If I Speak - 89: Am I doomed to get more conservative as I get older?

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Come and see us live! We’re in Manchester on 25 November with Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There – get tickets from Contact Theatre. Then we’ll be at EartH in East London on 16 December with Jordan Stephens – actor, author and one half of Rizzle Kicks! Tickets are available from Dice. This week […]

Hello, hello, hey, hello, hello, hello. Hello. Quite flat of me, that was. Hello. Hello, hi everyone. How many ways can we say hello? we need to really like we should come up with some like regular jazz dance that we do so we don't have to every time come up with a new fucking way not the fucking immediately not immediately

where is my swear jar that's it okay i need to start one pound goes into my tax pot that's not a real swear jar anyway what is the show who are you i'm moylo mclean this is if i speak i am your co-host who are you i am co-pilot Sarka, but before we get into it, don't you have some things that you want to talk to us about? No. Things which are happening next week. I do.

Next week, we are going to be touching down in the great city of Manchester. Now, unmistakably, the second city, Birmingham, you've been warned. The productivity of Manchester is streets ahead, I'm afraid. So you know what you've got to do. Manchester, the white heat of Manchester's cultural expansion, we are taking part in it. We are going to be at Contact Theatre on the 25th of November with Lanray Bacaree, author of We Were There. He's also a guardian journalist and a fab talker. And that's what we really care about, fab talkers.

In addition to this, we also have a festive event at Earth Theatre in Dahlston. This will be on the 16th of December. We will be joined by a very special guest, Jordan Stevens, musician, actor, best-selling author of Avoidance, Drugs, heartbreak and dogs we don't really have a topic yet but it's going to be sick anyway so I love look at us involving men look at us involving after your how can I stop hating men episode yeah exactly well done us

congratulations to us and their men who are in relationships with women I don't know if they're straight I can't comment on that but look at us We are really inclusive. Look at us. Who'd have thought. So, I have icebreaker questions for you. Hit me with your rhythm stick. I will.

Question one. What is your ideal type of sofa? Oh. Um, I really like the one I've got in the moment, actually, which is a long L-shaped one. I like a long sofa. I like lots of room to lull on the sofa. It has to be comfy over... I also like a big three-seater,

which is deep leather, like green, old style. Maybe they're Chesterfield. I think Chesterfield. I think Chesterfield. I like that as well. But the main thing is it's got to have the ability for me to stretch out fully,

which is not hard, I'm 5 foot one. The ability to stretch out fully. Yeah, you can do that in an armchair. You could do that in a... Yeah, I can do that kind of anyway. You know, in the cup of an acorn. If anyone else is sitting on it, I want them to be like a couple of feet away from me

on the sofa, so it has to be big. People should be able to sleep on it. That is key. Oh, yeah. And it just should be something you can sink into, but not too much. I want back support.

I want to be able to recline and have a cushion behind my head and read or lower my side and be able to read, but I also don't want to be able to fall into the fucking sofa. Emma mattresses I think they are so soft horrible horrible I don't like a soft mattress I need a firm mattress this back I sat on a soft mattress and my sciatica went crazy I couldn't understand it's like what's going on and then I got a shit mattress top of it changed everything changed oh yeah I didn't realize how much it affects you need

that firmness to keep up that posture posture is very important to me question two this doesn't have to be in a romantic or sexual way but what if it is But what if it is? But I should want to know if you felt the same. It doesn't have to be in a romantic or sexual way. But what facial features do you find appealing in other people? Oh, that's hard because as my friend has said before, I think everyone is like gorgeous.

I have a gorgeousness filter, like a blindness. But what makes you warm to a face? A smile. A big smile. Big smile. it's the smile it's the smile it's smile lines it's the any indicators i think that i unconsciously see and tell me that this person has known joy and is prone to regular experiences of joy and that that smile comes easily and there's people i can because i can think of people and i'm like

what don't i like about their face and it's like their faces are sour they have sour faces and I think there's an openness to faces that I really like I guess it's not even that I like a round face a little bit I think I love smile lines I'm so with you on smile lines but I also love a big characterful nose not as bothered about me a schnaz yeah a schnoz a schnoz is good I think yeah I think I think for me it's got to be a indicator of joy on the face. Indicators of joy. And finally, what song best sums up your present emotional

and or psychological state? The problem is when you ask that, I just go to the last song that I felt like, the last song that I felt summed up my presence emotion of it was literally yesterday and it was listening to soul sound by the sugar babes,

which I don't know if you'll, do you know it? I don't know. It's from their first album and it's really good. and the lyrics are like expectations all around my intuition knows no doubt I could lose my way on this merry-go-round

and it's like like a bird I will fly to the sea just what could it be and patience I will learn before this fire burns intuition's got a hold on me there's magic in the air I want to breathe change change all around go with the rhythm

and I was like God that's so and when you listen to the song it's so fun-go it's like that early pop garage stuff It's from the first album It's like And it's just very about like Change is happening You have to go with

This is the sound of your soul Like listen to your interest and be patient Oh it's just a great song And I really felt This is how it feels to be me right now So I guess it's that one What about you?

Great Great Oh I don't know I don't think it necessarily feels like Me right now Because me right now feels like

I'm warding off sickness Everyone in my house is sick It's like a zombie film Right and I'm the last one that hasn't gotten bitten yet. But I can feel that it's coming. I can feel that it's coming. I feel it coming.

I feel it coming. Yeah, I guess I feel it coming. It's like, I'm just surrounded by people who are losing. It's just a menacing soundtrack. Like a menacing zombie soundtrack. Yeah, I feel like coming would be great for a zombie films, you know, like for the last one where they're like crashing through the walls and stuff. It's literally that's the last montage. God, I love listening to songs and being like, what film would I put this in?

What would I soundtrack this with? What seems? Where would the needle drop go? The steely down needle drop. Where would it go? Right. We've got a mystery question. We do.

But we've got to wait for your ding. Oh, yes. Well, I'm turning my ding on. Because at the moment it's going to do not disturb. Right. Ding done. Right. We've got a mystery question today, folks.

Our producer Chow is going to ding me. Oh, it didn't ding. My phone's not on silent. Ding. Ding! Okay. Okay. Is it inevitable that I will get more conservative as I get older?

Oh, I have thoughts and feelings about this one, but I kind of want to hear from you first. Oh. Okay. My thoughts and feelings were initially a question, which is what is an opinion you know that you you didn't that's more conservative as you've got older because I'm noticing changes in myself worrying changes what are you worrying changes young people infuriate me young people get off my lawn um young people infuriate me uh there are certain tactics young radical people use where i'm a bit like that's stupid as hell

whereas the pragmatism but I don't know if that's conservative per se that's just I think hard won knowledge and in fact someone the other day on a certain podcast was talking about this at the Green Party conference

who could that be and I was nodding along like yeah yeah exactly that what other concern I don't know if I hold any conservative opinions as I've got older I don't think it's I think they're probably just opinions that, no, I don't think I'm getting more conservative.

I'm getting more, what is the word for when you lose energy? Fatigued. My fatigue is leading me to become less active. And also, I don't voice my opinions or analysis as much on the platforms I used to. So I'm changed, and that probably makes people think that, you know, I don't care in the same way. Maybe I don't, but I think I do still care quite passionately. But I have certain opinions and things. I don't know.

You start. You've got probably more material stuff. I'm just thinking about my own journey. So there are certain ways in which I've become a lot less conservative as I've gotten older, which is I think I've gone from communist to communista. And I feel, like just in terms of my political analysis, I just feel that, That kind of like Marxist, materious lens through which you understand society

is much more important to me now than it was 10 years ago. But 10 years ago, I would have described myself as an anarchist. I don't anymore. I would have been sort of like very much on side with smashy, smashy black block, which I'm not morally or politically against,

but I just don't think it's a set of tactics which have a lot of value at this place. in this point in history right now doesn't mean that it won't and it's because I think ten years ago I was really experiencing politics as a subculture in all sorts of ways which also had a conditioning effect on my opinions so I wanted to repeat things which would signal my belonging to the in-group and that's also around the time where I started like using social media more and stuff like that and you know I just feel that there was like a bit of a loop there right the political positions that I was taking were a reflection of my desire to belong to a particular

group of people yeah and now I'm older that doesn't have as much power over me anymore so that's really changing like really really changing like I would have described myself as a you know police and prisons abolitionist in the past I wouldn't now now I talk about this all the time um this is like you know if you if you get me two drinks in on any given saturday this is what i'm talking about which is i don't think most people who describe themselves as police and prisons abolitionists are police or prisons abolitionists i think what they are i think is what i am which is a spicy reformer and you just want a word which is more more radical and that signals your difference from liberal reformers yeah which is fine right i think liberal reformers are full of

shit as well. But to be an abolitionist means that something ceases to exist, right? It existed and then it ceased to exist. Right. The abolition of slavery, I mean, not that it actually happened this way because of like sharecropping and stuff like that. That's why people still use abolition the way we do. But the thing is, is that the intention is for it to like not exist after a certain point. Whereas I think that all of us agree that actually there does need to be an institution or an organization in society that we've empowered to separate others who cause you know harm we can change what we think that harm is we can change what we think happens in that state of separation but I think as long as you think that some people should be able

to separate others from society against their will for the protection of the great majority of people, then we're not abolitionists. We are all spicy reformers. So that's something which I think I would have been really frightened to talk about. I'm not frightened. I'm laying it on a bit thick there. That would have been something that I would have felt reluctant to talk about before because that would have signalled my departure from in-group stuff. So I know that some people would interpret that as our Ashes become more conservative as she's gotten older. But I think that one of the things that we kind of need to admit about the left

is that in many ways we embraced a very post-analysis way of doing politics where it was much more about can you repeat the line in the right way and hold onto it rather than have you arrived here through any form of critical thinking, whether you've done that critical thinking alone or collectively. Yeah, and I'm just thinking about why I haven't publicly spoken at all about the Green Party or your party, which is, personally, partly because I don't think anyone cares what I think. My input on the matter isn't that input.

But I would just like to say, I never signed up to your party, and I thought it was a crockership from the kickoff. Sorry. I thought it was a crock of shit from the get-go. And I was just coming clean now because it's obviously, I didn't want to torpedo that at the time because who am I to poo-poo something? But I think my years of seeing what successful movements look like

from the outside, I've never organised one. I'm only talking about observation. And there's certain things that are present in successful movements that were not present here and are still not present. and I know that you wrote an article recently saying, like, maybe this will get resurrected. That's very hopeful. It's very optimistic of you.

It's a bit gracious of you to say that. Generous, I would say. I mean, look, that was an article where I wanted to not put my foot down on the accelerator on my own opinions. And I wanted to introduce an element of balance where it's like, well, where is their signs of life and, like, where are their signs of extreme dysfunction?

But I think this kind of comes back to something you were saying and this links to the question of is it inevitable that you've become conservative as you get older is that like this is the first time where really I'm reading books about strategy in order to think more seriously about strategy because what I've realised about myself is that for most of my time being either a participant or a commentator in politics. I was a narrative thinker. And I think that this is something which is like especially true for people who are journalists or writers or, you know, sort of expressive in that way is that we have a bias towards narrative forms of thinking. So when we go, okay, well,

what's going to happen next or like what are the possibilities of this moment? We think about it in terms of the story, right? You know, what sort of story might make sense. Which means that we're very bad at thinking about um structures very bad at thinking about probabilities um very bad at doing the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns like all that kind of thing and really really bad at thinking about strategy um and thinking about what's the difference between tactics and strategy or this stuff that lenin you know when he was writing was like listen up you schmucks like read your von klausowitz um it's a form of thinking which is really really important and it's not one that comes naturally to me.

So it's something which I've been trying to take seriously because I know that it's such a big absence in my toolkit. And I think since doing that, it doesn't mean that I'm right, doesn't mean that I'm like, ho ho, ho, ho, you little scurrying field mice. I'm not coming at it from that at all. But it has then since made me realize how many people there are whose engagement with politics is going, well, our job is to hold a line or for others to hold a line.

And if we carry on reaffirming our faith in something, it will do the thing we want it to do. Yeah. And that's not, that's not narrative. And that's not strategy. It's a third thing, which is religion. Religious, religious, you know what I'm trying to say, religiousity. You got it.

You got it. You got it. Well, exactly. When you stop trying, you get it. Yeah. And I think it's something that, with your party from the get-the-go, there was obviously no strategy. There was no strategic thinking about what this thing was, in my opinion,

which is why I shied away from it. It wasn't even, like, I'm not talking about when I thought it was, I didn't think it was a crock of shit from the membership thing. I thought it was a crock of shit from the get-go because I could not see an actual strategy beyond here are two figures who were on the left of this thing. And here are a bunch of random people who have different, interests and different politics, and we're going to get them together by I couldn't see actually

what was the bonding policy, what was the point? And when you don't have that animus in the first place, how is that going to be a successful political project? Labour's fallen apart and there's more binding those people politically than there actually is when you look at your party and the different political interests that people have within that. It was a bizarre coalition from the first, it seemed fragile as hell. And there was so much, there was already faction. from the get-go, if you know anything about buying the signs, you know about the factions involved. And I was just like, this is a top-down movement. There's no grassroots infrastructure that's come up with this.

Whereas you look at the Green Party, I've not signed up to be a Green Party member because I'm not jumping on any more bandwagon. I want to sit and take my time. If there was an election right now, I'd probably vote for them. But I am not going to be like, I know everything about them. I haven't had time to do all my research. I haven't had time to really think about what it would mean to be a Green Party member or what I would want to bring to that.

based. I think it's great a lot of people are signing up. I don't want to, you know, shit on that. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying for me personally, I want to take a lot more time about my strategy and consider, you know, what's useful here. But that is an established party with more internal infrastructure. Operates in a completely different way, something like Labor than your party. And there was an obvious like grassroots growing movement. And I'd been in Scotland, so I'd seen what the Scottish Greens were doing up there. There's a weird thing going on in Scotland, actually, where some greens have now defected to your party um which to me seems like a calamitous mistake but i i like them on a personal

i know i know some of them and i think they're really smart people and interesting but i think i don't know what has been said to them to make them defect and i understand the dissatisfaction with the level like what the scotchers are doing they're in government it's a different situation but it seems strange to me and maybe the triumph of hope over experience i think i think I think there's, there's, there's so many things in this. And I actually do think it, it comes back to this question about, like, is it inevitable that as you get older, you become less radical or less expansive in your political horizons, right? So not just conservative in the sense of like, suddenly I don't like tax anymore or whatever, right?

We're talking about this sort of like contraction of your sense of the possible. The first thing is that I actually think that there is a need for a socialist party. So not just a party which is got socialists in it clinging on by their bloodied fingernails. That's called the Labour Party. Or a party which is friendly and amenable to socialists like the Green Party, but a socialist party. I think that's an important thing. I am a Marxist. I'm not sure Zach Polansky is a Marxist.

The Green Party would still have my vote, but it's not my political home. Right? So creating a political home and a structured expression of the politics you want to see in the world, I think is really important. The thing is, is that your party tried to sort of cheat code it. So if you compare it to something like the Belgian Workers Party, which started small, right, a very small number of people with high levels of trust and establishing that political alignment was really, really important. important. And even then has had to go through processes where like a certain section of its like very senior team, you know, basically got kicked out because they weren't enough in alignment. That's how you end up with the Belgian Workers Party, which still has its divisions

and still has its struggles and still has its problems, but has a very, very clear sense of strategy and a very, very clear sense of purpose. Because it started with small number of people getting into alignment first and then like growing up from there. And, you know, people, certain people in and around your party also want something like that. They want something which is capable of building power in working class communities, which is something that the Belgian Workers Party have done with various forms of sort of like service delivery. They want something which isn't just about contesting elections. You know, they want something which is about a sort of like trying to cohere what is a very, very, very fragmented and disempowered working.

And they also want something which, you know, has a sort of lively and vibrant grassroots culture. Like these are all good things to want. I think they're incompatible with a party which is founded because you've got two people with massive individual followings and you're saying we're going to build it around them. So the problem is, is that you want everything. You want the party which has got a high degree of like grassroots engagement, a strategy beyond elections, something which is really democratic. democratic, something which can build new leadership, something which is embedded in communities, and you also want two hyper leaders, right? So even if, even if those two leaders and all the people around them were the most dedicated, competent, you know, even if, strategic people

in the world, I mean, my even if is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I think that that would be attention, which would come up in some way, right? Maybe not insurmountable, right? If you had the right people, very thoughtful people. But that's the sort of, you know, inherent tension from the get-go. And I was always looking a bit of scant at that. And then because, you know, I've got my theories about why this is, I think that the Labour Party is like your fucked up parents. So you want to leave and you want to establish and you want to be different

but alas the compulsion to repeat all of the things that traumatized you comes back and that's why you've got this intense factional warfare and not just factional warfare but factionalism as like a way of being you know like struggling over like every little thing of staffing and then trying to turn it into issues of principle rather than sort of struggles over power that's the Labour Party baby right you know it's like the hotel California you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave you can never leave and and I think that like that's a that's another big part of what happened and then I think you've got all this stuff about like the sort of you know personal character traits or personalities

and blah blah blah um but to come back to what you're saying about like you know well why not the greens or or you know why this new thing I do I do think that like in my own life I I know the importance of having communists who are much cleverer than I am around me talking to me all the time and being people with whom I can find a sense of political purpose, right? That's one of the best things about my marriage, my friendships, the little community of people with whom we have these like regular dinners. It's so, so important.

And it would be even better. if it was a party with a program, right? I would love that. I would love that. And so I can see why people weren't just like, hey, let me throw in my lot with the Greens. Like, I totally get that. I actually didn't say anything about like,

why not the Greens? Oh, not the Greens, sorry. But like, but sort of what you consider an error of people defecting from the Greens to. I thought it was an error politically because specifically your party. I think it's an error to give up on something where you have built. your political career and your base

just as like that movement is getting going with art and yeah it's in England but it's gonna it's gonna spread with a whole new lease of life and the circumstances in Scotland are different because the Greens were seen as responsible for like they take a share of because the coalition government they were in they take a share of sort of the fatigue people have with the S&P like it's just general fatigue

they've been in power for so long even if they were doing like incredible things, then people would get fatigued with them, but they're not even really doing an incredible thing. Anyway, that's my opinion right now. But the Greens really share, and their coalition fell apart. And there's a lot of, in certain parts of the Greens in Scotland, there's like intense factional warfare that kind of mirrors the Labour Party. And then other parts is absolutely none of that because the Greens naturally, like they're not built the same as Labour. They're not built like this fact, you're not meant to have this fractional warfare, which is why it's

so funny, it breaks out in different bits in Scotland. And I think that's maybe a, of them being a power. Anyway, I don't want to get too into it because I don't want to piss people off. But I wasn't saying, like, the Greens is an amazing, you know, concept. I was just a bit like, it seems bizarre to me that you would leave the Greens for your party. Like, if you were going to do something, I would start something else. Personally, I think your party is dead in the water as a concept. I think it's been bungled. And I wouldn't join anything with too high polluters anyway. I think that is such a mistake at this stage. You need You need like a, you'd need like a raft of leaders, I think.

You want like a, you want figureheads. I do think figureheads are useful for political movement. I think the political figureheads that your party has are unequipped for the job. I think they, and I don't mean this in a personal way. It's going to sound personal, but I really don't. I think that they are poor communicators. I think that some of them are obsessed with social media in a way that totally belies the ability to actually create this sort of like grass movement.

movement they're talking about? Why are you just posting screenshots of your Twitter all the time? Like people literally is starving and no one is like Twitter is also dead in the water. If that is like where you're finding your political battles and fighting your political battles, that shows like a deep uns seriousness to me and a lack of understanding about where priorities should be and what you're doing. One of the reasons people like Polanski is because he is at his comms is good, but at least he's like going. outside and talking to people, but it's not, but when you really see the power of going to where people are at, that's obviously happening in New York right now. Like, I don't know what,

I don't know what the outcome of the election will be at the moment, the poll, like by the time this comes out, we'll know and maybe everyone will be devastated. But at the moment, it looks like there's going to be a self-proclaimed socialist mayor of New York City. And that campaign has been running for years. They didn't start. A cutie patootie in the mayor's office. We, Keetititititis are rising. Rise up. Kee. Petitis, he has given us hope that a cutie patootie can make a difference. But that campaign, obviously Zoran is like a dream candidate for any comms director because he's so charismatic. He's so like well, he's so articulate. He's so good at every situation like just meeting the people

where they're at. But the point is he goes and meets people where they're at as well. And he's been doing that for years and years and years since he ran as assemblyman. He did in a video recently where he was comparing what he did after the US election in 2020. where he stood on the street and was like asking people questions about how they felt about politics to now when he was campaigning. Everyone was like, bro, my God, I love you. But it just shows like he was, he's been there for so long. First one he ran in the Semino, he's been there for so long and all these videos that keep coming out of him at protests like years ago protesting, um, Israeli like occupation of Palestine and they're obviously being brought up to be like, this, this man is a threat. But everyone's like, this just shows. He really means what he says and he's been dedicated. And he's obviously being brought up to be like, this, this man is a threat. And he's like, this just shows. This he. He really means what he says. And he's been dedicated. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he. And he he's been in the communities he's talking to you for so long. That's the kind of work that needs to be done in order to give you. You can't just have the slickness and the talk. You also have to have like this feeling of authenticity like you're there.

And when you're just posting stuff on Twitter all the time, I don't know how it feels like you're really there. I think that's right. And I think there's a sort of like disembodiedness around your party, which like when you compare it to Zora and Mamdani or like, you know, lots of other candidates and lots of other projects which are like a lot more about like various forms of like listening exercises and stuff like that like there is a sort of disembodiedness about it and I think that you know it having this like

really weird launch process you know it also created an inward facing culture right because because there was so much factional struggle um so I'm just going to close these blinds once because I'm getting but it's such a lovely dappling effect I know, but I'm like, every so often in my eyes are like, blah. And let me just crank this. Cracked it? Like it.

All right. But I think coming back to this thing about like, because maybe the question is less like, is it inevitable that you're going to become more conservative as you get older? And maybe there is a question about like, how's the way in which you relate to left wing politics changed as you got an older? I think it is inevitable that it will do. change, how it changes, is not a simple left-wing, right-wing spectrum.

I think that there are a ton of things that I think now, which are really different from what I thought three years ago, lots of them in the book that I wrote. But I think that I feel more confident in my politics, which is why I'm a lot less scared of contestation, debate, or hearing from people that don't share them. And that's something which has changed. And people often perceive that as becoming more right-wing, right? If you have time for conservatives or liberals even and you spend time engaging with their arguments,

people perceive that as a form of moving away from your politics, it actually has come from me feeling much more confident in being able to argue for my politics now than I did when I was younger. I think I'm getting to the age where I'm worried where the worries that would have had when I was younger about how can I be a value, how can be a change, are starting to morph into, there's real possibilities that I now have to start making choices that within a capitalist system that some of them will definitely go against what I thought with my beliefs and some of them will agree and it's like, well, main question is what do you do with your money? that is a big one. What do you do with your money? Housing is also a big one.

And I think a lot, like, if I end up making some money, what do I do with it? How do I spend it in a way that doesn't feel like it's betraying my principles? Because, yeah, I'd like to go on holiday and things like that. But it's also, do I give 10,000 pounds

to a local organisation or is that waste of money? Do I start something else? Do you know, like it's, do I give 10,000 pounds to my closest family and friends if I made that much money? I won't, but do you know what I mean? It's like these questions of how can you most be a value?

Because I'm not going to be an organiser. There's people who keep asking me to like, organise something and do something. I'm not an organiser. I'm never going to be an organiser because I don't have staying power. I don't have staying power. And I get distracted a lot. So I'm not an organiser. My analysis is often not very useful.

It's funny going from a pundit and like changing your position because you start to think like what actually is my purpose. And now I'm not doing punditry all the time or like daily business. analysis then I feel very out of the loop and very like I've almost I feel a guilt like I've betrayed people because I'm not constantly doing this sort of work even though I'm doing different types of work but it's I don't have time at the moment to go like volunteering so I'm not making up for it another way like there's a huge sense of guilt going on but also I do think I've got more socialists in my politics internally which is such a weird contradiction

because I'm like I believe in this stuff even more am I going out of and doing anything about it, probably less. I mean, I suppose, like, I don't really agonise about this stuff. Yeah, because you're daily on, like, a voice for this. So it doesn't, it's not going to. And that's because I'm like, okay, I want to be a machine that makes Marxists, right? And so I want to do that by, like, intervening in the day-to-day new cycle,

because I think that's important. I think that's how most people experience politics. I also want to do deeper, more robust, more extended work, which is taking people on a journey from sort of social democracy to Marxism. And that's the thing that I want to do. And then like around that, I'm like, I'm just not going to obsess very much. There are like movement things that I want to like contribute my time to because I see that as a bit like paying a tithe.

I'm like, this is my tithe, right? I'm contributing my time to like do this event or facilitate these assemblies or whatever, right? This is my contribution to the movement. But the rest of the time I just, you know, I think that there's room for most people's skills, right? Like there's room for everyone's skills. Mine are to do with like making arguments and persuading, right? There are some people who like, you know, and I've seen this happen. I've seen this happen within Navarra, which is, you know, some people are like, but also should I be an activist or like, should I be an organizer?

I'm like, nah, man, just do your job and do it really well. Like that's the best thing you can do is do your job really well. Like I don't try and live up to a sort of like he's the most like authentic or worthy kind of movement actor. Because the other thing is that there are very obvious elements of ego and narcissism in what I do, right? And I just think it's so obvious that it doesn't, it's not even worth saying, right? love this out of my own voice, get my face everywhere, people see me as like a figurehead of something, right?

Narcissism, ego. There is also narcissism and ego and being the person who kills themselves running from protest to protest to protest and being the person who's like, emergency call out, da-da-da-da-da. We all have to admit that our sense of self

and our sense of status is wrapped up in the political work that we do as well. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm not saying that it's possible to escape, but we have to admit that to ourselves because I think then it can it becomes a little bit

like self aggrandizing when you can't admit that there's ego and what you do yeah sorry talking about policies like bums me out so much so every time I think about it's like this huge void of everything

that needs to be done and that I'm not going to do at all and who's like other people will obviously maybe do it but maybe they also won't and I think this is the thing I don't have time I don't have any time to do things. And I think that's how a lot of people feel,

which is that they're just keeping their head above the water and they don't have time to dedicate to... And that's what happens as you get older. Your time is filled more and more and more by the concerns of daily life. And therefore you get more disconnected from the politics, but the politics governs your daily life. So it's this terrible feeling of helplessness and powerlessness,

which, of course, you're making choices all the way through this. It's not that you're passive, but it feels like a lack of... of agency and passivity and there's so little hope I don't understand why the left isn't producing

new star what I do like new stars like the Zorans he's only four years older than me he's like he's our generation

where are our Zorans there's a couple of people I can think of what I'm like you should be running for this thing you should be just going out on our limb and doing this basically like

the big barrier is the UK electoral system, which has meant that labour has had a stranglehold on the left. And the way the Labour Party works is that is deeply factional at every single level. So even in constituency Labour parties, when you're electing like officers, like, you know, people will be fucking like planting like compromat and shit. Like it's so, so nasty and like so bloodthirsty at that level. And also relies on systems of patronage networks because that's something which you really,

really get in, you know, the bureaucracy of the trade union movement. So, you know, it's a form of politics which is very closed, very, very closed. It is different in the Greens. The Greens is more open to new people coming in and doing something different. Maybe that will change over time because, you know, this is when they're first becoming a sort of fighting force in national polls. Maybe it will become more factional because there's more at stake. But, you know, the fact that there's no open form of candidate selection in the Labour Party, it means that you don't get your Zorans or whoever else who can, you know, establish themselves through open primary systems. So lots of these things have as their original sin, our electoral system, and also

the particular history and structure of the Labour Party. Because sane people don't look at the Labour Party and go, that's for me. Which is why I'm also a bit like the younger leaders of your party, why would I trust you? Because you looked at the Labour Party and went, that's for me. I think that it's the thing of like the compulsion to repeat, the trauma that you were, you know, you were subject to. I mean we should move on to the dilemma in a second But I've got like one last thing Which is hold forth

Which is this Are there opinions you hold that you would be reluctant To bring to this podcast Because you were worried that the audience wouldn't like it I can't think of any to be honest Perfectly Angel No I can't think of any that I don't know what that would be

I think there's probably opinions shy away from making a decision about like police abolition for example i don't really have a have a clear-cut opinion on that i'm kind of open to listening to arguments as opposed to having like this is what i think um maybe landlordism as well i in an ideal world i don't think landlords would exist um but i also i'm not in the capitalist world I'm not opposed to all forms of landlordism, which is probably a crazy, like that's probably my spiciest opinion.

I'm more like I understand how you can end up in these decisions of soft landlordism or et cetera, et cetera, I'm very opposed to portfolio landlordism, landlordism purely for profit. But I think I understand how some people will end up in situations where they become landlords but I think you should be working to try and get out of those situations if like as soon as much as you can um and I wouldn't mind living in a in a world where I

am a tenant for the rest of my life if it was like Vienna where you get like a lifelong lease and I was a state owned property as opposed like the state should be the landlord in my opinion that would be my ideal um because I don't really like I probably will try and buy a house at some point or flat if I can make that money but ideally I wouldn't have to do that I don't really want the responsibility of that and I would I wouldn't mind being a tenant but I just think the way tenancy is to set up here so hellish that it forces you into making these decisions and that's that's capitalism um so that's probably that's probably an opinion that I would I'm trying to think of any others that I

I can't think of any others that I wouldn't be afraid to voice on the podcast but then you'd have to like what subjects would you think I might that might no I didn't have anything

of my mind I mean there are lots of things that I think like you know I do think about how the audience is going to receive certain things that I think

can say and I think a lot about how to put it across in a way which you can oh I think we should bring back political blackness

no i'm being i'm being gosh i'm being gosh what's going i'm doing the i'm doing the Pikachu shocked face i'm giving glib no i think we i think we need to bring back some sort of um way of aligning different ethnic minority communities so they just call it poc that's what the that's what the term so that's been wrecked it's been ruined look we can't keep trying to come up with worse and words words for the same thing Yeah, but the concept of that, the concept of unity under an umbrella, I think we need to fucking bring back person. Run the track.

Run the track. Let's move on to dilemma. Yes. There you go. How do people send in dilemmas? You send them into If I Speak at Navaramedia.com. That is, if I speak at Navaramedia.com. Are you ready, Ash?

Sorry, sorry, are you ready, Ash? Do you want to read, Ash? out. No, I want you to read it out. Oh, why? Because I read the last one. Okay, that was the last episode. I give it fine. Um, Dear Moyer and Ash, I have a hard decision to make. This summer, I had an intense three-month romance with my best friend slash house moat slash comrade with whom there had been a longstanding repressed mutual crush. So you're not friends, are you? I then moved out after our other housemate completely fell out with us. There's a whole other story. But also admittedly after realizing that my friend, lover and I had very different needs and

expectations. The cat was out of the bag with strong romantic and sexual connection by then, but the situation made me really anxious as her mindset was avoiding, go with the flow and don't communicate too much, while mine was not chill and wanted this to progress in a serious relationship. Yes, we absolutely should have seen this coming given that we knew each other's communication styles and other relationships. Stupidly, I thought that although she didn't, in general, didn't want to be in a relationship, she would with me, given how close we already were. Though it's a mess, I somehow believe it was necessary and inevitable for all this to come out and address the big what-if element in our lives. In the meantime, I had a

couple of months away from London, which did me a world of good, but I'm now moving back. Obviously, me and my ex-housemate are not right for each other right now, but the feelings haven't gone anywhere, at least for me. In spite of my impulses, I do not want to be involved with someone where I feel like I'm chasing and there's an imbalance, so I know I need to look elsewhere for love. Recently I've come to accept that I want to look for serious connections and own that not try and fit into what other people want. Woohoo. So my dilemma is this. How much can this old and dear friend continue to be part of my life? Being around her is likely to drive me a bit crazy, but it would be sad to lose our mutual group of friends and to no longer be part of the

same organising spaces we both frequent. Clearly we can't be as close as we were, at least for the moment, but how extreme does that need to be? Should I, one, go all out with no contact and unfollow on social media for as long as it takes either as to come around to the other ways or other's way of thinking, or should I too? Try and find a middle ground, keeping out a bit of distance and focusing more on other friends and dating new people but still seeing each other in group settings.

My gut is saying maybe I need to do option one for a while but then I worry it makes situation irreversibly into a massive deal a narrative I will only perpetuate. If I did option two, maybe it would be a little turbulent emotionally for a while but once I ride that out perhaps I could learn to be more normal and settled about this in the long term. What do you think? You're sincerely a struggling special one.

I really like this dilemma. Just because I think the special one has already done a big amount of the work. Special one, you get a gold star. There's a gold star here for coming with us with a problem, but still having done a lot of the emotional groundwork. I'm proud of you, special one. I'm very proud of the special one as well.

Yeah. Look, I think my advice is actually simple. And the reason why it's so simple is because, as you said, the special one's done so much of the work, you can't fall for someone new whilst this person is in your eye line. And that's the thing, is that you know what you want. What you want is a committed relationship

and what you want is someone who wants the same thing as you. And I think that because this person, you know, it's not just a sort of like friends with benefits thing or a situation. It's like they were the closest person to you. and there was a you know repressed sexual and romantic element to it for a long time which then like was consummated but it didn't it the romantic commitment didn't match all these other forms of commitment that you had to one another of living together being best friends being comrades um that for you it's always going to feel like an unfinished story until you experience that commitment with someone else and I just sort of think that you do need to keep them out of your eye line for a while until you are emotionally and romantically in a different place for someone else.

I think kind of similar. I think I don't think you need to wait for someone else per se because I'm worried that if you go cold turkey, you won't actually be processing the emotions and then when someone else comes in. you want is hot turkey again yeah then you come in with your new person and you're like oh no hot turkey's in front of me so i'm kind of like i think there should be a gobble goddle a middle ground where you have three months or serve cold turkey and then you start drip feeding a little bit and you have to have like internal warning buttons when you're around them there needs to be

don't tell them these conditions because that makes it mental but i think there should be some conditions on when you know you see them it's got to be a group setting you've got to re-establish your relationship with boundaries that weren't there before and you're basically rebuilding a relationship from scratch a platonic one that may that will never become as close because what you're building before wasn't a friendship it was repressed crush transmuted into friendship but it wasn't friendship you always fancied each other and then otherwise you wouldn't have like dived in thinking the other person would maybe behave differently with you, because otherwise you would have opened it,

gone with clear eyes. When I once got involved with a friend, I never for one second thought they would change the behaviour at all. And that's because I actually do think we had a friendship before. And I was like, I know who this person is. They're not going to change their behaviour just because I'm here. No one is special source enough to change that per se, unless that person themselves wants to change it.

Only you can be special source enough to change the behaviour. of that you're doing um so i think you have to look at this as like almost a stranger that you are re-meeting like if you want to have any sort of relationship with them or rather friendship with them and you have to think what would a person do that's platonic in this situation how would a person am i thinking platonically about this person

if not maybe it turns out you can't actually be in this person's orbit in the same way and they are what they are right now which is an x They are your X. Wise, wise words. Thank you. Thank you. Sure, wrap it up. Let's wrap it up.

Come to our live shows. Maybe you've already been to our live shows by this point. When's just going out. Who knows? Come to a live show at some point in, you know, the immediate future, the long-term future. Just come to a live show. When we're sitting around the campfire in the nuclear wasteland, we will be doing a live show. I don't want to survive the apocalypse, by the way.

Like, I just don't want to. First sign the apocalypse. I don't want to either because I've realized like there's certain things. The act of moving with only small amounts of possessions has told me I would not survive. I was saying to a friend. I could not survive even the hint of a war because I need an iron. I need a kettle. I need a toaster.

I need a sharp knife. I need all my creams. Like there's a lot of things I need to have a, to be happy. And I would not have any of them. So I respect that. Right. Tadda. Bye.

Ha! Thank you.