The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 144. Gary Stevenson: From Teenage Drug Dealer to Millionaire Trader (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

How did Gary Stevenson go from being expelled for drug dealing, to one of the most successful traders in London? How does class and privilege play into the world of finance in the UK? What could men do differently to deal with their mental health at work? Rory and Alastair are joined by author of The Trading Game, Gary Stevenson, to discuss all this and more. The Rest Is Politics Plus: Join with a FREE TRIAL at therestispolitics.com, for exclusive bonus content including Rory and Alastair’s first ever miniseries The Real JD Vance, early access to Question Time episodes and live show tickets, ad free listening for both TRIP and Leading, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Visit HP.com/politics to find out more. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @restispolitics Email: [e-mail] Social Producer: Harry Balden Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Alice Horrell Producer: Nicole Maslen Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor, Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolities.com. This episode is sponsored by HP. Now, Rory, I hear that Windows 10 is finally being put out to pasture this year. It is, and something pretty relevant for you, Alistair, given what I've seen as some of your technology. It's going on October the 14th, to be exact. And after that, Microsoft is going to be able to. stop supporting some of those old laptops of yours. No updates, no security patches. So if you were still using it or a business was still using Windows 10, it would be really exposed to cyber threats, for example. It would be like locking the door, but leaving the key in the lock. So it's time to move on and HP are making that refreshingly straightforward. Yes, they are. HP's latest business PCs comes with Windows 11 Pro as standard. They're faster, more secure built for the AI tools, which are

already reshaping the way we work. And you don't have to figure out all in your own. HP's business advisors help you pick the right kit, so no baffling jargon, just practical advice. And here's the bonus. Restis Politics listeners get 10% off business PCs at HP.com using the code Trip10 Term Supply. So unlock efficiency and innovation upgrade to Windows 11 Pro PCs with HP and get 10% discount. Visit HP.com slash politics to find out more. Welcome to the Restless Politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell, and we're with Gary Stevenson. And there are several reasons we're with Gary Stevenson.

The first is, you would please know, Gary, that a lot of our listeners and viewers have said, why don't you get Gary Stevenson on the podcast? So here you are. But also because he's got a very interesting live story, working class background, grew up in Ilford, Essex, East Londoner. And he became very clever at school, became a trader, became very, very well. wealthy, got disillusioned with it. I had a bit of a breakdown, I think, and the other reason I want to talk to him was, you know, as you know, very interested in mental health, and I think he went through quite a lot.

But now has emerged as a sort of leading voice of frankly calling for a whole new approach to the economy. And I think he's getting into quite a political space. So we're going to do this in two parts. We're going to talk about his growing up, his background, his influences, and then this sort of reminds. time as a trader. And then in the second part, we'll talk much more about politics. So thank you for being here. Thanks for having me.

And Gary, let's start, if we can, with your life. Because I know you've written about this, and you've written a very, very beautiful book, Trading Game, which I'd recommend highly. I mean, you're a really good writer amongst many other things. But tell us a little bit about this incredible vision which you begin the book with, which is the contrast between your life

and this fancy investment bank where you end up working? Yeah, so I grew up in Ilford, which is kind of East London, Essex contested territory. I call it East London. Okay. But it depends as you ask. But for me, it's East London. Okay.

Yeah, Little Terrier's house by the railway. Ilford is extremely South Asian area, so I grew up with a lot of recent migrants from Pakistan, India, East Africa. And what's your ethnic background? My dad is English. My mum is Italian. Yeah, my mum is Italian. One of the really interesting things about your childhood, you're the second person that we've interviewed in recent weeks who was brought up in the Mormon faith. Who else did you have? Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Really? Yeah. Okay. She became, her family became Mormon because a missionary knocked on the door. Well, most people do. Most people do. So my dad's parents were converted. You know, my dad's, Dad's dad came back from the war, some, you know, some bright-faced young. They send these, like, teenage boys, you know, 19-year-old boys knock on the door. Have you thought about God? And it's quite funny because my memory of my dad's dad is like a very, you know, taciturn, very sort of respectable working class, stiff up a lip.

But then he's, it makes you question, but, you know, this guy's out there killing people for years, you know. So he became a Mormon. And then my mum's mom, yeah, my mum was raised, single parent by her mom. And yeah, they're both knocks on the doors. going through the book, I don't get a feeling of really good relations with your family. Yeah, I wanted to do this thing. Some people have asked me,

are you trying to protect your family by not keeping them in the book? But what I wanted to do, and I spoke with you a little bit about this before, is I wanted to do this thing like what I think they're doing in Slaughterhouse 5, which is where they give you this. I wanted to do a very realistic interpretation of how most modern men talk about their mental health problems and in fact how they deal with their mental health problems, which is number one, they work really, really, really, really, really hard. They throw themselves into their work. They compulsively overwork. And number two,

they very gently hint at problems and then they rapidly veer away into talking about work. It's like how does a man tell his best friend he's depressed? He takes him to the football. He sits next to him for 90 minutes and he says nothing. And what I wanted to do was, for me, I think in my opinion, you read the book. I think it should be pretty obvious that basically every major character in the book has a pretty serious mental health condition. But it's never discussed. How would you define the various characters and what they've got? And let's start with your childhood and parents.

Oh, so my parents, what I wanted to do was hint that there's problems back at home. Because I think it's very, very difficult to become a trader nowadays. It's like one of the hardest jobs to get. And the people who get into it, they have to be obsessed and they have to work obsessively. They work obsessively. They work crazily hard. And personally, I don't think that's a physically healthy thing to do. And I don't think healthy normal people do that.

So the people who end up on that trading floor, they're pretty much all crazy, basically. But they're trying to deal with something. But nobody ever talks about it. And I think this is, as much as mental health has moved on, I think the truth is the vast majority of men still never do talk about it. So tell us about your family and childhood. My parents are very religious. My mom in particular is extremely religious.

The Mormons, as we've mentioned, which for those who don't know is a kind of, it's quite similar to Jehovah's Witnesses. It's very American, very American, like modern, you know, pleasure denying Protestantism, I guess. My dad's very English, very quiet. My mom is from an Italian family. She's, let's say, a lot less quiet. Small house, I shared a little tiny bedroom, bunk bed with my brother. My dad worked very hard early mornings, late nights. who worked for the post office for 35 years.

Raised by my mum. It was not an easy house to grow up with. It was quite volatile. Lots of noise, not a lot of space. Anger? Yeah, my mum was difficult, especially. My dad was very quiet, but my mum was difficult. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My sister wrote a musical, actually, called Poet in the Corner, basically about our family. And, yeah, my mum is a character, let's say. What did they think about the way they were portrayed in the book? So my dad, my mom is extremely dyslexic. And so is my sister actually. So my mum hasn't read the book. Listen to it?

I don't think so. No. My dad read it. So the book was like number one for two weeks last year and 11 weeks this year. So it's a big deal. My dad messaged it. You go back to number one for this, Gary. Honestly.

Oh, hopefully. Every time. I honestly think it's a very good book. My dad read it and he actually, I think I messaged him all the book's number one. And he just like, well done. That's my dad. When I was a kid like, you know, 11. stars or whatever. Well done. That's all he would say, one text. So I said to me, I pressed

a little bit, did you like it? He said it was very good, but there was a lot of swearing. That was my dad's state, which is, I can't disagree with my opinion. Yeah, they're there. To be, to be honest, like, so, you know, I got expelled from school for selling drugs when I just turned 16. I stopped going to church when I was 15, but I was... How did they feel about that? They weren't happy, but I've got an older brother who also stopped going to church a few years before. And he kind of took the... And were you a kind of child prodigy?

I mean, you got 11 A's stars? I got 8A stars and 3A for GTSC, and then I got 4A's for A level, and I won a couple of maths competitions when I was a kid. So you were a very smart child mathematics? Yeah, in particular at maths. But to be honest, I was good at most subjects, and it was not to sort of big myself up. It was a bit effortless. It was a very crowded house.

There was no, like, desks to work on. I would enter these competitions, and I would win these, like, competitions. and I wasn't doing anything. Did you work hard though? Not really, but I got expelled from school at the beginning of year 11, which is the GCSE year. And then I had, I don't know, eight or nine months in which I had to study at home.

On your own? Yeah, because my parents were working, my brother and sister were both. My brother was working by then. My sister was still at school. And I was there to lie on the floor with a little wooden board, yeah. Is it tough for your brother and sister who were less academic than you to have a brother who was.

kind of effortlessly getting all these A stars and stuff. So my brother actually was also got very good grades up until his A levels where he did really badly. And I think he just can't. My brother's a, he doesn't like me speaking about him. He's a peculiar individual. I see why. He's not, he's not.

That's the introduction to him. Yeah, he's, uh, he's, I love my brother. And he's, he's one of the smartest people I've ever met. He's unusual. My sister, as I said, was heavily dyslexic. So I think it was a particular difficult for her. And me and my brother passed our 11 plus. We went to grammar school.

And my mom didn't let my sister take her. 11 plus. And that kind of, I think my sister really internalized this. Yeah, my brother's really smart and I'm like the slow one. My sister is also extremely smart. She wrote this very successful musical, but she's dyslexic and obviously caused her to struggle in school.

One of the things I really, I mean, I agree with Rory. I think it's very, very well written. And it's, I hadn't read it when it came out. I read it yesterday. And I just, I read it straight through. And it sort of draws you in very, very quickly. I think the introduction is brilliant. But I'm really here.

Intrude, because a lot of the book is about class, basically. Yeah, I think so. And, but I'm intrigued, you're clearly somebody who wants to hold on to your class because, for example, sometimes it is deliberately, not the dialogue, but the writing is deliberately ungrammatical. Yeah, yes. Like, you know, I didn't do nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did an editor try to get you to soften that or change that? It was funny. So you guys will probably know, publishing is quite middle-class industry. And my first interaction was with the guy who, you know, the guy who's, now my agent. He's not going to like me saying this. I wrote the first, I wrote the pitch quite long, the whole of part one of the book, 20,000 words. I sent it to him and he sent it back with his edits. And like all of this intentional and grammatic stuff. So it was intentional? Yeah, so I read the book. You guys might have read it. I love this book. It was a book called

Who They Was by a British, Polish author called Gabriel Krauser. I don't know if you've heard of it. And he wrote this book in extremely aggressive, like London, modern London slang, which is which is an accent and a voice I grew up with. I never spoke it to the extent that this guy spoke it. But I grew up around this, this kind of modern London accent, which maybe some older people or not, it's a different to the old copy accent.

But what he did was, he made it so beautiful. He wrote in this aggressive slang that was so beautiful. And it was a massive inspiration for me when I wrote the book to do that as well, to capture that. I wanted to capture, like my, you know, I'm from East London.

It's very like, I've got a load of mates, particularly I've got some Greek Cypriot mates. They have six pints down the pub and then these beautiful storytellers. I wanted to capture that at a pub storytelling dynamic. But what I wanted to do, I wanted to have two voices, which is one, this very like authentic we're in the pub, we're having a chat voice. And another which is more of a classic literary voice.

And I wanted to use that when me, sort of I'm having, especially when I having very traumatic difficult times, I wanted the character to lapse into this much more poetic, classic literary voice. And what I wanted to do there, one that is representing basically the code shifting that somebody, anybody like me that comes from a poor background and goes these spaces has to do. But two, what I wanted to show was, I'm not using that ungrammatical voice

because it's the only voice that I'm not. I read Dickens, I read Shakespeare, I've done this stuff. And for me, what I want to say is, these two voices are of equal value. And it says something about our country and about class in our country. And I wanted to say, I can use both of these. And these are both as beautiful as each other.

That's what I wanted to do when I wrote it. No, it's good. Well, it definitely works. Let's then get to the kind of big hinge that happens right at the beginning of the book, which is you. with all the complexity of your life, weirdly end up turning up at an investment bank.

Yeah. And it's a bit about, we, we, one of our colleagues, Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, who comes from quite a modest Italian background in New York, turned up for his first interview with Goldman Sachs. And he's, he talks about walking, he's wearing the wrong suit. 100% flammable, he calls it. Yeah. And he's immediately kind of mocked by this kind of very fancy New York banker who's,

You can't come in there dress like this. You've got to. And so the mooch, unlike you, right? I mean, you've been quite interested in holding onto your roots. The mooch has gone the other direction. He's now Botoxed, kind of beautiful, drives the... Whatever works for him. Drives the Maserati, has these kind of exquisite Italian suits.

He's kind of completely embraced the kind of Wall Street dream. But I guess he would have started with a background, not very different to yours right here. But tell us a little bit about how that felt for you. We've had the kind of mooch's version. What was your version being a... Yeah, so before I was on the trading floor, I went to LSE, Lund School Economics, which you guys will know, but maybe not everyone will know.

It's a super, super elite prestigious university, like maybe even more elite in some ways in Oxford and Cambridge. And it's this like super international money. So this is where like top guys in the Chinese government or, you know, in the Pakistani military or Indian government, Indian businessman, like super wealthy people from Asia, Latin America, North Africa, sending their kids here. And that was sort of my first.

first sort of introduction to this like these massive class differences. But you got to reckon, I've got expelled from school at 16 and I've been like killing my exams from a kid and I had this unbelievable self-confidence of my mathematical ability and I turned up my first day LSE wearing a echo track suit, which I don't know if these are still popular. They said this massive rhino motif. And my plan was, because I didn't even have a, I didn't have a desk at home. So my plan was always sit at the front, you listen to everything they say, you understand. So I would go and sit at the front these massive economics lectures in my like echo hoodie. And I would call out the lectures and stuff.

People thought I was insane, basically. But like I, I just wouldn't. And in the sense, this is kind of your classic, like, immigrant American dream thing. It was because I grew up in a very, very, like, I went to schools that were 80, 90% South Asian. I was like, I am not going to let these guys stop me. Because I thought I was the best, basically. And there's one little scene in the book.

I did very well in my first year exams. And my good friend, one of the few guys who's in with their real name, Sagamowaday. No, Sagamaldi. His parents literally own the entire East African soap and cooking oils industry, still do to this day. I said to him, why does everybody know who I am now? Because everybody's suddenly recognises me.

And he said, because of your grades. But this guy, Sagamalda was number one in first year. So his grades were better than mine. And I was like, but your grades are better than mine. And he said, yeah, of course. But nobody expected it from you, basically. And that, I think that was, because also, I was always, I was at grammar school. I was like the poor kid in the grammar school.

But everybody knew I was like the smart kid. I hadn't really encountered this like this kind of incredulity that poor kids must be done Can I come to this? Because there's a connection to Alice So Alicester doesn't come from a background He usually on a middle class background But he also arrived at Cambridge

And felt pretty out of sorts And pretty alienated by class structures And suddenly confronting people He never seen before in his life It's a period of Alice's life He doesn't like talk about very much But you basically responded by getting pretty angry Not by buckling down

And working unbelievably hard What's your sense? of how you reacted in different ways. I mean, so he basically arrived, was so angry with what he saw about these kind of upper-class tofs pushing him around that he basically just became furious and drunk for three years.

And you instead decided to work really hard. There's a line. I think he's Kanye West. Success will be the best revenge. Like that was... Yeah, I got there in the end. Yeah, I was very... For me, I was like, I'm going to show these guys, like no matter how much their dad

is paying to send them across the world. I'm going to be the guy that beats him in the exams. It was like that was my... And what you've both have gone common? So you're both very competitive, right? I'm very competitive. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it's tapered off a little bit.

When I was a kid, I was like, you show me a game, I'm going to win it. And obviously, I eventually got my job through a game, like a card game competition. Yeah, but I think that was, you know, the other thing is, the big thing is, I knew that I was disadvantaged. And I knew that we had to find our ways through it. You know, and it was quite fun. I went to this, I went to this grammar school, this very, very Indian grammar school in East London.

And I had all these kind of middle class Indian friends. And to be honest, I kind of owe my career in a way to them because they had all this knowledge. They were like, I wouldn't even know what LSC was. You know what I mean? You have to go to LSC, you have to study economics. You have to do mass. And then there was a point where they were like,

and now we all apply through schemes for ethnic minorities. And I was like, I was like, fuck basically. And they were all much richer than me. But then when I was a kid, you just accept it. You just accept it. You're just like, what's the way I'm always looking for the back door? Pick you up on that. Yeah.

Because that's a big theme in politics today, particularly in the US. So you just said they all applied through schemes for ethnic minorities and I'm fucked. And this is something J.D. Vance would talk about, right? White working class people feeling that the whole diversity agenda is favoring middle class people at their expense. I mean, the truth is, race almost doesn't really come into it in a way. I don't think they had a would have wanted because they were non-white. They're advantage because they're in middle class. They're advantage because they're in middle class.

And with parents who push them and schools. Because it's not like, you know, it's not like there's not working class. They're really poor. Like, so I grew up in East London. When you grew up in, especially in North East London, you recognize that there's no such thing as the South Asian community. You know, there's rich people and there's poor people, you know. A lot of the Pakistani recent migrants were extremely poor.

None of them got into the banking. You know what I mean? Really, really, to be honest, I think a lot of this race thing is a cover for the class thing. Okay, Gary, Roy, quick break. Then back for more. Hi everybody, it's Dominic Zavrick here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is Politics, when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alastair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East, are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise. People are arguing about Europe.

The government has got a few issues with the trade unions. And we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain, and the Britain of the mid-19. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we'll be looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her.

And we'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistaira will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. And we'll be talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment. in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode.

And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History, wherever you get your podcasts. I want to just read a bit, but this is the bit that I sort of took out of it. Those drug dealers, these are you talking about drug dealers in your area, which, you know, you know, one, on one occasion. Were you really kind of serious drug dealer? You just sold some drugs. I was at grammar school, right?

And people just knew, because people knew, like, Gary's got black friends. It's really stupid, simplistic stuff like that. They would see who I would hang around with. And they would ask me to bring them drugs. So a real drug dealer would not be impressed by your drug dealing. No. Oh, I very much doubt. You've never tested it out, but I very much doubt it.

Anyway, it goes on. These drug dealers, the ones who are drug dealers, They didn't have the options I had or the options other kids had. They can't go to LACC. They can't win investment banking internships in card games, which you did. They have no reliable routes out of poverty, and so instead they sell drugs. Sometimes they do other things, fraud, burglary. Some of them make money, others them don't make money.

Some of them go to prisons, other ones don't. Sometimes kids like that, really bad things happen to them. Sometimes they get stabbed, they get killed. Sometimes people wait for them outside nightclubs and cars, and they wait for them to cross the road, they run them over, and their body spasm on the floor. Rural as then is that we are the same. This is you and the traders. We are all the same. The drug dealers, the bankers, the traders, me now, me then, and you name them all, we're all the same. The

only different is how rich our dads were. If those drug dealers went to eat North St. Paul's or whatever the fuck boarding school Rupert had gone to, they would be there with me on the trading floor sitting next to Arthur, sitting next to J.B, buying fucking green euro dollars. And that's where I kind of felt. This is ultimately a book about class and the education system. It's about, because a lot of the traders, to me, they come over as kind of quite working class people. In a way, well, there's this cultural myth in the trading floor of the sort of, especially in London, of the sort of cockney, wide boy market dealer kind of guy. It's an extraordinarily masculine space, an extraordinarily competitive space. And a lot of these cultural values align with a lot of the cultural values of working class, especially working class, men.

But I think this, on it, it's exactly as that says. Honestly, the personality type of the person who becomes a drug dealer from a poor background and the person who becomes a trade from a rich background. It's the exact same. There's a character in the book, J.B. It's this kind of very masculine, aggressive, competitive person. If you come from a poor background, you're very likely to end up in drugs in crime. The cliche in trading, when you're talking about trading here, you're talking about people

buying and selling I guess currencies commodities shares bonds is that you went from a world in which you had the kind of classic image of the kind of cockney kid shouting

on the floor of the stock exchange to a world which you're part of the transition to which is increasingly dominated by math's geniuses and many of them now increasingly from East European Chinese, South Asian backgrounds, right?

So you're at this sort of weird cusp where you've got part of the culture of the kind of old cockney screaming on the floor and part of the culture of this kind of new generation of math geniuses coming in. And then somewhere floating on the top, weirdly, in the book, are kind of these sort of chinless upper class wonders who are still sort of somehow there,

despite the fact they're not part of either. We're wearing pink shirts. You're obsessed with pink shirts, aren't you? Pink shirts is a bit of a metaphor in the book. It's a metaphor. Pink shirt, pink shirt. Well, we, we, when I was a kid, the only Millwall fans wore pink shirts.

Yeah, for me it was, it's a class transition thing. It's a class, you see it. And interest, so because I work in foreign exchange, because of the introduction of the euro, I work in rich world foreign exchange.

When the euro was introduced, the number of rich world currency foreign exchange traders had to half because the number of currencies had to half. And what that meant was they didn't hire anyone for like 10, 15 years. So when I come in, I'm like 21 years old. And it's a lot of the, older guys that are from the previous world, basically.

And in that previous 15 years, I started in 2008, you've seen this transition to, you know, the MIT Maths Wiskid, the LSE, Maths Wiz Kid. And you see the world changing. You know, one of the guys I worked with was an ex-Rugby player, basically. And yeah, and then I'm sort of... And they partied. I mean, one of the things that comes across in the book again and again is you're this little Maths Wisket, but you're perpetually being taken out to dodgy bars until 3-4.

I'm somewhat against my will a lot of the time. And that must be weird too, because this new generation of people of kind of math geniuses might be quite kind of introverted, hardworking, serious people. They're not naturally up till four in the morning putting down the expensive wine and getting two hours sleep, are they? Yeah, yeah. So you see the culture changing, and I got taken to Las Vegas when I was 21, and I was still at university, and I got text by, in the book he's called Rupert, like, Are You Free on These Days? And it was like a week before my exams, but I was like, yeah, he was like, come to Las Vegas.

He called him Rupert because he, his real character, was he one of the pink shirt people? He went to boarding school, his dad was in the army. Yeah, yeah. He was, you got the sense that he had a very strict father and he was just hoping if I make enough money, my dad would be proud. That was that kind of. But boarding school, I thought Rupert was an amazing character because he was vicious, vicious, violent, aggressive. Like he literally growled at me like a wolf at one point, like a dog for about a minute, and like gnashing his teeth and kicking his desk.

you could hear him growling behind you. Extremely physically violent guy. But then he has these moments of bizarre kindness. So like my friend, Harry, his mum passed away. And it was Rupert that was like, we need to do something. We need to help Harry. We need to go out there. And it was also when I was really struggling with my mental health,

he's the guy that was on a Zoom call, sat me down and was like, let's talk about what you need, what you want. It was this bizarre character. I said in the introduction that one of the reasons I was really keen to talk to you because, you know, the mental health stuff. When you're describing, particularly when you're in Japan, in the book, are you in the middle of what would be called a breakdown? Are you recognising that you've got depression or what's going on?

So I was diagnosed with the situational depression when I was in Japan. I'm not a psychologist. I would confidently say I had a depression. You could say a burnout. You could push it towards a breakdown. I went down to about eight stone in weight. I'm not a tall man, but that's not a lot. I wasn't eating.

I wasn't sleeping. I bought a flat, ripped all the furniture out, didn't furnish it, just like mattress on a concrete floor and a TV. That was all I had. I didn't realize. The thing is, nobody knew I was depressed. My girlfriend at the time in the book, she's called Wizard. She was the only person who really recognized it. But everybody else thought, which is really stupid already thinking about it, they thought he's richly successful, he must be happy.

And there's one little scene in the book where there's another character, J.B., who's obviously having a breakdown, massive breakdown. And I go to one of my friends on the desk, Snoopy, and I say, should we do something about J.B. And Snoopy says to me, don't worry, J.B. is the richest man I personally know. And I think it's so absurd, but it shows you how unhealthy are. You probably meant by that. I don't know. I don't think I probably meant that, you know, he needs to get himself into a decent place and get real. I think it's more simple than that. I think so many people are so obsessed with money that they simply cannot believe that you can

be rich and unhappy. It's so stupid and so absurd. But the thing is, so many people, especially young men, are quite unhappy. And they tell themselves, I'll just work harder, I'll make more money, I'll work harder, I'll make more money. If I make the money, I'll be happy. So they need to believe that if you have money, you'll be happy. Because that's their whole plan is, I'll make more money and I'll be happy. What did you learn about yourself going through that and then hopefully coming out of it? You know, I don't want to undermine depression because it was really hard. But personally, I'm glad I went through actually. I think I'm a much kind of person

now since going through the depression and also a less selfish person. There's a really small scene in the book where I went to karaoke in Japan and I am actually not a bad singer but I hated karaoke. I would get really self-conscious. The Japanese people would always be like go sing one and they said it's about making other

people happy. This guy sat me down and said listen you're doing it wrong. It doesn't matter whether you sing well or sing badly. What matters is that your guests have a good time. And this is like, I think I think Japan as a culture probably takes this too far, but it's a very different approach to selfishness. And then I started to go to karaoke,

and I would try to laugh and make a joke and try to entertain. And then suddenly I started to enjoy it more. And for me, it was weird because surely I should be happier when I'm focusing on my own enjoyment, my own happiness. But I don't think life is like that. I don't think humans are like that. I think, yes, humans are selfish at times and at places, but I think it's also a really important part of being human

to care about others and to make others happy. And you don't think you had that before. No, listen, I think, and I think British society and I think also American society has gone too far on this. That message was never in my life. You know, I had this religious stuff about God and that, but I never really had this simple idea, which is you, as a human, will not be happy

unless you try to make other people happy, unless you care about other people. I was told, get rich or die trying, and I was watching MTV bass with hip-pop stars doing strippers into swimming pools, you know, get rich, get rich, you know, you wave all this expensive stuff that in front of young kids

you can't afford them and you make them go insane. And the truth is, I know money is important and I know I have the privilege of saying this as somebody who has money. I don't think it's possible to be happy unless you care about making other people happy. And not just your kids, your wife, your family. I think it is fundamentally mentally unhealthy to not care about the broad health of the society at your own, in my opinion. So, because what came through the world you were in and the trading floor is a lack of really

Yeah. It's extreme. It's so extreme on that. It's me, me, me, me. selfish, selfish, selfish. It's impossible to think about the people in that environment. Do you feel strange if you do suddenly think, I wonder what poor people think,

I wonder what foreigners think, I wonder what it's like to live on the street. So I had a boss in the book is called Chuck, who got diagnosed with a brain tumour while he was working with us. And he brought us all into a room and he said, I'm sorry, guys, like yesterday I got lost on the way home. I went to hospital, I've got a brain tumor. But the doctors say they think they can operate it,

so I shouldn't have to take much time off work. That's what he said. It's what he said, that. It was so funny, but so sad. And it's just, it's just, we, we honestly, I think we train our young men to be kind of psychopathic with regards to work. And I know it's, it's cliche and it seems stopping, but there is more to life than that. But we've also created this world where for so many men and women, if you don't work really hard, every hour God gives, you can't put food on the table. And that's what I want to change.

That's why I do the work that I do. Just on the, on the, I'm interested in the, in the values. And also, you know, this is a political podcast, their politics, I guess. There's a bit in the book where I think Gordon Brown is Chancellor and he's talking about taxing the bankers and bonuses and all that stuff. And you lot just laugh. Well, it's kind of, in a weird way, it's funny, right? Because that would have been 2009.

Yeah. So I start June 2008. So 2009, I am still a very poor person. Like, my net wealth is like basically zero. I've made like basically no money. And I'm surrounded by these millionaires. Although at that point, I don't know quite how rich they are. And I've worked my tits.

off to get into this place. And then suddenly, here's Gordon Brown, we're going to tax the bankers. Can you imagine how I felt, basically? Like, you've worked like 21 years slaving away to get into this place. And it's like, now they're going to tax. Now they're going to tax specifically. It's not going to affect, these guys already millionaires, right?

It's me who's going to be affected, who has nothing to do with the crisis. So you weren't laughing, but they were. No, but then I turned around and this guy, Billy, who's this, another Scalian working class background, he's grabbed me by the shoulders and he's like, shaking me. He's like, don't worry, go out. They're never going to tax us. And they're laughing.

And the thing is, They were right. And when I introduced Caleb who was my boss, I described him as he's the most confident man I've ever met. And he has the confidence. Obviously, you know, I come from a poor background. And you see this kind of swagger confidence of, for example, drug dealers. But then there's this contrast of this guy who comes in from a rich background, very rich guy. And he knows that him and his class will always win. And he is always right. He is always right. This guy works for one of the banks that blew the world up. And he made millions on the blow up of the world. It's comedy, but they're 100% right. They were right, they are right, they're still there, they're still making millions of pounds. And look, you know, 2008 crisis was resolved in such a way. The rich got massively richer, the poor got poorer. COVID crisis was resolved in such a way. The rich got massively richer.

The poor got poorer. So they have the confidence. They basically own the political class. Hold on. Do they vote? Oh, yeah, of course, indeed. But they don't always vote conservative. So, Billy, this Scouts working class guy, he was extremely.

extremely left-wing in his politics. And, you know, he had a lot of scorn for these. Overall, it's definitely more right-wing, conservative-leaning, than the population. There's no doubt. Did you feel political when you were doing the job? Did you have any sense of, as you were doing it, this is wrong, this is fueling inequality. We're actually betting on poor people saying poor. This, in a sense, I think this is another, what I wanted to be a big theme of the book,

which is, I never consider myself to be a political person. Why not? Why not, did you say? So I grew up, get rich or die trying. You know what I mean? You grow up in, listen, you grow up in London. You're poor. Now, now you think about yourself a lot.

Of course. Now I consider myself a political person. Where are your politics? Define your politics for me? In my opinion, I have the politics of a car mechanic, which is this economy is desperately broken. Do you want to fix it or not? You know, Labor are not going to fix it.

The Conservatives are not going to fix it. You could be not going to fix it. I want to fix it. So politics. How can you fix it outside politics? Oh, no, don't give me wrong. Like, I know that if I want to change policy, at some point you need to influence politics.

My plan is the Rupert Murdoch plan. That's my plan. If you control what the public believe, then the politicians have to do what you say. Okay, well, we said we're doing a two-part, and that's the end of part one. We've discussed Gary's background, his entry into trading.

We're going to end there for now. We're going to come back next week for Part 2, where we're much more into, if you're like, an economic and political worldview, and he's rather depressing predictions for the future. If you'd like to listen to Part 2 right now, you can sign up to the rest is politics, Plus at the rest is politics.com. You'll receive all our members' benefits, such as early access to

question time episodes, add free listening, access to our brand new miniseries on JD Vans. Just go to the rest is politics.com. Everyone else, see you next week, part two of Gary Stevenson.