TRIGGERnometry - June 02, 2019


William Clouston on the SDP, Community and Social Justice Mania

Topics
housing crisis immigration policy civilized toleration
Hosted by
Francis Foster Konstantin Kisin
Mentioned
Brexit Nigel Farage William Cluston David Goodhart Alpine Credits Lib Dems Corbyn Labour Morris Glassman Patrick O'Flynn Matt Goodwin William Fluson Lyndon Johnson Wales Glasgow Eric Kaufman Paul Morland David Downey John Curtis Roy Jenkins Theresa May and 12 more
Douglas Murray on Roger Scruton, Intersectionality and the Trans Debate Lionel Shriver on Censorship, Cancel Culture and Free Speech

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per minute

181.95

Word count

11,259

Sentence count

609

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

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

William Fluson is the leader of the Social Democratic Party, a left-wing political party that has been around for almost a century. In this episode, he tells us about his political career, how he got into politics, and why the SDP is still around.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissing. And this is a
00:00:10.140 show if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about.
00:00:15.440 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts. Our brilliant guest
00:00:20.680 this week is the leader of the Social Democratic Party, William Fluson. Welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:25.540 Thanks for having me. Kind of you to ask me. Thanks for coming. Our first question always is
00:00:29.820 what is the story of your life? How are you, where you are? What's been your journey through life
00:00:33.940 that takes you here to this chair? Right. Well, I was born in the northeast of England.
00:00:37.760 Mothers from Edinburgh, fathers from Liverpool. He's a red nose.
00:00:42.780 My father was involved in politics a little bit in the Labour Party, in and out.
00:00:47.060 When 1980 came along and the big split from the Labour Party, I mean, the Social Democratic Party
00:00:52.120 is an offshoot of the Labour Party. My dad left the Labour Party and joined. And it was a very
00:00:58.720 exciting time for us um as a family and and also to just to see the launch of a new uh thing it was
00:01:06.040 also quite hostile i mean they had open meetings in the northeast and you know likes of david owen
00:01:10.300 came up to speak and there'd be a lot of labor people in there heckling but you've seen the
00:01:14.760 videos in the 70s uh politics 80s policies quite raucous but it was interesting and it uh captivated
00:01:21.100 me i joined um and uh we went through the period of of seeing that that blossom into the alliance
00:01:28.380 and 83, the big election for us,
00:01:31.540 where we got, with the Liberals, 25.5% of the vote.
00:01:36.960 That was the biggest,
00:01:39.180 the SDP represents the biggest attempt to date
00:01:42.280 for 100 years, basically,
00:01:44.700 to break the political mold,
00:01:46.280 to change the two-party system.
00:01:48.360 That's what it was set up to do,
00:01:50.460 and I have to say it failed.
00:01:51.740 And that's one of the reasons we're still here,
00:01:53.720 plugging away.
00:01:55.080 So yeah, that was my initial background and involvement.
00:01:58.380 Well, let's let's talk about something that we've discussed at length on the show with many guests in the past is we've talked about the fact that there seems to be a gap in the market, so to speak, for a party that is socially conservative, but left wing.
00:02:12.460 So one of the arguments John Curtis made, for example, is that UKIP under Nigel Farage, it was a party that was trying to be socially conservative, but it was also right wing in terms of many of its policies.
00:02:24.740 Yeah.
00:02:24.920 And its voters were not right.
00:02:26.780 So there's potentially a gap in the market for a party that is socially conservative, that wants to control immigration, that wants to be, you know, expressing the socially conservative values while being left wing.
00:02:36.320 Is that you?
00:02:37.300 It's exactly us.
00:02:38.300 No one else is doing it.
00:02:39.240 And one of the reasons I think people ask us why after the I mean, because to finish off the sort of history lesson on the STP, you had the Owenite STP, which I was involved in.
00:02:48.500 And that was when the liberals had a deal to put the two parties together.
00:02:57.280 42% of us voted against that because we're social democrats.
00:03:00.700 And the reason for that is that social democracy and liberalism is different philosophically.
00:03:04.960 Very different, actually.
00:03:06.140 First order preference in liberalism to the individual.
00:03:11.480 But we think that society and the community exists and is at least as important.
00:03:16.440 and so Owen's STP went there
00:03:19.620 and then in 1980 he clears
00:03:21.500 off and the party gets kicked
00:03:23.460 back to the grassroots
00:03:24.900 but it exists and you have very strong pockets
00:03:27.780 in East Yorkshire and South Wales
00:03:29.520 Glasgow and Midlands
00:03:30.380 I think it's a bit like a bird species
00:03:32.940 where you have total coverage
00:03:35.500 when the species is strong
00:03:37.540 and then it gets knocked back
00:03:39.400 and then you end up in pockets and that's where we were
00:03:41.320 so this gap
00:03:43.300 the political gap in the market
00:03:44.900 I think partly explains
00:03:47.340 why the enduring SDP
00:03:49.280 has just sprung up from the
00:03:51.520 grassroots because people look
00:03:53.540 at the political landscape and they say well
00:03:55.060 what have we? Who can we vote for
00:03:57.280 positively? And they look and
00:03:59.340 there are problems. I mean
00:04:01.060 I guess the Remain of Parliament
00:04:03.160 is an example of a problem
00:04:04.720 where
00:04:05.760 a widely held view is not well represented
00:04:09.520 in Parliament so you have a misalignment
00:04:11.360 there. But there's a lot of it and I think
00:04:13.320 the two-party system is seen
00:04:15.340 to fail now because
00:04:16.600 its biggest selling point was
00:04:19.420 it created stability. Well, there's no stability.
00:04:21.300 I don't think we're well-governed either.
00:04:23.600 So there is a... But on the
00:04:25.260 particular type of politics,
00:04:27.660 the sort of red and blue
00:04:28.660 politics that you're talking about, yeah, there isn't
00:04:31.240 another entity
00:04:32.420 but us that's doing it, which explains
00:04:35.240 why we've got thousands of members joining
00:04:37.340 and why we're growing all around the country
00:04:39.380 because we're the only people that are doing it.
00:04:41.020 Now, obviously you have
00:04:43.060 think tanks and academics and even even movements like blue labor uh morris glassman's thing uh
00:04:50.980 which i like a lot i mean i think there's very very little difference there are
00:04:53.980 tiny little differences between us and and and them i guess um but as a project blue labor
00:05:01.220 inside the labor party full of you know half a million momentum middle class trots it's not
00:05:07.100 going to work. They're not going to get a blue Labour platform. So it's a small group. And then
00:05:15.680 you had Philip Blonde's project, which is Red Tory, again, which we like aspects of it. There
00:05:20.580 are differences, but there are relatively small differences. But again, Tories flirt with it.
00:05:25.580 But the modern Tory is basically some sort of free market liberal.
00:05:29.520 So if you were going to outline who you are to a potential voter,
00:05:34.140 How would you describe your party?
00:05:36.960 We're sort of red and blue pluralists, really.
00:05:40.520 You know when you meet, and I'm going to do this slowly now,
00:05:43.220 you asked me to do it quickly,
00:05:44.680 but you know when you meet people at a party,
00:05:47.080 you might meet someone,
00:05:48.080 and people's political views tend to cluster,
00:05:51.300 but many, many people don't fall into that category.
00:05:55.000 You know when you meet someone, they'll say something,
00:05:57.920 like if you're in the States, they'll say, you know,
00:06:00.020 for gun control, and then you can derive all their other views.
00:06:03.640 from it. And the same happens here. Well, actually, that's probably about half the country
00:06:08.540 are satisfied with, I'm a red, or I'm a blue. But actually, about half the country isn't. And half
00:06:15.360 of the country have views which cut across those things in different domains. And that's legitimate, 0.98
00:06:22.440 but it's not something our political system can represent well. And it doesn't represent well,
00:06:27.480 because we've got a red party and a blue party.
00:06:30.120 I mean, nowadays, they're both types of liberals, actually,
00:06:35.020 which is another problem.
00:06:36.780 But so this idea, if I was going to explain it quickly,
00:06:41.000 centre-left on economics and public services,
00:06:44.240 centre-right or small-c conservative on social and cultural issues,
00:06:47.860 that's it.
00:06:49.000 And so, I mean, we touched on what happened with UKIP.
00:06:54.280 UKIP. How much of a danger is a Brexit party to your potential voter base?
00:07:01.240 Nigel Farage's Brexit party now?
00:07:03.200 Yes.
00:07:03.560 Well, that's an immediate question because this project is about convening people who
00:07:09.320 agree with us. We had a look at the philosophy of the party last year and wrote this thing
00:07:15.560 called the New Declaration, which is our sort of philosophical platform. And we've urged
00:07:20.240 people to read it. If you like it, join us. And if you don't, don't join us. It's as much
00:07:24.660 about, you know, saying don't, you know, because actually there's a lot of kippers who are, 1.00
00:07:27.800 you know, a sort of free market liberals. No, thanks. It's not what we do. So, you know,
00:07:33.480 we agree with them on Brexit, but that's it. So on the Brexit party thing, that's going to play out
00:07:40.940 over the next three months, six months or whatever. But actually it's another single issue,
00:07:47.240 Nigel Farage vehicle. And the problem with UKIP historically always was there was a ceiling.
00:07:55.960 There was a ceiling on how far they could go because it was basically about, you know,
00:08:00.120 Euroscepticism. And, you know, inside that group you had, I mean, there were centrist economic
00:08:06.260 left even individuals like Patrick O'Flynn who came and joined our party who were in the tent
00:08:13.140 because they were good Eurosceptics.
00:08:15.960 But Nigel will always have the problem that it's a single issue.
00:08:18.960 I mean, even the name, you know, it's a single issue thing.
00:08:22.120 You know, the SDP is very Eurosceptic,
00:08:24.620 but if you read the new declaration,
00:08:26.060 there's about four little paragraphs on nation and world and Euroscepticism,
00:08:30.920 and the rest of it is about all sorts of other stuff.
00:08:33.100 And I don't think, I think Nigel Farage will do very well in this election.
00:08:37.080 I mean, they could win the Euro election if it happens.
00:08:39.460 um but as soon remember as soon as there's a deal if there's a deal it's over i mean that's
00:08:46.960 as a political entity what we can do then you have to change the name anyway yeah um so so i
00:08:52.000 don't know i mean we've sort of left and also tactically we it was very unfair for the government
00:08:56.140 to spring an election um the euro elections on a small party i mean all small parties are going
00:09:02.400 to suffer this and we we looked at it and our national committee looked at it and came to
00:09:05.960 decision a i mean instinctively i i wasn't happy with the uh you know electing euro you know mps
00:09:13.180 to the europa we voted out what we're doing so i was against that anyway um and then to spring an
00:09:19.180 election on uh us we could have we could we had the resources to to have candidates all over the
00:09:24.320 country but we'd get a couple of percent and what's the point so we just said no we're going
00:09:28.800 to sit this one out and i think a lot of our voters will probably vote brexit party actually
00:09:33.020 But I haven't, I mean, I'm not directing them to do that. They can do that if they like. Many will.
00:09:38.000 So that's the voice that you represent. This is, as you said, small c conservatives. So 0.90
00:09:42.260 let's look at some of the principles that you talk about liberalism being the dominant strain
00:09:47.180 of thought in parliament and maybe in society in general. What is your issue with liberalism?
00:09:52.700 To go back to what I said before, I think the basic problem is philosophically,
00:09:59.300 it just privileges individual rights too much.
00:10:01.820 I mean, we are liberal, but we're not liberals.
00:10:05.380 I mean, a lot of SDP positions are quite nuanced,
00:10:07.760 so we're very pro-European, culturally, very,
00:10:10.880 but we're not very keen on the EU.
00:10:13.160 We're liberal, but we're not liberals.
00:10:15.140 And I think the problem with the project,
00:10:17.160 the whole sort of emancipation,
00:10:19.120 grand liberalization project that we've had since the 60s,
00:10:22.740 is that we've ended up with a society,
00:10:24.520 and many fellow citizens agree with this,
00:10:26.600 where me me me i come first so the economic liberalism it's all about getting as much money
00:10:33.340 as i can and getting ahead as far ahead as other people as i can and the social liberalism is about
00:10:40.280 individual emancipation what are my rights you know how am i going to prosecute those rights
00:10:45.120 against the whole of the rest of society and demand i want this i want that now all of those
00:10:49.780 things up to a point it's i mean i think david goodhart's right about this i think in looking
00:10:55.100 about liberalism looking at liberalism in terms of overreach have we got to a stage where there
00:11:00.560 is simply too much me me me and not enough us and i think we're there honestly i think we're there
00:11:07.500 i think the the appeal of communitarian parties now not not in the elites you see the the and
00:11:14.940 there is a there's a very big gap between what academics you know but basically what what the
00:11:21.700 Academy, business, the media think is basically full-on liberalism.
00:11:31.340 As much of it as possible.
00:11:32.400 As much as possible, you know, with both barrels.
00:11:35.000 And David, again, David Goodhart's a great thinker on this idea of double-dose liberalism.
00:11:41.580 So society's had, you know, 30 years of socialism, liberalism, bang, bang, bang.
00:11:46.680 So anyone that speaks up as a family is, you can't do that, we're not really comfortable with that.
00:11:50.600 uh it's individualism all the time and then and then at the same time you've got the uh free
00:11:57.540 market liberals of the right who hammer basically public services have to be contracted out so
00:12:04.340 everything becomes marketized ever literally everywhere and at the same time that the the
00:12:08.500 state has lost confidence to actually just directly provide services and retain what what
00:12:14.520 what should be its its its domain i mean a key an absolutely key i'd say the cornerstone
00:12:20.900 social and economic idea in the sdp is the social market economy which is something that we
00:12:25.760 introduced in british politics in the 80s uh and we're still there absolutely that is the
00:12:31.740 the cornerstone idea and that's the idea that the uh the state uh and the market are not opponents
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00:13:09.220 Do you think we've reached this point now where you sort of alluded to it where the pendulum is swinging back against liberalism?
00:13:15.600 Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it is. I think it is. And I think, well, you can certainly see that.
00:13:19.280 I mean, if you take immigration, you know, we're pro-immigration, but I don't think we're pro-mass immigration.
00:13:25.600 I think, and again...
00:13:26.960 But what does that mean? A lot of people will not even make the distinction between the two.
00:13:30.340 Well, magnitude matters. So an academic called Paul Morland came out of the book about migration very recently.
00:13:39.000 And he made a point that at the peak of the new Labour immigration expansion, more people came to settle in the UK than had ever arrived between 1066 and 1950.
00:13:52.740 You know, it could be a million, million people.
00:13:55.500 And that's very high immigration.
00:13:58.000 Now, again, if you look at what the general public think, the general public, and even Leave voters, by the way, 85% of them are quite pro-immigration.
00:14:08.340 So they're happy with it as long as it's basically of the right scale.
00:14:13.180 Now, again, in the southeast, we're sitting here in Islington, to have that much immigration 1.00
00:14:20.200 and fail to do the other side of the tennis net, which is to build enough council houses, 0.59
00:14:25.840 and yes, council houses, not to be sold off, the state actually doing something to help
00:14:31.240 young people pair up and start thinking about raising a family.
00:14:37.440 Again, the economic liberals, oh, we don't do that.
00:14:40.460 It's all left to the market.
00:14:41.580 Well, actually, they're just misaligned with the public.
00:14:43.720 The public want the state to help in housing.
00:14:48.260 And any millennial in the southeast is completely in favor of the state doing this.
00:14:53.640 How are you going to get anywhere to live?
00:14:56.060 So a lot of these things interlock, don't they?
00:14:58.700 So you can have – what I'm saying is you can have massive – you can have very, very high rates of immigration.
00:15:04.460 And you might get away with it if the state picks the other side of it up and assists it.
00:15:09.860 But they haven't done that either.
00:15:11.380 But the thing, I just want to clarify this thing of how someone can be,
00:15:15.180 because I think I understand what you mean, but I'm not sure that everybody will.
00:15:18.140 You say you're pro-immigration.
00:15:20.220 And what does that mean?
00:15:21.500 Like you're not against immigrants. 1.00
00:15:23.880 Oh, no, no.
00:15:24.320 Yeah.
00:15:24.500 I mean, there's a distinction.
00:15:25.380 I mean, that's a distinction anyway.
00:15:27.140 I mean, we live in an open and tolerant society.
00:15:30.260 And all the data across Europe is one of the most tolerant societies, thank goodness.
00:15:34.280 Absolutely.
00:15:34.800 You're not allowed to say that anymore.
00:15:36.080 I said that on TV recently.
00:15:37.580 No, but it's true.
00:15:38.320 And actually, immigrants understand it. 0.71
00:15:40.380 They do, because it is a nice place to live, and people are cool, and we get on.
00:15:44.840 And that's the reality.
00:15:46.520 No, on the magnitude, you've just got to get your immigration rate right.
00:15:51.500 The other side on immigration, which I think probably liberals have slightly overstepped,
00:15:55.780 is that so they've been i think liberalism has been too enthusiastic for very high levels of
00:16:01.840 immigration and i think it's been too indifferent to integration again i think that is a that is a
00:16:07.300 mainstream view we i'd like to talk about centrism later what is centrism so i we we what we're
00:16:15.460 representing and very very mainstream views on the data you know so most people most british people
00:16:21.220 are comfortable with a degree of multiculturalism,
00:16:24.220 but they're like separatist multiculturalism very much.
00:16:27.760 And they do think people, we ought to have common values
00:16:30.920 which bind us together in some way.
00:16:32.940 And if we don't, actually, as a society, we simply won't succeed.
00:16:36.520 I mean, what you're saying to me sounds eminently reasonable.
00:16:40.640 I agree with it, and I think, yep, okay, we're making a lot of sense here.
00:16:44.980 However, there is the other side to it, sort of the David Lammy left
00:16:48.060 who says that talking about immigration in this way
00:16:52.140 is akin to Nazism or whatever else and all this stuff.
00:16:55.880 I'm not sure what's going on with that at the moment.
00:16:58.600 Genuinely, it's quite strange
00:17:00.820 because this has bubbled up recently.
00:17:05.040 And the rhetoric, after the 2016 vote,
00:17:08.980 the establishment hammered the vote.
00:17:11.720 It literally killed it, disparaged it,
00:17:15.240 said lots of nasty things which weren't true.
00:17:18.060 You know, all leavers.
00:17:19.780 I mean, remember what a broad coalition this was, 52% of the public.
00:17:24.120 And to say it's a racist vote is absurd.
00:17:26.200 You run out of racists really quickly on the data.
00:17:30.140 I mean, it's true.
00:17:31.360 There are about 4% of the society's racist and bigoted on the figures,
00:17:36.920 four or five, depending on what question you ask.
00:17:39.540 But you can't say that half of the public that voted on democracy
00:17:43.160 voted on that basis.
00:17:44.880 It's nonsense.
00:17:46.020 So the rhetoric has gone a little crazy.
00:17:50.540 I don't know, and I don't think it's helpful either
00:17:52.480 because I think it's another thing in the SDP that we're against.
00:17:56.000 We're for tolerance, but we...
00:17:58.900 The sort of identity politics, intersectional stuff
00:18:03.800 that is hammered by the far left,
00:18:06.780 or even the Corbyn left, actually, which isn't really far left,
00:18:09.640 but it's very left.
00:18:11.520 Hammering differences, literally 24 hours,
00:18:14.380 constantly hammering differences. I'm different. That is going to lead to division. And I think
00:18:19.760 instead, politicians ought to think about what unites people. Most people, no matter what your
00:18:25.220 background or your religion is, want the same things. It's interesting that you say that,
00:18:29.900 this division, because I've just been away for a couple of weeks to form a part of the Soviet
00:18:34.140 Union. And it's amazing to me just coming back and starting to, because I tried to switch off
00:18:39.360 from the media and stuff like that, coming back and just going, wait, someone's just being called
00:18:44.360 white or someone's being called a man or someone's been like as if that's a
00:18:47.720 legitimate argument and I think that's where we've kind of come to it's crazy
00:18:52.700 I yeah and it's I think it I think it is actually a type of what we're
00:18:56.900 witnessing is a type of mania literally among some commentators and some social
00:19:03.120 justice warriors I think it's a type of mania people are going crazy and they
00:19:09.360 need the people need a little bit of perspective most people get on you know
00:19:12.860 out there in the real world we get on and it's not to try and constantly see everything as a sort
00:19:18.560 of rights violation it's an odd very old frame of mind it's not it's certainly not healthy it's but
00:19:23.120 it's not accurate either that's the odd thing about it it's funny in philosophy you get these
00:19:28.240 waves waves of movements uh in thought and you know communism or you know what but in philosophy
00:19:35.780 there was a movement logical positivism in the in the 30s aj wrote a book and and a vienna circle
00:19:41.280 And it was all about scientific rationalism, being able to sort of put the ground floor to justify any view had to be grounded, you know.
00:19:52.720 And in field departments around, particularly in the Anglo world in America and here, undergraduates would be running around.
00:20:00.500 Anyone that said anything, you know, an undergraduate pinning someone against the wall saying, well, how are you going to verify that?
00:20:06.720 yeah um and and this is this of course the movement just went through and actually
00:20:12.440 they discovered i mean popper demonstrates you can't verify anything anyways the whole thing
00:20:16.600 was clapped out and it's quite discredited i mean it did have i quite liked parts of it
00:20:20.740 but it's just one of these movements that just sort of started and then it became very intense
00:20:26.260 and then just faded away and i think probably uh again there's been there's been liberally
00:20:32.660 overreach. But there's been sort of parity mania, social justice overreach and craziness. And I
00:20:39.520 think we just have to go to ride it out, I guess, because you can't, we can't, like any movement of
00:20:47.180 that kind, it'll have its time and it'll fade away, hopefully. One of the things you talk about
00:20:52.720 is community. Yeah. And I think it's undeniable that we have lost a sense of community in this
00:20:59.560 country this is probably happening all around the world yeah families are becoming smaller more
00:21:03.560 atomized we're living more separately from each other we feel less connected to each other you
00:21:07.980 know we don't talk to our neighbors all over the rest of it and anyone can diagnose that but but
00:21:13.860 if you may have reasons not to talk to our neighbors this is actually a point i made in an
00:21:18.460 article once the reason we don't talk to our neighbors is not because we hate them it's just
00:21:21.560 we're british that's that's what we do yeah but if we take all of that and we kind of diagnose
00:21:27.820 and we say, this is a problem. And we know it's a problem. It is a problem. In terms of our mental
00:21:32.060 health, for all sorts of reasons, this is a big, big problem. How do we fix that? I think by
00:21:38.340 switching culturally from me, me, me, to us and to the community. And I think this is where
00:21:45.860 political leadership does matter. How we think about what we do and what we do. So community
00:21:53.060 is massively important people i mean a lot of liberal left politicians just just forget about
00:21:58.400 it they're just completely not interested not all of them but many do and so the the basic building
00:22:04.940 blocks family which is the first place that you do something for other people you learn that in
00:22:10.520 the home i'm going to help you know your mother will help your father will help you and and you
00:22:13.980 that's the first place that we learn it and then going on from that our neighborhood knowing
00:22:19.080 people getting involved running sports clubs and things sounds i mean this is actually um
00:22:24.820 a sort of civic society stuff that philip blonde talked about you know i mentioned the red tory
00:22:31.040 combination and philip's idea was that the civic society does have the greatest role
00:22:36.340 uh in in sort of cultural renewal that's right uh the problem is where it's needed most
00:22:43.220 civic society is weakest and actually where it's maybe not needed so much it's it's at its
00:22:49.180 strongest you know so you go to sort of a very strong relatively affluent village and you know
00:22:54.180 people will be involved in the curriculum they all know each other and it's very very strong
00:22:57.720 civic societies and some other areas in urban areas where you've got a perhaps a a less stable
00:23:04.080 population more people coming and going and things it's not as strong but it's i mean we've either
00:23:09.260 way we've got to think about communitarian impulses and think about doing you know working
00:23:15.160 together you make that point i mean labor at its at its core is is communitarian was was
00:23:21.780 but was it was it was all about unions it was about representing the people and you look at
00:23:27.800 the modern life i mean it's just demented but number one and number two it's like you said
00:23:31.900 is it all about divisions yeah i am this this and this you are this is so destructive it's 0.67
00:23:36.940 actually poisonous. I mean, looking at society like that is poisonous. A philosopher I like
00:23:42.740 a lot, John Gray, you know, people consider him a little bit bleak, and he can be bleak
00:23:48.080 at times, but he's also a great viewer and commentator on liberalism. And, you know,
00:23:55.340 he's great on this. You know, how far do you go with individualism before the whole of
00:24:02.280 society just unravels. And on that, how far do you go in identity politics before you end up with
00:24:09.140 what he describes as a sort of low-intensity civil war? And people want that. And I think 0.70
00:24:16.500 you can talk in slogans, but the SDP idea is a social future. And it must be. It's either that
00:24:23.340 or gated communities. What do you want? But how are we going to get there? Because as I sit here
00:24:28.640 during this interview i'm enjoying it i i'm in my head russian he enjoys nothing yeah i enjoy
00:24:34.140 very few things that's great but as i'm sitting here destruction of the ukraine yeah uh my wife's 0.51
00:24:39.420 ukraine she's very independent anyway i i i sit here and i'm thinking i i really like this guy
00:24:47.080 he's a nice guy he has interesting ideas right uh he he's persuasive he says interesting things but
00:24:52.740 would i vote for him is there is there a thing that i kind of go oh that that gets me
00:24:57.580 yeah i think it i mean all all any any any program is a is a balanced program is a you know if you
00:25:05.240 read the new declaration not everyone is going to agree with absolutely everything but the important
00:25:09.440 thing about the sdp is that were there any people doing this so again i mean i you know red tory
00:25:14.080 blue labor they're intellectual movements really but this is this is a proper political party
00:25:19.640 grassroots up we've got several thousand members now uh and it's happening and it's happening for
00:25:25.380 the right reasons and you can you can you know stay at home or whatever or you could get involved
00:25:30.540 or you don't have to but um it's actually happening and it's a real entity in that
00:25:34.880 it will be it's contesting real elections and we're trying to beat the labor party and the
00:25:39.480 conservatives and you given the others and contest for seats to get proper representation and i but
00:25:45.660 it will take time people when you when you were involved in a sort of upsurge like this everyone
00:25:50.900 thinks, you know, why aren't you on question time yet?
00:25:53.720 Why aren't you on, you know, and it does take time.
00:25:56.420 You know, if you look at UKIPs, I mean, the top-down SDP was just like that.
00:26:01.380 It literally, you know, foreign secretary, you know, film-style looks.
00:26:07.160 David Downey was a dominant politician, wonderful politician,
00:26:10.020 Roy Jenkins, home secretary, and these were big figures.
00:26:12.180 And instantly they got sort of instant, you know,
00:26:15.500 I mean, at one point in 82, we were at 50% in the polls.
00:26:19.760 but it went up like a rocket
00:26:22.020 but it came down like the stick
00:26:23.180 that was the problem
00:26:24.500 and actually this time
00:26:25.500 it's grassroots
00:26:26.080 so it's normal
00:26:27.100 normal participants
00:26:28.240 many who haven't been
00:26:30.020 in parties before
00:26:30.680 we got a lot of people
00:26:31.340 from the Labour Party
00:26:32.080 recently we've got more
00:26:34.200 conservatives joining
00:26:34.980 and things
00:26:35.340 we've got Greens joining
00:26:36.460 Lib Dems
00:26:37.220 you're a sceptic Lib Dems
00:26:38.320 weird
00:26:38.900 yeah
00:26:39.540 there's not many of them
00:26:41.320 yeah
00:26:41.680 not many of them
00:26:42.240 so yeah
00:26:42.980 so that's
00:26:43.480 I think it'll take time
00:26:44.700 but it'll work
00:26:45.420 and I think the thing
00:26:45.980 that I'm really really
00:26:46.660 confident about
00:26:47.320 is that
00:26:47.760 Matthew Goodwin
00:26:49.300 and the others that do the work on the gaps.
00:26:53.820 There is a gap.
00:26:55.460 I mean, there's no one else doing it.
00:26:56.540 And, you know, you do the political compass thing
00:26:58.060 and the whole of the southwest or the bottom corner is where we are.
00:27:02.060 But my challenge to you isn't that you're too slow in getting there.
00:27:04.860 My challenge is that I don't hear anything concrete.
00:27:07.420 I don't hear policies that are going to grab my attention or things that...
00:27:11.060 Well, build council housing to house a million people.
00:27:14.080 How does that grab you?
00:27:14.920 That grabs me, sure.
00:27:15.840 And by the way, we think it's too small.
00:27:18.320 I think that the next policy round will increase that.
00:27:20.180 And those council houses won't be for sale. 0.97
00:27:23.300 I mean, that already grabs me,
00:27:25.220 because to me, one of the biggest failures
00:27:27.360 of the Conservative government
00:27:28.800 is that I'm willing to deal with the housing crisis,
00:27:32.220 especially in London.
00:27:33.200 Well, Labour as well, they didn't do anything.
00:27:34.460 They didn't do...
00:27:35.460 Yeah, they didn't.
00:27:36.800 And it's the really strange thing about it,
00:27:39.000 particularly on Conservatives.
00:27:41.340 Conservatives are good drinking pals.
00:27:43.720 They are, they really are.
00:27:44.780 And bless them if you, you know...
00:27:45.960 And, you know, I think they're less judgmental in the pub and things, you know, get so much in your ear.
00:27:51.640 But the problem with the modern conservative, it's not conservative.
00:27:55.320 I mean, they say, you know, theoretically, if they've got the guts to back the family as an idea now, which they don't really do now.
00:28:01.540 But if they do have the guts to say that, they haven't connected.
00:28:04.920 You can't have the state just literally depart from the field and say, we're not going to do it.
00:28:09.880 We're not going to help at all.
00:28:11.040 You're on your own.
00:28:11.860 Bye-bye.
00:28:12.740 And that's what the conservatives have done on housing.
00:28:15.620 And if you do that, it means that people can't, when they meet,
00:28:19.020 they can't get a flat, they can't possibly get a house,
00:28:22.580 and they won't have kids.
00:28:23.840 And the conservatives, theoretically a conservative,
00:28:25.880 is meant to support couples that want to do that.
00:28:29.460 So I would say you're just not conservative.
00:28:31.380 What you've become is free market liberal maniacs.
00:28:35.340 That's what you are, because you want to marketize everything,
00:28:39.160 literally everything, even the stuff that the state should do.
00:28:42.280 So there you go.
00:28:42.540 so another policy railway uh nationalization yeah it's gonna happen anyway do you think
00:28:48.780 yeah because the because you get fewer and fewer i mean it's a it was a crazy you know confected
00:28:55.120 uh privatization anyway i mean no it's correct i mean the state does the heavy lifting anyway
00:28:59.740 with the infrastructure about four billion goes into that a year and then they let that and then
00:29:04.460 they let a few different colored trains run up and down it's just it's not really private you can't
00:29:09.340 And no state railway system runs at a profit.
00:29:12.940 It's got to be efficient, but it shouldn't.
00:29:14.740 I mean, it's a public service, really, to get people around.
00:29:19.460 And when you think about it that way, the whole project, I think Major did it because he'd run out of sort of Thatcherite credibility.
00:29:27.360 Honestly, I think that's, you know, if you read about it, I think that's what happened.
00:29:29.760 It's crazy.
00:29:30.440 And what's happened is that the franchisees can't make money out of it, so there are fewer bidding for it.
00:29:35.240 So it's just going down.
00:29:36.320 And then they screw it up like the, I'll be going back to Northumberland tonight, well, this afternoon, on a nationalized LNER train.
00:29:45.000 Hurrah!
00:29:46.300 But that's what happens, you see.
00:29:48.720 When the market fails, the state comes in and picks it up.
00:29:52.620 So it is a logical thing, and it will happen.
00:29:54.620 It's just a matter of time.
00:29:55.980 Well, give us more.
00:29:56.640 Give us more.
00:29:57.400 Can I ask one question, which I think is very important?
00:30:00.760 No.
00:30:00.900 Actually, this isn't Russia, mate.
00:30:03.700 Chill out.
00:30:04.220 but this is and I think this is very very important and it's a crisis that we have now
00:30:09.260 in London and all our major cities which is knife crime yeah and for me because I'm hoping I'm 1.00
00:30:15.140 going to get married within the next couple of years we want to have kids all the rest of it 0.99
00:30:17.840 I can't see myself living in a city because I don't want my children to be around that
00:30:22.440 how would you appeal to you know the young people and people about to have families that they're
00:30:27.600 going to be able to bring up their children in safety it seems like every day I open the paper
00:30:32.180 and there's another kid getting stabbed and murdered.
00:30:35.140 It's desperate, yeah.
00:30:36.500 I think what we've got to do is actually be a little bit more honest about
00:30:40.980 when politicians are interviewed about knife crime,
00:30:43.800 they'll talk, left and right actually,
00:30:45.440 talk about police tactics or police numbers.
00:30:48.100 You know, you've got the map used to be at 33,000, we're at 28 now,
00:30:50.660 and there aren't enough resources.
00:30:53.000 And they'll talk about other things like that,
00:30:54.460 but they won't talk about any fundamentals.
00:30:56.360 And I would say, how about the crisis in the family?
00:31:00.420 Are we going to be honest about that?
00:31:01.580 that it you can't and actually it's a bit like the the the housing thing uh the sad thing on
00:31:07.200 housing is that you can't i can't say to any millennial vote for me because i'll solve it
00:31:10.900 because it would take 20 years to solve you understand this yeah i mean there just isn't
00:31:14.940 you can't you can't get the house the public housing stock up in in five years ten years
00:31:19.920 or even 15 it's a whole generation but knife crime and all these other things uh you have to
00:31:25.260 go back to to sort of parenting and community unfortunately that is the reality and i think
00:31:30.900 if people have strong role models and the societies with them, back to the communitarian
00:31:35.640 thing, then in the long run, then knife crime would reduce. It would. But that's not something
00:31:43.280 that a politician can say, I can solve now by shoving this amount of money on it or doing that.
00:31:48.300 I mean, the left, particularly one of the criticisms which the SDP has of the current
00:31:52.960 Labour Party, is that it views cultural issues, cultural problems, just through the lens of money.
00:32:00.320 I mean, it's a bore.
00:32:01.440 You listen to them interviewed, and they just say, cuts, cuts, cuts.
00:32:04.560 Well, not all our problems are caused by, you know, Tory cuts.
00:32:09.800 I mean, the SDP is in favor of a strong and active state.
00:32:13.140 You need, you know, state spending about 41% of GDP,
00:32:18.760 and that's much higher than the Tories would want it,
00:32:20.680 but it's not as high as what Corbyn would want.
00:32:22.300 But you can't, they have a tendency to blame cultural problems on money.
00:32:28.620 And actually, a lot of the solutions are not to do with money either.
00:32:32.720 One of my favorite things, this is another policy, is the Daily Mile.
00:32:36.440 You know the Daily Mile?
00:32:37.480 Have you heard of that?
00:32:38.500 No, no.
00:32:39.080 So there's a school in Stirling in Scotland, and the health metrics for the kids was not brilliant.
00:32:47.400 Weren't fit, weren't concentrated.
00:32:48.880 And the headteacher there said, right, we're going to do a communitarian thing.
00:32:52.340 every kid and all the staff all the teachers were going to run a mile every day all of us together
00:33:01.220 no excuses no opt-outs we're all going to do it but different speeds but but you know they're
00:33:07.260 going to do it and and they did that they started off doing it was a cost it cost nothing to be
00:33:11.400 fair they had you know and there are issues with with with where could you do it but they did it
00:33:15.760 and all literally the education outcomes increased the health outcomes increased all the data and
00:33:21.340 you know it's fantastic and that didn't cost anything and that's a cultural solution uh to
00:33:28.180 to a health and education issue so it's a voluntary thing um we were a bit and i can't remember what
00:33:34.960 the pickup is something like 40 40 percent of primary schools do this now and it's a sort of
00:33:39.540 team building and community building thing um we were a little bit scared of saying right you know
00:33:44.840 the social democrats will mandate this when you mandate stuff it all goes wrong but but it's an
00:33:49.380 example of something where honestly culture is i mean we're all aware of the fact that
00:33:55.220 politics has taken a cultural turn in the last 10 years 20 years uh you know and the left and
00:34:03.060 right thing about economics which is just about who gets what and what the state should do i think
00:34:07.220 that's still important actually i really do i think that's very important but um culture is
00:34:12.920 is number one now that's it and i think so cultural cultural solutions to cultural problems
00:34:18.360 is what I would say, long term.
00:34:20.200 It's interesting.
00:34:20.940 It's such a good point, isn't it?
00:34:21.840 Because one of the things I hear as I listen to you,
00:34:26.160 and then I compare that with a lot of the things
00:34:27.920 that a politician might say on question time
00:34:30.860 or wherever else,
00:34:31.600 is we no longer seem to have any understanding
00:34:35.720 that some problems take time to solve.
00:34:38.220 Exactly.
00:34:39.120 And we've become so impatient as a society
00:34:41.840 that we don't want to hear your answer there.
00:34:43.940 We do not want to hear that.
00:34:45.440 We don't want to be told,
00:34:46.780 this isn't going to get solved in 15 years.
00:34:49.020 Yeah.
00:34:49.460 It's the same as the undergraduate full student
00:34:52.320 pinning someone down about verificating.
00:34:54.140 Tell me now.
00:34:55.220 Tell me now what you're going to do.
00:34:56.540 Well, no, some of the things do take,
00:34:57.960 I mean, it will take a long time.
00:34:59.340 And, you know, that is the way it is.
00:35:01.260 And I think the people are ready for that, aren't they?
00:35:04.920 It's also to do with our parliamentary system
00:35:07.160 that you get elected for four years.
00:35:09.120 Yeah.
00:35:09.460 If you actually stand up and go,
00:35:10.720 well, look, I'm not going to solve this in four years,
00:35:12.640 and everyone thinks, well,
00:35:13.760 why am I going to vote for you then?
00:35:14.900 I'm going to vote for whoever it is over here saying that you can solve it in two.
00:35:18.900 Yeah, no, I agree with that.
00:35:20.060 But on the other hand, the public is much more switched on than politicians imagine.
00:35:25.440 And actually, the whole Brexit vote and the coining of phrases, hard Brexit, soft Brexit,
00:35:31.100 crash it, the public are aware of what's going on.
00:35:33.900 They know these are slogans. 0.68
00:35:35.260 I mean, they're not daft, really.
00:35:37.160 You spend a bit of time on the doorsteps.
00:35:39.420 People know what's happening.
00:35:41.020 So, yeah, and I think people will be ready for a longer term thing.
00:35:44.180 But I think that the short-termism of British politics is partly to do with another thing, which you've talked about to other participants, which is for the duopoly and the first-past-the-post voting system, which is, it's finished.
00:35:58.860 It's cooked.
00:35:59.940 It needs, I mean, I think one of the consequences, we are living through a political crisis now, no doubt.
00:36:07.760 Strangely, not really an economic one, really.
00:36:10.080 You know, full employment, you know, it's odd, this.
00:36:12.260 I mean, you know, in the world outside, things continue and the country's doing reasonably well.
00:36:17.220 But there's a political crisis.
00:36:19.100 And I think, what are going to be the consequences of that?
00:36:23.760 And I think I would put money on the consequence being the duopoly of first pass the post.
00:36:29.400 It's going to go.
00:36:30.880 Because I don't think people are going to put up with the status quo politics as usual.
00:36:34.640 They're not going to put up with that.
00:36:35.640 And that's what you're going to get if the voting system doesn't change.
00:36:38.500 So when do you think it's going to change?
00:36:40.400 Do you think it's going to be...
00:36:41.440 I know it's impossible to make predictions.
00:36:43.940 I think within 10 years we'll have a new voting system.
00:36:47.160 That would be amazing.
00:36:48.240 And that's being optimistic, but I think it would happen.
00:36:50.820 I just don't think people...
00:36:51.860 I think within...
00:36:53.060 By the way, I don't think there's going to be an election anytime soon.
00:36:55.560 I think you're going to go the three years from now.
00:36:57.640 Because we're in sort of late 70s, you know,
00:37:02.180 Wilson-Callaghan-Lib-Lab-PAC zone now.
00:37:05.380 They won't...
00:37:06.020 A government won't call an election it'll lose,
00:37:09.140 or it thinks it'll lose.
00:37:10.400 So I just think we're just going to go to the bitter end.
00:37:14.260 But I don't know if it's that election or the election after, but what you need to have
00:37:17.900 to break it is actually a grand alliance of every single party that wants PR for one election.
00:37:23.640 Greens, you know, Communist Party of Britain, Marxist-Leninist, you know, literally the
00:37:30.680 whole thing.
00:37:31.680 You're really scraping the barrel there.
00:37:33.680 Yeah, just so you get 150 votes.
00:37:37.620 You need a one election, we've had enough thing, because I think people have had enough.
00:37:42.640 You look at the future, more of the same, really.
00:37:46.500 I mean, the thing about First Past the Post was they used to say it delivered strong government and stability and also firm decisions.
00:37:57.720 I mean, you know, firm election results.
00:38:00.320 Well, it hasn't done that.
00:38:01.720 I mean, it doesn't literally, it is clapped out.
00:38:04.560 I mean, the whole constitutional thing leads to looking at it.
00:38:06.540 But I don't think that's going to survive.
00:38:08.860 And I think the number of people that are pulling away from the main parties and their allegiances are pulling away.
00:38:15.460 I mean, you know, working class voters with the modern Labour Party.
00:38:20.120 It's not a good fit.
00:38:21.760 And people started voting UKIP and they'll vote.
00:38:25.180 I mean, very interesting, actually, the last election, 2017, was the first time that the Tories had as many working class votes as the Labour Party.
00:38:34.360 Did you know that?
00:38:35.120 No.
00:38:35.480 No.
00:38:35.700 Yeah.
00:38:35.840 so they used to be class but very class but based voting if you go back to the to the 50s very very
00:38:41.760 you know working class block you know and and you always got some work i love the way you point
00:38:45.940 that's good so they used to vote some great big middle class i'll take it i'm russian we have no
00:38:59.420 classes so you had that and then and then there's been a a sort of gradual uh realignment from that
00:39:06.880 but it's it's quickened and actually the next election i would predict i think the stories
00:39:11.760 probably do terribly but they they'll have quite a strong working class vote uh and it's one of
00:39:16.320 these realignments where you know like if you look at american politics now uh and uh you know
00:39:24.260 the southern states are republican and you say to your kids well you know they used to be democrat
00:39:29.900 What? Really?
00:39:31.600 I mean, they were quite racist Democrats, actually,
00:39:33.900 which is one of the reasons, but there was a problem.
00:39:35.700 But a proper realignment happened in the 60s under Lyndon Johnson.
00:39:41.440 And you can't imagine that now.
00:39:42.640 And people can't say, well, what, there's Southern States
00:39:44.480 who are voting Democrat?
00:39:45.160 Yeah, they were, solid, absolutely solid.
00:39:47.240 And when you're going through it, you sort of don't notice it,
00:39:49.420 but it's happening.
00:39:50.360 And so I think it's very odd, the Conservatives,
00:39:54.180 how they've played Brexit.
00:39:55.400 they the conservative party they say is the most successful political party in the world
00:40:01.440 and it it it is because it changes you know it used to be protectionist then it's free trading
00:40:08.120 and it's free you know throughout the years it just changes and morphs um became the business
00:40:12.600 party used to be the aristos party and so on and they had a they have a massive opportunity
00:40:17.560 right now
00:40:18.940 to pick up the ball,
00:40:21.260 own Brexit,
00:40:22.800 do no deal
00:40:23.480 and convene
00:40:24.740 a totally new
00:40:25.740 conservative thing
00:40:27.360 and actually
00:40:27.820 if they were
00:40:28.160 socially conservative
00:40:28.980 they'd storm it.
00:40:30.700 They're not doing it.
00:40:32.000 Well they're afraid
00:40:32.540 of losing half the party.
00:40:33.160 Oh terrified.
00:40:34.160 Yeah but the misalignment
00:40:35.500 there isn't
00:40:36.020 with the parliamentarians.
00:40:37.080 It's not with the
00:40:38.500 membership
00:40:39.020 or their voters actually.
00:40:40.160 It's weird
00:40:40.420 because I think
00:40:41.840 the parliamentarians
00:40:42.600 and the bigwigs
00:40:43.160 have actually
00:40:43.640 played this wrong.
00:40:45.220 But I'm no coach
00:40:46.340 of the Tory party
00:40:47.200 It's up to them what they do, but they've missed a massive opportunity for a full-on realignment
00:40:52.540 because they'd have taken the Leave working-class vote.
00:40:56.560 They wouldn't.
00:40:57.640 How dangerous is it, do you think, that essentially the Conservatives and Labour have turned their
00:41:03.420 back on traditional working-class heartlands?
00:41:05.840 And essentially what you have now is a large swathes of those people who are unrepresented.
00:41:11.140 I think it's very dangerous.
00:41:12.040 It's not a good thing for not only a social class, but a viewpoint, actually, to be persistently ignored, to be persistently ignored, you're storing up problems.
00:41:27.240 It's like a pressure cooker.
00:41:28.100 You've got to come out in other ways.
00:41:29.580 And actually, Peter Shaw, who's probably my favorite, my political hero, wrote very well on this.
00:41:35.020 If you ignore, if you don't allow participation and democracy to deal with these things, you'll get a disobedience in the end.
00:41:42.040 or outright, or worse, basically.
00:41:45.400 Well, there is no issue that has divided, I think, the country more on that basis where
00:41:51.880 people haven't been represented and their views haven't been taken into account than
00:41:55.620 immigration.
00:41:56.460 I don't think there's a single issue than that.
00:41:58.120 We were never asked.
00:41:58.960 That's what they all say.
00:41:59.820 Right.
00:42:00.100 Yeah.
00:42:00.620 Yeah.
00:42:00.840 So what is your view on how we move forward?
00:42:03.740 What is your party policy on immigration?
00:42:05.840 Just to have caps that will work.
00:42:08.720 So Theresa May's immigration policy has never worked. 1.00
00:42:13.420 They've tried to implement it.
00:42:14.400 They just haven't basically gone hard enough at it.
00:42:17.500 You just need to reduce immigration. 1.00
00:42:19.300 You need to reduce net migration and gross.
00:42:22.040 The gross figure is the figure they don't want to go near
00:42:24.540 because the whole of business and the cultural media is lined up to be pro.
00:42:30.800 And so if you put any limits on it, you've got massive kickback.
00:42:34.960 But that's what is required.
00:42:36.280 You've got to have sufficient but not too much
00:42:39.020 Right well that is just out to do as a racist to everybody watching this because that's the way this yeah
00:42:44.220 Well fine. Yeah, I know that that make as an immigrant that makes no sense to me 1.00
00:42:48.460 But somehow talking about what you just said, which is we have to reduce immigration. Yeah bang race is done 0.75
00:42:53.580 You've got to detoxify some of these things. I think you can't I mean Eric Kauffman's very good on this
00:42:57.680 I mean these are normal
00:42:59.780 Talking about this ought to be
00:43:01.780 detoxified as much as you want to talk about
00:43:04.640 transport policy or something. It's a legitimate
00:43:06.600 thing to talk about. Make it boring.
00:43:08.780 Oh, well, that would be
00:43:11.220 a political project. But then that ties
00:43:12.780 back to David Lammy.
00:43:14.420 He just said quite
00:43:16.280 inflammatory comments. Crazy. 0.89
00:43:18.880 No, I don't know. I'm a little bit 0.52
00:43:20.640 worried about that. I think that's not helpful.
00:43:23.540 Yeah. But again,
00:43:24.560 can't we...
00:43:26.780 I wanted to talk about centrism,
00:43:28.560 and I'll try and get it in here. Look.
00:43:31.780 so here we go so so can you hear the gift yeah no so what what what is what is what is centrism
00:43:39.640 it's representing a mainstream view which is all we're doing by the way now if if the things that
00:43:44.740 we talk about on the family community immigration or the european union are mainstream opinions i
00:43:52.560 would say they're centrist opinions and i would say that if uh you know cultural elites think
00:43:58.780 differently well that's not a centrist opinion i mean that's okay you can have that opinion
00:44:02.040 but it ain't centrist it's not you can't and actually you know chuckers group and you know
00:44:07.320 the change uk people are going around and obviously the bbc love them and everything
00:44:11.500 they're going around saying they're centrist i don't know i'm not sure you know what you're
00:44:15.800 saying you're saying you want to dishonor the biggest democratic vote in british history is
00:44:20.620 that centrist it's weird i mean that's like to me that's that's a mask slipping and it's like
00:44:28.560 You know, it's not a good moment.
00:44:30.420 It's not.
00:44:30.920 And I reject that.
00:44:32.600 This is why people say, you know, the STP is a centrist party.
00:44:36.160 It is.
00:44:36.980 It is.
00:44:37.560 But I'm not wanting Macron or Tony Blair or, you know, Chukka to join our party. 1.00
00:44:44.540 Well, they're hyper-liberals.
00:44:46.460 Exactly.
00:44:47.160 Total liberals.
00:44:48.640 Yeah.
00:44:49.460 Not necessarily personally anything wrong with liberals, but they are hyper-liberals.
00:44:53.220 That's what they are.
00:44:54.040 They're not centrist.
00:44:55.040 I mean, the counter-argument, and it's something I've been thinking about recently,
00:44:58.020 The counterargument to the idea that we must always do what the people want would be, you know, hanging or, you know, getting rid of nuclear power stations because people are afraid of them blowing up, stuff like that.
00:45:07.680 So what do you say to someone who goes, look, the people know broadly what they want, but it is the job of experts to come in and, you know, take care of things and make decisions. 0.97
00:45:15.700 The expertise thing is a really interesting thing because, obviously, Gove made that point and he was slammed, you know, and it became a sort of Brexit, Romain, Romain, because obviously all Leave voters are stupid, you know, we don't listen to experts and so on. 0.84
00:45:32.200 But there are some really interesting, fine-grained, philosophical ideas to be had on that.
00:45:40.560 There's a difference between macro expertise and micro.
00:45:42.940 so on micro you know an engineer or someone flying a plane or a cook or something that's
00:45:49.880 micro expertise and it exists it really you can but and the reason it's expertise you can rely on
00:45:54.420 it you can rely on it macro no i don't think so macroeconomics is in crisis literally they're all
00:46:02.800 over the place i mean it's a wonderful discipline you know two of my kids you know one did an
00:46:07.720 agreement one's doing one now and but it's in crisis it is not you can't say that you have
00:46:14.100 macro expertise that could that could say where we are with predictive um accuracy you know six
00:46:22.900 months they're quite good at three months actually but quite good a week as long as no crisis happens
00:46:27.020 but they're very poor they're very poor they're really really poor on on predicting anything
00:46:32.840 further out and actually gove bless him was it was just making that point because he's talking
00:46:38.040 about the imfs and uh you know um ocd predictions which was a legitimate thing to say so you know
00:46:45.620 critic you know does it mean you're ignoring expert of no not generally taleb nasim taleb
00:46:52.140 makes great uh great points on this and um he's you know he's an odd figure culturally but he's
00:47:00.200 i'd like him don't go on his twitter no i stay away from that yeah no i occasionally look at it
00:47:04.860 i have followed him but i occasionally look at it but his but his his contribution to intellectual
00:47:08.780 life is it's great about two months ago i was walking down uh victorian embankment and i i
00:47:13.500 saw him walking down i stopped him and said hello and said i was a big fan and um he was there with
00:47:18.740 his agent spoke for a for a few minutes and i didn't get a selfie and i walked up why why didn't
00:47:25.200 I've got to tell you.
00:47:26.440 But anyway, yeah, so the expertise, yeah,
00:47:28.960 in its proper realm, it's reliable.
00:47:32.140 But take my point about hanging,
00:47:33.560 which I think is a good example
00:47:34.760 where it's not so much about expertise,
00:47:36.800 but it's a sense that maybe we need someone
00:47:41.040 in a position in a cool, calm, and collected place
00:47:44.620 where cool, calm, and collected people come together.
00:47:47.180 Well, that's Theresa May. 1.00
00:47:48.720 I don't know.
00:47:50.700 The people who are wise heads sitting in Parliament
00:47:55.100 and deliberating on these great matters come together
00:47:58.460 and ignore our worst instincts, in a sense.
00:48:02.820 Because hanging is an issue where the majority of the British
00:48:06.800 probably perfectly support that, right, or have done for a while.
00:48:10.340 I think it's below 50% now. It used to be higher.
00:48:12.340 But let's say it's around 50% or a small majority.
00:48:16.080 Maybe it's not hanging. Maybe it's just the death penalty.
00:48:18.580 Maybe if you phrase it like that, most people would support it, right?
00:48:21.520 And maybe that's an issue on which we just need someone to go,
00:48:24.960 no, no, come on, guys, we don't need to go that far, right?
00:48:28.060 So my point is, do we always have to do what the people want in everything?
00:48:33.240 No, I don't think, I'd concede on that point, actually.
00:48:37.420 I think some people, when we're sort of re-putting the philosophical base of the SDP together,
00:48:46.100 some people are quite keen on direct democracy.
00:48:49.180 I'm not, actually.
00:48:50.060 i think if you if you have if your if votes match seats which they don't if votes match seat you
00:48:58.160 don't need that and particularly if you have seats that are connected to a physical you know a
00:49:02.700 geography to keep the link between voters and so you know so am i in favor of having you know votes
00:49:07.900 on the death penalty no and uh i i couldn't i mean i'm totally and utterly against the idea of the
00:49:15.240 death penalty. So I would have to say, even if, and I'll be honest, even if 55% of people wanted
00:49:20.700 it, I wouldn't be voting for it. Right. And so that's Brexit, isn't it? Some people would make
00:49:26.640 that point that- Yeah, they could do, they could do, but the difference is that on a tiny micro,
00:49:34.260 but lethal question for an individual, is that equivalent to asking how your state is governed?
00:49:43.200 I mean, Brexit is the biggest question of our political lives now
00:49:46.600 because it is the biggest question.
00:49:49.500 I mean, we haven't, we talked about, you know,
00:49:53.980 the nation state as an idea is diminished, very, very diminished.
00:49:57.500 If you speak to a new graduate at a modern university in Britain,
00:50:01.160 they'll disparage nationalism.
00:50:02.680 They will do it, 90% of them probably.
00:50:05.600 They will disparage it.
00:50:06.820 What they're not seeing is the positive side of convening national solidarity
00:50:12.020 to do stuff together, you know, so we're in it together, and they also don't see the phony side
00:50:18.720 of the EU not having that. Now, let's, so I love it that we've got 50 minutes, and it's only really
00:50:26.680 now that we've touched on Brexit. I was keeping an eye to see how long it would take. What we are
00:50:32.540 now is, I think, is in a position, like we said, political crisis. Yeah. If you were the Prime
00:50:37.480 Minister, how would you deal with Brexit? It's an awful question because you wouldn't have wanted
00:50:44.880 to get here. But that aside, I would say leave without a deal. I think that's the only thing
00:50:51.040 that respects it. I think personally, her actual deal, the deal that she has, the Barnier May deal
00:50:57.500 is worse than staying in. I'm here a sceptic. I want to leave, but I would sooner stay in than
00:51:04.180 vote for that deal. That is a dreadful, dreadful deal. You can't, there are some advantages to
00:51:10.060 staying in, but you can't give those advantages up without having the advantages of leaving.
00:51:17.320 And so her deal has none of the advantages of leaving. You don't get your own trade policy. 0.96
00:51:21.980 You don't know how you'll ever get out of the customs union if you can. Dreadful. So the only
00:51:27.280 option actually where we are, we wouldn't have wanted to get here, but the only option is
00:51:31.900 actually leave me without a deal. But by the way, I don't think that's going to happen.
00:51:34.880 I really, I think, I think the establishment of putting Brexit into a sort of killing zone now.
00:51:39.260 And I think this is why I objected to the European election so much, because it's a slow,
00:51:45.680 wear the public down, get the sort of, you know, the, the soft Brexit, hard Brexit narrative,
00:51:52.240 wear them down, don't honor it, put it into a, you know, negotiate a terrible deal that,
00:51:59.760 which the commons, everyone knows, couldn't because the various on the mass couldn't support,
00:52:06.480 then, you know, to get to the next stage by having European parlour elections,
00:52:11.460 then get the EU to give you a longer delay, which they'll do.
00:52:14.400 I mean, actually, that's a busted flush now.
00:52:16.240 They'll give you the only delay you want now, as long as you stay in and, you know,
00:52:19.340 continue the status quo.
00:52:21.260 They'll just give us as much time because every single vote the European Union has had on the treaties previously,
00:52:28.600 You know, Greece, well, actually that was about austerity, but Holland, France, Denmark twice, Ireland twice.
00:52:35.140 The standard way of doing it is to say, sorry, wrong result, vote again.
00:52:41.220 And I thought we were different.
00:52:42.620 I thought, and that's been the real tragedy, the real realization is that we thought we were different to any, we're not.
00:52:52.200 The elite here are doing it to us exactly the same.
00:52:56.260 That's the proper way of doing it.
00:52:57.720 You just eventually make us vote again.
00:53:01.260 And the only question is, are they going to have to do that,
00:53:04.320 or do you get some sort of false Brexit that gets through?
00:53:07.580 But incidentally, if they do that,
00:53:09.120 I don't think the public is going to be convinced.
00:53:11.720 But if you get the worst referendum they could have is May's deal or stay in. 0.98
00:53:17.660 So it's like stay in, crap, or stay in, proper. 0.97
00:53:21.800 That would be even worse, according to what you're saying. 0.99
00:53:24.360 You see, Francis and I both voted Remain.
00:53:26.180 Because we're good people.
00:53:27.060 There we go.
00:53:27.420 it's it's a running joke on the show uh we we have people saying when are you going to start
00:53:32.240 selling t-shirts with that slogan we don't actually think that way in fact both of us
00:53:36.140 have a lot of reservations about what's happened since brexit uh and i particularly feel like
00:53:40.940 if if we got to a point where we had a second referendum and it was either leave with no deal
00:53:47.380 or remain i would vote to leave with no deal yeah my only concern with that is how damaging is that
00:53:55.440 going to be. Because I'll be honest with you, I think democracy is much more important than
00:53:59.060 economics. Yeah, I do as well. So if we were to leave and suffer some economic disruption in the
00:54:04.960 short term, I'm comfortable with that. But I'm not so comfortable with the idea that we leave
00:54:09.340 and destroy our economy for 20 years. That would be it. Yeah, I don't think that's, I mean, I just
00:54:13.320 don't genuinely don't believe that's in the offing. I mean, a modern economy that wants things with
00:54:17.180 its own currency will end up getting them. I mean, you will end up getting suppliers. I mean,
00:54:20.840 there might not be that supplier, but they will be a supplier and the world will supply you stuff.
00:54:25.440 I think there will be a transition, and there will be some turbulence, no doubt about it.
00:54:29.920 You wouldn't want to have got to a situation where you've had to do no deal.
00:54:33.580 But we're here, and if it happens, I think the country would have probably 12 months of readjustment.
00:54:42.080 Certain industries will suffer.
00:54:43.260 I mean, I think certain manufacturing industries, long supply lines, there's going to be turbulence there.
00:54:48.920 And the economics of that could change.
00:54:50.440 But that's an adaptation.
00:54:51.320 and as opposed on the other side of the balance sheet,
00:54:57.460 destroying people's faith in democracy for a generation.
00:55:01.180 Is that worth it for theoretically a quarter percent of GDP for a few years?
00:55:07.540 I don't buy it.
00:55:09.880 So, yeah, that's where we are.
00:55:12.200 I think the case, I mean, it's the point we make in the new deck,
00:55:16.940 the case for rejecting the European Union as it's structured on democratic grounds is incredibly
00:55:23.400 strong. I mean, it's really, really strong. If you're a fully integrated Eurozone state,
00:55:32.280 like Portugal or Holland, there are five major important policy areas which your voters can't
00:55:39.900 touch. So, you know, if you say, if I can remember the monetary policy, fiscal policy,
00:55:44.060 trade policy immigration and industrial policy that's pretty major areas right there no that's
00:55:50.720 not little those are big things okay you're a normal portuguese you can't elect a politician
00:55:58.180 that can touch that you can't and that's a desperate situation now the usual trade-off is
00:56:04.700 that if things are going so well economically and we're you know bellies are so full we'll put up
00:56:11.280 with that. It's a bit like in China, people talk about, you know, why isn't there more pressure
00:56:15.180 for democracy in China? Well, the theory is that if China grows at 8%, people don't mind,
00:56:21.960 you know, and that's the sort of deal. Trouble with the Eurozone, it doesn't. I mean, you've
00:56:26.160 got mass unemployment. You've got mass unemployment in the South. Eurozone isn't growing. A lot of
00:56:32.400 large economies like Italy have gone into decline. So it isn't working economically. And yet voters
00:56:39.180 don't have a purchase can't get a handle on any of these things and in pub discussions i'll try
00:56:44.100 and because i drink with a couple of remainers every friday they're nice remainers they're
00:56:48.200 democrats like you democratic remainers who i think if there were a push come to shove would
00:56:52.280 probably honor a future referendum but a point the best point i could ever make to them is
00:56:57.640 is just line up beer glasses or cups and call them monetary policy and just try and touch them
00:57:02.460 try and get them if you're a normal voter in the year you can't touch it and what that means is
00:57:07.940 it means that those really really massive things have been decided pre-politically
00:57:15.080 as devastating that's that means that it's all been wrapped up you know it's all been wrapped
00:57:24.460 up before you even get anywhere near it and that can't happen by accident it's a deliberate
00:57:29.240 thing i mean it's structured like that and it's very sad that it's like that but it is like that
00:57:35.380 and I don't, you know, I don't want the Eurozone to crash in flames and things,
00:57:41.920 but it won't last forever because it can't.
00:57:43.580 It's not a good system.
00:57:44.900 So I think it's a bit like your railways.
00:57:46.980 You know, when the people with the little trains, you know,
00:57:49.560 running up and down getting in trouble, the state has to pick up the pieces.
00:57:52.760 And actually in Europe, when the Euro project,
00:57:57.520 which is a utopian 1950s project, when it falls down,
00:58:01.700 the nation states will be there as the only entities that can pick up and reconvene stuff
00:58:07.620 and do stuff. That will happen. All right. Well, we've got time for one last question.
00:58:11.860 And the question that we always ask is, what is the one thing that we're not talking about
00:58:15.840 as a society that we really should be? I'm going to say civilized tolerance or civilized
00:58:23.620 toleration of differences. I refuse to hear this. Well, here we go. So we'll hear it first.
00:58:31.700 So there's a sort of, I talked about the sort of social justice mania that we're going through.
00:58:36.740 And part of that, you have sort of parity maniacs.
00:58:41.040 We'll look at any domain, whether it's sandwich shops in Soho, or I'm joking, but, you know, footsie boards, any category, they go crazy if there's not equal absolute proportionality between every group you can think of, you know, men, women, or different ethnic minorities or whatever.
00:59:01.700 or different classes, and they just go crazy, you know.
00:59:05.060 So as if the end game of the project they're doing will be
00:59:10.280 that we will get absolute 50-50 parity across all domains.
00:59:15.340 And I would say a social democratic ethic would be
00:59:20.980 in an open and tolerant society, there will be some differences, you know.
00:59:27.100 There will be, and we're going to have to live with them
00:59:29.640 and we're going to have to be live with them instead of civilized toleration you won't get
00:59:34.460 total you want equality and some of the you know social justice is an important value but the idea
00:59:40.360 that you're going to get total parity is is juvenile and i don't think it's actually even
00:59:44.720 um desirable in that people make different choices in life and that's fine and i think if we
00:59:50.380 if we have this civilized toleration we will be better better off for it fantastic well uh if
00:59:57.700 If anyone wants to follow you on Twitter, you're at William Cluston.
01:00:02.380 You don't remember.
01:00:03.380 No.
01:00:04.380 I'm so bad.
01:00:05.380 William Cluston.
01:00:06.380 You'll find me, William Cluston, SDP.
01:00:08.300 And how can, if people really enjoyed this conversation and thought this is the party
01:00:11.960 for me, how can they get involved?
01:00:13.960 SDP.org.
01:00:15.240 Have a look.
01:00:16.240 And I think the biggest thing I would urge people to do is to read the new declaration
01:00:19.620 because that's the philosophical side.
01:00:22.460 And if you like it, think about joining and get part of it.
01:00:25.420 If you don't, don't.
01:00:28.380 Fantastic.
01:00:28.880 Well, thank you very much for coming on.
01:00:30.040 It's been a pleasure.
01:00:30.720 Absolute pleasure.
01:00:31.340 As always, follow us at TriggerPod on all the social media.
01:00:34.520 Subscribe to the YouTube channel.
01:00:36.260 You can listen to this as a podcast, as many of you will know.
01:00:39.220 And the thing that Francis has been pointing out, and we've been hearing a lot of, is on YouTube, we've had people being unsubscribed, including repeatedly from our channel.
01:00:47.860 We don't know why.
01:00:49.140 Could it be that we have honest conversations with interesting people?
01:00:52.140 I don't know.
01:00:52.740 anyway if that's you if you've been unsubscribed let us know and we'll keep hammering youtube and
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01:01:02.800 comfortable tweeting about it or retweeting just tell a friend spread the word spread the hate guys
01:01:07.980 and uh we will see you next week see you in a week
01:01:22.740 We'll be back.