Decoding the Gurus - Discussing Nazis and Gurus with Al Murray

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

We welcome Al Murray, the comedian who might just be your new favourite historian, to Decoding the Gurus. In a crossover you probably didn’t expect, we discuss World War II, Wehraboos, gurus, and the contemporary comedy scene... something for all the family.Along the way, we touch on British nostalgia, military fetishism, and self-styled “truth tellers”. A chat about history, humour, and hubris, not necessarily in that order.LinksWe Have Ways of Making You Talk – Al Murray & James HollandAl Murray’s YouTube channelFollow Al on X (Twitter)

Hello, welcome to the Kodun the Guru's podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist, listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer. And we try to understand what they're talking about. I'm Matt Brown, the psychologist with me, Chris Kavanaugh, an orphan Irishman and the anthropologist, but also kind of now a psychologist. And today, Chris, how's it going? How's it going? Are we decoding a guru today? Are we decoding a guru today? We're not, but before you move on, we just have to notice. That's probably the first time you refer to me as a psychologist. So that's a cigarette-breaking moment there. You've accepted it finally. It's because I'm teaching foundational statistics.

That's what it's because. But yes, I'll just see over that and then mention that, no, we're not, we're not decoding a guru. We have a guest decoder, if you will. We do. We have a guest decoder. And this person is, I think it's fair to say, a bit more famous than we are. And we're very grateful for coming on our little show. And he's most well known for.

for a podcast about World War II. We have ways of making you talk. And I am familiar with this podcast because I am a history geek, as people know. Mark Corrigan from Peach Show is basically my alter ego. I enjoy that show along with other history shows. And recently, we have been talking about this concept of Weribus and historical revisionism and particular, you know, different perceptions of World War II, Chris. That's right.

I might add, because it does seem worth just mentioning that, while to you, Al is most famous for having a World War II history podcast, for people from the UK, perhaps, he might be known as if he was comedian, as well, the pub landlord. So he has a sidekick where he has been a comedian and a theater. So just mentioning and passing. Thanks for coming, Al. It's a pleasure.

Thanks for having me. I mean, why I've relieved those, you didn't actually call me a historian because that's the, in a way, that's the, like you, like calling you a psychologist, you know, it's the thing where I can't quite, I can't have to shut away. You can call me a psychologist. No, I think it's a very fair comparison, Al, because, because like you, Chris talks about statistics without really having any real credentials. in it and which I think is an allergist entirely entirely no it's i could feel you shying away from saying it and then that kind of uh passag acceptance of uh thanks for calling me that finally i mean if nothing else we could talk about the dynamic between you two for the next day that would be really very very interesting but there are some listeners who would appreciate

we'd appreciate that. But I think them up with the historian label, like it seems like if you do a podcast with history now, after a little while you just get upgraded to your history, at least in the public consciousness. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I've been published two or three times now,

writing history books. But even that experience, I found, you know, with stand up, when you first start doing anything, am I, money, who knows, then you find out, and then you kind of, you get, you get over, you get over all that thing. In fact, the thing people always say, and I've been doing stand up for 35 years, people say, oh, he's so brave getting up and they said, I really, I really am not, right? It's just, that's my, that's a standard environment for me that I've carved out how it works. I know how it

works. It's actually quite, it's actually sort of a safe space for want of a better parlance going on stage, right? Whereas being a historian, you write a book and someone writes to you and says, my dad didn't do that and you're like, oh, fuck. And I'm correct it. It's in print. You know, you ring your publisher and they go, oh, well, it's nothing we can do about that.

Oh, no, God. So, it's a lot of different for a joke if it doesn't land, you know. Yeah, I do think this is surprisingly analogous because, like, you know, we work talking me and Matt repeatedly on the material about, like, I'm teaching some new course. this year. And I'm having to go over all our material, right? And I was like anxious about it in a way that I haven't been because, you know, I've been teaching the other courses I teach for many years. And then, but when you are in front of people and you end up, you know, teaching, it's just like, oh, no, I know this environment. It's pretty much the same. So that's like my safe space. So yeah, that's the comedians, lectures, you know, we're all the same. Well, yeah. put your hands in your pockets you look confident you can get through get away with murder it's the

truth and funny enough i found doing doing lately doing book events talking about the book kind of going into the stand-up mode of talking about the subject rather than thinking oh no i don't know i don't actually know what the tag production figures are for that year you know which which my my partner james holland who i do the podcast with he he has this extraordinary uh retention and recall of information where he can tell you in that month the Americans are producing from this factory this many of this type of tank and then by contrast you know and

it's it's sort of boggling to be around the way he just grabs this information and clearly has it in this incredible automatic filing system in his mind well that's that's perfect again now because that's exactly how it is with me and Chris

Chris has this has this like he's listened to like thousands of hours of this bullshit And he remembers every single thing that any of them has ever said. Whereas me, unlike you, I'm directionally correct. I have the right. I have the vibe. But, you know, he can dot the eyes and cross the teas.

You know, that's our role. Is it accurate that you've written like three books in the past three years? Is that three and a half years? Yeah. Yeah. Three and a half years. Jesus Christ. That's it.

Gary Stevenson, he complains about writing one book and doing like a monthly, you know, YouTube video at his room with Jaffa cakes, but you've written three books. Yes, yeah. And I haven't heard you complain. Two and a half. I mean, well, if you'd spoken to me a year ago about the second book, you'd have, you'd have, you've got a rich seam of whinging. And then, and then, but, but, you know, the thing is, is what we're, what, what we're doing.

I figured out my, and this again, this goes back to the stand-up thing. I figured out my voice. I now know how to marshal the material within my voice and my vibe, which is a great way of, a great thing to call historiography. Yeah, basically, that's my historiographical vibe, right? I'm kind of not declinist, blah, blah, blah, right? But yeah, so I've kind of got that worked out and how I like to tell the stories. because I'm very much a believer in narrative history

as much as any other kind. And so if I'm going to write, I'm going to try and tell a story or at least create an impression. So that's why I've been able to write these books in such short order, I think. Although I'm doing everything I can to avoid the next one I'm meant to be doing.

This is part of that process. This is a part of the theme. We're glad this. How long have you guys? I know you've done to a long episode. So that you help him get out here. Now, we, um, we, um, told up some of our, um, patrons that we'd be talking to you. And they, they had some good suggestions for stuff we can ask you about.

And, like, one of them I liked because it was quite typical because, um, you know, we had, uh, what is this name? Peter Pegzeth, the, that American, yeah, you know, he, um, he, he, he gave that, uh, talk to all the American generals and he, he doesn't like fat generals. Uh, so what's, what's your opinion? Um, all. All fat generals, bad general? Is there such a thing as a good fat general? Was there, were there any? Yeah, absolutely.

And I mean, the thing is, the thing is, there have been fat generals. There have been one lunged generals. Norman Schwarzcopf, right, who I think, you're, I mean, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm older than, than you guys. But I remember the Gulf War I, the first Gulf War, Schwarzcott was the, was the guy. You know, that ran Operation Dessert Spoon, as you could say, given his girth. And he was a fat general and he was regarded as a genius at the time. So, you know, let's take pause.

And then Australia also has a real pedigree. Mud Guts was his nickname. I can't remember the gentleman. This vast, this vast, fat Australian general. And, you know, you, you've got to, you've got to admit that it doesn't, the thing is, is once you've reached that level, the chances of you going, having to do any running around, right, or stodd cramming yourself into a foxhole, a slit trench, pretty unlikely, right? So, you know, I think, uh, Hesketh's probably got, he's probably got that wrong. You know, Monty had one lung famously. He'd been shot through a lung in the first world war. And the British army was able to accommodate the guy and keep him going. and he ends up our most successful field marshal in the war, so you know. But he was very skinny, so I don't know if that really supports your argument. It was extremely skinny.

But, you know, I'm sure if he'd had two lungs, he'd have managed to get fat. I don't know. The Kublai Khan in the presentations I've seen, he looked pretty chunky. I mean, he's not a modern general, but he did pretty well. Yeah. I think, you know, I mean, when you can think about what the job actually is, you know, I don't know, it's, I think the problem is,

I mean, if Hesker reminds me of anyone, it's that kind of Herman Goering guy who regards the military as a great big train set to play with. And he seems to be, he seems to be giving off that, that vibe. Although the thing I really, really, really, really, really don't like is the immediate resort, resorting to the Nazis to explain modern history. problem that people seem to have. You know,

the last 20 years, I'll tell you a lot more than, you know, than Munich. When people talk about Munich and appeasement, they think, oh, for fuck's sake, right? Consider the last 15 years before you delve into the completely different set of power relationships that existed globally at the time to try and explain what a British government is doing now. I mean, for heaven's sake.

But yeah, fat generals, fat generals are fine. think. And often, if the men like them, the men don't care is the other thing from the history of warfare. You know, if they think they're all right, they'll fight for them. And that's what it matters. And that's the thing. Does that answer your question? That makes sense. That makes sense. You raise the specter of, you know, the Nazis, which was obviously going to come up and I'm part of the initial thing that we found out that you had heard of the podcast at all

was Matt complaining about you know accidentally sauntering into neo-Nazi or at least very pro-German tank that might be the other way to put it but we did want to ask you about that

because like obviously in the content we're looking at we're seeing people like martyr made Darrell Cooper and you know, revisionist history essentially reprising David Irvine stuff coming back to the fore. But you

as a historian podcaster and in the like the podcast wave of history, you must have like much more direct exposure to that. So I'm kind of curious about your exposure or just general thoughts

about like the extent to which that is a problem or is it just like a very online niche or yeah the we well well the wearer booze of course the you know the guy who won't hear anything against german army um in particular to the vermouth the german war machine they won't we hear anything against them and and you know the the thing is is the thing is is so much of the so much of this and it's always it's always existed this and for for obvious for obvious reasons you know that that there's a whole slice of people who don't want to don't want to face what Germany got up to

because you look at the contortions that go on when people try and address the imperial history in this country in the UK you know lots of people that don't want anything to do with it and of course it so you can see where the wellspring of it is or well the wellspring of it was immediately post-war

you know this extraordinary thing happens in Germany itself right at the end of the war when you know the allies of laid waste to Germany in a way that I think often gets forgotten you know if you were bought if you were a German man born in 19 21 or one in three of you were killed in the war it's like it's extraordinary cities completely smashed and destroyed that the country a completely literally put to the sword in every way and

almost immediately right at the end of the war but just after it you get you get german people going well actually we're kind of the victims in this because look look at this look what's happened to us and they try and they try and insert some sort of victimhood into into how they feel about the war particularly as the horrors of the holocaust is sort of a bit of making themselves known or making themselves known to people outside Germany. I think it's the sort of important thing. So you can completely still see some of the sort of well springs of why people would engage in this kind of the Vermac weren't involved, which means my brother wasn't involved, which means my uncle wasn't involved. We were good. There were good people. There were still good

people. Whereas in fact, the vast quantity of evidence suggests the opposite. It's just the army's entirely involved in all that sort of thing. But this is mutated into this, this sort of extraordinary thing where if you even if you even say for instance the historiography around May 1940 the German Blitzkrieg if you want to call it that and even that word in itself is amongst military historians is like a word wrapped in controversy no such thing as Blitzkrieg there's a really fantastic German author who's written a book

called the Blitzkrieg myth I think he's called Carthens Fiesler and his book says there's no Blitzkrieg it doesn't exist it's just the dice roll exactly the way the Germans need them to and it's pure fluke and their innovation of having tanks with radios and proper combined operations as it will be called now it just happens to work because the French do everything asked of them to deliver a German victory sort of you know yeah blame the French so we're back in our happy place right anyway the really interesting thing is if you people who question that you suddenly get a whole thicket of guys popping up going, no, no, no, no, the Germans

are exactly what they were doing. And that is the sort of, that's the sort of starting point for all that. But where that's mutated to is this really, really, really weird idolization of the German, of the army. And these

people know they can't really include the SS. But by God, they try, right? And this very peculiar phenomenon where you know, James and I, James's angle, and he's more into this than I am. His angle is actually, by the time the allies start winning, the reason they're winning is not, it's not because of the sheer amount of stuff they've got, which is a sort of, which is a very popular argument about 20 years ago. You know, they can now outperform industrially

the Axis powers quite easily. But James would say, yeah, that's not, that doesn't explain it because you've still got to fight well and you've still got to win and you're fighting people are fanatical or entrenched at best in, in why they're trying to fight on the axis side. So there's a better explanation than that. And the pushback to that, the idea that the Allies were actually good at fighting, can be quite, you know, the vehemence of that response

can be quite surprising, really. So it sits in the historography. It sits in the history of the historography. But then it also sits outside it, where it's people who are just trying, one way another, to idolize the Third Reich.

And that is where it gets I can understand in a way the opening parts of that direction of travel. But where those people are now, I simply don't understand. There is no better documented event than the Third Reich. There is no historical event. There's been no more powerful magnet for research, for parsing the entire thing, for slicing it right down into it.

And not just in mainstream scholarship. So that's the other thing. you know historians tend to avoid wars they find they think they're sort of grubby dirty unattractive things but the second world war has nevertheless attracted incredible historians of incredible caliber who really are researching the thing down to the finest atom and you know because of its moral locus in our culture the war and the third rites moral locus people want to understand it and explain it so when you have someone pop up and go well you know no one's ever really looked at this before or here's a here's a thing no one's really ever

thought about when it comes to the holocaust you you are mad you're not just mad but you're not just mad you're lazy you're so these people are so lazy and incurious and in their own little merbius strip of hey you know no one's ever no one's ever thought that the germans might have been human beings before oh oh oh really okay you know and i think when it tips into that Rather, the sort of historiographical arguments, which are worth arguing with, because they're worth, like, arming yourself against and to make your own case. But those people, there's sort of, there's kind of no arguing with them, because they're not interested in the argument.

They're interested in loving the Nazis. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting to me, the psychology of it. I mean, it's got these parallels with the, like, lost cause narratives of the American Civil War. Yeah. And, you know, if you're a German and you're a reenactor, you're not allowed to reenactors the Nazis, of course, in Germany.

So they tend to go to the American stuff and reenact as Confederates or reenactes confederates in Germany. That's a actual, like, phenomenon, which I think is amazing. That's super interesting. Yeah, because I mean, there's certainly a spectrum there. Like, on one hand, you got straight up neo-Nazis, right, who are keen on history. Like, there's them. But I get the feeling that there's also a spectrum of people who are, and there's a couple of things

contributing to it, and you can probably think of more. the first one I think of is one there's that kind of conspiratorial kind of sense right the conventional narrative of World War II right what they taught you at school you know they didn't tell you about this

and then they'll go into some fine like cherry pick stuff like lifted from David Irving or something and make out that there's some different narrative you haven't told about and the second part which is appealing psychologically conspiracy theory is very appealing but I guess the second aspect is there's a kind of

romanticism there too, right? And, you know, like the Nazis were kind of romantics in a very bad way. And they're, you know, the struggle, the cause, the great men, that kind of thing. And I think that's kind of appealing too, don't you think? Well, yes, absolutely. I mean, I'll give it, I'll give it a black shit example from one of my adventures. Ten years ago, I ran for parliament, right? in South Thanet during the 2015 election in the same constituency as Nigel Farage because his schick as politician

was very much, he's just an ordinary bloke who drinks pints and tells it like he is in pubs, right? So I thought, well, he's stolen my act. I might as well engage on his terms but in a political setting. It was really good fun. And we wrote a manifesto that was just jokes So we were responding to the way the election was being done by everybody.

So if Labor pledged 5,000 nurses, we would immediately pledge 5,001, right? Because of the inanity of electoral politics, the way it's campaigned here. Anyway, on my Facebook page, a whole load of people will immediately pop up going, I can't believe it, you know, I thought you were a regular solid patriot like me, and here you are running the country down and a good solid patriot like Nigel. So immediately, you'd have to go, A, it's a joke. be the point of a democracy is anyone can run. That is the point of it.

And if anyone can't run, then it isn't one, right? Okay. And democracy can cope with being mocked, right? Come on, lads. Get with the program. And one of the, and these are also the kind of people say, the great thing about this country,

it's got the greatest sense of humor in the world until you start laughing at them, right? Anyway, further, one of these guys, he's posting me, and he's posting to me relentlessly. And I did that thing, which you just, which really my wife always says why are you doing this because it's a good sport right and i'd reply to him every night i'd reply to him going sorry dave that isn't the case this is

what we're doing you know that or whatever his name was and eventually one night he writes he writes to be going i know this isn't al mary i know some poor young woman writing for being forced to work for him who's sending these replies right and i you know so conspiratorial thinking right immediately right can't be can't really be me it's got to be someone else and then he said well, I'm going to leave you with this. And he posted a YouTube video about how the men fighting in the Wehrmacht against the Bolsheviks were true patriots. And it's that kind of patriotism that really is the most inspiring thing. Right.

And this is a guy who up to this point was all, you know, Union Jackson, a true British patriotism, has somehow in his true British patriotism flipped to supporting our most existential enemy of all times. And you think, right, well, but you're exactly. right because that was presented entirely. And the thing is, what's so interesting about a lot of this is a lot of this is Nazi propaganda that's still working. Because Blitzkrieg was Nazi propaganda.

They spun this idea of Blitzkrieg out of their victories against enemies, basically, who hadn't been preparing with the same intensities then for the three, four, five years. Because the difference between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world was the rest of the world thought another world war would be a terrible fucking business and we'd rather not get involved in one, whereas they were like, well, maybe, maybe we can get away with it this time, right? And the whole, the Operation Barbarossa is presented, the attack on the Soviet Union is presented across Europe and to conquered Europe and to

non-aligned Europe and to the Finns, for instance, as the opportunity to destroy Bolshevism. Right. And people do really take Bolshevism very, very seriously in Europe after the, after after the Russian Revolution. I think that we've got to remember that. You know, and particularly on the left, people have got to remember. It was to an awful lot of people and not just people on the right and not just aristocrats and not just royal families. It was a very, very scary and tumultuous prospect.

And so they present the war on the war, the war in 941 against the Soviets as a crusade, essentially, as doing the right thing to save us all from this. terrible threat. And the thing is, loads of that lingers. And particularly if you are someone who is fully signed up to hate communism, like an awful lot of right-thinking people who, you know, who see themselves the right-thinking people who don't know what communism is, after all, because it's long gone as a prospect, right? Or even a thing to look at properly. You know, you can see that appeal. You can completely see that that propaganda has been incredibly powerful and lingered.

And I think, you know, as you said, they are, they were romantics, the Nazis. Absolutely. And they were very, very good at transmitting that romanticism and plugging in. I mean, and I think this is what's so interesting about them. They were very good at plugging into old deep European currents of expression, not of nation, perhaps,

but of sort of chivalric notions. And they're also really brilliant at plugging into old European hatred, you know, which is how they're, able to amplify anti-semitism to where they get it to and how they're able to to take this idea of a of a of a european culture that needs defending from again defending because because bolshevism after all to them is jewish judea bolshevism they're interchangeable and so and that again you end up you end up that's where you end up if you investigate what this wrote what this romantic notion of of nation and patriotism is that the nazis are transmitting and that these people who

grabbed onto. Yeah. I mean, the irony is abound because, I mean, on one hand, the transposing to the present day, I'm personally incredibly hawkish about Ukraine and Russia's current thing. But at the same time, there is a kind of a similar narrative to the one you describe, which is this kind of preserving Western civilization, i.e. European civilization against its enemies. And it's kind of the same kind of people that are prone to romanticise, yeah, World War II. Well, yeah. Well, and absolutely. I mean, and the thing is, the thing is everyone says everyone, you always say your

enemy is decadent. You always say your enemy is decayed and collapsed into a decayed moral state, don't we? That's what people say about Russia, is that it's collapsed into our idea of a moral decay, and they're saying we've collapsed into their idea of a moral decay. It's, I mean, this is all conflict as culture as conflict, route one. But I think, yeah, and that's definitely what people are tapping into. I mean, you look at the, you know, you can, then you get into those people to say, well, Churchill started the second world war.

And you think, well, you know, had a job doing that. He wasn't prime minister. You know, like, come on, stop being so lazy. I think he can strike an argument at least. the parallel about like being frustrated with laziness like I endlessly complained to Matt about this and I see like we talked to Flint Debo you know the archaeologist who dealt with Graham Hancock and it's a it's a really consistent complaint is like there's there's like an endless appetite for people talking about you know how nobody studied World War II or that like

We're going to do a 12-part series reassessing Hitler's role in it and finally looking at it. And an incredible lack of interest in the actual, like, effort that would be, you know, to go. And it even just like something very simple, like watching a documentary series of our World War II. Like that, you're not even talking about getting into the archives. It's just like the basic thing. And we find that with the guru type people, that there's almost this kind of sense that other people might need to do that.

But in a part, because they have such an ersatz understanding and a, like, a different way of looking, that they don't really need to do the research in the same way other people have done. So, yeah, I wonder if it's like that kind of, you know, attitude amongst alternative historians and alternative archaeologists and the secular guru set. Well, I think it kind of must be, although, I mean, it's very interesting. You mentioned David Irving, because earlier, because he is the guy, he is the guy that people run back to if they want to say, particularly, you know, like a thing like Dresden, where people talk about the bombing of Dresden, it's always, it's always Irving's search. And Irving, Irving, for a very long time had this reputation.

He was the only guy who really, whoever, you know, they'd say this. He's the guy who went to the German archive, he'd go into the German archive and he'd find the stuff and he could speak German. There was almost sort of incredulity in the British historic historical kind of side of things. He can speak German, this guy, and he's going to the German archive. Wow! You know, like it's like his cheat code. But then, of course, it turned out that he was making up the, or at least misquoting stuff, misdirecting in his footnotes, all this sort of thing,

and was doing exactly what you're talking about, where the case was too much for him, making the case was the point. and and if he found the evidence he'd use it and if he couldn't he wouldn't and I think that cherry picking and it's the you know if you're cherry picking from David Irving who was cherry picking anyway you know you these are extremely delicious cherries aren't they they're irresistible but quite misrepresentative of the harvest as it were of of cherries in general because I mean this is the other thing you know the war is the war is so complex and as I've um As I've been, I mean, inevitably, we've been doing the podcast now for longer than the Second World War endured.

Who are the real? Again, this feels like us. We'll spend 40 minutes talking about a 10-minute bit of content. Go on, go on. And the thing is, as I get further into it, I feel like, I do know a lot more about it than I did when I started, but I feel like I know a vanishingly tiny amount and that there's so much, so much to take on. There's so much to think about.

And, you know, we end up down these rabbit holes. And I think that's a very interesting thing in the study of history that very often the rabbit hole can be so interesting and tempting in itself that you use that to explain everything else. And I've been guilty of myself along the way where, you know, I ended up rabid. This is how dry some of it.

I didn't really read this book the other day about British tank production and industrial policy during the Second World War. You know how to live. Honestly, high crow steel produced by the English electric steel company between the world.

Anyway, it doesn't flake, man. Anyway, the point is, I read this book and was so taken with its approach. I've gone and come up, you know, we did it on the podcast the other day and I know, I know we're going to get some knowledgeable pushback. I've gone, this is just, this is just

the other. the way of looking at this completely. It flips on the head, the established way of looking at it. No one's ever really thought about it like this before. You know, and everyone wants a shortcut, right? Everyone, or shortcuts attempting, right?

And if you can, you can get down one, you'll take it. And I I've been doing this myself. And so you can completely see the appeal of it. But you've got to read the flipping books, lads. This is the thing. You know, I mean, when you, when you,

I listen to one of those sense makers conversations and they're tossing these ideas around that are like, oh yeah, of course it's, and that fake agreed vocabulary where they nod, the yes-anding and the nodding along, I think is, you know, you can do that in improvisational comedy because that is what you do in improvisational comedy. You do yes-hand. The point is to make people laugh. I understand the end. I think you get a pretty good. I think you get a pretty appreciate them as a good fictional character. If only they were fictional. But another thing I want to ask you because you've covered it quite recently is

the Battle of Britain. So everyone knows the Battle of Britain. Good stirring story. You know, great. Great story on any level. But there's one aspect of it that I think is super interesting and I bet you do too, which is the kind of contrast between the sort of management style for one of the their phrase between the two sides you know and like we're saying before there is this kind of

you know narrative of blitzkrieg and like amazing tactics and glamour and you know breakthroughs and and they were so amazing and people like the french and you know very bad but you know what's so sort of funny to me is the is just how inept the german organization and plenty was and it wasn't entirely their fault but it is in contrast to like the downing system and stuff, which sort of, I mean, I know it's dangerous to draw narratives and stuff like that from these stories, but it did, it did sort of strike me as kind of like, you could think of it as a bit of a contrast between a kind of like a liberal, technocratic approach to things, where you actually consult with people and you actually have experts and you listen to feedback, versus these sort

of bloviating blowhards, guring, much like our gurus, just swanning in, being incredibly lazy and just sort of sweeping their hand and just say, go do it, and leaving it at that. Like, yeah, what's your take on that? No, I think that's it in a nutshell. But I think what's so interesting is that for a very long time, people haven't wanted to tell it that way around.

And the British version of the Battle of Britain or the British mythical version of the Battle of Britain, a really stoplight glue for ages was poor little blighty, defending itself, we've only got a handful of fighter planes. They haven't had any training, you know, and they're stuck up in the air and they're, and they're ruthless German efficient war machine, all this stuff. And actually, it's the other way round that the ruthless

efficient war machine is, is the, is fighter command at that stage with its, with its starting system, with its early warning system, with all its, and its way of delivering force as best it can and all this sort of stuff. And, and that is the product of committees and of lobbying and of, Technocratic people making technocratic decisions and being allowed to get on with it. And really fascinating as well because there's a point when Max Beaverbrook,

who's like the most amazing, weird figure and when people want to talk about, you know, Churchill as this fantastic war lead, just look at the people around him. I mean, you know, Brendan Bracken, for instance, is this absolutely extraordinary Anglo-Irish Australian I mean, he's the three of us, right?

Yeah, there we are, yeah. Who is the world's most persistent liar, right? He's amazing. He claims to be an orphan, then his mother turns up. His dinner party trick during the war is to say, oh, my brother died at Norway. And they go, I was terrible, Brendan. The next dinner will be going,

my brother died in the Battle of France. They all know. They all know. He's like, anyway, but the point is, there are people like that around Churchill, but he's using them and containing them. So there are bloviating difficult people on the Allied side too. But because it's a liberal system, it can cope with them.

So for instance, Max Beaverbrook comes in as Minister of Air Production and he says, we're only going to build the three types we need from now on. We're canceling all development. We're canceling everything else. And what happens is those companies that are developing say them Lancaster, which we end up having to use in large amounts with a mosquito, they carry on developing them because they think, well, we're not really going to do as we're told things very much.

Whereas on the other side of the. fence. If Goering issues Einberfail that all aircraft have to be designed to be dive bombers all the aircraft manufacturers are, God, we've got to start again. We've nearly finished this plane. It's nearly

brilliant, but now we've got to do what the mercurial misguided, opium addict has told us to do. And you know, the guy running the German Air Force is a junkie politician. He's I mean, he's very clear. ever going but he's also he's also all over the place so i mean the the extent to which people

are allowed to contradict themselves within a nazi system it's really quite fascinating that you can literally say one thing one day and another the next and everyone has to do as at all and so the the luffa is is chaotic entirely chaotic it can't you know the progress of the battle of britain is it can't make up its mind a what its task is be whether be whether the thing it's doing it for is ever going to happen, the invasion of Britain, because that's all like, no one's made their mind up. And then they can't pick which target to strike in Britain to bring about whatever, whatever it is the first thing they haven't decided on. And so on. And the chaos, the chaos very much plays to the British advantage. And it's the opposite of the, the plucky few

and the ruthlessly efficient German war machine. It's how different that the, the legend is from the story from the history is really striking and I think talks to speaks to what people use history for because I'd rather that we were plucky and the underdog in that story than the ruthlessly efficient war machine which is what Britain was at the time and went on and certainly went on to be but yeah I mean it is also but it is also liberal democracy versus autocratic basket full of lunatics. And, you know, and again, everything reveals, the history reveals something about the past at least, maybe what there is to learn, but maybe not, because, you know, you could say that liberal democracies now sort of constipated in their inability to make decisions, you know,

you could argue that too. Yeah, yeah, no. No, it's, it's so dangerous to, to sort of make those broad sort of conclusions, but it is, is tempting, isn't it? Because when you look at the, sort of, It was almost run in a feudal kind of fashion, wasn't it, the Nazi war machine? There were these, you know, these fiefdoms and, you know, people like, you know, backdoor deals and and so on. So it had, yeah, it had a feudal character to it, which is fundamentally less efficient. Yeah, you attempted to conclude. But in that culture, they're still able to, you know, and you say, I think it's interesting, you say feudal, because they're able to amplify the kind of those old European feudal ideas of war and conflict

that they then milk for their purposes. So they are thinking that frame. I mean, I think that the other thing is really I mean, there's a study blue, which is the intelligence officer Beppo Schmidt's assessment of the Royal Air Force before the Battle of Bryn. It's basically a bloke. Yeah, I reckon they got

like 300 of those. Yeah, I reckon that. Well, maybe, maybe 150. But, you know, they've probably got another 40 of those and it's all made up. Yeah, yep. And it is a bloke. Literally, it's a dude.

I'm going, I reckon. But that's a perfect illustration because, of course, what counts in a feudal type system is loyalty and telling the boss what he wants to hear. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, at the start, you mentioned all of it, like the kind of concern around that there only is like one historic event, which anybody draws parallels to, which tends to be World War II, right? And for good and for real.

But at the same time, Ma and I, we are guilty of this in our own way. But in part because we notice that people like Jordan Peterson who, you know, present themselves as being students of history. Like you said, you know, kind of aware of the horrors of the communist regimes and writing the forward to the Gulag art compelago. goal. But at the same time, they seem to have, like, they display the characteristics, you know, that would have set them up. I'm not saying to be good Nazi officers. I'm not suggesting, you know, like such a character. But I mean more like what Matt's talking about, like all the stuff around Trump, all the thing in the guru's sphere, it does feel very, very feudal, very personality focused and very deferential to big men authority figures. And yeah, it might. It might be a very feudal, very futile, very personality focused. And, and very deferential to big men authority figures. And, It might be a lack of imagination, but like for me and Matt, we probably equally reference the French court. I don't even know if the French court's true that. But we constantly referenced French courts and also the kind of personality cults that exist

around dictators and totalitarian regime. So I wonder, do you want to chastise us for drawing those comparisons or do you think there's a, you know, a kernel of truth in them? I think this, well, it's human behavior, isn't it? There's a kernel of truth in all of it. This is the thing, although, again, this is the thing James Holland always says, is he says, you know, he doesn't think the history repeats itself. He doesn't think that that thing of history rhymes, which is just too neat, right?

It's too much like a, like a greetings card. But the fact is, is human beings of what they want hasn't changed that much. They may, they may refract it through different, you know, belief systems or worldviews. Because after all, the thing to remember about a medieval court is they, they don't believe in demons. They think they're real. You know, their view of the universe might be different, but they're still, they still get jealous. They're still hungry. They're still attracted to power.

And I think power is what this is all about, really, when you look at this. Last year, or this year, Jim and I did this book about the end of the war about the surrender. at the end of the war. And the first surrender was in Italy. But there's a side story to the Italian surrender, which is these two SS officers, Calton Brunner and Wolf, who are the two deputies, Himmler's two deputies, right? And that's classic Nazi dividing role. You give two people the number two position so that they basically intrigue against each other rather than you. And that's why, you know, that's why there are so many people in the frame to succeed Hitler as Fuhrer in the event of his departure

because they can all just get on with fighting each other and they have to come to him for the nod on anything. Anyway, Carl and Brunner and Wolf are in direct competition with each other. What's really interesting about them is they are absolutely died in the world, ideological Nazis. They are totally brought into the programme, both involved in the Holocaust and so on, right up to the moment where they realise it doesn't serve them any advantage. And then they are, then they are going to see Alan Dulles in Bern, in Switzerland on secret trains to try and get themselves out of the noose they know is coming.

And I think so much of this is about power is that people, a golden law in human behavior. Some people are drawn to power and will do anything to get their hands on that power. And of course, the minute the power, the power sluces out of the Nazi system, those two guys immediately, they go to the Americans because they go. Well, that's where the power is. And you see so many people, after all, East Germany is, I think, an interesting example of you have a society that is as cashed in on Nazism as anyone else. You know, Prussia voted for the Nazis is what people in Bavaria would say, you know, turning itself into the DDR kind of overnight, right? And yes, there are dissidents and people who don't fit in, but an awful lot of people, they go, well, that's where the power is. And I think one of the things I love about the Second World War as a topic is you could just read about the economics, if you.

wanted and not here a shock fired as it were on a page you could just read about the technology you could just you could look at the newspapers you could you could do you can do anything with it and the study of power and how power manifests itself and what it does to people what it makes them do or what they think they need to do to get themselves close to it is as much part of the story as anything else and I think you know that that you can see it in the in the in the guru's fear power is influence influence is power people are drawn to one another drawn to each other's power, and they back each other's power up. I mean, you did have a really great episode a while ago where you were saying, where they're all going, well, I've been on his

podcast. He's been on my podcast. They've been on their podcast. That shows I must be good because I'm drawn to the people where the action is, where the power, where the power sits. And I think that's the sort of thing that really leaps, that really leaps out as a comparison. But you can do that like you say, with the feudal court too. Yeah. I had a just a follow. I'll just a quick one before I forget, which was like when you were talking at this art about like comedian, you know, performing on stage and finding your voice and all that kind of kind of thing. Like I don't have an idealist image of comedians, but I did have the general view that like if there was a like a group of people that were going to take the piss out

of politicians, that that would be comedians, right? And then I've witnessed like, you know, you know, you had the Ria comedy festival. But that's kind of understandable. That's just people being motivated by their own pocketbook. I understand that. But the bit the bit that I'm a little bit more, and I'm curious about your thoughts on, is like I've seen Jimmy Carr, right?

And I've seen him do like standup where he's very quick-witted, very self-deprecating and like, you know, very whatever, acid tongue. And then I saw him on Joe Rogan, basically prostrating himself at Rogan's feet talking about you know i've started doing cold plunges this is great all this and then talking about comedians as like philosophers and it should be taught in schools as like a stand-up needs to be a foundational subject and i've seen that so much from a whole you know like there's the field comedian set to podcaster which is a thing in itself but there is also the thing where there's genuinely you know comedians with skill

and yet they seem to have kind of lost their bite or kind of they take themselves too seriously and how it's what part of the deal of a comedian is you have to be self-deprecating because as soon as you come across as like, you know, genuinely arrogant and not playing an arrogant character, you're an arsehole. Yeah, I mean, that's a really interesting point

because if you're of the left and you take yourself seriously and talk seriously about things and you're a comedian, no one bats an eyelid. And in fact, it's kind of, you'll hear all those because I've always said I'm a, you know, as a comic, as a comedian I'm a floating voter or I'm a

culture war conchie, you know, I'm not taking a side I'm here to, you know, if there's a Labour government it's my job to take the piss out of them. If there's a Tory government, it's my job to take the piss out of them. If I'm a comedian who takes the piss out of politicians, right? That surely stands to reason. And you do get this thing where people hit the buffers

when you get a left wing government here where they don't quite know, you see people unable to, oh no. You know, I've got what I want. Now what do I do? It's got an element to that. But you're absolutely right. Your job is to take the piss.

And the minute you take, the minute you take yourself seriously, you're not a comedian anymore. You could take what you do seriously. Fine. But the minute you're taking yourself seriously, I think you're in, you're kind of, or you're in trouble, it's going to get more difficult. And this is a thing.

I mean, I often, because I've been involved in free speech arguments here, you know, there's this, the Twitter joke trial ages ago. which was when a guy did an ill-advised. It wasn't an ill-advised to be. Well, I mean, it was just a, it was a tweet. It was about how he was going to blow an airport up if this girlfriend's flight was delayed. And it's obviously a joke, right?

Anyway. And it ends up the High Court. We end up with the appeal court and all this sort of thing, and it goes away. And I always worry about being comedian and getting involved in free speech arguments because very often what I'm trying, what I'm deploying those arguments

to defend is knob gags, right? It feels like a terrible waste of proper arguments that are about important things in order to defend my right to call someone a dickhead, right? It always feels a bit, you know, like, you know, of a waste. But the thing is, but I'm going to arrive at my point, don't worry. But the thing is, no, the minute comedians start talking about truth to power. You know they think they're important. The minute comedians start saying, you know, it's up to us to stand up and tell it like it is.

I thought that was journalism's job, right? You know, the minute that language gets involved. And I think it's very, very interesting that what's happening on the sort of right-hand side is that what they're doing is they're not telling truth to power. They're sucking up to it, really. and so much of the language around comedy about punching up. Who says we're punching?

You know, look, why do you have to bring violence into this? I'm taking the piss. I'm flicking vs. I'm blowing raspberries. But so much of the language has reached that point that now that people on the right are doing the sort of opposite, it makes them look.

I mean, I, you know, I mean, I find it all, I find it, I find the part of the problem is a lot of these arguments around comedy are no, no conversations comedians never have. I don't, you know, at a club, we're not sat while while you're waiting to go on you know so tough

I've had a hard week telling truth to power I don't know about you you know you obviously haven't been in the green room in the Austin Caldy scene exactly but I think one of the things

but I think one of the other things that's also happened is the people on people on the right and this is the thing that really really boils my piss have completely adopted the language of offence for themselves

it used to be the left for humourless right and that was kind of like priced in and you you know you weren't allowed to make jokes about vegans or whatever you know like not fine that was all part of the deal but now that they're taking offence on the right they're meant to be the tough guys they're meant to be the guys who it's just a jug buddy take it you know which is what they've used they've used themselves to defend themselves from all sorts of things and they've abandoned that and it's pathetic watching them crying crying to their i don't know That's what's true. We've seen a lot of that, like a lot of importation of things that we've previously associated with, I don't know, whatever, woke left type stuff.

The right in America have really picked up on all those things. I'm thinking of the Charlie Kirk thing recently, for instance, a lot of the language that we're using there. Well, no, because we did, I'm working on this spitting image reboot, which is the old British hysterical puppet show, and we're doing it online now. We're doing it on YouTube because we don't. means we don't have a broadcast to deal with. And we did a thing, the Charlie Kirk Mournathon, right? Nothing says mourning like pyrotechnics. You know, Trump going, saying, I dodged my bullet, just saying, you know,

because he would say that. He would say, he said, I prefer guys who don't get injured or whatever. He said, that's a wounded vatchez. You know, and then about his saying about his wife, look, she's newly. single, how about that? You know, it's just a card to me, she's hot, right? Because

and we don't have to, we don't have to change anything. We just have to have him say it, right? And it's completely in character. And we had a load of pushback going, why are you mocking a man's death? And we were not, but we were not. And they know that. They know that. You know, we were

mocking the, I think we called it Charlie Palooza. You know, we were mocking that because that's what it had become, right? And I think the way they've taken on language of offense. It saddens my soul because they're meant to be, how am I meant

to look to the right for like moral toughness and resilience if they're all crying about jokes? No, no. Well, Chris and I were just recording a supplementary materials and we had Eric Weinstein talking to the English bloke. What's his name

Chris? Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan. Oh, right. And speaking of his app. Yeah, yeah. And speaking of free speech, Eric, Eric was giving him, was saying, look, there are people that you shouldn't be talking to. You know, you just shouldn't have, you shouldn't be platforming.

There's kinds of people. It's like, oh, dear. Like, in Eric's kids, he means, like, he's not talking about, you know, the various very little anti-Semites that he always saw, the conspiracy of course. He means the various physics professors and whatnot that have said that he's, he's trying. He's criticized him, personally.

His personal enemies, that's what he means, yeah. Well, Al, Al, Al, I can't, we can't let you go before I ask you, you know, one final question from, you know, and, you know, you can feel free to put your pub landlord persona on to answer this one, if you want. But the question is, who were the best allied infantry in World War II and why were they Australian? many people have been asking me this question and I've agreed to pass it along to you well if you consider the Australian as the refraction of the perfect Englishman

sent abroad with a sprinkling of Irish people to keep them on their toes and then cooked in the perfect environment for hardening them, toughing them up for battle in disgusting places then that explains it

it was all part of the deep imperial project to create the finest fighting soldiers the blossom the blossom of the empire I like the saddle of that I like that as a final question but I have a sort of downer question

to give to Al as well because I'm just curious in this ecosystem that we've talked about and with your pub landlord character and the rise of reform and stuff

is it possible for that character to you know like how how can he exist when there's so little humor around you know the whole reform thing and whatever you do with him it i guess it kind of feels like you're either going to upset the reform voters or like not being taking the fret seriously enough so i'm kind of curious like what do you do well i mean that's a really really really good question. And I've found that, I mean, I think that, I think the thing is, I've been doing what I've been doing for such a long time that the people who know what I'm about are on board. So I haven't got to sort of, I haven't got to kind of re-configure it. Because I'm writing a show now. I'm going out in January. So I've got to write a new show. And last year, in the last tour,

I had a thing about the Rwanda policy. And I, you know, which is, which is this idea that anyone coming to Britain illegally sent to Rwanda immediately, right? So a whole thing about that. And basically said, what the landlord said was before we start sending those people, because I could do a whole thing about how, you know, they at least want to come here, but, you know, they're actually, they're trying to get here. You know, they're brave as well. They're rowing across the English Channel. They're no regard for health and safety. That's a good thing, right? All these things, well, for, you know, because the great thing is you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, Because it's all contradictions.

You can use the different, you can use them to argue in any way. That healthy disregard for health and safety that is very much a thing. Again, like it's a kind of tough guy, right wing position, I think,

really. You can say it's a kill joy thing or you can take it more, you can take it further. But basically, if you're rowing across the English channel without a life jacket on, you're made of the right stuff,

right? People need to remember this. So I had a routine about how basically, before we send those people to Randar, we need to clear house. And you can hear everyone go, Jesus Christ, what does, what must you mean? And then it's people who, people who don't stop at the zebra crossings, people who, people who, people who, well, vapors are two, what is it, two skits, smoke, too weak to quit.

People who, and a whole long list of like annoying things. So you can use that energy, that idea of having to send people somewhere else. and flip a whole load of other things into it. So I don't know that it's any trickier than it ever has been. And in a weird way, kind of the hardest time was when for writing stuff. Because I came up with the Pallander when we had a conservative government in the last bit of the 90s before we got Tony Blair. And the first two, three years of Blair were difficult because basically people thought, well, we've got past the bloviating right wing people. We're kind of in a we're kind of in a more stable position.

what's he going to take the piss out of? And then, of course, we have all these wars that were quite useful for writing jokes about, you know, because that's business, man. You think some events will help. But I think, yeah, it is an interesting time, but it doesn't, to be honest,

it doesn't worry me too much. Because I'm so, with the character, we're so waded in with the bullshit. I think I can pretty much sell it any way I want with the audience. And the, and the, the other thing, I think what is also happening with reform, and I hope I'm right about this is it's the two parties

you know the two parties have failed or appearing or appearing to have failed so spectacularly they really isn't anyone it feels to me at the moment like in anyone but them vote it really does rather than a I need we we need to set fire to some immigrant hostels

this afternoon vote it does it does feel like that and it might and it may not feel like that in a couple years time of course but that's how it feels to me but I might be you know, I've been wrong before.

Yeah. Every chance again, Lou. Yeah, that reminds me of the one nation phenomena in Australia where you know,

similar, similar kind of xenophobic kind of kind of but you know, it really, you know, and it worried a lot of people because you have this big,

suddenly this big swing and this big sort of jump. And it really did reflect in hindsight, just a general disgruntlement with the two major parties. Who are boring and incompetent in all the normal ways that they tend to be.

Yeah, he's face over and again with the same bullshit. And you can completely, I mean, I think what's interesting is that reform is still, it's around Farage and his ability to get away with political outcomes that are disastrous and spring up spelling of roses. It's quite, it's quite extraordinary. you know, he did Brexit and we seem not to quite figure out how good an idea that was yet or admitted it and you know, that's entirely him.

If it's anyone. But that seems to have been landed on the Conservative Party. They seem to be having to take that body blow now. But I don't know, it could all change. And after all, when people talk about this government being unpopular,

you know, the Thatcher government before the Falklands War was colossally unpopular and had done things that had really caused massive economic upheaval. And then the other side of the world, you know, a fascist chunter that was in trouble completely rescued her. And I mean, I'm sure some sort of

wearaboo equivalent will pop up and tell me that's not true. But, you know, that's quite conventional view of events. And that's been forgotten. You know, the Tories think Thatcher was amazing, full stop. Whereas in fact, she was disastrously unpopular until fortune came to her rescue. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, speaking, you mentioned before, the history is just so interesting.

It's just like the details and all of the little things. And I've been on a deep dive into kind of 1970s, Britain, like before Margaret Thatcher. Oh, my God. I know. It was like a dark time. Like it was an incredible time in many ways. And that was the, that was the scene that was set.

That's right. Yeah. And it's, and it's, as ever, it's a big economic event. So it's the, it's the oil crisis and the, you know, just tosses, tosses all of Western Europe into chaos. And it was, I mean, I remember, I mean, again, I'm old. I remember the power cuts. I remember the lights going out and all this sort of thing that we had in the,

that we had in the early 70s. And you got, and you also had, you know, what was happening in Northern Ireland at the same time. Yeah, you had IRA bombings in the UK mainland every week. Yeah, you had, you had strikes all over the place. Yeah. And the, well, and the government, the British, government not just not not not knowing what to do in northern Ireland either and you know sending shock troops and stuff to police people like a wildly stupid thing to have done um agree

he's a good with you there you only depended a chris you only depended to chris you know you're what were they thinking and um they weren't they obviously weren't they just had no idea how to deal with it at all even though you know you're into your what hundredth year of possible discontent in that part of the world. I mean, you know, anyway. Yes, yeah, exactly. So the scene of the 70s when it's set for, you can see why, again, you can see why Thatcher would get in,

but then her medicine is almost disastrous for her. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, and I, you know, I really, I really, I really, I sort of always shy away from this, but it would really be great if people, more people knew more history, is how I end up saying there's a boring way. I think that's an excellent note to end on, because I don't totally feel the same way. I never, like, at school, history was really boring.

They had terrible history teachers, and I hated it. I didn't study any history at uni. And I've just been reading books and just consuming it in podcasts and in any form I can, my entire adult life. And, yeah, as a middle-aged psychologist these days, I'm like, you can tell a lot about, you know, human nature and how things go on in society. and in any way we organize ourselves by seeing ourselves in all these different contexts

and all these different scenarios throughout recorded history. So I endorse this. This is DTG endorsed. That's right. Yeah. So you can, for people that don't know, they already heard at the start, but Al has a podcast. We have ways of making you talk. A hundred books, more to come.

Yeah. And there's a comedian on occasion. So, yeah. So plenty of places to check away. And we appreciate you coming on and talking about us. I love your work, fellas. I love that someone has grasped the nettle and walked into the fire of bullshit so that someone else doesn't have to do it.

I think it's, you know, when I listen to, when I listen to, if I've got a really long drive, I'll put some sense making on. we're actually going to speak to face to face with a sense speaker later in the month it's going to be wild yeah but i i got to say too out but like when you know i i was having a little rant about about the wearaboos and stuff like that and you you popped up in my twitter replies i think um and with with some with some comment and and it was it was so cool because you know, when you listen to we listen to a podcast

is, oh, this person actually says to our podcast. So yeah, it's a whole parisocial thing and all of the gurus do it, right? This sort of mutual masturbation and stuff like that. Well, that's what we're doing all, right? So I can say I was on their podcast, we'll get you on. We'll get you on our house and talk about psychology.

I mean, it's very. I can complete about Tom Holland. Yeah, that's, yeah, we're Yeah, we want to talk about this thesis where everything is all due to Christianity. We need to talk about this. Yeah.

Yeah. And we can start recording, can we? I mean, yeah. Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you very much. I'll, yeah, we'll talk to you again. I'm Asia. You're going to be able to be.

Thank you.