Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry: Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq

They call you woke if you sort of campaigned for gay rights. Not at all. Yes, they do. There's loads of gay people who use this phrase woke. Okay, they may do. Come back to the police. You've got your definition. I'll come back to the police, right. Fine. The instructions police officers get, they're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicitly. Honestly, this stuff is just, it's demented. It's absolutely demented. That's the quote from the police. No, okay, and it may be because you found one document where some guy is writing some guidance for police. College of Police and Guidance. Okay, okay, wait a minute. This is how police officers are trained. Okay. Have you looked into this? Not as deeply as you. I think you should. Well, maybe I should. There's a double standard is what I'm getting at. Okay, I know. See, whenever I make a good point, you've just got to go, you know. Well, I haven't read the guidance. What the weaponizers have done is, there's a double standard. Oh, come on. But this is what they do. But you touch the real issue and you just go, this is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to weaponize it. Alistair Campbell, long time coming. Welcome to Trigonometry. Nice to be here. It's great to have you. Thank you. So, Alistair, let's kick it off. You have always been fiercely critical of populism. Why is that? Because we're living in the populist age now. What's the problem with it? Well, it depends what you define populism as. I define populism as a form of politics that seeks to exploit rather than solve. That's my view of populism. I know that the sort of traditional view of populism is, well, it's kind of, you know, the people against the elite. Okay. I think that's a post facto rationalization to make the populists feel better about the way they do politics. But at heart, populism to me, it means to me a form of politics that is not about solving problems. It's exploiting them. And that's not about meeting challenges together. It's about driving people apart. That's my take on populism. That's why I don't like it. And why do you think we've got to this place where we're living in the age of populism? There's so many reasons. I think, look, I think people, there are some very effective political operators who have worked out that their, their route to power with the views that they hold and the characters that they have is this form of populism that I've defined. Okay. Trump, most obviously, Nigel Farage here, you know, we know who they are and they're all over the world. I think they're much better organized than the center left. I mean, one of the things I find is comical about the populist right where nationalism is so much of what they're for is actually they, fight it on a global level. They're a globalist organization fighting against globalism. But I think, I think you've got to go back probably as far as definitely the crash. I think the, I think the crash was the, you know, 2008, et cetera, was a massive driver of populism. And I'll come back to that. But I think you probably even go back further than that to, and I, I can remember me thinking, do you remember the Seattle protest when China came into the World Trade Organization? Oh, yeah. Massive, massive protest. And it was the trade unions. It was ordinary people. It was workers. And they were massively protesting against the Americans letting China into the WTO. And I remember we were thinking, 'cause we thought at the time, globalization was gonna be part of our economic success story as well. But I think that was a big driver within the American populism. 'Cause that was what then opened the door to Trump to say, these people have given up. These people have given your jobs away to China, okay. So I think that followed by the crash, followed by, I think, a sense in politics, democratic politics, that it wasn't producing the kind of leaders that made people feel that's my leader. I can follow that person. I think Tony probably was the last one in the UK context, Cameron a bit, but not really, not really. So I think Tony was probably the last one here. You look at the French context. I actually thought, I think Macron is an exceptional political figure in all sorts of ways, but for some reason, and I think a lot of it driven by populism, the French have rejected him big style. You probably got to go back to Chirac, really, for a French president that the French thought, like him or dislike him, I feel like he's our leader. So I think then that opened that. So once you've got a sense of leaders that the public don't respect, 'cause the great thing that some, I mean, I understand most of what Thatcher stood for, most of what she did, but when Thatcher was prime minister, I didn't think it's ridiculous that she's the prime minister. I think our politics has suffered massively from having, you know, we know who they are, certainly Johnson, certainly Truss, prime minister thinking, you know, it is ridiculous that they're our prime minister, okay. Now, and Johnson, of course, classic populist. Absolutely. When I said, you know, see a problem, how do I exploit it, not solve it? I mean, that guy did not believe in Brexit. And yet he was one of the prime deliverers of it because he saw a challenge, a problem for others. How do I exploit it? Because what was his big motivation? It was to become prime minister. And then what happened after that? He didn't really care. - Do you think part of the problem as well is that when, - Yeah. - We saw the banks being bailed out. - Yeah. - A lot of people thought, well, hang on, they've made all these mistakes in there and they're getting away with it scot-free. - That's what I meant by the crash. - Yeah. - What you had was socialism for the banks. - Yes. - And austerity for the people. The banks who caused it and then the people who didn't. And you know, how many people have gone to jail through the global crisis? The global financial crisis, right? - Not really. - And then, whereas the people have paid a massive price. Now, and then what happened is because this is just the way politics works, politicians got blamed for not holding the bankers' property to account. Politicians got blamed because whenever there's an economic hit, it's politicians who tend to cop it. But I completely agree with you. People, even if they didn't identify, you know, you didn't have people sitting around saying, well, this is terrible. You know, this is socialism for the banks and austerity for us. But they did think, well, hold on a minute. These guys have complained. They've completely fucked it up. They're getting bailed out with our money. And even though, and I remember Alasdair Darling, chancellor at the time, and you know, I mean, that was a very, very stressful time for those guys. But I remember talking to him about, it's a very, it's a very hard thing to have to explain that this is going to be bad. But if we don't do this, it's going to be even worse. But there's no doubt that was a driver. I think that was a driver of a lot of the polarisation that we feel now as well. Because that is the thing that allowed the populists to say, the reason they're helping out the banks is because these are the elitists and you, the people, are paying the price. But who were they, the elitists? You know, bankers, traders, business people, people like Trump, people like Farage. They're the people. This is why it's such a con that people like them have managed to portray themselves as being on the side of ordinary people. And I think the reason Farage is in trouble at the moment and the reason Trump's actually politically in quite a lot of trouble, even though he doesn't care because he's going to go anyway, and it's just about getting rich, is because people are, I think, working out. They're not motivated by you, the people's interests. They're motivated by their own. We'll come back to those two. But do you not think, I mean, you say it was the bankers and it was the bankers. Absolutely. But it was democratic politicians in America, Bill Clinton in particular, who repealed Glass-Steagall, which was put in place to prevent another great financial crisis. And the same thing happened here under the Blair government, I think it's fair to say. Right. So the politicians opened the door to allow these people to act in ways that were damaging. And then you had this great collapse, which, as you rightly say, we ended up paying. And neither the politicians who opened the door to another bankers who took advantage of it suffered at all. I think I think quite a lot of the politicians did suffer. It depends how you define suffering. But, you know. They didn't suffer like the people suffered. No, but no, but they they they paid a price. They paid a price. A lot of the politicians did. You know, I would I would argue, for example, that, you know, I think the Labour government accepted that. I kind of felt this at the time in the whole globalisation thing. I remember actually Tony and I didn't argue about that much because I broadly agreed with most of the things that he was doing. But I was worried at one point. I only know this because it's in my diaries. I can't remember the conversation. But saying that this globalisation thing, fine. And if you just track back a bit, one of the things we had to do as an incoming Labour government was to dispel as best we could this idea that Labour can't run the economy. And Gordon, you know, First Step, Bank of England Independence. We did pretty well in the economy for quite a long time. And so that as that was happening, part of what we were showing was an understanding of the way the global economy was changing, adapting. And we had to adapt to that as well. And I sometimes worried and I said this at the time, I'm not sure we're educating people enough about the potential downside of globalisation alongside the evident upside which we're benefiting right now. And I think that was a problem. I think, I mean, I cannot pretend to be an expert in financial services regulation, but I know that I think there are people who were experts at that time and who were doing the policy at the time who think that maybe we didn't regulate carefully enough. But again, you've got to understand that we as a leftist centre government, a Labour government, we were kind of always conscious of the fact that we're going to get accused of being over-regulatory. And so maybe we didn't regulate enough on that. But I agree with you. I'm agreeing with the premise. I think that the, I think the crash was the big driver. But I think in the American context, you go back even further. I think you go back to American-Chinese relationship. Well, very much on that point. It's interesting that I completely agree with an economic analysis and we and I have been one of the people who's been saying for a long time that people don't realise we are poorer today than we were before the crash on a per capita basis. Most people don't know this, but they feel. Poorer. And one of the reasons there is rising tension, rising disquiet, discontent, etc. But it's interesting how sometimes people I think on the left of centre frame this issue because you said, well, allowing China into the World Trade Organisation, which by the way, the idea was the Chinese are going to join, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, we're all going to trade. Well, that's not what happened. They stole all Western technology and they screwed everybody over. And you say, well, it gave Trump the opportunity to say you shipped off the job to China. They did ship the jobs off to China, right? Well, they. That's what happened. There were definitely, I don't think we disagree that much. I mean, I think that what I'm trying to do is to give you an understanding of the motivations for the policies they were pursuing at the time. No, no. And agreeing that there were consequences. My point is something else, Alistair. My point is the framing is this was a mistake because it allowed Trump to say this. And I'm saying it was a mistake because it was a mistake. Yeah. OK. But then you have to then at the same time. Enunciate what the policy otherwise would have protected key industries. Yeah, possibly. But what is that? What does that mean in the modern industrial age? It means that you would have been slightly less prosperous or you would have had a slightly lower GDP, which is a hard sell, but you would have not had whole regions of America and the north of England effectively losing the entire. And then what would have happened on the bigger picture in terms of the relationship between China and the rest of the world? So if you look at the kind of example, I'll give you another example just to show you the kind of real politic of this, where, again, I think I'll acknowledge that we were well, I don't know whether the word is naive or we made mistakes or whatever. You take our relationship with Russia, OK? So we met Putin before he became president and based partly on advice, but also based on, you know, seeing the guy's eyeballs and talking to him. I think Tony reached a judgment that this could be OK. This could work. OK, we were very right at the forefront, for example, of trying to persuade the rest to make them G7 into G8. OK, back then that felt like the right decision and it felt like that was taking us and them in a better direction. You look at that decision today or you look at the German relationship in relation to the energy markets today and you think, what were you guys doing? So when on our podcast we interviewed the widows, both of Litvinenko and of Navalny, we've talked to them both, they both said, we think you were naive. Right. OK, now, and that's a perfectly good judgment. They both lost their husbands because these guys killed them. And yet there we were, you know, toasting each other with vodka and Tony was playing this silly snooker game with him and, you know, all sorts of stuff. We got closer. So all I'm saying is that you make the decision, you take the strategic choice at the time and then the consequences are sometimes-- Alisson, we haven't brought you here to-- No, I know that. --correct you about the faults of the Blair government. No, but I'm saying-- We don't have enough time. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Honestly, I'm kidding. I'm just talking about the framing because populism is a really important issue. I agree with you that a lot of the populism-- by the way, we haven't talked about left-wing populism and there's a lot of that going on at the moment. Yeah, for sure. That doesn't offer any practical solutions either as far as I'm concerned. It's a really important issue. I'm just-- the issue I'm honing in on is how we talk about it because what I'm hearing-- Yeah. --from you and other people in your space is the problem is not the problem. The problem is it allowed Trump to say it's a problem. The problem is it allowed Farage to say it's a problem. No, I'm saying both things, really. I think I'm saying both things. But I think you have to see-- in a way, you do have to make judgments like that in politics because nothing that a politician does at any moment of time-- There's trade-offs. --stays in that time. Of course. Yeah, of course. Of course. I mean, the truth is that Trump is in part a consequence of-- I think it's a consequence of the fact that America had a black president in part. I think one of the reasons that Hillary got rejected was because people thought, "Jesus, they gave us a black guy. I'm not taking a woman as well." Some people, OK? So you have consequences. So I'm happy to defend the stuff that we did, but I'm also happy to admit that in some of these situations-- and a lot of this goes to the conflict and the tension you sometimes get between the promises you make and the nature of the promise in which the public expect you to make them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the reality of the complexity of life. I totally get it. I'm making a slightly different point, though. I've got your point. You've got my point. I've got your point. The reason it's important is the issue I'm about to bring up, which I think is another huge driver of populism, which is the scale and pace and type and quantity of mass immigration into Britain, into America, into many European countries, and the scale of illegal immigration that we've had. So I came to Britain from Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, in 1996. When I came, net immigration into Britain was about 55,000 a year. And at the time, 3% of the British public thought immigration was a major issue. It wasn't an issue, basically, in 1990. No one cared. And then we had, both under the Labour and the Conservative governments, a huge increase in mass immigration. And now we are at a point where even illegal immigration is now basically at the point where legal immigration was in 1996. We have tens of thousands of people coming here every year. We're not removing them. So we've got about a million illegal immigrants in Britain. We're removing about 10,000. So even if we never let another one in, it would take us a century to address that problem on current trends. We can talk about economics, and it's massively important. But I think we all have to accept that those policies and the fact that that has happened must be, inevitably, a huge driver of resentment, distaste, distrust. And people like Nigel Farage, you may say they're exploiting it. But other people would say they are reacting to the public anger at these policies that have been pursued by left- and right-wing governments that have changed the face of this country. The Trigonometry Merge Store is built on Shopify. Because the moment someone's actually ready to pay, Shopify makes sure they can. And if they've bought before, their details are already saved, so it's one tap and done. That's time back to grow the business instead of running it. If you want to start the same way, that's shopify.co.uk/trigonometrymerge. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk/trigger. A few weeks ago, we pointed you toward Hillsdale's free course on the Odyssey. The course has been so popular that when they told us they'd built a follow-up course on Homer's Iliad, we wanted you to hear about it first. Hillsdale College's new free online course is taught by Professor Stephen Smith. 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I would argue that racial integration has been less successful in France than it has here. And yet they have the team that-- when's this going out, before the final or not? Before-- after. After. OK. So then-- Or the final of the World Cup. Well, fine. Not before. Before. Yeah, before. OK. So then they have the football team that may, by the time this goes out, be on its way to winning the World Cup. Mm-hmm. How many players did they have the other day in the lineup? One white player? Mm-hmm. In the starting lineup? The last game they played? That is-- I look at that, and I think France should be really proud of that. A lot of people I know in France look at that and think, that's not France, OK? So you can have a different debate about what you think your country represents. Well, again, what I'll accept is-- and I can remember having massive arguments. Yeah. I can remember having massive arguments at the time. When we-- we were-- I talked about, you know, we wanted to get Putin into the G8. We wanted enlargement in the European Union. We were a big supporter of enlargement. I think enlargement was a good thing to do. Um, now unintended consequences. We, I can remember having huge fights in briefings that I did. I can remember one in particular almost came to blows, um, because we were relying as you do in government on an assessment of how many are experts and, you know, and they're clever people and they study data and all that sort of stuff. And they were, they were suggesting that I can't remember what the numbers were, but X number of polls, X number of this, X number of that would come to work in Britain. Massively undressed. They said 13,000 and then a million came. Well, is that right? Yes. Which, which, well, I might've seen. They said that if you, uh, so what happened was just for people who don't remember the UK and Ireland, I think were the only two countries in the EU at the time that didn't introduce transitional controls. And the advice was 13,000 people a year would come and a million came. Um, a million people from the country I said, well, look, I can't remember. We can fact check it, but it was that order of difference. Yeah. But I'm, I'm talking about the advice that we were getting. Right. Okay. Um, was that underestimated? A hundred percent. Absolutely accept that. Did that lead to problems related to community cohesion? Yeah, it did in some places. In other places it didn't. Um, but did it lead to, and you, you, I know you're going to disagree with this cause you're going to say I'm doing the same thing as saying the problem isn't, you know, I'm doing the same thing as saying the problem isn't, the problem, it's the consequences. Um, but did the immigration debate within our politics become swamped with exaggerated figures, exaggerated consequences? I think it did. It's that I think as much as the numbers that fueled the, the problems we have now. So for example, you take an issue like, you know, live very, very recently, the whole, you know, the grooming gangs issue, terrible, terrible, terrible problem. Lots of mistakes, made along the way. But the way that it's now become identified purely, virtually purely within our debate is an issue of Muslims, as opposed to some of the worst grooming gangs being, you know, white people in white communities. Um, I think that is a, that is a problem. And of course it's very, very hard, you know, well, who's the worst grooming gang that, you know, it, it, it, he just want, you want, I want to have a debate where we can actually say, these are real problems. Um, once you've, once you've got a politics that's been defined through a certain prism and the prism at the moment, because of our media, because of people like Farage and so forth, it's defined in a certain way. I think that's what I mean about the problem becomes worse. But I, I would, it's actually something different that I disagree with you on there. My reading of it, and we've covered the grooming gangs issue from 2019, because when we first discovered what was going on, I was horrified. And I remember writing, I think it was to Sarah Champion, inviting her on the show. And she had had so much hate and for even raising this issue. She said, I, I, I just don't want to talk about it anymore because, and so the reason that people are talking about it with the level of anger and resentment is not just what happened. It's also the fact that actually when people tried to have a very reasonable debate, they were suppressed. They were suppressed. You used the phrase, they're reasonable debate. Sarah Champion was a Labour MP trying to raise this issue in her local community. I know Sarah Champion. I know what she was trying to do. And I also accept, I do agree with you that there, there have been times, probably particularly when it's related, been related to race, but also I think we're seeing it in, in other issues. I think we're seeing it in relation to the trans debate. I think we're seeing it in relation to maybe less the kind of gay rights debate. But I think particularly if you're talking about race, I think there have been times when the fear of the consequence of ventilating the debate, stops you having the debate in the first place. And I agree, and I think that's wrong. And that's why you get the radicalization is my point. Because when people aren't allowed to speak and they're suppressed and they're prevented from- They are. I never buy this idea that they're not allowed to speak. Sarah Champion. No. When you're hounded out of public life or out of speaking in public about a really important issue to the point you don't ever want to talk about it again. Yeah, that is, that is, I'm not defending it. Then, then your other people who are more extreme are going to come along. I agree. Yeah, but- That's what happened. Right. What I'm saying, is that if your political debate generally has become more toxic and we can blame whoever we want, right, and you probably might think it's more people on the left. No, I think it's technology actually, mainly. Okay. It may be, but that's another issue we haven't, we haven't really- But let's focus on this. Okay. So focus on this. I would say that because the debate generally has become more toxic, because we do have a branch of politician that when something really bad happens, doesn't think, "Shit, that's really bad, what can I do to help?" Actually thinks, "What can I do to exploit?" That is why, partly, I think, why we got into the mess. Recently, the Southampton and Belfast stuff, you know, where technology played a big part. But that was a classic example where politicians and political figures who knew absolutely nothing about beyond a small set of facts, with, but- They just wanted the one or two facts within that cohort of facts, then to go out and create riots. Okay. That is a, that is a creature of the toxic, to my mind, of the toxicity of populism. And so that we don't, and this is, look, we've all got to own up to our responsibility in this. Social media has played a massive part. Yeah. The way we do our politics has played a massive part. Yeah. And the way, you know, one of the things I've thought about a lot since doing this podcast with Rory Stewart, because, you know, most of my life I've spent trying to destroy Tories. That's what motivated me, you know, how do we get the Tories out of power and keep them out of power? And that attitude, which is still very strong within me, to some extent. But what the podcast has taught me, I think, is that it's really not a good way to address problems. So, and that's why I really, really hope Andy Burnham is able to stick to this style that he's got. I think it's going to be hard. Very hard. Very hard. Because he's talking about more collaborative, more respect for each other. They all say that, and then they come in and start fighting. Well, I don't think they say it. What about David Cameron? He came in, and we're going to work together, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it never happens. No, no, it's so hard to do. But my point is, I think Andy's, I think, put it this way, I think it's become an ingrained part of Andy's politics. So because he's done a different job, as being a mayor, it's a different sort of job you've got to do. But so I think the, and I accept. Because I'm, you know, I'm very Labour, and I do feel that the country's been dragged way too far to the right, I know that there's this problem on the left as well. I do accept that. But I think in terms of, and I don't want to play the blame game, but if you say, let's say, let's say that it's, let's say those people who say they think it's a good thing that we're now in the era of populism, that we've got this populist debate, right? The ones that I think have been most successful at changing the nature of that political debate, I think they are on the right. And I think in our country, a lot of them is to do with the media. I think, who was I with the other day, I was talking to, about Murdoch, God, who was it, Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian Prime Minister, and he said, "You wouldn't have had Brexit without Murdoch, and you wouldn't have had Trump without Murdoch." Now, I don't know if that's true or not. None of us know. But there's a guy who's been Prime Minister of Australia. He's quite a bright guy, a very bright guy. And it's a fair point. It's a fair point. It may be. It may be. It's not a fact, but it's a- It may be. But the issue I'm trying to raise with you, and by the way, look, we don't come at it from a right or left perspective. The issue I'm trying to hone in is something that really bothers me as someone who had dissident family in the Soviet Union who were prevented from saying their opinion in public. The reason the show really started with us is we really don't like the culture. We don't like the culture of not allowing people to express their concerns, and I think it's important, right? I would put it to you, you don't get Brexit if people's concerns about mass immigration in the 2000s, and if people's concerns about things like the grooming gangs and other things are not deliberately suppressed, people are not smeared as being racist for their opinions about not wanting illegal immigration. All of these things, in my opinion, whether you like them or not, are acceptable, reasonable positions, which, by the way, as you well know, left-wing politicians here and in the United States used to express. I mean, the idea that you can't have an open border has been universally accepted across the political spectrum, and then suddenly we're supposed to pretend that it's normal that we've got tens of thousands of people coming in illegally. I'm a legal immigrant to this country. I don't understand why we have more than one illegal immigrant coming into this country, more than zero. Like, it shouldn't be happening. So my point to you is, if we didn't have the suppression of the debate, and if we had, as you say, politicians who said, "You know what? These grooming gangs that Sarah Chapman is raising, this really is terrible. We're going to get into it, we're going to get stuck in, we're going to deal with it, we're going to stop this ever happening again, it's a travesty." Right. And on that, I don't disagree with you. Right. On that, I don't disagree with you. Then you wouldn't get so much populism, is my point. If we didn't have mass immigration, you didn't have grooming gangs, and you didn't have them being covered up. Is that fair? Well, the honest answer is I don't know. I don't know, because let me just go back. You said something interesting there. You said that, you know, that we were coming exactly how you described it. But Brexit happened because, you know, we allowed mass immigration and people, and we didn't allow people to be angry about that. Okay. It's not that we didn't allow people to be angry, it's that when— I remember in the 2000s, under the Blair government, I remember Greg Clark being on Question Time saying, you know, I realize people have these concerns, but there's also, you know, and all of this stuff. It was talked about like people have concerns, but action wasn't taken. It wasn't taken. We were promised, the people of this country were promised immigration down to the tens of thousands. They were promised it by labor politicians, conservative politicians. They voted against it in 2010, 2015 with Brexit, 2017, 2019, over and over. And it just kept going up and up and up. And you can understand why people get angry, can't you, in that situation? - Yeah, I can. But at the same time, I can hold to the view that I think some of the anger is justified, but a lot of it is exaggerated and exploited. - Well, those are both true, inevitably. - And let me just make it, the other point I was going to make. So I think it was the 2001 campaign. So we win the election in '97, massive majority. And part of the debate on immigration was, I'll go back to my point. My point about, you know, we needed immigration for the economy at that time. That's the message we were getting from business the whole time. And we were trying to be the party, the business-friendly labor government. But I can remember, and this isn't just the diaries, I remember this. Margaret McDonagh, who was General Secretary of the Labour Party, sadly died since. I remember her coming in and she, Margaret was one of those people who, even when we were in government, she was out canvassing every single weekend, right? She was an on-the-ground, labour person. I mean, I'll be honest, once we got into, once Tony Blair got into government, you know, he didn't do that many constituency surgeries, you know, he was busy, he did loads of stuff. I was, you know, you do, you have to force yourself not to be detached to some extent. And Margaret was out every single weekend. And I can remember she came back from one weekend, she'd been in Kent and she was like, you know, this debate on immigration is becoming a real problem. We have got to do something about this. Now, I think our response to that at that time was political, as opposed to policy. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, and I think that is true. I think that is true because I think it was, so I think if from memory, I can't remember what the policy was at the time, but I can remember going through the 2001 campaign, we had a very, very bespoke messaging campaign for some of these areas where it was a problem. Now, did we deal with the fundamentals? We tried, we tried. And even now, even now, even now, today, you know, I follow German politics very, very closely. And the debate that's happening, and okay, there's Merkel, you know, a million Syrians are going to come in. There are going to be consequences, and there have been consequences. But even today, the German debate, in terms of one of the reasons why the German government is not doing well is because the economy is not doing very well, or one of the reasons why the economy is not doing very well is because they're not getting the right balances in the labor market. So they, on the, what the politics are saying, push them all out, and the economics is saying, hold on a minute, we're an aging population, we're going to need more people coming in, working, paying taxes, et cetera. So these, the realities of these debates are not going to go away. - No. - My, and so when, and you said that when you first came here in 1996, immigration was not up here in terms of- - It was 55,000 a year, yeah. - No, but I'm talking in terms of where it was in political issues. - Oh yeah, it's 3%. - Right, okay. And now it's right up there. Now, it's up there. In part because of facts, but it's where I think it's, where the populist bit I find offensive is the way it's then being exploited. - Fine. - And that's why we're, you know, so- - But isn't the issue is that if you guys and the conservatives and everybody, if you'd fixed the facts, there'd be nothing to exploit. - I'm not even sure that's right, you know. 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I've been taking them for a while now and the post-lunch slump I'd basically accepted as part of my life has largely disappeared. I didn't expect that, but I'll take it. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com/trigger and use code Trigonometry. One, 15% off your first order. Two, you get a free bottle of Masszymes Bioptimizers best-selling digestive enzyme added to your order automatically when you use that code. That's a $20 product on top of your discount. This deal is for a limited time while supplies last. You cannot get this on Amazon. You cannot get it in stores. This offer exists in one place. The link in the description. The code Trigonometry. That's it. So if you're already thinking about trying it, this is the sign. Go to bioptimizers.com/trigger or click the link in the description. Use code Trigonometry and grab it before it's gone. If you'd fixed the facts, there'd be nothing to exploit. I'm not even sure that's right, you know, if you'd fixed-- Why not? Well, because-- so if you'd-- your judgment-- depends on what your judgment of what you want the facts to be. I don't want 50,000 people coming into this country illegally every year, and I don't want them to be allowed to stay here once they come. Right. OK. Is that a fair position? Well, no. Well, it might be a fair position, depending on where you put it in a bigger context. So-- But what's the benefit of illegal immigration? We can separate mass immigration, and maybe it's good for the economy. Yeah, OK. OK, fine. But illegal immigration, why is that happening, and why is no one stopping it? Well, it's happening because of all the very, very difficult cultural economic flows right around the world. And we can go-- you know, wars, and famines, and climate's going to make it worse, by the way. So that's happening. I actually-- my-- if I were still involved today, I honestly don't think we're going to address this stuff country by country. I think there is going, at some point, to have to be a kind of summary. Some kind of-- whether it's a European level or some kind of even broader international level, we're not going to be able to deal with this in the way that we think we can. But-- so I think you say-- so for example, let's take a-- let's take a hardline Brexit position, or even a restore position, where they're basically saying, OK, somebody turns up in Calais, and some smuggler gets hold of them, and they put them on a boat. OK? Now, should they be coming into this country? No. OK? Should they have legal, decent, humane routes for people who-- Like we did for Ukrainians. Yes. Or like we've done through time. For Hong Kongians. Like we've done through time. Sure. For people genuinely fleeing persecution. Sure. There should be. OK? Would you be happy with a judgment that said, because we don't think any of them should come, that we, as a government, should be able to do anything to stop them? Yes. Sing them? It's our country. Sing them? I don't think it needs to come to that. I mean-- It doesn't need to. But if that is-- Well, hold on. You're using an extreme example. No. I'm using an extreme example because that's what extremists say. Let me finish. Let me finish. But no one here is extremist. We're having a debate with us. No. No. But you're basically-- what I think you're doing is saying, this is-- we can agree that they shouldn't be coming. OK? Where I think-- but you're making that sound is quite a simple thing to bring out. Which it is. Which I believe it is, for the reasons I can explain. OK. OK. Yeah. They had tens of thousands of people coming. Then Tony Abbott came in, and he fixed it. Mm-hmm. Very, very little damage was done in the process. I think they had to turn some boats around. Some of the people, smugglers, capsized a few, but they rescued most of the people. There was some unpleasantness about holding some people on the island and blah, blah, blah. But overall, they dealt with the illegal immigration problem. I know you don't like Trump. There's lots of things to dislike about President Trump. The one thing they've been able to do is close the border. Mm-hmm. It's doable. Mm-hmm. If you have people in charge of your country who say--. Mm-hmm. This is our country. Mm-hmm. We are going to police its borders like we've done-- OK. --for thousands of years. OK. Right. Come on. That's a reasonable position. It's a very reasonable position. And I'll tell you how I would today-- so I've been talking to a very good-- a guy called Gerald Knauss, who's a German and really studies this stuff in detail. And he's got a proposal, which I think has a lot of merit, which essentially is, if you're going to start from a position of they cannot come, OK, then they have to come. And it has to be-- this is why I'm afraid I think Brexit has been such a disaster. Lots of reasons I think it's been a disaster. But one of them is, you should be able to have sufficiently good relations with some of the countries within the European Union-- Definitely. --right, that anybody who come goes straight back. OK? That is the only way you can fix this right now. And so I think, is that doable? I think it is probably doable. It's not doable in the context of this toxic political environment that we've got. Mm-hmm. But it hasn't been done before either, right? It wasn't being done before, Brexit, either. No. and be very frank about this we were we were we were we wanted immigration but it was a fairly low actually under your government what illegal illegal yes yeah no but deporting people we and and this government is deporting more than the last lot yeah so but I and I I think that the what I'm sure that I guess the bigger point I'm trying to make you is that you have to put this in the context of the kind of country that you're trying to create sure and what I worry about you and you're right about the Australians but Australia is a is a different geography it's a different geopolitics and and there was he took a lot of flak for doing what he did fine I think within the where we are right now I let's agree on the premise that none of them need to come okay okay and the people who come to this country should be people that we want to come okay let's agree sold and then let's then I think I think try to build the relations with other European countries that essentially say this is a problem we've got to crack together because what you've got to do is you've got to stop giving the motivation for coming so then the stuff so the stuff that Shabana Mahmood is doing where she's trying to send a message okay look at the reality of the political problems that she's facing because of that so that's what I'm trying to say to you is it is not as easy as it sounds well it depends if you're a Labour Home Secretary it's difficult because there's a lot of people on your side who are actually quite happy with illegal immigration okay they they they will tolerate it because of other beliefs that they have about the importance of care and compassion etc is that is that accurate no I don't think many people on the left are happy what the political problems that she has why are they happening well because the political problems that that she's having are happening because of a lot of MPs thinking that there's a real danger that we are being driven here by an unfair politics of the right and that actually within this you're going to get you're going to project a very bad image of the United Kingdom and there are people that we should be coming in who won't want to come as part of it illegal immigrants who should come but won't want to come no no no oh you mean other people yeah yeah yeah but just about the same you said in other words you she's trying to say it should be harder for you to come here and stay here okay yeah and she's bringing forward policy proposal on that and I think the politics of that are proving difficult because of people's fears about us actually saying we're putting up the the barriers to the lot of you but we should be putting up barriers to illegal immigration except where we choose to let people in that's George that's what she's saying but why is she facing problems from the Labour Party for saying this reasonable thing this is the point you've made because they've there is a their fear that this is then actually sending a broader message about what sort of people we are what sort of country we want to be in relation to legal immigration but isn't the message we're sending is we're sensible people who will protect their country while choosing the people who come here based on what we want yeah so why is the Labour Party not willing to accept it doesn't make any sense does it make sense to you uh it makes sense these are all like I feel like with we're having some like I'm saying like very reasonable things aren't I yeah but you're saying them you're saying moderately reasonable things in an unreasonable way not even in a reasonable way but in a way that I think sometimes underestimates the difficulty of the challenge and the political consequences but what I'm saying is why are there political consequences in a Labour Party for doing a moderately reasonable sensible thing that because some of them don't think it's moderate and reasonable they will say it's moderate and reasonable to do everything you can to stop illegal immigration but they don't want to do it but they don't think it's moderate or reasonable to for Britain to put up the barriers on people that we do want here that we deter from coming here by putting them in the same boat but why would why would stopping illegal immigration yeah we are because what I'm trying to say is very simple why you're asking you're asking me to speak the entirety of the Parliamentary Labor I'm asking you to confront a reality which I think exists on the left of British politics which is there are a lot of people who are very comfortable with illegal immigration because it makes them feel like they're good people it makes them feel like they're not those evil Farajian right-wingers they're good moral people and therefore they're prepared for our country to have an open board but I I I think that uh most of the Labour MPs who were elected at the last election I don't put them in that camp at all I but I so I think that because the other thing that's going on with Shabana mood is it's happening in the context of this you know churn and change within the Labour Party so you've got Keir Starmer going Andy Burnham's coming in and people are maneuvering and people are trying to you know play their role in shaping the future of the Labour Party I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with you I don't think you are but I think you're covering for these people and the extreme well maybe that's because maybe that's because I was not covering for them but if you said within the right of British politics who wanted to pour it out yeah clearly right but when we talk about the far left in this country people want to pretend it doesn't exist and they don't have this radical agenda when it comes to immigration so for example for me I I when you talk about the radical gender on the on the left I I I'd be far more upset for example about the way that the the way the anti-semitism anti-semitism developed on the parts of the far left uh I think some of the way that I mean I I abhor so much of what for example the Israeli government has done and is doing but at the same time I I I really worry about the extent in some parts of the left that has turned into a little bit of a resurgence of the anti-semitism that we saw during the during the Corbyn I've been hogging the mic for ages and I don't want to go around in circles but the reason I'm I'm well I know the reason I'm not sure you do let me just lay it out right my point through the populism conversation is very important I am not a fan of populism because I agree with you that populism very often is about not solutions but signaling in order to get elected to then not be able to actually do the things you claim or even not to get elected just to make money fine actually we'll talk about the money part in a bit but whatever it's it's not actually likely to solve the problems this country faces and I want to solve the problem this country faces as you do right but the point I'm trying to make to you is Shabana Mahmood is trying to deal with the issue of illegal immigration other people pretend or try to deal with the issue of illegal immigration and until they do populism is not going away because populism is not actually being driven by the evil right wing is being driven by the reality that we have tens of thousands of people coming in we're paying billions of pounds just for hotels and now HMOs and all these other things you have people committing crimes heinous crimes that are yes they're amplified by the media but we'd want to cover what's happening right until you fix that this isn't going away yeah I'm not disagreeing with you but okay and again let me say as well just just on the the plp I don't talk to as many MPs as I used to okay um right now if I was an MP would I be broadly backing Shabana Mahmood what she's trying to do yes uh do I think that the people who are trying to block her from doing that for sort of ideological reasons no I think it's ideological I think I think you're saying it's more sort of virtue signaling and and trying to say that's a divide that we that we want to have with the right I don't know it's a good device no I think they believe in compassion and they think that a good person doesn't deny anyone entry into this country I don't think so what do they think well you have to get them on I mean what I feel you're doing is you're you're asking me to I'm I'm seeing if you're willing to acknowledge that on the left there exists an ideological extremism about these issues that I think exist you don't think it exists that's fine no I don't think many of those labor MPs are ideologically extremely issues I think there are I think there is ideological extremism I relate it more to other issues um but I think the the what Shabana Mahmood is trying to do is address the issue address it in a fair reasonable legal way I'm I would like to be international and particularly European approach to this which I think we could do which will be based upon the idea actually nobody needs to come here okay and I think you do that by and this is part of what she's trying to do on the policy front is signs of deterrence okay no point coming here but the really you'll only get that message through eventually if people actually think if I go there I'm going to go to Denmark I'm going to go to Germany I'm not going to Rwanda I'm going to go back where I came from in the European Union and I think that is uh but you know we lost the Dublin convention and that's gone and I think that the anyway I think we're going around in circles on this but you can't expect me to defend positions of you've got to talk to them let's talk about underwear nobody wants to nobody thinks about it everybody just wears whatever turned up in the multi-pack and calls it a day which is a shame because there are solutions that's why I want to talk about sheath s-h-e-a-t-h sheath.com it's underwear built around the dual pouch system what that means in plain English everything stays where it should be no sticking no chafing no shifting around mid-sentence whilst trying to maintain an air of gravitas the fabric breathes the design separates there is apparently a technical term for what this creates and that term is zen-like separation, which sounds ridiculous, but is also completely accurate. It was developed by a veteran on his second tour, which means it was designed under conditions where comfort was not a luxury. Over 10,000 five-star reviews from people who aren't messing about. I've been wearing them for a few months, and the difference to my day-to-day comfort is bigger than I'm comfortable telling you about on a politics podcast. If you know, you know. Go to sheath.com. That's S-H-E-A-T-H.com. Use code Trigonometry at checkout for 20% off. First pair comes with a full money-back guarantee, so there's no reason not to try them. Sheath.com. Once you go sheath, you won't go back. Sheath.com. A lot of people in this country, particularly working-class people, feel that the left have abandoned them. They look at the Labour Party, particularly under Corbyn, and they go, not only do you not represent me, I think you actually hold me in contempt. Because I've got a lot of mates. Who feel that way, and they're the people who flock to reform. They're the people who are flocking to restore. You hear people saying that, for sure. For sure. So the question then is, does Jeremy Corbyn, did Jeremy Corbyn have contempt for those sorts of people? I don't think he does. I'll tell you what I think people felt. I can remember this. You probably know I support Burnley Football Club. I go to Burnley a lot. Mate, I'm West Ham. We've got the same colours. We're both shit. First game of the season. But I can remember going to Burnley a lot during that Corbyn period. And I mean, it's, you know, even somebody like me, who has been right in the centre of the establishment, there's certain things you've got to do, okay? If you're a leader of the Labour Party, I don't care what your views are. If you're at an official government function, and the national anthem is being sung, you sing it. Okay? Unless you want to come out and say, as part of your politics, if I become prime minister, I'm absolutely determined to get rid of the monarchy. And, you know, so I'm not, you know, but so that, I think that first go, people were thinking, this guy's not serious. That was a big, and I don't think he understood why that was such a big thing at the time. Do you remember that service he went to? And then I think there's a, there's a thing about our military, that I think people like the military, respect the military, want the military to be properly supported by their politicians. Which it needs to be for our national security. Totally. And if they felt that, I guess they, I think there was a feeling, I don't think this was just in working class people, by the way, but a feeling of, you know, well, who's, you know, you saw some of the stuff with, was it the Salisbury attack? Was he leader of the Labour Party then, when it was like, well, we've got to, we've got to get this properly investigated. And it's like, well, hold a minute, you've got the intelligence, our intelligence service is saying this, Russians are saying this, and you're saying, well, you know, could be one, could be the other. I think that sort of stuff got through. But I don't think, look, I know a lot of working class people who really, really like Jeremy Corbyn, because they felt he's, he's for us, he stands for us. He's not, you know, they look at people like me, some of them, or certainly Tony, and the thing that you lot left us, they do say, that, okay. Now, I don't think we did. But I understand why, because of what their lives have become. I think, I think for a lot of those people, we made their lives, the policies that we pursued made their lives a lot better. Okay. And I can point to tons of stuff that we did. But did within what they saw of us, did they think there was a sort of disconnect? I think that disconnect was there. And then I think it grew. And I don't think I wouldn't just put it on Jeremy Corbyn, far from it. No, I'm not putting it on Jeremy Corbyn. I'm putting it on the left. In general, for instance, we can talk about progressive, progressivism, wokeism, for example, terms like white privilege, like a lot of my mates, and people that I know, and people who listen to his podcast. I remember I was walking down the street in North London, there's a guy, this is a number of years ago, came up to me, and, you know, Labour, and he was talking about growing up on a council estate in Middlesbrough, single mum, and he wanted to talk to me about white privilege. And at one point, I thought, man, I'm not the one saying these views. He was like, why am I privileged? Because I'm white. I was white when I grew up in poverty, real poverty. And I looked around, and most of the people I knew came from poverty. We had no privilege. And yet, people within the Labour Party, people within the intelligentsia, the modern left, are pointing the finger at me and telling me I'm privileged. And that really angered people. Yeah, I get that. But were they really pointing the finger at you? Yes. Yes. Yes, they were. Yes, they were. I'm not sure. Oh, come on. Come on. I'm really not sure. You see, this is where I think, look, is it- Come on. No. I think this whole woke debate is, I find it, and what does it even mean? Woke is about believing in playing a role in trying to deliver some kind of social justice. That is what woke is meant to mean. Woke has become a catch-all term of abuse. Not really. Yes, it has. I can define it for you if you like. Go on, then define it. It's a hierarchy of oppression. It says different groups are oppressed at different levels, and I can look at your skin colour and immediately tell whether you're an oppressor or you're oppressed. You happen to be a straight white man, therefore you're the oppressor. I happen to be a black trans lesbian, therefore I'm oppressed. Right. And that's the way this debate is being done. And by the way- That's the way the debate is being done. Hold on, Alastair. Hold on. The debate- Alastair, chill out. Not only is it the way the debate is being done, we see it in policing. Not in the way, not only in the way the policing is being practised, but in the instructions police officers get. They're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicitly. Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's just- Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's dementing. It's absolutely dementing. That's the quotes from the police's own instructions. No, okay, and it may be, and it may be because you found one document where some guy is writing some guidance for police. The idea- It's the College of Police and Guidance. Okay, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, okay. Why are you saying okay, like I'm saying I'm making something up? Because I think, you know, I'm not saying you're making up- Have you looked into it? Not as deeply as you are. Well, I think you should. Well, maybe I should, but I- Because then you wouldn't dismiss the factual things I'm saying. You're saying out of hand, which is what you're doing. I'm not, let me just, let me dismiss it in my own way. Fine, go ahead. Right, okay. He's going to hog the microphone again. I am. This is outrageous to me. You haven't looked into this. No, well, because, no, I'm aware of the issue. And I'm aware of the issue. So why are you dismissing it? Because I think two things. First of all, I think- That's what people mean when they say woke. It's not a catch-all phrase. No, okay. They mean two-tier treatment. It is a catch-all phrase. No, they don't. They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights. Not at all. Yes, they do. Okay, they may do. All right, come back to the policing. Come back to the policing. I'll come back to the policing, right. Fine. So, two big points I would make about the police. And they may sound slightly contradictory. The first is, I think the police get a very, very hard time in our country. I agree. Okay. And I am broadly supportive of most police officers. But like any organisation, there are some really bad people in there, and they've got to be reaching out. Absolutely. That's the first thing. Agreed. The second thing I would say is that if there is a race issue within policing in this country, it is not directed against white people. It's directed against both people, both groups. Okay, but if you have to make a judgement as to who comes off worse in our policing and criminal justice system, it is not in the movement. Why do you have to make that judgement? I'm making that judgement because you've just made a judgement. Wait, what? You've just made a judgement based upon one piece of guidance. Let me add two words to my sentence. Why do you have to make a judgement about which race should get preferential treatment when the standards should be. I'm not. No, but. I'm saying that's what happens. The standards should be that we're all equal under the law. Correct. But the guidance currently is, to many police forces in this country, that we're not all equal under the law. No, they're saying you treat people differently in the way that you handle them. That is people not being equal under the law. You have to be conscious. You have to be conscious of certain things. You have to be conscious of how you deal with them. Look, I've not got into it as deeply as you. Because when that was happening, I can't remember whether it was around Southampton or it was around. I can't remember even when that came to light, right? But as that was happening, I thought, here we go again. We're going to get something taken out of context, twisted into a debate that says the police are all anti-white. But no one is saying that. Yes, that's exactly what was being said. Let me correct myself. No one in this room is saying that. No, but that's why we're having this particular debate. That's not why we're having this debate. We're having this debate because the police guidance in this country. OK. is to treat people differently. Well, the police all operate and should operate under the law treating everybody equally. OK. But I could say the same. Does that mean that, for example, policemen aren't told that. So let's just give you an example. When the Henry Novak situation, OK? Now, they all get trained and they all get guidance. And what it seems to me, I don't know because I wasn't there and I didn't follow the court case and I haven't read the transcripts, but from what I have gathered from that, that policemen trained arrive at a scene. They have been conditioned to expect something by what they think has been happening. And they then go and deal with it in the way they deal with it. Quite quickly, it seems to me, realise they made a mistake and then try to, you know, get back in a decent place. As a result of which, not just they, but police officers who were not even there, including one that has actually retired from the police force, is then being hurt. compounded. Well, that's obviously wrong. Yes, of course it's wrong. But my point is that I think that if I'm, if I, that's why I think these debates, you've got to be really careful about how you conduct them. And we are very careful. That's why I'm talking about specific guidance. And let me make one other point. We, this show has a lot of police officers who listen to us. I had a guy come up to me, I actually used to do personal, he used to do close protection for prime ministers. I think he did Keir Starmer. The police officers who listen to us and who write into us and who come up to us in the street, they all say that the college of policing and the guidance police officers receive is absolutely rife with this stuff. With DEI and the idea that different groups of people should be treated differently. And I really hope people like you should take it more seriously. I really think you should, because again, I'm making very reasonable points. This is not, I'm not having a go at you. I'm not saying you're woke or anything like that, but I think sometimes people dismiss these things out of hand when there's quite a lot of evidence now. Well, I would argue, I would argue that you're, I could find, you could find cases where you mentioned the DEI thing. I think the extent to which Trump in particular, but it's happening here as well, has weaponized this DEI debate, not to create equality, but actually to create division, to create hate, to spread hate. I think that's a very, very important thing. And I absolutely despise the way that they do it. So I guess that pushes me into a place where I'm going to be more sympathetic towards somebody who comes along to me and says, do you know what? I'm a young black woman. And actually I feel I don't get treated well by the police. But it shouldn't do. I know it shouldn't. It shouldn't do, Alistair, because this is the problem. But I think that is closer. Can I just make my point? Because those people who were the traditional Labour voters, like people I grew up with, like the bloke that I'm talking about grew up in Middlesbrough, who just go, Labour don't represent me. Yeah, but hold on, hold on. We'll all have met people who tell us all sorts of things when they stop us in the street, OK? I'll give you another one. You talk about the white working class. I got loads of football matches, OK? And you'll hear lots and lots of white working class people say they don't like the way that they're treated by the police when they're just trying to have a day out of the football, OK? My point is that the way you were framing this for me is how I was taking this, is that because of DEI, that policing in this country has become two-tier, phrase you used, by which we mean. I didn't say two-tier. Oh, sorry, I thought you did. Well, maybe you were quoting something else. But this is why you. OK, so, but, OK, two-tier policing, two-tier care, all this stuff. It rhymes, so that's why it took off, I think. Well, yeah, for sure. And that's how populist communication works. That's how all communication works. Exactly, exactly, OK. But, so, and I would argue that the real, if there is two-tier policing, OK, and let's agree that there is. OK. And let's agree that it's all bad. Of course. OK, right? It's bad when black people are not treated fairly, right? Correct. So it's also bad when other groups of people are not treated fairly. Correct, correct. That's all I'm saying. What is not bad is if, when the police are out doing a pride march, that they're basically told, just, you know, you have to understand what they're protesting for. You have to understand that they're doing something a bit different to that march you did last week, which was Tommy Robinson's mob. OK. But. So that, I think that's what that guidance is about. That's not what that guidance is about. Well, OK. Well, I'll go away and read it. How about that? Yeah. That's great. I'd appreciate that. And also, I have a lot of, I've worked, I've worked with the police. Of course. And I've worked with the police federation. And one of the reasons I do work with the police is because I think they get treated really badly by the media. I couldn't agree more. By the public. I was talking to, I was, you saw what I told me. I was talking to the, I was talking to a police guy the other day who is not even in, he's not even in a big city. OK. He's in a small town. And he told me that in the last week he'd been spat at eight times. Well, nobody here thinks that. That's obviously disgusting. Right. No. So, but my, and, and, and I didn't ask him, I didn't ask him what was the colour of the people who were speaking like that. Yeah. OK. Well, obviously, why would you ask that? But he told me. OK. OK. And he said they were all but one were white. Yeah. OK. It's a majority white country, of course. Yeah. OK. But my point is, I could take that if I wanted to. Yeah. And I could build a debate about it. But that's not what, that's not what we're doing. No, I know it's not what you're doing. I know it's not what you're doing. But I'm saying the people that we were talking about earlier, that is what they do. That is what's happened in the United States. And that's why you then end up with arseholes like Pete Hexerth removing the pictures of people like, you know. Why have we brought Pete, Pete's like, we're talking about Britain, mate. Because this, yeah, OK. We're talking about our country. We're talking about DEI. In this country. OK. We're talking about this country, right. We're talking about populism. In this country. We're talking about this country. Right. And I'm not talking about abroad. And the only point I made to you is. You didn't stop me talking about Germany. I just don't. The issue is that people always go to Trump or Hexerth, other people. Even that's because they're so powerful in our debate. We're just talking about policing in this country. OK. OK. And other areas where there hasn't, you know, the BBC has internships for only non-white people, et cetera. Like, this has been going on. We started with woke. Remember, this is how this bit of the conversation started. It's not a, look, there's probably some people who use it as a campaign. It's a catch-all phrase. In the same way, by the way, that people on the left use the word racist as a catch-all phrase to describe people who are actually racist and also people who oppose mass immigration. There are some people who do that, right. Just because some people use a word inappropriately, it doesn't mean that that word is wrong. OK. Right. So I gave you a definition of woke. Let me just jump in there, though. OK. Go ahead. You do say it's left and right. It's sort of both sides, isn't it? It is. I don't think you have that. So let's say there is a media of the left. OK. A media of the left. A media of the left. Say Guardian, Mirror. They don't do that. What? I don't think they do that. Was the media of the right do that in relation to woke? Alistair, the media of the left and the people on the left and the influences and the political figures and commentators, including people like David Lammy, called conservatives who were pro-Brexit. Now, Francis and I both voted Remain. OK. They called them worse than Nazis. Do you remember David Lammy said the ERG are worse than Nazis? No, I don't remember that. He did that on the Andrew Marr Show. We'll put a clip in here. OK. Right. OK. So, I think that's a good comparison. Now, whatever you think about the ERG, that was an unacceptable comparison, wasn't it? Andrew, I would say that that wasn't strong enough. In 1938, there were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia. And Churchill said no, and he stood alone. He did? We must not appease. We're in a situation now, and let me just be clear, I'm an ethnic minority. We have in the ERG, in Jacob Rees-Mogg, someone who is happy to put onto his webpages the horrible, racist AFD party, a party that's Islamophobic and on the far right of the German system. They're happy to use the phrase grand wizard. KKK is what it evokes to me when I think of that phrase. and the deep south i'm sorry but very very seriously of course we should not appease that of course we should not appease that people on the left and people on the right use these terms in order to smear their opponents and to misrepresent the debate that's what they do okay that's what everyone does so what we're saying what you're saying essentially something else no what you're saying is they're both as bad as each other that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying i think is that these people have more power in this debate than these people that's what i'm saying and i don't the right-wing media has more power than left the right-wing weaponization of their definition of vogue woke has had way more cultural influence than any of these people have said well some people might argue that's because it's accurate to what's happening on the ground when you institutions are invested with dei when british history is being denigrated when you know the we've got we're recording this before the norway game right england playing norway the norwegians walk around in helmets right with the horns walk around in kilt. Right, but hold on a second. The Norwegians are walking around in helmets, which is a throwback to the Viking Age. Vikings, as you well know, were pillaging, including this country, right? No one is asking them for reparations. British people are being told they need to pay reparations all day, every day, right? How many British people? All British people are being told that we need to pay reparations. No, how many British people are demanding that? Labour MPs, like, what's her name something rebel ribeiro what's her name she's saying that we need to pay reparations it's an ongoing live debate it's not that big it's not that big if you don't even know the name of the mp who's calling for it she's just not very important to me but i remember she's important is calling for this country to pay reparations okay yes reparations will involve some form of money but it's got to involve complete system change we cannot be content with people handing us essentially scraps off their table when you look at what they're sending and and say that we are okay and let people bypass us and the community people and i think the community is so important i want you to all know that it was the community that came to me to set up the all party parliamentary group for african reparations people go on the bbc and explain why it's important it's it's been a live debate you can't deny that no i i would like you no one's asking I'm thinking Norwegians for reparations, or the Italians for the Roman invasion, right? So you put all this together, people get a picture, don't you think? - Well, you get whatever picture you want out of a very complicated landscape. History's a big- - What's wrong with the picture? - History, because I think it, well, one, I think it trivializes history. I think there is, I think, look, history is, very very important within current politics okay uh and history ultimately is about judgment of course is our history a sort of you know wonderful perfect story of the greatest country in the world no no more any more than the americans of course the debate around the 250th anniversary of america this is why i worry you say don't go on about hexagon trump but the picture of america that trump is trying to we are talking in his case about the erasure of history the erasure of history but why are we talking about another country we're talking about this country you're not comparing it to england i'm saying other countries are are not forced to apologize for the history and the way the british people some do the australians are just the australians did a massive apology recently for their history fine australia but australia is part of the anglosphere this is happening everywhere in the anglosphere okay there's a there's a double standard is what i'm getting at okay i don't know see whenever i make a good point you just go okay well i haven't read the guidance because i mean i don't know this is what you do but it's like we you make the point we have the debate about the point and then you make the point again and it's like i'm just asking you can see that i'm right on this that's all i'm what that's all i want uh i think a lot of things that you say you may have some right on your side but i think you way oversimplify quite a lot of these issues to make it feel i'm happy to explain why it's more complicated but you don't you just say okay no because i've read the guidance because history is complicated of course we have loads of historians on the show for that reason yeah exactly yeah so anyway you talk to them about it's better you're the one who keeps saying you don't want to hold the bike but then you know no no i'm worried about this yeah yeah i'm worried about it okay so bring it so for the point that i was going to talk about and you were like okay it's anecdotal evidence all right fair enough but you cannot deny that a large part of why populism has flourished is because the working class feel angry and alienated in particular they feel that the labour party no longer represent them we have to accept that that is a mainstream position and the conservative party yeah exactly no but it's a lot of people yeah it is yeah no we have to so what i would what i would say we have to accept the large swathes of the british public and the european public and the american public are losing faith in the ability of politics to deliver the improvements in their lives that politicians keep promising right and we had a long period of labour government we had a long period of tory government we've now had a labour government again and they both have been caught up in that alongside that we have a less tribal population that just as it shops around for which tv programs to watch and who to date and all this other stuff that technology has brought we've also we're seeing an erosion or certainly a slow but accelerating breakdown in political tribalism as well says that people no longer think i am labour i am tory i am lib dem they think well i'm going to just you know take a look we also have i think as a consequence of the nature of our the media in this country i think we have a a really well-developed cynicism and i think it's gone from skepticism to cynicism about the ability of anybody to do anything good for them the political parties have got to address that they've got to deal with that my point is populism is not the answer right-wing populism is not the answer left-wing populism is not the answer look i agree with you you don't need to explain to me why right or left-wing populism is not the answer like everyone can drink now my mother's venezuelan i've seen left-wing populism in action i know where it leads it's nowhere good which is why i'm terrified of polanski and again people drink again i used to be a teacher i taught for 12 years in deprived communities from places like newham and lamberth really poor places the thing is and when i talk to people in those communities particularly white working class people there was an anger so i'll give you an example this is a stat the the people the cohort that do the worst in schools in this country oh yeah a white working class boys yeah i never once in my 12 years of education ever attended anything which dealt with that now if that was any other co part cohort or part of the kids that we taught that would have been spoken about honestly but because where were you teaching i was teaching in newham and i was teaching but the london schools initiative that we did was in part about addressing that that was that was a very very big part of that and that was one of the big one of the reasons why we got we actually one of the sort of north south divide divide so-called is because actually the standards in london went up a lot better and that was because of the specific london strategy we brought forward which was partly about that so i think this is one of those i think you will be very look i don't get me wrong i think that there's no doubt i go into schools all the time okay and you hear it from head teachers everywhere the where we're really really struggling is with white working class kids okay uh so we agree on that and i would also agree but i don't think it's because there's a kind of hierarchy necessarily i think a lot of it is i think for example they talk a lot of them will tell you that you know the the uh some of the asian kids in particular got parents who are absolutely driven yeah in a way that you know a lot of the white working class parents aren't in terms of you know totally fair and immigrants first generation immigrants in particular you have got to get an education this is your route to a better life etc now when i was growing up um and i mean i you know my both my parents are scottish and i remember you know when they were obsessive about education and scotland had this amazing reputation for education that's gone that's gone so something so we're i'm not disagreeing with you about the that being a a specific problem uh what i and in terms of what government policy solutions should be right now i don't think they're big enough and bold enough uh i i i mean i honestly do worry about the the nature of of the education that we're giving kids at the moment because i don't think it's remotely it's so divorced from these that the pace at which the world is developing and changing so you know when we're violent new green yeah we are but also i'll be honest you i think a lot of these should we just call them progressive strategies are actually deeply unhelpful so for instance this was about six seven years ago i attended a seminar i didn't attend i was forced to attend on how to teach black boys and i got so angry because halfway through it was basically this woman at the front explaining to me why i needed lower educational standards to teach the black boys in my classroom and i remember at the end putting my hand up and going would you deliver this seminar eaton college where i know black boys go to have you been asked she was like no and that was it was it was like oh but you know you could you know you have to expect this there needs to be different standards and i'm like no the standards should be applicable it shouldn't matter whether it's a black boy an asian boy a white girl but treat everybody exactly the same when you come through the doors of the classroom there is i'm treating you fairly look that sounds bonkersville to me right that's what people mean by two-tier yeah okay yeah but but but would but you'd nonetheless agree that where the data is showing you in so many schools that white work something is going wrong in the education of white working class kids there has there have to be strategies to address that and that's what francis is saying is there isn't so when we talk about white working class boys underperforming oh culture it's the parents it's the whatever for every other group there's a government program that says this particular community is marginalized we need to help them and that's what people mean by two-tier that's what they mean they might they might some of them do yeah we don't listen we don't know what i love about the way you speak right none of us can speak for everybody that's what they mean who are they a lot of the people who speak about these issues right that's what they mean i think what they mean is there is different treatment of different groups and they connected to work but remember we started this with woke woke in my definition that i gave you is a hierarchy of who's more oppressed than whom and therefore different people get different treatments and what people are saying is the government policy in schools in policing and everywhere else is a product of that world view which is implemented in the school system in policing in government in the bbc etc through dei and other initiatives which are explicitly designed to do this well the school the school i was in three days ago uh the head was very very clear with me it was a very mixed multi-racial multicultural school in london he was very clear with me says that where we're putting most of our energies right now is with special educational needs and white working class kids uh and you know and does that mean but i also the other thing i think you've got to understand or accept is i mentioned the difference with france okay i did i think we have developed multiculturalism in a in a way that we should celebrate and i think it is i think it is an incredible success story for this country what do you mean by multiculturalism what i mean by the fact is what i mean by multiculturalism what i mean about multiculturalism and maybe this is this is particular because all my kids went to schools in in london that you talked about you both said you know you've got to be kind of blind to color i think in the schools i'm talking about there is a lot of people who are blind to color that's monoculturalism that's whenever okay right British they're not all British let me give you a very example I remember my mum who's now dead but she my daughter Grace was still at school she's in her 30s now this is a long time ago so it was already good by my perspective right and some of my daughter's best friends were from Kosovo because we had the war in Kosovo and lots of Kosovans came over do a leap of being one of them and they were at school together and then you have the and then so my daughter's circle of friends I remember she came around with her friends four or five of them and my mum was there right in her 70s or 80s whatever it was and Grace later when they're all gone my mum was asking them about and she was saying and Grace mentioned Laura and my mum said which one was Laura and Grace went through all these different descriptions and explanations and the one who said this and the one who said the one who's there what she didn't say was that she was black she was the only black girl in that small group of kids right and that's what I meant by maybe that's mono multi-racist multi-ethnic but that's why I asked you distinction between because the reason that Angela Merkel and David Cameron all came out and said multiculturalism has failed is what they were saying is in a multi-ethnic society which no one here has a problem with right it would be kind of silly some people do no one here here oh yeah no one here has a problem with the issue is do you encourage everybody to buy into a single culture or do you kind of say well you just get on with it and you know you can stay whatever culture you came from three generations ago and not integrate you can't do both no you can't I can tell you as an immigrant myself you can't do both you either integrate or you don't you either integrate or you don't you either teach your children that they're British and to become more British or you don't and that's where a lot of the community like I really don't agree with that what do you mean you don't agree with it I think if well look my I mentioned my parents are Scots okay okay well I can see you're non-integrated because you you don't support England mate there you go there you go that's my point you've retained your identity as Scottish and that's fine yeah right what's wrong with retaining my identity as Scotland is part of the British Isles and if you if you were Russian if I were Russian and I told my children that they're Russian and that's what they are and they don't know you're teaching a British but you're teaching that they've got a Russian heritage that's right that's exactly what I'm but they're British first yeah and that's what that's what I'm saying okay multiculturalism is when you really don't care so much about the British part and it's your ethnic identity your religious identity that's most important but I I don't I don't what you what you shouldn't do is make people feel they either have to forget or minimize no okay well let's let's agree we're agreeing well yeah yeah kind of kind of you've been very generous with your time and they've been great sport we appreciate you coming on we'd love to have you back back on again at some point if you'll tolerate it um before let him talk a bit more the next time the next time so this is a question if you were in charge of the Labour Party I think the way to solve populism is to engage with the working class voters who feel left behind who feel that the left haven't represented them have ignored them now you can make the arguments of whether they have whether they have yeah but the reality is they that's the way they feel if you were the leader of the Labour Party let's say you're Andy Burnham you know you're from Wigan where my dad's from how do you engage with those people when we can look and we can say this objectively and I think it's fair Keir Starmer certainly hasn't done that Corbyn hasn't done that really no Labour leader has done that since your boss a lot of MPs do it don't rule out the the role of of MPs because they're living in those and they're the ones who probably should be doing a better job of making sure the leadership gets exactly what's going on in these places look I think you can see that Andy Burnham is to some extent doing that already trying to do that it's part of his messaging you know he's talking about the places that have been left behind as easy said what you'll find once he becomes prime minister is bloody hard to engage with a lot of people you've got to be doing that in different ways but I think that I I I wouldn't disagree I wouldn't disagree I think that the if you think about why a lot of people have I mean let's be honest most of the the the support that's improved you know the the the the the the support that's achieved reforms reputation and and standing up until the current day backle where I think they're in real trouble by the way but part of that for now um is actually this has been Tories going to reform most of the people who vote in reform most of them very substantial majority have never voted Labour and say they never would okay but some people have gone from Labour to reforms you've got to think about how to how do we get those people back how do we maybe get some of these people to think about voting Labour and how do we get people who are just fed up with politics generally to be more inspired by what we're trying to do so and that's a big part of what what Burnham has to do what I wouldn't do is accept the narrative that we've as it were deliberately left you behind what I think they should do and I hope will do is actually to focus far more so for example in in education and to be fair to Bridget I think she's tried to do this but I don't think that that she's done it it is actually to be saying look we really haven't we've got to be open about this then to the problem with white working-class kids and this is how we're going to try and try to address it so you do have to engage more with both of the kids and their parents on that I think in relation to to you know the community you know we're all we're all very kind of local in the way we live our lives most people are it's about their communities and I think you've you've really got to understand why people feel that when they see their dirty streets when they are aware of low-level crime when they're aware of a high shop a high street that used to be kind of vibrant but then what you can't do is say that's because we've left you behind I think you've also got to confront people with the reality of the choices that we all make so for example the high street to me and the sort of mess that it's in it's the consequences of all sorts of things but one of them is the fact that we spend all our time on the bloody internet barn on Amazon another one is that we've liberalized gambling to an extent that is off the scale so there's these gambling gambling shops everywhere you've got the vapes and then you've got the charity shops because charity has become such a fundamental part of delivering basic public services so you've you've got to be addressing all of the issues that have led to something that everybody's sitting in their community thinking I don't like the look of this I don't like the feel of this so we're agreeing as well yeah but I'm keeping silent okay but the problem is is a no political party has done this because I feel that there is a problem in politics with honesty in that and this is why and that created a vacuum which is what populism has filled which is no political party has actually or very few people in politics have had the balls or the talent to go this is why we are where we are and these are the solutions so that when people feel that things are going wrong they don't understand why they don't understand why there's more holes in the road they don't understand why they why they feel poorer why they go to the supermarket and their money doesn't go as far as it can but what they do get from that is the feeling that they're being screwed so when a populist comes along whether it's Zach or Nigel whoever else there the feeling is ripe to be exploited if that's how you want to well I think one of the I think one of the uh really important roles of a political leader that's been played very well for quite a long time is the and this this I don't want this to sound patronizing it's not meant to but I think one of the roles of the political leader is to is to educate the public totally about the reasons why decisions are being made I think we've got to and that used to do that Tony used to do that okay Clinton used to do that uh Reagan used to do that now in a very kind of folksy sort of way but you you it's you you set out big arguments about why things are as they are now in the knowledge that you'll do that by possibly making a 60-minute speech doing a 60-minute interview writing a book in the knowledge that that is going to get distilled into that on social media that by one opponent that by another you've got to be bigger and better than all of that yeah you've got to and and even though Trump is a nightmare and I hate most of what he stands for he has at least shown a way of how you can message and it's easy if you're the American president you don't care about telling the truth and all that but I I think West our politicians in Europe underestimate the extent to which they still have the power to do that I think they've all got too scared to challenge yeah too scared to tell the public sometimes you've got to face up to this I don't think we're remotely honest at the moment with the public about the nature of our security situation you know both on defense in relation to the Russian threat I don't think we're I think we're going to face some really really difficult choices pretty soon and the economics of our country and the other one and the other one that we haven't really talked about is is I don't think we're being I think walking away from the climate debate which i think is as dangerous as anything we face so i think there is and i think the public if you're if you talk about being on and of course honestly there is you know in politics and that people say they're all liars they're not all liars but what they are in all the parties is part of a team should be part of a team so sometimes you you can't necessarily always say what you totally think you can't always give out every angle of every problem that you're trying to highlight but you can do far more than we get in the debate now um so i would hope if i i i'm i'm uh i i really want andy burnham to be a bit like mark carney is being in canada mark carney in canada is setting out some really big choices that canada's facing and he's and he's saying where he wants to go and he's saying we're not going to be able to do that we're not going to be able to do that we're not going to where he wants to lead and i think we've got to get back to that kind of approach in politics he's still very good at the tweet and he's very good at the 30 second tiktok video but this bigger stuff is where i think our politics have gone on the lack of it and the real challenge labor are going to have is dealing with economics because this country is on a precipice when it comes to economics and to be fair the tories didn't want to talk about it either but we're going to have to tackle it soon or we're in real danger of going bankrupt hmm well it's crazy the debt is crazy i agree with that i agree with that and he's but that's the other one i mean if i it is an extraordinary thing that kia star has gone from a landslide to leaving the door in two years it's extraordinary right i think if there was one there's not one moment there's there's you know it's kind of whole catalog of stuff good and bad that you can point to so well that was important but i think if i had to pick one it probably was the moment at which he got defeated on welfare yes yeah oh yeah yeah because people thought hmm okay and even though people might most reasonable fair people think that if you're really struggling you should be entitled to get benefits and if you're old and sick and all that stuff they get that but it just felt oh hold a minute you've put our national insurance up because she said there was this black hole and now we've got this big problem with defense which we understand but we've got to pay for it like this i don't i don't really understand it yeah uh i think that i think that was so so that's back to the point about the mp that was massive yeah and that was back to the point about the mps just these mps you should be talking to you honestly you've been very generous can we touch on one or two other things you mentioned just because i think they're really worth exploring as long as it doesn't take 20 minutes going around in circles with your view then you're just going to have to admit okay okay you're right excellent so you mentioned the climate uh obviously a very big discussion it's bloody hot at the moment um you say that we are kind of running away from what we should be doing what do you think of the climate and what do you think of the climate and what do you think of the climate and what do you think we should be doing well because your boss just to just to add this your boss tony blair's come out recently and basically said the way net zero is being pursued is not going to work yeah you can't you can't reduce consumption you can't phase out fossil fuels quickly these are all points that a lot of people like to actually agree with in the country now about net zero and stuff you don't agree with with him no i don't what do you think we should be doing uh i do think the future is renewables and i think we've got a there's all sorts of stuff we can do i think that you see i'm not saying that the future is just renewables i think we've got to i think the net zero it's really really interesting this because you're right the debate has feels like it's shifted okay it has shifted well the polling hasn't the polling hasn't i saw a massive global poll the other day about you know if you if you ask people the the general view about the level of concern about the climate has not shifted what shifted people hate the phrase net zero well they don't hate the phrase net zero they hate the policies of net zero they hate their climate but they don't want our economy to be destroyed which is a reasonable position so you have to build a strategy yes around around your well i think it is about your building your economy and your energy around renewables and where tony's right is it's you can't do that overnight yeah but you can't lose sight of the need for the transition and so i think i was at this amazing in fact if i can use your podcast to ask people to listen to one of our episodes we did an episode recently with european energy commissioner dan jurgensen uh so this is a guy who sort of lives in the detail of this and he was just giving so many examples of where the transition has been done right um is it being done right in britain i think it's been done i think i think the overall goal is right i think the strategy is right but i think it's the politics are proving very very difficult um well the reason i ask is britain responsible i mean we produce one percent of global carbon emissions we probably import another one percent so let's say we're responsible for two percent yeah when other countries china it's 30 percent india is gonna have to to burn more fossil fuels to feed their economy to feed their people and to grow their economy to catch up to the rest of us it sort of feels a little bit like we're tinkering at the edges and really making a huge negative impact on our economy to not make any impact on climate at all and i think that's why net zero is becoming unpopular would you agree um i'm not going to say that it's going to be unpopular i'm not convinced net zero is becoming unpopular in the ways that you say that is i think some of the policies we have the highest industrial electricity price in developed world but which is good and that's why you should listen to the guy jorgens because he gives a really it's a very very the the energy market is so complicated the way that it runs so it's not it's that is not the biggest driver of it but listen listen to him he knows more about it tonight but what i sorry i've Excellent, that's what we do. It was about the unpopularity of net zero linked to its economic impact is what I was saying. People are upset about it because it's damaging the economy. Some people are upset. Well, I think anything that damages the economy, people get, you know, why we're doing that. But what the weaponizers have done is. Oh, come on! They say to you. But you dodge the real issue and you just go, this is a terrible problem. The problem is a problem because it's damaging our economy. No, our economy has to become a modern renewables-based, energy-driven economy. Your point was about the one percent, okay? We're one percent. Yeah, we're four percent. Yeah, yeah. Right. And one of the things this guy, Daniel Jorgensen, said, actually, yes, China is emitting more, but China is also driving the renewables agenda in a way that is off the scale. Good. We need to be part of that. India, actually, yes, you're right, is going to be this. Other countries who have got far bigger energy needs than ours are actually both creating more emissions and driving faster forward on renewables. And where I really did disagree with Tony in his essay was when he made the one percent point, and yet he's the guy, who, back in the day, rightly, in my view, was saying that just because we are only this in relation to the size of the global economy does not mean that we can't take a lead in the time on overseas aid and development, which we did. And I think that we should still be using arguments like that. Just because we are no longer one of the biggest powers in the world does not mean we're not still seen as a leader. So-- Do you think with whatever-- He's doing it again. Whatever. No, no. I'm going to ask you perfectly reasonable questions. I have done throughout the interview. Do you think that-- No, I meant you were hogging the mic. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's true. Do you think that changing our energy policy in such a way that reduces our economic prosperity is an acceptable price to pay for this? No, but it's-- no, I don't. But I don't believe it's necessary. You don't think it's had a negative economic-- I don't think it's had a negative economic impact so far? I think energy prices have. Yeah, for sure. But they're not related to net zero? Not in-- it's a very small part of the stuff that's driven up our energy prices. So no, it's not. You've got to-- this is why I say these things are-- you've got to address this in the round. And our economy-- energy is going to become the big challenge for all of our countries. And so there's Trump saying drill, baby, drill. We don't have that. Even if we wanted to frack on the level that they do, we don't have the reserves. We have oil in the North Sea. The oil in the North Sea. Which had Miliband shutting down production. Just check out-- the oil in the North Sea is the-- one, it's not going to come in. If you were to go and drill all this stuff away, they'd say drill, baby, drill in the North Sea. It's going to be years before you get anything out there. That's fine. It's not fine if you can do other stuff with the money you've got. Which is what? Which is renewables. But the problem with-- The North Sea is important to our energy because of the wind that blows there, OK? We're going to have much-- that is going to be much more important to our long-term energy needs than-- We just had an energy expert called Scott Tinker on the show. It's not out yet. But if I may plug, in which he talked about the fact there's no such thing as renewable energy, because it takes so much raw material to build the wind turbines, which then have to be-- OK. OK. Honestly, that's like saying-- look, it's a label. Net zero is a label. The label-- Let's just say oil. Oil, wind, and solar every time. But the reason-- Wind, solar. Alastair, you're being picky now. The reason it's important is that these things are not renewable. They cost energy to produce. Everything. It costs us energy to turn those lights on. that's a very good point Alistair you know what you know you've been a very good sport we appreciate you coming on Alistair thank you for being here last question is uh always the same what's the one thing we're not talking about that you think we should be do you mean we today I mean we as a country as a as a nation as a as a body politic well weirdly I'm going to say that I don't think we're talking enough about politics in the context of why politics matters why politics for all its faults is so necessary and important and why we need to encourage more and more people genuinely to be engaged in politics I mean really engaged in politics because I worry that the way our debate is going the real the the thing that's underlying a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about isn't just Labour or Tory or Green or Reform whatever it's actually whether democracy is going to survive and whether people are going to think well you know say what you like about Putin but say we're like but they've done stuff way better than we've done etc etc so I I think that we we we don't talk enough about yeah why why democratic politics really matters and why we've got to fight for it harder than we do I'm sorry we're not going to get to your questions because I hugged the mic it's my bad all the best I would have done them but he's oh would you okay let's do let's do them you're a man of your word okay let's do the bonus questions bring us the phones with hindsight on the Iraq dossiers and WND what would you now do differently on facts risks and moral trade-off you