#29 Being a low status conservative on the wrong side of history with Ed West

Professor Bryan Caplan coined the Ideological Turing Test which measures whether a person truly understands an opposing political or ideological viewpoint.

To help us pass the test when it comes to conservatism as a school of political thought, Ed West takes us from St Augustine to today whilst making some challenging observations from a position of both deep knowledge and ideological humility. We cover many subjects including:

The Broken Age Curve: Why, contrary to historic beliefs, people born from the mid-1970s onward are entering middle age without adopting traditional conservative voting habits or lifestyles.

Human Nature & The Blank Slate: Exploring the ultimate divide between the progressive belief in human perfectibility and the darker, Augustinian view of mankind as inherently flawed.

The Media, Academia, and Status: How conservatism became a "low-status" viewpoint in the arts, media, and universities, and why academia breeds such bitter ideological battles.

The Post-Christian Right: The rise of secular right-wing subcultures, the "Manosphere," and how the collapse of traditional religious frameworks is leading to political sectarianism.

Unintended Consequences: A look at how well-meaning regulations—from rent controls to modern slavery legislation—frequently backfire in the real world.

Ed's substack, The Wrong Side of History is an entertaining, funny, and educational forum which he describes as "political-commentary-with-history." The latter being his great passion which shines through in his posts.

You can find him it here https://www.edwest.co.uk/ or on X https://x.com/edwest.

This podcast was produced by Matt Cooper (https://linktr.ee/thisismattcooper) with music composed by Loverman (https://open.spotify.com/artist/6mH930VvONxn76Kqpnixjy).

Transcript

Introduction

Speaker 4 0:00

Politicians are that um medium often like quite repulsive. The number of uh professors uh between right and left have been extreme, and as a result, uh younger students uh much less tolerant of opposing views. We have two conflicting human instincts, one of which was a natural curiosity about the world outside our village, and one of the natural fear. Most people get their politics from their parents. The idea that conservatives think slavery was good, it looks a bit a bit bad.

Speaker 3 0:29

Hello

Why Talk About Conservatism Now

Speaker 3 0:30

and welcome to Meeting People with me, Amul Pandya. Meeting People is a podcast where I have long conversations with rebellious, adventurous, and sometimes courteous free spirits. Ed West, thank you very much for sparing the time. Welcome to the Meeting People podcast. Um, as you may or may not know, I've had a few guests to talk about classical liberalism, so people from the IEA like Chris Snowden and Kris Niemitz.

Speaker 4 0:59

Great guys.

Speaker 3 1:00

Uh Eamon Butler as well from the Adam Smith Institute, and I had a someone who you may not know, uh, a gentleman called Andrew Phemimester, who's a history lecturer at King's College London, who specialises in radical thought or radical progressivism and or radical liberalism, and we kind of spent a lot of time fleshing um those ideas out with those various guests. It feels like the next logical thing is to have someone to talk a bit about a less popular part of political thought at the moment, let's call it conservatism, and try and uh unpack it somewhat, see what the limit cases are, see where it where it's needed, maybe it's due a revival in some way. Um and why I thought you'd be the perfect guest for it is I read your excellent book, Tory Boy, which came out a few years ago, is it 2019?

Speaker 4 1:47

Yeah, uh no, 2020. It came out the week that lockdown happened. So my pessimism was totally justified.

Speaker 3 1:54

Yeah, so more pessimism as you come up with there we go, everyone, it's definitely worth the read. And we'll come up with some other things that Ed's written a bit later. Um interestingly, Tory Boy's got a sort of Harry Enfield title later. Yeah, is that the origin of the name?

Speaker 4 2:12

Well, it was originally called Small Men on the Wrong Side of History, which is where the subset name comes from, but um the publishers changed it for the paperbacks um for some reason. Publishers tend to do that. Uh but yeah, I suppose that was an homage to um the Harry Enfield character, which I suppose kind of summarises what people of my age thought of young Tories, and obviously it's got worse since. So, you know, the kind of the book is about how um uh basically, you know, the idea that um people become more right wing and more conservative as they enter middle age is no longer true. Yeah. Um and I think I think there's I mean there's been data since then kind of proven that people who are born from about uh midpoint in the 1970s and beyond, um, they are not as they've entered their 30s and 40s, they've not become more right-wing in their voting habits, um, and in many ways not even their lifestyles. And that's the um and that's really the first time that's changed. It's just something I noticed amongst my friendship groups who were who were just becoming kind of even more liberal as they got older. And I thought that represented a real kind of seismic social change that had become kind of permanent, um which kind of left people with a kind of more conservative.

Speaker 3 3:28

One of the things that you flesh out is why that is, or you you try to answer it from various perspectives, and what's really refreshing about your book is that you you you understand that you know there are limits to to conservatism. You know, there are times when it goes wrong, there are times when it you know uh is applicable, there are you know downsides to what causes it as well as upsides. Um what what it reading it reminded me of another Harry Enfill sketch, um which most people may or may not know. You know, the women know your limits sketch? Yeah, yeah. So for people who haven't seen that Mr. Chummy Warner. Mr. Chummy Warner, it's it's set in, I think I'm guessing the 40s um or just just after the war, and it's very black and white, it's a very stuffy dining table.

Speaker 4 4:15

A map of the globe with Britain gigantic, even bigger than the rest of Europe.

Speaker 3 4:18

Exactly. And it's sort of dinner, there's this polite, this polite dinner conversation going on amongst um stuffy upper class men and some uh upper class women, and the the subject turns to politics. I think it's the gold standard, you know, whether we should leave or stay on the gold standard. And the men are talking, and then all of a sudden one of the women sort of pipe up and there's a sort of tension there, and the lady kind of goes, I think we should stay on the gold standard, or I think we should leave the gold standard, and gives a very thoughtful uh argument either way. And the men are kind of aghast at this, the fact that this person, this woman has decided to kind of pipe up and make her I do remember that sketch, yeah. And um they kind of the the narrator's voice then comes in saying, Women, you must know your limits, don't step out of your lane. This is your kind of stay in your wheelhouse. Yeah. And it kind of feels like people of a small c conservative persuasion have had that done to them for the past, let's say, 10-15 years, where they've they have something interesting to say about how certain problems of management.

Speaker 4 5:25

Oh, so we're the we're now the women. Oh, right.

Speaker 3 5:27

Exactly. I don't mean I was Mr. Chunkley, wasn't it? No, no, no. So you you know, you you'll be in a social one will be in a social gathering and you know we'll be talking about economic problems or crime or you know whatever it might be. And a conservative may try and come up come above the parapet and go, well, maybe it's to do with kind of a decline in marriage or something. Yeah. And the everyone else will be like, conservatives know your limits. This is you know, you've had your chance. Is that a is that a kind of quite a tortured sort of it just made me think of it would you see that?

Speaker 4 5:56

Um I think we we are our ideas are fundamentally unpopular on certain levels. Um, probably the main one is the darker uh uh viewpoint of human nature, which conservatives take, which is incredibly unpopular, and I think it's very unsuited towards the kind of late 20th century mediums. You know, television has a huge effect on people, it really does encourage uh a much more sentimental worldview, um, and that's probably accelerated with uh social media short form, which is now the dominant, you know, which is like one-minute videos, which is just television, but like stupider. Um conservative politicians are in that time in that um medium often like quite repulsive. Have you ever been to any kind of right-wing gathering and you look at the people talking and think, God, we are really we are loathsome, we're like the bad guys. It's like uh visually conservatism comes across not visually, but when it's articulated, it can come across as cruel or callous. Um I think it actually works better in print as an argument. Um, and that comes down to I think our fundamental idea about man being fallen um and tied up, including to sort of genetic ideas, because uh progressives tend to believe in the blank slate, and uh maybe we'll come back to that, but that's such a huge part of the progressive worldview, and then if you don't believe in the blank slate, then those kind of ideas tend to fall apart. Um yeah, so the kind of even you know, like the word kindness is kind of like left-coded now because like being kind is seen as well, yeah. Yeah, fairness, oh yeah, fairness even more so. I mean, fairness tends to just mean communism, but um uh in the absence, I mean, the huge part of it in the absence of religion and a kind of religious doctrine and a religious structure, you know, Christianity in this case, um, people's kind of moral anger tends to become kind of secular, but it also tends to become political and left-wing. So being left-wing is about being kind, it's being about being fair, it's about giving and sharing. Um, and this becomes kind of like a rel almost like a faith with its own, you know, creed all matters. Um and so you you know, if you're a conservative, you are sort of outside of that faith and that religious group. Um and people instinctively tend to distrust people who have different beliefs to them, yeah. It's just very ingrained in us, um, you know, and just as kind of religious hatreds in the West have kind of died down in the last couple of hundred years, kind of they've kind of been replaced by political one, you know, so r relig you know, political sectarianism, uh, which is now far more developed in the States, but is also very much here which which comes which brings quite similar um aspects to old religious sectarianism. Like, I wouldn't want to live next to someone who believed these things, I wouldn't definitely wouldn't want a family member to believe one of these things. Um, the idea that people who believe these different ideas you are like generally uh like bad, um, they want the worst society, they are kind of a threat to the social order. These are all the arguments people made against religious tolerance in the 17th century, um, which now people would look back and say, oh, that's ridiculous. But that they generally believed if you had this business belief, you were a threat to the society and you were evil. Um, and I think as um you know, as the left has become very dominant in certain sectors, obviously the academia is the most obvious example. The media, if you look at the data on how journalists tend to see themselves, and it's completely drastically changed since the 60s. Um, but also the medical profession, even other other areas. I mean, obviously, most areas of the states, you know, people and my local council apparently all cheering and drinking champagne when Margaret Thatcher died. I I mean, whether you like or not, it doesn't seem I doubt that they would do the same for a politician on the left. I don't think when Tony Ben died, there'll be many conservatives sort of parties. No, I think there would have been bad form, but it becomes you know, it's human nature that if you uh end up in a kind of social structural group setting where you never meet people of different political belief, you would tend to start to hate them uh and start to think the worst of them. Um and I think that's just happened um you know most extremely in academia where you know the kind of imbalance on um in the number of uh professors between right and left has become extreme, and as a result, uh younger students uh you know are much less tolerant of opposing views. And I, you know, I I this is obviously a very well-trodden kind of like cultural issue, but I do think it's important that people entertain uh the opposing views because just may uh even for their own sort of sanity and kind of well-being, it's quite good to stress test your own beliefs and see how they come across, you know, when the when tested.

Original Sin Versus Blank Slate

Speaker 3 10:55

So let's try and at some point unpack how how that why that has become so, why is academia or the media or whatever it might be become so overwhelmingly uh one-sided? But before we do that, can we kind of go back to the beginning or take a step back? You know, you you talked about original sin, I think you talked about the bright slate. So can we start with Pelagius, St. Augustine? Right, so then who were they? What what why why do those two people matter to where we are today?

Speaker 4 11:24

And well, in very brief um summary, this is uh the the early this is uh what we suppose we call the dark age is the very late late antiquity. Um and the two Christian writers who basically summed up the view about whether mankind was inherently wicked or uh whether mankind was um good. St. Augustine is the sort of original um I suppose the original conservative in the sense that his view of man was that yeah, we have fallen, you know, he's famously was you know um kind of sickened by his own lust and his you know behaviour with women and all that. Um I I think I might mention you know, he's like the prototype of you know how the culture imagines conservatives, which is all kind of like sexually tortured kind of um people. Um and I don't know, I mean I wouldn't know enough about theology to say with confidence, but I think overall throughout the church history, the August uh Augustine's idea about um mankind being fallen's has been um certainly more influential. Um and that that is kind of the precursor. So you know, like politics basically, as we understand it, sort of really starts in the 18th century, the French Revolution, yeah. Um, and that's soon after you we start um uh the the term conservative is used. Um liberal is a bit older, but um these ideas and I mean socialist doesn't come in about until a few decades later in the 9th century, but um these these ideas have sort of distant ancestry in old Christian um beliefs, but um this division between uh supporters of the existing hierarchy and um the people who wanted to bring down those hierarchies really yeah, really beginning France.

Speaker 3 13:16

So your kind of the manifestation of believing that man higher man mankind is inherently wicked, yeah, is that um is was Thomas was Hobbes effectively that you know we need to kind of have a stability, we need to have order, we need to sort of have a strong um approach to crime and punishment, and that that that's the kind of precursor in some ways to conservative.

Speaker 4 13:45

Yeah, I mean Hobbes is uh a funny figure, he's just incredibly uh incredibly pessimistic and gloomy about um about mankind, about his own prospects, about everything. I mean he lives to a ripe old age. You can actually um uh see his where he lived at Besset Hardwick's house, uh which name I forget um in uh Yorkshire. He he was uh he was a tutor to the king, he was you know he lived from the late uh Trudy era all the way throughout the Stuart times, um, and he was sort of basically persecuted by both sides during the Civil War, upset them for different reasons. Um but his you know his his basic understanding is yes, without strong authority, everyone's gonna just start killing each other. I I think he's essentially right if you look at stuff like you know, like murder rates or homicide rates before state formation, then there's I don't think we've ever found one where there isn't appallingly high rates, you know, up to 50% of males getting killed. Um so he's he's always been contrasted to Rousseau. Uh I mean we could also talk about Locke, it's slightly different. Rousseau, uh, writing a bit later, he is although he's you know kind of he has a sort of conservative angle to him, aspect to him, but he's also the kind of prototype of the 1960s man, which thinks, oh you know, mankind is inherently good, and and it's just like the system man that's keeping you bad, you know, keeping you noble savage is that really noble savage, you know, man is free but kept in chains. Um and you know, he was sort of surrounded by sort of loads of women who fancied that him uh because he taught a load of like trendy crap and he treated them really badly, and you know, it's kind of he's yeah, he was a 960s man before before the time, uh, and that's the kind of um that that became much more popular after the Second World War, which is obviously a big part, a big kind of like psychological shock to the Western natures. Lots lots of our ideas about human um uh about human nature become strangely, you think ironically, become much more positive. So the idea becomes promoted that humans are inherently good. Yeah, um, there is much more of like child-focused education that children uh you know don't need to be sort of disciplined and bust around, they can just kind of find out what they you know want to do. Um when I was growing up in the 80s, you know, under Ilya, I don't know if you remember them the the kind of communists who used to run school at schooling in the education in London. Uh that was you know very kind of uh popular, fashionable thing, and it's kind of Blair who got rid of a lot of it. Um but even you know, in all areas the idea of like man as being a gentle creature. I mean, even um you know, in archaeology, the pots aren't people ideas became very popular. That you know, when you see there's like one culture uh living in one place, and then a thousand years later they're all gone, and someone else has come along, and then the the idea was like, oh no, they all just kind of came along and adopted the culture of the people next door, and that's how they all suddenly all look different. And then now we look at DNA, it's like no, the the 9th century people were right, like it was like kind of the barbarian every time the people next door just came in and like killed them all, and yeah, um, and that's what really happened. But um, yeah, the Rousseauan idea about humans being inherently good becomes much more um popular only really in the late 20th century, and and it's still I mean, even though noble savage has been kind of completely, I suppose I know, pretty much discredited amongst all um kind of Stone Age peoples who looked at, yeah. Um it's still I suppose it's still very popular. It's just a kind of more optimistic way of seeing the world, right?

Speaker 3 17:27

Because yeah, um but and that that from there, I I I think I think you said it was from Pelagius, that kind of from there springs natural light rights or natural law where you know human beings are fundamentally good and therefore they need they just need um they need to be unleashed and need to be um not not have barriers put in their way. And this is this is uh a big part of radical thought, which we c we covered with Andrew Femester. Um and that sort of like where I'm sympathetic to it is that kind of caveat mTOR like we need to let people make their own mistakes and learn the learn the kind of downside of those mistakes rather than try and nanny them or tell them tell them what. So that's where I'm trying to kind of understand where does the you know that view of conservatism that doesn't like state interference because the state shouldn't be telling you how to live your life, how does that kind of marry with the fact that actually it springs from original sin?

Speaker 4 18:31

Um we need to kind of the problem for conservatism is that um a lot of these things

Losing The Church As Moral Anchor

Speaker 4 18:40

uh were done by the church basically. Right. So the decline of conservativism in Britain is so intimately linked to the decline of the Church of England because you'd have the church um which will be your moral guide, uh, and then your bishops will tell you what to do, and then you'd have your politicians who basically ran the country. Um and now we have politicians who want to be a moral guide, so they all talk about everything about whether a rapper is sh is should be playing at a concert, uh, and they they love to get involved in these issues, which are essentially moral ones, and and I'm not sure uh it's any use MPs saying anything about that because we don't no one respects them, and their job is basically to come out with laws which don't backfire spectacular, which you're not very good at doing. But society does need moral guides, there has to be someone. Um we're not kind of complete, you know, free radicals. Um so without the church, who does it? I guess it probably ends up being the state, but they're just um or the media, as you put you, the media likes to be the moral guide. The media, but I mean, if you look at you know, look at most journalists, do you want these people to you know being your moral guide? They're you know, most of us are just kind of degenerates, this you know, awful people. And and and the media, even the media now is just is just way too anarchic, which has kind of happened with all institutions now, they're all sort of breaking down into their own little things. So you as a society you want you want you basically want a series of like rules, instructions for people to to uh how to you know go about their lives, which are kind of they can play with. They say, look, and this is like the Charles Murray argue, it's like so it's best that you do this, it's best that you don't start getting into drugs, it's best you don't get someone pregnant in your teens, and it's best you try to focus on these kind of core things, and that's the best way to go through life, but there isn't actually um there aren't enough um kind of those signals instructions from society to tell people that and a lot of people get trapped, and it's not just people in the underclass, you see a lot of people completely messing up their lives because you know they're surrounded by basically like a pool of kind of like counter wisdom about the you know, it's like the Reddit things like if you ask Reddit, so no, you should just leave your leave your husband and say, Well, no, it's like disastrous things to do generally.

Speaker 3 20:51

Um, one of the sure wife, surefire ways to screw your kids up is to be very wealthy because then they don't you know you you're it you tend to be a terrible parent if you're very wealthy, you don't let you spoil your kids, you don't let them, you're you don't you can't you don't spend any time with them, and then they if there's no moral anchor, whether it's r religion or some some sort of adherence to custom, which is what you've talked about, like there's sort of customs that have built up over time that are a guardian against anarchy, effectively. Like if you do this things that people have done for a few you know thousands of years, they're likely to probably Yeah, it might not work.

Speaker 4 21:32

But the chances are it's probably um you're playing your are wealthy people want it to be terrible with parents, you think?

Speaker 3 21:37

Super wealthy people, so hype. So like I think my kids would like to take that gamble, but maybe they don't have well I think you know the Vanderbilts, for example, they're great, you know, the the the I I guess there are certain families where that's not always true, but the big robber baron families, you know, you had that entrepreneurial kind of low expectations but a high graft. Founder and then the kids just degenerate because they are into the Yeah.

Speaker 4 22:05

That's probably uh regression to the mean though, isn't it, right? I mean one genius is not going to produce necessarily genius and it's not gonna continue. I mean you have to be very lucky in a family to do that, so eventually they're gonna mess it up. I don't know.

Speaker 3 22:18

But let's say a kind of lower mid, you know, if you if those kids were born into a lower middle class family in a suburb which, you know, right they might where the norm was to kind of there will be like social norms and social expectations would uh guide you, and that's um that's uh an important um kind of framework for most

When Progress Becomes A Purity Spiral

Speaker 3 22:40

people's life.

Speaker 4 22:40

I mean I think you know the I think I could do pretty good cheering test of like ideological cheering tests of being being a liberal. I I think there are lots of good arguments for liberalism in its kind of truest sense. Um I I just read that the Adrian Woolwich book on um liberalism is very good. You know, and I think the the main thing is like you know, so that's the 80s-20 rule, so you know, social reforms, most social reforms, most people benefit from them. Um and then for a small number of people they're disastrous, right? Um and then you still have to ask, well, overall it's good, right? Um, you know, the most famous one probably like divorce reform 60s. Uh that's obviously disastrous for a lot of people, but if you look, you can actually probably quantify that in like declining female suicides, like more people have probably been liberated by that. Yeah. Um overall, and um if you look at like you know, gay rights easily in an 80-20 margin, probably more. Um I wonder if with progressivism these things inevitably have to be taken to like their total extreme, like trans rights people maybe maybe example of that. Maybe there is something in um the kind of progressive mindset that means you know things always have to be taken because it's kind of a competition, yeah.

Speaker 3 24:01

It's that purity spiral. So you're kind of you're a vegan, you start a vegan, right, and then you kind of go, well, almonds are really bad for the environment because it's not.

Speaker 4 24:08

Then you end up with a breatharian who eat nothing.

Speaker 3 24:11

Yes, exactly. You kind of then you can't eat avocados, and then you can't and then and what I what I think is interesting about conservatism versus other ideas is that um well, the the Western mind is sort of very easily seduced by kind of linear rationality. So, like what I mean by that is like you know, if a certain amount which you've touched on, if a certain amount of something is good, then double the amount must be double as good, and then you keep going and um you get that with you know one of the one of the most uh sort of sceptical, uh pessimistic, kind of self-conscious people was Darwin, for example. Right. But his followers took his stuff to such an extreme, and the same with Plato, arguably, the same with um with Hume, and yeah, that kind of belief that we that that you talk about eschatology, is that the right way to pronounce the word where like there's a promising thing. Eschatology versus like conservatives that kind of are instinctively fearful of sort of things that are universal and can save the world, right?

Speaker 4 25:19

Um you mean sort of heading towards an end time where we'll kind of like conflict resolved and everything's good.

Speaker 3 25:23

All we need is more socialism, more socialism, we're kind of we'll get there and yeah.

Speaker 4 25:29

Um yeah, I mean, one aspect of it is just you know, life is a balance and it's a trade-off and and it's good, it's a mixture of I mean, I think in most uh in you know perhaps one argument for what we're going through now is you know, like if you you're you're steering a boat, you're constantly you're like overcompensating, you're kind of you know constantly going on this, and we're just in a period of kind of massive overcompensation moment, uh, and identity politics is a reflection there, and it's not like the worst thing in the world. I think I compare like modern leftism to like type 2 diabetes, it's like a product of like our lives being actually really good. Yes, so it's better to live in a society where people got type 2 diabetes rather than like cholera or black death. Um, and it's because we are relatively well off and most of our problems are dealt with that we have to start focusing on that stupid stuff, uh, and that's maybe just a kind of correction.

Fascism Taint And Tribal Instincts

Speaker 3 26:25

Let's um there's what I see is kind of two blind spots to conservatism, so let's cover one of them, which you talk about in the book. So it's quite popular amongst internet commentators to say, well, actually, you know, fascism is a left-wing thing, yeah, and you know, look, it's the clues in the name uh national social media and that was very big around 2008.

Speaker 4 26:47

Yeah.

Speaker 3 26:48

And it was quite, you know, an easy thing. So well, you you're a bit more you know circumspect about that, and you say, Well, actually, there are some between fascism and conservatism, there are some overlaps or some roots.

Speaker 4 26:59

Yeah, it's that they're definitely you know related in some ways. I mean, fascism, I mean supposedly it's probably better easier to talk about Nazism, slightly different, but um, you know, it used uh revolutionary class kind of tactics and violence um to counter the left, but it was definitely uh a right-wing philosophy, yeah. Because uh even if it had some uh some ideas which are contrary to kind of mainstream conservativism, it was much more it was anti-liberal by its fair nation, anti-liberal and anti-communist. Uh it was also obviously like very racist. Um, and despite what you know the the Democrats are the real racists mean, the conservatives are naturally kind of more group oriented. It's one of the things that you know you can call it racism or you can call it uh whatever term or kind of group preference.

Speaker 3 27:50

Um this is where you're kind of naturally there are certain people are naturally more fearful of outsiders, right? Whether maybe race-oriented or maybe just right. We say someone turns up outside your tribe and you're like, actually, let's be careful about this person.

Speaker 4 28:03

You know, you can go back to so a lot of it, so the the interesting stuff, which I think actually even some of the stuff written has probably been debunked now because everything in psychology is fake, right? Yeah, but there you know there are certain personality traits, and some of them do correlate with politics. Um openness to ideas is one of the five big personality traits, and that correlates very much to conservatism. So people who tend to be on the left, especially people who identify as liberal, more they like novelties more, so they're more likely to travel. Um I mean, when that one of the things they found when they did denazification after the war in Germany was they worked out how often people had been abroad and how much that how from many foreign languages they were, and obviously huge correlation between how much they were likely to support the Nazis. Right. Because you know, people who support Nazis didn't tend to like foreigners very much. Um, so that that those traits obviously correlate with politics. Um you know, if you did travel, you know, if you worked out how many people, you know, how often people spent abroad, you they would much more likely to be on the left. Um and so that you know that we have two conflicting human instincts, one of which was a natural curiosity about the the world outside our village, and one of them was a natural fear. There's you know, for hundreds of years there's a chance someone stands me a village, they're gonna give you the plague, you're all gonna die. So it's kind of a um a natural kind of human fear. Um, you know, and that that is countered by that curiosity, which is probably one of the best traits amongst um people uh who you know called liberals progressives, uh and that openness to ideas is one reason why there is always an imbalance in the arts because openness tends to correlate with um left-wing politics. I mean, so does neuroticism. I mean, those and those things are not unrelated, so um, you know, all those kind of stereotypes are true. So, yeah, like it's it's no for people to say, you know, um it's no point denying that conservative conservatives tend to be um more narrowly attached to their tribe in that sense. Conversely, people on the left are probably more ideologically attached to their tribe, like their tribe is people who agree with them on politics, you know, it's like refugees welcome but not Tories kind of thing. Yeah, um, and and they're obviously completely ignoring the fact that a lot of these outsiders will not have socially liberal views, and that's just kind of a thing that people have completely tried to put out their minds without you know thinking about the consequences.

Speaker 3 30:30

Is and how much of politics is you're kind of draw you're drawn to supporting someone or a side because you find the other side more annoying than you do yourself.

Speaker 4 30:42

Oh, it must be, I mean, that must be the reason for huge factor, right? Yeah. Uh I I I think so many Americans vote because they just can't stand the other side, and whether you and loads of, you know, like loads of people voted Trump and they can't stand him as an example. They just can't stand Democrats even more.

Speaker 3 30:58

I'm not, yeah, like I'm not I'm not a you know the man's got many flaws, which we're all aware of, and but I kind of preferred watching meltdowns about him winning than I would. Oh yeah, I think I would have. Yeah.

Speaker 4 31:13

I mean, obviously it's disastrous, and now we're all worried that the you know the global economy is going to collapse. But we had the lulls at the time, and it was yeah, it was worth it.

Speaker 3 31:22

Um but sorry, yeah, just going back to the fashion that that's where the kind of know your limits thing maybe comes from, is that you know, conservatism or parts of it got taken to an extreme and manifested in World War II.

Speaker 4 31:34

Yeah, no, I think it's completely tainted by association. Daniel Bell called it that you know he called the Nazis the the last last ugly gasp of the right in in kind of culture, because already in the 30s artists were overwhelmingly moving to the left because of the Spanish Civil War and the Depression, and that was kind of after that, it was conservatism was basically intellectually dead. Um, because no one really you know, you just like two world wars, you've lost like tens of millions of people in Europe. There wasn't that much of a uh desire to sort of defend the old order in the same way because it was so tainted. Um, and so you know, culturally since then the left has been very much dominant.

Speaker 3 32:14

And was there an element of like we've you know, as you say, two world wars, millions of people have died. Let's just have a blast, you know, let's just shag aro let's just shag around, let's doesn't matter how much we just give free stuff to everyone, free university, forever, you know, because we we just you know we're just exhausted and we don't want to be told that actually, you know, probably being married and not travelling and you know, or you know, getting a good job and and having a family and staying in your suburb is probably the right way to be.

Speaker 4 32:41

It's like we just there was a sense of kind of cultural exhaustion or I think there was the I mean that it's funny enough, I don't I mean, uh reading about the 20s, that seems to have more after the first of the war. There was a kind of reaction where people were actually purposefully, um, only amongst a certain kind of elite were living a very hedonistic life in response to the first of the war because they just had the trenches and they just wanted to sort of shag around and drink and whatever. Um I mean, well, it's in the 1950s, it was actually was quite a conservative uh decade in in most of the West, especially the states. Um religious attendance actually sort of briefly went up, and then the sort of 60s came along. I think there was definitely a sense amongst the boomers when they were younger, they were kind of revolting against the parents, sort of thing. There's like we're not we know, we're not fighting the war. And I mean, obviously, more so in Germany, there was this sense that you know our parents did bad things, which they did. Um but I do think it's hard to sort of take away the sort of technological aspect of this, like without the pill, certain aspects of sexual revolution were definitely happening before the pill, because you can find out by how many shotgun weddings there were, but it wasn't quite the same thing. Um people were already shagging around a bit, but they were about the button very quickly.

Speaker 3 33:58

That was quite funny. The button, yeah. The invention of the button.

Speaker 4 34:01

Oh, the invention of the button, yeah, yeah, 13th century, and it completely changed how um you know, clothes became gendered for most people, as they say now, so you could actually see. And like moral writers at the time were outraged that it's disgusting. You can see before it was shapeless sacks. Yeah, you're just like literally like a you know, you're a wearing a you know so cloth and uh like a peasant, and then all of a sudden, yeah, there's kind of racy tops, and people liked and people and men and women like walking around and showing their bodies, and yeah, um, this this caused outrage. People blame the Black Death on it and everything.

Speaker 3 34:32

Yes, the button was the pill, and and um so you kind of because of that, you've basically you create this ideological blind spot because people are so repulsed by they're the baddies, the way you described how like if you go to a conservative gathering, you know, you kind of feel people on the left have a have a they cannot see value in that area of political thought, and you kind of talk about I think people think they're just unkind, and um I don't know when I was growing up like the the there was a certain vibe within the Tory party which is kind of is quite repulsive, uh and you see that and you know even you know I feel that even that I'm right wing and I I think that as well.

Speaker 4 35:21

Um it's like when you see like the Bush you know administration and Cheney and like Rumsfeld all together and just saying, wow, these guys, these guys would be the baddies in the film, right? They just look like baddies, um they're you know, like the on the side of evil, violent, you know, corporations and all that kind of stuff. Um I I just think maybe it's just because we've all been kind of raised in this visual kind of Star Wars culture where that's how we see do you do you agree that the kind of the medium is the message in in many ways? I just I do think um television had a huge effect on the culture in that sense. Um and it definitely informs how how people get their political views if they're not um if they're not kind of like coached in other ways, you know. On the other hand, I mean most on the other hand, most people get their politics from their parents, so I mean there is to a certain extent, so there is that.

Speaker 3 36:17

You talk about the kind of culture being dominated by the left for academ um films, TV, yeah. Um and you quote Lisa Goldman in the book. I've got a quote up here that you I should say, by the way.

Speaker 4 36:31

I mean, obviously I read that I read the book like this. I probably forgot everything. I probably wouldn't agree with anything in it now.

Speaker 3 36:36

Well, that's I do want to come onto that. It's kind of now that you've got some distance from it, right? What what are the reflections? But what this was quite, you know, I'm not quoting you, I'm quoting her. So she was the um artistic director of the Soho Theatre who, you know, when she was someone must have challenged her. Like, why are there no why are all the plays left wing? Why don't we do any kind of conservative? And she goes, you know, what would a right wing play have to offer? Anti-democracy, misogyny, bigotry, nostalgia of all kinds. Let's get back to a white Britain, that the slave trade had a civil civilizing influence, that women should stay in the home.

Speaker 4 37:12

I'd watch that.

Speaker 3 37:13

Yeah. But she's a she's a she's a smart lady, I assume, you know. She can't believe that 40% of the electorate, or people who 40% of people vote genuinely think that. Maybe do you think they genuinely do? Or is that I don't know.

Speaker 4 37:29

I don't know how much people just say things off the cuff. Uh, I mean, I just thought I remember that it just seemed like a really funny thing, because the idea that people thought slave, you know, conservatives think slavery was good. It is just it looks a bit a bit mad. Um I suppose this's a kind of caricature uh version of the different ideas, you know, conservatives. So, you know, conservatives generally, depending on how you value view it, are more sceptical about more women in the workforce. Even though it's much more saying it, they they'd be much probably they would see the value of there being more women looking after children. They just wouldn't no politicians say that, but I think overall, if you polled people by how they voted, that would they see it, and it'd be like a much more like normative family thing. Um as I say, you know, conservatives would have more uh right-wing views about race on average, then and I think I mean that would probably you could if you could probably poll people by every party, you'd that would probably be justified. So I think those are just kind of caricatural

Arts Activism And Right-Wing Anti-Intellectualism

Speaker 4 38:34

versions. But you know, the the arts thing is is funny because you know, lots of I mean, until relatively recently there were lots, you know, lots of much of the arts was dominated by right-wingers. It's quite a relatively new thing, the idea that um and out of that, you know, has come the idea that the art should be about politics, it should be about being an activist and pushing message, and I think that's having that's had a really kind of corrosive effect on art generally. It's just so it's so boring. And um it's just kind of a runny thing where I feel like I have to go to the theatre because I'm just gonna otherwise turn into a moron who's like an anti-culture kind of daily express reader. And literally every time I go to the play, it's just the same.

Speaker 3 39:12

Yeah, but you're but you're equally scathing about the conservative side where you say it's sort of deteriorated into sort of anti-intellectual yobbery in some ways, kind of shock jocks. Yeah, yeah. There is definitely a sort of yeah, I don't want to name name, yeah, but like you know, there there's no sort of sensible people don't don't don't you know, or intellectual people don't um aren't able to kind of articulate why what parts of conservatism are worth worth following.

Speaker 4 39:42

Is that yeah the the the kind of um the shock drop element is a big thing. Is it there's a sort of element within the right which is against nice things, you know. Like if you if you admit to like liking nice food or going to nice places in the south of France, you're just like a traitor when you should only just eat that like the worst scrappy British. And that's how it's like okay, the left is really. I mean, this Christine Nimitz is always you know, this is one of his regular funny jokes, you know. It's just like the left is really good at those things, just like let them have it, it's fine. Um but you know, yeah, on a kind of more intellectual level, I suppose there is a unwillingness to articulate what we believe in. But you know, I suppose that a lot of it comes, you know, if it comes down to a few core points, say are you if you're on the right, you probably for the most important thing is probably unintended consequences, that's what you believe in. So this is something that our lawmakers are you know currently terrible at understanding, and I think it's partly because MPs are whatever party they're from. Yeah, the Tories were just as bad. Um you know, the most obvious example. So the the the Green Party kind of depressed and worried me, and the idea that people actually want to vote for them makes me like quite sad. Um, because they just seem obviously stupid to me. But what can you do? You know, like rent controls, like rent controls have been tested hundreds of times, and it's always has the same result. And it doesn't matter if you try to explain to people, it's like it's not gonna help the situation. That's like a classic unintended consequence. Um makes you feel good doing it. It makes you feel good doing it, but it's not actually gonna solve like anything you want to do. Um, you know, our previous government did lots of stuff about like housing regulation, which wouldn't have even actually saved anyone's lives in any way, but has just made housing just you know so much harder. Like the modern slavery legislation has just spent loads of um people just arriving here and claiming asylum through it. It's just like um all sorts of stuff about um you know equality regulation, which is a classic of our time, the current you know drama of Tesco are now fighting this um case uh which was going to put up the price of food, usually because one group of workers are paid more and they happen to be men, mostly men, and one group of workers paid less who happen to be mostly women, but they're doing two completely different jobs, and the ruling you know, our system, which has has kind of some communist aspects to it, now states that's going to be against the law, and and this is the thing that's basically bankrupted Birmingham um city. So the people who you know create this legislation don't seem to have um any understanding of uh what the actual human nature as well, right? Because people respond to incentives, um, you know, like youth unemployment is terrible at the moment, and we also have really high uh minimum wage for young people. My my elders are 17, it's very hard for her friends to get a job in the same way that once upon a time most people aged 16 probably had a job. That's it, it just seems the complete normal thing. You have a part-time job, obviously. Um if you make it really hard, if you make regulation really hard, then employment goes down. Um so I think, yeah, um, you know, so there are a difference between the basic, what I suppose you say, like the a conservative view of history and a conservative inclination towards more traditional values, and then um a kind of core set of beliefs which would make you oppose the left, and unintended consequences, the kind of latter, you know, example of that. Um I mean, one of the problems with conservatism and like articulated conservatism, you know, Scott Alexander had a really good piece once, I mean he's loads of really good pieces, uh and there was lots of you know young people saying, Oh, you know, they're sort of reactionaries because they want to um because they think you know we've all gone down around the turn. And he actually asks, goes through people, says, you know, what year would you stop? Like what year would you go back and don't actually know after that? And you know, in most cases, even if you self identify as being right wing, um you're probably like Like the 70s, or is it like as far back as you're gonna go? Um, because most of the reforms up to that point, um, which have survived the test of time, have overall been, you know, conformed to the 8020 rule. I mean, there's lots of things that have now been reversed, like prison reform, which was like disastrous, some of the educational reforms, but you know, the the bad ideas from the 60s of a lot of them have started to go back, so it's not so much of an issue. So, you know, one of the things I I suppose I would probably cons actually consider myself less conservative and more in just like being right wing, I think, because um you know I suppose there's a realization that there is what's conservatism is s s slightly associated with um the kind of period before the the sort of the great change in our society in the 60s. Yeah.

Post-Christian Right And The Manosphere

Speaker 4 44:53

Well you can be right wing, but you just have, you know, you're you're part of the modern world, but you know, your viewpoints are are towards this certain idea of what human nature is like and how we should run our society as a result. And you plus I'm not voting for the Tory Party again, so uh Yeah.

Speaker 3 45:09

You wrote more right more darkly, who knows what path the right will go without Christianity keeping the insanity in change.

Speaker 4 45:18

Yeah, I think like that think I was thinking about that the other day, someone reminded me that I think that that's quite that's not prophetic. I think maybe I was right. Um I I started thinking about the Nick Fuentes phenomenon and the Groupers amongst the youngsters in America.

Speaker 3 45:30

Can you explain that for people who don't know?

Speaker 4 45:31

Well, I haven't even I only actually I'd never seen one of his videos until it was sent to me by a friend who's actually Jewish and it was it was like it was some Zionist sort of group or something where they were kind of um laughing at one of his sketches about Israel because he was talking about much yeah, because Nick Fuentes is like a American kind of shock shock, because that right-wing young guy. Yeah, he's the right-wing young guy, Lisa Groupers who are kind of like extreme right kind of I suppose you call them white nationalists. I don't know, they're like very anti-Semitic, um, and they're you know, the whole the whole thing is basically uh you know, America's all gone wrong because it's become less white, and probably the people who were most responsible for that are Jews. I think that's I don't know if that'd be an unfair characterization of what they're saying.

Speaker 2 46:15

It seems like pushback. I don't know.

Speaker 4 46:17

But anyway, he was he was doing this video about Israel and they hate Israel because and and they you know Israel controls America, etc. And he was complaining about Israel, but he was doing it in quite a funny way, and and um people who liked Israel thought it was very funny. But he's obviously a really funny guy, he's very entertaining. Um if you're a a teenage boy in this kind of state of you know moral anarchy, which is teenage boyhood at the moment, I can see why it's you know very it's kind of quite an attractive idea. Um, you know, when I talk about moral authority, you know, like the the old moral authority, the churches, so basically collapsed in the 60s, like in some countries very quickly, like France, in some countries more slowly, but it was kind of replaced by a sort of you know the cent a centre-left secular like longhouse authority where you know the gravest sins are racism and sexism, be kind and be kind. But their their moral authority is kind of built on nothing as well, right? Um, and so then if their moral authority just collapses and a generation uh younger than them don't accept it, I mean that's Nick Frenzia's thing, it's like he just comes out and says, I'm a racist, because if that's the only thing you accuse me of, I'm just gonna admit to it, and there's after that there's nothing you can do. Exactly, you've taken away the magic power, right? Um, so I I think I don't know, I don't know enough, like I mean, young people anywhere, but uh young people in the states to know how influential they are. But that apparently, you know, that way of thinking is uh is quite popular amongst young Republican activists in the states, uh, and it kind of makes sense because it's like a truly post-Christian kind of worldview.

Speaker 3 47:53

Is it a reversion to like the manosphere thing, right? So um all these male internet influencers who kind of espouse some form of strength and domination. Right. And is this going is you know that as you say if you remove Christianity, is it kind of a reversion to classical antiquity or pre pre-Christian kind of Roman times where strength strength is the is the moral moral code?

Speaker 4 48:18

It seems like that. I would never call myself any kind of expert on the manosphere there because I always get confused between different people. Um I didn't um I mean, in the sense that yes, Christianity like evalues, you know, like weakness, sanctifies weakness, which is you know when Nietzsche sort of uh criticized it. Um progressivism is a sort of runaway Christianity in a sense, it's got so many similar traits to Christianity, but um, you know, without the kind of idea of original sin, but with some other ideas actually accelerated, and one of them is the valoration of weakness, you know. Like Tom Holland's quote about modern politics is about who gets to be on the cross is entirely um correct. And you know, you win an argument by becoming the victim, by making yourself the victim. Um, and it's entirely possible that a group of mostly young men, because politics is now so divided along sex lines, just completely reject that and say, No, I don't I don't care if you're the victim, you're a victim because you're weak and pathetic.

Speaker 3 49:20

It'll have an equal and opposite effect.

Speaker 4 49:22

Yeah, just like, well, well, I I'm you know, like a yeah, like why not go to a sort of pagan um kind of worldview? But you know, I I do sense that that is always gonna be a minority view. Um, partly I think because Western societies, the moral leadership has always been female dominated, generally, which I know sounds strange because the church was men only, but um the fact that women are overwhelmingly on the progressive less left makes me think it's still gonna be dominant.

Speaker 3 49:52

You talk a lot about status, right? So like being worried about local crime or worried about or like not liking lots of sex scenes or violent over lots of violence on TV is quite a low status. Mary Whitehouse, when I was growing up, it's like yeah, and and you know, like Christianity in its origins was a high status, you know, all the Romans wanted to get with the Christian, you know, the Christian women kind of drove. Well, yeah, eventually, yeah, it was a high status thing to be Christian.

Speaker 4 50:20

Women it it I mean it did win by it it definitely had more women um in its early days, and men were secondary converts.

Speaker 3 50:27

You can see we can hire, right? This is the the Roman centurion wanting to kind of he's fallen in love with a Christian woman and sort of I can't remember.

Speaker 4 50:34

I I watched it when I was is that what happened? Um I mean that happened the first the first English and the first French king of Coivardis, sorry, not Quivardis. Okay, you know that's a great is that Richard Burton? Is that one?

Speaker 3 50:44

No, uh it is it's not and the the guy plays Nero who's brilliant. Uh the actor Oh Biznoff isn't off, that's it, yeah, yeah. Well I mean the first American actor who plays the Centurion, I can't remember his name now, but yeah. Montgomery Cliff. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 51:00

I don't know, no I'm just uh uh well the first English and French kings who converted to Christianity were secondary converts, their wives, you know, yeah, have persuaded them to become Christian. Um so that was uh how it spread similar, Methodism was very female dominated. Obviously, we have much more data about that. Um evangelical Christianity in Latin America. Um because men, you know, it's important to men when they're proving themselves to women to seem moral because it's such an important quality and a trait in the man, because there are lots of really immoral men, and you're if you're a woman, you're just it's a huge risk that the guy's gonna be gonna be uh horrible to you, uh, and a good you know proxy for that is seeing what his politics are because um if he has nice politics, then as far as I'm concerned, he's probably more likely to be nice, probably more likely to be educated if we start. He's probably with caviar, it's less likely to be a sociopath because he is actually attuned to what the prevailing moral norms are. Although the problem is that people just lie. Uh yeah, they they do the cuttlefish thing that they uh yeah, they just pretend to sort of um uh you know be left-wing. But um, yeah, I do I think the general trend is that women will have more influence on men than vice versa in these political views.

Speaker 3 52:21

And to to use a another Tom Holland's on the sort of sacralisation of victimhood, which you've talked about is so there's a sort of compete, you know, men have to sort of show their vulnerability. Yeah, everyone's showing their vulnerability, and it's for a conservative that can be kind of a bit cringe. The and you say the origin of that is this sort of this marriage between Freud and Marx, which plays out in films like American Beauty, where the the the the Tory or the conservative is that yeah, the idea is you're really homophobic, you're actually gay type thing.

Speaker 4 52:53

Yeah, because remember you got upset that Kevin Spacey wants to hang around his teenage boy, son. I mean, what a bigot.

Speaker 3 52:59

Um how prophetic.

Speaker 4 53:03

Yeah, I mean that's that's kind of like not that's such a kind of shorthand code in in cinema that if someone has strong conservative religious beliefs, then there's the sort of underlying psychological problem with them that makes sense. Um in fact, I think most of the data is show, you know, most of the data shows that you know, like conservative, religious conservative people tend to have far fewer affairs, you know, they tend to like cheat less on their finances. I mean, like we we remember when they when they behave badly because it's in Congress, it's yeah, because it's in Congress. Everyone remembers you know, like the the the preacher who gets caught with a rent boy or something. It's a funny story, but it is overall probably against the kind of trend of things. I mean in the conversity is that we always remember the the kind of hypocritical leftist who sends their kids to private school. But overall, I bet they I bet they do it less than than right-wingers do. Uh we just kind of and I bet overall they actually do live in more diverse areas. Again, we just remember um when they don't you know live up to their own standards. But yeah, I mean our culture is very, you know, our culture is very saturated in irony generally. So anyone who has kind of profound uh I don't know, patriotic beliefs or something must be like something, there must be something wrong on their heads. Like, why do you even care, you know? Um all those things help to make uh conservative low status um something people kind of embarrassed the midst by. You know, that the the the the crime thing is um you know the classic example that you know Americans arguing about you know, like America, American cities which are much safer than they were like two or three years ago, but are still by any standards of any civilized country incredibly violent and and just anarchic. And you look around them, you think, how can anyone possibly live like this and accept their city centres are just full of insane people? Uh and there's a kind of reaction, it's like, oh well, you know, why are you even bothered? It's like just go and live in the suburbs because you can't handle like a homeless man screaming at you, and it's like no, they're just uh terrified of looking like bohemian, you know, like bourgeois and low status by actually saying the obvious thing, which is like, no, we don't have to live like this, we could just actually, but it's just like very cringe worthy and and it's is one of the reasons why academia is so overwhelmingly, you know, or underwhelmingly represented by conservatives is that it's it's a high status job with low pay because you kind of resent yeah yeah, you know, this I've heard the intelligence to net worth ratio, so there's a kind of you know you resent people with a low intelligence to their relative to their net worth as an academic, yeah, and and through the crude market forces that enable them to get that. Because you want status to be derived by other things other than money, so you know when the Green Party gets elected, your status as an impoverished academic whose Oxford contemporaries all earn 20 times as much as you in in the city will be will be raised. Um and I mean that's why academics are incredibly bitter people. I think Taleb said that because you know when you're when you're competing over money in life, then then that's actually quite a bit more honest. If you're competing over sort of prestige and status, yeah, then there's no end to the game. Who's in the audience?

Speaker 3 56:26

Is it the consumer or is it your fellow experts?

Speaker 4 56:29

Right, and and it's just so the the competition has to be much more bitter. Uh and that that's what that's what his uh explanation for.

Speaker 3 56:37

His definition of wealth is his definition of being wealthy was earning more than your wife's sister's husband.

unknown 56:44

Right, okay.

Speaker 4 56:45

That makes sense, yeah. It's all relative, right? Um yeah, so yeah, the the education to income um ratio does have a you can look at that on politics charts and see people who also have you know quite low education because they leave school early to become like a market trader and they make loaf in city, they they are solidly right wing.

Speaker 3 57:09

Yes, so Palantir is viewed as a quite a right wing company for whatever

School Scepticism And New Alternatives

Speaker 3 57:14

reason.

Speaker 4 57:14

I don't know enough about I feel like I should be on their side because the people are here who are against them.

Speaker 3 57:18

I I just know my well they obviously found you know Peter Thiel, who's becoming some more of a kind of an I you know a leader amongst conservative libertarian people across the Atlantic transatlantic right anyway, he's a he was a founder and early investor in the business. Um but what one one of the things that Palantir in the UK announced very recently, which was quite interesting, um particularly with uh university debt levels and this whole maybe the question of university being a valid institution or not going forward was the kind of palantier um internship.

unknown 57:55

Right.

Speaker 3 57:56

So you leave you leave school, you don't go to uni. If you're smart, apply and we'll pay you 50k, 60k, we'll give you the kind of work experience you need. You don't get you don't rack up the debt, you'll get you'll get sort of a better CV than you would have done. Had you spent three years getting pissed and drinking coffee for six hours, you know.

Speaker 4 58:13

Yeah, I mean that's probably it's probably uh it's probably not the worst thing in the world. I mean I do, you know, uh it's nice for people to spend, you know, three years getting pissed and um uh having fun. Uh I mean I do think farm there are far too many people doing it right now uh for uh uh for the state economy.

Speaker 3 58:35

Um so that's going to be so do you think you know universities should just go back to if you're really into 12th century Saxon poetry, you know, and you want to do a PhD on that, you know. But if you want to if you want to work in PR or want to, you know, be a a clerk and a butt, you know, just I don't bother to just go get all the time.

Speaker 4 58:56

I think at the moment, what is it like 45%? I mean I've got quite I mean my most libertarian views are on education. I mean I'm kind of I'm like a school abolition abolitionist in some ways. Um you know, I would say probably like 20% of people should be going to university the most, probably 15%, and like 20% of people should be leaving school at 14 to work, basically. Yeah. And then the rest stay at A levels. But that I I don't think society is quite ready for my my radical idea that people actually hate school and it's a waste of time for a lot of people.

Speaker 3 59:26

Ah, so I interviewed I'd love to send it to you after a lady called Rosina Darelli, who's looking to effectively disrupt the education system through she's designed a curriculum which the whole thing of standardized testing rote learning in an age of AI is effectively kind of dead. And what what kids should be doing is basically spending their time starting businesses, you know, growing food, learning, learning kind of proper skills rather than sort of sitting in the classroom kind of m memorizing.

Speaker 4 59:59

I I think it's good for for most, but I think if you look at well, this stuff after when lockdown happens and everyone started saying, Oh, the kids are gonna be all so depressed because they're all they're away from school, and I was like, I think most people hate I'm thinking most people hate school, right? Yeah, um, and I was just thinking my my own kids that they loved it. Um we've got a small garden, but I suppose it's some outside space, and they just didn't have to go to school. And then you looked actually data, um, teen suicide went down a lot, and it went and teen suicide correlates to the school term because you know you go to school where there's a guy literally the worst person in the world, and once you leave school, once he leaves school, you'll never have to go see this guy again. But until then, he's gonna make your life a misery.

Speaker 3 1:00:39

Um, and if you look at you get anxiety when you have to go and see that, you know, you know, oh it's horrible.

Speaker 4 1:00:44

And tomorrow I've got to like just like hanging out, and then um the bottom 20% academically, I think it's 20%, don't just learn nothing after 14, they actually go backwards, they actually they've achieved less than nothing in the last two years of school. And I remember them from my own school, uh, and they were just um just stopping everyone else learning. So I you know I do think a lot of people they should just be in work. I mean they can work in offices if they want. I think like 14 year olds should be able to work in offices, fine. This is my my most liberal and all schools should be privatized as well. Yeah. But um, although that might be a disastrous mistake, but I'd like to see it tried somewhere. I'm sure I think a couple of the US states are gonna do it, so that should be exciting.

Speaker 3 1:01:25

I'm gonna just take another quote from your book. Okay, you can go ahead. Um this is edXl, the the national curriculum examiner um that um defines what conservative ideologies for A-level government and politics are. Oh, great, okay, remember that. I don't know if you remember that way. The EdXL, which I remember from doing exams, this defines conservatism as limited conservative people as limited, dependent and security-seeking creatures supporting resurgent nationalism, insularity, and xenophobia.

Speaker 4 1:02:01

Yep, totally unbiased.

Speaker 3 1:02:02

Yeah, where whereas it describes socialism as being about social stability and cohesion, social justice, happiness and personal development. Like when I think of socialism, I think of all those things. Um the worst thing that can be said about socialism is it's an allusion to it's conflict as a motor of history. Anyway, it's it's quite, you know, to think that there's one department that designs what all education is with one curriculum and one way of learning today is is pretty.

Speaker 4 1:02:33

Once you have kids in the school system, well, you see how how like obviously biased it is, um and how much indoctrination does go on.

Speaker 3 1:02:43

Uh yes, and you you see that in kids' books, right? Well, a lot of kids' books, I don't know, your kids are probably too old now, but there's a big trend of children's books now. It's all about sort of like it's just therapy. There's no like it's like some the worry saurus, you know, that you've got this Oh I missed that thing.

Speaker 4 1:03:00

It was all about amazing women who did daring things or something when my when my kids were young.

Speaker 3 1:03:05

Or like you know, the the the kid just wants to get free from the shackles of family, and that was that was back then. I but now that's everything is your feelings, get in touch with your feelings.

Speaker 4 1:03:17

There's a there's the the Grumpy Saurus, for example, and yeah, how it gets into I think that's um I think that whole thing is uh really count gonna be it is counterproductive, I have to say. Um, but that that's probably my natural conservatism, you know. I think again, Scott Alexander said there should be a mental health unawareness week. Um he said just uh are you familiar with Adler?

Speaker 3 1:03:40

Alfred Adler? Yes. Uh have you done much? Um are we gonna I mean I'm gonna you because you you talk about he's like sibling order, that's the main thing, right? Uh possible. I mean I've only just come across him and I'm gonna I'm gonna butcher it, but because you only because you talk about Freud a lot in the book and kind of being that Freud was all about what they call etiology, which is kind of causation and determined sort of deterministic approach to therapy. So some things happen in your life, something outside forces impacted you to behave, become who you are, and you need to look introspect and look at your past and see what caused what what oppression or trauma caused you to have anxiety or behavioural problems, whatever it might be. And Adler kind of took the opposite view, which is basically was teleology. So, like the end, you know, we have created an end goal for ourselves, an identity, and all our behavioural um uh manifestations are furthering us to that end goal. So the end goals you should have, according to Adler, are uh threefold work, love, and community. Those are the three things that ultimately you know what I'm saying. Sound very wise. It seems very wise. Um and when you have uh anxiety or anger issues or neuroticism, um, or imposter syndrome, whatever all these things that we talk about, all those things are uh tools that your I your ego, your identity has created to get you away from those end goals and towards the the the end goal that you've the teleology you've crafted for yourself from an early age. So that's maybe a victim or it's a narcissist. Right. Or it's so rather there's no use introspecting because your memories are self-selected.

Speaker 4 1:05:23

I think that's the review, right? Sorry? So it's just gonna keep buggering on.

Speaker 3 1:05:27

It's it's this it's this which is KPO, and there's a thing called that's taken internet by is kind of a guy called who um talks about retard maxing, right, okay, which I'll send to you, which is uh on LinkedIn.

Speaker 4 1:05:38

I've never heard of it, but I I've heard of a hundred different things that sound like that.

Speaker 3 1:05:41

It's kind of a lot of Silicon Valley kind of tech pros and I'll give on about retard maxing, which is stop writing things down, stop introspecting, just do stuff. Right, okay. Get you know, just build stuff, learn stuff, don't think about why, just you know, try ten things, one will work, nine won't. Move forwards. Don't keep it.

Speaker 4 1:05:58

I do think um not. Dwelling on the past is probably a good idea and just like just getting on with life.

Speaker 3 1:06:04

Um, but you know, I'm and the culture of therapy thing that we do.

Speaker 4 1:06:09

That's uh I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's very personally personally healthy. You know, there it is, it it is worrying. Uh you know, I'm quite an anxious neuroscope myself, so the kind of level of anxiety in society generally seems to be um rising. And I think there is a kind of political culture related to that, which is about um the broader mental health thing, which is kind of making it worse.

Speaker 3 1:06:35

If you keep asking someone, are you anxious?

Speaker 4 1:06:37

Yeah, just it's like yeah, my advice, my advice myself is like just go and live for some weights and and um yeah, maybe retard maxing is the way forward, or just just kind of do try to do something constructively life, like make try to make things better in some ways and don't um don't like wallowing anxiety, um you know, but I think unfortunately the way humans are developed, uh a lot of people just can't psychologically live without religion. There needs to be some sort of church structure in their life, and it's just missing, and it's um and it's just too low status to start doing it.

Speaker 3 1:07:11

So um so you open you open the book with um conservatism is is fun is at the this is at the time of writing, so 2020, 2020, looks doomed barring an apocalyptic event or a Christian revival. Is the is the la is the latter possibly happening?

Speaker 4 1:07:34

I don't I don't think there's any evidence to um suggest at the moment. Um there was talk of it, but uh I'm I wouldn't rule it out. I I mean I I just think the the the date I mean eventually I think some people will probably just look at the data which and which shows that church attendance is such a big factor in well-being. I mean, it doesn't have to be church, obviously, or any religious group. Um uh sorry that makes me sound so insincere, isn't it? Just any religion doesn't matter. No, but I mean but yeah, but it's a thing of like going together, like singing, being in a congregation, meeting people on the sun, just getting out of your house, talking to people. It's human beings are you know, group. We are a very, very social species. Um, much you know, we're almost useocial compared to most mammals. We need uh to be around other human beings, you know, we completely wither if we're left alone. Um, we're very vulnerable by ourselves, we need to be around people, and a lot of people are just not not living that kind of life, uh, and instead getting their kind of sense of uh community like from like you know, terrible political groups and online groups and these kind of fake things.

Speaker 3 1:08:47

And this is the downside of activism, I guess, is that you're you spend your whole time worrying about the world game, you know, saving the world or the environment or whatever, whereas actually you might get a sense of agency by doing the beach clean or kind of picking up the granny and taking her to church because she can't make it on her own.

Speaker 4 1:09:06

It's like the kind of label low status things though, compared to much better just the big bit, you know, about the whole world. Um which I just see so it's just like it really annoys me when I read it and say with the world burning and everything going to hell, and I just think I'm pessimistic, but that's not really true, is it? There's lots of challenges, but you know, you could still take the Stephen Pinker argument and say, actually, you know, we've things are actually really good. Um they might get worse, but probably not. Um yeah, it's like that joke, you know, that common thing which I have seen of the Green Party poster in the front garden and the garden's a complete tip. It's like just start by cleaning up your garden.

Speaker 3 1:09:43

It's very Jordan Peterson's.

Speaker 4 1:09:46

That's why he's very popular because I think it's a lot of his um, you know, he he had the success of which a lot of kind of preacher types, which is mixing kind of some really wacky stuff with some like really obvious common sense which has been forgotten the culture, you know. Like just have some self-respect, and you know, men and women are different and all the kind of obvious stuff. Um yeah, I I think a lot of people probably would benefit by

Do Political Ideas Still Matter

Speaker 4 1:10:13

that.

Speaker 3 1:10:13

So we spend a lot of time trying to kind of unpack conservatism, see where it's gone wrong, see where its limits are. Do you one of the things that I've been thinking about is the sort of something that someone called Freeman Dyson talked about as the end of the philosopher king. So like you know, ideas do you know, do ideas have a causal historical role, or is it all about geography and demographics and technology? And you know, if you look at supposedly Aristotle and Alexander Alexander the Great had Aristotle and um so would these things all come up anyway? Well we well, you know, Pitt Pitt had Adam Smith, Margaret Thatcher supposed to you know, slam down Hayek's strategy of liberty, so this is what we believe in. And um the Earl of Shawsbury and John Locke were kind of quite, you know, he was John Locke was a big influence on the Earl of Shaftesbury. Yeah, today there is no, you know, it's a bit ideas don't really matter to consider to to politicians, whether it's David Cameron or Keir Starmer or Rishi Sunak, it's just it's all about the vibes and all about the kind of what's what's cutting through, what's on message, what isn't. And do we need a rekindling of interest in ideas again? Or are the idea are they interested in ideas and just you know like when Rachel Reeves comes out with something, she doesn't know it's based on something someone has said before her.

Speaker 4 1:11:35

Like no, I mean uh when who was the last politician who's really interested in ideas that way? Um it's only I suppose people on the sort of fringe of the party, you know, that your Dan Hernandez and stuff who Jesse Norman or Jesse Norman, yeah. Um, you know, then you've got you know, there are some I I think there are ideas I see bubbling around which I think are probably going to emerge. Um but you know, there is also the point that a lot of politics is just a reaction to something, um, and it's an attempt to correct something. Um you know, one of the things I am this is gonna sound completely like unlikely, but I do think there is uh I think there are the seeds of quite a kind of classical um liberal economically liberal worldview, coming back to Britain. Yeah, I I feel that there are a lot of ideas bubbling away, and I think there is a realization about the way the economies are structured in a certain way, which is actually contrary, and I think the most interesting ideas are often the ones that actually people read and think, actually, that's the complete opposite of what I thought. Um and you know, people have this idea that you know Britain is just sort of this kind of the bankers, the bonuses, and then there's that the billionaires don't pay anything, um, and that we have like you know, you know, neoliberalism is out of control, and you know, if you actually look at our levels of um state interference and state control, it's actually quite extreme, and I I do think it's cause of a lot of of our problems. I mean, obviously, you know, planning is the obvious one, yeah. Um, but I think that there are there are the seeds there of a kind of someone who's prepared to, and I think it's probably gonna actually happen with reform, even though I think the reform party can't really talk about economics because their voters are so divided on the issue when they are very united on the issue of immigration, which is like reform voters at all, like completely united. But if you look at their actual voters, a lot of them are gonna be very left-wing on economics.

Speaker 3 1:13:52

Um there's no there's no kind of maybe we're spending too much conversation happening.

Speaker 4 1:13:57

No, and and you know, unfortunately, my optimism is is like tainted here by the fact that we're gonna have to realise this because the money is really running out, uh, and uh um we can't keep on we can't afford this lifestyle we're living. Um and in some ways it's kind of worse than the 70s, in some ways not. Um yeah, I I think it would take a politician with a lot of kind of uh moral strength to actually do what needs to be done, but I think there's a chance that reform will if reform gets into power. I mean they might not, if it's a kind of green Labour coalition, then I think you're gonna accelerate. But I think we are also so much in debt that there's not much um you know, like a radical left government can't just take over and start printing money because it doesn't exist.

Immigration Ponzi Logic And The Blob

Speaker 3 1:14:46

But can you disentangle issue issues, let's say the two big issues, the economy and immigration, they're not two separate issues, right? Because they are the same thing in that we're in a bit of a Ponzi scheme where you've got a huge welfare state where you've got lots of free stuff, whether it's education and house, yeah, a lot of how free housing, free healthcare, and that's some people would argue created an unfair ex or or an unsus unrealistic expectation amongst native workers as to how much work they should be doing or willing to pay, and it's probably easier for them to be um on the take or on the doll, and then that's therefore subsidized by cheap foreign labour, that kind of content.

Speaker 4 1:15:35

Uh I think it's also aggravated by the size of the state, you know, like the NHS is one of the most uh immigration-dependent uh areas for that very reason. You know, if we say in this mad world where we had a higher proportion of private health care, which I know uh most European countries, it's not that much difference, is it? But um naturally doctors and nurses would be paid more because it's not a state monopoly. Um, and more people from Britain would go for those jobs. If you have a state monopoly, then obviously you're just dependent on, and and that's the same in loads of different sectors. Uh yeah, I mean obviously, you know, the problem with the conservative side is that every department will just say, Well, we want these exceptions and immigration because we don't we don't have the money to pay all these people. Um it is a Ponzi scheme. Um and I think it's just a short-term thing unless we decide amongst ourselves that we'll kind of create a sort of Dubai style guess worker thing where people will go home and are forced to go home after a thing. It's just not sustainable from a kind of economic or a kind of political or cultural thing. I just don't think we're I don't think we've got the stomach for that. Because there would there'll be too many hard cases. It would be it would seem too cruel.

Speaker 3 1:16:46

You've got a chapter called the Blob. This is something that you know people like Cummings talk about, or you know, then actually the people real people in charge are not the elected representatives, it's sort of this sort of deep state. Yeah, I mean the civil service run Britain. I mean, that's but it's not just a civil service, right? It's the quango. Yeah, yeah, the charity sectors and charity sectority sectors on the receiving end of the getting paid by the state.

Speaker 4 1:17:07

And then, you know, like in the case of Britain, the Rwanda thing, it was halted by legal objections by charities which are funded by the Conservative governments. Like you're literally funding your enemies to stop what you're doing. I mean, that's that's like the definition of an episode.

Speaker 3 1:17:20

Yeah, it feels it just feels so weird that we can't have an immigration policy that allows a sensible, you know, some skilled workers, a sensible number of people in. Right. You know, why is it so hard to get this issue right? And I'm sure Keir Starmer would love a lower, you know, gov get to get government debt down and to have like a net migration of whatever 50k a year or whatever.

Speaker 4 1:17:47

I think I think it's illustrated by you know the boat's problem, which is um you know, if you're pro-immigration sentimentally or by you know by temperament, then that is the one thing you've like that you should want to sort out because it's the most unpopular, it's so unpopular. It's in terms of outcomes, it's the worst possible form of immigration. You're like basically selecting men for propensity to criminality. Uh, loads of terrible cases, you don't know where to put them there, and you can't change the system. Their inability to solve that is uh is the kind of key to why the whole kind of system is kind of kind of crumbling down. Like there's I don't in 10 years' time, 20 years' time, there's no way we're gonna be in the refugee convention or the European Convention of Human Rights. I don't think anyone's gonna be there's that there's completely you know, and Starmer represents that, and that's what partly why on one level he's hated because he's he's like one of those crusty old communist leaders in the 80s who's you know he exists to just kind of perpetuate the system. He's not like a fire brand founder, he doesn't have those ideas himself. He believes in human rights laws, and that's what he believes in international law to such an extent that you know he wants to give away sovereign territory to a semi-hostile power. He he couldn't decide what a man or woman was until the court had actually ruled about it. It's just he's like such a such a robot, he's such a robot, and and he's not even his fault, he just he's completely in the wrong profession, shouldn't be a politician. Um, and he represents that system which I think is on its way out. You know, if you you you could have a sensible an immigration policy that you know doesn't satisfy most people but keeps most you know people in the like within a certain range happy and doesn't have terrible social consequences and selects for good people, um you know, but that can't be done while you'll kind of have this kind of outdated post-war idea about how the world works, which is what he has. You know, you have to be a bit more selective but also a bit more ruthless about it, um, in realistic.

Speaker 3 1:19:49

And are you broadly optimistic about Britain's

Britain’s Future Demography And Advantages

Speaker 3 1:19:53

future? Or are you broadly do you think we are in a kind of the world as yeah, this is the end of the Roman Empire type thing, or this is sort of gondor?

Speaker 4 1:20:02

I don't know. I I think I mean the next five years are gonna be quite that aren't looking great. I mean all the measures are um looking quite bad, aren't they? Um you know, I do worry that uh the demography is looking very bad. You know, two aspects of demography. I do think firstly is the age of population is gonna be a real problem. Um, you know, it's not the it's not terrible, population goes down, but it's gonna be incredibly financially hard, especially if people think they're gonna get pensions at 65, whatever, it's just not gonna happen. Or um that kind of money is running out, and the pressure on things like the health service are um gonna become unbearable because if people you know look at how much healthcare costs per age, it just rapidly goes up once you get into your 80s. Um the other one is like the immigration-related issue. I I think we you know, I'm not like one of those civil war bros, but I do think that as diversity gets to a certain point, the the risk of quite bad. Sectarianism, maybe some slightly violent, but definitely you know, politics defined by religion and segregation is it's I mean that that's already happening. Um, and if you just look at demography, then the risk of that becomes much higher. The way the further things and and things will things will change quite rapidly because um you know the white British population is a certain level, but it's much older, so a lot of them will you know die quicker. Um, so I think like the future place at Birmingham is I think it's gonna be um quite bad. On the other hand, Britain has like so many inbuilt advantages. Um it's like London is such a great city, you know. The whole area between London, Cambridge, and Oxford has such a huge number of like skilled, you know, so much like social capital there. And there's so many shouts out to Chelsea. Chelmsford, okay, Chelsea, yeah, of course. That famous quadrangle. Um yeah, there are there are so many uh attractions and it's still you know it still rates so highly for so many different measurements, you know, places to do business with like the legal system, that you know, I I don't think I don't think it would turn it would take much to take advantage of those turn around. Yeah, I I think so.

Speaker 3 1:22:28

Uh so let's talk a bit about your your day job. You know, you you've got this substack, the wrong side of history, yeah. Um and you do a lot of travelling is by the reads, by the sounds of it, from what I've read. Well, just well just the last couple of years, just but it's like you're almost becoming a travel writer then. But like writers. Is it a bit yeah, like you know, you you were in Barcelona this week or last week, and uh yeah, this week. You've been in Singapore, you've been in America. So, what what what what's caused you to do that? How come you've you know you're applying you know your views on political history theory to to to kind of going around the world and commenting on that? Like so you let's talk about Singapore, for example, and what your takeaway was from that trip.

Speaker 4 1:23:10

Yeah, interesting place. Um it was it's it's quite strict, they outlaw vaping, so I was so furious.

Speaker 3 1:23:20

Um anywhere and everywhere.

Speaker 4 1:23:22

Like literally can't do it, they can't buy it if you find you that they'll um they might deport you if you they find a vape on you. Yeah, no one vapes. Smoking's fine, which is ridiculous, but anyhow. Um Singapore, yeah, it was an interesting kind of place because they have a kind of model of multiculturalism which is um founded on you know the reality of their demography on their foundation. They had a very vulnerable situation. It was majority Chinese, but also Malay and Indian majority minorities, and they worried you know the whole thing could have just blown up, there were race rights, and so they kind of created the system which includes um sort of the state basically deciding where you live. Um it's you know, it's obviously very safe, so it's it's nice to be and not have to worry about your phone getting stolen. Um but it yeah, it's quite it's quite a strict vibe. Yeah. Um there are other places which are just as safe, which uh feel more relaxed, like Japan, for instance. Yeah, um, but Japan is also uh yeah, Japan was a real eyebrow um yeah, no, I didn't be to I didn't really been to the Far East or those parts of Asia before. I didn't I missed that I just didn't go travelling in my teens, which are great, and then in my 20s and 30s are kids or no money, and um, so now I I've just taken the chance to go to places.

Speaker 3 1:24:44

The youth is wasted on the young, right? And definitely you can get way more out of traveling now.

Speaker 4 1:24:48

Yeah, we've been to a couple of the we've been a couple of Asian trips. I can't we can't really afford it anymore, so we're not gonna do it. But it was indulgent, but yeah, a couple of them to uh took the kids to Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and that was really nice. Um, and I thought they might get something out of seeing something of a very different culture. It might be yeah. I'm trying to justify my bet I basically want to go holiday. Um is this like an parental thing? Yeah, I think it'll be it's good to you know see other cultures and see how things work. Yeah, um, it's always

The Long Bet On Europe Turning Right

Speaker 4 1:25:15

worth it.

Speaker 3 1:25:15

So, as you know, I like to kind of try and wrap these. Well, I think you know, I think I got my heads up, we try to wrap these conversations up with something I call the long bet, which is uh I guess we've kind of touched on it a bit, but um you've extended, you talked about five years, let's talk about ten years, let's extend the time horizon, make a prediction of something you think will happen in the next ten years or something you would like to happen, or both. Um, and all answers except kind of world peace, which I don't think I'm gonna hear, judging by what you've just said, uh, are welcome.

Speaker 4 1:25:44

Um well, I mean, I think the point that comes to the moment it's very hard to predict stuff except demography, which is already kind of baked in. Um so you know, we know we know uh we're all getting older, I mean all of us are obviously, but um the average age of Western countries is is you know rapidly um becoming a stage where I think that the competition to get young workers is really gonna be one of the characteristics of the um next few years. It's why I think I'm slightly optimistic there might be a sort of revival. I wouldn't say Thatcherism because Thatcher's so disliked in the kind of public consciousness. Again, she's kind of lost the kind of cultural war. Yeah, she what she lost the war of memory. But I think in 30 years' time she'd actually be more respected than she is now.

Speaker 3 1:26:34

With a bit of distance.

Speaker 4 1:26:36

I think once the kind yeah, once people have stopped watching those like Ken Loach films about the mines shutting down and just actually, if you look at the state of the economy in the 70s, um So I you know, I I do think there will probably be um a kind of slight ref return to some a more economically liberal uh policy in Britain government. I do think I do think reform probably will win the election. Interesting. Um maybe not, maybe in coalition with the Tories. Um I think the general trend in I know people would accuse me that this is just my fantasy. I think the general trend in European politics is still gonna be going to the right. I think the issue of immigration is so um unpopular and the centrists, I don't know how else to describe them, the people in charge. Yeah, well the center just the sort of the led by the EU. I just feel that they've they've just got no other ideas now. Um so yeah, I think there will be a general um shift to the right across Europe. I think in America it's harder to tell, but my my fear is that I think uh I think Trump. Like downsides, even though some of his policy, domestic policy, seems pretty good to me at a distance, his downsides, his kind of um his personality and the kind of economic costs of that war thing he's starting is just I do feel like we're gonna get like even more an even more crazily woke uh future in America. If you just look at the the the way that the he's kind of really galvanized people and much more so this time. I mean it's kind of reflected in the kind of the you know the the woke you mean like the woke right now.

Speaker 3 1:28:37

No, no, I mean the woke left.

Speaker 4 1:28:39

I mean like the um I I if they have a kind of a chance at uh you know if there's a kind of actually a radical Democrat who could win the next election, I don't know. I don't I mean I don't know enough about the odds of American politics, but I feel like the American institutional structure his his rule might have had the reverse effect. It might have actually you just basically thrown a stone at a wasp's nests and now they're really angry. Yeah. And there's no actual institutional like de-worfication in in academia, then you're just gonna get even more extreme. Like, you know, the um so I think that Europe going right, America going left seems likely to me.

Speaker 3 1:29:19

Could be a trade. And we can listen, sorry, we can read all of that unfolding on the wrong side of history substack. Correct. Written by you, yeah. And also we can find you on X, formerly known as FKA Twitter.

Speaker 1 1:29:33

Oh yeah, Twitter, I still call it Twitter. Um what it's Ed J West.

Speaker 4 1:29:37

Uh no, it's just Ed West. Ed West, wow, hold on, namdling that. No, someone else gave it to me actually, some random American, so thank you.

Speaker 3 1:29:43

Thanks, Ed.

Speaker 4 1:29:44

Yeah, I always like Ed West 5064 or something. He said, Oh, I only like tweet once a year, you can may as well have it.

Speaker 3 1:29:48

So God, the the that it gives me hope for the world that that's it.

Speaker 4 1:29:52

Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? You think like I should have offered him money for it, shouldn't I? It didn't really occur to me. Yeah. But he didn't ask for money, so I don't know. So just be nice and American about it.

Speaker 3 1:30:02

Well, look, this it's been a lot of fun, and I'd love to maybe uh after the election, and you know, if your prediction does come true and we can see how whatever party is coming in and how they do it. When is the election? Three three years' time ago.

Speaker 4 1:30:15

Yeah, well, three more years of me.

Speaker 3 1:30:17

Yeah, uh we'd love to have you back on. Yeah, yeah, it'll be a pleasure. And um, you know, we can see see how what we've talked about panned out. If I'm completely wrong, that's only one way to find out. Brilliant. Thanks, Ed. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. This has been Meeting People. I've been your host, Hamel Pandia. This is a podcast produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Luther Man.