TRASHFUTURE - The Labour Splittacular feat. Mollie Goodfellow

Episode Date: February 26, 2019

A new party formed, except they’re not a party, and they don’t have policies, and their logo makes them look like a store where you can buy a  £10 cup of juice. That’s right, we’re talking The Independent Group on this week’s episode. Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), and Nate (@inthesedeserts) spoke with comedy writer Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) about the Labour splitters and their delightful approach to ideology versus facts. Please bear in mind that your favourite moron lads have a Patreon now. You too can support us here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture/overview — and if you do, you’ll gain access to our Discord server, where you can talk about soup with us all day. *COMEDY KLAXON* On 27th February at 8 pm, Elf Lyons and a number of other comics will perform at Smoke Comedy at the Sekforde (34 Sekforde Street London EC1R 0HA). Tickets are £5, and you can get them here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/smoke-comedy-with-elf-lyons-tickets-55825778406 Also: you can commodify your dissent with a t-shirt from http://www.lilcomrade.com/, and what’s more, it’s mandatory if you want to be taken seriously. Do you want a mug to hold your soup? Perhaps you want one with the Trashfuture logo, which is available here: https://teespring.com/what-if-phone-cops#pid=659&cid=102968&sid=front

Hello and welcome back to your welcome back. Welcome back. I guess since you last listened to your free TF for the week, I'm Riley. You may remember me from every episode of this podcast. I'm joined here in studio by Hussein. Hello. I definitely didn't show up an hour late and Keith laid just like delay the whole thing. But I just, I did want to say that on my way here, I did see the emo version of Riley, which like isn't that far removed from like you anyway, but it's just like you, but wearing a Misfits t-shirt, having a couple of like snakes, snake, snake bite, lip piercings. It's pretty cool. It was, it was like, I was back in 2006 again.

Well, it's, it's, it's the retro window is now, I'm sure we've all noticed this, the retro window has gone to early 2000s. Everyone's talking about Britney's dead and dress again. I mean, my chemical romance are back in Ferry, right? Umbrella Academy. I don't know how many of these people are. Beverreach. Yeah. Beverreach. Okay. And we have Nate on the boards. Oh yes. I was on the boards last night at, that sounds really bad, doesn't it? And we are joined by comedy writer Molly Goodfellow. Molly, how are you doing? I'm good. Thank you. I've been here for an hour. An interesting peek behind the curtain. Breaking the fourth wall.

Very normal podcast. Is there a wall? Is there a fourth wall in podcasting? You say breaking the, the ear pods, breaking, breaking the ear holes. Yeah, exactly. We're, we're rocking through penetrating the eardrums of the people of the, of a bunch of sort of mid-20s socialists in America and the UK for some reason. And Milo Edwards, you may remember from almost every other episode of this podcast is just off getting food because we are not very good at actually managing this process. We're extremely organized. We are so organized. You know who else is very good at managing stuff? He said segwaying perfectly into talking about some, some of the recent politics that's been going on is the independent group. Now,

for a little table setting, especially for our American listeners, you may or may not remember that the labor party has in the UK has been rife with some internal struggles. And basically, a bunch of labor MPs were more or less campaigning against their own leader. In some cases, for example, Joan Ryan, literally directly campaigning against Jeremy Corbyn to in the general election. Now, what's happened is they've split off from the labor party and they have formed an independent group. So it's not a political party yet. It's actually a company based in, I think, Scotland. And they have just been basically making embarrassing gaffe after embarrassing gaffe. And we are going to talk about the very early history of the independent group. Are we all ready

to do that? Yeah, I mean, it has been less than a week. It's been it's been less than a week, but so much has gone on already. So the independent groups statement of independence, they could have just said declaration. Our primary duty as oh, I should buy before I we go in this, I should list who they are. They are Chuck Romana, Chris Leslie, and coffee, Mike Gapes, the milk guy, the milk guy, the milk guy, they take the milk from the north and the milk from the south and it comes out as Bailey's that guy. That's true. Yeah, that's true. I looked into that weird soliloquy about the milk and it was like, it's a real thing. I thought it was, I thought it real politic was doing a joke, but then I was like, no, it's a real video.

It's a real, like that's how it happens. Yeah. Yeah. That's also he just accurately described the process for making Bailey. He has a unique voice. So milk, milk. Well, we can't steal the real policy. Sorry, sorry, sorry. We stole your bit. We stole your bit. And who else was it? Joan Ryan, then Gavin Schuecker. Basically, a who's who of who's worst for them. And then also Luciana Berger, who did actually receive quite a bit of like anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic abuse and like a lot of work on mental health stuff. Her reason, like her politics are pretty bad, but her reasons for leaving the party, I think are genuine. Whereas the other ones are just a complete clout or just clownish right-wing chancers who have been like actively working

against the prospect for a socialist government in Britain for the last like several years. Any case, shall we read some of their state, some of their statements of independence of this wonderful group? Our primary duty, they say as members of parliament is to put the best interests of our constituents in our country first. Yet like so many others, we believe that none of today's political parties are fit to provide the leadership and direction needed by our country. So they're startups, they're trying to do a political party startup. So how do they know what the best interests of their constituents are if they don't really have constituents? Really? No. Because like they're not resigning, they've resigned the whip,

so they're independent, but they haven't done like a by-election. So they haven't been voted as MPs for the independent group. And they damn sure won't be. No. Who are their constituents now? I think their constituents are like one another and like seven columnists. Their constituents are Poly20 and no one else. Also, the other thing I find really funny is they say the public should be allowed to change their mind on Brexit, but not on me, Chris Leslie. No, it's amazing. He's bigger than Brexit. It's like what they voted for has changed. I have also changed, but I'm still the same and it's great. A referendum on Chris Leslie really is a

referendum on this country. As goes Chris Leslie, so goes the country. Can we talk about my logo for a second? I made this observation that they've gone with like very typical startup logo, which is like this bold, like what's the best? Helvetica. Which is, I was, there's this article that came out on Quartz, I think, some time last year where they showed that basically every brand has kind of rebranded some form of Helvetica. So they all have this kind of weird, sharp aerial font. Is it bold? It's just two colors. It's monochrome. Is that bold? I mean, the idea is that it's supposed to represent simplicity because we're in a,

what do you call it? Is it called high G or heat? Higgy. Is it called higgy? Like the Danish thing? The whole Danish invented wearing socks. Minimalist feel good type of stuff. And I thought that's like, you know, this is very stripped down, like, you know, new, like it was supposed to represent like new, fresh, no frills, et cetera. And like, what better way to kind of encapsulate this sort of...

We don't need colors. This company that doesn't actually really stand for anything. And also like even Anna Subri said about like on Newsnight the other day, when she was asked like some pretty decent questions, actually, like, you know, you've got to have policies at some point. And she basically says, oh, well, you know, we're not really a political party. So we don't really need policies. It's like, what are you? It's like, we're a new thing. We're a new thing. It's like they haven't decided yet, have they? Right. I love that. What are you? Look, we're not, we're not into labels like having policies.

We just want to sit together at lunch. Okay. That's all we want. We just want to sit together at lunch. Oh yeah. So three conservatives have also joined this group. Anna Subri, Heidi Walliston, no, Heidi Allen and Sarah Walliston. God damn it. I'm making a thing too. Women are not the same. Sorry. All women are the same, obviously. This is a brochialist podcast. Just in time. In comes Milo. Hello. It's me, your boy, Milo Edwards. It's my birthday. I turn 26 today and I broke up with my girlfriend who I live with. How's your fucking Friday, bitch? Wow. Forever. All right. So we're just, we're just getting into this, getting into this independent group

stuff. So let's carry on. Our aim is to pursue policies that are evidence-based, not led by ideology, taking a long-term perspective to the challenges of the 21st century in the national interest rather than locked in the old politics of the 20th century in the party's interest. Can anyone spot the stupid thing there? Is it that the policies of labor were made in the 21st century? That's a big part of it. Is it that we haven't been in the 20th century for quite a while? All right. Go on. We haven't been in the 20th century for a while now. Yeah. I think. I struggle with maths, but that's my assumption. Actually, Molly, that's wrong because we live in the year 1984. Isn't that a book? It's the only book. It's also the reality we live in.

It's a kind of lifestyle as well. It's the lifestyle where it says what happens if you're not allowed to say slurs on YouTube. We all live in 1984, if that's the case. In any case, the other thing is like, no, our aim is to pursue policies that are evidence-based, not ideological, as though they're just sort of walking around picking up this unsorted random data and just drawing conclusions from it based on no particular desire for any particular outcome. They're just sort of walking around, looking around. So, if you have an ideology and you can prove it on evidence, does that mean it's allowed or not? No, it's ideology. That's bad. That's a 20th century thing. We're doing a 21st century thing, which is not a party.

It's not a policy, but it is evidence-based and it's disruptive. It's a good thing that there's not a big trend of fake evidence out there at the moment, and we have good ways to verify stuff now. It's really good that everyone's getting into facts and logic, as if it's fine because it's completely rational and it makes sense. Experts are bad, baby. They're good again. I mean, effectively, the independent group really is just a YouTube channel. What? It's just going to be a YouTube channel, right? And we're just going to do weekly talk shows where, at some point, Anna Subaru will say, yeah, it's fine to measure people's skulls if we can sell the data to 23 and me. That's a very 21st century policy, right?

It's not ideological to measure people's skulls. It's science. True. See, look, I'm even being correct. I have 20th century policy. Can Chris Leslie do an evidence haul every week when he's like, hi, guys. Here's my evidence. Yeah. It'll just be like skulls. It'll just be like human skulls. That's the great thing. Here's my evidence. It's not for anything. It's just a big bag marked evidence. And because this is evidence, we could do policies on all of these things. We're not saying that racial segregation is good or bad. We're just saying that the evidence is. It just exists.

Chris Leslie, we're just a huge bag of people's DNA. I don't know what to do with all these toenail clippings. They're my ex-wives. And then does he have to do like a spawn 23 and me? Can do these videos without 23 and me? Yeah, because that's 21st century politics, right? It'll be like, you know, sponsored by, I don't know, dual. So would you want to go into some of what we believe?

Because who, boy, do they believe some stuff? But they don't want ideology. How can they believe stuff? Someone should tell them. Like, so not led by ideology, but also we believe. Yes. I'm getting mixed, mixed messages. I think that's just because maybe we're not all as smart as Gavin Shuker. Famously a genius.

We believe ours is a great country of which people are rightly proud. Now, again, that's evidence. That's not ideology. That's that. That's a fact. Here's my petition. I'm genetically proud of Britain where the first duty of government must be to defend its people and do whatever it takes to safeguard Britain's national security. So again, not an ideology. I spot no ideology in that, in that particular, not a policy, but more of an idea or a direction or a jumping off point.

I'm just going to say this. I'm not smart and I'm not from here, but none of this sounds like it could be out of like, if you use this as a rubric. Then there's nothing that any labor or conservative government has done since 1945, wouldn't in some way sort of agree with this with the exception of probably, let's say 1945 to 1951, but like, certainly anything since the 70s. None of this means anything. The Tories in the 80s could say they were doing this. Labor in the 70s could say they were doing this.

I'm just looking at it. I'm like, okay, a mixed economy. Great. What the fuck does that mean? It means the government and business. It's both. There's evidence for that. I mean, the government has to be run like a business. Yeah, of course. Has fucking LinkedIn been lying to me this whole time? Because if you have evidence, then you can run the government like a business,

and then you can do returns on investment for your investors who are the taxpayers, but the taxpayers also are your subjects and your investors. It's a brilliant new business plan. It's shaped like a pyramid. The reason why the government has to be run by a business is because when you're running a government, you inevitably get a lot of men in the same room at the same time. Unless there's some kind of business involved, that would be gay. Can I just point out that I'm the only woman in this room? Yeah, I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying that's the way it is.

It would be remiss of me to fail to acknowledge that government is dominated by men. I don't think any feminist would contain to me that. I actually know women do rule the world. The Beyonce feminists, like, actually, the prime minister is Beyonce. Haven't you checked? Fourth wave feminism is just the secret. Excellent. Oh, my God, imagine if there was a woman running the CIA.

Everything would be so much better. Just imagining it's so hard. Britain works best as a diverse, mixed social market economy in which well-regulated private enterprise can reward aspiration and drive economic progress and where government has the responsibility to ensure astound stewardship of taxpayers' money and a fair balanced economy. Oh, it's stable and fair. Yeah.

That's more original. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's very... Excuse you. Who are they quoting? Who are they quoting? I put that on Turn It In. Can I also say, right? Whatever it takes to safeguard Britain's national security,

I want to see Mike Gape's punch like a terrorist. Hell yeah. Okay, fine. I would like to see Mike Gape's attempt to get into a bare-knuckle boxing match with like... I mean, he's got a weight advantage. To safeguard the security of this country. Mike Gape's is the entire volunteer border force. I'd like to see Mike Gape's scare a terrorist away by holding his anus open at them.

Oh, no. Thereby living up to his name. Do you believe in the power of nominative determinism? I sure hope Mike Gape's doesn't. Mike Gape's debut for Tushy. He died the way he lived. But also, here's the other thing. There's a lot of hay being made in this statement of independence

about how these are all bold new ideas. Love it. I feel like we sort of did that like that center left thing in the 90s. And I think the 90s was in the 20th century. All these ideas have been done before in fiction. And that fiction is called Borgham. I'm with you so far. I genuinely believe that this is the truth,

which is that this party has just been made because these guys are really resentful that Borgham didn't go on for another season. Right? You know, think about it though. Borgham is kind of like, you know, it's European. It's fancy. They all like, you know, call coffee like coffee, which is like very, very fancy. Oh, they love, liberals love different ways to say coffee.

They love different ways to say coffee. Is that coffee as in soup or coffee as in coffee? I mean, same ever. Same thing. Have you not been through this? Like, have you not listened to any of our shows? Did you not read the police report that I think was actually filed? I know, and it's very serious.

It's very high stakes. Also, like it's a show that's built around speeches, right? Yeah, like the whole, the whole like notion, the whole way that the woman who was at the center of this show got into government was because she had a really shithole speechwriter who just did like loads of drugs, had like family problems, and a really caring, good-looking blonde girlfriend. Right? The classic trifecta.

So this is suspiciously like Aaron Sorkin, but Dana. Right, but that's what it is. It was European. Aaron Sorkin. It was European West Wing. And the reason why I'm saying that it's Morgan and not West Wing is just because like the thing that they all agree on is FPP, right? They want to do people's vote.

They want to be part of Europe. They want to kind of be this like glistening European nation, right? I didn't even think they do want to listen. I don't think they've mentioned Brexit in this at all, though. I mean, but I feel like it's like elephant in the room. Yeah, it was very purposeful, right? Because they want to be seen as more, but it's kind of like, well, if you don't tell us what you stand for and all we know is that the thing that you have in common

in your weird Venn diagram is that you are pro-European, but you don't want to address that. It's very weird, which is why the whole thing about like, we're leaving because of like, you know, carbon and antisemitism, like, you know, I don't know. It's kind of, it makes sense that you would kind of be a little bit suspicious of that. They want to be David Cameron leading the Remain campaign. Because that's, that's to them, that's paradise. It's the Tories, except they're pro-European. Yeah, it is, it is reasonable.

And that's the thing. It's like a group of right-wing labor MPs left to do exactly what it is that they do, which is just have a big boner for Blair and then cooperate with the Tories, which they did immediately. In the future, everyone will fuck a pig, but 15 minutes. Mara, and here's the other next sort of ideology free statement that they make. A strong economy means we can invest in our public services as though. Okay. Yeah.

Stopped investing in our public services. Yeah. Because we have a weak economy. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. We can't possibly invest our way out of it. And they've also not considered the fact that you could like,

reverse that sentence and it would still make sense. Like, if we invest in our public services, that means a strong economy. No, that's ideology. Oh, sorry. This is not, this is a fact. This is an ideology. It's amazing how that works, isn't it? The one way around is the facts and the other way around is ideologies.

It's very confusing. You're odd, Matt. Sweet. The one time I read the Quran backwards and I was like, this is all facts now. The other thing, right? Like, it's almost, what they're saying is like, they are saying to like the voters of Britain, like if Manchester just has like an Amazon like diaper filling warehouse outside of,

in Manchester or whatever. The turning point in UK headquarters. It's like, congratulations. You, there's a terrible new like a new employer. Everyone's like, the standards of living are down, but your economy is a little better. Have three more buses. It's just putting it that way.

Just putting in public, putting public investment as like the prize you get for having a good economy and working hard is just so completely condescending that I cannot take it. Also, it presupposes that the only way that anything can be a public good is if business is doing good business. And then that way like we can, business can give us a few scraps and then we can have a hospital. Yeah.

And it's like, it just strikes me as like, do your homework and do your chores and then you'll be allowed to have dessert. It's like, but that is their approach towards like healthcare and public transit. I'm really excited for the Dyson Air Hospital. I'm personally, I'm excited for, for the independent group to like get taken in by like a Zeppelin company and then all of our, all of our GP surgeries.

They're now mobile. They're now mobile and they're flying around in hydrogen-based Zeppelins all up and down the UK. Great. Awesome. I mean, with a slightly more stable fuel source, that's basically Final Fantasy and I will fight to live in that world. I mean, that's basically Stephen Pinker's book.

The people of this country, they go on, have the ability to create fairer, more prosperous communities for present and future generations. Now I note that this shouldn't be done through politics, by the way, that's ideology. If you do it through politics, that's bad. Yeah. It's not facts.

No. No, not facts. That's ideology. We believe that this creativity is best realized in a society which fosters individual freedom and supports all families. So. Oh, it's about family. Yeah.

So it's like. You got to support all five families. I just feel like you could have cut that sentence off that. We believe that this creativity is best realized in a society. Yeah, there. And that would have been just as substantive a statement as what follows. It would have been much cooler as well. I don't think that second sentence means anything.

I don't think any of this shit means anything. We'll go with it. I think it's just words. I can tell what they're getting at. There's definitely no words. I think we can say that much. Yeah, it's the facts. We have evidence for that.

I just don't think. I don't like. What is this? This is the thing. All right. So this is something that I deal with a shit look because of being an American and just seeing the way that the political discourse in America is. Right.

But this idea that shit's bad, shit fucking sucks, but rich people can do whatever they want. Basically, you can buy anything, but you have no safety net, nothing to rely on. And you're like, but I've got so much freedom. It's like, if you look on Quora, and there's one of the questions you can look up that's got a lot of responses is like, what's the difference between living in the United States and the United Kingdom?

And literally the top voted comment is like, in a word, freedom. I have so much more freedom in America. So many fucking people dying from fucking having cavities in America. Yeah, you can get. They literally die from a toothache. You can die from so many different things. Whatever you want, you can die for. I think about the idea that the free market,

a society which fosters individual freedom and supports all families is like, by the by the sort of implied logic of the statement, Britain is freer now in a more privatized form than it was, say 40 years ago. And as a result, it's like, look at this great fucking freedom people have to go to food banks. Yeah. Like they didn't have a shit. They didn't have fucking food banks to this scale like 10 years ago, much less 40 years ago. No less freedom, though.

And that's ideology. And so it's just to me, like this seems as though it's it's it's implicating like an ideology, right? Yeah. But it's being unintentionally phrased because these people are too dumb for this to be sinister. They're just too fucking stupid. Just just I could just imagine just like Gavin sugar's gigantic dumb face trying to with his mouth hanging open, trying to write some point someone on his staff had to pick

that photo that was uses MP photo from a contact sheet of other photos. And if that like half smiling teeth weirdly covered by his lips photo was the best one, like does that tell you that's how he sees himself? He's like, like Chris Leslie always looking like he's going to cry. It's incredible. But also the other thing is like he's like we believe this creativity is best realized in this kind of society, right? And it's like really what they think is that the future of Britain is like we invent a new

kind of payday lending that like takes your organs. That's creative. Oh, my goodness. It gives you a little shock behind the ears. It really helps some people. Like, yeah, we invent a form of payday lending that shocks your balls like awesome. I love it. Amazing.

That's my king. The barriers of poverty, prejudice and discrimination facing individuals should be removed and advancement should occur on the basis of merit with any qualities reduced to the extension of opportunity, giving individuals the skills and means to open new doors and fulfill their ambitions. Again, not ideology. So only we had known that we could remove poverty before. Yeah, it's no one and tried it.

No. Apart from Bono, but no one trusted Bono. Too much ideology. Yeah, this is basic. So, so far, I think Milo, you kind of got it. Their main pledge to reduce poverty seems to be maybe like an app and a benefit concert. We are like a year away at most from being run by Bono. That's like, that's the point we're at.

It's what we deserve. It's what we deserve. We're fogs. I don't think he'd do it. I don't think he'd do it. I think they'd ask Bono and we'd get Bob Galdov. Oh, no. I mean, Bob Galdov, who did the most to stop Brexit by like, like taking his yacht and going

and shouting at Nigel Farage and the fishermen in a way that definitely played well. Can I just say? Definitely worked really well. Can I just say, I was on the Farage boat. You were on the Farage boat? I was not, not like in a supportive way. Not like I've done a massive U-turn. You're doing an ironical thing.

You were like wearing an official observer jacket. I was there as a journalist and it was a weird day. It was fucking weird. You're like, I just wanted to report on the fishing. Yeah. I just wanted to talk to Nigel Farage about whether the smoke salmon served on the boat was from the UK and he couldn't answer me. So.

Oh, my. Going to the big stories. Gotcha. Maybe that's how we'll stop Brexit with that fact. With that little bit of evidence. I'm always really interested as to like how people manage to not go insane being a journalist because you have to spend so much of your time just asking people bullshit questions that like no one really cares where the smoke salmon is from.

But like, it's like important for like owns. Like, do you think that? Like, I'm not even denigrating the profession. I realize journalism is super important and it's a hard job. Please just continue. But like, I feel like it was like, I mean a lot of the stuff I do on a daily basis drives me insane. I always think that when you have to ask someone like, but where's the smoke salmon from? I didn't have to ask that.

I just thought that when I was on the boat. That was my own personal culture because he had previously made me cry. So I was like, now I'm going to own you. I'm enjoying the backstory more now. This is good. Yeah, like he made me cry. So now I'm going to like own him. With the salmon.

Yeah. With the salmon. And then he had a pint on his own on Christmas Day. I will run you on Molly. Congratulations. I will think of that as the as the final lights in my brain flicker out. My last dying thought will not be of my family, my friends or anything I did. My last dying thought will be Nigel Farage drinking a pint on his own standing to watch

the Queen's speech on a tiny TV at a counter. Yeah. A tiny TV is like mounted on the side of a kitchen wall. That will be a dying point to just to be like it's there. See, look, the Queen. Just Skyping the Queen on Christmas Day. We believe that our parliamentary democracy in which our elected representatives deliberate to decide to provide leadership three times.

This is not. I haven't read this one yet. Wait, which one? They're just all the same. Oh, God, you're right. You read the top one again. No, I'm I think he moved on. Did you move on?

This is two different computers. I'm sorry. That's okay. Well, any of us ever truly move on. We believe that our parliamentary democracy in which our elected representatives deliberate, decide and provide leadership held accountable by their whole electorate is the best system of representing the views of the British people. By election, by election, by election, by election, by election.

Except now, though, now is ideology. If I have an election now, that's ideology. Every other time it's facts. But which is this Brexit second referendum? Is that evidence or ideology? I think that I think I think the I think the first one was ideology. The second one is evidence. Yeah.

First is ideology, then is evidence. So I say how long how long how long until Slavoj Zizek joins the independent group? As I can advise her or something. That'd be really good. Zizek isn't that dumb. Come on, let's let's be fair to Slavoj. Slavoj is just a troll. He's not dumb.

I do think I do think, though, that if Slavoj Zizek came out and just said, Brexit isn't real, that could actually get a lot of traction amongst a certain demographic. Right. And in a way, would he not be right? I made that argument on all the best in Novara with Matt, our cousin, like several months ago. Is this part of your grand unified theory that women aren't real? No, we won't be going into that one on this podcast.

I'm real. Tune in to trash future after dark. In order to face the challenges and opportunities presented by, and here's some interesting words, globalization, migration and technological advances. We believe the multilateral international rules based order must be strengthened and reformed. This reads like a Dr. Seuss book. Actually, I'm going to correct that.

It reads like a recent Eminem album track. It reads like when you have to reach a word count. Screw Flanders, screw Flanders, screw Flanders. We got the Simpsons joke. Yeah, rock and roll. Finally, we made a Simpsons reference. We pounded our fists on the table here and said, buy election.

And we don't have to pound our fists for this one, but I will say this. Anytime anybody mentions international multilateral international rules based order, and I realize there's certain irony saying this is an American and a dude who's in the army too, but fucking Iraq war. The Iraq war is completely illegal. If that isn't enough to explain to you that international rules based order doesn't mean shit, then it's like, well, guys, I'm glad you have this great party.

Which country are you planning on doing airstrikes in next? Nate, there's one thing you haven't considered and that is Venezuela. Google. Fuck. I'm melting. I'm owned. Also, what you've also forgot is that actually in that case, the international rules based order was ideology and the facts were that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

That was the evidence. So again, I know you're new at identifying what's facts and what's ideology, but in that case it was backwards. Now this is now. So you're basically saying is Saddam doesn't care about your feelings. No, Saddam did not care about my feelings. He did not care about a lot of people's feelings. Let's be perfectly honest.

I'd say that was his main problem. That was the main problem with Saddam is he was not. He didn't. He wasn't a good listener. Saddam is like, why are all my people crying? And they're like, you're digassing them. He's like, oh, I thought they were sad because I just wasn't nice enough. Well, they were sad because Saddam beat them all in debating.

Saddam beat everyone in a rational debate. When he was firing that gun off in the parade, he was just saying the debate. I gave you a fair chance, but I won more points in the debate. So I've won. And that's evidence. Point is that evidence. We will remember the great Iraq Iran debate. Moderated by Ben Shapiro.

So friend of the show, George Eaton, interviewed Chris Leslie in the new statesman. And was one of the, I think one of the few people in media to actually like challenge the emergence of the independent group. Every other media, every other journalist has just been absolutely shitting themselves with joy that there's someone who's going to stand up and make sort of Aaron Sorkin style speeches while capitulating with the Tories. I've heard it described as a party buy of and for zone two dinner parties. And I think that's a fair assessment to make.

Yeah, I think so. We've been played for fools. It's a very transparent bit of game playing, Chris Leslie said, when discussing the labor's refusal to just outright back a second Brexit referendum, which by the way, that was facts. He says, when we meet in the parliamentary office of his fellow splitter, Chuck Romano, whose mantle piece features photos of him with Emmanuel McCron and Justin Trudeau. Why, I'm an official person.

Chuck, Chuck, Chuck Romano is basically just like he sees. I think he sees politics just as a series of fandoms. I think he's just and he just is. He sees it as sort of pro wrestling where he just is constantly doing heel face turns so quickly he could generate power. I just have this mental image of like a Justin Trudeau style moment where Chuck Romano is responding to like his constituents and we're asking about, you know, you use it as an status and he's just insisting on speaking French while wearing a pink sweater.

They're like, no, we speak English. And he's like, may focus your part for sale. I think I have a theory about Chuck Romano that he might be the most aerodynamic human being he's ever lived. He's just so completely smooth. Whenever you look at a picture of him, he seems completely hairless. He seems like he's going out of, he could really travel. Yeah, like like if you greased him up and threw him down a down an oil pipeline,

like he'd emerge in Siberia. So I'm like, that's why he's so pro fracking. I mean, because like in this heart, that's just what he was born to do. He wants to get greased up and go down the goddamn hole. Send me down the liberalism hole daddy. That's that's really getting laid. The independent groups launch dated, of course, to not pass that incident. Angela Smith, one of the original seven rebel MPs,

referred during a BBC interview to people from ethnic minority backgrounds, is having a quote funny tinge. I mean, oh, it's so cool. I love that they did that four hours after launching. Yeah, it was such a it was such a massive fucking bad move, wasn't it? But like it was also one of those things where it's like it obviously wasn't a deliberate comment. It was just like, just about what I read was she was trying to make a joke in response to someone else described like white dads as having a funny tinge and she was trying to

make a reference to that and then just basically just like fucked the whole sentence. Like obviously these people are dumb asses and they should be handed for it, but like she clearly wasn't just going to like, oh, I'll just say something really racist that clearly wasn't her intention and everyone going like, how dare you be so racist? I was like, come on. She's just she's just dumb. She's not being like this isn't obviously no professional politician would be like, I'm just going to go on this daytime talk show on the launch day of my new party and just describe like people of color as being a funny tinge.

That's why I would totally do it. It's the ultimate like this isn't confident. Yeah, that's maybe she's doing pickup artist techniques on all of Britain. Yeah, that's their plan. And then and then her apology video where she was just saying like, I swear I'm not racist. And it's like, just explain what happened. Why are you not explaining what happened? See, I literally just say, oh, yeah, I fucked up and I said the sentence wrong.

And I meant to say this and what I said was this and I can see why. Why are you just saying I'm so not racist? He's like, I have friends who are from Portsmouth and and they will tell you I've never said a racist thing in my entire life. It's been quite quite deleterious to my social standing in Portsmouth. You're supposed to say slurs all day. And I just won't because I care too much. Her apology video was very 20th century, but I think it was 21st century.

It was square. It was four three. It was 21st century. She would have done it on like Apple notes or she knows she would have done it on a Twitch stream. She should have had like an Instagram filter. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Every time she opens her mouth to speak, like a dog tongue pops out. The bottom of eyes flying around her head. Yeah. Apologizing for war crimes on Snapchat with the dog filter. Yeah, like you said, Apple notes. It's been like, this is not who I am. Yeah. I just love the idea of Angela Smith having a Twitch stream.

And she's like, I didn't say anything racist, but post your favorite slurs in the comments. Okay. I genuinely do think that we could probably convince Chaka Muna. Like if we were very smart about it, we could convince him to manage his Twitch channel. It's a 21st century way to communicate with the electorate is by gaming. It's just a channel where we live stream like lubing up Chaka Muna and sliding him down various

services. I'm sorry. It's been a very difficult day for me. This isn't how I wanted to turn 26. Okay. Talking about a lubed up Chaka Muna going faster than we ever thought possible. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the hyper loop. That's the real hyper loop. That's 21st century. It's not ideology. That's no ideology in that. Imagine Chaka Muna in a vacuum sealed tunnel traveling at 150 miles an hour. I mean to start Brexit for some reason that will somehow drop Brexit. Making it to Brussels in the hour between the time the button before the countdown ends.

Mission impossible four, five, what would the next one be? There was a massive recruitment into the Labour Party at a key moment of despondency, Leslie says, trying to basically undermine sort of Corbyn's leadership. There was a regression into ideological purity, which of course is not a great recruiting sergeant. It's bad to have ideas. Yeah, it is. Yeah, which is why they proudly have none. I hate it when people get joined the party because they like the policies that I'm proposing.

That's not supposed to happen. I hate when people believe in stuff. Exactly. I know. Because that's ideology. Because politics is over. It has been since 1991 and you better not fucking mess that up. You know what, really?

It's been dead since when? We make the comment in 1991 because they've decided that there's no such thing as politics since the end of the Cold War. It's like they were made in a robot factory that hasn't fucking updated its software since then. That means I've never lived in the time of politics and that's really sad. Well, no, now it's bad. Now it's back though. But it's back now.

It's back, baby. It's good if it's evidence, but bad if it's ideology. Since Putin hacked the American election and Brexit in 2016, politics has been back and it's bad. Putin turned politics back on. Oh, can I share with you guys an amazing quote from Putin from this week? Of course. He was doing his State of the Union address and he was talking, someone like, he was addressing the idea of whether Russia is threatening anyone or not.

And he said, Russia is not threatening anyone. The Americans only believe that Russia is threatening anyone because they're imperialists. If they think Russia is threatening anyone, let them count the range of our long range missiles and see if they still think so. And I'm like, indeed, a very non-threatening statement made by a very non-threatening man. So Leslie is saying that labor has been hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left that is obsessed with ideological purity and has cynically offered the British electorate policies that they want.

I suppose that's cynical, isn't it? Skipping the people they want. Selling out. Selling out. Well, yeah, it's because like all like when politics was over, then all politics, especially center-left politics, was about completely accepting a right-wing economic frame and just trying to make it nice. Like just trying to be the Tories, but like a little happier.

And it's like, look, you know, capital is the thing. We're going to do what business wants. But don't worry, we're going to make it so that like, you know, there's like a learn to code class for your kids. Also, I feel like specifically to Britain, there's this logic that follows that because of hyperinflation, not hyperinflation, because of high inflation in the 70s and because of problems, because of industrial action in the 70s. And then because the Tories won and then basically completely changed like,

fuck the economy, had the ability to fuck the economy, primarily because there was a spoiler party, a big hint, that that was a tonic for the problems of Britain. And then if you go back to politics, actually representing what people need in their daily lives, you're somehow going to go back to the 70s when, to be honest, things started out with a problem because of the fucking oil crisis in 1973, which isn't something that just happens endogenously. It's just so the idea that's ideology politics is bad because if you do politics

and you give people things that will make their lives better, then we're going to go back to the three day week in the 1970s. Yeah, what's wrong in the 70s? You could buy a paint tin full of beer. Genuinely, imagine that seven points of beer that you had to open with a screwdriver. Britain in the 70s was mental. But I mean, I just give me several was a children's entertainer. How much beer did you need to drink?

A paint tin full, a fucking paint tin full to look at that man and be like, nah, doesn't look like a pedophile to me. But you see what I'm getting at though, Riley, this idea that new labor is formed around this concept that we were labor was destroyed because it got too ideological and there's too many goddamn trots. And Thatcher was just a tonic that Britain needed to drink to make things correct. And the way that you do politics is staying within that framework. And I've only read like 300 words of Mark Fisher.

So if I thought that up, maybe I just I think I've invented an idea. And actually I'm just parroting what he wrote. My bad. But I think specifically to the context of this country though, it seems like it's that and that these people would be like, damn it, Corbin, you're not allowed to give you what they want. They have to get tax breaks. No, it's cheating.

Basically, it's cheating to offer people policies because every all of politics has decided that what they what you're doing now is that is that you if you offer someone like a thing like if you expand the NHS or whatever, you can't do that. That's not realistic. And the one last thing I would say on this is just like for people who support Corbin, primarily who are young people who've been fucked over by the economy, like none of that scaremongering shit about the 70s matters. So it doesn't mean anything.

Like I don't know, Milo's parents might be like, go back to the 70s. Yeah, parents. I'll talk like you can do it. Yeah, they all talk like Jacob is Mark. They'd be very upset about what that would mean for nanny. And my mom certainly has never drunk a paint in full of beer. So she has no desire to go back to the 70s. She has a fond memories of a Ford Anglia that her father used to own.

So, you know, no one can say if it's good or not. No one can say. Though the left has publicly celebrated Leslie's departure as the chance to select a socialist candidate. The MP was already facing a deslection by the local party. He insists that labor should be fearful. He says they're massively underestimating public opinion. I think they have become lazy and complacent about quote their vote as they perceive it.

Those who say your splitting labor's vote are making an awfully big assumption about who it belongs to. To which I say to Chris, I feel like you might be projecting a little bit for a little bit, sir. By election. By election. By election. By election. By election.

Just prove it with evidence. Yeah. Not ideology. No, exactly. We could, we have to, we have to count all the evidence of various types. But here's the problem with election. With election. So those are numbers and numbers aren't real.

No, numbers. No, no, no. Numbers are evidence. Where am I? What is this? This is a Jaden Smith podcast. How could voting be real if numbers aren't real? But that's the other thing, right?

Ultimately, the departure of labor right had to happen at some point. Like these were not people who wanted a socialist government. They were much more close to the Tories than they were to the rest of labor. And I don't think we can imagine for a second that if Jeremy Corbyn got into government that Chris Leslie would ever vote with him. Every single time like Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonnell would try to nationalize a railway, bring water into public ownership, or not go on some disastrous forever war. Chris Leslie would once again stand up and say that he's made the difficult decision

to put country over party and vote with the Tories like he's done every other time. They had to have left the party and now we can put someone actually worthwhile and nodding amiss. Only if there's a by election. Of course. By election. By election. There must be a by election.

Any case. And here is he's what I find very interesting also is again, remember this is all about a disruptive new force in British politics. Hashtag change politics. It's a startup. It's disrupting its 21st century. It's not going back in time. However, he says that renationalizing private utilities, a policy that has enormous support

in Britain, something like 88%. He remarks, it speaks to the controlling instinct of the hard left because there is a sort of view that John McDonald sitting in the Treasury can just mandate how many tractors are sold or what trains should leave Houston at what particular time of day. Yeah, that's definitely what John McDonald is deciding. What is he going to be? I feel like he's confused. Is he going to be the treasurer or is he going to be like the transport or the transport

section because like the yeah, I mean, they always love to make these sort of like drab eastern block references, you know, like, well, he'll be on the central committee and the party will decide how many biscuits you can take home every day. And it's like nobody's asking for that. Literally nobody's talking about that. No, not a single person like this gets her a core British freedom and they will not be impinged upon. Although if John McDonald is listening, I would like a tractor.

I mean, I'll happily take a tractor too. John McDonald, give us all tractors. We need it for propaganda reasons. Branded tractors. Yes, please. Trash Future branded tractors. Absolutely. Maybe Tract Future.

What is this about land? Molly looked very upset by that joke. And to be honest, I agree with you, Molly. I agree with you. I was just trying to work out if you could do it another way like trash factor, but it doesn't really work. It's more like a reality. Maybe we could do a reality show to like audition.

It's like fear factor. You're presented by Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan makes you get in the cage full of bugs, but then you also do a podcast. The problem with Marxist ideology is that it assumes this omnescence on behalf of the central controller. Again, no one wants that. Isn't that Christianity that does that? Also, omnescence is a pretty ideological word.

Yeah, that's extraordinarily ideological. I don't think that's evidence. We'll remember Marxist famous book Leviathan, in which he posited the omniscient central controller to make sure that everything's fine. It's just, I feel as though they're all, when people are dumb or have terrible politics, but they've read the source material, they make up these shitty metaphors that are just useless.

But these people are so dumb, they've never even read the source material badly. Instead, it's just sort of like regurgitating shit that might have had traction 40 years ago, and now it just sounds like grandpa forgot to take his medicine. Yeah, it's all Google Venezuela. It's all different forms of Google Venezuela. That's their whole policy, is they want the entirety of Britain to Google Venezuela.

So basically what happened is, is this entire interview, Chris Leslie was just fighting back the urge to just say Venezuela to George Eaton over and over again. Yeah, well, I think it's like Morse code. It's like Google is the short dash, and then Venezuela is the long dash. And so that's how they communicate. What?

I'm sorry. We've gotten way too recursive. I stuck with that for so long, but then I just, I'm sorry. Right, but okay, so here's some more things that Chris Leslie has to say. He is similarly skeptical of labor policies, such as a 50% top income tax rate. Quote, it depends on the use of that revenue and the economic impact. They're going to spunk it on crisps.

And tractors. Tractors for all. And control and making tons. How else do you deliver the crisps? Yeah, to the train that's leaving Houston when John McDonnell says it does. The train is full of tractors that are themselves full of crisps. Wow.

What if the trains are not carriages, tractors, just like... Tractors on the train track, but put together. Wow, I really learned a lot today by googling Venezuela. Apparently that's what happens when you do it. And the trains are all going to Liverpool from Houston because Derek Hatton loves crisps. And that's what the whole economy is going to be based around. Feeding Derek Hatton crisps.

And he also looks at the complete abolition of university tuition fees like it was very recently as a problem. Sounds great, he says. The minor problem is how do you pay for it? It's more Google Venezuela shit. That's all this is. Also, didn't he just reference like a tax? Yeah, that would be how Chris...

A tax, what would that pay for this? How would you pay for it? Ridiculous. None of your policies make sense. Molly, I have to ask this question because as a journalist, how do you not when people give these like performatively dumb answers? Because I mean, to me, like when I see somebody say like that, I just think to myself, taxes, bitch.

Like, how do you not say that to them? Like, how do you hold back? Because this is just so it requires... I'm not really a journalist anymore, which is probably part of the answer. Nigel tipped you over the edge. I tell you what, Nigel Farage made me cry. David Davis make me cry.

And then I was like, I can't do this anymore. And when Molly met me today, I was crying. So, it's been great. Do you know how I got this office? Crying. This is a successful podcast. Crying. Crying is a business move.

It may seem ideological to some, but to cry is to live. It's evidence. Absolutely. The tears are evidence. Exactly. It's the ultimate way of monetizing your facts into feelings. Anyway, so this is... That's what I really enjoy about Leslie,

is just the complete failure of that. Like, this is their champion. This is like the intellectual force of the independent group. And everything he can think of, basically, could have been taken from the comment section of a Prager U video. Well, no, this whole party was founded on that internet hippo tweet where it's like, just got back from the centrist rally.

Thousands of people chanting better things aren't possible. That's basically the whole jam. Yeah, that's a cool jam. Molly, thank you so much for coming out today. Thanks for having me. It's been weird. Yes, it has. That's a yes, it has.

That's exactly, like, yeah, that's exactly the show we run. Evidence-based, not ideological. And I can't speak for everyone else, but I am sorry. That's OK. You've had a bad day? Yeah, it's not been a, it's not been a welder. It's not been enough. Olga did say to feel your feelings.

But you do have a cake. Yeah, and I am feeling them. I do have a caterpillar cake, so. A cake and small wine. A very small wine. A very small cover. So ladies. You're feeling your feelings to thousands of people

in Britain and America. I know, I'm like a, I'm like a, I'm like a divorcee mom right now. Cake, wine. Podcasting. Legs of Kimbo. I'm ready. Goodness.

All right. Molly, thank you very much for coming again. Bye. Thank you. So Molly had to go back to her home planet. She did. Because we started so late that she just had a thing. Sorry about that.

It's like, I don't know. I was just doing business stuff, my homies, and things just got a little bit too out of control. If any of you attended the live show this week, you'll know that we always start on time. Yeah. But we, we're gonna get better at that. This is the consequence of hanging out with like six dudes, right?

Yeah. Sometimes things just get chaotic and out of control. So that's why I say. Sometimes you just leave the DVD menu on all night long. With the goddamn lights on. We learned something today. Anyway, but we have one more piece of content that we're going to run through ourselves.

Because look, we read their manifesto or their non-manifesto, which I noted was no ideology, not a single bit of it, all evidence, just numbers and stuff. And then we read a good article where George was really pointing out there's like sort of vapidity of Chris Leslie's position. But now we're going to read a bad article by a guy called Glenn O'Hara, who's a historian, and he says, what's next for the independent group?

Here's a winning manifesto. If the independent group are to gain a permanent foothold in British politics, they will need to morph into a normal normal party and establish policies that distinguish them from both Labour and the Conservatives. Oh, they're the Animorphs. It would have to digivolve. They'll have to move digivolve into.

Chris Leslie and Chakramana transform together and then warp digivolve into like. Mike Gabe's digivolves into Kirby. But he absorbs people through his ass. Nate, you seem to have a point. I feel like you need to read the next line because I feel like the next line is legitimately a contradiction in terms. The next line is a really interesting style of brain poison.

Start with this. The stale brand of politics practiced on both front benches is inherently conservative. So two things, two things. Number one, no, it's fucking not. Number two, what are liberal conservatives? The whole concept of liberal conservatives and the current incarnation of the Tory party

is that they're completely marginalized. And the electorate wants that marginalization. They want the racism party. The reason why they're doing it is because it's so popular. The idea that there's this mythic liberal conservative that needs to be won over, there's not. They're marginalized. If they weren't for the fucking blue Rizel

or whatever the fuck it's called, did I say that right? The blue shit that they wear when they fucking electioneering. Rosette. Rosette. There you go. Vice headline. We went to a racism party to find out what it's all about. Like, do you really think that, I don't know,

who's that fucking guy that walked across Afghanistan? That dude. Rory Stewart. Rory Stewart would get elected on his own if it were for the conservative label. I mean, come on. Like. No, obviously.

They walked across Afghanistan. Yeah, but in like 2002, yeah, it was a long time ago. The both brands of politics that are inherently conservative, for some reason, yeah, because that's the thing, nationalizing stuff and redistributing wealth is actually very conservative because we've done it in the past. Yeah. So because we've done stuff like that in the past,

it's conservative to do, actually. I love it if a new party came out and they were like, any woman who can do mass, we should burn her at the stake. And they're like, oh, these conservatives. It looks back to a mythic past that never was and never could have been. Tories increasingly look a scant at the liberal, open and cosmopolitan Britain that's emerging. Um, labor now seems like something of a 1970s tribute band.

Champing at the bit to nationalize public utilities, reestablish a ministry of labor, bring back sexual wage bargaining, and repeal most of the trade union acts. Again, good. Britain had its lowest income inequality level in 1976. Yeah, that's why we... It was good.

The only reason it was bad for people who had money. Fuck them. Hmm. It wasn't even that bad. It was just like they weren't getting as much return on their goddamn investment as they wanted. Like, okay, cool. Move to fucking Australia.

They can just be racist in the desert. But in the year of 1984, that all changed. It did. Well, that's the thing, right? I've been thinking about this quite a bit. And I feel like there is a now a triple divide in Britain, right? Where we have... The Tories have been fundamentally captured by a romantic,

and I mean this in like the 19th century sense, vision of what Britain's supposed to be. Like, they are fundamentally romantic. They're looking to get swept away in some kind of grand destiny. Whereas, the labor has taken on a fundamentally modernist project, where it's this Promethean drive to like reshape society into something better and perfectable. And the problem is, is both of those drives,

the modern and the romantic, are deeply compelling to people. And that middle drive, where all of the columnists, and all of the Chris Leslie's and the Anna Subri's and stuff, all of these like sort of liberal centrist apolitical people, they're this kind of neoliberal postmodern logic, where there is no overarching project. Nothing can be truly known. There are no signifieds, only signs.

And that there's this multi-various world of risk to manage, but then no project can ever be undertaken. It's deeply unexciting, and people hate it. It also presupposes that you can never learn from failure in radical politics or radical action. And what I mean by that is they're a step behind Mike the Situation Sorrentino. The idea that if you were to repeat

some of the more ambitious and radical policies that the labor government in the 40s and 50s, or even into like the late 60s and early 70s attempted to do with things like social housing, that you have to build shitty tower blocks again. They have to be the same. You can't do it differently next time. The idea that like it can either be, it's a binary,

and it's either do the thing that didn't work 100% or don't do it at all. You cannot learn from a mistake. And so this idea that like renationalization or whatever the canard is that they're trying to refer to, that it has to be the same way that it was 50 years ago, or it can't exist. And it's just like, you've made this comment before Riley,

and I think that it's appropriate, that taken to its logical extreme, these people lack object permanence. Because they literally like, well, it has to be the 1970s where it just can't be labor, the radical labor government. It's like, they apparently talk like Donald Duck. I'm very certain that Mike Gapes doesn't recognize himself in mirrors.

I mean, he doesn't fit in mirrors. The reason why they got that coy smile on Gavin Shuker's face in his MP photo was that they had just revealed that his mom was in front of him again after covering his eyes. Oh my God, I thought she vanished forever. His stepmom.

So actually, Nate, just as a counterpoint to what you were saying, I mean, I was recently convinced actually that all of these projects aren't possible because I went on to the Twitter profile of a user who I won't name, whose cover photo on Twitter was the word socialism. But the eye of the word socialism,

which we all remember is a letter in the word socialism, was the burnt out carcass of Grenfell Tower. And I found that to be a very convincing image. So it's a lot about society. It does. Yeah, I immediately had to put on joker makeup after I saw that image. I've never googled Venezuela so fast.

No. So he goes on, the implication for any new party is that it must seek to give people a sense of hope. And notice this, a lot of the time, like these morons, right, like they sort of get it right in the first clause, and it's always in the second clause

where they go backwards. Because really, because what they're saying is like, this thing is supposed to be good. We can agree that it's good. And then they're like, all right, I'm on board with you. And it's like, but actually it's bad. Yeah, so he says, the implication for any new party

is that it must seek to give people a sense of hope, a sense of future. And here's what it turns, without relying on big picture status solutions that will quickly wear out after they have won a few headlines. Why? Why would a renationalized railway service that just makes people's lives better and cheaper?

Why would the good of that wear out after a few headlines? Labour will get bored of it after they renationalize it. It's a phase. And then it'll be forgotten. Fucking God. And then the guitar and the karate lessons. Absolutely. Just like when they nationalize the karate lessons,

it's going to all come back. And the private sector is going to have to come along and start running the trains again. Because Labour will be off nationalizing something else, like flower arranging or a homosexual phase, you know? God, I hate it when I nationalize wearing toe rings. Just fucking kills me. I nationalized loving Blink-182 for my entire life.

Absolutely. Riley, please read on, because this is so mind-numbing, just reading it in the preview that I want to frown at them. Hard. There you go. Give him a big frown. Give him a rock hard frown.

Yes, a majority of the public want water and rail nationalization, and those policies may well be sensible in themselves. Again, reasonable. Yeah. He could have stopped there. And I'd be like, I'm on board with you. Cool. Well, there is a party that's doing that.

It's called Labour. You should look them up. But when you probe further, people are nowhere near as sold than deeper and wider problems of control that a big Labour majority or an economic crisis would involve. Those two famously comparable things. I didn't understand that sentence.

What he's saying is that you can do this, but at the first juncture, you're going to have hyperinflation or something? He said Labour majority or an economic crisis. But a big Labour majority or an economic crisis would involve, which is to say, I think he's trying to say here. He's saying they're comparable. Yeah, that Labour's going to impose economic controls

or Labour's going to be profligate, because it's just pissed away at the surplus. And then something's going to happen that's going to force some kind of even harsher austerity. Also, nationalizing the railways isn't really an economic control, because the state already technically owns the railways anyway. It would just mean they wouldn't be being run by privatized companies.

And so literally nothing would change other than that the tickets would get cheaper. And somehow that would be an economic crisis. That's ideology. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm always making that mistake. The next thing the new party can do, so by the way, he just moves off of that,

that of course Labour's going to be an economic crisis. So obviously this is in the Guardian, by the way. Awesome. They love it. That's so cool. They love it. The next thing the new party can do is exchange the language of quote unquote fairness

for concrete examples of flexible, meaningful, and workable ideas. I love a flexible idea. But what is the idea? If not an idea of something like that's appealing to people, is the idea just like for an app? See, the problem with abolition was that it wasn't flexible enough. Some people needed to be on like limited release plans and slavery. Like what the fuck does this even mean?

I mean, this means that they can be racist, right? You can be racist in lots of different ways. So like, you know, some people like using the n-word. Some people like using funny, tinged people. It's a flexible idea. That's a flexible idea. It's not bound up in the language of fairness. That's all so difficult.

You know, it's flexible, it's an app, it's young, it's tech. We've got a separate ideology racism from fact-based. But here's the thing, here's the thing, right? What's unfair about what labor has proposed? Unless they're saying that it's fairness is harmful to rich people. Well, that fairness is an ideology. And all that other stuff is evidence. So that's the key.

So an idea like fairness is ideology. An idea like private ownership. And it's like, you know, teaching people how to code apps, like just the entire country learning how to code apps. That's facts. So you feel like you guys aren't getting it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's true. I guess the thing about it is, for you to be enthused or in any way

intellectually stimulated by these morons, you have to be so off the deep end in terms of like being up your own ass on neoliberalism. You have to have a profoundly limited view of what's possible or desirable. Or it used to be deeply, deeply cynical. Or just deeply, deeply stupid. Yes. I think many of them are just that. So he goes on, take my own patch in English higher education.

Abolishing tuition fees altogether would be expensive. Again, for who? Because right now, having them is expensive. Bringing back full living grants would be cheaper and would do much more to persuade young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to a degree by dealing with their major problem upfront costs. Reading, like reading this, I feel like I'm in the scene from a Clockwork Orange where they like try to like reverse his personality by making him watch all

the snuff films for hours on end. Like, I'm sort of, I'm being shown content, but I'm not really engaging with it. It's just like, you know what this is? This is, and everything about the new party, all of this where they're saying, it's got to be new and forward thinking and inventive. It's just, it's shown itself that really what they want is they don't like stuff. They don't want, they don't want these ideas of politics coming back. They don't want ideology coming back.

They don't want visions of the future coming back. Because the whole project of having a vision of the future was one that for them feels old. Like the very fact, the idea of having a vision to them is old fashioned. Also, I'm just going to point this out because like, I don't know how fucking old this guy is, but I doubt that he's younger than me, which means he had free university. Like, they all did.

And I just don't fucking get it. They're like, it's, it's, it's like penny pinching for the, for not, but not for me kind of shit. Ideology. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like. No, that's not ideology. Sorry, that's facts.

Yeah, and that's the shit that just drives me nuts. Is it like they've had, they've benefited from one of the most generous welfare states in human fucking history and then have decided like, yeah, but I mean, I sometimes bunked off class and had a beer. So like we shouldn't, students should go into debt to go to college. Imagine how much more character I'd have built. Yes, I know. Well, certainly more character than this.

I'm sure. Wow, I've been so much better at writing. The ramshackle state of many local public services, whether it be libraries, social care roads, or even public toilets, the real stuff of life could be reversed or at least ameliorated for much less than it would cost to abolish university tuition. I hate it when I forget to breathe while walking and fucking fall over and die. We can do more than one thing at once.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, it's the, the just relentless small minded stupidity of the, of the neoliberal mind never ceases to amaze me. What a bunch. He concludes, Britain's productivity is lagging. Its image is poor. Its politics is in disarray. It needs solutions that are neither little England nor big government.

If it combines a sensible approach to public spending priorities and understanding of the local and the concrete and allows cities rather than the central state to spend, it can start to recover. I'll suck my fucking dick. Honestly, like, who is this for? Who is this for? This is for people who like, they've never, they've like, they've never thought about anything in their entire fucking lives.

And now they're like worried that they might have to think about something because there's enough of a crisis going on that something might have to change. And so they just need to like be drip fed this like fucking, I don't know, like vile of filtered cum in order to, they can just be like, Oh, actually, everything's fine. I'm going to ignore everything that is obviously true. I'm never going to look outside my window again. And I'm just going to listen to like McDipshit, McFuckface, tell me that actually things will be better if we keep everything exactly the same.

Yes, this makes complete sense because I'm a fucking moron. Those are, those are rust leapers. People are just really into urban camping these days. Yeah. Being homeless builds character. You know what? It probably fucking does. But as someone who made myself homeless today,

I don't need this much character. I'd rather have somewhere to live. I have too much character. If anything, it's hindered me in my life. All right, go off, King. I think we should end on that bomb. All of this awful shit gives my lower rage stroke. All right.

So thank you again to our now absent friend, Molly, for coming on the podcast. Break up with your girlfriend. You went independent. Oh, there's a third way. There's a third way, guys. There's a third way. I don't think that would go down the way you think it would. Oh, absolutely.

Okay. So to absolute Molly, thank you very much for coming on. To all our listeners, thank you very much for listening. As you well know, there is a Patreon. You can get a second episode of Trash Future every week for the low, low price of $5 a month. We also sell t-shirts. Yeah. Subscribe to it. Maybe I'll be able to afford to rent somewhere.

Subscribe to it. Subscribe to it. So my look can afford rent. How leftist are you? Do you want to do socialism? Pay my rent. Maybe you could get Edie to print neither little England nor big government on a Trash Future t-shirt from little comrade.

And finally, you can buy a mug from us now that says, What if your phone was the cops? I think that's pretty funny. Yeah, you should buy one. Why not? And then it only remains for me to say also our theme song is Here We Go by Jinsang. You can find it on Spotify. Listen to it early and listen to it often.

When is this coming out? Tuesday. Tuesday. Tomorrow there is going to be a show at the Sechford featuring me hosting Who Knows What State I'll Be In. Come down and find out. Tickets of five pounds. There'll be a link in the description.

The headliner is Alf Lines who if you know anything about comedy is very good at comedy. So please do come and watch that and support your boy. Thank you. Amazing. Later everybody. Ciao.