That's Not for Me to Say (with Munya Chawawa)

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Is Facebook dying? I'm Tristan Redmond, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. More than 15 years after the social network, a new movie on the inner workings of Facebook hits cinemas in October. The journalist who's reporting "inspired" the film tells us why Facebook stopped being cool and whether meta its parent company can reinvent itself. For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your pods. Hello and welcome to Strong Message here from BBC Radio for a Guide to the Use and Abuse of Political Language. I'm Amanda Unishie, I'm joined this week by comedian Wunya Chihuahua. Hello, Amanda. This is crazy for me, by the way, because inadvertently you were kind of like a catalyst to my satirical journey because you retweeted one of my videos and locked down. And I messaged you and I thought, "No way he's going to reply." And you said, "Keep going, kid." And that's the accent I read it in. And you genuinely think I talked like that? Yeah, yeah. Like you're going to have Tom Hanks figure. You're probably going to ask me in the back of my brain. Well, that's good. That's good. I thought I saved the thank you for in person as opposed to just sort of reacting to the message on Twitter. Yeah, because that was about six years ago. That would have been the opposite. And I have been waiting. And this week, the phrase we're looking at is that's not for me to say. So we're looking at the trend in political language to talk around issues. First, Wunya, you've recently been to America for your documentary "Restling with Trump" which is on channel four. I highly recommend it. Well, first of all, New Statesman described you as likable and impish. How do you feel about that? Impish. Oh, my lord. I don't know how I feel about it. Isn't it in many Satan? Oh. So, impish was kind of cheeky. Impish is a tonic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's good. Maybe I'll update the LinkedIn bio-impish actress approved by Amanda Inuchie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been called. I saw, I've read Taskmaster at the moment. All right. Obviously recorded last year. It was going out now. And I saw a comment from someone saying, "It's so nice to have an old man contestant who's clearly enjoying himself." And old man. That sounds like you've been let out the home to do a couple of general exercises. I know. I sort of did every now and then, actually. There's one, I don't think it's gone out yet. There is an episode where you see the before and after, my afternoon nap. There was one task that I did when I should have been having my afternoon nap and I didn't get it. And it's a disaster. And there's another task I did straight after my afternoon nap. And it's a triumph. I'm a great, great advocate of the afternoon nap. I don't care what age you are. Whether you're an old man contestant or a young imp like yourself. Impishwippersnapper. Yeah. That was my resting name in school. Impishwippersnapper. But I will say this. I think in my whole life I've taken about three naps. What? Mm-hmm. I can't stand them. The prospect of sleep to me is so infuriate. I mean, I've got a lie there. You're telling me I've got a lie there and pretend to be dead for eight hours every day. Yeah. No, I know what you mean. I mean, I'm reading a book and I'm thinking, ah, I don't want to stop. I don't want the fun to end. Yeah. That's how I feel. So to nap in the day, Amanda, is that's insane to me. I want to talk about the wrestling, first of all, because the premise of your program was that a lot of the tropes and the kind of showbiz element, the messaging of wrestling in America is something that actually is the key to understanding how Trump operates, how he projects himself and his presidency. I've got that correct. Absolutely. And I think the reason that I'm so pleased but also kind of, even I'm taken aback by the documentary, is just the clarity of the thesis and its proof in the documentary, which is, has Trump copied and pasted the blueprint of wrestling as a world leader? Yeah. And the examples are so striking, you know, even if I was to draw on one in particular, that Hulk Hogan, a real turning point for him, was defeating the villain that Iron Sheik, who happened to be an Iranian American. Yeah. And he came out and did his entrance music, the entrance song was, "I am a real American fight for the rights of every man, waving the US flag." Yeah. And he was not only defeating a rival but a threat to American life as we knew it. Yeah. And he was the K-fabe of it or the pantomime drama. Oh yeah, K-fabe. Tell us a bit about K-fabers. K-fabe is why wrestling is often described as so popular for men because it's the sort of mutual suspension of disbelief, knowing that the storylines and the fights may not be actually real but it's so much more entertaining to believe that they are. Right. So to start this year off, with almost the exact same parallel and suddenly the Iranian villain is posing a threat to American life as we know it. And just even just to hold Hulk Hogan and Trump side by side in that way. And then also for the fact they crossed over in the middle when Hulk Hogan ripped his vest out of Magarelli. And Trump burst through his stomach. Trump burst through his stomach like a horrible version of alien Romulus. And that's how Hogan in the end is. It's just unbelievable. Yeah. The thing about the wrestling is, of course, you mentioned K-fabe, but it's this storyline element through it, which is, you know, we've seen the iconic, you know, the bragging, the taunting ear opponent. And Trump does all that, you know. He sort of grew popular. He was victorious on that, be calling Marco Rubio Little Marco, Cricut Hillary, Sleepy Joe and all those. Yeah. Which is straight from. So we call Smack Talk. Smack Talk. Yeah, in wrestling, that's. You're putting a promo. Yeah. Anytime you stand in front of a microphone and you denigrate your opponents and you come up with these sort of sardonic nicknames. Yeah. That's, that's Smack Talk. Yeah. And if you type in on any site, you know, Smack Talk, Stone Corps, Smack Talk, you can find compilation to where they're not even wrestling. They're just talking. Yeah. And those were the best bits. Yeah. And the interesting thing is, we kind of know they don't. They don't mean it. They have to convince themselves that they are antagonised by their opponent. And that's their way of doing it. But also, it's seen as a kind of. There's an element of pantil behind it as well. Yes. We have to surrender to the reality that they're trying to project. And we have to suspend our disbelief and enjoy it. That's the only way you can appreciate what's going on. That's the mutual agreement that we have with as an audience. We go into those wrestling arenas which are constantly sold out. Yeah. Understanding that, you know, these guys aren't. You know, don't really want to kill each other. But for the moment, it's fun to believe that they do. However, and that is why wrestling is always said at the beginning of the end, please don't try this at home. Right. However, as we've seen, for example, in the soap opera world, which you could argue reasonably that they use K-Fable as well, for example, he senders, when characters have talked about coming off the show and having people shout at them across the street. Yeah. Can't believe you did that. What we then know is actually sometimes it does seep out. Yeah. And so for a politician to go, well, I'm going to use the rules of wrestling. Even though I know, if I say I'm going to wipe out an attire civilization, if you see someone throw a tomato, punch them in the face, there's no way if Trump has adopted K-Fable. He's not aware of what K-Fable can be when an audience are not able to shake themselves out of the suspended belief. Right. And you met some of these, the kind of true mega supporters. Right. So it was called, and I don't blame you for not remembering the name. Yeah. Trumpsters triumph Tuesday. And we every Tuesday to get smashed for Trump pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they probably came up with the name whilst smashed. Because it, discriminatically, it makes no sense. Yeah. Trumpsters triumph Tuesdays. Yeah. So everyone just went, that's a liturative, isn't it? I also, you know, Tuesdays are quite boring. Right. Let's start, let's start with Tuesday and work out from there. You talked to one about how Trump had told something like 30,000 lies in his first of them. And she said, yes, they looked at all those. They were lies. I think the people who said they were lies were lying. Yeah. And you said, well, all 30, you looked at all 30,000. And she said, yeah, more or less. And she followed up by saying, have you heard of Trump derangement syndrome? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was just this poetic moment in which, if anyone seemed deranged in that moment, surely it's the person who says that they have analyzed 30,000 lies and found all of them to be baseless claims. Is there a sport that Farage would be associated if Trump was wrestling Farage's? I think dog racing. I mean, I know he does it. He's not into it. He's probably horsey. He's probably. He's probably the most obscure. There is. I see him just using the language of dog. I don't know why. As long as it's not water polo, that's an image I'd never want to know. Having seen his sort of pasty bottom when I'm a celeb. That is already my sleep paralysis human. We ought to get on to the phrase of the week that I was looking at, which is that's not for me to say. And there are variations of that. That's it's not for me to say this. That's for him to say. That's for her to respond to. What politicians are asked about something terrible about someone else in their party. Yeah. And rather than saying, I agree with what they said, because that looks bad. But they don't want to annoy the other member of the party. The ghetto is that's not for me to say. It sounds a bit like a Justin Bieber song. That's not for me to say. If I saw, if I heard that on kiss FM, I'd be like, this is going to be an absolute banger. Yeah, but it is, I mean, there's is there's this running joke as as to how in British politics, especially. We're so eloquent in saying nothing. Yeah. You know, that's not for me to say. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, asking was a 50 words for snow and we have, you know, 400 expressions for, I'd rather not answer that question. Yeah, it's like being a birthday party and playing game pin the tail of the donkey and being like, that's not for me to pin. Yeah, you got to put it somewhere just so we know. Well, you know, but yeah, the whole question of where the thing should go on the donkey is really more a veterinary issue. And I'm here really, I'm not qualified. I'm not, I'm just here as a, as a friend invited. I'm not professional, I don't have the professional knowledge and indeed acumen to determine what the people have written really want at this moment is to see the birthday cake. And until that happened, I can't pin the tail of the donkey. Yeah, yeah. I'm not for me to pin. And, you know, on the doorstep, nobody's asking me about the donkey. Until the pin you had to make a statement, I think it's best we just focus on the issue at hand and get it to moving. Yeah, yes, right, which brings me to my phrase, the current, what's your, do you have a phrase that you want to catch? So I get to throw a phrase in the first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, where you confront them with the biggest conceivable scandal known to mankind. And they go, but what matters at this very moment is what the British people really care about. Yeah. And I think which British person did you speak to ahead of this interview? Because that's not, I care about the thing that they're asking you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anything that starts with what matters at the moment or the British people really want to see. And unless you've spoken to every Tom Dickin Maureen, you don't know what I want to see. You're a party leader. Last night, on live television, drunk shouted, I am a demon. And you're telling me that that hasn't once come up on on the doorstep. Look, what the British people really want to see right now is for me to take a 10 minute nap, no interruptions. No. And until we do that, I can't come on. No, thing. That isn't that kind of almost like that's political k-fabe. And then we know that he or she knows, as they say that, that that's bollocks. And they don't actually mean that. But they've got to say it because that's what they say in those circumstances. And if they said anything else, they actually answered the question, I know he did say he was a deer. And what's that like? Can we make God? We should get rid of him. It will just spell worse for the party. So they have to say that. But we're much more, I think, we're much more savvy to. Oh, we are savvy games like that. We are savvy. But there's almost like a lag between the way politicians talk to us. And what we actually understand them. So they'll circumlicky, I think what are called circular lukutes, which is like spinning around the plughole of what I want to say, almost in a way that makes you think, do they think we're done? Because if we go on Twitter, we can see the tweets, or we can see the posts you made. But it's almost as if they don't think we exist outside of their works. I find that as a member of the electric, quite frustrating because it feels like you're not being spoken to as an adult. Yeah. Well, the current, the by-election taking place at the moment, Andy Bern, I'm trying to get in. There are so many things not being said about it that it's almost deafening because Burnham is, he can't say, if I win this, I will take on Kia Stammer for leadership labor party and become promising. He can't say that because he's basically saying, you know, if you've fought for me, I'll get rid of Stammer. If he says that out loud, there's a danger of people going, well, if I vote for Faraj, I'll get rid of Stammer. If you agree with me to get rid of Stammer, so he can't say that. So he's got to say, he's coming in as a man of the people who talks normal, doesn't talk like a politician. But then when those questions are put to him, he then has to start talking like a politician because there's no alternative. So he has to say, he's been saying things like, do you want to run for leader? It's for others to decide whether I'm the person to lead that fight. This is a change by-election. People will be saying, yeah, but you've just said, you agree with the immigration policies more or less, you agree with the fiscal rules more or less. So what does the change? I don't know what the answer to that is other than, I just have more of a personality. You remember there was that film called The Purge where all crime was legal for us. Yes, yeah, I'm not suggesting that, but it would be good if there was a lie purge where one day every year in Britain, all politicians had to tell that absolute truth. Wouldn't that be so interesting to see whether, for example, ratings went up like all ratings went up for all politicians because people went, oh my god, finding you're telling the truth. And I think that's one of the ways in which populism works because even though a lot of it is, you know, confabulation, it just sounds like straight talking. You know, in every what she's box-pops, especially with reform voters, it will be. You know, I love Forage because he says it how he is, you know, he falls a spade, a spade, you know. Well, that's that projection of the other as the other, in this case, being a traditional politician. Yeah. And so, you know, the selling point is that they're not like that, you know, they're not like a traditional politician. And that was what worked so well for so many wrestlers actually come to think of it just to draw parallel to the duck, because in our documentary, Trump's former advisor describes Trump as an iconoclastic outsider heel. There's a lot going on there, but what he says, the heel is the villain. Yes. And he was referring to, he used the reference of a wrestler called Stone Cold. Now, Stone Cold is really interesting case study because he was colloquially named the Texas Rattlesnake. And he would drive up to the ring on a four-wheeler. He'd catch beers from the crowd, smash them together, soak himself in beer, and then begin to pulverize the CEO of the WWE Vince McMahon. Obviously, it was all written in the script, but to the audience, they were like, "Oh my god, he's beating up the bus, you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to drink in the ring." You know, his taunt wasn't to raise an eyebrow or a fist, it was to raise two middle fingers. And even though he was the badder, he was the goodie, because there was a worse baddie than him, and that was the establishment. And so you're right in saying populist were often go, "I know you think I'm bad, but there's an even worse baddie than me." And it's British politics, as you know it. So who's the worse? Which is the lesser of two evils? Well, we'll get on to the, you know, the reform kind of approach to tell that. I just want to research something. It was a, again, it was Andy Byrne, I'm accorted in the financial times of the weekend. I'm prepared to take that fight as high as I can go. What fight? What fight do you mean? I'm not saying. I want to play whatever part I can in changing this party. Back to the party here, people used to know and the party that is solidly on the side of working class community. I've not done the usual thing of talking in code. I've said it plainly what I'm trying to do. He says having just talked in code. Yeah, insane. I'm taking the fight to that. What did you say? Take more than exactly. I mean, the grammar's all over. Yeah, that's what I said on class master when confronted with Greg. That was like, I got to ask your ears tall. Look, some of it obviously you can read between the lines and the subtext, but you're right. It's very cloaked and it's very guarded. And I think at a time where people have so little bandwidth to listen to politicians, it's going about it the wrong way. I mean, I know we're going to talk about some of the alternate tactics of the politicians who are very active online, but so much of how they succeed. And again, a parallel wrestling is a smack talk. Stuff like stop the boats, take back control. Brexit means Brexit. You know, these the gangs. Smash the gangs. Three word phrases. Yes. In terms of even just the sound of the words, lots of close of phonemes, the sibilant, you know, these are sort of almost bullets of conciseness that are just easy to go on your phone. You read the phrase. You hear the phrase and you remember it. I can't even recall one of the things you said just now from Andy Burnham and that is a profit. I don't know. I can make out. No, take the fight to as high as it can go. Notwithstanding the pressures were under. Of course, we've got to find a more meaningful challenge to the established leadership mechanism. I'm not having a go at the leader. I'm just saying there's a position within the party that is somehow not quite being heard. And we're zoning out of the the sound of effectiveness that we used to project, but which now has become underpinned by a kind of new to the element of a perceived lack of impetus to shut up. If this was a voice note, you'd be on times too, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Another party who's using the word politician in a slightly different way is reform at the moment. Their candidate in the bad action, Rob Kenyon has deleted two Twitter accounts, deleted various pull is under fire for various posts. He made including misogynistic comments about Carol Vorderman, the explanation given by reform. Well, actually Danny Krueger said it on the today program, which is it's clearly wrong for politicians to talk in that way, but he was not a politician at the time. So somehow before you become a politician, it's okay to say anything. And when you become a politician, what do you go through some sort of cleansing? Is there some sort of cleansing use or baptism, isn't it? Yeah. So that implies being a politician is a kind of higher state. Of course, you then have higher, you're a counter to higher standards when you're a politician, which is the reverse of the kind of Burnham. And indeed, the Farage, oh, the politicians, they're other people will not like them. So are you like them or not like them? Do you want to be like them when they're virtuous or do you want to project them as inferior and enemies of the country that we want to distance ourselves from? Yeah, because are we on politicians politics is almost put on a pedestal in Britain because of just the the bureaucracy of it, but also the pomp and the ceremony of when I used to try and watch Prime Minister's question times on a Wednesday as part of my politics course at six form. I was instantly alienating as a viewer by hearing people shout across each other, the honorable gentleman, Mr Speaker, all of these things, the other week I saw someone knocking on the door with the handle of the sword or whatever. And so, yes, that gives the impression that they are deities almost, you know, it's best for the country. And so you go, okay, we'll play along with that then, but then it's the case that if someone has, you know, tweets that actually, in any other employment contract would lead to the termination, you go, well, you know, actually, well, sometimes it's, we all make mistakes, but then another times it's, well, he wasn't a politician, then so it's like, what are you? Are you people for the people of the people or are you those holier than their figures? Yeah. I don't know what regard to hold them in. Yeah. Because if, for example, we had a political system that went, look, we're all human beings, we all make mistakes, we'll be honest with you, all times it's not always going to be pretty. Yeah. Then, you know, I could get on board with that. That's very hard for politicians to do. Totally. You know, and I think the ones that do do it actually get a lot of respect for that reason. Exactly. Exactly. But I've always wondered why is the politicians find it very hard to admit that the initial, you know, process was wrong, the, what, if they knew then what they know now, they would done it differently. So now they're going to apologize and move on. Now, I don't know whether that's because we put pressure on them, you know, every time Starma has done a U-turn, it's been chocked up as another U-turn, so it's become a kind of running kind of gel. Yeah. And therefore it's harder and harder to show that you're changing your mind. I do think that we've made an error in not necessarily letting the, the natural vicissitudes of a political term run their course by which I mean. Yeah. I don't know any politician that took over in the middle of this terrible deficit doom that we're in was ever going to be the night in shining arms. Yeah. Yeah. And also politics in this country has been so bad for so long. It is actually ludicrous to expect someone to do a complete overhaul. So what I mean by that is, is that, you know, even when Starma was elected, I sort of had the feeling, number one, he won't carry us to the next election, but number two, even the Labour government, as much faith we have in them are going to make some mistakes, and there probably will be some scandals, such as the general baseline of British politics, unfortunately. But are we maybe, I don't know whether it's the social media thing or whether it's the media itself, so hungry for dramatic headlines, that the slightest error, the slightest mistake is no magnified. Absolutely. And all are nothing. Yes. They've gone from being victorious to a complete shower of incompetence overnight. Oh totally. We're just swiping prime ministers down until we get the right one. Yeah. You know, this is casual version of PM tender. It's somehow, we're just never going to be satisfied. You know, I'm sure if Farage got sweeping majority in the election within a year, there'll be people going, well, it's dreadful. It's the rolling, it's the, you know, that is the consequence of like a new cycle that never sleeps. That has to be a story, you know, every second of every day, you know, to the point where, if you do see something that you, you like on the timeline, on the social media timeline, it vanishes with just one pull of the thumb because there's always a hundred more tweets, a hundred more stories. You know, so everything that happened with Starma where it was like this, sort of, you know, off with his head a couple of weeks ago. And that sort of now vanished in lieu of what was the hottest day in May ever. You know, it feels like a dream. This is a dream, did it actually happen? It's, it's like these sort of weird one night stands with these big new stories and then forgotten about forever. Is Facebook dying? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned when you started right about pandemic times doing social media and it was very closely. A lot of your parodies and your scripts were very based on like close analysis of how politicians talked and how they behaved and so on. Do you find that are you still energized by that? Or have you kind of, do you feel you've moved on to? Are they still worth following in forensically? The turnover of heroes and villains is so rapid now. Yeah. And one sort of weird nostalgia I have from lockdown is because we were all, you know, in our houses behind closed doors and, you know, politicians knew that we weren't out and about. We had like a laser focus, we were able to laser focus on politics. I do believe for the first time, that's when people realized politics affected their lives. Many people because turning on the TV and realizing if the guy at the top said you can only hang out with six people, you could only hang out with six people. And for a lot of my friends, it was the first time they realized, wow, politics is important. But the flip side of that is when those people were being dishonest and were, you know, handing out contracts to their mates or having extra amount of affairs, disobeying their own guidance, we were unified in saying we're not having that. And that's why we saw such a turnover and such a dismantling of the Tory party at that time. We were able to identify who, if you want to use the sort of binary good and evil arresting, who the evil establishment was, right? If the world started again and you were starting your satirical career now, how would you feel about this as a landscape? Would you find that easy pickings or would you struggle? I mean, I'm very much in my dream somehow. It's important that we look at what they're actually saying and what they mean by what they say and what they are trying to avoid saying and whether that's revealed by what they say, that for me is important. So I'm glad I'm doing this. Whether something like, you know, the thick of it would work out, I don't have no idea. And it's very hard to say because, you know, I did it. And therefore, it's something I've done. And so I don't get the inkling to do something like that again. But I always say, you know, the comedians now who are interesting are the way, because politicians have become the entertainers, they're actually the comedians who punch through are like other journalists, they're the John Oliver's and, you know, the way you forensically look at how politicians behave. And also, where is power now? It's not just with the politicians, it's with the tech grows in Silicon Valley and elsewhere and the autocracy, that whole, you know, how debates over what we're allowed to say, what we're not allowed to say, get just hijacked for quick point scurry. You know, those, those sort of language games that people play, it was always interested me. So personally, I find a lot to say, whether it would get on anywhere, I've no idea, absolutely no idea. And also, when we talked about the other and the baddies, the good guys, there are lots of phrases we have to know for the good guys. It's like, you know, because Burnham talked about Forgotten Britain. Starmer talks about working people. Tories will talk about, I suppose, decent law-biding, hardworking families. The Greens will talk about, you know, those left behind. And we get a lot of that. It does so general, I sort of feel that they're, they're trying to basically say, yeah, you're in, you are a good guy. Whoever is watching this, I'm talking about you. You're not the other. Yeah, because when I hear stuff like, you know, normal law-abiding citizens. Yeah. Sometimes when I'm on my line bike, I do gamble on an amber. You know, am I, am I left out of the manifesto now? I don't know. Could all the completely law-abiding citizens be stepped forward now, please? Anyone who's not run a red on their line bike? Yeah, there wouldn't be any. You're included. You deserve a fairer Britain. Yeah, we've got three people who deserve a fairer Britain. The other 65 million. What's your most low-level crime? My most law-abiding. Oh my god, let's hit low-level crime. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Why? Because it involves an enormous amount of drugs being moved from one continent to another via dirty money. Can't believe you wrote me into that. I know. I know. Well, at least we can run as reform party candidates. That's the kind of thing they're looking for. That's right. Look, he may have been a drug runner in the past, okay? That's just, that's who he was. What was the politician there? That's who these people are. What really matters to people now? These times it makes me so happy that this is not even politically related. But thank God David Attenborough never joined Twitter because I could, I would hate to see one good tweet from that man at this age. That was maybe the best decision of his career, not getting Twitter. Walk up this morning to a squirrel's shitting on my doorstep. David, we've called you in. I think the next documentary, there's been a the shitting doorstep tweet is, you know, it's upset the red squirrel community. It's honest. Politicians on social media is Andy Burnham has been showing a little bit more flexibility and now it's with social media than other political leaders. Not quite there yet, but by doing spiky comments back, being not afraid to say something that's a bit more kind of headline grabbing. And Daniel was, I don't know, criticising his policies and Burnham tweeted, or Skype to whatever, not Skype, blue Skype, skitted. Don't look that up. Don't look up the words, ski. No, definitely don't. You need to get out of London more, Andrew, was Burnham's thing. And Labour MP Luke Charter said, this is very good. This is combative progressivism. You know what we call that online? We call it a clapback. A clapback. competitive progressivism. I mean, that sounds like what Kirstama calls sex. We call it a clap back first. A clap back? Yeah. Is that what you call sex? No, no, no, no. Some people do. That makes sense, but I don't want to explain it on this show. Well, what's my thoughts on politicians jumping on social media? Well, you know, earlier I described the pomp and ceremony of British politics can often alienate people because you think, you know, if I don't understand what a sword being knocked on the door means, it means I'm not meant to have any understanding of politics. Politicians being on social media, I think is a good thing because it helps to remove some of that sort of that fog of alienation, which is I don't understand how you work, you don't understand how I work. Obviously, it's always going to be a bit cringe, but it can be used very effectively. You know, I'm done in New York. Yes. He uses it as a, you know, almost as like a town hall. You know, his comment sections are like a town hall. People will comment on the things that they like. They'll suggest things. God knows how much the team kind of weighed through that and use it to decipher what to do next, but there's an open communication channel. And when he's out and about, you can tell people are reacting to him in the way that they react to someone they recognize from social media, which is, "Are you a friend of the people?" So it's interesting. The first thing that started really to affect Farajabit in public eye is when he stopped answering questions about the five million loan, not loan gift he got. He's just point blank, refused to. And that's the first time I think he's actually been silent on an issue. And that's resonated. It's done him, it's had a significant impact on his image. Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, you know, Faraj, I think, is the most popular politician on TikTok if I'm not mistaken. Yes. You know, I saw this guy beefing oat milk in a hotel as one of his TikToks. And I thought, "This is when you've shown too much." You know, if you're trying to fill the content cycle by starting a verbal battle with different kinds of milk, you're scraping the barrel. So that's why the silence is so loud because we've seen so much of him. So if anything, that speaks to sort of the moderation of as a politician, "How much should we know and see of you?" But one interesting thing I was going to say is that, or rather one exciting thing, sorry, is. I'll determine whether it's interesting. That's very bold of me. It is an impetus for politicians to all political teams to involve more young people in politics because we understand, "Oh, algorithms, we understand how to do the dance." And I do believe some fresh, you know, injecting a youth and a freshness into politics could really help us at this stage at a time when it's felt to be, you know, I think you've asked a lot of Gen Z how they feel about politics. It's like, you know, it's the the doings of the elderly, which as we know is not. And that makes me feel terrible as well. So there's a real opportunity there. There's like an out-of-reached hand to say, "Let's work on this together." Be interesting because the discussion about lowering the voting age to 16 be interesting to see how many people that engage a bit more. It would have to be followed up by how politics is talked about at schools and colleges, you know. But it'd be interesting to see if it actually galvanizes a lot of people because, you know, the youthful is the smallest proportion of age group, age group that votes. And I think therefore all politicians know there are, there are votes to be had there if only they knew how. I think, and then that last bit is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I don't need, you know, Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham to do their own version of, you know, Brassum, a little sinking to Charlie X X songs for me to like them, but just be authentically you because, you know, there are a lot of trends that I think when paired up with British politicians could scar us beyond belief and put us into therapy. Right, on that happy thought, I think we'll come to that. I didn't actually discuss the phrase I now want to consign to the furnace, which was Danny Krueger talking about the reform candidate actually said, I'm not going to sit here and police the previous remarks that he made. I'm not going to sit here and is, is a, is a phrase I want to consign to the furnace because that again, that's a get out used by lots of politicians. You know, you have been booked to sit here and to comment. So you can get over by going, I'm not going, I'm not going to come on the today program here in front of you Nick Robinson and hear your question and just reply to it. I'm not going to do that. You know, I'd do if I was a journalist. Yeah. I'd be like, stand up, move your chair away, now say it because the only prerequisite you've given me to not say this, in fact, you're sitting down because any of these goes, I'm not going to stand here. Okay, drop a squat. I'm not going to squat here and say, and see how long you can go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what, that's not for me to say. Well, if not, you can leave. I'm not going to sit here and leave. What? That doesn't make sense. No, hang on. That's brilliant. Am I doing it right? I think I'm ready to be a politician. Yeah. Can you sit here and leave? I suppose if you just shuffled your chair out the door. Oh, that's one way of answering the question. Thanks for listening to Strong Measure here. I'll be back next week. I've all this of candidates running in the Make a Feel by Election are available in the program description. Why not go and listen to some of our episodes from our back catalog. Just search for Strong Measure here and subscribe on BeautySuppance. Goodbye. See you. Greetings, malevolent munchkins, fiendish friends and devilish do-gooders. Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. I'm Russell Kane and I'm delighted to be steering the ship. The unceremoniously wrenches historic figures from their perfect pedestals so that we can decide whether they're evil, genius or a heavy concoction of the tip. It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Yes, it's evil. Yes, it's genius. Get on board now and listen to evil genius on BBC sales. Is Facebook dying? For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your pods.