Our Honest Opinion on Israel - Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster

Summary

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TRIGGERnometry Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Our Honest Opinion on Israel – Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster
Date: July 16, 2025
Hosts: Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster

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Episode Overview

In this candid, wide-ranging discussion, Konstantin and Francis unpack their evolving views on the Israel-Gaza conflict, addressing propaganda, Western perceptions, free speech issues, and the impact of emotional narratives. They situate the debate within broader themes of political polarization, generational divides, and the socio-economic malaise in Britain. The episode weaves honest intellectual introspection with the hosts' signature irreverence and sharp humor.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. Media Dynamics and Outrage Culture

• Click Incentives & Exaggeration: The hosts analyze how both new and traditional media sensationalize war coverage for engagement, leading to "a very distorted picture of reality."
  • “There are so many clicks to be had…from amplifying and exaggerating the worst voices and doing interviews with the most extreme people.” – Konstantin (02:00)
• Emotional vs. Logical Reactions: Francis highlights that audiences crave emotional responses, making balanced, factual content less popular.
  • “You are triggering people emotionally…when people react emotionally, what they're not doing is reacting logically.” – Francis (02:38)

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2. Changing Attitudes to Israel and the Gaza War

• Normie vs. Commentator Divide: Francis observes a widening gulf between the “mainstream position” (that Israel is committing genocide) and the more divided, nuanced debate among podcast/YouTube pundits.
  • “The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say is a mainstream position now.” – Francis (05:02)
• Power of Propaganda: The hosts assert Israel is losing the 'propaganda war' even if it is militarily strong.
  • “When it comes to the propaganda war, there really is only one winner, and it ain’t Israel.” – Francis (05:55)

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3. Forming Their Own Views: Intellectual Honesty

• Personal Encounters and Interviews: The hosts reflect on interviews with both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian figures, stressing their commitment to hearing all sides—yet noting a frustration with many guests’ unwillingness to propose remedies or be rational.
  • “Many, many people who are talking about this issue, they simply have no interest in actually being rational about this entire situation.” – Konstantin (06:49)
• Contextualizing War Crimes: Konstantin draws historical analogies (e.g., Allied bombings in WWII) to underscore the complexity and double standards applied to Israel.
  • “In every war...troops of that country...have committed war crimes.” – Konstantin (09:18)
• Mental Experiment: They urge listeners to consider what their own governments (and citizens) would demand after attacks like October 7th.
  • “Is that what we saw on 9/11? We saw the American public wanting to be really surgical? I don’t think so.” – Konstantin (13:27)

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4. The Realities of Extremism and Regional Geopolitics

• Role of Iran and Proxy Actors: Francis, with family roots in Lebanon, anchors much blame on Iran’s deliberate destabilization and describes Hezbollah and Hamas as ruthless actors unconcerned with civilian loss:
  • “Iran couldn’t give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians...the more of them die, the better it is for Iran.” – Francis (28:54)
• Hamas’ Calculus: The hosts point out that continued civilian suffering serves Hamas’s goals in the PR war.
  • “Hamas are explicit...they want high civilian casualties because it helps them...win the PR war against Israel.” – Konstantin (28:55)

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5. Free Speech and Protest: The “Death to the IDF” Controversy

• Double Standards and Consistency: Both agree principled free speech must apply universally—even when art or protest is deeply offensive.
  • “If someone went on stage and chanted 'death to the Russian armed forces'...would the people melting down about 'death to the IDF' be having that same reaction?” – Konstantin (17:20)
• Cancel Culture Critique: The episode examines left-right hypocrisy over cancellation and warns of a slippery slope—now “censorship all the way down” (22:05).

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6. Broader Societal Malaise in Britain

• Decay of Trust and Order: The Tube barrier fare-dodging viral video is seen as symbolic of a social contract breakdown.
  • “It's a very new thing and it's happened very rapidly… people... not paying, kids…running rampant.” – Constantine (40:06)
• Upward Mobility Blocked: They argue that high housing costs, stagnant wages, and “elite overproduction” (too many graduates, not enough opportunity) drive generational resentment and political radicalization.
  • “If you work really hard, you should have the opportunity to get on in life. And that is increasingly being denied to a lot of people.” – Konstantin (48:50)
  • “That model no longer works.” – Francis (49:59)
• Failure of Political Elites and the Two-Party System: Both express hope that emerging parties (notably Reform under Nigel Farage) will challenge ossified politics—and warn of real risks if economic or social opportunities aren’t broadened.
  • “If you keep screwing young people over…you’re not going to find yourself living in a comfortable retirement.” – Konstantin (51:20)

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7. A Call for Honesty and Sobriety

• Delusions and Hard Truths: The hosts repeatedly return to the motif of national denial, likening Britain to an addict refusing to confront reality. They advocate for an “intervention”—harsh, but ultimately restorative.
  • “We are kind of like the alcoholic, and the alcoholic really doesn’t want to wake up.” – Konstantin (59:51)
• Societal Revitalization: True national recovery would require a new, inclusive story and opportunities for young people to buy in.
  • “What we need is a revival.” – Konstantin (71:14)
  • “Revival [often] starts with young people ... But you're only going to be able to engender that ... if you give them a chance to be part of society.” – Francis (71:28)

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8. Humor and Memorable Moments

• The discussion is punctuated by characteristic banter and sarcasm:
  • “I'm looking forward to World War four. That might stretch out to a full two weeks.” – Konstantin (01:46)
  • “Do you know, I actually don't watch Pornhub anymore. Just do that [watching Gaza content].” – Francis, dark satire (31:59)
  • “There's sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. That's nonsense…and you just do it down…eventually you will start to believe them.” – Francis (70:09)
  • Ongoing jibes about “damp squid” (instead of “damp squib”), and self-deprecating commentary on podcasting and generational placement.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• On Emotional Media:
  “There are so many clicks to be had…amplifying and exaggerating the worst voices.” – Konstantin (02:00)

• On Rational Inquiry:
  “Many, many people who are talking about this issue…have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is.” – Konstantin (06:49)

• On Historical Context:
  “If we had had modern technology…in any other major conflict…we’d be experiencing many of the same things.” – Konstantin (08:42)

• On Western Reactions:
  “Is that what we saw on 9/11?...I don’t think so.” – Konstantin (13:27)

• On Free Speech:
  “If you're on the right and you have championed ‘facts don’t care about your feelings’—well…I don't know this is that saying applies to this situation.” – Konstantin (19:09)

• On Neglected Inequality:
  “If you work really hard, you should have the opportunity to get on in life. And that is increasingly being denied to a lot of people.” – Konstantin (48:50)

• On Hard Choices and Systemic Problems:
  “We’re kind of like the alcoholic, and the alcoholic really doesn’t want to wake up.” – Konstantin (59:51)

• On the Need for Revival:
  “What we need is a revival.” – Konstantin (71:14)

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Important Timestamps

• Media Critique & Clickbait: 01:22–03:37
• Personal Evolution on Israel: 06:04–10:24
• Emotional vs. Rational War Perceptions: 10:24–13:27
• Iran & Hamas Geopolitics: 27:15–29:55
• Free Speech/Cancel Culture Discussion: 17:24–24:46
• UK Social Trust Breakdown: 39:54–41:44
• Generational Inequality / Housing: 44:21–50:52
• Decline, Denial, and the Call for Intervention: 58:59–65:56
• Theme of Revival: 71:14–73:53

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Conclusion: Takeaways for Listeners

• Intellectual honesty, historical perspective, and the willingness to challenge both emotional responses and social orthodoxies are crucial—for debates on Israel, free speech, or Britain’s future.
• Propaganda and media incentives skew the public’s view of foreign conflicts, especially when emotional triggers override rational analysis.
• The Israel/Palestine debate is a lightning rod for deeper generational and political divides, with many unwilling (or unable) to engage in honest, solution-focused discourse.
• Britain faces deep-seated socio-economic problems and generational alienation; both left and right capitalize on resentment, but neither offers a holistic solution yet.
• Ultimately, societal revival requires both honesty and hope—especially the inclusion of young people in the nation’s shared project.

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For a full exploration of these themes, the hosts encourage listeners to join their premium content on Substack, where they continue with questions and solutions for the UK economy and beyond.

Transcript

[Constantine]

Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.

[Francis]

There's no Milo here.

[Constantine]

Who picked up my son from school?

[Francis]

Streaming only on Peacock. I'm gonna need the name of everyone that could have a connection. You don't understand.

[Constantine]

It was just the five of us. So this was all planned.

[Francis]

What are you gonna do? I will do whatever it takes to.

[Constantine]

Get my son back.

[Francis]

I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other. All her fault. A new series, streaming now only on Peacock.

[Constantine]

We survived World War III.

[Francis]

Bit of a damp squid. 12 days. The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say is a mainstream position now. But when it comes to the propaganda war, there really is only one winner. They don't understand this. They cannot wrap their head around the fact that people think differently in different cultures.

[Constantine]

They have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is.

[Francis]

Iran couldn't give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians.

[Constantine]

To the contrary, the more of them die, the better is for Iran. Who is it that's preventing the conflict in Gaza from coming to an end? All right, Francis, welcome back to another episode on whatever this is. Good news. We survived World War iii.

[Francis]

Exactly. It was a. It was a bit of a damp squid. 12 days.

[Constantine]

Yeah. But there were a lot of people got very excited about it, which I thought was quite interesting and telling because there were people calling for President. Dave Smith called for President Trump to be impeached. Tucker Carlson explained that this is going to cause thousands of American casualties. And really, it was over pretty quickly and not that big a deal.

[Francis]

No, no. But it's always good to hear from the moderates.

[Constantine]

Yeah. I'm looking forward to World War four. That might stretch out to a full two weeks.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

No, but seriously, we're joking around, but I just thought it was such a telling moment because it just shows you that the people who are always losing their shit online and in the media, which increasingly are becoming the same thing, they really don't know what they're talking about a lot of the time. And there's so many clicks to be had from pretending that you know and from presenting the worst possible scenario and from amplifying and exaggerating the worst voices and doing interviews with the most extreme people. And then you get a very distorted picture of reality being presented to people.

[Francis]

Absolutely. And I think you really hit the nail on the head where you were like, we are incentivized. And by we, I mean people in the new media.

[Constantine]

In the media, we are too. We could have done those things and got all the clicks from doing that if we'd chosen to.

[Francis]

Absolutely. Throwing a little bit of trans in there as well, all of a sudden, you're onto a million. But the reality is, is we are being incentivized much in the same way as the old media was incentivized. If you think about the tabloid press in our country to come up with ever more salacious stories, salacious headlines, because you know that that will generate clicks, it will generate engagement, because what you are doing is not actually giving people information. You're playing on people's emotions. You are triggering people emotionally. And when people react emotionally, what they're not doing is reacting logically. And in many ways, people enjoy being triggered emotionally because it means you're feeling something, you're getting something. It's. Why, if you actually did an entire podcast just presenting people with dry facts, nobody's really. Or very few people are going to listen to it. Because actually, what people want, whether they're reading, whether they're listening, whether they're watching, is they want to feel something.

[Constantine]

Right. Stick around, because we're going to do a lot of triggering. We're going to talk about all the stuff that outrages you. But actually, I think you make a really good point, and I think it's a worry. However, you wonder what the impact of that will be, because obviously, a lot of people said a lot of things and then came out and were completely discredited as a result. President Trump stared them down, in effect. Right. Because there were a lot of people effectively trying to say he's choosing the wrong path. He was proven entirely correct in the approach that he took effectively. And you wonder what that means going forward, whether that means that people will stop listening to those people as much as they. As they have been, or whether these people carry on with as if nothing ever happened, and people carry on listening to them as if nothing ever happened. But for me, it was a really important moment. And the whole conversation about Israel is evolving as well, isn't it?

[Francis]

It is indeed. You know, because one of the things that I find really interesting about Israel is that people in our space tend to be pro Zionists. They tend to be pro Israel. We're both pros.

[Constantine]

How are you defining our space?

[Francis]

Our space as in kind of the little. That's a very good way of putting. That's a very good question. By our space, I mean the people that we know in the uk.

[Constantine]

Oh, that's a very narrow way of looking at it. No, when I Think of our space, I think of like the YouTube channels and the podcasts.

[Francis]

Right?

[Constantine]

Yeah. In our, in that space, I think it's very divided, actually.

[Francis]

Yes. And in fact, what I'm seeing when I talk to people and when I talk to people I describe as normies, and when I ask them about Israel, I. What I find very interesting is actually how much they disagree with our point of view on Israel. The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say is a mainstream position now within. Not within regular people, they will say it's a mainstream position. It's not even a. It's not even a debate anymore. That is actually what Israel are doing now. You may ask them what does define genocide? They may not be able to do that, but they will say with absolute conviction, they, this is genocide. You will look at Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan is actually saying Israel is committing war crimes. And I think what Israel needs to be very mindful of is the fact that they may be winning the war against Hamas and against Iran and all of these, the. All of these countries and organizations, but when it comes to the propaganda war, there really is only one winner, and it ain't Israel.

[Constantine]

Well, let's go back to talking because you kept saying opposition, and I want to maybe lay out how. I don't know about you. You can talk for yourself. But how I arrived at the position I have on that issue, because people who watch our channel will know that neither you or I ever had a position on Israel.

[Francis]

No.

[Constantine]

And this latest flare up of the war is obviously very significant. There's very heavy casualties, etc. But it's not the first time Israel has been at war, including in our lifetime. Really. This has been going on for a long time. So our first encounter with this issue as an issue was. It would have been 2019, I think, the first time we interviewed Melanie Phillips. And as I said, I think to her face when we last interviewed her, I didn't come away from that interview thinking, well, you know, Israel is like, purer than pure and whiter than white and everything is great. I came away from it thinking, you know, Melanie made some good points, but overall, the creation of the state of Israel is clearly a contentious issue. Right. And that was really my. My entire takeaway. It. And I never really had an opinion, and I didn't have an opinion when October 7th happened, other than October 7th was really bad. Obviously it's a terrorist attack. And then I just. We. We interviewed people from every side of that conflict. Basim Yousef, Norman Finkelstein, from the pro Palestine side. And Basam Yousef was a big eye opening moment for me because I remember before we started the interview, it was all friendly, it was all joking around, you know, we're going to have a great conversation. And I asked him what I thought was a very simple and reasonable question to ask, which is ultimately, once October 7th has happened, what do you think Israel should do given that you are advocating that it shouldn't do what it's currently doing? And he just wouldn't answer the question for such. And I felt really bad because people who watch our show regularly will laugh at this. But I really don't like the idea of hogging the mic. And I'm always worried about like I've been talking for a long time, it's time for you to chip in and whatever. But with him, we just kept going round and round and round around this question. And I kind of realized first and foremost that many, many people who are talking about this issue, they simply have no interest in actually being rational about this entire situation. They have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is first and foremost. Right? And then you add on top of that that I'm pretty certain that if we had had modern technology like the camera phone and the Internet, in any other major conflict in history in which we, we were involved, the West, I mean, right, we'd be experiencing many of the same things because in every war that Britain's ever been involved in or America's ever been involved in, or God forbid, Russia's ever been involved in, the troops of that country, whichever you align with, have committed war crimes. And if you look at World War II, I mean, Britain and America destroyed 80 German cities. We were dropping like way more munitions on Germany than Israel is dropping on Gaza per head of population to the point where, you know, according to some analysis is like several nuclear weapons worth of munitions every month flattening entire cities, I mean, killing somewhere between three and six hundred thousand civilians, German civilians just in the bombing. Right. From what I understand. So I think a lot of this is to do with the way that we on the one hand, living in relative peace and safety. We talked about this in our upcoming interview with Dominic Tanbrook, which is a great interview. Are then confronted with the reality of war. If you want 24, 7 on your phone, you put that together and you just the emotional reaction of that coming back to where we started, this is so overwhelming. That critical thought I think becomes very difficult at that point. Right? And I know this and I'm not. It sounds like I'm saying that the people who support this particular view are like, stupid. I'm not saying that. I just mean that being confronted with the reality of war is such a powerful thing, it becomes then difficult to actually think about this from a more historical and rational perspective. Which is what? How does this map onto everything else that's ever happened and therefore what is actually right or wrong or what? Do you see what I'm saying?

[Francis]

I'm completely seeing what you're saying. I think, look, it's part of the reason why I make sure that none of that content ever gets through to me because I don't want to give myself PTSD via my phone. It's why when we were invited to go and see the films of October 7, I didn't want to go because I can read about them and I've read about them thoroughly and we've read Douglas Murray's book, I know what happened. I know the awful atrocities that were committed. I've read about them. I've read. I don't need to actually see them and essentially damage my psyche in order to ingest that content. But also I think if you are going to have a strong opinion on this conflict, which you have every right to do, every right, then your responsibility, and I use that word, responsibility to understand what is actually happening. I have family in Lebanon. When I talk to my family in Lebanon, they talk about Hezbollah. Hezbollah are evil. They are evil. They are Islamic fundamentalists who believe in establish a global Islamic caliphate. Women should be subjugated, gays should be killed. They believe in their absolute rule of law.

[Constantine]

Well, we all agree with parts of it.

[Francis]

Yeah, of course, of course the women think, come on. But the reality is these people are not good people and they have contributed to Lebanon essentially being in a state of civil war for decades now. So this idea that Israel is just psychopathic aggressor that enjoys destroying Gaza and wiping Gaza off the face of the map, it's a very, to put it kindly, one dimensional view of the situation. And I really do believe if you're going to have a strong opinion about this, have a strong opinion, but make sure you've done the reading. You actually understand the geopolitics behind it.

[Constantine]

Well. Right. And also the reason I've come to the position that I've come to on it is I. You just conduct a mental experiment in your head and you go, imagine that you are the Prime Minister of Israel on October 8th and actually imagine it. Don't, don't say the words. Imagine it. Thousands of your citizens have just been slaughtered or wounded. Hundreds of them have been dragged off as hostages by extreme Jihadi fundamentalists. Right?

[Francis]

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[Constantine]

And then you go, okay, if that had happened to Britain or if that had happened to America or if that to happen to any other country that you might be a citizen of, watching this, A, what do you think your government would do? And B, and this is really important for people to think about and really be honest is what would you want your government to do? Right? And people go, oh no, I'd want them to do really, you know, be careful and do this really. Is that what we saw on 9 11? We saw the American public be wanting to be really surgical? I don't think so. And, and my thing with this is I think the truth is there's a luxury belief thing going on which is we sitting in comfort and safety and plenty are judging Israel, which experienced the most horrific terrorist attack in the history. Right. And if we were in that position, I hope we would be as careful as Israel, but I don't think we would be is the truth of it. I don't think we would be as careful. I don't think we would be as the ratio of civilians to combatants killed would be anything like what it is now. And historically speaking, that is how it's gone down. After 9 11, America invaded two countries, one of which had nothing to do with 9 11. That is the level of overreaction we saw there. So you can, you can definitely say Israel is committing war crimes. Every country at war has committed some war crimes. And this food distribution thing is sus. And you know, the settlers in the west bank, lots of questions about stuff like that. I think there are very legitimate criticisms to be made of the way Israel has prosecuted this conflict. But as a broad thing, is Israel doing what we would do? I don't even know because I suspect what we would do would be far worse in the same situation. So I'm not going to sit here and in an air conditioned studio in a place where October 7th could never happen and judge them for the way that they're processed for the fact that they're attempting to destroy the people who did this. To say nothing of the fact that of all the figures that we get told in all the news, etcetera, Are Hamas lies. Right. And, you know, there are people like Pius, by the way, who say, well, they should let journalists in. I'm not necessarily against that, although I do think what would happen is basically that a lot of them would get killed because it's a tiny little area, highly urban conflict. Some of them probably get set up or killed by Hamas, and then you've got them being used as their deaths, being used as a propaganda weapon as well. So, anyway, my broad point is I've come to the position in Israel that I have by engaging with the arguments and then going, okay, but what would I do in the same situation? What would my government do in the same situation? And not being a hypocrite and not holding Israel to a different standard that we would hold ourselves to. That's the only thing. So I don't even consider myself pro Israel. I don't think I am pro Israel. I have just looked at the facts of this issue, and that is how I see it. In this particular conflict, Israel could be engaged in another conflict. I'd be anti Israel if I thought it was the wrong thing to do.

[Francis]

What I'm saying with pro Israel is I believe Israel has a right to exist, of course, which we think is a pretty mainstream position. I'm going to be honest with you, amongst young people, I don't know how many of them do.

[Constantine]

Well, they are the ones that are then generating this conflict for eternity. Because if you don't think Israel has a right to exist, you're putting Israel in a position where it has to continue to fight for its existence, and then this entire thing is going to keep going.

[Francis]

But you look at, for instance, the footage coming out of Glastonbury with Bob Villain chanting Death to the idf, and the fact that he was getting chanted back in a sea of Palestine flags. If you look at the amount of people week on week going to these protests, you know, pro Palestine Action protests, 70 people being arrested, that is telling you something quite fundamental about young people's attitude. I. I think so.

[Constantine]

I think, first of all, I don't. I didn't hear much chanting back on the Death to the IPF thing. It was notably much more muted than the other stuff. And by the way, we should talk about that because it's a free speech issue as well. Yeah. And a Lot of people started losing their, about him. And I thought, you know, make fun of it, criticize, whatever. But like if someone went on stage and chanted death to the Russian armed forces, would you, would the people melting down about that, about the chance to, about death to the IDF be having that same reaction? I don't think so. I, I, I, I personally think, I don't agree with it obviously, but from a free speech perspective, the musician has every right to do that.

[Francis]

No, I, look, I agree, I agree and I think it's in, I get really uncomfortable when I see people on the right a couple of years ago screeching about free speech. And I'd be like, yeah, you're right, you know, it's bad that somebody has, gets canceled for their views.

[Constantine]

Yeah.

[Francis]

And then you flip markedly in a space of, you know, a couple of years and demand and celebrate that this person loses their agent, gets their visa canceled, isn't able to play certain shows, gets the platform, then you're going to hang on, you've got to be consistent. Which goes back to the emotion part of it.

[Constantine]

Yeah.

[Francis]

And I do think a lot of people are just governed by their emotions and they can't help themselves. And the moment they see something that triggers them. And look, I understand we all have our triggers. We all have some things that touch us and then we react in a way that is emotional, not logical. But if you're on the right and you have championed facts, don't care about your feelings.

[Constantine]

Well, I don't know. This is that saying applies to this situation. What are the facts here?

[Francis]

The facts are, is that free speech is important and you shouldn't cancel people because their speech differs from your speech. That's a fact.

[Constantine]

And by the way, I imagine his agent knew that this is the stuff he was doing, presumably. Yeah, right. Because it's not the first time he was doing it.

[Francis]

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[Constantine]

So. So a Palestine Action has been prescribed as a terrorist organization. So they snuck onto a military base in Britain and they damaged, I think, some warplanes or some planes, which again, I wasn't certain that they. They have committed an act of terrorism in doing that because they were sort of just. They sprayed some paint on it. However, what I was very surprised by is, like, if I snuck onto a military base and started mucking around, to put it in a very British way with planes, I'd expect to be shot. Yeah, I don't understand why that didn't happen. Like. So I don't think they're terrorists, but they also should be. Should have been shot when they entered that base. Right.

[Francis]

I completely agree. I don't understand how you can break in to that type of highly classified. I don't even know the word for it, restricted, whatever. Restricted area and expect to damage property which is important for our national security and for nothing to happen. Yeah, I don't, I don't understand.

[Constantine]

But it has created this thing where you've got some granny and a keffir sitting there and getting arrested because she supports this group or whatever. I just. My sense is that once you open the door to the policing of speech in the way that we have seen over the last, particularly five years since the pandemic, especially now, it's just fucking, it's, it's, it's censorship all the way down. Now you're going to get people with this view and that view. And this is, by the way, what we have been saying from the beginning. Do not open this door because it will be used against you. And now you're seeing people on the left, suddenly they're massively put on free speech. You're the dickheads that created all of this. When you had the ability to enforce your views, you did it.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

And now it's being used against you. How do you like it?

[Francis]

Yeah. And this is what they don't Seem to understand. And this is the thing that I really struggle with, with people. I remember one of our guests who remain nameless who basically said, oh, you know what? It's only till my side started getting canceled that I realized cancel culture is a bad thing. I'm like, really? It's only when you saw your friends lose their jobs, their livelihoods, suddenly being unable to provide for their families, having their reputations destroyed, being pushed to the point of a nervous breakdown, you understood.

[Constantine]

That this is bad, but it's also a difficult one, right? Because with Bob, with this Bob villain guy, like, are you saying his agent should have kept him on? Are you saying the United States should allow him to come and do a tour there and keep his visa? Are you saying concert organizers should maintain his bookings? Like, that's where there is a. There is that line about, like, people don't you have the right to speak? But there are consequences that people will voluntarily choose to apply. Right? And that's the gray area, I think, because I defend his right to say whatever he wants. But then I do also think that if I were. If. If I were organizing a series of concerts and I thought that his appearance would be detrimental to my business, that would be a decision you'd have to consider. Now, is that cancel culture? I think many people would say, yeah.

[Francis]

Yeah, look, it is very difficult, but also as well, look, when it comes to the art, you have to look. And this is just my point, opinion. And people will push back on it. Artists have always been transgressive. Artists have always pushed the boundaries. Artists have always said the unsayable. It's part of what great art is. A great art is presenting something. In my opinion, if you think about great comedy that we are maybe uncomfortable with, we don't like saying, but we will say it through the medium of the art.

[Constantine]

I would not go as far as to call Bob villains music art, but I wouldn't.

[Francis]

But it's subjective. There are lots of people who would.

[Constantine]

I don't know. For me, it's not creative enough to be called art personally. However, I did the kneecap is different. Kneecaps music is actually really good. It is. Did you know my YouTube history is now all fucked up because I just listened to it, just to find out what it's all about. And it's good. And now I've got all these Irish protest songs like Go On Home, British Soldiers Go Home that are playing while I'm in the shower. Anyway, my point is, I think you're right, though, which is Music, comedy, and other forms of art. They're very good at allowing you to suspend your critical faculties and not think about the content as much as the music. So if you put a nice beat to something, you can pretty much say anything.

[Francis]

Kanye west is the ultimate example.

[Constantine]

Ultimate example. So, anyway, this is a. A, A very long way of wrapping up the conversation about Israel. But basically, I think. And by the way, something I wanted to say as well is we didn't really talk about the Israel conversation for a long time on. On the show because I really wasn't sure, like, what I think about it. And I was just listening to different perspectives or whatever. And then at some point you said something because I was having all these thoughts in my head. And then you just went, you know, the truth is, Constantine, that a lot of people are just not being honest about that issue. And I think you were totally right about that. Yeah.

[Francis]

The moment you saw people engage with it. I remember listening to people of both sides, and I love talking to people, and I love listening to people. That's what I really enjoy.

[Constantine]

Why do you think this show wouldn't work?

[Francis]

Yeah, it would just be holding court. But, yeah. And I really like listening to people and seeing what they think and why they think. And I would talk to him about Palestine and about Israel and the Middle east. And as somebody who has family and knows a bit more about it and was raised by my grandfather, who was South American but was very much an Arab first and foremost. And then I see people talk about it, and it was all done through the lens of emotion and righteousness. And I was like, okay, but can we just accept about what the Iranians are doing? And what the Iranians are doing is effectively a program of destabilization through the Middle East.

[Constantine]

Let's be even more honest, Francis. Let's just say it like it is. Israel is surrounded. Until very recently, when some of the Middle Eastern countries, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE started becoming more accepting of Israel and Jordan and Jordan. The reality is Israel is surrounded by countries that have repeatedly invaded it in an attempt to destroy it and would like it not to exist.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

If our countries were in that same position, whether it's the United States was at constant threat of invasion from Canada and Mexico or Britain was constantly threatened by, you know, whoever, that would be a very different context in which we'd be operating, and we would have a very different posture towards the world and a very different attitude to our neighbors and. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Francis]

Yeah, of course. And to me, the key to all of this was Iran. The more I looked into it, the more I saw what Iran were doing. And I was thinking to myself, well, what is Israel meant to do?

[Constantine]

Right.

[Francis]

What is Israel meant to do? One of your neighbors is advocating that you were wiped off the face of the earth. It compares you to a cancerous tumor. It funds terrorist organizations across the region which are trying to kill, rape, and essentially wipe you off the map. It's started a proxy war because that's what. Let's also be honest about. That October 7th was done in the most provocative manner possible in order to start a war. And also, let's be honest as well, Iran couldn't give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians.

[Constantine]

To the contrary, the more of them die, the better it is for Iran.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

And the better it is for Hamas.

[Francis]

Yes.

[Constantine]

Hamas are explicit about this. They want high civilian casualties because it helps them do what they are doing, which is win the PR war against Israel.

[Francis]

Exactly. So you have all of that happening. So you go, well, and I wouldn't mind if the people on that side were like, look, I accept all of this, but Israel needs to change part of its tactic here. It needs to change part of its tactic here. I think that is a very important conversation to have and to still be having. Because. Because, like you said, every country commits war crimes. There are things that are happening in Gaza which are awful and terrible and civilians are dying awful. However. However, until you address the issue of Iran and you are honest about what the Iranians are doing, rather specifically the Ayatollah and his cronies, what they're doing and what they want, and talking about that problem. Honestly, I don't really think we're having an honest conversation.

[Constantine]

Well, let's be even have an even more honest conversation. I think we don't need to say, however, after we've. We've said the terrible things are happening in Gaza, which they are. It's not however, it's an and. And the responsibility for that lies with the people who are preventing that war from coming to an end. Who is that? Who is it that's preventing the conflict in Gaza from coming to an end? It's Hamas. They are the ones that are refusing to release the hostages. They're the ones that will not hand over the terrorists who took them. They're the ones that won't surrender. And this comparison, people get very triggered when you bring up World War II, but I think it's the perfect comparison for the simple reason that Nazi Germany was a country that was held in the grips of a death cult. Right. Adolf Hitler was effectively willing to fight to the last German. In fact, someone should fact check this. But I'm pretty sure he said at some point that if the German people will not, cannot triumph in this conflict, they don't deserve to survive. Right. In other words, he was prepared to see all of Germany destroyed in this fight. Right. For the cause. And we had to. We were forced to. Britain, America, the Soviet Union were forced to invade, were forced to destroy it, just like Japan, by the very fact that they wouldn't surrender. Right. So if Hamas holds on to the hostages, won't capitulate, won't surrender and won't hand over the terrorists who took the hostages and who committed October 7th, Israel, for this, for the sake of its own survival, has to go in and try to finish that job, get the hostages back, etc. So the terrible things that are happening in Gaza are terrible and it's Hamas who should stop them.

[Francis]

Yes, and I agree, but the reality is nobody's prepared to have this conversation. And what people don't understand as well. I remember having a very. I was in a green room in a comedy club and people. And there was one particular comedian who was. Made a beeline for me and was like, what do you think about the things that are happening in Gaza?

[Constantine]

I think they're great.

[Francis]

Brilliant. Yeah. Loved every moment, mate. I actually don't watch pornhub anymore. Just do that.

[Constantine]

Just got that.

[Francis]

But. And I said to him, and he was just like, what do you think? And I said to him, and I said to him, the thing you need to understand is you are looking at this situation through Western eyes. You are looking at it through a Western lens. Hamas do not have your values. Hamas do not think the same way as you do. Hamas's objectives are utterly different to what your objectives would be in that situation. Your objectives would be, let's bring this to an end. People are dying, innocent people are suffering. They don't think about that. They don't care because they have a higher objective. In their eyes, the more people die, the better. Because they're going to go to heaven anyway because they are righteous and then they are going to be able to achieve their goal. That's all they care about. And to look at it through a Western lens and say, all these people are suffering and, you know, we must bring this to an end, as if that's what Hamas wants. Hamas do not care. The Ayatollah do not care. Hezbollah do not care. They don't care. If Anything, they like it. So if you looking at this situation through a Western lens, and this comes from somebody who has family, who are Arabic, who has seen the very real anti Semitism that lies in the, in the Arab world that we haven't even begun to touch on, you don't understand hatred until you talk to those people. The reality is your view isn't valid. You're Western, you're not an Arab, you're not Muslim and you're not a jihadist. It's as simple as that.

[Constantine]

Well, and if you look at, I mean the. There is not much difference between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and isis. Now you look at what ISIS did when they controlled Sway the territory, right? They raped and butchered people that they didn't consider to be them, the Yazidis and whoever, right? Now, if, if these people are your neighbors and they are going to raid across the board. I remember, I interviewed Wilfred Riley. Do you remember it? He talked about Native Americans and the way that they would just butcher people, etc in, in a very similar situation. Actually, some people might argue, like, you know, you've got a people from another continent who've come and blah, blah, blah, blah. Ultimately you cannot deal with that through the ceasefire. Like, how can you have a ceasefire with people who want you eradicated? You can if they're prepared to accept certain conditions. Right, but they're not, they're not handing over the hostages. They don't want a ceasefire. Hamas do not want a ceasefire. And they've demonstrated it repeatedly. If they wanted a ceasefire on day one, they could have just handed back the hostages, said, look, we'll give away, we'll hand over the people who committed this terrorist atrocity for, for justice. Right? Israel would have, no, nobody would support Israel bombing God. I wouldn't support Israel bombing Gaza in that situation, would you? No, no, nobody would. They have that option and they don't take it precisely because they want exactly what's going on right now. They want this. It's them that wants this.

[Francis]

Of course. Of course. And people in Brooklyn or in, you know, parts of North London or wherever it may be, they don't understand this. They cannot wrap their head around the fact that people think differently in different cultures. There's this great liberal lie where we go, oh, everybody's just like us. People are all the same. They're not. People are different. People are different culturally. I even think back in Venezuela, I always remember being really quite horrified, even as a little boy with the attitude over there that if I screw you over, you're dumb, I'm smart.

[Constantine]

In Russia it's the same because you.

[Francis]

Let yourself be screwed over, therefore you're dumb. And I was there coming to it from an English perspective going, yeah, but, but if we do this then society can't work. You've got a low trust society and once you have a low trust society, I mean I wouldn't have been that articulate, but I was going, but, but this can't work because then how, how are you meant to have relationships? How are you meant to run a business? How are you meant to do anything? Right? If every time you step into the room and you think, well, he's just going to stab me in the back when my back's turned.

[Constantine]

Do you know there's a phrase in Russian it means that something is lying in the wrong way, lying somewhere like this, this mug is standing the wrong way. I mean basically I'll say, oh, I stole it because he was not sitting there properly. Do you see what I mean?

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

So this culture is pervasive and it's something actually I think Jordan Peterson, when I was on tour with him, he talked a lot about the fact that a healthy society and a healthy community in which people voluntarily reciprocate good things towards each other and do good things towards each other as a, and an unhealthy society is one in which they don't. Right. So there's a massive difference between cultures. And of course one of the big concerns with our country at the moment is that it is rapidly heading in a low trust direction thanks to mass immigration, the decriminalization of crime. We just had a great episode with Lawrence Newport come out who basically left the bike to be stolen outside Scotland Yard. The, the police basically refused to do anything about it. He told them where it was, they refused to do anything about it. Etc. And there is, you know, it's time to talk about Britain now and it, it does seem like, you know, I almost, I am almost optimistic now because I just think things will get so bad they can't not change.

[Francis]

It's.

[Constantine]

But that is where it's headed, right?

[Francis]

That is where it's headed. Being sleep deprived messes with everything. Reaction time, memory, decision making, even your emotions. It's like walking around legally drunk. And the long term effects, just as bad as smoking. Most people reach for melatonin, but here's the problem. Melatonin is a hormone and most supplements give you doses 10 to 50 times higher than your body naturally produces. That's why you wake up groggy, your sleep Gets worse over time and your body stops making melatonin on its own. That's why I use Evening Being by Verso. It's melatonin free, using clinically studied ingredients to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer and get more deep end REM sleep without messing with your hormones. I've been taking it myself and honestly, I'm falling asleep faster and my mind actually switches off at night, which used to be a battle. Shut it. Of course it did. Head to V E R dot so and use code trigger to get 15% off your first order or click the link in the description. That's V E R dot so code trigger. There's been certain markers for me, I find I'm very interested in culture and I'm very interested in how Internet culture mirrors what's going on in society, but not in the ways that sometimes people think. Like, do you remember that clip of Robert Jenrick in the Tube talking to people who didn't were just forcing their way through the barriers at the Tube station, refusing to pay? That went super viral. And people. And you got why? Because it touched something really fundamental. And by the way, I've seen this happen time and time again. You go to a Tube station, people force their way through the barriers.

[Constantine]

But you know something, Francis, before you go on, I don't know if you remember, I tweeted about this a couple of years back because you and I talked about it. That is a very new thing. It is, It's a very new thing.

[Francis]

Yes.

[Constantine]

So I basically, I used to go on the Tube all the time and then I think at some point I mostly cycle around London.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

So I haven't, hadn't been on the tube for like a year or a year and a half. And then I went on middle of the day and it was, it was a different, it was a different environment entirely. People were not paying, there were kids running rampant all over it, like pressing the stop things on the elevator, like being genuine nuisances and nobody was doing. It is a very new thing and it's happened very rapidly.

[Francis]

Agreed, agreed. And it's really interesting because I see this and I talk to people about it. I had a clip from my own like podcast just go quite viral actually, where Peter Blexley was talking about it and he was getting really angry and people were sharing it all over TikTok. And the reason it's resonated isn't because of the Tube, it's because of something very fundamental and people are going, I contribute to society, I pay my way I do what's right and this lot don't and they are allowed to run rampant, behave in a manner that is anti social nor contribute and nothing happens.

[Constantine]

And you know what's interesting in that generic video and other people have done similar things since. One of the things that shocked me was, look, 17 year olds jumping over the barriers and being dickheads. 17 year old boys are gonna do stupid things. And we all have been there. But it's like people in their 30s going to work but not paying.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

I don't get it.

[Francis]

Yeah. And what you see is people literally not doing anything and this is run rampant through our society. I was in Walthamstow, a very she part of East London. There was a group of about this happened literally yesterday. There was a group of seven police officers, maybe more and they were all congregated, talking, having a laugh. Parmy's going with what's going on in our society. Should you really be doing that? Firstly this guy on a Deliveroo bike cycled past them on the pavement. The police officer went, don't do that. The guy ignored him, carried on cycling. He turned round to his mates, they all laughed about it and carried on chatting. And you go, that is that right there in that tiny microcosm of what I've just seen sums up so much of what is going wrong.

[Constantine]

Well, I hope it keeps going because like I say, I, I don't think there's any other way. I don't think people are actually going to wake up until things get really bad. That I'm convinced of it now. I'm, I just. Every time something bad happens now I celebrate. I'm serious. Yeah. Because I'm just going, if things carry on being like quite bad but not terrible, everyone's just going to keep acting like nothing's going on.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

This is what they do. And people do this in their own lives. If their lives, if their marriage, if the financial situation is really quite bad but not terrible, they'll just put up with it. They won't make any changes, they won't try and improve anything. And that's where we are.

[Francis]

Yeah. It's like it's the proverbial alcoholic. You need to hit rock bottom.

[Constantine]

Right.

[Francis]

And to be fair, I mean we're going down there pretty quickly.

[Constantine]

We seem to be. And it's something that I think is happening across western societies. You know, you see the election of Mamdani in New York and you know, I wrote a piece on my substack about it. But there's, there's a lot to discuss about it, which I think, you know, it's very easy for people to go, you know, young people are stupid and whatever, but the reality is it's has become very difficult for young people to lead what we would consider a normal life, even on very high incomes, because of the way that housing is completely screwed up in this country and in the us, but particularly in Britain, it's such a massive issue that people go, oh, you know, these young kids are spending five quid on lattes and whatever. And it's true. But if you can't afford your own property and house prices are going up so much faster than your salary, you might as well have a coffee and you might as well go out for a nice meal because what else are you going to do? Yeah, yeah. And people don't seem to understand that.

[Francis]

I get really frustrated by people on the right when they lambast the young and they go, oh, they're woke and they don't buy into society and they're nihilistic. And I'm going, look, it's like a game. Let's say we get the board out and we're going to play Monopoly and we're going to have a nice game of Monopoly and we've got all the team involved, all the older ones and we're going to have a nice game. But we say to all the young ones, like Jack, no, mate, you can't play.

[Constantine]

You know, Jack's our producer. Yeah, Jackson, this is actually an accurate depiction of our business model anyway.

[Francis]

And we're gonna. But you can't play. And not only are you not going to be able to play, we're going to charge you an exorbitant amount not to play.

[Constantine]

Right.

[Francis]

Eventually you're gonna go, do you know what, mate? Your game. That's what I think of it. And that is basically what is happening.

[Constantine]

Yeah.

[Francis]

And that is what's happened with Woke. And now the Woke has kind of lost its, its energy and its theme. It's still there, but it's not. Doesn't have the cultural force or relevance behind it. But what we're going to get from the, from the left is something quite different.

[Constantine]

Well, and the right, because you're seeing an equal and opposite force on the right now, where. You know, I wrote an article a while back about, I think it was the one called Tucker Carlson and the Work. Right. But basically one of the points I made in it was that this new movement on the right, it was sort of looking for how to frame its who the enemy was and he kept like talking about globalists or whatever but now they, they found Israel and Jews as like the thing to, to latch onto there, the problem. As if all of the people's lives are really caused by that issue. The problems in their lives are caused by the issue, which of course they're not. And on the left you've got that, but plus they've got all these ideas about socialism and rent control and all of that's really going to fix everything, which of course it never does. But. But I think what I'd want people to understand is that anger that is building on both left and right. It's actually not random. There are good reasons why that's happening. And Matthew said, who's a favorite guest of us who we've had on. He had a great article in the Times today talking about basically how, how people like him who invested in the housing market 10, 15, 20 years ago are now in position of such locked in advantage that it, it makes everyone else's life very, very difficult who's coming up behind them. And actually those people do need to pay more in a very particular type of tax, like a land tax for example, which is actually something that's right wing and left wing economists support. Because if you maintain this housing situation where essentially housing prices are going up way higher than people's wages because in Britain people's wages aren't going up in real terms, it's no surprise that people aren't having kids. It's no surprise that they're looking for a cause to rebel. It's no surprise that they're voting for lunatics. Why would they want to preserve a status quo that doesn't work for them?

[Francis]

I read a horrifying statistic in that very article. I think it's 21 to 34 year olds, 40% of them live at home with their parents. And then we sit here and go, well, we've got a collapsing birth rate. Well of course we got a collapsing birth rate, mate. How are you going to bring up a kid? How are you even going to have sex when you've got your parents next door and your sister below you? I mean if you're into that thing, I don't know. But the reality is that ain't gonna happen. Right, it's not gonna happen.

[Constantine]

But also you're not gonna mature. Like I don't know about you, but when I first started living on my own it forced me to really grow up very quickly. When you live with your parents, lots of things are made easier for you or made possible for you that you're simply prevented from growing into a full blown adult. Right. And so all of those other things go out of the window. And I think it's a massive, massive issue. And that this is why, you know, when people always, like, people always call us right wing and whatever, like inequality, particularly when it comes to housing and things like that, is a massive issue and the right mostly wants to ignore it, the left will bang on about it and come up with the wrong solutions. But actually the right answer is you have to make opportunity like that possible because it's all you can talk about pulling up, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps all day long. But the reality is if you work really hard, you should have the opportunity to get on in life. And that is increasingly being denied to a lot of people. But another thing is Fraser Nelson, former guest of us, infamously due to a debate him and I had, he wrote a brilliant article that you sent me which was about the fact that a lot of this is also to do with what's called elite of a production. In which, in other words, if you over educate, if you educate too many people to a high, to, you know, higher education level, university, college, whatever, you then basically have a lot of people who have very high expectations and may even have not skills necessarily, but a high education, but there's not the jobs for them. And they get very frustrated because they're like, look, I'm supposed to have, you know, 100 grand a year, 200 grand a year job and be able to afford a house and marriage and kids and whatever. And I can't in the big cities especially, which partly comes back to housing.

[Francis]

Absolutely. Because, and I think, look, that's a great point, but also there's something emotional going on here as well, which is that generation have been lied to. When they went to school, they were told, work hard, go to college, get a good degree, you're going to get a great job. They were told that. They were told that by teachers, they were told that by parents, they were told that by elder siblings. Because that model worked for the, worked for their older parents, they worked for their parents, it worked for the older generations, it worked for the teachers.

[Constantine]

Right.

[Francis]

The reality is, is that model no longer works.

[Constantine]

And again, partly that's because of technology as well. Right. Because ultimately we have an interview with Daniel Priestley coming out in which he, I think he's absolutely right and look at me. And you like the opportunities to make something of yourself are still there, but you probably are not Going to get a job that's going to be your stable job for 40 years. The World has changed. So I do think it's probably still the best time to create and build and not have gatekeepers and really make something of yourself. But you're going to have to work so much harder and have so much more success to be able to achieve the very basic things that people 50 years ago just thought was normal. Like, you know, dad goes out to work in a factory, mum's at home, two kids, three kids, house, car. Well, right, that used to be normal. Now you have to be a millionaire to achieve that.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

For a lot of people, that's what it feels like. Especially if you're coming up and you don't have inheritance from parents, they're not going to be able to help you out, get on the housing ladder in London. I mean, look at the housing prices.

[Francis]

It's insane.

[Constantine]

It's insane. So that's where I think a lot of these really stupid and really counterproductive ideas on both left and right are coming from. It's just the fact that young people are looking into the future and going, this is really not. Not a society that is looking after me. And by the way, I will say this. You know, we and I are elderly millennials. I don't think we can quite be blamed for this, but I really respect Matthew Said for making this point because I think he's a little older than us. People who are rich and the kind of boomer generations, they've got to realize if you keep screwing young people over because you keep voting for people who only do things that are good for you, you're not going to find yourself living in a comfortable retirement 20, 30 years from now. Yeah, Someone's going to have to pay for that. Someone's going to have to wipe your bum in a fucking nursing home. And it's not going to be these people. Right? Because people need to. The people have forgotten something, which is as for society to work, everyone has to contribute and sacrifice for the greater good. And if. If the only thing you ever vote for is for your house prices to keep going up and for no one to build a house in your backyard and for you to hold on to the three rental properties that you've had, well, you're going to brew a hell of a lot of resentment in society. It's going to come out one way or another, and you're not going to fucking like it.

[Francis]

No. And this is what people don't understand. And then they turn around and they blame young people. And you know what you're going to get, you're going to get more Zoran Mandanis, you're going to get more Jeremy Corbyns and they're only going to become more popular. I think what we're going to see as when you look at our electoral systems more and more, I, and we've spoken about it ad nauseam but this two party system, it's not fit for purpose.

[Constantine]

Well and it is breaking down here in the uk. I mean, Reform is leading the polls at the moment and they are a fairly, you know, as far as a right wing populist reaction to what's been going on goes like you go, thank, we've got them. If you look around Europe.

[Francis]

Oh yeah, afd.

[Constantine]

Yeah. You know, those boys are a lot more spicy. So with, with Nigel Farage and Reform, you know, Nigel, I don't know if he said this publicly but he certainly said to us he feels like this is, you know, we're drinking at the last chance saloon as a country. And I think he's right. Yeah, yeah. And I am, you know, I have to be honest. Nigel. So there's a lot of things to say really about reform. I think the first thing is Nigel is the greatest talent, political talent of his generation. Agree, no question. From a politics perspective from, he's incredibly likable. There are a lot of people who don't like him but generally speaking he's incredibly likable and I think the mood music on him has changed a lot. A lot more people are now receptive to, to him. As for the party policies, there's a lot to like and there's probably a lot to question in there as well. I mean, I think that obviously dealing with illegal immigration is a massive priority. Everyone would accept that mass immigration being reduced to something reasonable again, net zero, dealing with that is important. But I also look at the economic policy and I go, you are really promising a lot of things to a lot of people and you are effectively, you know, being very high. You know, I'm not either it's not all going to add up or you're going to do a lot of the kind of left wing economics on this and you're just going to go big on everything, giving people money to these people, those people, etc. So I think they are the hope for a lot of people and I'll be honest with you, I hope they win the next election.

[Francis]

I do too.

[Constantine]

Not necessarily because I, I believe that they will create some kind of utopia. I don't believe that's going to happen. Britain has a very long road to recovery, but I think we have seen that both the Conservatives and the Labour Party are just, they're not going to deliver any meaningful attempt at change. And Starmer's government, if you thought it was going to be bad, I mean, look at what they're doing on, on the illegal immigration. Now they're going to reduce it by not reducing it.

[Francis]

Well, he said he wants a one in, one out policy. I'm going, great, you turn my country into a nightclub.

[Constantine]

But I, I, why would you want. So their idea, I think, is they're gonna bring in asylum seekers and get rid of illegal immigrants. But I, I honestly don't think that's what the British people wanted.

[Francis]

How about, and I know this is controversial, we control our borders and we do our best. It's not going to be possible to reduce it to zero. How about that? How about we actually be a country that enforces our borders and goes to illegal immigrants? If you come here illegally, that is a criminal act. You are not welcome and you will be deported. I know that sounds pretty fascistic.

[Constantine]

Does it? Every other country in the world does that. Yeah, except stupid countries in the West.

[Francis]

Yeah, but I was being kind of facetious, but, you know, it's, that is a sensible position. That's common sense. But the fact that we can't even say it. The fact that we bow down to the French time after time, the fact that we give them the best part of half a billion quid a year to actually deal with this. And then it's only now that they managed to like slash a few boats to stop people coming. You're going, what is going on? What is going on? It's weak leadership. All right, bit of an unexpected one for you, but this actually got my attention the other day. I was scrolling online and came across this video from none other than Chuck Norris. Yes, that Chuck Norris. He's in his 80s now and according to him, he still feels like he's in his 50s. And honestly, watching it, I could believe it. The video goes through three specific foods he says you should avoid, like the plague, and a few other things he's doing to keep in shape and stay sharp. I was skeptical at first, but the stuff he suggests is genuinely simple and actually makes a lot of sense. If you're interested in health, energy, or just curious what Chuck Norris swears by at 80 plus, this is worth your time. Watch the video [e-mail] trigger that's chuckdefense.com trigger and we put the link in the description below to make it easy.

[Constantine]

And the economy obviously is in a lot of trouble. Not only that, but the tax situation is such that they. They're going to have to raise more taxes on more things.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

And that is going to massively, you know, we know that we are losing entrepreneurs and wealthy people at a rate like you've never seen. It's absolutely crazy. And that's where you hope a reform government might actually implement some pro business policies that's going to create more jobs for people. Because that's the only way out of this really, is you have to have the businesses of the future and the people who are going to create and start and run them in this country instead of chasing them out. And with this current administration, I mean, to be honest with you, I still meet a lot of people in Westminster who think like, you know, the Tories are going to come back and do. And you just go, I haven't heard from them. Have you?

[Francis]

No.

[Constantine]

Have you heard anything from the Tories? Yeah, Robert Generic's doing some good stuff, but he's not the leader. No, I don't really hear anything out of the Conservatives, but so, yeah, anyway, we're in a lot of trouble and like I say, I genuinely, I know this sounds evil and cruel and whatever, but as things get worse, I'm like, well, at least there might be a chance we get out of this.

[Francis]

Do you know what it all comes back to and has been the problem that we've spoken about time and time and time again, and it's about all of the issues that we talk about is there is a lack of honesty. People aren't being honest, they're delusional. We've been living in La La land for a long time. Whether they're thinking it's girls can be boys, which is the most ridiculous of all the arguments, or what's going on in the Middle east, or the fact that, you know, if you have borders that somehow makes you akin to Joseph Goebbels, or the fact, you know, the no human is illegal despite the fact that sounds like something Jeffrey Epstein would say, but all of these things and you just look through it and you go, you can only indulge in these types of nonsensical narratives for a period of time. And then, unfortunately, the rubber hits the road.

[Constantine]

But here's the problem, Francis, is given where we've got to, we are kind of like the alcoholic, and the alcoholic really doesn't want to Wake up. Right. Because if we did, we'd have to recognize that we're all living beyond our means. We can't afford the current levels of spending. We can't afford even the shitty public services that we have now. Yeah, we can't, we can't afford, you know, the levels of benefits that unemployment, unemployment benefits and sickness benefits that people are getting, especially the young now. It's absurd.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

We cannot have a country in which that number of people, you know, they're a bit depressed or they're anxious or, or whatever and they're getting basically paid to not do anything. Like I remember as an 18 year old being super depressed because I was supposed to finish my education. I couldn't afford to. I was really depressed. And then the answer to my depression was to try and work. I had no choice. I had no choice. I'm sure you've been there as well. Almost everyone has been at a point where they were really depressed or really anxious. And you just have to find a way to deal with it and you have to find a way to cope and to work through it or maybe to live with it and nonetheless keep moving forward. Right. That's what life is. Life is not about the government, which is other people giving you money to wallow in your discomfort. That is not to say that there are not many people who genuinely are unable to work because they're mentally too unwell or physically too unwell. But we have stretched those definitions way past their remit, way past the rema. But that is a truth no one wants to hear.

[Francis]

Of course not. Of course not. And, and that is the issue the moment you say to yourself, I cannot do this because of X, Y and Z, what you're doing, it's, it's, it's learned helplessness. That's all it is. And the government is facilitating people to say, I cannot do this. But you know what? If you say you cannot do something, I guarantee you you won't be able to do it. There are times in all of our lives where you just think, I don't think I can go on. This is too hard, it's too difficult. Too many things are going wrong. I have sick parents. I've got this, I've got that, I've got, okay, but what's the choice?

[Constantine]

Do you know, I remember going, when I was a student, going to the student employment office just to look at the jobs, job offers, and I would be sweating just looking at them because I was like really anxious and nerv know what I was doing. I did loads of jobs I did not want to be doing, you know, and they weren't like terrible jobs. They just weren't jobs that were suited to my personality or whatever. Being a waiter or doing this or whatever. I. I wasn't very happy during that time. No, I wasn't happy at all. You, I'm sure, had loads of jobs. You didn't enjoy doing either. Right. But that is part of life. It always has been part of life. My understanding is, I think there were fewer people as a percentage on unemployment and sickness benefits in this country after World War II.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

Than there are now. And that's when there were people with no hands, no legs, no arms and.

[Francis]

Suffering from severe shell shock and ptsd.

[Constantine]

Right. And now you've got someone who's a bit anxious playing on their PlayStation all day. A country can't work like this. Right. So. But again, is a Farage government going to deal with that? Because that's going to be unpopular as hell.

[Francis]

And the thing is, is when you institute, you implement those types of policies, people get hurt and some people will die. Yeah, and it's awful. Yeah, and it's awful because things will go wrong, people will make mistakes.

[Constantine]

Right.

[Francis]

There'll be somebody with terminal cancer who gets their benefits cuts and will die. And that is terrible and it's awful.

[Constantine]

Yeah.

[Francis]

But we can't keep going like this because what we're going to do is we're going to bank, we want to kill people with cancer, we're going to bankrupt the country.

[Constantine]

No, but look at Trump and his immigration. Somebody's just died in detention. There are issues that I have with some of the way that it's being prosecuted, executed. Right. So it's going to have to be calibrated pretty carefully. But I think the point is the problems have got so bad, it's going to take fairly drastic action. And that is drastic action is always a high risk thing. It's always painful, it's always disruptive, it's always going to hurt people. And you always want to be very, very, very careful, which is why I would much rather we didn't continue building up to things being that drastic, to being so bad that drastic action is necessary. However, I think we're past the point of no return now. That's why I keep saying I'm kind of an accelerationist on this one. I think things need to get so bad, the British public just go, you know what? Fuck it. Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot, which means it's time to add new Cordless power to your collection. Right now, when you buy a selection battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free. Click into one of our best deals of the season and stock up on tools for all your upcoming projects. Get Black Friday savings happening now at the Home Depot limit 1 per transaction exclusion supply full eligible tool list in store and online.

[Francis]

You know, to use the metaphor of addiction, there is something called an intervention. When people, when addicts are so bad and they're so out of control, they stage an intervention. What happens normally an intervention is your family and friends essentially surprise you in a pretty unpleasant way and go, look, you need to go and get professional help. I think we're at the point now where you say you look around at the country and go, we're not too far away from that. And you talk about Jurassication. I agree with you. But the more you go down this road, the more drastic the action has to be. And it's becoming worse and worse and worse. And I'm looking and going, pretty soon it's going to be, it might be the case that the medicine, it's going to be like chemotherapy, it might save your life, but it's going to make you really sick at the same time.

[Constantine]

Probably. I think that's inevitable and the hope is, but look, I mean, you probably know more about this with your Latin American roots, but Jav M came in, in Argentina, he cut like 30% of government spending. Like, he cut a lot of spending. He cut pensions, he cut benefits. He also cut taxes a lot. And it's working so far. It's really, really working. So I, I, look, I just, I don't know, man. I, I, maybe I'm just getting soggy as I get older, but I, I really care about this country and I want it to be a good place for people to live. I want it to be a good place for my children to live. I, Britain still even now, has the potential to be a great country. Yeah, a great country. It's got highly educated, intelligent, capable people, many of the, many of whom want to get on with life, many of whom want to work hard, many of whom have great ideas that they're willing to implement. It's got amazing infrastructure compared to lots of other countries in terms of being able to start a business and do things. It is very compassionate and we do look after the people at the bottom. It's a great country to be poor. Yeah, it really is compared to most places. But that that British spirit has to be revived. It has to be revived. Otherwise I just, I really don't see a good future for this country.

[Francis]

Do you know I'm patriotic? I love this country. I know there's sometimes comes across gay, gay, gay. What's the matter with you? Look at you, trying to be positive. No, And I criticize this country a lot. And the reason I criticize it is because I love it deeply and it breaks my heart to see this. You know what I hate is when I go over to America and my country and my city, I'm a Londoner. It's now become the punchline for every crap hack joke from Americans about how bad this country is, how bad London is, blah, blah, blah.

[Constantine]

Well, that's why I was so happy mum Danny got elected. Because now we're gonna stick it back to them.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

Now they're gonna find out what socialism really looks like.

[Francis]

Yeah, exactly. Go on, enjoy it, mate. And it's just, and it's just. And they're all there laughing and I'm, it's, it's tragic that we went from being a country. I remember going to venezuela in the 90s, I told people I was from London and people would go, wow, you're from London. And they want to sit down and talk with me. Because of the amazing things this country has created. The scientific and technological innovation, the art, the music, the literature. Just the amazing things this country has produced and how it's changed the world to. Now I'm sitting in a green room of a comedy club and it's been reduced to a cheap punchline to a crap joke. That's tragic.

[Constantine]

Well, here's another thing, man. I think is the truth is, you know, we, we just had Ian Dale on that episode. We'll go out in a bit to talk about Margaret Thatcher. He wrote a book about her. And I remember at the end I asked him, so, you know, what was her sense of, like, what British, you know, what was, what was, what did Britishness mean to her? And every time we talk about Britishness, it always goes back to, well, this country has a great history. That's not enough. A great history is not enough. We're gonna have to forge some kind of forward looking identity. And until we do, I just, I don't. And, and what that means is maybe is something like happened at the Thatcher, which is, it's about a go getter mentality. It's about some way of having a positive vision of the future which we currently don't have. That's what we need, because this current is not going to. It's just not going to cut it.

[Francis]

Yeah. And there's a certain nihilism that I see, and we've covered it amongst young people. But there's. Look, words matter. Words have an impact. You know that saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. That's nonsense. And we always know. It's something you tell kids. But the reality there's names of.

[Constantine]

Obviously it's an aspiration. It's not a reality.

[Francis]

It's not reality. But it's like if you were constantly talking yourself down, you may not believe it at the start. Oh, but, you know, blah, blah, blah. But eventually you keep saying those mantras and those. Those sayings about yourself and those narratives, even though they might not be true, eventually you will start to believe them. So this idea that we're an evil country, we're a terrible country, there's no future, we're in terminal decline. A lot of what was actually said in the 70s, before Thatcher came into power, well, eventually you go, well, this is all true. And you look at what has actually been a wonderful country, it still is a great country, and you just do it down. You say, everything's terrible, everything's awful. Well, eventually you're going to believe it.

[Constantine]

But in fairness, we have been saying that for the last hour. But that's only because the problems are real and we would like those problems to be dealt with so that we can move forward. That's the reason we're talking about in this way. And I think it's a really important point to emphasize that ultimately this is going to. What we need is a revival.

[Francis]

Yeah. And we need people to believe in something. But the only way you're going to believe in some leader revival, let's be honest, a lot of the time revivals start with young people. They provide the energy, they provide the dynamism. They're the one that go out, start companies, create bands, do this, start. So blah, blah, blah, blah, all these sorts of things. But you're only going to be able to engender that in young people if you give them a chance to be part of society. And if you shut them out and you say you're never going to own anything and you're never going to be able to buy property, whatever else, then they aren't going to play the game because you're not going to let them.

[Constantine]

Well, see, these are the questions for reform to address, because, look, clearly the concerns about immigration are extraordinarily widely shared for very good reasons. Mass immigration has been way too high and detrimental to Britain. Illegal immigration is completely unacceptable, of course. But I always keep saying to people within reform, you know, once you've achieved your great British dream of deporting all the illegal immigrants, you're going to have to then have something beyond that, because that's not going to transform the country.

[Francis]

No.

[Constantine]

Overnight it may make you feel better and, and, and rightly so. We shouldn't be spending money on migrant hotels, we shouldn't be doing all of those things. But that is not going to transform the country into what you want it to be. There's got to be an economic agenda that is actually going to deliver for people. It's going to rebalance the economy and that's a big, big project. That's a big project. So that revival, it's not going to be an easy job. But the way things are going now, my sense is, you know, the next. Some people think there will be an election before the 2029, but if the election is in 2029, my sense is things are going to be so bad, reform are going to be with a very good shot. Not least because if Zyra Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn and whatever form their own party, they will split the left in a very helpful way for the right.

[Francis]

Absolutely. And by the way, this fragmentation of the big political parties, I think it's a good thing that Zara Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn are forging their own party and those people who have those views will have their political views catered to. Great. That's democracy and the same with the people on the right.

[Constantine]

Well, There are about 57 parties on.

[Francis]

The right now and they all start with Re, Retrain, Reclaim, Reform, restore, restore.

[Constantine]

What's another one?

[Francis]

Redraw.

[Constantine]

Jack, you must know all of these.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

I don't think there's one called Reinvigorate, probably next week, but there are a lot of them.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

And I, I, I'll be honest with you, I don't think that's particularly helpful. Certainly, if you want to see actual change, like, I, I, I don't see how this narcissism of small differences on the right is helping anything. I really don't. There's only, for me, there's only one person on the right who's capable of delivering real electoral success. That's Nigel for us.

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

And you either get behind them or, or you're just not helping. It's my personal view. I understand there are a lot of people who have questions. Some people want him to go further on certain issues and whatever. But the truth is, come election time it's either going to be him or Starmer, if he's still in power, or Jeremy Corbyn.

[Francis]

I know. You know what I found really interesting about that?

[Constantine]

I've skipped the Conservatives. Yeah, yeah. Because they don't, let's be honest.

[Francis]

I'm not going to say his name, but someone that you were talking to in at the Spectator Party, a very senior figure in the Conservative Party, he was talking to me and he was oh, so what do you think? And I went, I think the Conservative Party. I went, I think you're. He went, why do you say that? And I went, my dad is somebody who has been a Conservative voter off and on for nigh on majority of his life, over half a decade. You know what he said to me? He said to me, francis, I'll never vote Conservative again. And I said, my dad is just a regular guy who went to work. There was nothing special about him. But he's the type of person who's this country is built upon decent hard working people turn up every day, do their best work hard, pay their taxes, go on one holiday a year because you know, that's all that they had. But they believed in something. They believed in this country. And you've got people like my dad saying they're never going to vote for you again. That is a damning indictment of the past 14 years of your government.

[Constantine]

Yeah.

[Francis]

Anyway, the conversation was over.

[Constantine]

Do you know what I find? Increasingly a lot of people within the Conservative Party are starting to understand it. I mean Jake Barry, who's the former chairman of the Conservative Party, I actually remember arguing with him on Question Time about net zero. He's a massive fan. He's just defected to Reform. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But nonetheless, my point is you will start to see a lot of defections over time because a lot of the Tories know they're. And I do actually hope that happens. You, you'd probably want to see defections from more senior figures who are still mps, who have more views that are much more aligned with reform defecting. But I think reform are in with a real shot and then it's a question hopefully if they do get elected of what are they actually going to do? But we're a long, long way away from any of that. So for the moment we've got Starmer. He's probably going to keep making things worse and as I keep saying, maybe that's a good thing.

[Francis]

And on that upbeat note, final question is always the same. What's the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be?

[Constantine]

Mate, climate change is fucking brilliant.

[Francis]

No, no, do you know what? It's too hot.

[Constantine]

The summer's been incredible, man. I'm out in the garden, I'm going for walks with my son. It's beautiful.

[Francis]

No, I hate it every moment.

[Constantine]

And by the way, have you noticed something? Right, I'm going to join.

[Francis]

Just stop all.

[Constantine]

Hold on a second. There's solar panels everywhere, right?

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

Do you not find it's interesting that you need climate change to make green solutions work?

[Francis]

Yeah.

[Constantine]

Now there's solar panels everywhere. They actually make sense. Yeah, Climate change. Look, I'm just saying, scrap net zero. Climate change is brilliant. That's what we should be talking.

[Francis]

I'm going to join. Just stop. Oil. I'm going to get myself one of those orange T shirts. I'm going to.

[Constantine]

You know that's not actually going to help, right?

[Francis]

Yeah. But if I feel like I'm doing something.

[Constantine]

All right, what's the one thing we're not talking about, Francis?

[Francis]

You know, I go back to an interview with Barry Strauss, the ancient historian, which I always.

[Constantine]

We're not saying he's old. Yeah, he's a historian of ancient history.

[Francis]

Absolutely. And he said something about the collapse of the Roman Empire and I think you or I went, why did it collapse? And he said a lot of things and he went, inequality between rich and poor. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, There was no middle class and essentially the vast majority of people stopped believing in the Roman Empire and the project, and then it fell. And I would say to every single person on the right or who's got money and demonizes young people and looks at them and goes, oh, well, you know, moaning, voting for stupid parties with stupid policies. We oversold this and if we don't.

[Constantine]

It'S Mum, Daniel's all the way down.

[Francis]

Exactly. And I finally started making money. So please.

[Constantine]

Now head on over to Substack where we answer your questions.

[Francis]

Tomorrow we're posting a clip from the Substack portion of our incredible interview with Daniel Priestley. It's where one of our viewers asks the question to Daniel. What's the five things we need to do in order to save the UK economy?

[Constantine]

Is there any answer to the immigration induced social collapse in which we find ourselves, other than mass deportation? What does each of you think your blind side is? What is the thing that always gets you even if, you know, it happens now and then. Do you guys ever get sick of each other? Can you give us any advice on navigating differences that arise in business relationships?