The Truth About TRIGGERnometry Part 2
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 35 minutes
Words per minute
128.83743
Harmful content
Misogyny
13
sentences flagged
Toxicity
58
sentences flagged
Hate speech
18
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of Trigonometry, Francis and Constantine talk about the past, present and future of the show, and what they think is coming up in the next couple of years. They talk about where they've come from and where they think the show is going to go in the future, and why they don't like Stuart Lee's comedy.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
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I'm Constantine Kissin and welcome to this very special part two of our discussion with me and
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Francis. This time we're going to be talking about the big things that we think are coming up
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in the next couple of years, the things that we're going to be focusing on, the guests we're going
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to be targeting and the types of conversations we think are going to be needed. And also why I
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really don't like Stuart Lee's comedy. And of course, for those of you who are on Locals,
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you've submitted a bunch of questions, which we'll be answering and putting up on Locals only for
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those of you who want to check it out. So Francis, without any further ado, mate, we talked about
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the past of the show, where we've come from. If people haven't seen that already, I actually think
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a lot of people will be quite shocked at the journey that we've had so far and perhaps at some of the
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lowest lows and where we've come from and how it was when we started. But we've done a couple of
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these in the past where we call them trigonometry destroys trigonometry. And that's just me
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interviewing you, you interviewing me. And we thought, given that we've just moved on to a new
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set, that we've got a whole new thing going on. It also seems to be a sort of interesting time
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because hopefully, I think it's fair to say, is it, certainly in the UK at least, that COVID is
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starting to die down? Are we going to be that optimistic, do you think?
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Well, look, in the UK, as thing stands, on whatever day it is, I think it's the 13th of
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Yeah, as we're recording it, it does look like the threat of COVID is receding. We're not seeing
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the numbers of hospitalisations or deaths that we saw last winter or indeed at the first stage of
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the pandemic. So you would hope so. However, if you look at around the world, Austria has just now
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gone into a lockdown for unvaccinated people. I think the Dutch are proposing a lockdown or
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they're about to go into a lockdown. Australia's just shit the bed. And New Zealand, they've gone
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But what I mean, though, is, I mean, it's going to get to a point eventually where the numbers are
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just so low. You can't really carry on with this, right? I mean, it's going to become endemic. In
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the UK, people are arguing it already has and possibly in other parts around the world. The
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economics of this are also unsustainable and we'll maybe talk about that in a minute. But I do feel,
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at least maybe today, tomorrow could be different, but I do feel that my prediction that I made
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earlier, which is there would be another lockdown this winter, doesn't seem to be true in the UK.
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It's been true in other countries, but in the UK, it's not, which suggests to me that the vaccine
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has worked to reduce the number of people in hospital and the number of people dying to a point
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where as a society, you know, Christopher Snowden, who will hopefully get on the show soon,
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he's just written an article talking about how basically COVID, with people vaccinated at the
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level that they are now, COVID is like the flu, which we've just lived with and we have done for
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generations. So I think I'm optimistic that other things are going to start to be the thing that
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everyone cares about because my concern with COVID, once the initial mass wave of people dying and all
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of that happening was passed, was that because we're all so obsessed about COVID all the time,
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there are actually a lot of other issues that are going unnoticed, uncovered, undiscussed.
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Some of them are a consequence of COVID, some of them are a consequence of lockdown, some of them
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are just a consequence of where we are as a society. And those things are going to start popping up.
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And we can talk about more of that. The number one thing for me is inflation. It's already happening.
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If you remember at the beginning of COVID, we interviewed Pippa Malmgren and Jim Rickardt,
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and this was what they said. They said inflation is coming and now it's here. A lot of people aren't
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aware of it because the media haven't started covering it. But the reality is, if we go back
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to 2008, our response to the financial crisis was essentially to empty the medicine cupboard.
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We threw everything at it. And by everything, I mean, we printed a ton of money. We dropped interest
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rates to historically unprecedented levels. And they've been there ever since, basically, right?
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That isn't, that's not how, that's not a sustainable thing over the long term. And yet we've been at it
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for 13 years now. So add to that the huge cost of furlough and lockdown and the hit to the economy
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and all of that, you're going to see prices rising. You already are seeing that in some other things.
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And partly that's to do with supply chain issues, but partly it's to do with the fact that if you
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have more money chasing fewer goods, you're going to get inflation. And what that means is people's
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savings get eroded, et cetera. So I think economics is going to start to come back to the table,
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which ironically is where the show started. If you think about our first few episodes,
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that's what we talked about, because that was one of the biggest issues at the time.
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Yeah. And it was because of Brexit. And we were talking about economics in relation to Brexit.
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No, what you're saying is 100% accurate. Plus factoring in the price of goods are going to rise.
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Things like petrol, that's already rising. We literally went to the petrol station yesterday
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and you were shocked at how much it had risen. Fuel prices are going to rise. So they're talking
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about people's utility bills increasing by something by 25, if not 50%.
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And that's before Greta get her hands on it as well.
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Yeah, exactly. So these are all going to be up for discussion. I don't think COVID is going to go
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away. And I'll tell you why. And this is going to make me sound like a conspiracy theorist.
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COVID is a very powerful tool because it creates fear in people. And once you create fear in people,
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they become easier to manipulate. That therefore means they become easier for you to get what you
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want. The government can get what they want far easier when the populists are afraid and they're
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scared. But you're suggesting they're going to keep COVID running even when the numbers aren't high,
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are you? I'm going to say that they're going to use any opportunity they can to try and get
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vaccine passports in place. Why do you think that? Why do I think that? Why do you think that's what
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they want? Why do I think that's what they want? Because they want to be able to essentially monitor
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our whereabouts at all points. I just think that's the way things are. I think data is power. Being
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able to track your citizens means that you have power. The part of the vaccine passport situation is
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just another way in order to track people. And I think they're going to want to bring us in.
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My partner went to America. And look, this is an example of what is happening. And we need to talk
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about this because I don't think people really understand. My partner went to New York. Where
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she's from? Everything in New York is vax passport, vax passport, vax passport. You literally can't go in
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to a coffee shop and grab a coffee without showing a vax passport. That's where it is, right?
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Now, she went to a conference as part of her job. When she got admitted into the conference center,
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the security guards and the people at the desk went to, we need to show your vaccination status.
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She said, okay, here's my card. Right this way, miss. We're also going to need to take your
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temperature. She said, right, okay. They took her temperature. But at the same time as taking
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her temperature, they also scanned her face. And because she's very aware and very up on tech and
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the issues around tech, she went, hold on a second. I gave you permission to scan my temperature or to
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take my temperature. I did not give you permission to scan my face. My worry, and I've got a sneaking
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suspicion the government are going to do this. They're going to use it as an opportunity to
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track us and grab our data. And that can be anything from facial scans right the way through
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to whatever else is going to happen that I'm not technologically au fait with. And for those of you
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who are watching this, listening to me, going to me, oh, you're a conspiracy theorist, blah, blah, blah,
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smoking too much weed. Guilty of that probably. However, my question to you would be, what's happened
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to cash? No one's talking about it, but cash has disappeared. For example, you go to Pret-a-Manger
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in London, they no longer accept cash. There are many branches of chains right the way through
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the city of London that no longer accept cash. Do you not think that's a good thing? It's just
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convenient. No, I don't think it's a good thing. Because cash is very, very important. Cash, number
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one, is a way for you not to be tracked. It's a way for the government to have nothing to do
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with your finances, with your financial transactions. The government saw COVID as an
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opportunity to get rid of cash, to take cash off the table. Do you remember why they said that we
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couldn't have cash? Yeah, it's because you could pass COVID through physical contact. Okay, but that
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has now been debunked. Well, they said a lot of things that have been debunked, right? Yeah.
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Okay, and give them their due. We didn't know at the time. But cash isn't coming back. I'm telling
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you that now. Cash is not coming back. Everything will now be on card. They've increased the limit
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on card to £100 with the tap. So that therefore makes it easier again. It is just another way for
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them to be able to track us more effectively. Yeah, and I think maybe if you just talk about it from a
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sort of power grab point of view, people will think you're being conspiratorial about it. But actually,
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if you look at it from a government point of view, well, this is a way to help people. It's a way to
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track people's health status so you can get them the right help. That's how people will be justifying
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it potentially in their head. So I see what you're saying. It's interesting because I'm not sure they're
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going to be able to get vaccine passports through in this country. They've already got them through in
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Scotland and they've already got them through in Wales. That is very true. So they are going to do
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everything they possibly can. Everything they possibly can. Right. We were talking about you
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and I doing gigs in Scotland and because we've got a big Scottish audience and we were talking about
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getting a Scottish guest and talking about everything. There's not many of them, but they are big.
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Yeah, exactly. You're going to make that joke in Glasgow. I'm going to leave and you can deal with
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the consequences. But you need vax passports now in Scotland. So they've got them in Wales.
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They've got them in Scotland. Why are they not going to try and bring them here?
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Well, I think two years ago I would have said because we've got a libertarian in power,
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but I don't think we found that to be the case. So you think the fight for civil liberties in terms
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of the government surveillance, government controlling and tracking your movements, etc.,
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that's going to be one of the big issues that stays on the table.
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Yeah. The government under COVID laws abolished the right to protest. I'm going to say that again,
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just for people who didn't understand that. They abolished the right to protest.
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It meant that you couldn't congregate in past groups of five in order to protest,
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But surely once the pandemic is over, that will come back, people might say.
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Right. Okay. Yeah. But the only reason it came back was because of the outcry
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about what happened with the Sarah Everard murder, where there was a women's vigil.
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Right. If it was anti-lockdown protesters, no one would give a shit.
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The only reason people were outraged is because that picture went viral
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of that police officer kneeling on that woman's back.
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And as Ella Whelan made the point, that happens all the time, including to women,
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but no one gives a shit as long as they've got the wrong opinions.
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Exactly. But that was the only reason. And suddenly people woke up and were like,
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this is disgusting. I'm like, oh yeah, but when it's anti-lockdown,
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when it's something that you disagree with, then it's fine. Then people are stupid.
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Then people are selfish. And people, you know, all the epithets that get hurled.
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What people don't seem to realise is we have the right to protest,
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not for causes I believe in or you believe in, but because it's vital for a democratic society.
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And what happened over COVID is we became a police state.
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Which brings us, I think, onto the third issue that is going to be very big
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in the next couple of years or possibly beyond. And this is something actually to give him his due.
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Matthew Goodwin predicted on the show a long time ago is the politics of climate change.
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Because it's obviously been ramped up in recent weeks and months, but you can see the...
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I want to be careful because, you know, it's something you're not supposed to say about
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climate change, but I don't know what the truth is about that issue. I genuinely don't.
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I have other concerns related to the environment. I think resource depletion and pollution are very
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big issues that need to be tackled one way or another, right? Without all this hysteria and all
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this craziness. But they are issues that are big environmental issues. Whether human activity
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is the main driver of climate change. I'm not a scientist. I can't make a determination either
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way. Like most people, I make my conclusions about this issue based on what other people
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I respect say. And what I would say about that is I keep being told that 99.999% of the scientists
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agree, blah, blah, blah. And it is true that a lot of people that I respect agree that climate
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change is caused by human beings. I also would say that a lot of people, including scientists I know
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personally who I respect, are skeptical of that. Fewer, far fewer, but there are some, right? So I
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genuinely don't know the truth of that issue. But what I do think is if under the guise of dealing
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with climate change, we focused our resources on creating stable energy supplies from things
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like nuclear power, for example, which I don't know why green people don't want to talk about
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as much. And we dealt with pollution, which is a huge issue. And we dealt with resource depletion,
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which is a huge issue. That wouldn't be a bad thing. But the focus doesn't seem to be on that.
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The focus seems to be on this sort of AOC, the world's ending in 12 years sort of hysteria. Now,
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there's a generation of people coming through now. And you see this with the protests that are
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happening increasingly around the world. They literally believe that. They believe the world
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is ending in 12 years. Now, imagine if you believed the world was ending in 12 years,
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you'd be able, you'd not be able to, you'd be willing to take some pretty drastic action.
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Well, quite a lot more. Imagine you genuinely thought, like, my wife and I are about to have
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our first child. What would I be willing to do if I thought the world is actually ending in 11
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years from now as a father? What would you be willing to do? Quite a lot. Yeah, of course.
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Yeah, exactly. In your case, it does. But do you see what I'm saying?
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If you take this point of view literally, and that is one thing I think is complete rubbish,
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by the way. I don't think the world is ending in 12 years. I think that's nonsense.
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But if you do believe that, then you are going to glue yourself to a road.
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And that's going to be the starting point. I mean, if you indoctrinate people with that level
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of fear, you talked about fear with COVID, right? What about the world ending in 12 years?
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I mean, that's going to scare a lot of people, particularly young people, as it already has.
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Because I think the politics of climate change, or the politics of the environment, or whatever
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green politics, whatever you want to call it, that's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
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And even you and I have had our arguments about this on Raw. You know, I remember you
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and I were talking about whether Extinction Rebellion are extremists and all of that, right?
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That is going to be a huge issue going forward, I think. Because the political and economic
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To me, the giant flaw in... And look, I'm from your position. The one thing... Not the
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one thing. One of the things that trigonometry has given me is humility. The realisation...
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That's what happens when you work with me. Just the greatness. Being in the presence of
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Exactly. But that's enough about Anton. Right. But it's a realisation that I don't know
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a lot. And when it comes to a subject like climate change, I know nothing. I genuinely
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don't. I know nothing. I know nothing. I'm not a scientist. I'm not an expert. I haven't
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followed this story. I haven't delved deeply into it. I just haven't had the time. But the
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one thing that I find very worrying is you look at the person, the most prominent figure
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in this entire movement, and it's Greta Thunberg.
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She's an 18-year-old kid who missed the last few years at school and is then put on a platform
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and lecturing us. She doesn't even have a degree in this. She doesn't have a master. She doesn't
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have a PhD. If it was some scientist who'd been studying this for 30 years and had won awards or
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it was widely regarded and came out and said, look, here's the data. Here's my research.
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This is what I think. Here are the reasons why we're going to look at this over it. Then
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Well, people would argue that scientists have been doing that and people haven't been listening.
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And the reason Greta has worked as... Forget about her as a person, just as a device,
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as a prop, is that she embodies the panic that people feel about what's coming as a result
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of climate change. Because I think... Here's the reality. Because I am not convinced that
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it's happening, but I am also not convinced that it's not happening. I genuinely don't know
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due to human activity. Then what people are saying is scary. And it's not scary in the sense
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of, oh, East London is going to be underwater. It's scary in the sense of, if the sea levels
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do rise significantly around the world, what that means is a lot of people are going to
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be displaced, which is going to make the migrant crisis of 2015 and recent years and all of that
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look like a walk in the park. You're going to get billions of people displaced and moving,
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obviously, to the West. So even from that perspective, it's going to cause a lot of problems.
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War, famine, starvation, et cetera. So I think the reason Greta works is that she's almost like,
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it's not a scientist. Even the kids get it now. Do you know what I mean?
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And why are you, dinosaur, not getting with the program? I think that's why her chastising
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people, I think, is such a big part of their appeal. Because it's that sort of, even the
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kids get it. Why don't you, you old-fashioned, you know, whatever idiot. I think that's why
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Okay. I get that's why it's working. I'm just saying it's not credible.
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Well, people would argue she's standing on the shoulders of scientists who've been talking
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about this for a long time more sensibly, but they're being ignored. That's why you need the
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Right. I don't think that's a way to do things. I just see a movement figureheaded by an 18-year-old
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girl as inherently ridiculous. As ridiculous. And I don't care if, you know, she's briefed well
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or whatever else. She's a kid. She's a young girl. Why is it that she's been put on this
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platform? And the thing that I find very dis... And look, I'm not attacking... I'm genuinely
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not attacking Greta. I'm going to... We make a lot of jokes about Greta. I'm going to be
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honest with you. I feel deeply sorry for her. I feel deeply, deeply sorry for her. Insert
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jokes I used to teach. But I used to teach 15-year-olds. They're children. Nobody should
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be put in that position. As an adult, really, it's not going to be good for you and it's
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We talked about this in the first part of our conversation when I was talking about my
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experience of being in a much smaller media storm than she's been in. And I was saying
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that I'm probably one of the more mentally resilient people on the planet. And yet, it's not
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easy to deal with at all. For her, particularly given that she's autistic and I have autistic
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people in my family. I understand them pretty well. It makes life a lot harder, I would imagine,
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in this situation. And other mental health issues that she's got going on, it's definitely not
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I'm glad I had to specify that, mate. It's a good look with this tash.
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Yeah. But she's a child. She was a child. And at that point,
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when she became this global celebrity, she had no idea what that was going to entail,
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what that was going to mean for her life, for her future, for the way people saw her.
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Right from that point, she became a celebrity. Every relationship moving forward has been
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fundamentally changed because she's become an icon. And as a result of that, she's not going
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to know who's going to be her real friends when she gets a partner, that partner. Are
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they with her because she is... They like her, they love her for who she is?
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Yeah. Or is it because she's Greta Thunberg?
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You... I see it personally as an act of great cruelty because I don't think a 15-year-old has
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a capacity to consent to what happened to her because they have no way of understanding...
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A, consequences, but B, that level of consequence and that level of fame.
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I don't think we understand what it must be like to be that famous.
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No. No, we don't. We don't. But come back to the climate thing because, look, the Greta
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thing is... I agree with you, but it's very, you know, it's tangential to the issue, I think.
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I think even if Greta wasn't around, it would still be a big...
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It'd still be a big issue. So I think that's going to be the next big thing. Well, it's
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not the next big thing. It's one of the next big things. And the problem is that the reason
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I am very sceptical about it... Like I say, I don't not believe... I genuinely... If I
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didn't think climate change was man-made, I would say so. But I'm not sure that I can
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say that. I'm agnostic about it, is the truth. But the problem is the solutions that are being
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offered don't make much sense to me. And I'll tell you why. Nuclear energy is, statistically
00:23:10.260
speaking, as far as I understand, at least, and I say this as someone... My wife grew
00:23:14.600
up next to Chernobyl. She had to be evacuated from that area when it happened. So I understand
00:23:19.760
the potential risks. But statistically speaking, nuclear energy is the safest form of energy
00:23:26.760
Right? And every time you see these drives to, you know, get people to buy electric cars
00:23:32.840
or... Like I bought a diesel car 10 years ago, whenever it was, because I was told this
00:23:38.100
is the... For long drives or whatever, it's much more energy efficient. Then it turns out
00:23:44.800
it's not. Now we're being told we should buy electric cars. Well, it turns out electric
00:23:48.420
cars are not energy efficient either. And it turns out that, yeah, you can make electric
00:23:53.100
batteries. But in order to do that, you've got to get, you know, a 14-year-old African
1.00
00:23:56.540
kid mining cobalt in the mines. Do you know what I mean? So the renewable energy that people
00:24:03.320
keep telling us is the next big thing, it's not reliable at the moment and it's not cost
00:24:08.300
efficient at the moment. Right? So I'm just... My concern is I don't know what's true, but
00:24:15.380
what I do know is that the suggestions that we're being given are, number one, not very
00:24:19.780
effective. And number two, that you're talking about doubling people's heating bills?
00:24:24.140
Really? The answer to everything at the moment seems to be that we've got to pay more tax and
00:24:32.300
have fewer freedoms. Yeah. Right? I'm not sure I'm on board with that. In fact, I'm pretty
00:24:37.080
sure I'm not. Well, did you not vote for Corbyn? Surprisingly not, mate. So that's why I'm
00:24:44.860
sceptical is that, look, we can have a sensible conversation about climate or resource depletion
00:24:52.000
or pollution and I think we should. But I'm not sure the answer realistically, even if
00:24:58.300
the answer is to get people to pay more, I just don't know that you're going to be able
00:25:03.280
And I always think a lot of the answer is going to come from technology, technological progress
00:25:09.300
rather than panic. And that's, like I said, I think that's going to be a big issue and we're
00:25:15.840
going to have to talk to more people who can explain to us more about it that we don't
00:25:19.780
understand. And in the next few weeks, we'll hopefully get Michael Schellenberger on and
00:25:26.000
Bjorn Lombok as well. A couple of people who are sort of halfway on these issues. I think
00:25:32.800
we'll see what exactly they say. But I want to be educated on this issue more because I
00:25:43.940
No. In USSR, we cancelled Christmas and we had Leninfest instead.
1.00
00:25:48.780
We celebrated glorious leader and rewrote story of Jesus to make it better.
00:25:54.320
Yes. In our story, three wise men were killed and gifts meant for Jesus redistributed to
00:25:59.440
glorious workers of the Soviet Union. Jesus was put on gulag for having wrong opinion.
00:26:07.160
Right. Well, if you do want to celebrate the festive season, then there's only one way to
00:26:12.240
do it. Grab yourself a ticket to our final live show of the year at the Leicester Square
00:26:20.820
Yes. It is discussion with one of our favorite guests, Aisha Akanbi. She is almost as good
00:26:29.160
Yeah, exactly. Our two previous shows sold out completely. And this one will as well.
00:26:38.860
Click on link below. During interval, there will be special entertainment. I will ride
00:26:46.000
I didn't realize we were going for that demographic, mate.
00:26:50.480
And that's the point. The problem is, is that when you look at the climate change debate,
00:27:00.120
to me, it's encased in hyperbole. We've got, what have I heard? We've got 50 good harvests
00:27:11.800
Yeah, yeah. That would really upset me. The fact that, you know, that certain parts of
00:27:16.720
the world will be underwater, that other parts will be on fire, that other parts will become
00:27:21.680
uninhabitable, that the fires in Australia and California are just a starter. And then
00:27:32.280
what we're going to see is going to be even worse over the coming years.
00:27:35.840
And you're looking at this, and I don't see, I can't see sensible, rational discussion about
00:27:47.120
Well, for starters, in terms of fires and other individual climate events, no legitimate scientist
00:27:52.440
would ever claim to be able to directly correlate an individual fire, which have been happening
00:27:57.680
for millennia, for millions of years, in fact, with a specific trend in the climate.
00:28:04.120
Yeah. You can't, no, no credible scientist would claim to be able to prove that sort of
00:28:09.880
causality. And we had this situation the other day with this COP26 happening. And some, it
00:28:16.020
was someone, I think, from a major, major news organization who said, I'm on the train to
00:28:21.080
Glasgow. There's leaves caused by climate change on, on the tracks. Right. People are now starting
00:28:27.180
to, to pretend that everything is to do with climate change. Well, actually, is that really
00:28:32.600
true? Do you know what I mean? And the more this hysteria continues, the harder it's going
00:28:36.440
to be to believe. Yeah. Yeah. And look, I'm going to be honest with you. When it's this
00:28:41.460
doomsday prophecies, I don't want to engage with it. When it's things, you know, you read
00:28:50.000
an article about how everything's dead, that, you know, there's, the oceans are empty. There
00:28:55.700
are no more fish. You go, well, what's the point? What's the point? You need to give people
00:29:02.880
a sense of hope. That they can do something about it. I think it's really important that
00:29:11.420
we sit down and actually have a proper discussion about this. Actually have a proper discussion
00:29:16.220
instead of what it feels like, which is fear mongering.
00:29:19.260
We will. We will definitely do that. We've got guests coming up and we'll keep exploring
00:29:23.380
that issue. But let's talk about cultural stuff, because so far we've talked about the
00:29:27.200
big chunky things, which was actually one of the things, one of the reasons we started
00:29:32.040
the show. We wanted to discuss the big serious issues, economics, you know, politics, all of
00:29:38.600
Yeah. And, you know, it wasn't a big issue at the time, but it has become one. What about
00:29:43.780
culture? What do you see as the cultural issues that keep coming up? Do you think, do you
00:29:49.240
think they went, you know, I say they, the sort of woke left, they went for race, they
00:29:54.860
went. So the way I see it is they started with feminism, right? And they tried to alienate
00:30:01.220
men from women and women from men. And it didn't quite work. Yeah. Right. Now you're starting
0.61
00:30:06.380
to see a big pushback in America, particularly where this stuff really originated against critical
00:30:11.560
race theory, against teaching white people that they're guilty and teaching black people
00:30:15.720
that they're oppressed. And you're starting to see some successes in that fight back.
00:30:20.860
Parents going into schools and saying, we won't stand for this. Elections are now being
00:30:24.660
turned on this issue, et cetera. Do you think the race thing is going to die down?
00:30:34.120
I think, look, I think part of this is again to do with COVID. And I think we descended into
00:30:42.320
insanity in June, 2020, when we saw everything that happened with the murder of George Floyd,
00:30:49.980
all the repercussions, all the demonstrations. That was a form of hysteria brought about by
00:30:55.180
physically locking people in their own homes and then mainlining social media into their
00:31:00.300
ribals 24-7. That was a result of that. I don't think we're going to get to that peak again.
00:31:07.560
I don't think we're going to see that level of hysteria. But I think it's going to carry on.
00:31:15.700
But do you not think it's just got too ridiculous now?
0.99
00:31:19.540
Like, they're literally calling, they're calling black people white supremacists now.
0.98
00:31:24.820
You don't think that at some point that they're just, they're just going to become so discredited
0.63
00:31:29.240
that no one listens to them anymore. Because I see this, I see people talking about this now
00:31:34.900
popping up on CNN, that idiot Brian Stelter now is actually having reasonable conversations about
0.99
00:31:40.320
this. Bill Maher, who I've always respected anyway, but he's now saying, look, if CRT is about telling
0.99
00:31:46.960
black people they're not going to make it and white people that they're evil, I'm out. People are
0.92
00:31:51.280
becoming more emboldened and speaking out against it as the craziness becomes more aggressive.
00:31:56.140
Okay. Or am I just being too hopeful and optimistic?
00:32:00.920
Maybe you are being too hopeful and too optimistic. But then you look at things like the Labour
00:32:05.520
Party and you saw that clip where he was saying, you know, there's too many white men speaking.
00:32:12.460
I think this is already endemic in the culture. The seeds have already been sown.
00:32:16.520
Right. But isn't that, but do you not think that because it's that ridiculous, people are going
0.89
00:32:22.200
to turn off it? Because look, we talked about this off camera and I actually think this is
0.52
00:32:27.680
a good point to bring up the Labour Party. You know, the only way the Labour Party becomes
00:32:33.820
relevant again is if they start addressing real issues. Right. Real issues being the housing
00:32:40.580
Inequality. Right. These are the things that people in this country actually care about.
00:32:44.900
But they don't want to be relevant. They want to be right. We always say this. We all have
00:32:50.680
this discussion. They don't care. They don't care about being relevant.
00:32:53.980
Well, as was the case in the mid-90s. And then Blair comes along and Brown comes along
00:32:59.540
and Mandelson comes along and they transform the party. They take it towards the centre and
00:33:04.440
they say, look, let's stop obsessing about how we divide the pie and how evil the Tories
00:33:12.020
Yeah, but there wasn't social media then. Social media has played a huge factor. These people
00:33:18.000
have got enormous sway and power. There are people on the momentum left who have got hundreds
00:33:23.400
of thousands of followers on Twitter who can create a Twitter storm.
00:33:28.360
But you don't think loss after loss after loss after loss in elections is going to get them
00:33:35.860
No. Look at the people we knew in the comedy industry.
00:33:38.380
Yeah, but they're idiots. That's why they're in the comedy industry.
1.00
00:33:41.080
Yeah, but they were all in the Labour Party. And they're all in that particular side of
00:33:45.960
But the Labour Party does have a lot of sensible people. The Paul Embrys of the world, right?
00:33:49.800
A lot of people have left the Labour Party who are sensible constantly.
00:33:53.600
A friend of ours, you know, who is Tom Buick, who I do, who I know very well. He was a former,
00:34:01.480
he was a former advisor, educational advisor to the Gordon Brown government. He resigned from
00:34:09.480
from Labour because of Brexit. There's a lot of very sensible, very sane people who have left
00:34:17.160
the Labour Party. You go, okay, look, Paul Embry, name me three other people who you think are
00:34:25.760
Yeah, I suspect there are more people who are sensible in Labour. The problem is they're not
00:34:32.880
Yes. And we say, all right, the Labour Party are going to be sensible. Well, let's go back
00:34:39.780
to cervix gate. Should women be allowed to, should, should you be able to say that women
1.00
00:34:49.320
Keir Starmer behaved like he'd just seen a cervix in front of him. He just, right in front
00:34:55.500
of him in glorious tanny colour. He didn't know what to say. David Lammy said something
00:34:59.880
ridiculous, like maybe you can grow your own. What? Something along those lines. We might
0.98
00:35:06.460
We're going to need to fact check that. I'm not sure that's what he said exactly.
00:35:09.160
Yeah, but maybe something along those lines. I can't remember. I just remember it was
00:35:16.640
Yeah. Right. No, Boris didn't. Boris dealt with it. He didn't... You forget. We have a go
00:35:24.960
at Boris all the time. We don't actually acknowledge how skilful Boris can be. And Boris dealt with
00:35:31.340
that beautifully. He just went, look, I believe it's important that we treat everyone with
00:35:38.920
You know, and you know, there is biological sex, but there's also gender. And every time,
1.00
00:35:52.980
And made everyone feel like he agreed with them.
00:35:55.040
Yes, exactly. Right. But Labour can't... The head of the Labour Party can't even say
00:36:04.020
that women have a cervix. So how are you going to appeal to women, mate? David Lammy...
0.94
00:36:09.660
It's a question I've been trying to work out for a long time, unsuccessfully.
00:36:13.280
David Lammy... Again, there's people who have very strong opinions of David Lammy. He's a
00:36:18.360
very intelligent man. He's Harvard educated. He's lost his mind on this as well. So that
00:36:28.460
Well, that's my point. They're not going to win for a very long time. And I imagine the
00:36:32.080
process of losing over and over and over produces a desire to change things. That's what happened
00:36:39.160
to Labour in the early 90s. The party had been banging on about the same outdated shit that
0.99
00:36:46.840
the public didn't care about. They lost economic credibility. They weren't respected. And they
1.00
00:36:53.060
hadn't been elected for ages. And eventually, someone comes along who believes in the key
00:36:58.780
stuff. And look, we should talk about inequality and the economic situation.
00:37:03.860
Before we go there, and we will talk about that, I'm with Brett Weinstein on this. I think
00:37:12.420
No, but he said our institutions. And I think the Labour Party is an institution that is no
00:37:18.060
longer fit for purpose, that is completely discredited.
00:37:35.240
Interesting. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I think they, with the right
00:37:40.660
people in charge, they can, they'll, well, where was Tony Blair in, in 1987? He was a
00:37:48.460
lawyer. No one had heard of him, right? But he came in and look, it sounds like I'm praising
00:37:52.860
Tony Blair, this bloody shot. I'm not a fan in terms of his Iraq policy, his immigration
00:37:57.580
policy and whatever. But you can't deny, transformed the Labour Party was one of the most successful
00:38:03.000
in terms of electorally British prime ministers in modern history, right? So people like that
00:38:08.680
come along every now and again, and they change, they can change direction, the direction of
00:38:13.960
the party. But, but the way that you do that, though, Francis, is you start talking to
00:38:19.540
the majority. And what do the majority of people in this country care about? They care about
00:38:25.060
economic inequality, and increasingly, and we talked about this as well, housing, right?
00:38:30.060
Particularly people of our generation. And our generation, I remind you, is getting older,
00:38:50.520
Okay. So you're old. I'm getting there as well. So my point is, if people of our generation,
00:38:58.040
which they are, are unable to buy property, right? That's going to be a huge issue politically
00:39:03.440
and electorally. And the party that addresses that, I think, will, will have the support of
00:39:10.760
the people who were there at that time for generations. For generations. That would be,
00:39:18.000
whoever can sort that issue out is going to have incredible widespread support, particularly if
00:39:26.120
they're a Tory. Particularly if they're a Tory. Because what that will then happen is they will have,
00:39:32.440
they will retain the support of the Shire Tories, even though those people don't necessarily want
00:39:36.680
the housing problem to be fixed. And in many ways, it's not in their interest to have the housing
00:39:40.340
problem fixed. But they'll still vote Tory. And then you get ordinary people, working class people
0.65
00:39:47.480
on board with that, because they're the ones that are suffering the most. It's not the kids of the
00:39:51.120
lawyer and the banker who are not able to get on the housing market, right?
00:39:58.040
But look, we've spoken about this in many a car drive. It does, it's not in there,
00:40:04.500
I think it's coming to the point. You made this point, Charlotte Gill.
00:40:08.660
Charlotte Gill, who's the deputy editor of Conservative Woman. Tom Harwood, who is clearly
00:40:14.680
a right-leaning journalist on GB News. All I see when I look on Twitter is those two complaining
00:40:20.500
about not being able to get on the housing ladder and renting forever. Right? Now, if people
00:40:25.180
like that are struggling to get on the housing ladder, what does that mean for someone who's got
00:40:32.580
a quote-unquote normal job? Someone who works in a supermarket? Someone who drives a van and is an
00:40:42.940
electrician or whatever? These are very necessary, important jobs. Yeah.
00:40:46.980
And they are much more representative of the country than Tom Harwood or Charlotte Gill. Right?
00:40:52.540
But I think we forget, man. This is one of the things that has happened in the last
00:40:58.620
50, 60, 70 years. You used to be able to feed a family of four on one person's income. And when I
00:41:07.280
mean feed, I mean have a house. Right? In America, this was very much the case. Think about the movies
00:41:14.000
from the 50s. Yeah. Mum was at home. Yeah. How it should be. You know what I mean. Yeah. Right? One
00:41:21.780
income feeds a family of four. And that person wasn't a CEO of a bank. No. That person worked in a
00:41:28.940
factory. Yeah. They worked in an office. They weren't necessarily, you know, creating a multi-million
00:41:34.660
dollar business. They were just a normal person who went to work, did their duty, buy their family,
00:41:39.580
buy their country, whatever. And they were fine. Is that possible now? No. Can you feed a family of
00:41:45.520
four on one income? No. In a normal job? So for all the progress we keep talking about, how we've made
00:41:52.240
progress on this and progress on that, and we no longer mean to gaze or whatever, which is great.
00:41:56.820
But the reality is, economically, society's regressed. Now, you can buy better things and quality of life
00:42:04.380
has improved. But people have now found themselves in a wage trap, right, where housing prices keep
00:42:12.040
going up massively, wages are not, and more and more members of your family have to work to keep you
00:42:17.740
fed. Right? That is a problem. Yeah. That is a problem. It's a problem societally because what
00:42:25.140
happens is, you know, Peter Hitchens talked about it on a live show, no one's supposed to talk about this
00:42:29.400
because we're all supposed to pretend that the emancipation of women has been consequence-free,
00:42:34.640
right? And it's been a great thing that people can do what they want with their life. No one wants
00:42:38.740
women back in the kitchen or any of that. But at the same time, if you're telling me that all women
1.00
00:42:44.800
want to be a wage slave in an office rather than raising their own children at home, well, you're lying.
00:42:50.000
Yeah. And what happens when children aren't being raised by their parents, they're being shipped off
00:42:56.060
to school at the age of three, which is what's happening now. I know people who've got kids who
00:43:00.920
are two and three years old. Very few of them are being cared by their own parents. No, they get sent
00:43:04.960
to nursery at school. Schools now have nurseries, primary schools. Right. Do you honestly, does anyone,
00:43:10.300
is anyone honestly trying to tell me that a generation of children who've basically barely seen their
00:43:15.540
parents and are in some kind of mass indoctrination system by the age of three, are you telling me that
00:43:21.640
that is better for society? No. So we've regressed massively as a result of the economic situation
00:43:31.060
in which more and more people, they're not given the option. See, the emancipation thing was about
00:43:36.800
options. It was about giving people freedom. But what we've ended up instead is people not having the
00:43:41.640
freedom, people being forced into a particular pipeline by the economic circumstances where you work
00:43:46.920
or die. Both parents have to work or your quality of life is going to be that much worse that it's
00:43:53.620
just, it's not a decision most people can afford to make. I mean, look, this is actually one of the
00:43:59.680
benefits of COVID in that the reality is now for a lot of jobs, you don't and shouldn't have to be
00:44:08.620
in the office five days a week. Most people, you could argue, one day a week. They're going to the
00:44:15.020
office, they do what they need to do or maybe two, which means they don't have to live in cities,
00:44:19.580
which means they can live outside of London, which means that the property is more affordable,
00:44:25.640
which means they will have a better quality of life because they'll be around their kids for
00:44:29.320
longer. Yeah. But the reality is as well, this is a problem and this is again why I have a problem
00:44:35.500
with the left pointing the finger at the right because Blair didn't solve this problem. It started
00:44:41.160
with Thatcher. Then it was handed on to Major. He didn't solve it. Then it went to Blair. He didn't
00:44:48.280
do anything about it, even though he's on the left and you'd think he'd be building council houses
0.97
00:44:52.100
because that's a classic. Or just houses. Or houses, but particularly council houses because
00:44:56.580
we never replenished the stock once Thatcher built them. Then we move. Thatcher sold them off. Yeah,
0.97
00:45:01.800
sorry, once Thatcher sold them off. Thank you. And then now 11 years of a Tory government who've done
00:45:07.000
nothing about it whatsoever. So this has been a problem for since I was born
00:45:14.240
and you are now approaching crisis point. We're not even approaching. We're now at crisis point.
00:45:22.900
And what do we do? And what do we do about it? Because the reality is that is having an impact
00:45:28.360
right the way through our culture. Like we always say about millennials, oh, blah, blah, blah. You know,
00:45:34.780
they don't grow up. They don't, you know, they're always moaning. They're always behaving like
00:45:39.120
children. They're in their thirties. Well, of course they're behaving like children. They live
00:45:43.060
like teenagers. They live like 22 year olds in a flat share, five to a flat share. Of course you're
00:45:49.440
going to behave like a teenager because what incentive have you got to settle down? What incentives have
00:45:54.360
you got to have kids if you can't buy a place? How can you be conservative if you've got nothing to
00:45:58.820
conserve? It's ridiculous. So I have a great deal of sympathy for our generation and people
0.98
00:46:07.480
looking down and saying, oh, you know, you're feckless and you're behaving in a manner that is
00:46:11.680
immature. But there's no point in being mature because you can't live a mature life. So what's
00:46:18.320
I mean, my only challenge to that would be that it is possible to get through that,
00:46:22.140
but it's just that much harder. It's that much harder.
00:46:25.000
For a lot of people, it's impossible to buy a place. It's that much harder, I would argue.
00:46:29.620
But yeah, yeah. I always think whatever the circumstances, you've got to strive to overcome
00:46:34.400
them. But I agree with you. It's that much harder for people.
00:46:37.260
You know, and the people, practically everyone that I know, and again, this is anecdotal information,
00:46:42.940
who has bought a place, has done it because of inherited money.
00:46:51.920
No, you're just hanging around with loser comedians. Of course that's the case.
0.99
00:46:55.000
No, the people, all that I know, the people who have bought places, is because their parents
00:47:00.040
or their grandparents are getting money. And look, they've got good jobs and that means
00:47:03.300
that they can afford it. But granny died. They got 70 grand. That means they put a deposit
00:47:09.100
down on a flat. And I'm not, I am bitter. I'm going to retract that. But society can't function
00:47:17.520
like that. Because then you have got people from the lowest economic strata who want to improve,
00:47:24.140
who want to move their life forward. And they're seeing this entire section of society
00:47:30.680
It's true. Look, we've talked about it a lot, and I'm sure we'll keep talking about it. I think we
00:47:35.420
should cover one more topic before we go to our locals' questions, which is comedy. What do you
00:47:40.160
think is the future of comedy? Because I've taken a step back from it for the moment. I'm working on
00:47:44.660
my book, which will be out middle of next year. That's been my project that I've been doing in
00:47:51.680
addition to trigonometry, which takes up an extraordinary amount of our time, even though we keep
00:47:56.680
growing the team. And every time we can afford to, we hire a new person to help us do a bit more of
00:48:01.860
the show. Whereas you've, you've, you've been focusing on, on getting ready for your tour and
00:48:08.040
getting your show ready. So I imagine you have some thoughts on, on comedy and where it might be going.
00:48:14.900
Right. As far comedy, it's the best of times and the worst of times. It's the best of times because
00:48:22.540
look around, look what we've done, look what we've created. We were two comedians with no backing,
00:48:28.160
no finances, nothing. Yeah. But we had to give up everything. Right. We had to risk everything to
00:48:33.200
do this. Yeah. And for every one of us, there'll be 20 people who failed. Yeah. Who didn't make it,
00:48:39.120
who are not successful. You know, and by the way, when we say successful, I still think of us as a
00:48:44.000
tiny YouTube channel. We are a tiny YouTube channel. Compared to where we're going. Yeah. Right.
00:48:47.900
But for every one of us, there's 20 or maybe 200 or maybe 2000 people who had an idea who gave it a
00:48:54.700
bit of a shot and never quite made it. Yeah. But that's comedy. How many people start on the
00:48:58.220
open mic? True. Who have a, have a dream, whatever else. And yeah, we're just better. Anyway, carry on.
00:49:05.200
And it didn't succeed. So if you have a dream, if you have a dream, if you've got talent,
00:49:10.520
if you've got drive, if you have got discipline. Good looks. Yeah, exactly. Great tashes. Then
00:49:16.980
there's a chance you can do something. There's a chance that you can grow a following. There's a
00:49:21.780
chance that actually you'll be able to carve out a niche for yourself. So there is that. The problem
00:49:28.920
is in the mainstream, the problem is when it comes to political comedy, for example, where I was
00:49:38.340
talking with this guy in comedy, this producer or commissioner a couple of days ago. TV commissioner.
00:49:44.620
TV commissioner. That's the one. And we were talking about Stuart Lee. And I said, look,
00:49:48.980
I think Stuart Lee's great. He's overrated, but that's another conversation for another time.
00:49:53.740
I don't agree with you, actually. He wouldn't have made it in America, mate. Sorry.
00:49:57.300
Yeah, but that's because British people are just... No, that's because American comedians
00:50:00.560
are better. It's a higher standard fact. No, no. See, I don't know. This is not true,
00:50:05.220
Francis. Yeah, it is. You don't like Stuart Lee because he's a snob.
00:50:07.640
No. And I like Stuart Lee because he's a snob. That's the difference. Stuart Lee is... He pioneered
00:50:14.120
a different style of comedy. That is something very special. You just can't compare him to Bill
00:50:21.220
Boat. It's a different way of doing comedy. It's just a different thing for a different audience
00:50:26.000
and done in a very different way. He is a genius at comedy. You just happen to be triggered by it,
00:50:33.660
which is fine. You're entitled to that view because he is a snob. He's an intellectual snob
00:50:38.820
and there's an audience of people there for that. That's all.
00:50:42.960
No, I... Anyway, I disagree. He's overrated. But anyways,
00:50:47.280
thank you, right? Okay, so you've got Stuart Lee and I was talking to him and I was saying,
00:50:52.080
look, comedy's biased. He went, give me an example. I went, okay, Stuart Lee,
00:50:55.140
you've got a Stuart Lee of the left. Why is there not a Stuart Lee of the right? And he went,
00:50:59.240
well, why should we have a Stuart Lee of the right? And I went, well,
00:51:02.360
it's called balance, isn't it? And he went, all right, but what would Stuart Lee of the right
00:51:06.600
talk about? And I said, well, they'd criticise Greta Thunberg, number one, because Greta Thunberg,
0.92
00:51:11.980
why has she been given the platform that she has? She's not a climate scientist. She doesn't have
0.99
00:51:15.780
all the arguments I spoke about before. He went, well, that's got nothing to do with politics.
00:51:20.020
That's social. And I went, well, it's got to do with politics because what she wants to implement
1.00
00:51:26.140
in this country and around the world is going to affect us and it's going to affect our politics.
00:51:32.120
He went, oh, what else? I went, well, BLM. Why is it that everybody went nuts over an organisation
00:51:38.440
that has the words in it, abolish capitalism, defund the police? Why did no one investigate
00:51:44.440
or challenge these ideas? And he went, well, look, you've got, I think, you know, I agree
00:51:49.680
with the fact that black lives matter. I'm like, mate, I'm not disagreeing with the fact
00:51:56.040
that black lives matter. You know? I agree with that. I think 99.9% of people do, right?
00:52:06.000
And if you don't, you're a desperately unpleasant human being, right? Nobody, very few people
00:52:13.280
disagree. Yeah, but it's a deliberate conflation. Yeah, it's a deliberate conflation anyway. And
00:52:18.020
then he got very awkward, shook my hand and walked off. Yeah. And these are the people
00:52:20.940
who run comedy. These are the people who run comedy. These are the tastemakers. These
00:52:24.320
are the people. So what you have is you have sacred cows in comedy that you were never going
00:52:30.780
to be able to touch. You are never going to be able to go for. You're never going to be
00:52:35.000
able to take the piss out of. But, but, here's where I push back. Comedy Unleashed
0.59
00:52:41.220
are talking to TV. They did a pilot. So at least TV are interested in exploring that. People
00:52:49.000
are talking to us about doing a satirical show on TV, right? Now, whether that's going
00:52:53.220
to happen or not, we don't know. But to me, the fact that those conversations, they were
00:52:57.300
not being had three years ago. Yeah. Right? They're being had now. Maybe a few years from
00:53:02.000
now. See, this is the problem. It's your optimism. It lets you down time and time again. It does.
00:53:09.220
Mate, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Right? The pendulum
00:53:23.500
No, you haven't. Yes, I have. And you were going to me, there's going to be a lot of
00:53:26.540
lockdown. I go, no, they're not. It's going to be, they're going to do vaccine passports.
0.79
00:53:30.400
That's going to happen. Listen to Fostradamus. Listen.
00:53:34.660
Mate, well, that's actually more Nostradamus. Yeah. But, no, I don't think so. I don't think
00:53:42.140
so because you are going to have to change the people for that to happen.
00:53:49.300
Yeah. But all it takes, though, Francis, look, if you and I, and it's going to sound,
00:53:55.180
you know, big headed and whatever. But, but genuinely, if you and I, remember the work
00:54:00.900
that was that we did and we'll be doing more of it. If we did that with, with a TV budget
00:54:06.460
and a TV project behind us, that would be the most popular comedy show in this country.
00:54:11.820
You really think they're going to let us go on TV and take the piss out of BLM? Is that
00:54:16.660
really what you're saying? Maybe for one show. You really think they're going to let two
00:54:25.040
middle aged in your words, straight white males come on and, and take the piss out of BLM?
0.99
00:54:30.760
Look, mate, you can take a bumming and I'll, you know, I'll brown out, brown up a bit more
0.99
00:54:40.680
I, I, look, God bless you and your optimism and your immigrant optimism and we can change
00:54:47.140
things and, nah, it's not going to happen. And when I went to, and I talked to these people,
00:54:53.560
it just isn't, it's like the BBC. I love the BBC. I do. I do. And, and I take no joy in seeing it
00:55:02.640
being criticised. I take no joy in seeing what it's becoming. I take no joy in any of it.
00:55:09.020
But it can't change because the people in there are all the same type of people with the same,
00:55:15.380
and they're not bad people. They're not bad people.
00:55:18.920
But they should be killed. No, they're not bad people. But they just think and view the world
1.00
00:55:25.380
Well, fuck it then. We'll do it ourselves.
1.00
00:55:26.900
But this is a point. And this is why this exists. And this is why we've achieved this.
00:55:30.360
We'll just do it ourselves. Once we have enough resources to allocate enough time to doing the
00:55:36.540
If they don't want to do it on TV, fuck them. We'll make it ourselves. And we'll make it bigger.
1.00
00:55:41.260
And then they're going to come cap in hand asking us to come on their show and we'll tell them to go
1.00
00:55:45.320
And you look at what has happened to all the satirical shows. Look at Charlie Brooker.
1.00
00:55:57.780
If we made the show, that's what it would be like.
00:56:01.160
Yeah. But we're both huge fans of Charlie Brooker.
00:56:07.240
Yeah, his early work. Brilliant. What it became now.
00:56:12.340
So there we go. There we go. I don't think it's going to change because the people in it
00:56:19.540
view certain issues in a particular way. And I'll tell you why. It's because we've conflated
00:56:26.320
politics with morality. It's not about arguments anymore. It's not about debate. It's about morality.
00:56:33.300
See, I don't think it's that, although that is a factor. It's a more complicated thing because
00:56:37.140
politics is always partly about morality, in my opinion. I think we've conflated comedy with
00:56:41.700
politics. That's the real reason comedy is struggling. We've conflated comedy with politics.
00:56:46.920
Everything now is political. You can't just make fun of politicians without people assuming
00:56:55.440
But what does that mean, though, the side of the other people? Let's dig into that.
00:56:59.220
It means that you are an activist as opposed to a comedian.
00:57:02.780
But let's go deeper. What does that mean? If you're an activist for the other side?
00:57:05.660
No, I know where you're trying to take this, but I don't agree. I think the argument about
00:57:11.580
conflating politics with morality is inaccurate because politics is always about morality.
00:57:17.280
Politics is always about what you think is the right thing to do. Do you look after these people
00:57:21.360
or those people? Do you maximize freedom or do you maximize safety? Do you give people the freedom
00:57:27.960
to succeed or fail on their merit? Or do you take from the successful in order to look after the
00:57:33.420
unsuccessful? That's politics. And where you place that marker in your own mind is about morality.
00:57:40.460
So I don't think, you know, I know what you mean, but I don't think morality and politics have ever
00:57:48.340
But, OK, I take your point and I agree with it, but it has mushroomed to such an extent now.
00:57:55.820
It has mushroomed to such an extent. Whereas before, you could see people of, you know,
00:58:03.240
left and right sitting down having a discussion.
00:58:06.480
I think it's just because we think in black and white now. We don't see the shades of gray anymore.
00:58:15.380
Right, exactly. It's like what we were talking about with the climate change thing.
00:58:18.900
To say what we said, which is, I don't know, is unacceptable now.
00:58:25.100
I don't know. If you went on TV and said, look, I'm a comedian. I don't know about climate change.
00:58:31.900
I hear some people who I respect saying that it's happening. I hear some people who I respect saying,
00:58:37.420
not that it's happening. It's happening because of human activity and other people saying it's
00:58:41.180
happening not because of human activity. So I don't know. I don't know what to think.
00:58:44.960
Like, I recycle my, I wash out my tuna tins and whatever and recycle, you know, and I try not to,
00:58:52.900
you know, keep my car running when I'm not using it. That's what I do, right? If you said that,
00:58:57.200
they'd be like, yeah, but what about, they would make it about you having to have an opinion.
00:59:01.820
And that's because everything is black and white now.
00:59:05.160
Everything. You can't, you can't be unsure of anything. You have to,
00:59:09.320
you have to commit to a particular ideological position.
00:59:12.240
And I think that's where a lot of this stuff's come from, where it's like you're either fully
00:59:17.020
on the right or you're fully on the left. Yeah.
00:59:19.840
Which is ironic because the people mostly who are pushing this way of thinking are people who
00:59:25.760
You can be non-binary in every way except politically. Yeah.
0.77
00:59:34.340
You know, people want you and I to be on the right or on the left. And you increasingly,
00:59:39.280
this is the thing that worries me is people on the right are now buying into this thing as well.
00:59:43.480
Because, you know, the reason that in many ways, I think we get on better with people on the right,
00:59:48.660
even though you and I are not on the right, is that they have at least preserved for the most part
00:59:55.160
They are tolerant of people with different opinions, even if they don't agree with them
00:59:58.400
for the most part. But you're now seeing that, particularly with COVID, but I think more
01:00:03.260
generally, this sort of like, you know, this idiot that wrote an article after our David
0.94
01:00:07.400
Starkey interview saying how, oh, you know, David Starkey's not one of us because he thinks
0.97
01:00:11.940
mandatory vaccinations should be done. Well, you and I couldn't be more vehemently opposed
01:00:16.180
to mandatory vaccinations. Didn't stop us from having a really good conversation with David.
01:00:20.880
We pushed back on him. He said he wanted to agree to disagree. And that's what happened.
01:00:24.520
But a lot of people now are developing this black and white thinking on the right too.
01:00:29.380
And that's a problem. Yeah, it's a huge problem. But then filter it back into comedy.
01:00:36.880
You need people who are balanced. Yeah. Well, in order to produce the content, which makes me,
01:00:42.940
which makes me think that it's never going to happen. And look, we're going to have conversations.
01:00:48.060
And look, they've done a pilot done. But until I see it in front of my eyes,
01:00:59.620
But it's a no-brainer, Francis. There's got to be a person with balls. And there can be a woman,
1.00
01:01:04.320
you know, because it's 2021. There's got to be a person with balls somewhere in a TV studio
0.85
01:01:08.780
watching this conversation right now. Because the people in that world watch our show.
0.92
01:01:13.440
And they've got to know that what I'm saying is true, because it is.
01:01:16.440
If people like us and other people, Andrew Doyle, that we would get involved and Jeff and others
01:01:21.980
made a comedy show that punched in every direction, it would be the most successful comedy show
01:01:29.880
It would be. Because you're getting people, you know, the Leos, the Jeffs, the me, the you,
01:01:34.300
the Andrews, who we've had to prove our ability to do things in spite of the whole system being
01:01:42.800
Right? So we know what we're doing. And we've, you know, we've got, the pudding is there.
01:01:48.260
The proof of the pudding is there. So they, it's a, it's a, it's a slam dunk. It's a guaranteed win.
01:01:58.580
What about the leader of the Labour Party? What happens if the Labour, leader of the Labour Party
0.97
01:02:02.300
came out and went, I respect trans people, but biological sex is real. And let's stop behaving like
1.00
01:02:09.500
that's what Starmer should have done. Yeah. He should have done that. I said this. I said this
01:02:14.160
the day he became leader. He needs to come out and pick a fight. I agree with you. And then you
01:02:19.000
can transform the party. I am not disagreeing with you. My point is he hasn't done it.
01:02:23.580
Yes. Cause he's a coward. Right. He hasn't done it. And they're not going to do it.
1.00
01:02:31.560
It doesn't matter. That's the path to success. The fact that you're right doesn't make it any more
01:02:35.960
likely to happen. I don't agree with that though. I think the fact that I'm right means
01:02:40.920
that there will eventually come somebody who understands that and it doesn't care about the
01:02:44.520
consequences. The short-term consequences. Someone who's prepared to take a risk and, and just,
01:02:51.960
just, just take the flack for, for, for a few weeks and then everyone's going to shut the fuck
0.95
01:02:57.060
up about it. See, this is the thing with cancel culture, man. They only come after people who are
0.97
01:03:03.040
vulnerable. Canceled people are just playground bullies. They only go after people who are
01:03:10.560
vulnerable. That's why they've never tried to cancel us. They have. Some comedians tried to
01:03:16.980
get our agent to drop us. They didn't even do it properly. They talked about it. It never happened.
01:03:21.660
Right. Cause they know it's not going to happen. They know it's not going to happen. They can't
01:03:26.240
cancel our YouTube channel. They can't cancel the show. They can't cancel my Twitter. They can't
01:03:29.840
cancel your, they can't. So they don't go after us anymore. They do go after us. Our, our Instagram
01:03:34.780
has been absolutely strangled because of complaints people have made. And as a result of that, we've
01:03:40.580
got a 90 day ban on our Instagram. We have now got warnings, our Instagram, where people try and
01:03:46.280
follow us saying, do you really want to follow this, this account? And we've taken views that used
01:03:52.120
to be 5,000 on clips now get 150. So there's actually no more point for us to be on Instagram
01:03:58.640
really. Which is what I said from the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. So just because it's not overt doesn't
01:04:04.340
mean that it's not happening. What I mean is if a TV company made a genuinely balanced satirical show
01:04:11.080
like the one that you and I would make, cause we spend more time attacking the Tories on Raw than we,
01:04:15.860
than we do anyone else. Fucking hate Johnson. Yeah. So if they just said, you know,
0.99
01:04:21.340
if they just came out and went, I hear that some people on Twitter are upset. We have this channel
01:04:26.980
believe in creating different types of content. We fully back this project and we don't care.
01:04:33.500
There's got to be one person out there like that. Just the person who's made enough money.
01:04:37.820
It doesn't care anymore. It's got to be one person like that. It's got to be.
01:04:44.160
Are you out there? Cause if you have, I haven't fucking met you.
0.99
01:04:48.140
Look, I love your optimism. Great. Good for you.
0.98
01:04:50.860
But look, I don't, I, I, it's not optimism. I'm just saying that's a possibility.
01:04:54.820
The reality is if that doesn't happen in a very cynical way, that's good for us.
01:05:02.860
We'll make our own shit. We'll make our own work that was,
1.00
01:05:05.140
and we'll put more resources into it and we'll keep making it and it's going to get huge.
01:05:10.640
If that's, if that's how they want to play it, fine.
01:05:12.560
Yeah. Fine. We're going to, we're going to find a way one way or another.
01:05:15.740
The reality is as well, TV is dead. TV is dead. The viewing figures are through the floor.
01:05:22.180
I've heard on the grapevine, I don't know how true it is that this is the last series of live at the Apollo
01:05:30.640
Now that may not be true, but that's what I've heard on the grapevine.
01:05:33.920
Yeah. The viewing figures are through the floor. Nobody watches it. The quality has gone down.
01:05:39.940
We all know that it has. Nobody's allowed to say it, but it's true. If you look back at the,
01:05:43.360
you know, halcyon days of McIntyre, of Mickey Flanagan, of all these people coming on and,
01:05:49.560
you know, and doing brilliant comedy and packing out arenas. As a result, Kevin Bridges doing Michael
01:05:56.520
McIntyre's road show, smashing it up. Simon Evans, former guest of ours, to where we are now.
01:06:02.360
People watch this and go, well, this isn't funny. That's where we are.
01:06:09.240
Well, on that happy note, Francis, we'll do some locals questions. But in the meantime, guys,
01:06:13.740
thank you so much for joining us for this conversation today. Head on over to locals to
01:06:18.120
see the answers to the questions you've been asking over there. And also remember, we're doing
01:06:22.360
Movember for Prostate Cancer UK. The link should be available somewhere in the video to support this
01:06:27.200
great cause. Thank you for watching and we'll see you very soon.
01:06:32.360
We hope you've enjoyed this incredible interview. Remember to subscribe and hit the bell button
01:06:38.520
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