True Patriot Love - Canada vs UK： Same Problems, Same Policies？｜ with Steve Swift

00:00:00.280 Look at what's happening right now in Canada and the United Kingdom.

00:00:03.700 Two countries, same warning signs, cost of living through the roof,

00:00:07.620 housing out of reach, public services stretched thin,

00:00:10.180 and governments that seem more focused on managing headlines than fixing problems.

00:00:15.580 Different flags, same frustrations.

00:00:18.020 And here's the question, are these isolated failures

00:00:21.060 or are we watching the same political thinking produce the same results

00:00:25.060 on both sides of the Atlantic?

00:00:26.780 Today, we're going to talk to a local candidate in England who's seeing this up close and what they're fighting for might sound very familiar to Canadians.

00:00:35.440 Because this isn't just their story, it's ours too.

00:00:43.960 And I am delighted to welcome to the remote studio, all the way across the pond, Steve Swift. Thanks so much for joining us.

00:00:51.820 Thank you for inviting me. Love to talk a bit of politics.

00:00:54.940 Well, this is the thing. I know you through a number of other podcasts in a completely different realm, but it becomes really apparent really quickly that your understanding of what's going on in politics in the UK makes you a perfect candidate to kind of align for this.

00:01:13.740 So I do appreciate it.

00:01:15.180 And we'll take a little walk.

00:01:16.960 I should mention, if you notice a bit of a delay, it's because we have connected our internet in England and our internet in Canada via potato wire for today.

00:01:28.260 So you have to forgive us.

00:01:29.880 It's just me.

00:01:30.720 I'm very slow.

00:01:31.840 That's all it is.

00:01:33.060 You know what?

00:01:33.600 We'll just take our time with one another.

00:01:36.460 Steve, I think that out of the gate, the one thing that I will say is that I noticed that Canadians and the British have a lot in common right now.

00:01:46.580 We're suffering in the same ways in many ways.

00:01:49.000 We have some of the same plights that are obvious and they've been fast arriving to both of our countries.

00:01:56.940 and you know also we have the influence over us of fairly um liberal thinking governments that

00:02:05.640 are looking out for everybody simultaneously and seemingly getting nowhere uh but if you don't

00:02:11.140 mind i'll start with kind of just give us the the picture what i'm seeing in canada on television

00:02:17.800 and through social media and youtube and things like that is a society that is reacting to way

00:02:25.600 too much immigration without preparation uh way more asylum uh population than was expected

00:02:36.080 am i off base here no but i need to i suppose add the caveat that this is you know what i'm

00:02:44.960 particularly interested in is the narrative you know in today's social media world where you can

00:02:51.280 announce a policy on x and you don't need to follow through you just announce it and it's done

00:02:56.880 then the narrative is the most important thing and that part of the the migration issue that

00:03:04.640 you mentioned is something that the Labour Party is struggling with um the Tory party before them

00:03:10.720 struggled with that and there are other newer parties that are making a lot of headway because

00:03:18.720 of that, some may say. Yeah, well, that's true. There are some pretty outlandish representatives

00:03:25.800 of the far right anti-immigration group that, of course, is bubbling to the top because they

00:03:32.760 tend to speak louder and fill the streets with their message. But overall, I think there has

00:03:40.360 been a certain amount of pressure on the economy, on services. It's probably not unfounded. And so

00:03:47.620 even though there is a narrative that is fairly negative toward asylum there are some realities

00:03:54.460 I think also that come with it yeah I mean I wouldn't deny that and you know there are

00:04:00.040 a lot of people who there's a big I'm not sure if it's the same for you but there's a big

00:04:05.220 phrase in in Britain which is just by talking about that I shouldn't be seen as racist

00:04:11.780 now it's about shutting down debate and we need to have that debate so yeah that's something which

00:04:19.020 people feel it is something that's real for people I mean quite a lot of this happened in

00:04:25.300 in Tony Blair's government but there's a lot more money around at that time it might be borrowed

00:04:30.420 money but people but because there's a lot more money around it felt different now it feels like

00:04:36.120 everything's really stretched and there is no money and we're being told that regularly what

00:04:42.680 a fantastic perspective through the tony uh the tony blair lens because you're right um that is

00:04:49.520 really when so much migration took place in in europe certainly to to britain uh and i can

00:04:57.700 imagine at that time it seems sustainable that it seemed like the right thing to do and by the way

00:05:01.740 I should point out, Steve, even in Canada, I mean, there is we have this feeling that immigration spun out of control, which it did. 0.98

00:05:12.920 Now we understand how and what happened there. Not all of it was good. I promise you that there was a certain amount of corruption.

00:05:18.840 And frankly, there was a lot of missteps that have really affected the the migrant themselves, the asylum seeker, the immigrant.

00:05:30.260 we promise them more than we can deliver to them right now and i wonder if that's

00:05:35.000 sort of the same feeling not putting the blame on a migrant themselves who made their way in

00:05:41.400 to a country that was welcomed welcoming them in yeah i think that that during the the blair years

00:05:48.040 globalization forced wages down all of that we're still you know we we we struggled through that

00:05:54.100 too that was that was clearly something that happened but there was as i say a lot more money

00:05:58.900 around now I think I don't think that we there isn't a feeling in this country that we promise

00:06:04.200 people things that we promise people who come here things there is a feeling certainly in this

00:06:10.420 country that we're not getting um people I suppose paperwork's and booked in paperwork's not a word

00:06:17.820 is it but it is no but I I think we bring it into the vernacular yeah it's I mean there are a lot of

00:06:25.360 private companies who are doing the booking of all of this and it's taking an awful long time

00:06:30.460 um and people feel that now you know someone like me would say quite glibly just take it back in

00:06:37.560 take border force back into government it's not that easy not after tony blair's government there

00:06:43.420 is again and the public private partnership stuff but my feeling is it would run better

00:06:49.700 if it was taken in but then i would say that wouldn't i because i'm quite i'm quite a big

00:06:54.540 you know nationalization person um but there is a feeling that people aren't being processed

00:07:01.680 quickly enough and I don't know if we have the narrative is that we don't really have

00:07:07.660 enough of a clear view of what um of what we're going to do although we do have a new home

00:07:14.340 secretary who is more hardline um and that is a bit of a sea change for us and is there's less

00:07:24.200 kind of grumbling because um she makes strong phrases and says strong says quite strong things

00:07:32.400 and so people are not there's not so much foment but you still have those parties who are talking

00:07:39.200 about migration and it's a central plank of their work and they're doing very well one in particular

00:07:45.960 in this country do you care to name the one in particular i don't uh i don't think it will

00:07:51.360 surprise anybody it's reform you know they're a populist right-wing party they have all the

00:07:56.840 policies sure they have a very charismatic leader um in nigel farage trump's great mate apparently

00:08:04.600 um apparently you know he's a good bloke to have a pint with apparently at a game of skittles in

00:08:11.000 the local pub you know he wears a lot of tweed all that kind of stuff in a flat cap so he's just

00:08:17.180 like you and me all of that and I don't fall for that it may be that that's exactly what he's like

00:08:23.440 but I don't fall for that um quite a businessman um and people at the top it seems of reform

00:08:31.020 appear to be businessmen but in this country we quite like that why don't we get businessmen to

00:08:36.760 run our economy surely they're the ones to do it so they've really had a good time as an insurgent

00:08:43.480 party a bit like trump you know in his in his first run when he was i've come from nowhere

00:08:48.920 folks well you know me from tv but i'm not political i'm a breath of fresh air now right

00:08:54.840 in this second run he's kind of aware of what he's doing a bit more but reform did very well

00:09:01.640 in local councils um the national mps members of parliament they have four with a fifth

00:09:09.400 apparently coming back to reform right here today i didn't even know crossing the floor

00:09:13.800 we have a bit of that going on in canada as well right now yeah yeah they're crossing the floor

00:09:19.320 from party to party uh it's it's been a disturbance in the uh in the political air for sure and it's

00:09:26.440 i mean for us that's the tories losing quite a lot of high profile mps to reform is that the

00:09:33.960 the way it is for you? Uh, much the same. Uh, we're seeing, uh, conservatives crossing the

00:09:39.400 floor over to the liberal party, uh, two very distinct posts. It feels like a lot of backroom

00:09:44.400 dealing going on, uh, that it's very, uh, very much, uh, I guess, uh, a route toward majority

00:09:52.240 government where we're very close here in the country. But yeah, over the last several months

00:09:57.020 that we've seen several occasions.

00:10:00.680 Yeah, I mean, we've had the same thing here.

00:10:03.400 It stopped at the moment.

00:10:05.000 But the thing about reform is that

00:10:06.480 they could call themselves an insurgent party.

00:10:09.400 You know, we're new and we're fresh

00:10:12.360 and we speak your language.

00:10:13.980 And they do speak an awful lot of people's language.

00:10:16.140 And I can understand that entirely.

00:10:18.620 But there's now a feeling that

00:10:20.660 we've got local elections coming up

00:10:22.240 and they won a lot of local elections.

00:10:24.360 so that's the councils that run cities and towns in in in england and britain and they've been

00:10:32.380 there now so people can now say ah it's harder to to rule and to run a council than it is to win a

00:10:40.840 council so there's quite a lot more that people can say so we have a rateable system called the

00:10:46.020 council tax and they've put that up in the narrative is they've put that up quite a lot

00:10:52.420 even though on their leaflets and i watched a news program last night where nigel farage was

00:10:57.640 being shown the leaflets here's you smiling saying you're not going to put council tax up

00:11:01.480 here's you more serious saying you're not going to put council tax up why have you done that

00:11:05.720 so once you get in it's a lot harder to well to govern and the labor party our leading labor

00:11:13.200 party feeling that too yeah i think that uh we see that in in uh many governments i think that

00:11:19.580 in Canada, of course, we have Mark Carney, and you're not unfamiliar with Mark Carney there in

00:11:25.280 England. A lot of what we're seeing is a corporate approach to running government, which makes a

00:11:34.140 real, that's sort of a different approach than we've seen here in Canada. I would imagine that

00:11:42.080 that's the opposite of what you're experiencing. Yeah, that's interesting, actually. What we get

00:11:49.260 is you know I shout and scream and cavill and grouse about the news which is not what do you

00:11:57.660 think but what do you feel and we've got Keir Starmer who's our prime minister who's a real

00:12:04.200 he appears to be and I keep saying this because it's all about the narrative for me he appears

00:12:09.740 to be a bleeding heart a real bleeding heart he's even when he was in opposition and when he

00:12:16.920 it looked like he was going to have a thumping majority and he did he looked frightened yeah um

00:12:23.080 and he's looked frightened until recently and that's to do with the current war and he's probably

00:12:32.360 doing something that britons might want at the moment the majority of britons perhaps well i

00:12:39.080 think that uh that's kind of next on my agenda with you actually was the uh immediate connection

00:12:45.480 to uh your economy much like us um you know what your military will do what your position will be

00:12:54.360 alongside the nato approach to what's happening in iran what's the feeling that you're getting

00:13:00.920 from your government the the feeling is that they've actually played a bit of a blinder

00:13:05.880 um and i can only talk from my own personal view and other people i talk to um that's that's

00:13:10.680 changed somewhat because what Keir Starmer did first was he said he kind of said remember Tony

00:13:16.900 Blair's Iraq war that man again Tony Blair's Iraq war illegal it was a terrible situation lots of

00:13:23.620 people lost their lives on lots of different countries I don't want to go into a war that's

00:13:28.620 illegal and he held off for some time with all the brick bats from Trump of you know we used to

00:13:34.940 have a special relationship fantastic now I don't know if it's such a good relationship all that

00:13:40.200 stuff. Great, great Trump. Great Trump. Well done, Steve. I can't do much of it. Some people think

00:13:48.820 that it's not a great impersonation. I love it myself. It's fantastic. Everybody says so. It's

00:13:54.800 never been better. And he took that, but then recently he sent a destroyer, I think around the

00:14:03.300 the Strait of Hormuz. So that made me think, well, it's too little too late because Trump said

00:14:10.440 too little too late. And why would you do that when you were getting some plaudits for people

00:14:16.880 saying, yeah, he's not a puppet. He's not Trump's puppet. And considering our economy is really

00:14:24.600 going to struggle if this continues for much longer with oil prices. And it's all doom and

00:14:31.200 gloom on in our news programs around that then I think he should be he's got nothing to lose by

00:14:38.400 saying to Trump uh-uh don't want to do that with you that's something that people have been saying

00:14:43.360 for ages with Keir Starmer doesn't have that much of a backbone they've done lots of flips on and

00:14:50.420 and you know turnabouts on their policies so him standing up to Trump was great but he's kind of

00:14:59.320 change that now. Well, you know, it's interesting that we have a similar scenario. We didn't see

00:15:04.520 Mark Carney here jumping up and down, getting into a U-boat to head over with Trump. We saw

00:15:10.820 him taking measured steps toward discussion about it. And how can we be more of a protectorate

00:15:17.500 than an offensive force? And waited long enough to have Trump doing the same thing. I don't know

00:15:25.300 what you guys are doing if you're helping at all but uh very much the same approach and i think

00:15:32.040 canadians would have appreciated us staying completely out of it maybe that's not the case

00:15:36.660 uh and just focusing on what we need to do here at home uh for our economy but also we see this

00:15:44.000 flip-flopping that you're seeing with starmer i mean it's very interesting to me that we're both

00:15:50.220 experiencing this on policies that revolve around international business, international law and

00:15:56.320 international defense. Yeah, and stuff gets lost because this is the headline. So recently,

00:16:05.680 what the Labour government have done is they have safeguarded, they set out rules and guidelines to

00:16:13.160 safeguard steel, to safeguard AI, to safeguard main manufacturing too, particularly steel. And

00:16:22.040 that's something which has been not looked after for many years. That's something extraordinary

00:16:27.360 that he has done and the Labour Party has done. And I think there's only me who's talking about

00:16:33.860 it. So that gets lost in the ballyhoo and the hoo-ha, hoo-ha of all this stuff. And the narrative

00:16:42.100 of when he's weak, but actually he is making deals. We just get, we just get lost in the war

00:16:49.820 of it all. It's interesting. I spent two or three weeks really bitching and moaning about our prime

00:16:57.520 minister traveling the world and spending $90,000 on lunch and taking a brand new airplane that our

00:17:02.940 military built for him all over the place. Some fabulous places, Japan, Rome. Oh my goodness. I

00:17:09.500 mean, he went to Norway. He really had quite a whirlwind tour. And in my mind, that was

00:17:15.440 a banker living the big life. I'm going to tell you that I had to kind of correct myself a little

00:17:21.960 bit on this. I'm no Jim Lang, by the way, guys. I still have a reserve judgment on our prime

00:17:27.940 minister. Having said that, I did have to take a step to the side and see, okay, we've increased

00:17:34.420 business in canada almost 100 billion dollars uh just taking non-tariff business from all the rest

00:17:41.160 of the world and setting things up and it's all the countries that he had been to now i don't know

00:17:46.700 if that was coincidental or just enforced it or something happened but it's certainly not part of

00:17:51.860 the narrative even the liberals in canada are not a really great at telling you what we've done and

00:17:58.240 i think that lack of communication in our country makes us think i don't know what they're doing

00:18:02.740 yeah we have the same thing i presume that mark carney sent you sent you some postcards here's

00:18:08.780 me at the eiffel tower here's here's me at the taj mahal i hope he did um no uh you know strangely

00:18:14.880 steve none of those arrived maybe they just lost in the post they're coming they're coming um

00:18:21.080 i yeah i mean it's the same thing here really because we did actually make a big ballyhoo

00:18:27.980 of starmer saying okay um i'm going to china china i'm going to china um let's have a look at that

00:18:34.780 let's see what we can do there now people said well what can you do there but actually

00:18:40.540 it's good to open that up now there are some issues around that country we know that but

00:18:45.660 economy is supposed to go everywhere isn't it and if you're a capitalist then it's supposed to go

00:18:52.380 everywhere so all of that well i'm just going to go here i don't need to ask trump's permission to

00:18:57.980 do that i'm just going to go and speak to these people um that kind of stuff gets lost in the mix

00:19:05.060 it was reported but nobody picks it up because the narrative is he's frightened and he should

00:19:10.000 have been so sterner went to china as well yeah yeah so he's he's been he's been cuddling up yeah

00:19:17.580 He's been giving kind of first overtures, if you like.

00:19:21.460 So nothing's gone off that.

00:19:23.100 But, you know, he's he's done all, you know, he has he is doing work around business.

00:19:30.180 So that kind of stuff just gets lost because the general consensus,

00:19:35.740 maybe it's just my algorithms, the general consensus is that I see.

00:19:40.380 Well, now it's just it's soon time to get him out.

00:19:45.060 he's a weak prime minister that's all stopped over the past few weeks by the way but he's a

00:19:49.860 weak prime minister there'll be a coup he'll be out before the end of his term and we'll either

00:19:54.940 have the health minister or um the deposed uh deputy prime minister angelo rayner in so

00:20:02.340 it's that he's it's that he's very weak and that he can't really run this country he's more of a

00:20:09.420 he he's like when we came out of the war and we had clement atlee let me take you back i'm very

00:20:13.520 I'm very old so when we came out of the war and we needed you know Winston Churchill helped us to

00:20:20.220 win the war um as did many others but the British public said that's enough now Winston don't need

00:20:25.920 you I need someone who's a caretaker to bring this country back and that's the way that Keir Starmer

00:20:31.680 feels um and people don't think he's bold enough now people have said that so often I don't know

00:20:37.440 if he can come back from that I don't know if his timing's good on that I don't know if it's a

00:20:41.700 comeback time. I think that it's a come to Jesus moment. Globally, Trump has put us all in an

00:20:48.360 economic situation. There's a war going on that nobody seems sure of what we're doing against a

00:20:54.360 very major and right for opponent that appears to not have any desire to give up. This may not be a

00:21:04.840 time for uh raising up the ranks as it were in either of our countries it's really a time to be

00:21:12.520 making accommodation for what's happening yeah and and partially it's a terrible thing to say

00:21:20.640 economically the war helps him because you're right when when he was elected people were just

00:21:25.900 sick of the tories you know they'd had so many prime ministers so many prime ministers in a very

00:21:32.160 short period of time and there was no money and I think they thought we need a we need someone just

00:21:38.180 to steady the ship here but very early on Labour said there's no money there's what are we going

00:21:44.300 to do there's no money and part of Rachel Reeves the Chancellor who's disliked from what I can see

00:21:51.380 in general certainly for her business policies what she can now say is well well growth isn't

00:21:59.000 to happen in the way i expected it to uh and that's because of the war and i'm not saying

00:22:03.960 you blame the war but it it allows her some coverage a little bit of latitude yeah yeah 0.98

00:22:11.400 yeah so you know that's good for her because she's been through the mill um and actually was

00:22:16.120 getting a bit stronger before this happened but she has been through the mill i think the only

00:22:21.000 person who's who's in in the government who's being given more latitude as you say is our health

00:22:28.760 secretary Wes Streeting and that's because when he got there you know we love RHS in this country

00:22:35.880 and it really is struggling and it's been underfunded but then you pour money into it as

00:22:41.800 the Blair government again Blair government poured money into it it helped to a certain extent but

00:22:46.760 people thought that West Streeting would sell everything off we would have an insurance kind

00:22:52.120 of policy deal um and he didn't so he's quite well liked he's one of the only ones in that

00:22:58.840 labor government who seems quite well liked by the by the voting public let's talk about

00:23:05.480 your health care we uh we are um inundated we have wait times in our emergency rooms

00:23:13.880 uh we have the innovate the unavailability of doctors the inability for people to reach out to

00:23:19.480 to specialists in a timely fashion, and it's costing lives and taking a toll on our health

00:23:26.260 as a nation. How are you guys doing over there? Not great. Not great. I mean, it's a similar

00:23:30.940 picture. Plus, what we've also got is strikes as well. So, you know, the junior doctors are

00:23:36.840 currently striking. And the issue for me is that, you know, as a longtime trade unionist,

00:23:46.400 The issue for me is that those junior doctors, people have said, and I need to do the research on this, that they earn as much as a manager in a supermarket, not delegating managers in a supermarket, but these are junior doctors who can make life or death decisions and life-changing decisions.

00:24:05.300 So I can understand why they're a little bit cheesed off that they're not getting the money that they need and want.

00:24:10.700 Well, not to mention, they just came out of school, which has cost them bundles and bundles and bundles of money.

00:24:16.340 They need to see the way through.

00:24:19.060 Sure.

00:24:19.600 And we are struggling.

00:24:21.200 You know, we're struggling in the same way that you said.

00:24:25.180 You know, people, there's quite a lot of corridor care, as we call people on.

00:24:30.580 People on gurneys.

00:24:32.440 Corridor care.

00:24:34.000 There's huge waiting times.

00:24:35.660 There are hospitals saying it's nearly critical, nearly a critical incident, or it is critical.

00:24:42.700 And we're trying to do other things around walking centres and sort of quicker care buildings.

00:24:51.240 But it's a patchy picture.

00:24:53.540 And you can pour lots of money into this.

00:24:56.040 And governments have, that the last Labour government did.

00:24:59.140 And some of the waiting times came down.

00:25:00.900 but it needs a fundamental look at perhaps a management of that that's the narrative here

00:25:08.100 management of that you need to get back to services on the ground um yeah it's in a mess

00:25:15.280 but we love our nhs you you will not get very much traction if you stand in the middle of

00:25:20.500 of a square and say let's privatize the whole thing let's have an insurance policy you know

00:25:27.140 Nigel Farage said that quite some time ago, and it's still coming back to haunt him.

00:25:32.860 You know, from health care, let me make a quick jump over to something you just mentioned,

00:25:39.680 how you'd be unpopular, you know, speaking out against health care in Canada.

00:25:44.560 We have very good professional people doing amazing things with health care as well.

00:25:49.460 And I think that they're just, frankly, a lot of the sectors of health care are underrepresented in budgets properly.

00:26:00.220 We, you know, we're in a situation and I'll take it to this place as well.

00:26:04.900 Much like England, our GDP is down, our inflation is up and we're not really making anything.

00:26:13.560 Correct me if I'm wrong.

00:26:14.860 And I know you make a hell of a breakfast in England.

00:26:18.220 what else are you guys making right now you've got steel what else what are you exporting well

00:26:24.340 I mean right now we should be exporting in Canada oil and energy and LNG and minerals we are the

00:26:31.000 most mineral rich place on earth we do none of that how how about that uh in the UK we're in the

00:26:37.560 same situation so you know I spoke to somebody the other day who said well we're opening up

00:26:40.840 North Sea oil aren't we yeah but you know we need to see how that works you know we have an awful

00:26:46.780 lot of oil and some may say that you know during the thatcher government in the 80s the profits of

00:26:52.220 that oil some say conspiracy theorists say well that went to to to pay the the welfare bill you

00:26:59.200 know all of that some say that um i don't know an enormous amount of what we of what we export

00:27:07.400 steel would be something steel would be something that we've always been but but if we if either of

00:27:16.500 us if either of our countries were doing anything significant both of us be saying ah we're doing

00:27:24.920 wheat oh we've got soy we're doing this we're doing no but neither we're both sitting here

00:27:29.060 going okay we have steel we have lng but we're doing nothing with it oh we have oil but we're

00:27:36.160 late to the game overall globally apparently and that would be helpful right now to provide

00:27:41.160 petrol as you guys love to call it it's okay to say gas uh we could all that's where i think we

00:27:49.860 have a similar moment right now we both could use our oil domestically yeah yeah i can't say gas

00:27:57.200 because gas sounds like i'm farting so we do say but um you know i'm feeling that way a bit now

00:28:06.280 i have my own gas which keeps me nice warm certainly in one area but um that's not lng by

00:28:13.320 the way that's no i can't sell it on i wish i could i'd be a millionaire but um yeah i mean

00:28:21.320 you're right that um manufacturing is virtually non-existent is the narrative you know it's it's

00:28:29.800 small businesses virtually non-existent you had an enormous amount of of coal and we have a problem

00:28:37.160 in this government because we're looking to um to create some kind of capitalism through and

00:28:44.840 the economy through green um green work and green manufacturing that's not really taken

00:28:51.000 off yet but we have an energy minister who's desperate for all of that um look i'm gonna

00:28:56.440 caution you to get rid of that energy minister right now you will be making nothing before the

00:29:01.020 end of the month ever again that requires any sort of machinery to do it and if you hear that

00:29:07.220 if you hear the phrase net zero run get the hell out of england well the the issue is that people

00:29:13.520 say and i have said it myself we're in ireland why can't we have wind power well um it's not just

00:29:20.480 about that it's not just about talking about that it's incredibly expensive um the and it will pay

00:29:27.560 off but with such short political cycles no one is going to stand there and say this will pay off

00:29:33.580 in in 20 years time because they won't be there so they used to say this in times gone by and

00:29:39.360 as i say i'm very old but i remember this but no one's going to say that now it has to pay off

00:29:44.880 next year. Okay, look, before we get out of here, there's one topic I want to get to,

00:29:50.540 and you can bail out, you can pull the eject cable if you wish. I'm concerned about

00:29:58.100 hate laws. I should start by saying, shouldn't hate one another. Let's start with love, okay?

00:30:05.580 But some of the laws that I'm seeing in Britain and arrests being made, I saw a number where

00:30:10.640 So one in, there's like 30,000 arrests or one arrest every 30 minutes that is based on speech law, hate law, and what people are saying online.

00:30:26.340 That's a little disturbing to me, Steve.

00:30:29.040 And you should be disturbed, but you should also understand that what, and I'm not denying this is happening because it clearly is happening.

00:30:39.620 it's being reported quite a lot um but what I don't like is certain organizations and certain

00:30:47.360 people who belong to organizations who use that to create hate so you know you do have woke versus

00:30:56.860 supposedly I'll do this um ordinary people so you've got that kind of anti-woke stuff going on

00:31:04.120 um that's something that lots of people use and they utilize it to um to make a lot of

00:31:12.040 political commerce with it so oh my god i love that perspective yeah i love you know what sorry

00:31:18.440 steve i love that perspective that's good fuel for hate i do understand right uh and but removing

00:31:26.860 those laws and letting society understand each other in a discussion i think is there's got to

00:31:32.780 a happy medium there isn't there yeah there's something it's something we need to find

00:31:37.980 and you know social media has done all of that um but it's easy for me to sit here in my one

00:31:43.900 upholstered chair to and say okay yeah it's social media yes there's been a knee-jerk reaction i

00:31:51.500 believe to all of this um but there's some there's quite a lot of well the police don't arrest

00:31:57.500 anybody anymore because they're all they're all looking at social media and trying to arrest

00:32:01.900 people who make posts now i don't know if that's true but i get it yeah people say it and there

00:32:07.760 is some of that but i don't i suppose i would say wouldn't i being a kind of left-leaning person

00:32:14.740 that um there are a lot of people making comments out of it but it cannot be denied that you let

00:32:22.760 that genie out the bottle and people start to worry and people start to say i can't say anything

00:32:27.060 i i get an awful lot of comments of course you couldn't say that now and you know and i grew up

00:32:32.320 in the 70s and of course you couldn't say that now no but we need a discussion about all of that

00:32:37.880 and it's not um you shouldn't be slapped down either metaphorically or physically because

00:32:44.520 you're having a discussion about that we need to talk about it so that and you know we used to meet

00:32:49.620 in the in the bar or the pub and somebody would say something and somebody would come back with 0.94

00:32:54.060 and it's immediate real-time stuff isn't it on social media you're crazy what are you talking

00:32:59.160 about oh well am i crazy you have your side now oh i'll have my side and we'll have a pint and

00:33:05.260 everybody will go home that's right and and you might not put the world to rights but somebody

00:33:10.360 might say i've not thought about that that way before that's that's great but you won't get that

00:33:16.380 kind of dissenting view and you know and i have gone on um twitter or x um and said in the past

00:33:23.820 look it's i believe it's this but you can't have a conversation because everybody's being endorsed

00:33:29.660 by their own followers and by their own algorithms and by their own people so you can't have that

00:33:35.580 real-time discussion and people can say what they like because they're avatars so it's difficult but

00:33:42.540 But we do need to have that discussion.

00:33:45.120 And I know that political parties, being part of a political party in the past, and I know this happens, will not campaign and knock on doors in certain areas or on certain streets because I know what their politics are.

00:33:59.520 Well, actually, I'd like to knock on that door and say, why are you a Tory?

00:34:03.940 Why do you vote for the Lib Dems?

00:34:05.660 Why don't you vote for?

00:34:07.440 You know, so I'd like to have that conversation.

00:34:10.040 but machine politics doesn't let you do that and social media doesn't let you do that either

00:34:15.540 no that's uh that's clearly the truth as we talk about narratives we shouldn't i mean the reality

00:34:22.100 is you're on the left i'm on the right we should have set that up better on this video but having

00:34:27.340 said that look we have had a completely reasonable conversation where both of us aren't far off the

00:34:33.040 middle we want what's best and reasonable we don't want extremes we want to see the government doing

00:34:38.820 something for uh the the majority of people but without a conversation like we're having right now

00:34:45.700 how do you ever find that solution this this is the problem because and i'm part of this i think

00:34:54.500 you know we're part of this you've got because of social media and everything else you've got

00:34:58.260 citizen journalists so you don't have any kind of outlet that you look up to we and you know we had

00:35:06.020 probably about 10 years ago which is one of the reasons why people are cynical about politicians

00:35:10.420 in in in my country we had um a story broken by a national newspaper the financial times the pink

00:35:17.620 newspaper which i read because nobody lies to money so they did great investigative reporting

00:35:24.340 and found that quite a lot an enormous amount of mps were claiming things that they shouldn't be

00:35:30.980 reclaiming you know plugs for their baths and as you said earlier with with mark carney huge amounts

00:35:36.740 of of travel and and you know lunches and all of that toilet paper things like that it ran and ran

00:35:43.940 this and people have not come back from that that allows citizen journalists to say well these people

00:35:50.980 have got feet of clay all these mps i'm the one you should really be thinking about because because

00:35:56.980 i'm charismatic and i can make a difference and they can make a difference on social media

00:36:04.100 that's the extraordinary and frightening thing at the same time and that's why we can't coalesce in

00:36:09.380 the center because the center is all about oh yeah it's machine politics and we all know what

00:36:14.100 happens there whereas on the left the far left and the further right it's it looks free and exciting

00:36:22.740 and social media and that's something which i don't know how you combat that i really don't

00:36:28.900 it's so funny the reality is right in the middle there again right the reality of how you have to

00:36:34.900 run a government how you have to run a nation how you have to have diplomacy with other people

00:36:40.020 how you handle immigration and feeding and welfare and all those those are the hard cogs in the wheel

00:36:46.580 that you wrap this rubber around the spokes of that wheel

00:36:51.360 that really soften the reality of what's going on

00:36:55.520 and what's structurally holding up the cart.

00:36:58.780 And so I can respect that.

00:37:00.760 And I think that it's easy.

00:37:02.120 I sit here five days a week, six days a week,

00:37:05.220 criticizing what the government does,

00:37:06.880 at the same time fully understanding that it's a hard job

00:37:10.300 and there are a lot of good people doing it.

00:37:13.540 It's the fraction of people that are doing the corruption or pushing too far on woke or too far on the right, too far on the left.

00:37:22.660 That, I think, is the disease in politics that finds its way into the bureaucracy.

00:37:29.500 Yeah. And it affects the center of politics. So it affects that. 0.86

00:37:33.040 You know, the reform has affected politics. It's affected both the Tory party, the Labour Party.

00:37:39.240 it's affected them the greens who have fought against that and are doing better so you know

00:37:44.680 it's affected that and it will continue to do so and that social media which feeds in

00:37:48.620 will also affect that uh he's been a politician he does a heck of a discussion on fighting just

00:37:56.180 to see if he doesn't my guest today has been steve swift you're a lovely guy and i can't wait i hope

00:38:02.020 we can do this on a regular basis yeah that'd be great i'd love that because i don't get to talk

00:38:07.340 about politics with people who are so sagacious and intelligent as yourself, sir? Well, my goodness,

00:38:14.140 that's the first time the comments will certainly have something contrary to say about that.

00:38:18.480 I will say this. I have an idea that you and I could take on. This could be a project for you

00:38:23.220 and I. You know, when we were in high school, you used to have exchange programs. A kid from

00:38:27.780 England would come to Canada. A kid from Canada would go to England. Why don't we swap prime 0.68

00:38:33.520 ministers just for a week and see how things go i would love that we love mark carney here he's a

00:38:39.460 he's a pinup you know i had a post on my wall he's fantastic we love him he's our he's our

00:38:47.540 thin superman well you know what i'm happy to send him your way for even just one more week i

00:38:52.580 wouldn't be surprised if he's there right now anyway i think he's got a house much nicer than

00:38:56.480 the one in canada steve thank you so much be well you too mate thank you for giving me the

00:39:02.620 opportunity to chat. It's been lovely.

00:39:11.660 Patriotic means looking out for each other and fixing things together. True patriotism is being

00:39:18.480 in a country you love, surrounded by people you love, and great weather. Being a patriot is being

00:39:23.220 a part of your community and caring for it. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from,

00:39:27.780 Patriotism is the one thing we all share.

00:39:30.380 It's okay to be critical of government and still be a patriot.

00:39:34.660 It's gratitude to your country.

00:39:36.280 Of course I'm a patriot. I'm Canadian. It's my home.

00:39:39.480 Well, actually, true patriot love is the mission.

True Patriot Love - March 31, 2026

Canada vs UK： Same Problems, Same Policies？｜ with Steve Swift

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

True Patriot Love - March 31, 2026

Canada vs UK： Same Problems, Same Policies？ ｜ with Steve Swift

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Canada vs UK： Same Problems, Same Policies？｜ with Steve Swift