Why Labour Keep Losing - Geoff Norcott
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Summary
In this episode of Trigonometry, Francis and Constantine are joined by comedian Geoff Norcock to discuss why the Tories are gaining ground among the working class, particularly in the North of England. They talk about why this is happening and why it matters to them.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
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And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
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We do have a fascinating guest for you today, but just to set the context,
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we're recording this the day after the local elections in the UK,
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where the Conservative Party, which has been in power for 11 years,
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particularly by capturing the working class vote.
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So we thought, who better to get back on the show than our regular,
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Yeah, I mean, I was thinking when I was on this before,
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about what's likely to happen for quite a while.
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I think there's a few people that have been saying this
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There was this iceberg that the Labour Party were warned about.
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And they said, no, no, we just keep fucking sailing towards that iceberg.
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I think we could sort of chicane around that iceberg.
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And it's interesting, you know, like in terms of normally,
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As this is happening, I find myself slightly melancholic
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and when England play Australia, you want to beat Australia.
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But, I mean, there was a period when we were battering them at home.
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And I think there's probably something true about that in politics as well.
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Well, the thing with you is you didn't always vote Tory, right?
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And you've written a book, which is called Where I Went Right,
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this kind of comes out on the Thursday the 13th of May I mean and all anybody's talking about at
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the moment is about the migration of working class voters away from the Labour Party um
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interestingly you know the way that the pandemic's gone there were times last year because we finished
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the manuscript um you know I filed it in November and I was like Jesus like this is gonna look
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ridiculous everyone's gonna desert the Tories if if the management of the pandemic is as shambolic
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as it's been so far and then now it probably goes the other way you know where where if anything
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Why do you think it is that the working classes,
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particularly up north, have turned their back on Labour?
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Well, I suppose, you know, there's so many reasons, aren't there?
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Well, what I thought was about my own process of voting on this occasion,
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but I always ask myself last-minute questions about,
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You know, even when it was leave, when it was the Brexit referendum,
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my choice was between leave and abstain, right?
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there was aspects of the Tory campaign which I wasn't fond of.
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And again, I asked myself that question on this occasion.
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I thought, OK, there have been things I haven't liked
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That's often what people are partially voting for in their mind.
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what am I endorsing and there's you know there's a culture uh within and without the Labour Party
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that is way left of the country you know in terms of you look at their activists and their
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membership base and where the country's at and what the country thinks are priorities who wants
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to tear down statues who wants to get on with things right now you look at even corporate
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culture you know a lot of these companies are trying to send out appealing messages uh you know
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I don't know who they always think that they're appealing to,
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but they seem to think that young people are the only people
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that buy stuff and that young people won't get more right-wing
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That's always quite an interesting misguided supposition.
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but he doesn't summon anything in me, you know.
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And people want to feel something from a leader.
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People want to feel, not inspired, but they want to feel moved
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and when he came into power, when he became leader,
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and that was touted in social media to be a good thing
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and it's a good thing when you're a QC to be forensic.
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But if you're, look, this is a very base analogy,
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but if you're on a stag do and you've got forensic care
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and rugby tackle Boris and the night splits up a bit
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or we'll go in different places, where are you going?
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And I think that people want to, people like Boris.
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People, I'd say this, the country like Boris a lot more than I do.
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You talk about a leader making you feel something, Boris Johnson.
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I mean, look, I'm going on the stag do I'm going out with Boris.
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The following day, I'm like, oh, mate, I've got to get an earlier train.
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I'm not necessarily wanting to hang out with a bloke,
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And then you've got what have the Labour Party done?
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We've had these existential crises in terms of Brexit and COVID.
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and it does seem that in both instances their strategy was
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this is a tricky one for the Tories, they're in a bit of a mess,
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They've done that for both things and this is within,
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you know, within the space of two and a half years
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and they've essentially sort of hoped that there was a coach crash, right?
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They've seen the coach veering off the motorway
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and they've gone, the most important thing for us to do
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is that there's no footage of us with our hand on the wheel.
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that is that is cowardly in a way and and yeah the the MPs the parliamentary Labour Party to an
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extent they just don't feel connected they don't seem to see the world the same way that I do and
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another thing to just remember is that you know in the very recent past the Tories have grappled
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with difficult things and got results right so whether Brexit completely unfells and this deal
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has proved to have been shoddy at this point they they did it you know they actually did deliver
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something and in western democracies for a long time no one's done anything radical right he
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actually you know and and the left are probably their own worst enemies in that they've made it
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possible for boris johnson to look like fucking he-man for doing things that weren't that
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impossible you know so we'll never get he'll never get the withdrawal agreement open he did that right
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And he ends up sort of by didn't get more credit, perhaps,
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I mean, even as I'm talking now, I'm bouncing around things
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I mean, the economic news that's come out in the last few days
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that once again, the most dystopian prophecies of parts of the left
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have underestimated how dynamic and vibrant the economy is.
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Like, everything now, and it's not just the left,
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And that's because they're trying to stop it happening.
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It's like they go so far because they think that
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if they say you're going to get super gonorrhea
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That was the only time I went, hang on, no sandwiches.
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We're all kind of in that loop of, like, the media exaggeration,
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But then there's a price to pay for that down the line
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when the public go, actually, none of that has happened.
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No, absolutely. And large swathes of the sort of centre-left media commentaria have sort of fired all their bullets.
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They've spurned their credibility, one, in respect of how dystopian their predictions about Brexit were.
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And two, you know, some of the attacks on Boris, there are certain things that were absolutely legitimate.
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But there have been times within the last year where he does something odd to intelligent people.
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Like, we've just got to fucking just get Boris out of power.
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And I think the public see that sometimes, you know,
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whether it's an opening homily or a monologue on Newsnight
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or it's certain stories being fanned slightly beyond
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I mean, the most recent one is Curtaingate, you know.
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I think it was fair for Keir Starmer to ask those questions at PMQs.
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Maybe not as many as he did, but I think it was, you know,
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And then, like, the following day, he's in John Lewis
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And, like, on social media, that gets a lot of credit.
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And, you know, at a time where there's a pandemic, you know,
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we need to rebuild the economy, you've got what's happening in India.
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You get six questions at PMQs and he did three on curtains.
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but don't you think a large part of the problem is that people in London who are very middle class
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don't understand working class people yeah they don't really talk to them they don't really
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encounter them they don't know what it's like to live in a town like Rotherham or all the rest of
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it so how can they how can they represent them well I mean we've seen yet again yet another
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election where in some quarters and I'm not saying this is true it's definitely not many people in
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the Labour Party and generally on the left are saying this but there's certainly people on the
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centre-left, their standard reaction to losing yet another election is, why won't these gullible
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fuckwits vote for us? I mean, these stupid people, once again, self-harm, they've been duped. I say,
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you know what? If they're that easily duped, why can't you duped them? A lot of politics is about
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propaganda. It's about fluffing an idea. Every party, to varying degrees, is selling something
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beyond which, something way beyond. I mean, this levelling up thing, right? It's fantastic. It
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makes me feel good I'm not sure how much of it they'll be able to do but that's a job of politics
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to sell something hopeful and something positive and so that's the Labour Party's job is to do the
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same thing but they can't dupe anybody at the moment and also I mean the NHS is a good point
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in a way there some of the old certainties about politics have been shattered but you know I know
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a lot of left-wing friends that have said to me and this is a classic anecdote isn't it when I've
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got a point i want to make it's like actually i was i was speaking on the doorstep uh someone
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convenient who i made up but um but genuinely a lot of left-wing friends have said to me that the
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the furlough scheme really surprised them you know the way they'd been conditioned their whole lives
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it certainly wasn't that the tories would swoop in and pay people's wages and and the original
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furlough was probably more generous than it needed to be and i think the fact that the country have
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accrued 150 billion quid's worth of savings suggests that they might have not got the balance
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quite right there and then the NHS as well you know you can make a really legit argument about
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whether or not the NHS was funded enough going into this pandemic but the truth is it's been
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prioritised within the context of it and a lot of right-wing people would say that it's been too
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prioritised it's been too protected so these are the two old certainties right of British politics
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the Tory party they don't care about you they won't spend money they spent money right well
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the NHS they want to destroy it and for the last 15 years every single election it's the most
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obvious one in the playbook is the NHS is minutes from death. Is this the end for the
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Caped Crusader? It's almost like those old Batman, Adam West. Is it the end? Of course
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it's fucking not. He's got another episode next week. And the NHS, I mean the NHS, it
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would be the quickest suicide note in political history would be to end the principle of healthcare
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that's free at the point of service. The Conservative Party will never do that. What they will have
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now is this I think amusing challenge in a way is they've got this new broad coalition of voters
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and I fully expect them to become a lot more northern. They've done a bit of it haven't they
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with the old Rishi with the Yorkshire tea but they are going to lean into this you know they're
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going to lean into this hard and some of the things that they've done are just people sell
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their performative gestures right like moving treasury offices to York okay it is a symbolic
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gesture but Labour could have done that symbolic gesture you know they had a long time in power
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where they could have done it it's just good politics right so i and also york is posh york
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is the one place they go to isn't it they get a nice train journey up there on the east coast
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mainline have a little bit of lunch up there arrive half cut yeah i mean i mean they're not
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doing it in wakefield let's put it that way but but like this is this is common sense to to spread
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the power base uh around the country and and i'm not i'm not saying it this is weird because
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I probably was as uncertain about voting Conservative in this last election
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And yet it's really not hard to work out why they've done well.
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All right, so they're in the ship, right, Labour.
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How do they capture the ordinary bloke on the street?
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I mean, they were egged on to a position of second referendum
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we all think that there should be a second referendum.
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They were egged on, weren't they, by Keir Starmer?
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Well, you know, a lot of the Gmail addresses sound fucking similar,
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within the last year and a half the Labour Party right the party of the working classes
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voted or moved to a position a farcical position whereby they did not respect the democratic
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outcome now I know at that point there were a lot of issues with getting Brexit delivered but
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their job like when when you vote that is the only time you have true equality in this country
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right whether you're Jacob Rees-Mogg or whether you're Brian Cox weird reference point but you
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know what I mean like they probably are at the other ends of the culture they're supposed to
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protect that and they didn't protect that and that if you think about how long it took the
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Lib Dems to get past tuition fees this is way fucking beyond that and then another factor
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Francis is you've got like this migration of people out of those towns like a lot of people
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youngsters are going to metropolitan centres like Newcastle or Manchester or London or Bristol but
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it kind of leaves these towns vacant of people that might vote Labour and I said on my podcast
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was that the Labour Party might formally split.
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Lib Dem as well in my case, sorry, I apologise.
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where you've got a party that's in power for 11 years
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And I think your point about the media in particular is very true
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and doing the show has actually shown me that to a large extent.
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There's a whole body of people, particularly outside the big cities
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as opposed to actually trying to connect with people
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about your background because you talk about it in the book
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because that informs a lot of your views I think
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and that's why I always found interesting about you
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You know, a lot of people think the South East.
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But as you all know, there's a strong working class tradition
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and Labour trade union movement in the South East as well,
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lived on council estates and council properties.
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So I was kind of at a lot of the sort of tick list.
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But, you know, that, in a way, is the point of the book.
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Like, everyone always says, well, how does someone like you
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end up voting for the so-called baddies but then it goes you know it turns out now you ask that
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question of a lot of people right that is now no longer um an uncommon thing and I think the truth
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is is that I voted Labour in 97 2001 and stuff initially it was just a ubiquitous yeah you know
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we all did there in Britpop I was in London I thought everybody voted Labour I just thought
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it's what you I just thought this is what you do right um but if I look deeper into my childhood
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I can actually see that there were at least small C conservative things, you know.
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I got a bit of stick for this because of an article in the Mail on Sunday,
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but I can remember one of my first memories, not one of my first memories,
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but an early memory of just people wearing dressing gowns all day long, you know,
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on this state, I fucking can't handle, I'm like, get dressed, you know.
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That's quite a judgy little conservative reaction, isn't it?
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Like, for God's sake, get dressed. What are you doing?
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What if they decide they don't want to pay for it?
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I can remember, like, the anxiety of being not poor.
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You know, people want me to sort of hype this up.
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But overall, in the context of where we lived, we did okay.
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But I remember those moments because we'd started off doing all right in my family.
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We had a private property in a decent street in Wimbledon,
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but then my mum and dad got divorced and then we moved to a council estate.
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So that's quite an interesting status drop at the age of nine,
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so it might have heightened my sensitivity to it.
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And we used to get clothing, grants and stuff like that.
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And I was always dressed like a fucking tramp.
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and i remember once i remember once i had these these trousers that were so tight i went to school
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in wandsworth and as you remember francis cussing people oh yeah just like an olympic sport you
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know best mates being as mean to you as possible i had these skin tight trousers before they were
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fashionable and one of the lads said to me he went my god jeffrey goes i can see your pulse
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which is a put down i still use to this day yeah so i guess there was a material thing in me
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quite early was I just wanted more and a lot of people in this country just want that right yeah
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just I want to do all right I want to do all right for myself this is the most human thing
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imaginable right is to want to do okay for yourself and improve the situation in your family
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and beyond that improve society as a whole for a lot of people those are the sort of stages of
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priority that you go through and yet there are there have been times certain this is not just
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from the Labour Party but the left that that kind of aspiration has seemed like in some ways
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a dirty thing and and and i read an article in the times this morning uh by janice turner i think
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was saying that just a lot of people don't have the same sad drab lives that the labor party think
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they have you know in hartlepool yes salaries are a lot lower but so houses so is a lot of things a
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lot of people in hartlepool are having the things materially in life that a lot of us are looking
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for and and this period particularly under corbyn whereby everyone was painted to be a victim there's
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a lot of working class people don't want to be thought of as having shit lives right there are
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definitely there's people in society that are really struggling and and i think that you know
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you should definitely focus more resources on those people outside of that if you've got a gaff
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car a couple of holidays a year a couple of nights out a month it's a good life but it's the thing as
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well it's like i i think people massively misunderstand i just from my experience and i
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i talking in russia there's working class people in russia as well like in many different places
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people don't want free stuff really most people most people don't want free stuff they don't want
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free internet access they want a job and they want to work and they want to do well you know
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they're not looking to get loads of handouts now if you say to them that's where they went wrong
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in russia in the end i would say that would definitely be the worst country to have communism
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yeah terrible accent where was that it was i anywhere in eastern europe yeah i think you
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were in serbia mate probably the most racist country in europe come on it was the really
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liberal bit of serbia you know what pisses me off people people say that my russian accent is worse
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than many other comedians even though i'm actually russian yeah we all try and then we all also say
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well where was i croatia yeah i don't know where no but you know what i mean like i think yeah if
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you ask people are you in favor of free internet a lot of people will say yeah but in general
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they're not in favour of the state providing a ton of free stuff for people
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Well, that loss of responsibility for your own stuff, right?
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You might get a free ticket to go and see a great band at the O2 or whatever
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But I'll tell you something, the ticket that you paid for
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that you sat and the day it was coming out, 9am, they go on sale
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and you sat, I was going to say on the phone, making myself...
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but you did yourself, you're going to enjoy more.
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who've got a lot of these patrician elements themselves,
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it's just bit by bit taking stuff out of people's control.
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And I just worry that if you remove those things
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from the human character, you stop evolving in a way.
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is that you have the capacity to change it yourself.
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If you sort of abdicate responsibility, you're powerless.
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I have to believe that I can make stuff better for myself,
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other people have kind of taken away opportunities from you.
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It's time that you could be spent pursuing them yourself.
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Obviously, there's certain elements of social justice
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But in terms of getting shit done in your own life,
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That's mainly what you'd have to focus on.
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And the thing that I was very, very surprised by,
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was this new authoritarianism creeping into the left,
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we've got to lock down everything until, you know,
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I mean, there are certain incantations on the left
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And I think that no one's safe till everyone's safe.
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First up, if you can imagine someone doing that as they say it,
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Sounds like the kind of thing that Jason Statham would say
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just before he hops out of a fucking Chinook.
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And I think the problem with those kind of incantations
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is the purpose of them is not for other people.
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is because it makes you feel good as you say it.
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And if you're saying or doing something because it makes you feel good
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rather than because it makes a change for the people that need it,
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That's the opposite of what the left purport to be.
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And, you know, the Blair Project and New Labour
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was about the left kind of reining in certain instincts
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because they knew that the only way that you could really make a change for people
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whereby there are some elements of the modern left.
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For them, principled opposition seems to be a more important thing
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than actually being in power, which I'd argue, weirdly, is narcissistic.
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If you like biscuits as much as him, you have to try Zingy Berry Bakery.
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They're a small family-run bakery that make award-winning sweet cookies and savoury crackers.
00:25:53.920
Francis will explain how many awards they've won, won't you, Francis?
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description it's zingerberrybakery.co.uk and get your biscuits today i think i've eaten too many
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biscuits never heard him say that before the point that we always have to ask ourselves is where do
00:26:41.280
we go from here because the reality is things are it seems desperate don't you don't you all right
00:26:48.080
mate yeah i'm not i'm gonna look the thing is he's sad for democracy i'm genuinely sad well i
00:26:55.780
mean look we've got one party states in three different parts of britain yeah right it's not
00:27:00.400
great no no it's not it's not great smb labour got uh uh white whales yeah great the big one
00:27:07.780
yep and you know uh the one place that can actually win you a majority in parliament which
00:27:12.960
is england is run by the toys it it isn't fantastic but is it maybe a degree to which
00:27:18.740
we've all retreated into identities yeah people who are tory now more tory aren't they you know
00:27:23.740
i've i do worry about this as well so it's something that the left certain people on the
00:27:27.320
left on the online hard left have done is every time there's a vote and every time you get called
00:27:32.260
selfish or stupid they sort of radicalize tories people that voted tory for the first time i think
00:27:38.960
oh yeah just on this occasion i'll lend boris my vote or or maybe i'll vote cameron this time
0.99
00:27:43.120
because i think that you know after the credit crunch labor had spent a lot maybe oh i'm a
00:27:46.920
ignorant selfish twat it's like you know like certain things the the us did in the middle east
0.66
00:27:53.120
radicalized radical islamists i think you've got people that are way more tory now than they would
0.99
00:27:58.060
have otherwise been and of course it goes the other ways and you know i have noticed on the
00:28:02.600
online right there's an element of kind of intellectual certainty that's creeping in and
00:28:07.420
those people on the left are never going to come over if they've been called certain names as well
00:28:10.940
but I just think that if you look across a 10-year period that was a phenomenon that certainly
00:28:16.120
seemed to start on the left you go great that person is probably going to vote Tory for the
0.98
00:28:19.920
next three elections it is weird do you know like my old man he was in the Labour Party I am
00:28:24.920
there's I am sort of sad about what's happening and that might sound mealy-mouthed but I wanted
00:28:30.180
to be like yeah you know the old thing but I don't know something happened for me after that 2019
00:28:34.900
general election I'm not as tribal as I was I start you know this culture war thing it's a bit
00:28:40.940
ridiculous sometimes and it pulls you into points of view that you wouldn't have otherwise had you
00:28:44.760
go I don't know why I'm this angry about Megan Markle I don't care that much you know so there
0.93
00:28:50.440
are certain issues whereby you go no so I'm trying to to just stop and think what do I think exactly
00:28:56.460
and I think we've had this chat before Constantine actually the more precise about what you think
00:29:01.960
the more that you piss people off right yeah so i did a radio 4 special recently and there was a
0.51
00:29:06.880
section in the middle of it about black lives matter and of course you know i critiqued some
00:29:10.780
of the hypocrisies about how people responded to the mass gatherings and also about uh certain
00:29:15.760
political motives on the groups uh but also after a couple of weeks of black lives matter it did
00:29:21.020
make me stop and reflect about the experience of you know black people in this country and
00:29:24.820
the message that i had in that bit was probably one that would be seen as quite liberal and left
00:29:29.120
wing and of course i had like twats coming for me on facebook you know direct messages i always get
00:29:34.280
the cowards on direct messages and then are you sold out to the libs and stuff again the idea that
0.93
00:29:39.280
like the consequence of a culture war would just own every single opinion i have is ridiculous yeah
0.97
00:29:44.820
but the danger is is when you step out of line then you know you could the way that the left
00:29:49.980
have developed their own i do wonder if that's something that's going to start happening well
00:29:53.420
it is happening it is happening and it's not even left or right it's anything like nowadays
00:29:57.620
is the moment we interview someone whose views don't align precisely
00:30:06.260
And John 73, he's never watching trigonometry again.
00:30:10.880
Well, then John 7321 doesn't have any conviction in his views, right?
00:30:17.240
The truth is, and when I have people on the podcast that disagree with me,
00:30:25.600
If there's something that makes me challenge what I think,
00:30:33.080
I mean, you remember that gif of that girl, you know, the triggered girl?
00:30:36.740
You always say that, and I always think about her.
00:30:51.540
But that was always, like, a trope of the left,
00:30:56.040
the last thing these kind of like hard right guys or people that are really enmeshed in the
00:31:00.920
culture war would think is that they're anything like that girl and yet when you get upset by who's
00:31:05.900
wearing poppies and who's not wearing poppies I'd argue you're exactly like that girl you know and
1.00
00:31:10.540
I would love it if everybody wanted to respect the sacrifice that were made in world wars for
00:31:15.400
this country I'd love it if everyone just felt like that but if they don't maybe that's partly
00:31:19.480
what we were fighting for was their right to fucking not do that yeah completely now we've
0.84
00:31:25.440
been in lockdown we've seen the culture wall ramp up what effect do you think that's going to have
0.90
00:31:29.520
on comedy um well it was interesting wasn't it because i think last time i was on we were like
00:31:34.560
hey man let's just all chill out let's let's let's do some balloon modeling and actually i think the
00:31:41.220
the capacity for people to just stay at home and kind of lose themselves in online opinions
00:31:47.020
did exacerbate and i think that there was a period of you know certainly with the start of
00:31:52.180
the statue toppling and everything seemed to be,
00:31:59.700
And, you know, last summer, in particular last summer,
00:32:02.700
you know, there were shows getting removed from the BBC
00:32:06.440
and it did seem, I think that that period, again,
00:32:09.820
if you want to analyse all the things that have caused
00:32:12.180
this vote swing towards Conservatives in England,
00:32:17.180
Because people go, that's what the left is, you know?
00:32:21.320
I remember in the 90s, the left was the free speech thing.
00:32:25.020
You know, another thing I found funny recently is,
00:32:27.420
you'll probably both have had this, is people online,
00:32:30.240
they don't understand how they sound to a broad audience of people.
00:32:33.480
So often they'll say, yeah, he's one of these free speech guys.
00:32:44.520
how the fuck have we got to the point where left-wing people
0.79
00:32:47.620
think that identifying people as being a free speech warrior is a bad thing but that is one of
0.98
00:32:54.020
the processes and consequences of descending and burrowing as hard as you can into an echo chamber
00:32:59.620
and the first chat we had about echo chambers echo chambers was after 2015 election and it does feel
00:33:05.580
like of late everyone was like no i need to get outside of my echo chamber but of late it feels
00:33:09.820
like people go no i think i need to fucking like reinforce with concrete balustrades and a steel
0.97
00:33:15.100
roof because they've sort of experimented with it they've realized that they can't persuade people
0.74
00:33:19.140
so they've they've kind of hunkered down and also we haven't been able to see people face to face
00:33:24.800
like we might not agree on everything but we can have a chat and the human element is there and
00:33:29.380
we're sort of understanding we're both human beings but online none of that none of that
0.58
00:33:33.520
exists and none of that happens you're just an avatar to me and i my job is to destroy you with
0.81
00:33:37.800
facts and logic well that's what i find so often when when people i've had falling out to people
00:33:41.640
on twitter then we meet in person they go there's a thing called between us i was like we fell out
00:33:45.280
on twitter do you know what i mean that's to me that's like playing your mate at playstation
0.92
00:33:49.280
you're lobbing the joy pad and just fucking going for a walk around the block because you're angry
0.97
00:33:53.020
that's the level i see it as but a lot of people have made that confusion between that and real
0.99
00:33:57.140
life and even on my lads whatsapp group there was a couple of political discussions over the last
00:34:01.280
few days about brexit and i thought you know what let's just stop talking about it because
00:34:05.320
i know that if we had this chat over a pint this would be fine this would be absolutely be nothing
00:34:10.580
like um the chat that we have now but i think i wonder if people become addicted to the adrenaline
00:34:16.020
that a good old tear up gets yeah people that feel alive don't they you know when you know what
00:34:20.300
you oppose you know what you believe in people feel a lot and a lot of these it's mainly middle
00:34:24.360
aged blokes let's be honest here's always middle aged blokes they watch question time they drink
0.92
00:34:28.480
some merlot and then and and i think i don't feel like that i'm not i don't think and maybe i
00:34:35.200
communicate badly i don't feel like a combative person but the problem is is when you know when
00:34:39.640
you tweet something i'm often they'll think i'm i treat it like this is a bit funny isn't it
0.98
00:34:45.100
they'll think i'm in a finger jabbing fuck you lefties way but that's not my style and and maybe
1.00
00:34:51.840
that's why i'm really excited to get back out touring in september yeah he's dead well that
0.99
00:34:56.080
was smooth yeah oh so smooth keep it touring keep telling keep telling but but just because then if
00:35:03.400
someone wants to pull what you're saying out of context they'll have to literally invent a mood
00:35:07.780
that wasn't in the room yeah you know when you're in what the brilliant thing about stand-up is this
00:35:11.720
very uh permissive environment and you say things and people can see you being a bit cheeky you know
00:35:16.680
they can see your body language then you go all right if you want to come out of that room and
00:35:20.400
then pretend that i meant something else then fine but at least you knew in the moment uh what i was
00:35:24.740
driving at that's what you know talking about comedy francis was asking but that's you know i
00:35:29.300
opened for you a few times and that's why i was found about your approach to comedy even you were
00:35:34.240
much less even than me like you are really trying to see things from the other person's point of
00:35:40.220
view so i would be the controversial person opening for you and then you'd come in and
00:35:44.260
yeah that sort in a way was probably more conciliatory than the one that i'm taking
0.97
00:35:48.520
no i just fucking transgenders coming over yes i've just got more i think i've got more i know
0.96
00:35:57.840
what i think more now and i've wanted to talk about culture war stuff for a while but i haven't
0.99
00:36:01.800
had the jokes I haven't had the way of saying it but just recently there have been a few things
00:36:05.480
that have occurred to me that I go yeah that's what I think it's like I'm genuinely not angered
00:36:10.520
by anybody having a different sexual identity or fitting in someone on this kind of like
00:36:15.140
rainbow spectrum I'm going to be a bold mood if you were just coming out you know the guys
00:36:20.820
but on the other you know we talk about like sexuality and gender and having so many different
00:36:27.060
versions it just suddenly occurred to me that masculinity and femininity were already a
00:36:31.420
spectrum right we already knew you already had members of your family that you knew that the
00:36:36.160
simple notions of masculinity and femininity didn't exactly apply to them you know i mean so
00:36:40.620
your uncle john that collected the porcelain dolls or whatever you go you know john like
0.97
00:36:44.880
that it was different for him and you know you know that fucking kim kardashian and sue perkins
0.99
00:36:49.180
aren't the same right so that already existed people are smart enough to already know so if
0.82
00:36:54.160
people want to have a hundred words that's fine it doesn't anger me but i also think that it's
00:36:59.920
Perhaps there's a bit of presentism about thinking
00:37:08.600
And that's my point is, I suppose the point of the new tour
00:37:12.020
in a way is going to be, I'm not angry about this,
0.94
00:37:15.160
but I do think some of it's a bit fucking weird.
00:37:18.100
Yeah, and it is true, it's a bit fucking weird.
0.71
00:37:22.180
I'm glad the way he doubled down on it as well.
0.94
00:37:26.500
Francis was like, it's a bit fucking weird.
0.89
00:37:28.360
Yeah, well, I mean, right now, there's the kind of quote.
0.74
00:37:35.280
they would think that what I was saying is
0.98
00:37:37.580
it's a bit fucking weird about other sexualities.
0.94
00:37:40.200
If they already think you're a bad person,
0.99
00:37:43.880
When I was talking about the kind of totality of culture war stuff
00:37:47.420
and the changing of liberal languages and definitions,
00:37:51.620
that's a really good example of how that could work.
0.97
00:37:54.020
Why are people who are not exactly like you fucking weird, Jeff?
0.94
00:37:58.360
And vice versa, there'll be John whoever going,
0.98
00:38:04.180
Well, maybe there is, but Jeff is just talking.
00:38:10.980
I mean, the truth is, I'm not angry about anything.
00:38:13.500
And my counsellor would tell you, that's one of the biggest problems.
00:38:19.240
if I could get on and have it out with John 72, 31.
00:38:29.880
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Where do you think the landscape is going to change
00:39:35.720
there's a real thirst for centrist political comedy,
00:39:40.080
comedy that attacks both the left and the right.
00:39:42.380
Do you think that there's going to be a TV company
00:39:46.880
Or do you think we're going to be playing the same furrow as before?
00:39:50.120
Well, I mean, as I was saying, I think comedy's already changed.
00:39:56.200
You boys have been successful in doing this and other things.
00:40:06.600
There's a lot of evidence that it's already changed.
00:40:12.500
Interestingly, this last set of election results,
00:40:14.700
I think the Liberal left have been guilty of thinking,
00:40:20.740
Okay, the 2019 generally, but they'll all come back to Labour eventually.
00:40:27.340
I think that these local elections have underlined perhaps that there is a more ongoing change.
00:40:31.860
And I don't know if TV companies can forever ignore this huge percentage of people.
00:40:36.640
And it's not about, I don't want to be in a right-wing comedy show.
00:40:40.200
I don't think anyone in Britain is going, you know what we need?
00:40:43.320
There are a few people, they're mainly online, but he's going, we need it all the other way.
00:40:48.280
That would be a massive mistake, to go from a left-wing bias to a right-wing bias.
00:40:52.040
But what they do want, I think, or find it odd that it doesn't exist,
00:40:57.260
So say, for example, you're on a topical panel show
00:41:02.000
And say she said something massively, wildly pretentious
0.99
00:41:05.140
that is obviously fucking ridiculous to a lot of people.
0.98
00:41:07.840
But you may have people on that panel that feel because of the culture war,
0.99
00:41:11.400
they're uneasy about criticising Meghan Markle,
00:41:14.100
a woman of colour who already gets a lot of unfair scrutiny from the press.
0.84
00:41:18.800
that don't say anything bad about Meghan Markle.
00:41:20.960
You go, well, that's not really where Britain's at.
00:41:23.480
You know, my own view with Meghan and Harry is, again,
00:41:35.840
like a couple you meet on holiday and you befriend them
00:41:37.980
for like a day and you go, oh, Meghan and Harry are such
00:41:41.260
a great couple and then three days later you're like,
00:41:45.540
that's as simple as it was to me right it's not a controversial thing to say but even that opinion
00:41:50.840
you wouldn't really hear um within a topical panel show so i have discussions with with people there
00:41:56.440
are plenty of people in tv that get this and and again this will be something that a lot of defund
00:42:01.300
the bbc type people won't want to hear there's a lot of people in very high up in the bbc that get
00:42:05.320
this but it's a huge machine so there's a bbc on one hand you know there's various seniorities of
00:42:10.220
commissioners then there's production companies you know and in fairness to production companies
00:42:14.960
when they get into TV, there's a kind of TV show that they want to make.
00:42:18.560
And, you know, the platforming, as they might see it,
00:42:22.920
right-wing views maybe wasn't why they got into television.
00:42:25.420
But the truth is, if terrestrial television doesn't accommodate these views,
00:42:29.680
you know, topical comedy on terrestrial television
00:42:38.320
it's one of the easiest sticks to beat the BBC with, isn't it?
00:42:41.580
it most topical output would reflect a certain bias however one show and then people just think
00:42:48.180
i'm ass kissing it but i think one show has proved how well it can work is the news quiz
0.77
00:42:52.020
um andy's altzman now the the resident host absolutely brilliant but it seems in their
00:42:57.720
lineups most weeks they're having somebody from the other side of the fence and i think it helps
00:43:02.220
everybody because it has certain views represented and it also for the in crucially for the left-wing
00:43:07.580
comics it stops them from feeling like part of the establishment do you know what i mean so
00:43:12.280
somebody brilliant like alan cochran goes on and he makes a joke that that might make a lot of sense
00:43:16.840
outside of metropolitan areas but then the left wing comic can then come back on that and it's
00:43:21.160
just more natural it's so blindingly obvious that this is what needs to happen but as you as you
00:43:26.720
guys know the last time this argument happened there were people insiders at the bbc that somehow
00:43:31.740
claimed that um well it just doesn't make as much sense in london that's where we record most of our
00:43:36.200
stuff but they also said right wingers aren't funny there was someone oh there's no one out
00:43:40.000
there well let me tell you i give i've given people a list of people that i know and i've
00:43:44.500
said if you ever want to have a chat with me after that came out i said look these are all
00:43:48.320
the funny people that you could call upon if you so wished and the idea that somebody like me
00:43:53.280
couldn't have a good gig in london london and people wouldn't believe this but it's the easiest
00:43:56.360
place for me to sell tickets by a factor of a billion because that's untrue it's not by a
00:44:03.520
million but even when you sort of factor in population differences that is you know that's
00:44:08.760
the place where where where we do best and even if even if you just break down the demographics of
00:44:13.300
london i mean look at the current london mayoral vote even the amount of londoners that voted leave
00:44:18.300
was still several million people yeah so i think there is a resistance in certain quarters but i
00:44:24.620
think in the long run they're not really doing the bbc any favors actually because it's one at
00:44:31.220
Topical comedy is one of the easiest sticks to beat the BBC with.
00:44:35.080
And you don't need, like, a whole panel of people like me.
00:44:38.580
You just need, say there's five people on a show, or seven,
00:44:45.800
And the thing is, if they don't do it, the internet will kill them.
00:44:54.000
the reason that these things have done all right
00:44:55.960
is because it's low-hanging fruit, and it's amazing.
00:45:28.940
there's just literally no evidence to stop change in comedy on television so let me ask you just
00:45:34.800
one quick thing on that uh how do you feel about mash being cancelled well mash yeah i mean look
00:45:39.520
i enjoyed it while i did it and i think that in fairness to the show it gets a lot of stick from
00:45:44.180
the left it was and remains the only show to give somebody anywhere right or center
00:45:47.880
a regular platform that's true you know no one has even come close to that you know a lot of
00:45:52.680
people think i've been on certain shows and i haven't i'm happy for them to think that i have
00:45:56.860
mash gave a regular you know and and obviously the tone and stuff of that show i had to fit in
00:46:02.220
with the show um to a point but i was still able to say things i was still able to make jokes about
00:46:07.280
jk rowling gary lineker you know jokes about second referendum jokes about jeremy corbyn
00:46:12.660
i think what it was was when it went left wing went very left wing but it also had uh it had
00:46:18.160
jokes from the desk that were about corbyn and stuff so it did have quite a lot of balance in
00:46:23.700
and I look back on the bits that I did with Nish
00:46:25.460
and I think that, I didn't realise that at the time
00:46:28.700
they were two people of very different opinions
00:46:36.520
in terms of getting a piece that kind of worked together
00:46:39.440
the audience, the audience were good to me by the way
00:46:41.420
you know, they were very left-leaning and remaining
00:46:48.100
it was at the time just before, I think it was late 2019, right
00:46:55.880
which was that they were going to get a new deal,
00:46:59.900
take it to Brussels and then have a referendum on it
00:47:08.440
and then the audience pissed themselves laughing.
00:47:10.860
And I thought that's a left-wing remaining audience mainly
00:47:13.200
and it just underlined that there was a spirit of fair play in the room.
00:47:16.880
So yeah, of course a show that you're in regularly is a shame
00:47:21.480
but then I think if that show's not going to exist
00:47:29.320
or there needs to be something new that picks up that slack.
00:47:41.620
it wasn't actually cancelled, it was a slight difference,
00:47:51.360
you see the fact that these producers look at declining engagement,
00:47:56.680
declined viewership, don't really do anything to change it.
00:48:00.720
It's mirrored by left-wing politicians seeing declining votes
00:48:04.880
and, again, seemingly doing nothing to change it.
00:48:12.080
I've learnt this thing when you're doing interviews.
00:48:15.260
I went and go, all I'd have done was say what you said
00:48:21.360
And again, that is a problem, but I don't think they're going to change,
00:48:25.700
if I'm being honest, because to me, they see it as a moral issue.
00:48:31.520
They see conservatives' right of centre as being immoral.
00:48:36.440
I think the people who are on the left, the people who are staunch Labourite.
00:48:40.820
We see them, and again, look, it's all anecdotal.
00:48:45.760
they see the people on the right as being immoral.
00:48:48.700
There are a constituency of people that see it that way,
00:48:55.020
but even with the book that I've got coming out,
00:48:59.680
the guy that commissioned me to make that book,
00:49:05.980
There are people that do see that this is not helpful to the left,
00:49:12.700
They've realised, you know, I've got this cycle.
00:49:16.200
But Norcott's cycle is to right win elections, left double down on culture.
00:49:22.180
So they think, fuck you, OK, you won that last election.
1.00
00:49:24.540
I'll tell you what, our TV show is going to be even more left-wing.
1.00
00:49:27.920
And then working class people go, well, I'm a bit worried about all that.
1.00
00:49:30.720
I think this doesn't seem to represent my experience.
00:49:34.920
Well, check out our new TV show and this cycle.
00:49:42.000
And it's this ridiculous kind of merry-go-round
00:49:43.860
when what it really needs is people on the left to actually go,
00:49:45.900
But it's just good old-fashioned conservative pragmatism.
00:50:01.480
And I think the fear maybe was that if we allow it a voice,
00:50:13.520
and what what do you think is going to be the future of the bj do you reckon it's going to
0.93
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survive uh yeah i do i want it to survive i mean there's there's a lot of reasons why
00:50:23.260
right now thumbs down on the video we're both on record saying we think the bbc
00:50:29.100
should survive provided it can evolve with the times yeah yeah i think but there's lots of
00:50:34.460
reasons i've heard recently that i think i mean one is like a bbc music on air like commercial
00:50:39.720
radio stations their playlists are a fraction of what the BBC is right so if you one thing I love
00:50:44.160
one thing I'm really patriotic about in this country is our music culture it's incredible
00:50:47.620
yeah we absolutely smashed the but per capita the amount of great songs we've produced in this
0.87
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country should be a source of pride for fucking everybody and part of the reason for that is that
00:50:57.020
you can get a lot more different music on when you've got a state broadcaster than when you've
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just got a commercial broadcaster and I think you know the investment uh in comedy and sometimes you
00:51:05.540
know we did the funeral of prince philip and the early days of covid there is a capacity uh to bring
00:51:10.980
people together and i think that there are like i say there are people at the bbc in a very senior
00:51:16.460
positions that do get this and it's now becoming a fundamental point is that diversity has to
00:51:22.460
include diversity of viewpoint it can't the whole the idea that the output in media tv shows and
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stuff and news should reflect broadly what britain is it's a good idea you know i mean it's a fucking
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logical idea right everyone should have a place at that table but it loses credibility if it doesn't
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include viewpoint right that's where a lot of people tap out but that's not fair you're prioritizing
00:51:44.360
all other kinds of diversity apart from people you disagree with so people do get it the point
00:51:50.180
is is the culture i mean it's such a huge employer of how much time the people that are currently at
00:51:55.200
the top have and i mean it's like oil tanker turning it around keep it's the same message
00:52:01.000
again and again we're not changing this this is this is the new course and you're going to have
00:52:06.060
to uh you're going to have to get on board and again it's like this will benefit the left if
00:52:10.980
people love the bbc then actually a bit more uh diversity of viewpoint and also you know
00:52:16.420
programming from people from working class backgrounds that's going to help you because
00:52:20.880
it's going to help the bbc to exist longer jeff listen man it's always great to chat it's good
00:52:26.580
to see you again last time we recorded an interview it was literally the day before the
00:52:31.220
pandemic like properly kicked off oh there's a new one coming yeah it's sort of it seems to have hit
00:52:36.680
the labor party first this time uh but there's i don't there's not really a new pandemic coming
0.95
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you both look to me like what's he talking about what the fuck has he heard didn't check the news
0.87
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this morning apparently there's a new pandemic guys no everything's gonna everything's gonna
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be fine i i'm a good you know what's all part of my politics just optimism i have a general feeling
00:52:56.840
that things are going to be all right we're going to do okay it's a great country you know and that's
00:53:01.220
what allows someone like a fucking occasional charlotte and like boris johnson to do all right
1.00
00:53:05.520
because that's all he does yeah level up great jobs jobs jobs jabs jabs jabs you know you know
0.94
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i don't often say this but to to the russian mind boris johnson being the leader of this country is
00:53:28.800
think I've ever, you know, the most conservative
00:53:32.840
in the window. Yeah. You know what I mean? That
00:53:36.960
You know what, Geoff? In the interest of balance,
00:53:38.820
and this is what balance looks like, we spend 50
00:53:42.680
We're going to do two minutes at the end about the Tories.
00:53:45.140
Our mutual friend who you've already referred to, Dominic Frisby,
00:53:47.620
tweeted about this election that's just happened,
00:53:49.520
saying the problem with this is it's going to make the Tories
00:53:59.160
And one of the biggest issues with the Conservatives
00:54:01.060
is communications have been dreadful, often dreadful.
00:54:03.980
Flip-flopping, coming out with really strong stances.
00:54:11.600
Oh, no, actually, we're having a lockdown anyway.
1.00
00:54:14.740
Just fall back until you've actually got a policy.
1.00
00:54:17.640
They're also quite patrician and nanny-state-ish.
00:54:21.080
And the other thing is, Boris, because in a way his own vanity
00:54:24.200
needs him to have younger, more impressionable politicians around him,
00:54:27.100
they did away with a lot of really experienced politicians.
00:54:30.860
Javid, Penny Morden, Amber Rudd, really good skilled people.
00:54:36.840
So there's a generation of politicians below them
00:54:39.300
that just have been learning on the job at a really difficult time.
00:54:42.940
I think one thing is they have done the hours now.
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because they've done hours and hours of media time.
00:54:53.000
who suddenly fucking decided he was the nation's stepdad,
0.99
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You know, I think when the new variant came along,
00:55:03.740
well, I'm going to try and let you have Christmas.
0.98
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And he goes, who fucking gave this guy somebody?
0.96
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but please just flush his head down the toilet briefly.
0.58
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he'd be the guy that after the third time that happened,
00:55:33.260
You know, like, and there have been plenty of times,
00:55:38.680
well, you just got on to kiss the Tory's arses.
1.00
00:55:48.920
if anyone has listened to my podcast or seen me on shows,
00:55:55.580
And I do think that some of the cronyism is something that,
00:56:00.620
that it seems to have died down and the interest has died off.
00:56:03.540
But once you get out of the context of a pandemic,
00:56:10.620
There's a lot of stuff that felt right at the time, Matt.
00:56:12.880
But what I don't want to see is you and everyone you know
0.99
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And maybe that's one glimmer of hope for the left
00:56:34.640
You might see people that got very wealthy off a pandemic
00:56:48.340
And yeah, as I say, you'll find I'll be flogging
0.90
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the shit out of the book, which comes out May 13th.
0.62
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And then the tour, I Blame the Parents, is in September.
00:56:58.280
And we're going to ask Geoff a couple of questions
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Our last question for the main interview itself
00:57:05.160
What is the one thing we're still not talking about
00:57:13.440
but I do think this desertion of the kind of people
00:57:16.480
that would naturally vote Labour to city centres,
00:57:19.140
I think that that will be where some of the Labour debate goes next.
00:57:22.740
There's not many people talking about that right now.
00:57:25.560
And then the other thing is something that I've just said just now,
00:57:30.520
I do think that the major government in 1992 got elected
00:57:41.760
I mean, I've just said the Labour Party's going to split.
00:58:06.340
So I think that maybe the thing that we'll be talking about soon
00:58:16.500
whether it's through different coalitions of parties,
00:58:26.820
Yeah, exactly. He's had his 15th kid. Well done, Boris.
00:58:30.480
Yeah. Well, you know, there is that weird thing
00:59:03.420
Where I Went Right is the book and the tour is Don't Blame the Parents.
00:59:15.160
Where did Constantine go wrong in saying Where Did I Go Right?
00:59:29.820
Make sure you follow Jeff, he's one of our favourite guests ever,
00:59:35.720
We're going to do a couple of quick questions for locals.
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We will see you very soon with another brilliant interview