if you're someone who's controversial, so to speak,

00:22:23.780 you either talk to people who are only just going to listen and agree with everything you say

00:22:27.260 and not going to push back, which people do a lot,

00:22:31.260 or you want to go on a, if you're Rupert Lowe,

00:22:35.060 you want to go and be interviewed by Emily Maitlis 0.79

00:22:36.860 because she's going to be so, so irresponsible with her behavior 1.00

00:22:41.040 and so confrontational and so unfair and so biased 0.65

00:22:44.680 that just by turning up and being normal and answering questions

00:22:48.360 and being quite robust in defending your point of view,

00:22:51.620 you achieve a lot of success.

00:22:53.100 Well, what you don't want is people who will listen to you

00:22:56.640 and give you a fair hearing but will not be unfair in their challenges,

00:22:59.760 who will challenge you on the things that you need to be challenged on.

00:23:03.820 That's the most difficult interview to actually do for a lot of people.

00:23:07.820 And so maybe the appetite is not there for that.

00:23:12.000 And, you know, you see it every time we interview someone like Deborah Francis White or Alistair Campbell or whatever.

00:23:18.900 It sort of feels like it's going to be harder to get other people on after that because they see that, you know, if they don't have good answers, it's going to come out.

00:23:27.980 Yeah, and I think that's a real danger that what the internet will descend into, and you can make a very cogent argument that it's already getting to that place, is where people just talk to people that they agree with.

00:23:40.540 And that's a really bad place for our society and for our democracy to be because we need to talk to people that we disagree with.

00:23:50.160 Otherwise, how are we going to find out ideas that are bad?

00:23:53.660 We've all got bad ideas. 0.98

00:23:55.120 We all think dumb things.

00:23:56.280 we've all got ideas that are great but actually this part of your idea isn't great and it needs

00:24:01.420 sharpening or maybe you just need to get rid of it or maybe you need to actually acknowledge that

00:24:06.960 the person sitting in front of you who you disagree with might very well have a point

00:24:11.460 and therefore you need to update your thinking and as a result of that become a more rounded

00:24:16.000 thinker but if all we do is just go on pods where people agree with us we're never going to get to

00:24:23.480 that place. And now all that's going to happen is we're going to get more and more political

00:24:27.320 polarization because people can say things that are simply bad ideas or factually incorrect. But

00:24:33.980 if no one's there to push back on, then these things are going to be seen as truth or facts.

00:24:39.280 And like I said, that's unhealthy. It's unhealthy for the internet, but far more importantly than

00:24:44.620 that, it's really unhealthy for us as a society. Yeah. And that's why then there's an open

00:24:50.160 invitation for all the party leaders in the UK and lots of other people that we often invite on

00:24:55.840 the show to come on and discuss these issues in a fair way. We'll see what happens. Well,

00:25:00.240 we absolutely will see what happens. I mean, that's not the only thing that's happened this

00:25:04.280 week. Obviously, the football. I did a little video. Yeah, you did a video explaining with

00:25:11.060 very, very good arguments, factually based, why the Argentine football team is full of cunts. 0.98

00:25:16.200 Yeah, exactly. And do you know what? They were really on board with it. They heard my arguments and they were very much open to my persuasion. 1.00

00:25:25.040 I enjoyed reading the comments. They were mostly in Spanish, but I could. But you know, what was interesting is I think one of the most prominent comments under that video I saw was an Argentine going, if you said this about anyone else, you'd be called racist.

00:25:41.140 and it's like you can't criticise someone's football team anymore 0.96

00:25:44.820 for being cheating twats, which is what they are. 0.78

00:25:48.320 I mean, the England game was atrocious 0.88

00:25:50.360 and then they kicked off in the final 0.99

00:25:51.880 because they're terrible losers as well. 0.98

00:25:53.800 Yeah, and they literally punched a Spanish player 0.99

00:25:56.600 who, full fair play to him, walked away.

00:25:59.700 Another one they grabbed and threw on the floor.

00:26:02.000 This is on the final whistle.

00:26:03.660 And then when Spain were lifting the trophy,

00:26:07.920 they, as a team, turned their backs on him.

00:26:11.140 You just go

00:26:12.820 And everyone's like

00:26:13.920 Oh but Messi didn't do that

00:26:15.180 Yeah but that's like saying

00:26:16.080 Alright 0.86

00:26:16.360 Here's a family of sex offenders 0.65

00:26:18.140 And this one's alright

00:26:19.140 You're like

00:26:20.340 Come on

00:26:21.080 Really?

00:26:21.580 I can see why you're not that popular

00:26:22.900 In Argentina

00:26:23.600 Yeah

00:26:24.140 It is

00:26:24.960 It is

00:26:25.640 But

00:26:25.860 I

00:26:27.140 I was really happy

00:26:28.840 That Spain won

00:26:29.600 Because

00:26:29.960 If we're talking about this

00:26:31.900 On a really

00:26:32.860 Basic level

00:26:34.300 Like your

00:26:35.400 Like your son

00:26:36.580 In a few years

00:26:37.480 He's going to

00:26:37.960 Hopefully he's going to

00:26:38.800 You know

00:26:39.020 Get into sport

00:26:39.780 And watch sport

00:26:41.300 Would you want that as the example to set to him?

00:26:44.040 This is how you play.

00:26:45.160 This is how you win.

00:26:46.120 This is how you win.

00:26:48.280 Vamos.

00:26:49.600 This is, Nicolás, this is how we do it.

00:26:51.620 No, it's shameful and embarrassing.

00:26:54.540 Speaking of shameful and embarrassing,

00:26:56.280 I was really disappointed with England

00:26:58.060 because they were having a great tournament.

00:27:01.080 And then in the semifinal, you're 1-0 up

00:27:04.060 and you just suddenly, out of the blue,

00:27:06.440 do the same thing that all the previous managers

00:27:08.720 have ruined England with as well,

00:27:11.040 which is just go super small C conservative,

00:27:13.940 if you like, or whatever the term is.

00:27:15.960 Just very risk averse.

00:27:17.520 And actually, you know,

00:27:18.800 I think it reflects the values of the culture

00:27:23.440 that we have today as well,

00:27:25.080 which is there is a risk aversion

00:27:26.760 and a fear of making a mistake,

00:27:29.460 partly because of the way the media

00:27:31.020 and the way the public, the football public are.

00:27:32.840 I mean, let's be honest,

00:27:34.080 if you're the England manager and you go for it,

00:27:37.180 there are a lot of people who are going to say

00:27:38.560 you took a too risky approach

00:27:41.400 and you weren't protective enough

00:27:44.240 and you didn't park the bus

00:27:45.420 when you should have done or whatever.

00:27:47.140 And you and I were watching it together. 0.97

00:27:48.820 I mean, trying to hold off Argentina

00:27:52.300 by camping in your own box for half an hour

00:27:55.320 is never going to work.

00:27:56.980 No, it's not going to work.

00:27:58.080 And it was exposed.

00:27:59.640 But I think, and you did a really good tweet about this,

00:28:02.200 where you said that there's something,

00:28:04.340 and you were talking about the culture.

00:28:06.100 And it's such a good point.

00:28:07.520 It's that we have this culture now in the UK

00:28:10.900 And it hasn't always been like this

00:28:13.500 I don't remember it being like this 30 years ago

00:28:15.680 Where we want to play it safe

00:28:17.820 Where we want to be looked after

00:28:19.680 Risk is so important to life

00:28:22.460 If you're not going to risk anything

00:28:24.480 You ain't going to get anything

00:28:26.060 It doesn't matter what it is

00:28:27.660 It doesn't matter if it's applying for that job 1.00

00:28:30.440 Asking the girl out 1.00

00:28:32.220 You know, just wanting to do something 0.99

00:28:36.520 Booking that holiday, whatever it may be

00:28:38.760 Applying for a job

00:28:39.900 Starting a business

00:28:41.560 By playing it safe in life

00:28:44.540 All you get is more of the same

00:28:47.940 And you're going to get angry

00:28:49.860 And you're going to get frustrated

00:28:51.060 And at the very deeper level

00:28:53.340 We're left with what the semi-final gave us

00:28:57.100 You know the emotion the semi-final gave you, me

00:28:59.600 And everyone else who watched it?

00:29:01.380 Regret

00:29:01.820 Or what would have happened if we'd actually gone for it?

00:29:04.440 What would have happened if we just threw Saka on all of our attacking players

00:29:09.380 and just really went for it? 0.98

00:29:10.840 All right, we might get beaten, but you know what?

00:29:13.560 You'll get beaten, but you'll actually be able to look at yourself

00:29:16.500 in the eye in the mirror and go, I gave it my best.

00:29:19.720 Instead of capitulating and flaming out and thinking what could have been.

00:29:25.500 You don't ever want that.

00:29:27.200 That's why I love it when we go to America.

00:29:28.800 I come back and I feel re-energized because I say to people about an idea,

00:29:33.320 They're like, go for it, man.

00:29:35.320 Over here, you go, I've got an idea.

00:29:37.300 People are like, I mean...

00:29:39.600 Who does he think he is?

00:29:41.280 That's one of the things they'll think.

00:29:42.880 Yeah, who does he think he is?

00:29:44.120 And number two is like, oh, yeah, but what happens if it goes wrong?

00:29:47.860 Yeah, but then it goes wrong.

00:29:49.320 Right.

00:29:50.040 But at least you tried.

00:29:52.380 At least you tried.

00:29:53.760 Well, it's not all bad.

00:29:55.080 England got third place.

00:29:58.020 In the bronze final.

00:29:59.520 The bronze final was actually very good

00:30:01.620 because that's where all the pressure was off

00:30:03.620 and everybody was just having fun.

00:30:05.180 Yes.

00:30:05.500 It's kind of the point, right?

00:30:06.840 You just play with that positive attitude.

00:30:09.680 You just do better.

00:30:11.440 Totally.

00:30:12.380 Anyway, so we've got England bronze medalists,

00:30:18.340 if you like,

00:30:19.400 and we have a new prime minister now.

00:30:22.080 As we're recording this,

00:30:24.800 Andy Burnham stepped in.

00:30:26.320 He will save the country.

00:30:27.580 Mate

00:30:30.900 Come on mate

00:30:32.340 He's not going to wear

00:30:32.980 You two are moving

00:30:35.100 In opposite directions

00:30:35.900 He's not wearing

00:30:36.620 A suit and tie anymore

00:30:37.560 And you are

00:30:38.360 Mate

00:30:39.300 That's our producer

00:30:41.100 Laughing by the way

00:30:42.020 I just

00:30:43.860 I

00:30:44.940 I'm glad we're having this

00:30:47.040 Because

00:30:47.360 I think this is really important

00:30:48.800 To have this conversation

00:30:49.860 I'm profoundly

00:30:52.300 Uncomfortable

00:30:52.960 With what happened

00:30:53.760 With Burnham

00:30:54.300 In Starmer

00:30:54.920 Stop being

00:30:57.280 homophobic, what happened with Burnham and Starmer.

00:31:01.320 Well, the fact that the Labour government, it started basically, I mean, there was other

00:31:06.240 factors involved.

00:31:06.960 Wes Streetink walked out of his position as health minister, put a vote of no confidence.

00:31:12.960 Then they had a by-election where the Labour MP stood down and then Burnham came in.

00:31:19.320 He won the by-election.

00:31:21.500 Starmer capitulated.

00:31:23.100 He's now in.

00:31:25.020 What about us?

00:31:26.820 Do we get a say in it?

00:31:28.820 Do we?

00:31:29.340 Do we?

00:31:30.400 No.

00:31:32.560 What's his mandate?

00:31:34.520 He doesn't have a mandate.

00:31:36.260 And now he's putting in policies that isn't even in...

00:31:40.100 In the manifesto.

00:31:41.920 No.

00:31:42.600 I mean, look, the Tories did the same thing.

00:31:45.140 They had prime minister after prime minister after prime minister,

00:31:48.100 none of whom was elected in the general election.

00:31:51.140 They will say it's the parliamentary system.

00:31:53.120 But what's happened with Burnham is, like, I mean,

00:31:56.040 And those boys don't talk about.

00:31:57.760 Like, this coup was incredibly well orchestrated.

00:32:01.360 One could almost say Soviet. 0.99

00:32:03.920 Very, very well done. 0.88

00:32:05.900 Stam, of course, is going out saying, you know,

00:32:07.880 he's left the country in a better place.

00:32:10.100 I don't know that I see a lot of evidence for that.

00:32:14.120 But fundamentally, I was asked by somebody to talk about it

00:32:21.400 on their YouTube channel.

00:32:23.320 and I was just like, I don't think this is particularly significant

00:32:26.320 because I think under Burnham things will carry on

00:32:29.200 as they were going under Starmer, broadly speaking.

00:32:34.380 And this is the point Farage made when we had him on last week.

00:32:37.480 The fundamental state of the country

00:32:39.340 is what's driving support for parties like Reform.

00:32:42.700 I don't think that's going to change with Andy Burnham.

00:32:44.860 I don't think there's any evidence of that.

00:32:47.200 The problem Burnham faces is the problem that faces the Labour Party

00:32:51.600 And to the same or maybe even slightly lesser extent

00:32:55.180 The Conservative Party

00:32:56.260 You have within Labour this broad coalition of groups

00:33:00.440 Everything from hyper-liberal progressives

00:33:03.800 Through to old school lefties

00:33:06.660 Then you've got the people who are the centre-left in the middle

00:33:09.800 Sort of Lib Dem adjacent, let's just call them what they are

00:33:12.760 And everything else in between

00:33:14.420 And Paul Embry we had on the show many years ago

00:33:17.380 Who made this point in that

00:33:18.740 These people have relatively little in common with each other

00:33:22.620 So in order to hold them all together

00:33:26.140 It is practically impossible

00:33:28.240 Or you need a Tony Blair-like

00:33:31.500 Once-in-a-political-generation type of politician

00:33:35.640 Yes, and also you've got to remember

00:33:38.640 Tony Blair came in after a very, very, very long period

00:33:42.720 Of conservative government, right?

00:33:44.420 So he came in as the backlash against that

00:33:48.440 being in power for so long and won a huge mandate that allowed him to transform the country it also

00:33:55.080 coincided with a much better stay of the economy etc whereas now the economy is screwed and so what

00:34:00.040 you have is starmer now burnham who can't actually do i mean we've got an amazing interview with

00:34:05.080 peter hitchens coming out later this week um and this is what peter talked about which is the state

00:34:10.840 of the economy such as people have been conditioned to expect the government spending to be what it is

00:34:17.160 which is way beyond what we can afford.

00:34:19.580 And at the time when the economy is not growing,

00:34:22.220 partly because of government policies like net zero,

00:34:25.360 like overtaxing business, et cetera,

00:34:27.700 taxing employment, making it more risky,

00:34:31.300 having the highest industrial electricity prices

00:34:33.480 and developed wealth,

00:34:34.340 you put all that together,

00:34:35.720 there's nothing they can do.

00:34:37.940 There's literally nothing they can do.

00:34:40.100 And so the fiscal crisis that Farage and Alistair Heath

00:34:44.200 and other people have talked about on our show

00:34:45.940 seems like it's coming, whether it happens under this Labour government or under the next

00:34:51.620 government or whatever. It's just, I don't think there's a way of getting off this path

00:34:56.260 because the options that you need to be able to execute on to change the direction of travel

00:35:01.760 aren't politically available because the Labour Party won't do them. And the Conservative Party

00:35:07.000 wouldn't do them either. They didn't do them, right? It's about getting the country to live

00:35:11.080 within its means. And that's not currently happening. No. And Burnham isn't going to change

00:35:16.960 that. Burnham is not going to change that. And it's a question that we pose to Peter in our

00:35:23.040 interview with him, which is, are we living in the age of delusion? And there is a very coherent

00:35:29.160 argument to be made. We are living in the age of delusion, particularly when it comes to economics.

00:35:33.580 And if Burnham doesn't want to tackle this, somebody is going to have to because we are

00:35:39.900 going broke. We are absolutely going broke. And people that you and I know and respect who work

00:35:47.640 in this area, we're not public people, but they are people who are very high level. We sit down

00:35:54.200 and we go, are we as screwed as we think we are? They all go, no, it's worse. So we're going down 0.99

00:36:03.260 this road, when are we going to decide to make a U-turn? And if we don't, what are going to be

00:36:10.380 the consequences of that? And I'm going to be honest with you, mate. That is the thing that

00:36:16.600 terrifies me the most. That is the thing because people in this country, they'll go to the 1970s

00:36:24.760 and of course things were bad. You've never seen a country go broke. You've never seen

00:36:30.420 hyperinflation. You've never seen it when things get really bad. And I'm telling you,

00:36:36.360 it's terrifying. A breakdown of law and order. When people just feel that they can just take

00:36:42.500 whatever they want because there's going to be no repercussions.

00:36:47.120 Well, we have that already.

00:36:47.940 Yeah. I mean, yeah. But even worse than that, it's honestly terrifying.

00:36:53.820 It's amazing how much gaslighting there is about it because I've talked in the past about street

00:36:58.740 crime in London, petty crime, etc. I don't live in London. I go in every now and again.

00:37:03.640 I literally, with my own eyes, have seen someone get mugged twice in the last 12 months. With my

00:37:08.560 own eyes. I'm not talking about a mate of a mate told me about a thing. I'm talking I have seen

00:37:13.880 somebody get mugged. I've been using Ultra Pouches for a couple of weeks now, and I just want to get

00:37:20.880 straight into why, because I was deeply suspicious. Ultra Pouches are nicotine and caffeine free.

00:37:27.800 What's actually in them is the interesting bit.

00:37:30.720 They've worked with neuroscientists on them.

00:37:32.940 So it's not just mint and hope.

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00:37:40.500 Alpha GPC for mental sharpness.

00:37:42.940 L-theanine, which is the ingredient that keeps you calm rather than jittery.

00:37:47.020 And B6 and B12 in there for balanced energy.

00:37:50.660 So the pitches, the focus without the crash,

00:37:53.160 and none of the stuff that keeps you up at 2am wondering why your heart's racing.

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00:38:34.760 I mean, I live in a she-she North London suburb.

00:38:38.440 It's very nice.

00:38:40.340 You know, there's about 12 different bakeries, all do different types of sourdough.

00:38:44.020 I very much enjoy myself.

00:38:46.240 I went into the off-license because I was going to visit a mutual friend

00:38:49.760 and I was going to go buy a bottle or something.

00:38:51.680 I went to push the door.

00:38:53.380 It was locked.

00:38:53.960 The guy opened it.

00:38:55.180 And I was like, oh, are you locked?

00:38:56.900 Are you shut?

00:38:57.660 It's three o'clock on a Friday afternoon.

00:38:59.380 He went, no, no, no.

00:39:00.400 It's just people run in, take stuff, run out.

00:39:02.580 I went to get new glasses.

00:39:03.920 Thank you.

00:39:04.200 They do look nice.

00:39:06.440 And I went to the opticians.

00:39:07.780 Same thing.

00:39:08.820 They unlocked the door because people ran in,

00:39:11.080 just snatched the frames and ran out.

00:39:14.220 Yeah.

00:39:14.840 And you go, this isn't what it used to be like.

00:39:18.560 This is not what it used to be like.

00:39:20.380 And I get really annoyed when I hear,

00:39:23.420 particularly people on the left going,

00:39:24.840 oh, this is being racist. I know, you're gaslighting. Because what this is, is a

00:39:31.960 fundamental breakdown of law and order. And this is how it was with Venezuela. Every time I went

00:39:37.820 back there, I used to go Christmas after Christmas after Christmas to see family. And every Christmas

00:39:42.860 I would go back, you'd see things get a little bit worse. There'd be another, you know, it would

00:39:50.560 be another point of degradation. Year after year after year. And you see that in this country.

00:39:57.480 And the only way that is going to get changed is if we get people who are actually going to start

00:40:02.860 to make some really difficult and unpleasant policies. But that need to happen. Yeah. But

00:40:09.960 again, you know, we were having this conversation next door with the rest of our team and someone

00:40:13.560 said, you know, we need grownups in government. I was like, how are you going to get grownups in

00:40:17.600 government when the public are refusing to be at all about this. I mean, that's a fact. I'm sorry.

00:40:22.560 I don't mean to insult people, but that is a fact. The way the current electoral system works

00:40:27.640 is basically you've got children voting for how much candy they're going to get.

00:40:31.140 Yeah.

00:40:32.620 How many sweets are you going to get and how late you can go to bed?

00:40:35.900 Yeah.

00:40:36.140 And now the labor government, for gerrymandering reasons, obviously,

00:40:40.000 have given the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds as well, right? So you've got a population

00:40:45.780 who've been trained to believe

00:40:49.180 that the government has to solve all their problems.

00:40:52.580 The cost of living has gone up.

00:40:53.680 The government's supposed to fix it.

00:40:56.160 The energy price has gone up.

00:40:57.680 The government's supposed to fix it.

00:40:59.600 COVID's happened.

00:41:00.320 The government's supposed to fix it.

00:41:01.480 The government is the solution to everything.

00:41:03.220 We sort of refuse to accept the reality

00:41:05.480 that some things can't be fixed.

00:41:06.960 Some things just are.

00:41:08.460 And it's your job as an individual

00:41:10.040 to do your best to cope with them.

00:41:12.360 But if you have a society in which now

00:41:15.060 way fewer than half of the people in this country contribute in terms of tax than take out of it,

00:41:21.620 then what you have is people who are net takers voting for more taxes on the people who are net

00:41:27.560 contributors. And that's where we are. And that's why we keep getting governments in power who

00:41:32.660 refuse to do anything about it. Same in America. Same in lots and lots of other European Western

00:41:37.340 countries. The public are not being adult about this. I'm sorry. They're not. That's a fact.

00:41:44.900 It's a fact.

00:41:46.000 You know, all this talk about,

00:41:47.960 oh, the rich need to pay their fair share.

00:41:49.360 The top 10% of people in this country

00:41:50.820 pay 60% of all the tax,

00:41:52.860 of all the income and corporation tax,

00:41:55.680 of all the income and capital gains tax,

00:41:58.800 not corporation, income and capital gains.

00:42:00.920 10% pay 60% of all the tax.

00:42:03.200 And the rest of the country is voting

00:42:04.340 to increase the tax burden on them

00:42:06.060 in order to pay for things we can't afford.

00:42:08.580 And until that changes,

00:42:09.680 you can change your Burnhams and your Starmas

00:42:11.580 and all these other people like their gloves.

00:42:13.860 it's not going to make any difference at all. And this is what people don't fundamentally

00:42:18.040 realize or understand or want to accept. Until, look, on a very basic level, we're sick and we

00:42:27.900 need to take the medicine. And at the moment, the medicine does feel like chemotherapy.

00:42:34.160 And chemo does make you very, very ill. But if you don't take the medicine, you will die.

00:42:40.260 and it really does feel existential at this point. Everybody I know who's got money is openly going,

00:42:48.380 yeah, have you thought about taking your money out of the country? I'm like, why? And they were

00:42:54.640 like, well, because of this, X, Y, Z. And these are people whose job it is to do that. They'll go,

00:42:59.540 how much money have you got left in sterling? How much have you got in your savings? I'll be like,

00:43:03.240 this amount. They're like, yeah, you need to take that. Let's put it into gold. Let's put it into

00:43:08.600 silver. Let's put some of it into dollars. You don't want that in sterling because when the

00:43:12.600 currency collapses, I'm like, what do you mean when? And they went, well, if we carry on like

00:43:16.780 this, it will. Right, of course. Because you can't afford to keep printing money and borrowing money

00:43:21.140 and then spending it on things that don't generate a return. The standard economic

00:43:26.820 model of borrowing money, it makes sense. You borrow money to invest in things. You create

00:43:33.020 jobs, you create infrastructure, that pays for itself. But if you just borrow money to pay

00:43:37.280 welfare, which is what we do, that's not productive. We've got millions of people now who are not in

00:43:44.400 work in this country who couldn't be working, and we're paying for them not to work. It's not

00:43:49.780 sustainable. It's not going to work forever. And yeah. And by the way, what happens when people

00:43:54.560 take their money out of the country? Well, it's not invested in anything in this country. So again,

00:43:58.180 it impacts jobs, job creation, wealth creation, et cetera. And until the public are willing to

00:44:04.580 be honest about this, nothing will change.

00:44:07.140 And I honestly don't think that that mental transformation is going to happen until the

00:44:13.440 crisis happens.

00:44:14.120 That's why we've talked about this before.

00:44:16.060 I'm an accelerationist.

00:44:17.440 I think, I'm not saying it will be a good thing and I'm not saying it's likely to be

00:44:21.320 a success, but if there is a way of getting out of this trap we've placed ourselves in,

00:44:26.340 it is to have a fiscal crisis which forces people to confront the reality that we can't

00:44:31.280 afford our lifestyle as we have it.

00:44:34.580 Yeah. It's just going to hurt a lot of people. That's my concern and my worry.

00:44:40.280 That's why we've all been saying we want to avoid it.

00:44:42.540 You know, it's just the politicians when they talk. You just go, we're not talking about the

00:44:52.400 things that matter because we're not adults. And that's partly the fault of the British people 1.00

00:44:59.580 because you get the politicians you deserve.

00:45:02.300 And you also have a media, let's be honest,

00:45:05.280 who doesn't want to talk about any of this.

00:45:07.800 They'd much rather talk about trivia,

00:45:10.300 about individual people who said this, who did that,

00:45:13.800 who was quoted slightly wrong out of context on a podcast,

00:45:17.040 all of this other stuff.

00:45:17.800 That's what they want to talk about.

00:45:19.280 They don't want to talk about the fact

00:45:20.800 that our way of life is not affordable.

00:45:24.380 We cannot continue to live like this

00:45:26.740 because if we do, the bill will come.

00:45:29.540 Yeah.

00:45:30.640 And Andy Burnham is going to take us there.

00:45:32.900 Whether he's going to be faster than Starmer or slightly slower,

00:45:35.800 I don't know.

00:45:36.260 I suspect he'll be faster.

00:45:37.800 Well, the great thing about Andy Burnham for Andy Burnham

00:45:40.900 is that no one really knows what Andy Burnham believes.

00:45:44.380 That's been a big benefit to him so far.

00:45:46.920 But now that he's prime minister,

00:45:49.040 he's no longer going to have the luxury of having that position.

00:45:51.840 No.

00:45:52.240 Because whatever he believes, he's going to start taking actions,

00:45:55.740 and those actions is what he's going to be judged by.

00:45:57.920 and if those actions are not delivering change

00:46:02.320 that people want,

00:46:04.460 he will become deeply unpopular and very quickly.

00:46:07.900 We've already had a clue of what Andy Burnham believes

00:46:10.360 in that we've seen him say

00:46:12.600 that they made a mistake over Gaza.

00:46:15.700 That was one of his public statements,

00:46:17.400 one of the few that have come out,

00:46:19.040 which shows that he's trying to appeal

00:46:21.620 to the left-wing progressive side of the party

00:46:24.140 and also the side of the party

00:46:26.340 that has defected to the Greens.

00:46:27.920 Hmm. So we're going to see if he's already made concessions to them, if he's already going to try

00:46:33.580 and make economic concessions. Is he going to bring in things like rent control, for example?

00:46:38.540 Is that what he's going to try and do? Is he going to try and do other very hard left economic

00:46:46.180 policies, wealth taxes, for instance? I mean, this is the thing that worries me. I don't really

00:46:54.220 know a lot about Andy Burnham. I don't know what his policies are. I don't know what his worldview

00:46:59.820 is. No one does. I mean, if you remember Dan Hodges, who seems to be his biggest advocate,

00:47:03.960 if I'm looking at social media, when we had him and Julie Harley Brewer on our show on a live

00:47:08.260 stream, we kept asking Dan what Andy Burnham, with whom he's worked in the past, stands for.

00:47:15.380 And he would say, well, lots of people think he stands for this, but actually there's no evidence

00:47:20.640 of that, but he never said what he does then. And that's because I don't think anybody really knows

00:47:25.740 because he's been very, very skillfully concealing his views, if he has any, from the public. But

00:47:32.980 all of this is about to go away. All this Andy Burnham looks, he's got nice hair and he wears a

00:47:40.180 t-shirt and he's from the North and he's a nice guy. All of this is about to evaporate because

00:47:44.940 he's going to be confronted with the reality of government. And in government, you make decisions

00:47:49.560 and you are held to them

00:47:50.720 and those become your opinions,

00:47:52.400 whether you like that or not.

00:47:54.380 And sure, I mean,

00:47:55.560 he said the thing about Gaza. 1.00

00:47:56.800 Look, credit where it's due.

00:47:58.880 He scrapped digital ID.

00:48:00.460 Yep.

00:48:01.460 The plans for it, which is good.

00:48:03.780 They did leak that they are going to produce

00:48:07.780 oil and gas in the North Sea, potentially.

00:48:11.060 Maybe a road back on that.

00:48:12.840 We will find out.

00:48:14.500 So he may be doing,

00:48:15.840 he may be signaling all things to all men.

00:48:17.520 He may be signaling something to the far left,

00:48:19.420 while also signalling something to the right of his party

00:48:21.840 or even the country, we will find out.

00:48:24.500 But the one thing that he's going to have to do now

00:48:27.020 is actually make it known what he believes through policy.

00:48:30.780 And the moment he does that,

00:48:31.980 he's going to become very unpopular very quickly, I think.

00:48:34.200 But you know the most important thing above it all?

00:48:37.520 It's not going to be dull.

00:48:39.620 It's not going to be dull at all.

00:48:40.880 So there we go, another update.

00:48:43.840 And make sure you check out,

00:48:45.340 we've got a fantastic interview

00:48:46.740 with returning guest Dr. David Butterfield.

00:48:49.420 coming this Wednesday. That's about the Odyssey, and assuming nothing major happens, Peter Hitchens

00:48:54.300 on Saturday as well. But yes, and there's one thing that I do want to mention as well that

00:48:58.760 we've talked about before, is that this Labour government are proposing to bring in a policy

00:49:05.140 whereby content from approved state broadcasters is going to be upranked, and content from

00:49:13.200 independent creators, shall we say, like us, will be downranked, because it's really important that

00:49:19.280 people get the facts.

00:49:20.520 Yeah, of course.

00:49:22.120 And YouTube is already trying to push back,

00:49:24.620 but they've also asked content creators like us to push back.

00:49:27.240 And so the people watching this,

00:49:29.400 if you actually want to continue to have access

00:49:31.580 to this type of information versus what the BBC

00:49:35.080 and other state broadcasters give you,

00:49:38.920 then you've got to subscribe to the channel.

00:49:40.640 You've got to smash the like button.

00:49:42.140 And most of all, go to triggerpod.co.uk

00:49:44.900 and become a supporter of ours on Substack.

00:49:46.880 Yeah, because it's looking like the, shall we say, the icy claws of censorship are getting

00:49:52.540 ever closer.

00:49:53.440 So please give us some money.

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00:50:16.880 You

TRIGGERnometry - July 21, 2026

Reaction to Alastair Campbell, Nigel Farage and Andy Burnham as PM

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