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- [00:01]
A
Right, I'm gonna level with you. I'm not a gamer, even though I look like one. I'm not gonna pretend I've been grinding through RPGs between recordings or that I have strong opinions about which Final Fantasy was the best one. I think it's Japanese and I think there's a sword. That's genuinely everything. I know. But our social media guy showed me this app and I genuinely thought that's quite clever. It's called Snaxy. Basically, game publishers need new players and they're willing to pay to get them. Snaxy just passes that money onto you. You play games you were probably going to play anyway. You earn coins and you cash them out for real rewards. PayPal, Amazon, Netflix, gift cards. If you prefer gaming credit, you can redeem for PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and Nintendo or cash out your Enable wallet. I've got no idea what that means. Actual money, not just points that expire. It takes a few minutes to set up. You open the app, swipe through the game offers, pick something that looks decent, play it, earn, redeem. That's the whole thing. There's a sign up bonus worth up to $10 if you use our link, which is in the description of this episode. That's S N A K Z Y Snacksy. Click the link in the description to get started and when you sign up, use the code triggerpod. That's T R I G G E R P O D to claim your $10 bonus. You and the app is mobile only, so click the link from your phone, not your laptop.
- [01:29]
B
Really. We're just trying to talk to people and find out what the truth is. And that's what you know with Alistair. That's what we did. It's also what we did with Nigel Farage.
- [01:37]
A
If they're making an argument that you don't think it holds water, is not consistent, then you can't just let it go. You have to challenge it.
- [01:48]
B
We have a new prime minister now. He will save the country,
- [01:54]
A
mate, I can't. What about the. What about us do we get to say in it?
- [01:58]
B
The way the current electoral system works is basically you've got children voting for how much candy they're gonna get. Yeah.
- [02:05]
A
That is the thing that terrifies me the most. You've never seen a country go broke. You've never seen hyperinflation. You've never seen it when things get really bad. And I'm telling you, it's terrifying.
- [02:19]
B
All this Andy Burnham looks. He's got nice hair and he wears a T shirt and he's from the north and he's a nice guy. All of this is about to evaporate because he's going to be confronted with the reality of government. Francis, good to be here with you. Welcome back.
- [02:37]
A
Thank you, mate. Delighted to be here. It's been an interesting couple of weeks.
- [02:41]
B
It has been an interesting couple of weeks. Last week in particular, I thought, summed up everything we've been trying to build here when in the same week we interviewed Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spokesman, director of communications, now host of one of the biggest politics podcast in this country. And then soon afterwards, we interviewed Nigel Farage, who's been under the cosh a fair bit and put some, you know, some uncomfortable questions to him, but nonetheless had the usual respectful conversation that we tend to do with all our guests. And that really is what we are trying to do, have people from across the spectrum on the show and if they make sense, they make sense. And if what they're saying doesn't quite make sense, we probe and challenge and we see what happens.
- [03:24]
A
Well, that's it. And the thing that I always wanted to create and you did as well, was the fact that we never wanted to be, despite what people may think, like a right wing channel. I was never.
- [03:35]
B
It just happened naturally.
- [03:36]
A
It just happened naturally, mate. Do you know what I mean? But no. Well, we never wanted that because the moment you create a channel which appeals to a partisan audience, what you automatically do is you give up your independence, you give up your independence of thought. And we never wanted to do that. We never wanted to be on any train, whether it's a left wing train, the right wing train, like you take for example, Trump. There were things that we agreed with with Trump, but there are also things that we've been publicly pushing back on. For instance, the Iran wall. Neither you nor I think that is a good idea. We both think that it's actually a mistake that will have grave long term consequences globally and economically. So I was really pleased with that because what it sends is a signal out to people that if you want to come in a show where you will get challenged, but you'll be get challenged in good faith, this is the one place where you will come on. We're not going to straw man. We're not going to misrepresent. We're going to. We're gonna hear what you say and then we're gonna push back accordingly if we disagree.
- [04:42]
B
Yeah. And I speak, you know, to your point about left and right and all this stuff, like I have to Say, first of all, it's great that Alistair came on. Yeah, I think it's great that he came on and I respect him for that. And I think it's, it's to his credit that he was able to come on. And one thing that we've tended to experience in the past when we get people on from that kind of worldview is very often if you find that there's a flaw in their argument and you make a powerful counter argument to what they're saying, their reaction is to get nasty and to get personal, to start attacking you, to start trying to smear you, et cetera. He didn't do any of that, which I really respect and I think that was great. But, you know, the challenge is when people are saying things that don't make sense, you have to push back on that. And sometimes people think that we are not, you know, somewhere in the particular spectrum where they'd like us to be for their own reasons. You know, people want us to have certain views so they can agree with us, or they want us to have certain views so that they can dismiss what we're doing. Really, we're just trying to talk to people and find out what the truth is. And that's what, you know, with Alistair, that's what we did. It's also what we did with Nigel Farage, by the way, you know, asking him questions about the financial allegations and all of this other stuff. And I think what was interesting to me is that the difference in approach is really not a consequence of how we go into these conversations, but what we get back. Like, you can say what you want about Nigel Farage, he actually addressed our questions. You might not like what he said, you might not believe what he said, but the fact is he addressed the questions that we were putting. Whereas with Alistair, it sort of felt like you were boxing, you know, jello. Like you're trying to. Trying to, you're trying to hold on to something solid so that you're having the same conversation. And that was difficult.
- [06:39]
A
Yeah. And look, this is what people. I, I think sometimes people look at the content and go, well, but with this guess, you were one way, like you said in this guess, you're, you're another way. But what we want to do is be intellectually consistent. If they're making an argument that you don't think it holds water is not consistent. Right, then you can't just let it go. You have to challenge it and you have to get to the crux of it, otherwise it's going to be Fundamentally unsatisfying for everybody involved because that's actually how you get to resolve issues, by getting to the crux, by getting to the core, by going, look, like we talked about with Alistair, with populism, you make a very good point. When it comes to the banking crisis, 2008, of course that's contributed to populism practically. I'm sure there wouldn't be one person actually who would disagree with that. And of course social media has contributed to populism. No one would disagree with that. But also there is other parts of the equation that we need to address and we need to be intellectually honest. We're only talking if we talked about social media and the banking crisis. That's only one part of the pie. And there's other parts of the pie that we need to talk about. We need to talk, for instance, about mass immigration, the government response to Covid, quantitative easing, printing all of this money. The fact that where I did an interview with Dominic Frisbee, he said that in real terms, the pound sterling has been devalued by about 40% since 2020. Now you could say, well, Francis, aren't you overstating the case? Maybe, maybe Dominic's stats aren't completely correct. But then you look at the way it feels when you walk into a supermarket. Just when you go and buy a steak from the supermarket, it's now £11. You thought, hang on, that was six, seven pound, even three, four years ago. So all of these things are contributing and we need to be honest about this. Cause if we're not being honest, then we're essentially failing the remit of the show.
- [08:52]
B
Sir Francis Foster, test of the economy. How much does organic steak at Waitrose cost? Yeah, it's gone up a lot of expenses. No, I agree with you. And I think one of the things that we were able to explore is the extent to which there is a certain current of thought which just very blindly and I think and incuriously says, the problem's not the problem. The problem is the people who are talking about the problem. And it just seemed to come up over and over and over again that there's this perception that populism and the frustrations that lots of people feel erupt from nowhere and are used and managed and amplified by bad actors. That's the sort of. That was the argument that Alistair was making, which you can always say it's true to some extent. But ultimately, as I said to him, if you dealt with a problem, there would be nothing to exploit, of course. And it Just doesn't feel to me like that portion of the political spectrum is willing to have any conversation sensibly about that reality. And the reason they support reform and other parties, by the way, left and right, is that they are very fed up of the realities that. That they are experiencing, which is the product of decisions that were made by politicians. That's a fact. And that's just something that I think it explains a lot, actually. I'm being slightly inarticulate here, but I think it explains a lot about the way our debates are being had because it just seems like there's lots and lots of people who have absolutely no curiosity about why it is that their political opponents have a huge rise in popularity. I mean, if you think about. Take the bigger context, forget about the current, you know, Starmer, Burnham, whatever, and just look at a bigger context. Imagine you are Alistair Campbell. You are the director of communications for Tony Blair, who comes in in 1997, and his government is in power until 2008, and eventually the labor government gets voted out in 2010. At that point, there is no Farage Party. Really. It doesn't exist. I mean, Nigel Farage exists. His attempts to get elected exists, but he's irrelevant, effectively. There is no right wing populism in this country. There's no left wing populism at the time in this country. You have New labor and you have the conservatives who are on the ropes. You have the Lib Dems who are actually quite prominent that time. And in the time since then, which is only 16 years, 15, 16 years, the entire political world has been completely transformed. And yet we are being asked to believe, I think, quite incredibly, that that complete transformation of this entire thing is simply a product of the fact that evil populace came along and started misleading people. Well, that's just not a sufficient explanation for the state of the political climate that we're in there. It's just not objectively. That can't be the only explanation that works. And it's fair to say, yes, as you mentioned, that the fact that we're getting poorer or we're still poorer than we were before the. We're still poorer today than we were at the point of the financial crisis in 2008. That's a big factor. But you can't not also acknowledge that the huge waves of mass immigration and particularly the absolute joke of the asylum system and the illegal immigration that we now have is not radicalizing people. Of course it is. And there just does not seem to be a willingness to accept that.
- [12:32]
A
And what there is an unwillingness to accept. I always remember in Venezuela when I saw Chavez come to power, but people don't talk about this enough. The reason Chavez and his brand of left wing populism was so popular was because there had been government after government who had been, who had done the exact same thing. It doesn't matter if you voted left or right. You got essentially corrupt politicians coming in, doing nothing, robbing the country blind. The country would then degrade even more than where it was a year before and the term, and the presidential term before, until people felt that they had no other option but to elect Chavez. Because it couldn't get any worse. Well, unfortunately, it got a lot worse.
- [13:15]
B
It can get worse.
- [13:16]
A
It can, and absolutely it can. But if you look at the uk, for how many years did the population in this country vote and demand that immigration be lowered time after time after time? What was Brexit really? It was really a vote about immigration and lowering immigration. And not only did they ignore it, they tried to thwart it, they tried to subvert it. So what you're essentially saying to a populace is it doesn't matter who you vote for. Cami Badenot, we talked right, governed left. Well, you gaslit a nation for year after year after year after year. So people will go, why would I vote Conservative? Why would I vote labor? I'm gonna go and vote for reform, Green, restore, whoever it is, because they haven't let me down yet. But I know that if I vote for you, you will definitely let me down. And that is not an unfair position. Let's be brutally honest about it.
- [14:27]
B
No, of course it's totally understandable. But where Alistair is right, I think, and where we agree with him is that not all of the people who claim to be the champions of the people are necessarily going to be going to have the policies, at least that will deliver them. They may even be well intentioned. But there is, on the left, there's a delusion that you can just keep raising taxes and suddenly all the country's problems will be solved. Gary Stevenson has found himself rather unraveling his credibility and reputation in the last few days. But even now, I see in our comments, I mean, I did a video sort of detailing what is wrong about his worldview and you see comments from people going, yeah, well, at least she's right about the wealth inequality. Well, first of all, actually that's not true. The evidence is that wealth inequality has been very consistent for some time. But even if it were, and I totally understand that people, lots and lots of People are particularly locked out of the housing market. It's something we've talked about a lot. But they'll still say, well, at least he's got the diagnosis right. Which is very, very good populist tactics. You describe accurately what has happened, but then the solutions that are being offered. In Gary's case, it's a wealth tax, which we know would just make things worse. It would mean that normal people end up paying more tax because you chase out all the rich people. What we should have in our country is as many rich people as possible, so the rest of us pay as little tax as possible. That's what we actually want. And likewise on the right, you know, you and I both agreed that, you know, anyone who's here illegally should be removed. And that's a big job. It's a big job. We've got a million illegal immigrants in this country and at the moment we're removing about 10,000 a year.
- [16:08]
A
We're chipping away, mate.
- [16:10]
B
We're not though, because we're letting more in than, than we're deporting. Yeah, no chipping away. So it's getting worse. So that's the point I made to Alice, that even if we stopped letting anyone in and deported people at this rate, it would take a century to do it. And of course that has to be done. People who are here legally should not be here, they should be removed. And we should have things in place to encourage not only them to leave, but actually people who are just net takers. If you are here from a foreign country, you're not British citizen, you shouldn't have any access to benefits. And the moment you take that incentive away, lots and lots of people will leave by themselves. But there is this idea on the populist, right, that the moment you achieve that, the moment you deal with the issue of illegal immigration, which by the way, will be very difficult. It needs to be done, but it'll be very difficult. Suddenly Britain will be transformed into this like magical universe of milk and honey.
- [17:06]
A
You know, it's going to be Enid Blight in Part two.
- [17:08]
B
Yeah. I'm not convinced that that in itself will solve this country's problems. You have to have a credible economic policy, you have to have a credible approach to, to government, to the economy. You're gonna have to work with the civil service, sorry, you're gonna have to, sure, force some of them to leave. But that's a big job in itself. So you have to have rational, evidence based policy that's actually gonna work. But the populist model is simply to shout about how bad it is and how badly you've been let down and how you got here. And you see that on both left and right.
- [17:43]
A
And that's a really good point. And whilst you were talking about that, an idea came into my head and I want to explore it with you because I've just had it. So it may not be a good idea, but let's play it out. It seems to me populists on both left and right are in love with silver bullets. They think that if they solve this one thing, everything will be better. On the left, it's inequality. Inequality is huge. I'm not denying that. I think that it is one of the major issues of our time. I think it's incredibly serious.
- [18:16]
B
Sure.
- [18:17]
A
But if wealth inequality, if you somehow get the magic bullet for that, we've still got a whole host of other problems in this country.
- [18:24]
B
Yeah.
- [18:25]
A
And again, with the right, mass immigration, illegal immigration has. It's a huge problem. It's a huge problem, and it's contributed to some really, really serious issues within our country, within our communities, the stability of our country. I agree. But the idea that if you have a silver bullet that solves that, the rest of it is gonna be perfect. I'm like, guys, come on, we need to live in the real world. And unfortunately, this is the issue, because when you are the outsider, when you're a disruptor, it's very easy to come along and point fingers at people and go, this is wrong. This is bad. It's like walking in on someone's relationship or someone's marriage and going, oh, you're not doing this. Right. You're not doing that. Yeah. All right. That's easy. What's actually difficult is to try and fix a relationship from the inside.
- [19:14]
B
Yeah.
- [19:15]
A
I'm just pointing at one thing and going, well, you know, you do this and you do that. Come on. We actually. We're adults here, and we need to start thinking about balanced solutions that actually you can execute in real life.
- [19:29]
B
Yeah. And this is why, you know, we invite every single leader of political party in this country of prominence. We either have already interviewed them, or I are actively trying to interview them all. Zach Polanski, dodging us so far. Ed David, dodging us so far. Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham, dodging us so far. And Rupert Lowe. Every time we interview a politician, the comments are all saying, when are you going to interview Rupert Lowe? It's not up to us. He agreed to come on in. February still hasn't made it happen. And you know, I'm hearing a lot of things on the grapevine about how it's actually a reluctance on his part because he doesn't want his arguments interrogated. I don't know if that's true, but that's where we are. Most people think they're informed. In reality, they're selectively informed. Modern media doesn't just tell stories, it quietly decides which ones you never hear about at all. That's why I use Ground News. It's the only app that compares how the same story is covered across the political spectrum and show you what whole audiences are not being told. The Blindspot feed is one of my favorite features. Every day it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored either by the left or the right. Follow along at Ground News Trigonometry. Take this story. A major US poll found that Republican voters confidence in Trump's economic leadership has dropped sharply during his second term. That is not a minor data point. If you only read right leaning publications you would have missed this completely. On the other hand, look at this. The UAE drops UK from scholarship list over radicalization concerns on university campuses. That's a significant story. Yet coverage from left leaning outlets was almost non existent. Ground News puts all of this in one place. Headlines, bias, breakdowns, ownership and context so you can actually understand what's going on, not just react to what you're told. Go to Ground News trigonometry to get 40% off their unlimited vantage plan, the same one we use, and stop being managed by the media.
- [21:23]
A
And look, I really do think that if you are a politician, a major politician, I don't think the mainstream media is the place anymore that if you want to get your ideas across in the most effective way possible, where you're not going to get interrupted, you're not going to get straw manned, you're not going to get misrepresented, you're not going to get talked over. But what about this? And what about. No, you will, come on, you'll get a fair hearing and you are going to be heard and listened to by a broad cross section of society. I remember when we started this show and the comedians in the comedy industry were like, oh, it's all right wing, it's all straight white men. I know, I went, I know, it's brilliant. They didn't laugh. Anyway, we'll move on. But the people that I meet when I'm walking around London, they are people of every creed, color, hue, background, profession, gender.
- [22:16]
B
It's all everybody and they all hate you.
- [22:18]
A
And they all hate me exactly.
- [22:19]
B
Equally.
- [22:20]
A
Equally. Well, some more equal than others, in the words of George Orwell. But that's. And that's why I'm so proud of the platform that we've built, because you can have access and we will be fair. So if you want to come on, if you want your voice to be heard, if you want your ideas to be challenged in the fairest way possible and you're given time where you're not felt like you're rushed or, or we're going for the sound bite or we're going for the clickbait, this is a place to do is.
- [22:52]
B
I agree with you, but I also think we are somewhat victims of our own success because as you say, you know, we challenge people, we ask them questions, whoever that is. When it was Kemi on the show, Kemi Bedenok, we pushed it pretty hard. Nigel Farage at times, especially the last interview, we had to ask him about all these financial allegations and we dug pretty deep. And now, you know, that was a world exclusive interview, by the way, for the very reasons that you say, which is for a lot of people, they know they're not going to get a fair hearing in the media. So they will come to us because they know we will ask them the questions that need to be asked, but we'll do it fairly. So there are people who are willing to do that, but the incentive structures of the Internet are such that it actually doesn't quite make sense. And Nick Fuentes was another good example of this. When we offered to interview him, he was interviewed by Piers Morgan, but he wouldn't, he wouldn't be interviewed by us. And the reason is it actually makes sense for Nick Fuentes. If you are someone who's controversial, so to speak, you either talk to people who are only just going to listen and agree with everything you say and not going to push back, which people do a lot. Or you want to go on a. If you're Rupert Lowe, you want to go and be interviewed by Emily Maitland because she's going to be so, so irresponsible with her behavior and so confrontational and so unfair and so biased that just by turning up and being normal and answering questions and being quite robust in defending your point of view, you achieve a lot of success. But what you don't want is people who will listen to you and give you a fair hearing, but will not be unfair in their challenges, who will challenge you on the things that you need to be challenged on. That's the most difficult interview to actually do for a lot of people. And so maybe the appetite is not there for that. And, you know, you see it every time we interview someone like Deborah Francis Y or Alistair Campbell or whatever. It sort of feels like it's gonna be harder to get other people on after that because they see that, you know, if they don't have good answers, it's gonna come out.
- [24:55]
A
Yeah. And I think that's a real danger that what the Internet will descend into, and you can make a very cogent argument that it's already getting to that place is where people just talk to people that they agree with. And that's a really bad place for our society and for our democracy to be, because we need to talk to people that we disagree with. Otherwise, how are we gonna find out ideas that are bad? We've all got bad ideas, we all think dumb things. We've all got ideas that are great. But actually this part of your idea isn't great and it needs sharpening. Or maybe you just need to get rid of it, or maybe you need to actually acknowledge that, that the person sitting in front of you who you disagree with might very well have a point and therefore you need to update your thinking and as a result of that, become a more rounded thinker. But if all we do is just go on pods where people agree with us, we're never gonna get to that place. And now all that's gonna happen is we're gonna get more and more political polarization because people can say things that are simply bad ideas or factually incorrect, but if no one's there to push back on, then these things are gonna be seen as truth or facts. And like I said, that's unhealthy. It's unhealthy for the Internet, but far more importantly than that, it's really unhealthy for us as a society.
- [26:15]
B
Yeah. And that's why there's an open invitation for all the party leaders in the UK and lots of other people that we often invite on the show to come on and discuss these issues in a fair way. We'll see what happens.
- [26:27]
A
Well, we absolutely will see what happens. I mean, that's not the only thing that's happened this week, obviously, the football. I did a little video.
- [26:36]
B
Yeah, you did a video explaining, with very, very good arguments, factually based, why the Argentine football team is full of cunts.
- [26:43]
A
Yeah, exactly. And you know what? They were really, they were really on board with it. They heard my arguments and they were very much open to my persuasion.
- [26:52]
B
Well, I enjoyed reading the comments they were mostly in Spanish, but I could. But you know what was interesting is I think one of the most, like, prominent comments under that video I saw was an Argentine going, if you said this about anyone else, you'd be called racist. And it's like, you can't criticize someone's football team anymore for being cheating twats, which is what they are. I mean, the England game was atrocious. And then they kicked off in the final. Cause they're terrible losers as well.
- [27:21]
A
Yeah. And they literally punched a Spanish player who full fair play to him, walked away. Another one they grabbed and threw on the floor. This is on the final whistle. And then when Spain were lifting the trophy, they as a team turned their backs on him. You just go. And everyone's like, oh, but Messi didn't do that. Yeah, but that's like saying, all right, here's a family of sex offenders and this one's all right. Like, come on, really?
- [27:49]
B
I can see why you're not that popular in Argentina.
- [27:51]
A
Yeah, it is, it is. But I was really happy that Spain won because if we're talking about this on a really basic level, like your son, in a few years he's going to, hopefully he's going to, you know, get into sport and watch sport. Would you want that as the example to set to him? This is how you play. This is how you win. This is how you win. Vamos. They say, Nicolas, this is how we do it now. No, it's shameful and embarrassing.
- [28:20]
B
Yeah. Speaking of shameful and embarrassing, I was really disappointed with England because they were having a great tournament and then in the semi final, you're one nil up and you just suddenly, out of the blue do the same thing that all the previous managers have ruined England with as well, which is just go super small C, conservative if you like, or whatever the term is just very risk averse. And actually I think it's. It reflects the values of the culture that we have today as well, which is there is a risk aversion and a fear of making a mistake, partly because of the way the media are and the way the public, the football public are. I mean, let's be honest, if you're the England manager and you go for it, there are a lot of people who are going to say you took a too risky approach and you weren't protective enough and you didn't park the bus when you should have done or whatever. And you and I were watching it together. I mean, trying to hold off Argentina by camping in your own Box for half an hour is never gonna work.
- [29:24]
A
No, it's not gonna work. And it was exposed. But I think. And you did a really good tweet about this where you said there's something and you were talking about the culture and it's such a good point. It's that we have this culture now in the UK and it hasn't always been like this. I don't remember it being like this 30 years ago. Where we want to play it safe, where we want to be looked after. Risk is so important to life. If you're not going to risk anything, you ain't going to get anything. Doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, applying for that job, asking the girl out, you know, just saying, wanting to do something, booking that holiday, whatever it may be, applying for a job, starting a business by playing it safe. In life, all you get is more of the same and you're going to get angry and you're going to get frustrated and at the very deeper level, we're left with what the semi final gave us. You know what the emotion the semi final gave you, me and everyone else who watched it, regret. What would have happened if we'd actually gone for it? What would have happened if we just threw saccharon or all of our attacking players and just really went for it? All right, we might get beaten, but you know what, you'll get beaten, but you actually look. Be able to look at yourself in the eye, in the mirror and go, I gave it my best. Instead of capitulating and flaming out and thinking, what could have been. You don't ever want that. That's why I love it when we go to America. I come back and I feel re energized because people. I say to people about an idea, they're like, go for it, man. Over. Here you go, I've got an idea. People are like, I mean.
- [31:06]
B
I mean, who does he think he is? That's one of the things they'll think.
- [31:10]
A
Yeah, who does he think he is? And number two is like, oh, yeah, but what if it goes wrong? Yeah, but then it goes wrong. Right, but at least you tried. At least you tried.
- [31:21]
B
Well, it's not all bad. England got third place
- [31:25]
A
in the bronze final.
- [31:27]
B
The bronze final was actually very good because that's where all the pressure was off and everybody was just having fun.
- [31:32]
A
Yes.
- [31:33]
B
Kind of the point, right? You just play with that positive attitude. You just do better anyway. And so we've got England bronze medalist. If you Like. And we have a new Prime Minister now. As we're recording this, Andy Burnham stepped in. He will save the country.
- [31:58]
A
Mate, I can't.
- [31:59]
B
Come on, mate. He's not gonna wear. You two are moving in opposite directions. He's not wearing a suit and tie anymore. And you are, mate.
- [32:07]
A
That's our producer laughing, by the way. I just. I. I'm glad we're having this because I think this is really important to have this conversation. I'm profoundly uncomfortable with what happened with Burnham and Starmer.
- [32:24]
B
Stop being homophobic. What happened with Burnham and Stalin?
- [32:29]
A
Well, the fact that the Labour government, it started basically. I mean, there was other factors involved. Wes Street Inc. Walked out of his position as Health Minister, put a vote of no confidence. Then they had a by election where the Labor MP stood down. And then Burnham came in. He won the by election. Starmer capitulated. He's now in. What about us? Do we get a say in it? Do we? Do we? Do we?
- [32:58]
B
No.
- [33:00]
A
What's his mandate?
- [33:02]
B
He doesn't have a mandate.
- [33:04]
A
And now he's putting in policies that isn't even in.
- [33:07]
B
In the manifesto. No, I mean, look, the Tories did the same thing. They had Prime Minister after Prime Minister after Prime Minister, none of whom was elected in the general election. It's the. They will say. It's the parliamentary system. But what's happened with Burnham is like. I mean, those boys don't about, like, this coup was incredibly well orchestrated.
- [33:28]
A
One could almost say Soviet.
- [33:31]
B
Very, very well done. Stam, of course, is going out saying, you know, he's left the country in a better place. I don't know that I see a lot of evidence for that, but fundamentally, I was asked by somebody to talk about it on their YouTube channel, and I was just like, I don't think this is particularly significant because I think under Burnham, things will carry on as they were going under Starmer, broadly speaking. And this is the point Farage made when we had him on last week. The fundamental state of the country is what's driving support for parties like reform. I don't think that's gonna change with Andy Burnham. I don't think there's any evidence of that.
- [34:15]
A
The problem Burnham faces is a problem that faces the Labour Party and to the same, or maybe even slightly lesser extent, the Conservative Party. You have within labor, this broad coalition of groups, everything from hyper liberal progressives through to old school lefties. Then you've got the people who are the center left in the middle, sort of Lib Dem adjacent. Let's just Call them what they are and everything else in between. And Paul Embry, we had on the show many years ago, who made this point in that these people have relatively little in common with each other.
- [34:50]
B
Yeah.
- [34:51]
A
So in order to hold them all together, it is practically impossible. Or you need a Tony Blair, like once in a political generation type of politician.
- [35:04]
B
Yes. And also, you gotta remember Tony Blair came in after a very, very, very long period of Conservative government. Right. So he came in as the backlash against that being in power for so long and won a huge mandate that allowed him to transform the country. It also coincided with a much better state of the economy, et cetera. Whereas now the economy is screwed. And so what you have is Starmer, now Burnham, who can't actually do. I mean, we've got an amazing interview with Peter Hitchens coming out later this week. And this is what Peter talked about, which is the state of the economy, such as people have been conditioned to expect the government spending to be what it is, which is way beyond what we can afford. And at the time when the economy is not growing partly because of government policies like net zero, like overtaxing business, et cetera, or taxing employment, making it more risky, having the highest industrial electricity prices in developed world, you put all that together, there's nothing they can do. There's literally nothing they can do. And so the fiscal crisis that Farage and Alistair Heath and other people have talked about on our show seems like it's coming, whether it happens under this labor government or under the next government or whatever. It's just. I don't think there's a way of getting off this path, because the options that you need to be able to execute on, to change the direction of travel aren't politically available because the Labour Party won't do them. And the Conservative Party wouldn't do them either. They didn't do them. Right. It's about getting the country to live within its means. And that's not currently happening.
- [36:41]
A
No.
- [36:42]
B
And Burnham isn't going to change that.
- [36:44]
A
Burnham is not going to change that. But. And it's a question that we posed to Peter in our interview with him, which is, are we living in the age of delusion? And there is a very coherent argument to be made. We are living in the age of delusion, particularly when it comes to economics. And somebody. If somebody doesn't want to. If Burnham doesn't want to tackle this, somebody is going to have to, because we are going broke. We are absolutely going broke. And people that you and I know and respect, who work in this area. We're not public people, but they are people who are very high level. We sit down and we go, are we as screwed as we think we are? They all go, no, it's worse.
- [37:27]
B
Yeah.
- [37:28]
A
So we're going down this road. When are we gonna decide to make a U turn? And if we don't, what are gonna be the consequences of that? And I'm gonna be honest with you, mate, that is the thing that terrifies me the most. That is the thing. Because people in this country, they'll go, the 1970s and of course things were bad. You've never seen a country go broke. You've never seen hyperinflation, You've never seen it when things get really bad, and I'm telling you, it's terrifying, a breakdown of law and order when people just feel that they can just take whatever they want because there's gonna be no repercussions.
- [38:14]
B
Well, we have that already.
- [38:15]
A
Yeah. I mean, yeah. But even, even worse than that, it's honestly terrifying.
- [38:21]
B
It's amazing how much gaslighting there is about it. Because I've talked in the past about street crime in London, petty crime, et cetera. I don't live in London. I go in every now and again. I literally, with my own eyes have seen someone get mugged twice in the last 12 months with my own eyes. Yeah, I'm not talking about a mate of a mate told me about a thing. I'm talking. I have seen somebody get mugged.
- [38:43]
A
I've been using Ultra pouches for a couple of weeks now and I just want to get straight into why. Because I was deeply suspicious. Ultra pouches are nicotine and caffeine free. What's actually in them is the interesting bit. They've worked with neuroscientists on them. So it's not just mint and hope. You've got Enfinity px, which is a smoother, cleaner energy lift than caffeine gives you. And Alpha GPC for mental sharpness. L theanine, which is the ingredient that keeps you calm rather than jittery. And B6 and B12 in there for balanced energy. So the pitches, the focus without the crash and none of the stuff that keeps you up at 2am wondering why your heart's racing. My favorite flavor is Cool mint. I find I'm using them as a post lunch afternoon boost. I am 44 after all. Ultra is the ultimate guilt free pouch, delivering instant focus and mental clarity without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use Code trigg to get 15% off@takeultra.com that's takeultra.com for 15% off with code TRIG. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support the show and tell them we sent you. Once again, that's takeultra.com for 15% off with code trigger. I mean, I live in a Shishi North London suburb. It's very nice. You know, there's about 12 different bakeries, all do different types of sourdough. I very much enjoy myself. I went into the off license because I was going to visit a mutual friend. I was going to go buy a bottle of something. I went to push the door, it was locked. The guy opened it and I was like, oh, are you locked? Are you shut? It's 3 o' clock on a Friday afternoon. He went, no, no, no. It's just people run in, take stuff, run out. I went to get new glasses. Thank you. They do look nice. And I went to the optician, same thing. They unlocked the door because people ran in, just snatched the frames and ran out.
- [40:41]
B
Yeah.
- [40:42]
A
And you go, this isn't what it used to be like. This is not what it used to be like. And I get really annoyed when I hear, particularly people on the left going, oh, this is being racist. I know you're gaslighting because what this is is a fundamental breakdown of law and order. And this is how it was with Venezuela. Like, every time I went back there, I used to go Christmas after Christmas, after Christmas to see family. And every Christmas I would go back, you'd see things get a little bit worse. There'd be another, you know, it would be another point of degradation year after year after year. And you see that in this country. And the only way that is gonna get changed is if we get people who are actually gonna start to make some really difficult and unpleasant policies. But that need to happen.
- [41:36]
B
Yeah. But again, we were having this conversation next door with the rest of our team and someone said, we need grownups in government. I was like, how are you gonna get grownups in government when the public are refusing to be adult about this? I mean, that's a fact. I'm sorry, I don't mean to insult people, but that is a fact. The way the current electoral system works is basically you've got children voting for how much candy they're gonna get. Yeah. How many sweets are you gonna get and how late you can go to bed? And now the labor government, for gerrymandering reasons, obviously have given the vote to 16 and 17 year olds as well. Right? So you've got a population who've been trained to believe that the government has to solve all their problems. The cost of living has gone up, the government's supposed to fix it. The energy price has gone up, the government's supposed to fix it. Covid's happened, the government's supposed to fix it. The government is the solution to everything. We sort of refuse to accept the reality that some things can't be fixed, some things just are. And it's your job as an individual to do your best to cope with them. But if you have a society in which now way fewer than half of the people in this country contribute in terms of tax than take out of it, then what you have is people who are net takers voting for more taxes on the people who are net contributors. And that's where we are. And that's why we keep getting governments in power who refuse to do anything about it. Same in America. Same in lots and lots of other European, Western countries. The public are not being adults about this. I'm sorry, they're not. That's a fact. That's a fact. You know all this talk about, oh, the rich need to pay their fair share. The top 10% of people in this country pay 60% of all the tax income of all the income and corporation tax of all the income and capital gains tax, not corporation income and capital gains. 10% pay 60% of all the tax. And the rest of the country is voting to increase the tax burden on them in order to pay for things we can't afford. And until that changes, you can change your Burnhams and your Starmers and all these other people like their gloves. It's not going to make any difference at all.
- [43:43]
A
And this is what people don't fundamentally realize or understand or want to accept until on a very basic level, we're sick and we need to take the medicine. And at the moment, the medicine does feel like chemotherapy and chemo does make you very, very ill, but if you don't take the medicine, you will die. And it really does feel existential at this point. Everybody I know who's got money is openly going, yeah, yeah. Have you thought about taking your money out of the country? I'm like, why? And they were like, well, because of this. X, Y, Z. And these are people whose job it is to do that. They'll go, how much money have you got left in sterling? How much have you got in your savings? I'll be like, this amount? They're like, yeah, you need to take that, you need to. Let's, let's, let's put it into gold, let's put it into silver. Let's put some of it into dollars. You don't want that in sterling. Because when the, when the currency collapses, I'm like, what do you mean, when? And they went, well, if we carry on like this, it will.
- [44:45]
B
Right, of course. Because you can't afford to keep printing money and borrowing money and then spending it on things that don't generate a return like the standard economic model of borrowing money for. It makes sense. You borrow money to invest in things. Things, yeah, right. You create jobs, you create infrastructure that pays for itself. But if you just borrow money to pay welfare, which is what we do, that's not productive. We've got millions of people now who are not in work in this country who could be working, and we're paying for them not to work. It's not sustainable. It's not going to work forever. And. Yeah, and by the way, what happens when people take their money out of the country? Well, it's not invested in anything in this country. So again, it impacts jobs, job creation, wealth creation, et cetera. So. And until the public are willing to be honest about this, nothing will change. And I honestly don't think that that mental transformation is going to happen until the crisis happens. That's why we've talked about this before. I'm an accelerationist. I think. I'm not saying it will be a good thing, and I'm not saying it's likely to be a success, but if there is a way of getting out of this trap we've placed ourself in, it is to have a fiscal crisis which forces people to confront the reality that we can't afford our lifestyle as we have it.
- [46:02]
A
Yeah, I just, it's just gonna hurt a lot of people. That's my, that's my concern and my worry.
- [46:07]
B
And that's why we've all been saying we want to avoid it.
- [46:10]
A
But, you know, you know, it's just, just the politicians, when they talk, you just go, we're not talking about the things that matter because we're not adults. And that's partly the fault of the British people because you get the politicians you deserve.
- [46:29]
B
And you also have a media, let's be honest, that doesn't want to talk about any of this. They'd much rather talk about trivia about individual people who said this, who did that, who was quoted slightly wrong out of context on a podcast. All of this other stuff that's what they want to talk about, they don't want to talk about the fact that, that our way of life is not affordable. We can't, we cannot continue to live like this, because if we do, the bill will come.
- [46:57]
A
Yeah.
- [46:58]
B
And Andy Burnham is going to take us there. Whether it's going to be faster than Starmer or slightly slower, I don't know. I suspect they'll be faster.
- [47:05]
A
Well, the great thing about Andy Burnham, for Andy Burnham is that no one really knows what Andy Burnham believes.
- [47:12]
B
That's been a big benefit to him so far. But now that he's Prime Minister, he's no longer gonna have the luxury of having that position. No, because whatever he believes, he's gonna start taking actions and those actions is what he's gonna be judged by. And if those actions are not delivering change that people want, he will become deeply unpopular and very quickly.
- [47:35]
A
We've already had a clue of what Andy Burnham believes in that. We've seen him say that they made a mistake over Gaza. That was one of his public statements, one of the few that have come out, which shows that he's trying to appeal to the left wing, progressive side of the party and also the side of the party that has defected to the Greens. So we're gonna see if he's already made concessions to them, if he's already gonna try and make economic concessions. Is he gonna bring in things like rent control, for example? Is that what he's going to try and do? Is he going to try and do other very hard left economic policies, wealth taxes, for instance? I mean, this is the thing that worries me. I don't really know a lot about Andy Burton. I don't know what his policies are, I don't know what his worldview is.
- [48:27]
B
No one does. I mean, if you remember Dan Hodges, who seems to be his biggest advocate, if I'm looking at social media, when we had him and Julia Harley Brewer on our show on a livestream, we kept asking Dan what Andy Burnham, with whom he's worked in the past, stands for. And he would say, well, lots of people think he stands for this, but actually there's no evidence of that. But he never said what he does stand for. And that's because I don't think anybody really knows because he's been very, very skillfully concealing his views, if he has any from the public. But all of this is about to go away. All this Andy Burnham looks, he's got nice hair and wears a T shirt and he's from the north and he's a nice guy. All of this is about to evaporate because he's going to be confronted with the reality of government. And in government you make decisions and you are held to them and those become your opinions, whether you like that or not. And sure, I mean, he said the thing about Gaza, look, credit where it's due. He scrapped digital id.
- [49:28]
A
Yep.
- [49:29]
B
The plans for it, which is good. They did leak that they are going to produce oil and gas in the North Sea potentially. Maybe have rode back on that. We will find out. So he may be doing. He may be signaling all things to all men, he may be signaling something to the far left while also signaling something to the right of his party or even the country. We will find out. But the one thing that he's going to have to do now is actually make it known what he believes through policy. And the moment he does that, he's going to become very unpopular very quickly, I think.
- [50:01]
A
But you know, the most important thing about above it all, it's not going to be dull.
- [50:07]
B
It's not going to be dull at all. So there we go, another update. And make sure you check out. We've got a fantastic interview with returning guest Dr. David Butterfield coming this Wednesday. That's about the Odyssey and assuming nothing major happens, Peter Hitchens on Saturday as well.
- [50:23]
A
But yes, and there's one thing that I do want to mention as well that we've talked about before, is that this labor government are proposing to bring in a policy whereby content from approved state broadcasters is going to be up ranked and content from independent creators, shall we say, like us, like us will be downranked because it's really important that people get the facts.
- [50:48]
B
Yeah, of course. And YouTube is already trying to push back, but they've also asked content creators like us to push back. And so if people watching this, if you actually want to continue to have access to this type of information versus what the BBC and other state broadcasters give you, then you've got to subscribe to the channel, you've got to smash the like button and most of all go to triggerpod.co.uk and become a supporter of ours on Substack.
- [51:14]
A
Yep. Because it's looking like the, shall we say, the icy claws of censorship are getting ever closer. So please give us some money.
- [51:24]
B
Relax. Relax. This is not an ad. If you're not a fan of ads, but love trigonometry, join the thousands of Trigonometry members who get extended interviews, no ads, early access and the ability to submit their own questions for upcoming guests Sign up now@triggerpod.co.uk or click the link in the description of this episode.