It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind the Collapse of Political Elites in the U.S. and UK with Freddie Gray

Summary

Podcast Summary: "It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind the Collapse of Political Elites in the U.S. and UK with Freddie Gray"

Released on August 7, 2025, "The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show" delves deep into the shifting political landscapes of the United States and the United Kingdom. In this episode, host Ryan Graduski is joined by Freddie Gray, deputy editor of The Spectator and editor of the American Spectator, to analyze recent polling data and significant political developments impacting both nations.

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1. Introduction and Recent Polling Data

Ryan Graduski opens the episode by presenting a noteworthy poll from Equus Research, a firm specializing in American Hispanic voting behavior. Although Graduski notes the firm's liberal bias and questions its accuracy, he emphasizes the importance of the data as it sheds light on Latino voting trends heading into the 2026 elections.

Key Points:

• Latino Voter Shifts: The poll examines Latinos who supported Biden in 2020 and shifted to Trump in 2024. Surprisingly, these voters are less likely to turn out in 2026 compared to those who supported Harris.

• Disapproval of Economic Policies: A significant portion of Latino voters disapprove of Trump's tariffs and economic handling. However, this disapproval hasn't translated into broad support for Democrats, with only 8% committed to voting Democrat in 2026.

Notable Quote:

"Latinos disapprove of Trump's tariffs and his handling of the economy... However, only 8% say they're committed to voting Democrats in 2026."
— Ryan Graduski [05:00]

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2. Analysis of Latino Voter Behavior

Graduski and Gray discuss the implications of the polling data, highlighting that the Latino support base for Republicans may have reached a new baseline. They explore factors such as education levels, age demographics, and voting propensity that influence voter turnout and party allegiance.

Key Points:

• Voter Demographics: Younger, less-educated Latino men who supported Trump are less likely to vote consistently.

• Potential for Democratic Revival: Contrary to some expectations, the Democrats are not seeing a significant rebound from disillusioned Latino voters, indicating a persistent challenge.

Notable Quote:

"Democrats were always expecting some kind of revival with their former voters who took a chance on Trump... But they're nowhere near that number."
— Ryan Graduski [07:15]

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3. UK Political Upheaval: Corbyn’s New Party

Transitioning to international politics, Graduski introduces the main topic: the fragmentation of the UK's political elite. Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, has announced the formation of a new far-left party named "Your Party," focusing on issues like the Israel-Palestine conflict, wealth redistribution, and climate change.

Key Points:

• Corbyn’s Controversial Legacy: Under Corbyn's leadership, the Labour Party faced numerous challenges, including accusations of anti-Semitism and poor electoral performance.

• Reaction within Labour: The establishment of "Your Party" has significantly eroded Labour’s support, pulling poll numbers down to 15%, equal with Corbyn's new party and trailing behind Reform UK and the Conservatives.

Notable Quote:

"They did terribly under his leadership... the growth we saw in 2024 is basically here to stay."
— Ryan Graduski [09:00]

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4. Impact on Labour and Conservative Parties

Freddie Gray elaborates on the internal strife within the Labour Party and the challenges facing the Conservative Party amid rising support for Reform UK.

Key Points:

• Labour’s Dilemma: Labour is torn between shifting further left to retain Corbyn and Sultana’s base or moving towards the center to reclaim moderate voters lost to Reform UK.

• Conservative Struggles: The Conservative Party, led by Kemi Badenoch, is grappling with leadership issues and internal disagreements, exacerbated by defections within Reform UK aiming to push the party further right.

Notable Quote:

"Reform UK... is on course, if the polls are correct, they would win a general election tomorrow. And I, at the moment, I cannot see how they are stopped."
— Freddie Gray [17:00]

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5. Immigration Protests and Social Unrest in the UK

The discussion shifts to the escalating protests against mass immigration in the UK, which have intensified public frustration and governmental responses.

Key Points:

• Public Dissatisfaction: Massive protests have erupted, particularly after tragic crimes linked to immigrants, leading to heightened anti-immigrant sentiments.

• Governmental Clampdown: Prime Minister Keir Starmer has implemented strict measures against hate speech, sparking debates over free speech and censorship.

Notable Quote:

"Keir Starmer has now twice in front of Donald Trump said, no, no, no, we have a proud tradition of free speech in our country... but I think Tim Jordan seems to be raising America's concerns about that law."
— Freddie Gray [28:00]

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6. Potential for Violent Riots and Future Outlook

Graduski and Gray assess the likelihood of these tensions leading to violent riots or significant political upheaval in the UK.

Key Points:

• Possible Violence: While there is a potential for violent incidents catalyzed by ongoing anger and frustration, Freddie Gray remains cautiously optimistic that the British temperament may prevent large-scale riots.

• Long-term Implications: The sustained instability suggests a volatile political environment, with significant ramifications for future elections and party dynamics.

Notable Quote:

"We tend to think the British are not very revolutionary in temperament... but there is certainly a deep well of anger."
— Freddie Gray [32:30]

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7. Audience Q&A: The LGBT Vote and Trump’s Performance

In the "Ask Me Anything" segment, listener Robert Diaz Arista inquires about the surprising decline in Trump’s support among LGBT voters, challenging exit poll data with his observations.

Key Points:

• Exit Poll Reliability: Graduski questions the accuracy of the reported 12% support for Trump among LGBT voters, suggesting underreporting and methodological flaws in exit polling.

• Personal Insights: He posits that actual support may be higher, aligning with observed enthusiasm among young LGBT Republicans.

Notable Quote:

"I don't believe that it's exit poll numbers. I don't think that he did worse, considering he did better with basically every single group and especially young voters."
— Ryan Graduski [33:00]

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8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Ryan Graduski wraps up the episode by thanking Freddie Gray and encouraging listeners to engage with his analyses through The Spectator. The discussion highlights the critical intersection of polling data, party dynamics, and public sentiment shaping the future political landscapes of both the U.S. and the UK.

Notable Quote:

"You're far more on the money than 98% of British commentators."
— Freddie Gray [34:50]

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Additional Resources:

• Freddie Gray’s Work: Listeners interested in further insights can explore Spectator World for American perspectives and Spectator.co.uk for British political analysis.

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This episode offers a comprehensive examination of the fracturing political elites and the underlying numbers driving these changes in two major democracies. Freddie Gray's expertise provides valuable context to understanding these complex dynamics, making it an essential listen for anyone interested in current political trends.

Transcript

[Ryan Graduski]

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[Ryan Graduski]

Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Graduski. Thank you all for being here. So I have some polling data that I think you'd like to hear and then I want to get to the main topic to discuss. But on the polling data, a poll from Equus Research came out. Now this is a liberal polling firm that specialize and American Hispanics and the Hispanic vote and they're not the most accurate. They did estimate that Trump was going to lose the Hispanic vote in swing states by 18 points in 2024 and he only lost them by 10 points. So it's not a great firm. But they put out some data that I think is important because no one else has put it out so far. So I want you to take it with a grain of salt. But understand it's important. It may be like, you know, liberal wish casting, but they're the only ones asking this question as we go into the 2026 election. So the poll looks at Latinos that voted for Biden in 2020 and then Trump in 2024. So the first, first part of the poll is they looked at Latinos that backed from in 2020 24, and they find that they are less likely to show up in 2026 than Latinos that voted for Harris. Now, that shouldn't be shocking because Trump support came from younger men. It came from people without college degrees, people who don't vote as often, low propensity voters. So it's not surprising that they're not showing up in huge numbers, like maybe college educated Latinos are, or Latino senior citizens or women. The poll also finds, though, that Latinos disapprove of Trump's tariffs and his handling of the economy. Now, once again, that's also not surprising because it's in line with every other poll. People feel like the tariffs are attacks and that, you know, the media has been pushing this idea that there's a recession around the corner that they're wishing into existence and they're all affected by it. Everyone's affected by it because they're nervous and they're uncertain. Nonetheless, the poll states that disapproval for Trump's, for Trump's handling the economy has not transferred over to broad support for the Democrats. And this is where it gets really interesting. The poll found that among Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024, only 8% say they're committed to voting for Democrats in 2026. In the House and Senate, among Biden defectors, those are Latinos that voted for Biden in 2020 and then Trump in 2024. The numbers who are committed to voting for Democrats are at 31%. Another 20% said they're undecided. That means one in three Latinos who consistently voted for Democrats up till 2024 are saying they're switching back to the Democratic Party. That may seem like a high number, and it's decently high, especially if you're in a heavily Latino district that barely voted for Trump, like Nellie Poe in New Jersey's 9th district or G was in New Mexico second. But it's not where Democrats really want to be. Democrats were always expecting some kind of revival with their former voters who took a chance on Trump. After all, like, the consequence of being an incumbent and being in office is you actually have to achieve something. And there's always an area, a gray area of disappointment with all voters, for all candidates, whether it doesn't matter if you're Obama or Biden or Trump, there's always going to Be someone who supported you, who feels disappointed in you. And that's just the name of the game. And every elected official has that. But that being said, Democrats really needed to get to a space where they were winning. A majority of Biden Trump Latinos, and they're nowhere near that number, which means maybe we've hit a new floor of support for Latinos who back Republicans and that the growth we saw in 2024 is basically here to stay. Now, I've had several analysts on the, you know, Zachary Denini said the same thing, and other data scientists have sat there and said that they expected Republican support among Latinos to continue to grow. And basically some of the changes that we saw in red states like Texas and Arizona and blue states like California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois could be here to stay. Very important data set. We'll have a lot more as the election comes forward. But this is the first poll to look at this crucial group. And, you know, you may not think this is a huge win for Republicans. It's certainly not a home run, but it is not a home run for Democrats, especially the numbers that they were hoping to get to. Okay, so for the main topic of this episode, I asked you guys several months ago if you wanted me to hit on politics from abroad, especially in Europe, and you said yes. So that's what I'm gonna do today. The UK has had a series of major political upheavals in the last few months that the American media has ignored, but you should pay attention to first, and possibly the most consequential piece of information is that the former leader of the Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, announced that he intends to create his own new far left party called your party. The new party will have a host of far left positions, especially related to the Israel and Palestine conflict. Now, if you don't remember, Jeremy Corbyn, he was the leader of the party of the Labor Party for four and a half years. And he was one of the most viscerally anti Semitic mainstream candidates in all of Europe. And the Labor Party did terribly under his leadership. Throughout his political career, Corbyn has supported things like overturning and convictions of Islamic terrorists who bombed the Israeli embassy in London. He supported the Iranian regime. He stood next to speakers at an event where they call the BBC Zionist liars. It was so bad that the UK human rights watchdog group said that the Labor Party was responsible for, quote, unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination during Corbin's four and a half years as the party leader. This is at a time when activists within the Labor Party said things like all Jews in Israel should be relocated to the US that they also said that the creation of Israel is what Hitler really wanted and that Jews were really responsible for the Atlantic slave trade. Corbyn was kicked out of the Labor Party, but you can tell that who his new coalition is based on the people who have been saying they're going to join your party. And they're all Muslim MPs, they're all Muslim members of Parliament. Other policies championed by your party will include wealth redistribution, nationalizing industries and actions against climate change. Basically your standing standard, socialism. Now, your party doesn't have a lot of support, especially not compared to Nigel Farage's Reform uk. But they're eating away at labor parties already falling numbers. A fine out now poll from July 17th has Reform UK. This is the Nigel Farage new nationalist populist party at 34%. The conservatives are known as the Tories are at 17% and labor is tied with your party at 15. Remember, labor is the won the last election, so being hide for fourth or third is not where you want to be. Other left wing parties like the Liberal Democrats and Greens are also losing support to Corbyn's party. The growing instability among the left is worrying labor leaders as their poll numbers sink. A July 2025 poll from Yuga found that Labor's unfavorable rating is 66% and their favorable rating is only 23%. That's worth them worse than both the Conservatives and the Reform UK leaders. Numbers lab leaders are asking themselves a question. Do they try to tack to the center and even the right, especially on issues like immigration, to win over former voters who are moved over to Nigel Farage? Or do they move to the far left to keep Jeremy Corbyn at bay and basically win over some Liberal Democrats and some Green voters? In the midst of all this news from the far left are the ongoing protests against mass immigration throughout the country. And there's a reasonable question of whether things are getting so bad that we may expect to see violence break out in multiple cities. With me to discuss the British journalist who knows what's happening in the mother country and he'll be up to discuss next.

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[Ryan Graduski]

With me on this episode is Freddie Gray. He is the deputy editor of the Spectator and the editor of the American Spectator. Thank you for being here, Freddie.

[Freddie Gray]

Good afternoon, Ryan. It's lovely to be with you.

[Ryan Graduski]

So Freddie, what I told my listeners from the get go is this new party called the your party by former labor leader Jeremy Corbyn that it kind of had a very messy announcement, but polling have showed that he will eat heavily into the labor numbers. He's 15% in the most recent More in common poll. Eat at liberal Democrat numbers. When the Labor Party is looking at where they stand in the nation as a whole right now, are they saying let's, let's move to the left to win over those voters or should we move to the center to win over stop Nigel Farage from continuing to surge in the polls?

[Freddie Gray]

Well, the Labour Party is in an extremely peculiar and bad position considering what a position of strength it was in just a year ago. They won a huge majority, but they won a huge majority in a rather sort of freakish election because you had reform on the right doing very well and the Conservatives doing pretty badly. I mean, historically the worst the Conservatives have ever done. But the right vote was especially was pretty much split. And so therefore Labour got a huge majority with actually not that big a share of the electorate. And they have had a disastrous year. I think it's objectively fair to say you talk to Labour people, they would admit that it's been a disastrous year. And what happened to the Conservative Party is it seems going to happen to Labour, which is a threat, an insurgent threat from the extreme end of the party, the left in this case, which is Jeremy Corbyn and Zora Sultana. Who are these two? I mean. Well, your listeners probably might know about this, but Jeremy Corbyn was blindsided by the announcement. He didn't even know that this party had been launched, having been labor leader of the Labour Party. And it took him about 24 hours to confirm that, yes, he was doing this, but nobody quite knows if this party's real. It's a bit like Elon Musk's America Party. It's sort of a lot of excitement about it. A lot of people think it makes sense and then it happens where it isn't like Elon Musk's America Party is. I think it is a serious threat.

[Ryan Graduski]

You think it's a serious threat for Labor?

[Freddie Gray]

Yes. I mean, so Labour this week recognized or said that they would recognize Palestine at the un and that is purely because of in concerns. Not purely. That's too cynical. That is largely driven, I would say, by concerns about internal dissent over the issue. Keir Starmer does not want to be anti Israel at all. He became leader because he campaigned against the anti Semitism of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. And so he has found himself boxed in by 200 or so MPs who wrote a letter demanding that labor recognize the state of Palestine. And so they have come up with this extraordinary fudge this week, which is to say we will recognize the state of Palestine if there is no ceasefire and if aid doesn't reach the Palestinians and if Hamas does not return hostages, we will recognize the state of Palestine. Which is odd because even if you're very pro Palestinian, it's essentially saying you have to keep suffering and dying and we will recognize you as a state. But if Israel suddenly declares ceasefire, floods the zone with humanitarian aid, we'll go back to not recognizing Palestine as a state. So it's completely incoherent. And it's because they're terribly torn over this issue and they have this threat from the left with Jeremy Corbyn and Zora Sultana.

[Ryan Graduski]

Well, let me ask about Nigel Farage. He's. It's funny because Reform UK is not a big party. They've won a total of seven elections since they really launched a year ago, a year and a half ago, I guess, and already two of their members have defected, but one was pushed out and one defected. That gives a lot of question over his ability to lead the most popular party and keep it together. Because you, I mean, to do the reforms he's talking about, you would need a strong leader. And Farage is definitely, possibly the most consequential living British politician right now already in his career. But can he, can he really lead? Do people believe that he could leave the country?

[Freddie Gray]

That's the question that everybody's asking on the right of British politics at the moment. I mean, it's odd because the Tory, you talk to Conservatives and they will say, yes, we're in big trouble. Reform are doing so well, but they are going to implode, they're going to blow up. Look, they're already fighting like rats in a sack. I had, you know, Nigel Farage, he's a great TV guy, he's a great communicator. But he's not really serious about being Prime Minister, etc. Etc. They say all this and it's true to a certain extent. I think Farage is a bit of an enigma, but it's certainly true that the party keeps having fallouts and squabbles and so on, and yet their lead in the polls just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. They are now on course, if the polls are correct, they would win a general election tomorrow. And I, at the moment, I cannot see how they are stopped. And they have this Trump like momentum of it doesn't matter. You can have a major scandal about reform, a corruption scandal and you probably will and the electorate would just say no. That's the elites again. The hatred of the two parties is so intense that the Labour and the Conservative Party, it is so intense in this country, it's hard to exaggerate and they deserve it. You know, I think everybody agrees that labor and Conservatives deserve to be disenfranchised and disemboweled. Some people would say, yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Graduski]

I saw my friend Ann Coulter on, on GBN News a few days ago. She was on with Nigel and he is not as hot as, I hate saying the word far right, but as, as nationalist as I think some Americans especially would hope that he would be because he was talking about, she was talking about deportations and he was not super firm on it. He's become more firm. But there have been times where he was pretty much like, no, we can't do mass deportations. And. And now he's like, oh, maybe we could do some master deportations of illegals. I think he's moving to the right. Is it that he's just the last man standing or does he genuinely. Is he a weather vane for the mood of the country?

[Freddie Gray]

Well, I think funnily enough, I saw Ann Coulter this morning and we were discussing reform as well. I think it's interesting there are some conservatives now who are very despondent about their leader, Kemi Baden. Doc, who's been a bit of a failure, been a bit of a disaster.

[Ryan Graduski]

I want to talk about next. Yeah.

[Freddie Gray]

They think that there's the opening for them. This is a small section of the party, but quite an influential section of the Conservative Party. They think the space that's opening up for them is to the right of Nigel Farage because Farage is trying to professionalize his party. He has this chairman, Zia Youssef, who was. He seemed to quit and then he came back and no one knows what's going on there. But Zia Yousef is a.

[Ryan Graduski]

It looked like the announcement of the Corbyn Party. He quit, but no one knew it and he came back without anyone knowing he came back.

[Freddie Gray]

It was, it was, you know, it was, it was farcical even by the standards of British politics. And. But Zia Yousef is obviously a, he's a Muslim and he's a, you know, he seems pretty conservative about immigration and so on, but he is, he doesn't want the party to be the sort of toxic, what he would regard as the toxic anti immigrant party. They want to be anti immigration, anti illegal immigration particularly, but they don't want to be anti immigrant and they think that they are finding the new center ground. And if you look at some of their bust ups that they've had with this MP called Rupert Lowe.

[Ryan Graduski]

Yeah.

[Freddie Gray]

That was partly because Elon Musk kept retweeting Rupert Lowe and not Nigel Farage. That was partly part of the reason, but it was also because Rupert Lowe was considered a bit too right wing, a bit too toxic. So wait, can I just.

[Ryan Graduski]

My American audience. For those who don't know, Rupert Lowe is a member of Parliament for. He was elected with the Reform UK Party. He's very popular in his constituency and he, he was probably the most concerned on immigration, fully embracing mass deportations and all the rest of it. And the leader of the Reform UK insisted that a year ago he had bullied him and he was ill, but there's really no evidence he was bullying him. It does seem like it was kind of made up. It was a year prior to. He had not mentioned it for a year.

[Freddie Gray]

Yeah, it was a sort of cooked up me too.

[Ryan Graduski]

Yeah. It was a little strange. And then since then, another member of Reform has followed him and has also said, we need mass deportations. We know no immigration. James. I can't think of his last name, but his first name is James, who's in Reform uk. So anyway, just backstory for those who don't know.

[Freddie Gray]

Yes. So the two people who've left, the two MPs have left and, you know, they don't have many MPs, so it's quite substantial that they've lost two. So they both left because they sort of felt that the party wasn't really representing the true anger of the British people or, or something like that. And that shows to some conservatives who now think maybe they need to get rid of Kemi Bay. Not. I know you want to talk about her in a sec. They're thinking, well, maybe the opportunity then is to team up with people like Rupert Lowe and go really, really, quite, quite seriously to the right. Obviously, that's going to cause even more problems for the Conservative Party because a lot of the. The Conservative electorate, the Conservative base, are not like that at all.

[Ryan Graduski]

Well, okay, so let's talk about Conservatives and Cammie. Cammie is somebody that I have always thought was a weak link. I have always told my British Conservative friends, you like her because she's a black woman and you just don't want to be called a racist. And that is really because she's. There's nothing remotely interesting. She's not Thatcherite, she's not a great speaker. She's not really to where the base of the party is and. Or where the mood of the country is. And they just, just said, no, wait and see. And now British. Now the Tories, which is horrendous in the last election, are even lower. They're pulling around 17 in most polls, which would be. I mean, they. There's polls that they estimate the Tory, sorry, the Conservatives would go under 30 seats in the House Representatives, which would fundamentally make them a minor party, even smaller than Lib Dem. Why does Cammy still have her job?

[Freddie Gray]

Well, it's very interesting. Probably the reason she still has her job job is because the Tories have killed so many leaders recently. They just don't want to do it again. They can't face the psychodrama of doing it again. They know that the public thinks that they're a mess and they think they'll look like a mess, so they're sort of putting on it. Keeping up appearances is part of it. But you're quite right to your political antennae is absolutely right as ever, Ryan. I mean, Kemi has been a complete failure so far. She is not an impressive speaker, despite her reputation as an impressive speaker. She's not tremendously bright, despite the fact she constantly quotes Roger Scruton and people like that. She. She is said to be. And I could sort of vouch from it because she used to work at the Spectator where I work. She's pretty lazy. Said not. Not overly across the detail. And she. She seems to be nervous. I think the job is bigger than her. The New Statesman, which is our rival magazine on the left, did a very interesting profile of her last week. It was called Kemi Isn't Working. And I mean, it was pretty devastating. I have to say it. A lot of Tory quotes on and off the record saying pretty much what all Conservatives will say if you. If you talk to them for long Enough that the party isn't working with her. It's not going very well. And you know, my boss, my editor, Michael Gove, he. He supports Kemi still. He was a politician himself. He's a minister and had various roles in the last government. And he thinks the problem is more substantial. It's to do with the party. The party itself needs to completely reform, regroup, and so on.

[Ryan Graduski]

Well, the problem not to be an American to talk to, tell you what British politics's problem is, is there's two essential problems, is one, Bojo was. Boris Johnson was a personality without a plan. And the people who made the plan for him fell by the wayside, especially including his former wife. And then the second thing is that Rishi Sunak was like the Lady Macbeth of the Conservative Party, willing to kill anybody until assume power. And he is kind of like the American version of Paul Ryan. I had to hear how much of a genius he was, and then he had to lead and it was a horrendous. And you're like, where is this? What genius are we all supposed to be looking at right now? And that is really the essential two problems of the last couple years of. I mean, David Cameron comes out smelling like roses in comparison to these two.

[Freddie Gray]

True. But I mean, now chem is so bad that people are pining for Rishi, because with Leaf, he was sort of hardworking, you know, at least he kind of. He wasn't very effective, he wasn't very charismatic, he wasn't a great communicator, but he was hardworking and he did have a. He had a good brain and he had.

[Ryan Graduski]

Well, they would settle for Theresa May and her dance moves at this point.

[Freddie Gray]

Yeah. Okay.

[Ryan Graduski]

I want to talk about one other thing in the UK right now, which is the protest over mass immigration, because it does feel, from an outsider's perspective, like it is boiling over. Now, I know there's new laws in the UK which reduce the amount of online content people can sit there and see, but this feels like it's a genuine boiling point, like it is in Ireland, where there is kind of no going back if things aren't reformed and things are only going to get worse. What is the actual mood of the country?

[Freddie Gray]

The mood of the country is quite febrile. It's outside these hotels where they put. Put migrants up in pretty comfortable luxury will be exaggerating, but fairly luxurious by the standards. Most people live in conditions on the taxpayer's dime and it costs a huge amount of money. And this is for people who've entered the country illegally. And this drives people mad. It gets people very, very angry and understandably so. But I think the protest there was, there was these Southport murders last year where a terrible crime, a mad man who was of African origin, but he was in fact a British citizen, he murdered several girls in a school while they were doing a dance class. And obviously little girls being murdered is a very emotive subject, rightly so. And there were these protests and then the protests were sort of quickly categorized as a sort of far right uprising. And they were anti immigrant, they were explicitly anti immigrant and unpleasant. People said unpleasant things and so on. But that then triggered this clampdown on speech ordered by Keir Starmer. Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, who doesn't. He sort of has the power to do this, but he told judges to be particularly harsh in their sentencing of people who got carried away in these anti immigrant protests. And so you've seen what, J.D. vance has raised this a few times. You've seen people in jail for things that they've tweeted. And Donald Trump was made aware of it this week. And Keir Starmer, sitting next to Donald Trump this week, kind of played it down and said, no, no, we're not censoring anyone. That's just not true. And then to add on top of it another layer of complexity, you have this online safety bill that came in this week. And it's rather clever because what it's made anybody who's a bit worried about the hate speech element of it, who thinks there's maybe censorship, they've made it all about pornography and children. So if you say you're worried about it, people go, oh, you're in favor of pornography for children, are you? And no, most people are not in favor of pornography for children. Some people are. They shouldn't do. But, but they, but the point is, is that, that, you know, rather than doing a law about online pornography, they also made it about hate. And so, you know, you cannot access hateful content unless you explicitly sign up for it, which you are unlikely to do. So it's a, I mean, there are serious free speech concerns. And Keir Starman has now twice in front of Donald Trump said, no, no, no, we have a proud tradition of free speech in our country, far older than you, you know, sort of, sort of patronizing tone and, and got away with it to a certain extent. But I do get the impression that Tim Jordan seems to be raising America's concerns about that law. And I think the Trump led Republican Party is fully aware that Keir Starmer is not being honest when he says that there's no censorship in Britain. Yeah.

[Ryan Graduski]

That's a conversation American conservatives are having. And a number of our states do have anti abortion or anti pornography laws for children. And there's all age verification. It's attached to age verification. So you have to put in your driver's license to go look at pornography. So we don't have that same. And we don't have any hate speech laws in this country.

[Freddie Gray]

The.

[Ryan Graduski]

But this all comes with the. Like, just weeks after the conversation over grooming gangs and. And the in. And Kierstormer finally kicking and dragging, doing a national investigation into grooming gangs. So it does feel like it's dominoes, like it's a domino effect that is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And one thing is leading the mind of the public into the other. It's not like in America where, well, we have a much shorter attention span, I think, than the British public does. But we can get distracted with Epstein or, you know, something else. And no one talks about tariffs anymore. No one talks about this anymore because we're in the moment. The competition of the moment, the conversation of the British moment constantly feels like it's leading up to anything. And you've heard converse. I've heard rumors and I don't know if any of it's true. So I wanted to ask you, are. Is. Is there a possibility of leading to, like, a real violent riot in the UK over these migrants?

[Freddie Gray]

Yes, I think it's quite possible an incident could happen. There's a lot of fear at the moment, over the summer, with the heat and so on, a violent incident could happen and it could sort of crescendo into something truly terrible, a massive riot of some sort of. I tend to think, probably not probably things will just muddle on. The British are not very revolutionary in temperament. We've never had one. And so we tend. But there is certainly a deep well of anger that we saw last year with Southport and we could see again. And people feel, to use an overworld, a overused word. We feel gaslit. We feel, we're told, we don't have any problem with. We don't have any free speech laws. We do have laws against free speech. We, you know, we are told that the boats crisis is being resolved. The small boats, illegal crossings by small boats. We're told that they're deporting people by thousands, but yet everybody knows numbers are going up. So we. We are. It's interesting you say that about Americans having a less short retention span. I think we're just slightly down upstream, downstream. Now you're downstream from us in terms of Internet culture. And we are, we are sort of at a, I say a 2016-2018 social media phase where everybody's losing their minds. We're not quite at your level of, you know, codeful post wherever, wherever America is.

[Ryan Graduski]

Yeah, you just have ADHD at the moment. So I mean we are very instrumental disorder at the Internet causes on people we do have.

[Freddie Gray]

We just, we got, we're just entering ADHD proper. The hl fate.

[Ryan Graduski]

We're full on in straight jackets. Well, Freddie, where can people go to read more about what you write about and what you talk about?

[Freddie Gray]

Well, I run, so I run a. There's we have Spectator World, which is our US edition. So for if you want my obnoxiously British takes on American politics, you can read them there and then obviously spectator.co.uk is our British site for analysis on British politics, but you can get [e-mail] or spectator.co.uk well, thank you for dealing.

[Ryan Graduski]

With my obnoxious American takes on British politics, but no, I am at all.

[Freddie Gray]

And I mean far. You're far more on the money than 98% of British commentators.

[Ryan Graduski]

Well, the funny thing is that I'm one of the few Americans who knows anything about British politics, so that makes it entertaining. But, but thank you for coming on this podcast and I enjoyed and I hope to have you on again soon. You're listening to It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Graduski. We'll be right back.

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[Ryan Graduski]

And now it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment of the podcast. If you want to be part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me ryan numbers game podcast.com that's Ryan numbers game podcast.com I love getting these questions. I look forward to them every week is actually the favorite part of the show. This one comes from Robert Diaz Arista. I hope I'M pronouncing your last name correctly. So thank you for listening to this podcast. As I butcher everyone's last name, he says. Hi, Ryan, I really enjoy your podcast and appreciate you taking questions. It really makes the data so much more digestible. Trump won 28% of the LGBT vote in 2020, almost doubling his share from 2016, and by far the best performance of any Republican. Gay and lesbian Republicans like myself are optimistic about 2024, and I was was at a conference for Log Cabin Republicans in June, right before Biden dropped out, where Rick Grinnell and Charles Moran and the Log Cabin, who was the Log Cabin president, were showing data where they said that they were going to exceed that number and suggest that 42% was the new benchmark. This obviously proved wishful thinking, but I was expecting us to improve from 2020. Instead, the vote share collapsed to 12%. A lot of my friends chalked it down to now having deranged liberals calling themselves queer as a catch dilute the vote of the actual LGBT voters. But I believe that they are mostly trying to cope, and I've never seen any data to back that up. Do you have any data that might answer what happened? Okay, Robert, great question. So I will say this about the LGBT vote. I just, I hate using that acronym. But of like gay and lesbian voters, primarily the biggest thing behind that 12% is exit polls that were taken immediately after the election of the major institutions, Catalyst, Pew Research, the David Shore data. No one else even asked how gays and lesbians voted. So they didn't look at voter rolls and then try to match that with voting intention and precinct results. So I don't believe that 12 number because it's exit polls and remember, it's self identifying. So think of your average, let's say, gay Trump voter. Now, there are a lot of, you know, out and proud gay Trump voters, and I know quite a few of them, but there are also a lot of them who don't care to just make their gen. Their, Their. Their sexual preference, their personality. So they may not have told a pollster leaving an exit. An exit site that they're gay. They may have not answered at all, or they may have just said straight, or they may have, you know, just left it alone and not answered at all and left and didn't respond. And the exit polls in the immediate aftermath were very incorrect. Remember, the exit polls right after the election also said that Trump didn't gain much with the Latino vote, which was clearly not true. So I wouldn't put that much stock in that exit poll. I don't think that it's. I don't believe the 12% number. I don't believe. I don't believe that he did worse, considering he did better with basically every single group and especially young voters. And there's more young gay people than there are older gay people. So I would chalk it up to that. That don't believe the exit poll numbers. It's probably not correct. That's my best number for you. And until a major firm studies how gays and lesbians voted, I I would assume that they are that they voted to the right of where they did in 2020. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast. Wherever you get your podcast and I will see you guys next time.

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[Ryan Graduski]

This is an iHeart podcast.