TRIGGERnometry - Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry: Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

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Okay, they may do. Come back to the police. Come back to the police. I'll come back to the police. I'll come back to the police said, right. Fine. get, they're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicit.

Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's dementing. It's absolutely dmitic. That's the quotes from the police's own instructions. And it may be, and it may be because you found one document where some guy who's writing some guidance for police is, the idea. College of police and guidance. Okay, wait a minute.

This is how police officers are trained. Okay. Have you looked into it? Not as deeply as you. Well, I think you should. Well, maybe I should. There's a double standard, is what I'm getting at. Okay.

See, what if I make a good point? You just got to go, you know, I haven't read the guidance. What the weaponizers have done is... Oh, come on. But this is what they do. They say to you. You just go, this is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to weaponise it.

Alistair Campbell, long time coming. Welcome to Trigonometry. Nice to be here. It's great to have you. Thank you. So, Alison, let's kick it off. You have always been fiercely critical of populism. Why is that?

Because we're living in the populist age now. What's the problem with it? Well, it depends what you define populism as. I define populism as a form of politics that seeks to exploit rather than solve. That's my view of populism. It's not, I know that the sort of traditional view of populism is, well, it's kind of, you know, the people against the people against the... elite okay I think that's a post facto rationalisation to make the populists feel

better about the way they do politics but at heart populism to means to me a form of politics that is not about solving problems it's exploiting them and that's not about meeting challenges together it's about driving people apart that's my take of populism that's why I don't like it and why do you think we've got to this place where we're living in the age of populism there's so many reasons. I think, look, I think people, there are some very effective political operators who have worked out that their route to power with the views that they hold and the characters that they have is this form of populism that I've defined, okay? Trump, most obviously, Nigel Farage

here, you know, we know who they are and they're all over the world. I think they're much better organized than the centre-left. I mean, one of the things I find is comical about the populist right, where nationalism is so much of what they're for, is actually they fight it on a global level. They're a globalist organization fighting against globalism. But I think you've got to go back probably as far as definitely the crash. I think the crash was the, you know, 2008, et cetera, was a massive driver. of populism and I'll come back to that but I think you probably even go back further than that to and I can remember me thinking do remember the Seattle protests when China came into the

World Trade Organization? Yeah massive, massive protests and it was the trade unions it was ordinary people it was workers and they were massively protesting against the Americans letting China into the WTO and I remember we were thinking because we thought at the time global was going to be part of our economic success story as well. But I think that was a big driver within the American populism, because that was what then opened the door to Trump to say, these people have given your jobs away to China. Okay?

So I think that followed by the crash, followed by, I think, a sense in politics, democratic politics, that it wasn't producing the kind of leaders that made people feel, feel that's my leader. I can follow that person. I think Tony probably was the last one in the UK context. Cameron a bit, but not really, not really. So I think Tony is probably the last one here. You look at the French context. I actually thought, I think Macron is an exceptional political figure in all sorts of ways, but for some reason, and I think a lot of it driven by populism, the French have rejected him big style. So you probably go, you probably got to go back to

back to shirac really for a french president that the french thought like him or dislike him i feel like he's our leader so i think then that opened that so once you've got a sense of um of leaders that the public don't respect because the great thing that something i mean i don't stand most of what thatcher stood for most of what she did but when thatcher was prime minister i didn't think it's ridiculous that she's the prime minister i think our politics has suffered massively from having, you know, we know who they are, certainly Johnson, certainly trust. Prime Minister is thinking, you know, it is ridiculous that they're our Prime Minister, okay? And Johnson, of course, classic populist. Absolutely. When I said, you know, see a problem,

how do I exploit it, not solve it? I mean, that guy did not believe in Brexit. And yet he was one of the prime deliverers of it because he saw a challenge, a problem for others, how do I exploit it? Because he's one. What was his big motivation? It was to become prime minister. And then what happened after that, he didn't really care. Do you think part of the problem as well is that when we saw the banks being bailed out, a lot of people thought, well, hang on, they've made all these mistakes in there.

And they're getting away of it, Scott Free. That's what I meant by the crash. Yeah. What you had was socialism for the banks and austerity for the people. The banks who caused it and then the people who didn't and, you know, how many people have gone to jail through the global financial crisis, right? And then, whereas the people have paid a massive price. Now, and then what happened is because it's just the way politics works, politicians

got blamed for not holding the banker's property to account. Politicians have got blamed because whenever there's an economic hit, it's politicians who tend to cop it. But I completely agree with you. People, even if they didn't identify, you know, you didn't have people sitting around and say, well, this is terrible, you know, this is socialism for the backs and austerity for us. But they did think, well, hold on a minute, these guys have completely f***ed up.

They're getting bailed out without money. And even though, and I remember Alistair Darling, Chancellor at the time, and, you know, that was a very, very stressful time for those guys. But I remember talking to him about it's a very hard thing to have to explain that this is going to be bad, but if we don't do this, it's going to be even worse. But there's no doubt that was a driver. I think that was a driver of a lot of the polarization that we feel now as well. Because that is the thing that allowed the populists to say they're, the reason they're

helping out the banks is because these are the elitists. And you, the people, are paying the price. But who were they elit, the leaders? You know, bankers, traders, business people, people like Trump, people. People like Farage. They're the people. This is why it's such a con that people like them have managed to portray themselves

as being on the side of ordinary people. I think the reason Farage is in trouble at the moment and the reason Trump's actually politically in quite a lot of trouble, even though it doesn't care because he's going to go anyway. And it's just about getting rich. It's because people have, I think, working out, they're not motivated by you, the people's interest,

they're motivated by their own. We'll come back to those two, but do you not think, I mean, you say it was the bankers, and it was the bankers, absolutely. But it was Democratic politicians in America, Bill Clinton in particular, who repealed Glass-Steagall, which was put in place to prevent another great financial crisis.

And the same thing happened here, right? Under the Blair government, I think it's fair to say, right? So the politicians opened the door to allow these people to act in ways that were damaging, and then you had this great collapse for which, as you rightly say, we ended up paying, and neither the politicians who opened the door to another bankers who took advantage of it suffered at all. I think quite a lot of the politicians did suffer. It depends how you define suffering.

But, you know, they didn't suffer like the people suffer. No, no, but they paid a price. They paid a price. A lot of the politicians did. You know, I would argue, for example, you know, and I think the Labor government accepted that I kind of felt this at the time in the whole globalization thing. I remember actually Tony and I didn't argue about that much

because I broadly agreed with most of the things. that he was doing but I was worried at one point I only know this because it's in my diaries it I can't remember the conversation but saying that this globalization thing fine and if you just track back a bit one of the things we had to do as an incoming labor government was to dispel as best we could this idea that labor can't run the economy and Gordon you know first step Bank of England independence we did pretty well in the economy for quite a long time and so that as that was happening part of what we were showing was an understanding of the way that the global

economy was changing adapting or we had to adapt to that as well and i sometimes worried and i said this at the time i'm not sure we're educating people enough about the potential downside of globalization alongside the evident upside from which we're benefiting right now and i think that was a problem i think i mean i i cannot pretend to be an expert in financial services regulation but i know that i think there there are people who were expert at that time and who were doing the policy at the time, you think that maybe we didn't regulate carefully enough. But again, you've got to understand that we as a leftist-centred government, a Labour government, we were kind of always conscious of the fact that we're going to get accused of being over-regulatory.

And so maybe we didn't regulate enough on that. But I agree with you. I'm agreeing with the premise. I think that the crash was the big driver. But I think in the American context, you go back even further. I think you go back to American-Chinese relationship. Well, very much on that point, it's interesting that I completely agree with an economic analysis and we and I have been one of the people who's been saying for a long time that

people don't realize we are poorer today than we were before the crash on a per capita basis. Most people don't know this, but they feel poorer. And one of the reasons there is rising tension, rising disquiet, discontent, etc. But it's interesting how sometimes people, I think, on the left of center frame this issue, because you said, well, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, which, by the way, the idea was the Chinese are going to join, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, we're all going to trade.

Well, that's not what happened. They stole all Western technology and they screwed everybody over. And you say, well, it gave Trump the opportunity to say you shipped off the job to China. But they did ship the jobs off to China, right? That's what happened. There were definitely, I don't think we'd disagreeing that much. I mean, I think that what I'm trying to do is to give you an understanding of the motivations for the policies they were pursuing at the time.

No, no. And agreeing that there were consequences. My point is something else, Alist. My point is the framing is this was a mistake because it allowed Trump to say this. And I'm saying it was a mistake because it was a mistake. Yeah. Okay. But then you have to then at the same time enunciate what the policy otherwise would have

be. Should have protected key industries. Yeah, possibly. But what does that mean in the modern industrial age? It means that you would have. been slightly less prosperous. You would have had a slightly lower GDP, which is a hard sell, but you would have not had whole regions of America and the north of England effectively losing the entire employment. And then what would have happened on the bigger picture in the

terms of the relationship between China and the rest of the world? So if you look at the kind of example, I'll give you another example just to show you the kind of real politic of this, where again, I think I'll acknowledge that we were, well, I don't know whether the word is naive, or we made mistakes or whatever you take our relationship with russia okay so we met putin before he became president and based partly on advice but also based on you know seeing the guy's eyeballs and talking to him i think tony reached a judgment that this could be okay this could work okay we were very right at the forefront for example of trying to persuade the rest to make them g7 into G8 okay back then that felt like the right decision and it felt like that was

taking us and them in a better direction you look at that decision today or you look at the german relationship in relation to the energy markets today and you think what were you guys doing so when on our podcast we interviewed the widows both of litvin yanko and of navalli we've talked to them both they both said we think you were naive right okay now and that's a perfectly good judgment they both lost their husbands because these guys killed them. And yet there we were, you know, toasting each other with vodka and Tony was playing this silly snooker game with him and, you know, all sorts of stuff. We got closer. So all I'm saying is that you make the decision, you take the strategic choice at the time, and then the consequences

are sometimes. We haven't brought you here to great you about the faults of the Blair government. We don't have enough time. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Honestly, I'm kidding. I'm just talking about the framing because populism is a really important issue. I agree with you that a lot of the populism, by the way, we haven't talked about left-wing populism. There's a lot of that going on for the moment. That doesn't offer any practical solutions either, as far as I'm concerned. It's a really important issue. I'm just, the issue I'm honing in on is how we talk about it, because what I'm hearing a lot from you and other people in your space is the problem is not the problem. The problem is it allowed Trump to say it's a problem. The problem is it allowed

for us to say it's a problem. No, I'm saying both things, really. I think I'm saying both things. But I think you have to see, in a way, you do have to make judgments like that in politics. Because nothing that a politician does at any moment of time stays in that time. Of course. Of course. I mean, the truth is that Trump is in part a consequence of, I think it's a consequence of the fact that America had a black president in part. I think one of the reasons that Hillary got rejected was because people thought, Jesus, they gave us a black guy. I'm not taking a woman as well.

Some people, okay. So you have consequences. So I'm happy to defend the stuff that we did, but I'm also happy to admit that in some of these situations, and a lot of this goes to the conflict and the tension you sometimes get between the promises you make and the nature of the promise in which the public expect you to make them.

Yeah, yeah. And the reality of the complex is life. I totally get it. I'm making a slightly different point, though. Now, I've got your point. You've got my point. I've got your point. The reason it's important is the issue I'm about to bring up, which I think is another huge driver of populism, which is the scale and pace and type and quantity of mass immigration into Britain, into America, into many European countries, and the scale of illegal immigration that we've had. So I came to Britain from Russia, formerly the Soviet Union in 1996.

When I came, net immigration into Britain was about 55,000 a year. And at the time, 3% of the British public thought immigration was a major issue. It wasn't an issue, basically, in 1990. No one cared. And then we had, both under the Labor and the conservative governments, a huge increase in mass immigration. And now we are at a point where even illegal immigration is now basically at the point where legal immigration was in 1996. We have tens of thousands of people coming here every year. We're not removing them.

So we're removed. We've got about a million illegal immigrants in Britain. We're removing about 10,000. So even if we never let another one in, it would take us a century to address our problem on current trends. We can talk about economics, and it's massively important. But I think we all have to accept that those policies and the fact that that has happened must be inevitably a huge driver of resentment, distaste.

distrust and people like Nigel Farage may you may say they're exploiting it other people would say they are reacting to the public anger they get oh they get it yeah yeah these policies that have been pursued by left and right wing governments that have changed the face of the country the trigonometry merch store is built on shopify because the moment someone's actually ready to pay Shopify make sure they can and if they've bought before their details are already saved so it's one tap and done that's time back to grow the business instead of running it. If you want to start the same way, that's Shopify.co.uk slash trigger. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one.

Start your free trial at Shopify.com.uk slash trigger. Start your free trial at Shopify.com. Okay.com slash trigger. Well, you can have a debate about the what the country has become and what the country is becoming. So, you know, for example, I was in France last week, in the French World Cup team. Now, France has got its own populist politicians, left and right, Melanchot on the left in particular, and Lepenne and Bardella on the right. I would argue that racial integration has been less successful in France than it has here. And yet they have the team that, when's this going out, before the final or not? Before after after okay so then the final of the World Cup well not before before okay so then they

have the the football team that may by the time this goes out be on its way to winning the world cup what how many players did they have the other day in that in the lineup one white player in the starting lineup the last game they played that is I look at that and I think France should be really proud of that a lot of people I know in France look at that and think that's not France okay so you can have different debate about what you think your country represents what again will accept is and i can remember having massive arguments at the time when we we were i'm talked about you know we wanted to get putton the g8 we wanted enlargement in the european union we were a big supporter of enlargement i think enlargement was a

good thing to do um now unintended consequences we i can remember having huge fights in briefings that I did. I can remember one in particular, almost came to blows, because we were relying, as you do in government, on an assessment of how many our experts and, you know, and they're clever people and they studied data and all that sort of stuff. And they were, they were suggesting that I can't remember what the numbers were, but X number of polls, X number of this, X number of that would come to work in Britain, massively undressiveness. They said 13,000 and then a million came. Well, is that right?

Yes. Which, well, I might have seen. They said that if you, so what happened was just for people who don't remember, the UK and Ireland, I think, were the only two countries in the EU at the time that didn't introduce transitional controls. Yeah. And the advice was 13,000 people a year would come and a million came. Do we have a million polls?

A million people from the country. I don't know. I can't remember the numbers. We can fact check it, but it was that order of. difference yeah but i'm i'm talking about the advice that we were getting right okay um was that underestimated 100 percent absolutely accept that did that lead to problems related to community cohesion yeah it did in some places in other places it didn't um but did it lead to and you you i know you're going to disagree with this because you're going to say i'm doing the same thing as saying the problem

isn't the problem, it's the consequences. But did the immigration debate within our politics become swamped with exaggerated figures, exaggerated consequences? I think it did. It's that, I think, as much as the numbers that fuel the problems we have now. So, for example, you take an issue like, you know, live very, very recently, the whole, you know, the grooming gang's issue. Terrible, terrible, terrible problem. Lots of mistakes. made along the way. But the way that it's now become identified purely, virtually purely within our debate, is an issue of Muslims, as opposed to some of the worst grooming gangs being, you know, white people in white communities. I think that is a problem. And of course, it's very, very hard,

you know, well, who's the worst grooming gang, you know, you just want, you want, I want to have a the debate where we can actually say these are real problems. Once you've got a politics that's been defined through a certain prism and the prism at the moment because of our media, because of people like Farage and so forth, it's defined in a certain way. I think that's what I mean about. The problem becomes worse. But I would, it's actually something different that I disagree with you on there. My reading of it, and we've covered the grooming gang's issue from 2019, because when we first discovered what was going on, I was horrified. And I remember writing, I think it was to Sarah Champion, inviting her on the show.

And she had had so much hate for even raising this issue. She said, I just don't want to talk about it anymore. Because... I get that. And so the reason that people are talking about it with the level of anger and resentment is not just what happened. It's also the fact that actually when people tried to have a very reasonable debate, they were suppressed.

That's what happened. They were suppressed. You used the phrase, they're a reasonable debate. Sarah Champion was a Labour MP trying to... I know that. I know who's her issue in her local community. I know who's her champion is and I know what she was trying to do. And I also accept, I do agree with you that there have been times, probably particularly

when it's been related to race, but also I think we're seeing it in other issues. I think we're seeing it in relation to the trans debate. I think we're seeing it in relation to maybe less the kind of gay rights debate. But I think particularly if you're talking about race, I think there have been times when the fear of the consequence of ventilating the debate stops you having the debate in the first place. And I agree, and I think that's wrong. And that's why you get the radicalization is my point.

Because when people aren't allowed to speak and they're suppressed and they're prevented from- They are, I never by this idea that they're not allowed to speak. Sarah Champion. No. When you're founded out of public life or out of speaking in public about a really important issue

to the point you don't ever want to talk about it again. Yeah, that is, I'm not defending it. Then your other people who are more extreme going to come along. I agree. Yeah, but what I'm saying is that if your political debate generally has become more toxic, and we can blame whoever we want, right? And you probably might think it's more people on the left.

No, I think it's technology, actually, mainly. Okay, part, it may be. Yeah. But that's another issue we haven't, we haven't really. But let's focus on this. Okay, so focus on this. I would say that because the debate generally has become more toxic, because we do have a branch politician that when something really bad happens doesn't think that's really bad what can I do to

help actually thinks what can I do to exploit that is why partly I think why we got into the mess recently the Southampton and Belfast stuff you know where technology played a big part but that was a classic example where politicians and political figures who knew absolutely nothing about beyond a a small set of facts, but they just wanted the one or two facts within that cohort of facts, then to go out and create riots. Okay. That is a creature to my mind of the toxicity of populism. And so that we don't, and this is, look, we've all got to own up to our responsibility in this. Social media has played a massive part. The way we do our politics has played a massive part.

Yeah. And the way, you know, one of the things I've, thought about a lot since doing this podcast with Rory Stewart, because most of my life I've spent trying to destroy Tories. That's what motivated me. You know, how do we get the Tories out of power and keep them out of power? And that attitude, which is still very strong within me to some extent, but what the podcast has taught me, I think, is that it's really not a good way to address problems. So, and that's why I'm, I really, really hope Andy Burnham is able to stick to to this style that he's got, I think it's gonna be hard. Very hard.

Because he's talking about more collaborative, more respect for each other. They all say that and then they come in on a side play. Well, I don't think they say it. What about David Cameron? He came in and we're gonna work to blah, blah, blah, blah. No, I know, it's so hard to do. But my point is, I think Andy's, I think,

put it this way, I think it's become an ingrained part of Andy's politics. So, because he's done a different job, as being a mayor, it's a different sort of job you got to do. But, so I think the, And I accept, because I'm, you know, I'm very labour and I do feel that the country's been dragged way too far to the right.

I know that there's this problem on the left as well. I do accept that, but I think in terms of, and I don't want to play the blame game, but if you say, let's say that it's, let's say those people who say they think it's a good thing that we're now in the era of populism, that we got this populist debate, right? The ones that I think have been most successful at changing the nature of that political debate, I think they are on the right. And I think in our country, a lot of them is to do with the media. I think, who was up with the other day I was talking to about Murdoch?

God, who was it? Malcolm Turnbull, former Australian Prime Minister. And he said, you wouldn't have had Brexit without Murdoch and you wouldn't have had Trump without Murdoch. Now I don't know if that's true or not, and none of us know. But there's a guy who's been Prime Minister of Australia. He's quite a bright guy, a very bright guy. And it's a fair point.

It may be. It may be. But it's not a fact, but it's a... It may be. But the issue I'm trying to raise with you, and by the way, look, we don't come at it from a right or left perspective. The issue I'm trying to hone in is something that really bothers me as someone who had dissident family in the Soviet Union who were prevented from saying their opinion in

public. The reason the show really started with us is we really don't like the culture of not a allowing people to express their concerns. And I think it's important, right? I would put it to you, you don't get Brexit if people's concerns about mass immigration in the 2000s, and if people's concerns about things like the grooming gangs and other things are not deliberately suppressed.

People are not smeared as being racist for their opinions about not wanting illegal immigration. All of these things, in my opinion, whether you like them or not, are acceptable, reasonable positions, which, by the way, as you well know, left-wing politicians here and in the United States used to express.

I mean, the idea that you can't have an open border has been universally accepted across the political spectrum, and then suddenly we're supposed to pretend that it's normal, that we've got tens of thousands of people coming in illegally. I'm a legal immigrant to this country. I don't understand why we have more than one illegal immigrant coming into this country, more than zero. Like, it shouldn't be happening.

So my point to you is, if we didn't have the suppression of the debate, and if we had, as you say, politicians who said, you know what, these grooming gangs that you'd serenians, champion is raising, this really is terrible. We're going to get stuck in. We're going to stuck in. We're going to deal with it. We're going to stop this ever happening again. It's a travesty. And I don't disagree with you. Right. And that I don't disagree with you. Then you wouldn't get so much populism is my point. If we didn't have mass immigration, you didn't have grooming gangs and you didn't have them being covered up. Is that fair? Well, the honest chance, I don't know. I don't know.

Because let me, let me just go about you, you said something interesting there. You said that, you know, that we were coming exactly how you described it. But Brexit happened because, you know, we mass immigration and people, and we didn't allow people to be angry about that. Okay. It's not that we didn't allow people to be angry, it's that when I remember in the 2000s, under the Blair government, I remember Greg Clark being on question time saying, you know, I realized people have these concerns, but there's also, you know, and all of this stuff. It was talked about like people have concerns, but action wasn't taken.

It wasn't taken. We were promised, the people of this country were promised immigration down to the tens of thousands. They were promised it by Labour politicians, conservative politicians. They voted against it in 2010, 2015, Brexit, 2017, 2019, over and off. And it just kept going up and up and up. And you can understand why people get angry, can't you, in that situation? Yeah, I can. But at the same time, I can hold to the view that I think some of the anger is justified,

but a lot of it is exaggerated and exploited. Well, those are both true, inevitably. Yeah. And let me just make it the other point I was going to make. So I think it was the 2001 campaign. So we win the election 97, massive majority. And part of the debate on immigration was, I'll go back to my point about, you know, we needed immigration for the economy at that time.

That's the message we're getting with business the whole time. And we were trying to be the party, the business-friendly Labor government. But I can remember, and this isn't just the diaries, I remember this. Margaret McDonough, who was General Secretary of the Labor Party, sadly died since. I remember her coming in and Margaret was one of those people who even when we were in government she was out canvassing every single weekend

right she was she was an on the ground labor person I mean I'll be honest once we got into once Tony Blair got into government you know he didn't do that many of constituency surgery you know he was busy there loads of stuff I was you know you do you

you have to force yourself not to be attached to some extent and Margaret was out every single weekend and I can remember she came about from one weekend she'd been in Kent and she was like you know this debate on immigration is becoming a real problem we have got to do something about this now I think our response to that at that time was political as opposed to policy that's what I'm saying yeah and I think that is true I think that is true because I think it was so I think if from memory I can't remember what the policy was at the time but I can remember going through the 2001 campaign we had a very very bespoke

messaging campaign for some of these areas where it was a problem. Now, did we deal with the fundamentals? We tried. We tried. And even now, even now today, you know, I follow German politics very, very closely. And the debate that's happening in, and okay, there's Merkel, you know, will let will, we'll, we're Schaffendaz, a million Syrians are going to come in. They're going to be consequences and there have been consequences. But even today, the German debate in terms of one of the reasons why the German government is not doing well is because the economy is not doing very well. One of the reasons why the economy is not doing very well is because they're not getting the right balances in the labour market. So they're on

the what the politics are saying, push them all out and the economics is saying, hold on a minute, we're an aging population, we're going to need more people coming in, working, paying taxes, etc. So the realities of these debates are not going to go away. No. And so when, and you said that when you first came here in 1996, immigration was not up here in terms of... It was 55,000 a year, yeah. No, but I'm telling me, in terms of where it was in political issues.

Oh, yeah, 3%. Right, okay. And now it's right up there. Now, it's up there in part because of facts, but it's where I think it's where the populist bit, I find offensive is the way it's then being exploited. Fine. And that's where we, you know, you think.

But isn't the issue. is that if you guys on the Conservatives and everybody, if you'd fix the facts, there'd be nothing to exploit. I'm not even sure that's right, you know. If you'd fix... Why not? Here's something nobody tells you about getting older. You can eat well, exercise, do everything right,

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I'm not even sure that's right, you know, if you'd fix. Why not? Well, because so if you'd, your judgment, depends on your judgment of what you want the facts to be. I don't want 50,000 people coming into this country illegally every year, and I don't want them to be allowed to stay here once they come. Right, okay. Is that a fair position?

Well, no, it might be a fair position, depending on where you put it in a bigger context. But what's the benefit of illegal immigration? We can separate mass immigration and maybe it's good for the economy. Yeah, okay, no, okay, fine. But illegal immigration, why is it happening and why is no one stopping it? Well, it's happening because of all the very, very difficult, cultural, economic flows right around the world. And we can go and, you know, wars and famines and climate's going to make it worse, by the way. So that's happening.

I actually, if I were still involved today, I honestly don't think we're going to address this stuff country by country. I think there is going at some point have to be a kind of, some kind of, whether it's a European level or some kind of even broader international level, we're not going to be able to deal with this in the way that we think we can. But so I think you say, so for example, let's take a hardline Brexit position or even a restore position where they're basically saying, okay, somebody turns up in Calais and some smuggler gets hold of them and they put them on a boat. Okay. Now, should they be coming into this country? No.

Okay. Should we as a country have legal, decent, humane routes for people who... Like we did for Ukrainians. Yes. Or like we've done through time. Like we've done through time for people genuinely fleeing persecution. There should be, okay? Would you be happy with a judgment that said, because we don't think any of them should come, that we as a government should be able to do anything to stop them. Yes. It's our country.

Sing them? I don't think it needs to come to that. No, it doesn't need to, but if that is... Well, hold on. You're using an extreme example. No, I'm using extreme example, because that's what the extremists say. But no one hears extremists. We're having the debate with us. No, but you say you're basically...

What I think you're doing is saying this is, this is we can agree that they shouldn't be coming okay where i think but you're you're making that sound is quite a simple thing to bring out which it is which is which i believe it is for the reasons i can okay okay so the australians fix this problem yeah they had tens of thousands of people coming then tony abbott came in and he fixed it very very little damage was done in the process they i think they had to turn some boats around some of the people smugglers capsized a few but but they rescued most of the people. There was some unpleasantness about holding some people on the island and blah, blah, blah.

But overall, they dealt with their illegal immigration problem. I know you don't like Trump. There's lots of things to dislike about President Trump. The one thing they've been able to do is close the border. It's doable. If you have people in charge of your country who say, this is our country, we are going to police its borders like we've done for thousands of years. Come on.

That's a reasonable position. It's a very reasonable position. And I'll tell you how I would today, So I've been talking to you, the very good guy called Gerald Canouse, who's a German and really studies this stuff in detail. And he's got a proposal, which I think has a lot of merit, which essentially is, if you're going to start from a position of they cannot come, okay, then there has to be, this is why I'm afraid I think Brexit has been such a disaster, lots of reasons I think it's been a disaster. But one of them is you should be able to have sufficiently good relations with some of the countries within the European Union. Definitely. Right.

That anybody who come goes straight back. Okay. That is the only way you can fix this right now. And so I think, is that doable? I think it is probably doable. It's not doable in the context of this toxic political environment that we've got. But it hasn't been done before either, right? It wasn't being done before, Drickson either.

No, because, because we were, I'm being very frank about this, we were, we were, we wanted immigration. But what about illegal immigration? No, but it was fairly low actually under your government. Well, illegal illegal. Illegal. Yeah, yeah. And you were deporting people. And this government is deported more than the last lot. Yeah. So, but I think that the, what I'm, I guess the bigger point I'm trying to

mate you is that you have to put this in the context of the kind of country that you're trying to create. Sure. And what I worry about you, and you're right about the Australians, But Australia is a different geography, it's a different geopolitics. And there was, he took a lot of flak for doing what he did, fine. I think within the, where we are right now, let's agree on the premise that none of them need to come. Okay. And that the people who come to this country, you'll be the people that we want to come. Okay, let's agree on that.

And then let's then, I think, try to build the relations with other European countries that essentially say, this is a problem we've got to. of crack together because what you've got to do is you've got to stop giving the motivation for coming. So then the stuff that Shabana Mahmoud is doing, where she's trying to send a message, okay, look at the reality of the political problems that she's facing because of that. So what I'm trying to say to you is it is not as easy as it sounds. Well, it depends. If you're a Labor Home Secretary, it's difficult because there's a lot of people on your side who are

actually quite happy with illegal immigration. I don't think they're happy with legal immigration. They will tolerate it because of other beliefs that they have about the importance of care and compassion, et cetera. Is that accurate? No, I don't think many people on the left are happy. So what are the political problems that she has? Why are they happening? Well, because the political problems that she's having are happening because of a lot of MPs thinking that there's a real danger that we are being driven here by an unfair politics of the right.

And that actually within this, you're going to project a very bad image of the United Kingdom. And there are people that we should be coming in who won't want to come. There's partly it. Illegal immigrants who should come, but won't want to come. No, no, no, I'm not about... Oh, you mean other people? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or just about the sense.

In other words, she's trying to say it should be harder for you to come here and stay here. Okay? Yeah. And she's bringing forward policy proposal on that. And I think the politics of that are proving difficult, because of people's fears about us actually saying, we're putting up the barriers to the lot of you. But we should be putting up barriers to illegal immigration,

except where we choose to let people in. That's kind of what she's saying. But why is she facing problems from the Labour Party for saying this reasonable thing? This is the point you've made, because there is their fear that this is then actually sending a broader message about what sort of people we are, what sort of country we want to be,

in relation to legal immigration. But isn't the message we're sending is we're sensible people who will protect their country while choosing the people who come here based on what we want? So why is the Labor Party not willing to accept it? It doesn't make any sense. Does it make sense to you? It makes sense.

These are all like, I feel like we're having some, like I'm saying like very reasonable things, aren't I? Yeah, but you're saying moderately reasonable things. In an unreasonable way. No, not even an unreasonable way. but in a way that I think sometimes underestimates the difficulty of the challenge and the political consequences. But what I'm saying is why are there political consequences in a Labour Party for doing a moderately reasonable sensible thing? Because some of them don't think it's moderate and

reasonable. They will say it's moderate and reasonable to do everything you can to stop illegal immigration. But they don't want to do it. But they don't think it's moderate or reasonable for Britain to put up the barriers on people that we do want here that we deter from coming here by putting him in the same boat but why would why would stopping illegal immigration oh we go around in circles yeah we are because what i'm trying to say is very simple why would you're asking me you're asking me to speak of the entirety of the parliamentary labor i'm asking you to confront a reality which i think exists on the left of british politics which is there are a lot of people who are very comfortable with illegal immigration because it makes

them feel like they're good people it makes them feel like they're not those evil farraji and right-wingers, they're good moral people and therefore they're prepared for a country to have an open border. But I think that most of the Labour MPs who are elected at the last election, I don't put them in that account at all. I said, but I, so I think that, because the other thing that's going on with Shaban and Mood is it's happening in the context of this, you know, churn and change within the Labour Party. So you've got Kirstama going, Andy Burnham's coming in, and people are maneuvering and people are trying to, you know, play their role in shaping the future for the Labour Party. I'm not fundamentally disagreeing with you.

I don't think you are. But I think you're covering for these people and the extreme news that they have. Maybe that's because, I was not I'm covering for them, but... If you said there's racists within the right of British politics who wanted to deport everyone, I'd say, yeah, clearly, right? But when we talk about the far left in this country, people want to pretend it doesn't exist and they don't have this radical agenda when it comes to immigration. So for example, for me, when you talk about the radical agenda on the on the on the left, I'd be far more upset, for example, about the way that the way that anti-Semitism developed on the parts of the far left. I think some of the way that, I mean, I abhorred so much of

what, for example, the Israeli government has done and is doing. But at the same time, I really worry about the extent in some parts of the left, that has turned into a little a little bit of a resurgence of the anti-Semitism that we saw during the during the Corbyn. I've been hogging the mic for ages, and I don't want to go around in circles, but the reason I'm... No, I know the reason. I'm not sure you do.

Let me just lay it out, right? My point, the populism conversation is very important. I am not a fan of populism because I agree with you that populism very often is about not solutions, but signaling in order to get elected to then not be able to actually do the things you claim to. Or even not to get elected, just to make money. Fine. Actually, we'll talk about the money part in a bit, but whatever.

It's not actually likely to solve the problems as this country faces. And I want to solve the problem this country faces as you do, right? But the point I'm trying to make to you is Shabana Mahmood is trying to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. Other people pretend or try to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. And until they do, populism is not going away because populism is not actually being driven by the evil right wing, is being driven by the reality that we have tens of thousands of people coming in. We're paying billions of pounds just for hotels and now HMOs and all these other things. You have people committing crimes, heinous crimes that are, yes, they're amplified by the media,

but we'd want the media to cover what's happening, right? Until you fix that, this isn't going away. Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you. And let me say as well, just on the PLP. I don't talk to as many MPs as I used to, okay. Right now, if I was an MP, would I be broadly backing Shabana Mahmood and what she's trying to do? Yes. Do I think that the people who are trying to block her from doing that are doing so for sort of...

Ideological reasons? No, I don't think it's ideological. I think you're saying it's more sort of virtue signaling and trying to say that's a divide that we want to have with the right. I don't think that's a good divide to have with the right. No, I think they believe in compassion and they think. think that a good person doesn't deny anyone entry into this country? I didn't think that. So what do they think?

Well, you'd have to get them on. I mean, what I feel you do it is you're asking me to... I'm seeing if you're willing to acknowledge that on the left, there exist an ideological extremism about these issues that I think exist. You don't think it exists. That's fine. No, I don't think many of those Labour MPs are ideologically extremist issues. I think there are, I think there is ideological extremism. I related more to other issues. But I think the the what Shabana Mahmood is trying to do is address the issue, address it in a fair, reasonable, legal way. I would like there to be much more of an international and particularly European approach to this, which I think we could do, which will be based upon the idea actually nobody needs to come here.

Okay. And I think you do that by, and this is part of what she's trying to do on the policy front. is signs of deterrence, okay? No point coming here. But you'll only get their message through eventually if people actually think, if I go there, I'm going to go to Denmark, I'm going to go to Germany. I'm not going to go to Rwanda.

I'm going to go back where I came from in the European Union. And I think that is, you know, we lost the Dublin Convention and that's gone. And I think that the... Anyway, I think we're going around in circles on this. But you can't expect me to defend positions of, you've got to talk to them. Let's talk about underwear.

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have abandoned them. They look at the Labour Party, particularly under Corbyn, and they, they go, not only do you not represent me, I think you actually hold me in contempt, because I've got a lot of mates who feel that way, and they're the people who flock to reform. They're the people who are flocking to restore. You hear people saying that, for sure, for sure. So the question then is, does Jeremy Corbyn, did Jeremy Corbyn have contempt for those sorts of people? I don't think he does. I don't think he does. I'll tell you what I think people felt. I can remember this. you probably know i support burney football club i go to burney a lot mate and west town we've got

the same colors we're both it first first game of the season the the um but i can remember going to burny a lot during that corbin period and i mean it's you know even to something like me who is has been right in the center of the establishment there's some there's certain things you've got to do okay if you're a leader of the labor person I don't care what your views are if you're an official government function and the national anthem is being sung you sing it okay unless you want to come out and say as part of your politics if I become Prime Minister I'm absolutely determined to get rid of the monarchy and you know so I'm not you know but so that I think that

first go people were thinking this guy is not serious that was a big and I don't think you understood why that was such a big thing at this the time. Do you remember that church service you went to? And then I think there's a there's a thing about our military that I think people like the military, respect the military, want the military to be properly supported by their politicians. Which it needs to be for our national security. Totally and if they felt that I guess they I think there was a feeling, I don't think this was just in working class people by the way, but a feeling of, you know, well, who's, you know, you saw some of the stuff with, was it the Salisbury attack?

Was he leader of the Labour Party then when it was like, you know, well, we've got to get this properly investigated. And it's like, hold a minute, you've got the intelligence, our intelligence service is saying this. Russians are saying this and you were saying, well, you know, could be one, could be the other. I think that sort of stuff got through. But I don't think, look, I know a lot of working class people

who really, really like Jeremy Corbyn because they felt he's for us. He stands for us. he's not, you know, they look at people like me, some of them, or certainly Tony and the thing you lot left us. They do say that, okay? No, I don't think we did, but I understand why, because of what their lives have become. I think for a lot of those people, we made their lives, the policies that we pursued made their lives a lot better, okay? And I can point to tons of stuff that we did. But did within what they saw of us, did they think there was a sort of disconnect? I think that disconnect was there.

Then I think it grew. And I don't think I wouldn't just put it on Jeremy Corbyn, far from it. No, I'm not putting it on Jeremy Corbyn. I'm putting it on the left in general. For instance, we can talk about progressiveism, wokeism, for example, terms like white privilege. Like a lot of my mates and people that I know and people who listen to his podcast, I remember I was walking down the street in North London.

There's a guy, this is a number of years ago who came up to me. And there's, you know, Labor. And he was talking about growing up on a council estate in middle, was for a single mum. And he wanted to talk to me about white privilege. And at one point, I thought, mate, I'm not the one saying these views. He was like, why am I privileged because I'm white when I grew up in poverty? Real poverty.

And I looked around and most of the people I knew came from poverty. We had no privilege. And yet people within the Labour Party, people within the intelligentsia, the modern left, are pointing the finger at me and telling me I'm privileged. And that really angered people. Yeah, I get that. But were they really pointing the finger at me? Yes. Yes, they were. Yes, they were. Oh, come on. Come on. I'm really not sure.

Is it this is what I think. Look, is it, no, I think this whole woke debate. Okay. Is I find it, and what does it even mean? Woke is about believing in playing a role in trying to deliver some kind of social justice. That is what Woke is meant to mean. Woke has become a catch-all term of abuse. Not really. Yes, it has. I can define it for you if you like. It's a hierarchy of oppression. It says different groups are oppressed at different levels. And I can look at your skin color and immediately tell whether you're an oppressor or you're oppressed. You happen to be a straight white man, therefore you're the oppressor. I happen to be a black trans lesbian, therefore I'm oppressed. Right. And that's the way this debate is being done. And by the way- That's the way the debate is being done. The debate. Alistair, chill out. Not only is it the way the debate is being done, we see it in policing. Not only in the way the policing is. being practiced, but in the instructions police officers get, they're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicit. Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's demented. It's absolutely dente. That's the quotes from the police own instructions. And it may be, and it may be because

you found one document where some guy who's writing some guidance for police is the idea. It's the college of police and guidance. Okay, okay. This is how police officers are trained. Okay, okay. Why are you saying okay, like I'm saying, I'm making something up? Because I think, you're I'm not saying it's not as deeply as you know. Well, I think you should. Well, maybe I should, but I... Because then you wouldn't dismiss the factual things I'm saying out of hand. I'm not...

Let me just... Let me dismiss it in my own way. Go ahead. Right, okay. He's going to hog the microphone. I know. This is outrageous to me. You haven't looked into this.

No, well, because, no, I'm aware of the issue. And I'm aware of the issue. Because I think, two things. First of all, I think... That's what people mean when they say woke. It's not a catch-all phrase. They mean to your treatment. No, they do it is a casual phrase.

No, they do it. They don't. They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights. Not at all. Yes, they do. There's loads of gay people who use this phrase. Okay, they may do. Come back to the police. Come back to the police. I'll come back to the police. Right. So two big points I would make about the police. And they may sound quitely, it's slightly contradictory. The first is I think the police get a very, very hard time in our country. I agree. Okay. And I am broadly supportive of most police officers. But like any organization, there are some really bad people in there and they've got to be reaching out.

Absolutely. That's the first thing. The second thing I would say is that if there is a race issue within policing in this country, it is not directed against white people. It's directed against both people. Okay. But if you have to make a judgment as to who comes off worse in our policing and criminal justice system, it is not in the minimum of the way. Why do you have to make that judgment? Why do you...

judgment because you've just made a judgment. Wait, what I've just made a judgment based upon one piece of guidance. Let me add two words to my sentence. Why do you have to make a judgment about which race should get preferential treatment when the standard should be? I'm not. I'm saying that's what happens. The standards should be that we're all equal under the law. Correct. But the guidance currently is to many police forces in this country that we're not all equal under the law. They're saying you treat people differently in the way that you handle them. That is to be people not being equal under the law. You have to be. You have to be. conscious, you have to be conscious of certain things. You have to be conscious of how you deal with

them. Look, I've not got into as deeply as you, because when that was happening, I can't remember whether it was around Southampton or it was around, I can't remember even when that came to, came to light, right? But as that was happening, I thought, here we go again, we're going to get something taken out context, twisted into a debate that says the police are all anti-white. But no one is saying that. Yes, that's exactly what was being said. Let me correct myself. No one in this. this room is saying that but that's why we're having this that's not why we're having this debate we're having this debate because the police guidance in this country is to treat people differently

well the police the police all operate and should operate under the law treating everybody equally okay but i could say this does that mean does that mean that for example policemen aren't told that so let's just give you example when the the the henry novac situation okay now they all get trained and they all get guidance and what it seems to me I don't know because I wasn't there and I didn't follow the court case and I haven't read the transcripts but from what I have gathered from that the policeman trained are arrive at a scene they have they have been conditioned to expect something by what they think has been happening and they then go and deal with it in the way they deal with it quite quickly it seems to me realize they made a mistake and then try to

you know, get back in a decent place. As a result of which, not just they, but police officers who were not even there, including one that was actually retired from the police force, is then being hounded. Well, that's obviously wrong. Yes, of course it's wrong. But my point is that I think that if I'm, if I, that's why I think these debates are really careful about how you conduct them. And we are very careful about it.

That's why I'm talking about specific guidance. And let me make one other point. We, this show has a lot of police officers who listen to us. I had a guy come up to me. I actually used to do personal, he used to do closed protection for prime ministers. I think he did Kirstama. The police officers who listen to us and who write into us and who come up to us in the street, they all say that the college of policing and the guidance police officers received is absolutely rife with this stuff.

Okay. In which case I, in the idea that different groups of people should be treated differently. And I really hope people like you should take it more seriously. I really think you should. Because, again, I'm making very reasonable points. This is not, I'm not having a go at you. I'm not saying you're woke or anything like that. But I think sometimes people dismiss these things out of hand

when there's quite a lot of evidence now that in hiring, in quotas, in policing, in many different areas now, we do not have equal treatment for different groups. Well, I would argue, I would argue that you're, I could find, you could find cases where, you mentioned the DEI thing. I think the extent to it,

which Trump in particular, but it's happening here as well, has weaponized this DEI debate, not to create equality, but actually to create division, to create hate, to spread hate. I absolutely despise the way that they do it. So I guess that pushes me into a place where I'm going to be more sympathetic towards somebody who comes along to me and says, do you know what? I'm a young black woman, and actually I feel I don't get treated well by the police. But it shouldn't do. No, it shouldn't.

It shouldn't do that, because this is the problem. Can I just make my point? Because those people who were the traditional Labor voters, like people I grew up with, like the bloke that I'm talking about grew up in Middlesbrough, who just go, Labor don't represent me. Yeah, but hold on, hold on.

We can all, we'll all have met people who tell us all sorts of things when they stop us in the street, okay? I'll give you another one. You talk about the white working class. I've got loads of football matches, okay? And you'll hear lots and lots of white working class people say they don't like the way that they're treated by the police when they're just trying to have a day out of the football.

Okay. My point is that the way you were framing this for me is how I was taking this is that the because of DEI, yeah, the policing in this country has become two tier, crazy used by which we mean. Oh, sorry, I thought you did. Well, maybe you were close to something else. Okay, so, but but that's okay, two tier policing, two tier care, all this stuff. It rhymes, so that's why it took off, I think. Well, yeah, for sure.

And that's how popularist communication works. It's the way non-populous communication works. Exactly, exactly, okay. But so, and I would argue that the real, if there is two-tier policing, okay, and let's agree that there is. Okay. And let's agree that it's all bad. Of course.

Okay, right? It's bad when black people are not treated fairly, right? Correct. So it's also bad when other groups of people are not treated fairly. Correct. That's all I'm saying. What is not bad is if. when the police are out doing a pride march that they're basically told just you know you have to

understand what they're protesting for you have to understand that they're doing something a bit different to that march you did last week which was tommy robinson's mob but so that i think that's what that guidance is about that's not what that guidance is about well okay well i i'll go away and read it how about that that's great i'll also i have i have a lot of i've worked i've worked with the police of course and i've worked with the police federation and one of the reasons i do work with the police because I think they get treated really badly by the media, by the public. I couldn't agree more.

I was talking to, I was, you saw what I told me. I was talking to the, I was talking to the police. I was talking to a police guy the other day who is not even in, he's not even in a big city, okay? He's in a quite a small town. And he told me that in the last week, he'd been spat at eight times. Nobody here thinks that that's obviously discussed. Right.

No. So, but my, and, and, and I didn't ask him. I didn't ask him what was the color of the people who were speech. Yeah. Okay. Well, obviously, why would you ask that? But he told me. Okay.

Okay. And he said there were all but one more wide. Yeah. Okay. It's a majority white country, of course. Yeah, okay. But my point is, I could take that if I wanted to, and I could build a debate about this. But that's not what we're doing.

No, it's not what you were doing. I know it's not what you're doing. But I'm saying the people that we were talking about earlier, that is what they do. That is what's happened in the United States. And that's why you then end up. with our souls like Pete Hexerth, removing the pictures of people like, you know. Why have we brought Pete, Pete, say,

we're talking about Britain, right? We're talking about our country. We're talking about DEI. In this country. Okay. We're talking about this country, right? We're talking about populism. In this country.

We're talking about this country, right? And the only point I made to you is... You didn't stop me talking about Germany. I just don't... The issue is that people always go to Trump or Hegelhexor, other people... Because they're so powerful in our debate. We're just talking about...

policing in this country and other areas where there hasn't you know BBC has internships for only non-white people etc like this has been going on we started with woke remember this is how this bit of the conversation started it's not a in so look there's probably some people who use it as a catch-all phrase in the same way by the way that people on the left use the word racist as a catch-all phrase to describe people who are actually racist and also people who oppose mass immigration there are some people who do that right just because some people use a word inappropriately doesn't mean that that word is wrong Okay.

So I gave you a definition of woe. Let me just jump in there, though. Okay, so you're doing it, say it's left and right, and it's sort of both sides isn't. It is. I don't think you have that. So let's say there is a media of the left, okay? A media of the left. A media of the left.

Say Guardian, mirror. Yeah, they don't do that. What? I don't think they do that. Was the media of the right do that in relation to woke? Alistair, the media of the left and the people on the left and the influences and the political figures and commentators, including people like David Lammy, called conservative who were pro-brecht. Now, France and I both voted Remain, okay?

They called him worse than Nazis. Do you remember David Lammy said the ERG are worse than Nazis? No, I don't remember that. He did that on Andrew Marshall. We'll put a clip in here. Okay. Right? By implication, you're comparing the ERG to the Nazi party, or at least to the South African racists. Now, whatever you think about the ERG, that was an unacceptable comparison, wasn't it? Andrew, I would say that that wasn't strong enough. In 1938, there was, were allies who hatched a plan for Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia and Churchill said no and he stood alone. He did? We must not appease. We're in a situation now. Let me just be clear.

I'm an ethnic minority. We have in the ERG in Jacobs-R-Mogg, someone who is happy to put onto his web pages the horrible racist AFD party, a party that is a party that. it's Islamophobic and on the far right of the German system. They're happy to use the phrase grand wizard. KKK is what it evokes to me when I think of that phrase and the deep south. I'm sorry, but very, very seriously, of course we should not appease that. Of course we should not appease that. People on the left and people on the right use these terms in order to smear their opponents

and to misrepresent the debate. That's what they do. Okay. That's what everyone does. So what we're saying, what you're saying, essentially something else no what you're saying is they're both as bad as each other that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying I think is that these people have more power in this debate than these people that's what I'm saying and I don't the right wing media has more power than

the left one the right wing weaponization of their definition of woke woke has had way more cultural influence than anything these people have said well some people might argue that's because it's accurate to what's happening on the ground when you institutions are invested with DEI, when British history is being denigrated, when, you know, we've got, we're recording this before the Norway game, right? England playing Norway. The Norwegians walk around in helmets, right, with the horns. Spots walk around in kilts.

Right, but hold on a second. The Norwegians are walking around in helmets, which is a throwback to the Viking Age. Vikings, as you well know, were ripping pillaging, including this country, right? No one is asking them for reparations. British people are being told they need to pay reparations all day every day, right? How many British people? All British people are being told that we need to pay reparations. No, how many British people are demanding that?

Labour MPs, like, what's her name, something, Belle Ribeiro? What's her name? She's saying that we need to pay reparations. It's an ongoing life debate. It's not that big a deal. It's not that big a deal if you don't even know the name of the MP who's calling for it. She's just not very important to me, but I remember. But she's important enough to say.

A Labour MP is calling for this country to pay reparations. Okay. Yes, reparations will involve some form of money, but it's got to involve complete system change. We cannot be content with people handing us essentially scraps off their table when you look at what they're sending and say that we are okay. And let people bypass us, the community people,

and I think the community is so important. I want you to all know that it was the community that came to me to set up the all-party parliamentary group for African reparations. People go on their BBC and explain why it's important. It's been a live debate. You can't deny them. No, I would like. But no one's asking Norwegians for reparations or the Italians for the Roman invasion, right? So you put all this together, people get a picture, don't you think?

Yeah, well, you get whatever picture you want out of a very complicated landscape. What's wrong with the picture? History, because I think it, well, one I think it trivializes history. I think there is, I think, look, history is very, very important within current politics. Totally agree. Okay. And history ultimately is about judgment. Of course.

Is our history a sort of, you know, wonderful, perfect story of the greatest country in the world? No, no more, any more than the Americans is. Of course. The debate around the 250th anniversary of America. This is why I worry. You say don't go on about Hexon and Trump, but the picture of America that Trump is trying to, we are talking in his case about the erasure of history, the erasure of history. But why are we talking about another country?

We're talking about this country. We just talk about Norway. You know, comparing it to England. I'm saying other countries are not forced. to apologize for the history in the way the British people are. Some do. The Australians did a massive apology recently for their history. Fine. Australia, but Australia is part of the Anglosphere.

This is happening everywhere in the Anglosphere. Okay. There's a double standard, is what I'm getting that. Okay. I know. See, whenever I make a good point, you just got, I don't know. I haven't read the guidance. No, because, I mean, I don't know if this is what you do, but it's like you make the point, we have the debate about the point,

And then you make the point again. No, I'm just asking you concede that I'm right on this. That's all I want. That's all I want. I think on a lot of things that you say, you may have some right on your side, but I think you're way oversimplify quite a lot of these issues to make it feel. I'm happy for you explain why it's more complicated. But you don't.

You just say, okay. No, because history is complicated. Of course. We have loads of historians on the show for that reason. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So anyway, talk to them about it's better. You're the one of the key to say you don't want to hog the bike.

No, no, I want to hog the bike. I'm worried about this. Yeah, I'm worrying about it. Okay. So, for the point that I was going to talk about, and you were like, okay, it's anecdotal evidence. All right, fair enough. But you cannot deny that a large part of why populism has flourished is because the working class feel angry and alienated, in particular, because they feel that the Labour Party no longer represent them.

We have to accept that that is a mainstream position. And the Conservative Party. Well, exactly. No, but it's a lot of people. Yeah, it is. Yeah. No, we have to, you said, what I would say, we have to accept that large swathes of the British public and the European public and the American public are losing faith in the ability of politics to deliver the improvements in their lives that politicians keep promising.

Right. And we had a long period of Labor government. We had a long period of Tory government. We've now had a Labour government again. and they both have been caught up in that. Alongside that, we have a less tribal population that just as it shops around for which TV programs to watch and who to date and all this other stuff that technology has brought,

we've also, we're seeing an erosion or certainly a slow but accelerating breakdown in political tribalism as well. So it's that people no longer think. I am Labour, I am Tory, I am Lib Dem, they think, well, I'm going to just, you know, take a look. We also have, I think, as a consequence of the nature of the media in this country, I think we have a really well-developed cynicism. And I think it's gone from scepticism to cynicism about the ability of anybody to do anything good for them. The political parties have got addressed that. They've got to deal with that. My point is, populism is not the answer. Right-wing populism is not the answer.

left-wing populism is not the answer. Look, I agree with you. You don't need to explain to me why right or left-wing populism is not the answer. Everyone can drink now. My mother's Venezuelan. I've seen left-wing populism in action.

I know where it leads. It's nowhere good, which is why I'm terrified of Polanski. And again, people drink again. I used to be a teacher. I taught for 12 years and deprived communities from places like Newham and Lambeth,

really poor places. The thing is, and when I talk to people in those communities, particularly white working class people, there was an anger. So I'll give you an example. This is a stat. The people, the cohort that do the worst in schools in this country are white working class boys. I never once in my 12 years of education ever attended anything which dealt with that. Now, if that was any other cohort or part of the kids that we taught, that would have been spoken about honesty. But because of... Where were you teaching? I was teaching in Newham and I was teaching in Lambert. But the London schools are in a school. that we did was in part about addressing that that was that was a very very big part of

that and that was one of the big one of the reasons why we got we actually one of this sort of north-south divide so-called is because actually the standards in london went up a lot better and that was because of the specific london strategy we brought forward which was partly about that so i think this is one of those i think you'll be very look i don't get me wrong i think that there's no doubt i go into schools all the time okay and you hear it from head teachers everywhere the where we're really, really struggling is with white working class kids. Okay. So we agree on that. And I would also agree, but I don't think it's because there's a kind of hierarchy necessarily. I think a lot of it is, I think, for example, a lot of them will tell you, you know,

the, some of the Asian kids in particular got parents who are absolutely driven in a way that, you know, a lot of the white working class parents aren't in terms of, you know. Totally fair. And immigrants, first generation immigrants in particular. You have got to get an education. This is your route to a better life, etc. Now, when I was growing up, and I mean, I remember, both my parents were Scottish and I remember, you know, they were obsessive about education. And Scotland had this amazing reputation for education. That's gone. That's gone. So something, so I'm not disagreeing with you about that being a specific problem. them. And in terms of what government policy solutions should be, right now, I don't think they're

big enough and bold enough. I mean, I honestly do worry about the nature of the education that we're giving kids at the moment, because I don't think it's remotely, it's so divorced from the pace at which the world is developing and changing. So, you know, anyway, we're violently agree. Yeah, we are violently agree. But also, I'll be honest you, I think a lot of these, should we just call them progressive strategies, are actually deeply unhelpful. So, for instance, this was about six, seven years ago, I attended a seminar, I didn't attend, I was forced to attend, on how to teach black boys. And I got so angry because halfway through, it was basically this woman at the front explaining to me why I needed lower educational standards to teach

a black boys in my classroom. And I remember at the end, putting my hand up and going, would you deliver this seminar at Eton College, where I know black boys go to? Have you been asked? She was like, no. And it was, it was like, oh, but you know, you have to expect this. There needs to be different standards. And I'm like, no, the standards should be applicable. It shouldn't matter, whether it's a black boy, an Asian boy, a white girl. But everybody exactly the same. When you come through the doors of the classroom, there is no colour,

There is, I'm treating you fairly. Look, that sounds bonkersville to me, right? That's what people mean by two-tier. Yeah, okay. Yeah, but, but, but would you nonetheless agree that where the data is showing you in so many schools, that white working, something is going wrong in the education of white Viking class, there has to be strategies to address that.

And that's what Francis are saying is there isn't. So when we talk about white working class boys underperforming, oh, it's the culture, it's the parents, it's the whatever. For every other group, there's a government program that says this particular community is marginalised and we need to help them. And that's what people mean by two-tier. That's what they mean. They might.

They might. Some of them do. Yeah. We don't. Listen, we don't. The point I love about the way he's speak, right? None of us can speak for everybody. That's what they mean.

Who are they? A lot of the people who speak about these issues. Right, that's what they mean. What they mean is there is different treatment of different groups and they connected to woke. But remember, we started this with woke. Woke, in my definition that I gave you, is a hierarchy of who's more oppressed than whom. And therefore, different people get different treatment.

Okay. And what I'm saying is the government policy in schools, in policing and everywhere else is a product of that worldview which is implemented in the school system, in policing, in government in the BBC, etc., through DEI and other initiatives, which are explicitly designed to do this. Well, the school I was in three days ago, the head was very, very clear with me. It was a very mixed, multiracial, multicultural school in London. He was very clear with me, says that where we're putting most of our energies right now

is with special education needs and white working class kids. and, you know, and does that mean? But I also, the other thing I think you've got to understand, or accept, is I mentioned the difference with France, okay? I think we have developed multiculturalism in a way that we should celebrate. And I think it is, I think it is an incredible success story for this country. What do you mean by multiculturalism? What I mean by the fact is, what I mean by multiculturalism?

What I mean by multiculturalism? And maybe this is particular, because all my kids went to schools in London. that you talked about, you both said, you know, you've got to be kind of blind to color. I think in the schools I'm talking about, there is a blindness to color. That's monoculturalism. That's whenever, when everyone's British, right?

We have a lot of British. They're not all British. Let me give you a very example. I remember my mum, who's now dead, but she, my daughter, Grace, was still at the schools. She's in the 30s now, so it was a long time ago. So it was already good by my perspective, right? And some of my daughter's best friends were from Kosovo,

because we had the war in Kosovo and lots of Kosovo came over, do a leap of being one of them. And they were at school together. And then you have the, and then so my daughter's circle of friends, I remember she came around with her friends, four or five of them, and my mum was there, right, in her 70s or 80s, whatever it was. And Grace later, when they're all gone, my mom was asking them about them and she was saying and grace mentioned Lauren and

my mom said which one was Laura and grace went through all these different descriptions and explanations and the one who said this and the one who said the one who's there what she didn't say was that she was black she was the only black girl in that small group of kids right and that's what I meant by maybe that's mono, multi-racist, multi-ethnic society. But that's why I also see distinction between, because the reason that Angela Merkel and David Cameron all came out and said multiculturalism has failed is what they were saying is in a multi-ethnic society, which no one here has a problem with, right?

It would become silly. Some people do. No one here, here. Here. Oh, here. No one here has a problem with. The issue is, do you encourage everybody to buy into a single culture or do you kind of say, well, you just get on with it and, you know, you can stay whatever culture.

you came from three generations ago and not integrate. You can't do both. No, you can't. I can't tell you as an immigrant myself, you can't do both. You either integrate or you don't. You either integrate or you don't. You either teach your children that they're British and to become more British or you don't.

And that's where a lot of the community like... I really don't agree with that. What do you mean you don't agree with it? I think if... Well, look, I mention my parents are Scots. Okay. Well, I can see you're non-integrated because you... You don't support England, mate.

There you go. There you go. That's my point. You've retained your identity as Scottish, and that's fine. Yeah. Right. What's wrong with retaining my identity as... Because Scotland is part of the British Isles.

And if you were Russian, if I were Russian, and I told my children that they're Russian, and that's what they are, and they didn't... No, you're teaching you're British, but you teach them that they've got Russian heritage. That's right. That's exactly what I'm, but they're British first. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. Okay.

Multiculturalism is when you really don't care so much about the British part, and it's your ethnic identity or religious identity that's most important. But I don't think what you shouldn't do is make people feel they either have to forget or minimize the importance. No, no, okay. Well, let's agree. We're agreeing. Yeah, yeah. Kind of. Kind of.

You've been very generous with your time and they've been great sport. We appreciate it coming on. We'd love to have you back on again at some point if you'll tolerate it. before... Let him talk a bit more the next time. The next time. The next time. Let him talk now.

Let him talk now. So this is a question. If you were in charge of the Labour Party, I think the way to solve populism is to engage with the working class voters who feel left behind, who feel the left haven't represented them, have ignored them.

Now, you can make the arguments of whether they have, whether they have... Yeah. But the reality is, they, that's the way they feel. If you were the leader of the Labour Party, let's say you're Andy Burnham, you know, you're from Wiggin, where my dad's from, how do you engage with those people

when we can look and we can say this objectively, and I think it's fair, Kirstama certainly hasn't done that, Corbyn hasn't done that, really no Labor leader has done that since your boss. A lot of MPs do it. Don't rule out the role of MPs because they're living in those constituencies.

Agreed, agreed. And they're the ones who probably should be doing a better job of making sure the leadership gets exactly what's going on in these places. Look, I think you can see that Andy Burnham is to some extent doing that already, trying to do that. It's part of his messaging. You know, he's talking about the places that have been left behind. It's easy said. What he'll find once he becomes prime minister is bloody hard to engage with a lot of people. You've got to be doing that in different ways.

But I think that I wouldn't disagree. I wouldn't disagree. I think that the, if you think of it. about why a lot of people have, let's be honest, most of the support that's improved reform's reputation and standing up until the current day backal, where I think they're in real trouble by the way, but part of that for now,

there's actually this has been Tories going to reform. Most of the people who have voted reform, most of them, very substantial majority, have never voted Labor and say they never would, okay? But some people have gone from Labor, to reforms. You've got to think about how do we get those people back? How do we maybe get some of these people to think about voting labour and how do we get people who are just fed up with politics generally to be more inspired by what we're trying to do? So that's a big part

of what Burnham has to do. What I wouldn't do is accept the narrative that we've, as it were, deliberately left you behind. What I think they should do, and I hope will do, is actually to focus far more. example in education and to be fair to Bridget I think she's tried to do this but I don't think that she's really cut through on it it is actually to be saying look we really have we've got to be open about this stent of the problem with white working class kids and this is how we're going to try try to address it so you do have to engage more with both of the kids and their parents on that I think in relation to to you know the community you're all we're all very kind of local in the way

we live our lives most people are this about their communities and I think you've you've really got to understand why people feel that when they see their dirty streets, when they are aware of low-level crime, when they're aware of a high shop, a high street that used to be kind of vibrant, but then what you can't do is say, that's because we've left you behind. I think you've also got to confront people with the reality of the choices that we all make. So, for example, the high street, to me, and the sort of mess that it's in, it's a consequence of all sorts of things. But one of them is the fact that we spend all our time on the bloody internet buying on Amazon. Another one is that we've liberalized gambling to an extent that is off the scale.

So there's these gambling shops everywhere. You've got the vapes. And then you've got the charity shops because charity has become such a fundamental part of delivering basic public services. So you've got to be addressing all of the issues that have led to something that everybody's sitting in their community thinking, I don't like the look at this. I don't like the feel of this. So we're agreeing as well. Yeah.

I'm keeping silent. But the problem is, and no political party has done this because I feel that there is a problem in politics with honesty and this is why, and that created a vacuum, which is what populism has filled, which is no political party has actually, very few people in politics have had the balls or the talent to go, this is why we are where we are,

and these are the solutions. so that when people feel that things are going wrong, they don't understand why. They don't understand why there's more potholes in the road. They don't understand why they feel poorer, why they go to the supermarket and their money doesn't go as far as it can. But what they do get from that is the feeling that they're being screwed. So when a populace comes along, whether it's Zach or Nigel, whoever else, the feeling is ripe to be exploited.

If that's how you want to frame. Well, I think one of the, I think, One of the really important roles of a political leader that's not been played very well for quite a long time is that, and this, I don't want this to sound patronising, it's not meant to, but I think one of the roles of the political leader is to is to educate the public about the reasons why decisions are being made. I think we've got to, and Thatcher used to do that. Tony used to do that, okay? Clinton used to do that. Reagan used to do that. Now, in a very kind of folksy sort of way, but you set out big arguments about why things are as they are.

Now, in the knowledge that, you'll do that by possibly making a 60-minute speech, doing a 60-minute interview, writing a book. In the knowledge of that, that is going to get distilled into that on social media, that by one opponent, that by another. You've got to be bigger and better than. all of that. Yeah. You've got to and and even though Trump is a nightmare and I hate most of what he stands for, he has at least shown away of how you can message and it's easy if you're the American president and you don't care about telling the truth and all that. But I think West,

our politicians in Europe underestimate the extent to which they still have the power to do that. I think they've all got too scared to challenge. Yeah. Too scared to tell the public. Sometimes you've got to face up to this. I don't think we're remotely honest at the moment with the public about the nature of our security situation, both on defence in relation to the Russian threat. I think we're going to face

some really, really difficult choices pretty soon. And the economics of our country. And the other one, and the other one that we haven't really talked about is, I don't think we're being, I think we're walking away from the climate debate, which I think is as dangerous as anything we face. So I think there is,

And I think in the public, if you're, if you talk about being on, and of course, honestly, there is, you know, in politics and that people say they're all liars, they're not all liars, but what they are in all the parties is part of a team, should be part of a team. So sometimes you can't necessarily always say what you totally think. You can't always give out every angle of every problem that you're trying to highlight. But you can do far more than we get in the debate now. So I would hope, if I'm, I'm, I really want Andy Burnham to be a bit like Mark Carney is being in Canada.

Mark Carney in Canada is setting out some really big choices that Canada's facing and he's and he's saying where he wants to go and he's saying where he wants to lead. And I think we've got to get back to that kind of approach in politics. He's still very good at the tweet and he's very good at the 30 second TikTok video, but this biggest stuff is where I think our policies have gone on. of it. And the real challenge Labour are going to have is dealing with economics, because this country is on a precipice when it comes to economics. And to be fair, the Tories didn't want to talk about it either, but we're going to have to tackle it soon, or we're in real

danger of going bankrupt. Well, we did... The debt, man. It's crazy. The debt is crazy. I agree with that. I agree with that. And he's... But that's the other one. I mean, if I... It is an extraordinary thing that Keir Star has gone from a landslide to leaving the door in two years. It's extraordinary, I think if there's one there's not one moment there's you know it's kind of whole catalogue of stuff good and bad that you can point you so well that was important isn't but I think if I had to pick one it probably was the moment at which he got defeated on welfare yes yeah oh yeah yeah because people thought hmm okay

and even though people might have most reasonable fair people think that if you're really struggling you should be entitled to get benefits and if you're old and sick and all that stuff they get that but it just felt a hold a minute you put our national insurance up because she said there was this black hole and now we've got this big problem with defense which we understand that we've got to pay for it like this i don't i don't really understand it yeah i think that i think that was so that's back to the point about the MPs just these the MPs you should be talking to honestly you've been very generous can we touch on one or two other things you mentioned just because i think they're really worth exploring as long as it doesn't take 20 minutes going around in

circles with your view. Then you're just going to have to admit when I'm right. Okay, okay, you're right. Excellent. So you mentioned the climate. Obviously a very big discussion. It's bloody hard at the moment. You say that we are kind of running away from what we should be doing. What do you think we should be doing? Well, your boss, just to add this, your old boss, Tony Blair, has come out recently and basically said the way Net Zero is being pursued is not going to work. Yeah. You can't, you can't reduce consumption. You can't phase out fossil fuels quickly. These are all points that a lot of people like to actually agree with in the country now about net zero and stuff. You don't agree with him.

No, I don't. What do you think we should be doing? I do think the future is renewables. And I think we've got to, there's all sorts of stuff we can do. I think that, you see, I think the net zero, it's really interesting in this because you're right. The debate has, feels like it shifted. Okay, it has shifted. Well, the polling hasn't. The polling hasn't.

I saw a massive global poll the other day about, you know, if you, if you ask people, the general view about the level of concern about the climate has not shifted. What's shifted, people hate the phrase net zero. Well, they don't hate the phrase net zero. They hate the policies of net zero. They're concerned about the climate, but they don't want our economy to be destroyed by net zero, which is a reasonable position. Okay.

So you have to build a strategy. Yes. Around your, well, I think it is about your, building your economy and your energy around renewables. And where Tony's right is it's, you can't do that overnight. Yeah. But you can't lose sight of the need for the transition. And so, I think I was at this amazing, in fact, if I can use your podcast to ask people to listen to one of our episodes. We did an episode recently with the European Energy Commissioner, Dan Juergenson.

So this is a guy who sort of lives in the detail of this. And he was just giving so many examples of where, the transition has been done right. Is it being done right in Britain? I think it's been done, I think the overall goal is right. I think the strategy is right, but I think it's the politics are proving very, very difficult. Well, the reason I ask is, Britain responsible, I mean, we produce 1% of global carbon emissions, we probably import another 1%, so let's say we're responsible for 2%.

When other countries, China, it's 30%, India is good. going to have to burn more fossil fuels to feed their people and to grow their economy, to catch up to the rest of us. It sort of feels a little bit like we're tinkering at the edges and really making a huge negative impact on our economy to not make any impact on climate at all. And I think that's why net zero is becoming unpopular. Would you agree? I'm not convinced net zero is becoming unpopular in the way that you say that is. I think some of the policies are. We have the highest industrial. price and developed oil.

And that's why you should listen to the guy, Jorgans, because it gives it really, it's a very, very, the energy market is so complicated the way that it runs. So it's not, that is not the biggest driver of it. But listen to him, he knows more about it, it's not a deck. But what I, sorry, I've got any question there. This is what you do, you wear me down. You wear me down.

Excellent. That's what we do. It was about the unpopularity of net zero linked to its economic impact. is what I was saying. People are upset about it because it's damaging the economy. Some people are upset. It's true. Well, I think anything that damages the economy, people get, you know, why we're doing that.

But what the weaponizers have done is that this is what they do. But you don't the real issue and you just go, this is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to weaponize it. The problem is a problem because it's damaging our economy. No, our economy has to become a modern. renewables-based energy-driven economy. Your point was about the 1%. Okay? We're 1%? Yeah, we're 4%. Yeah, yeah. Right. And one of the things this guy, Danny Orkinson said, actually, yes, China is emitting more, but China is also driving the renewables agenda in a way that is off the scale good. We need to be part of that. In your actually, yes, you're right.

There's going to be this. Other countries who have got far bigger energy needs than ours are actually both creating more emissions and driving faster forward on renewables. And where I really did disagree with Tony in his essay was when he made the 1% point. And yet he's the guy who back in the day, rightly in my view, was saying that just because we are only this in relation to the size of the global economy does not mean that we can't take a lead in the time on overseas aid and development, which we did. And I would, I think that is the we should still be using arguments like that. Just because we are no longer one of the biggest powers in the world is not mean we're not still seen as a leader. So, um, do you think with whatever

whatever, no, I'm going to ask you perfectly reasonable questions I have done throughout the interview. Do you think that, uh, I mean you're hogging the mic. Oh yeah, yeah. That's true. Um, do you think that changing our energy policy in such a way that reduces our economic prosperity is an acceptable price to pay for this? No, but it's, but no, I don't, I don't, but I don't believe it's necessary. You don't think it's had a negative economic impact so far? I think energy prices have. Yeah, but they're not related to net zero?

Not. It's a very small part of the stuff that's driven up our energy prices. So, no, it's not, you've got to, you've, this is why say these things are, you know, you've got to address this in the round and our economy. Energy is going to become the big challenge for all of our countries. And, you know, so there's Trump saying drill baby drill. We don't have there, even if we wanted to frack on the level that they do, we don't have the reserves. We have oil in the North Sea. The All in the North Sea.

Which had Miller Band has shut down production. Just check out. The oil in the North Sea is the one, it's not. going to come in it if you were to go and drill all this stuff away they say drill baby drill in the North Sea it's going to be years before you get anything it's fine it's not fine if you can do other stuff with the money you've got which is what which is renewables but the problem the the all sea is important to our energy because of the wind that blows there okay you we're going to have much that is going to be much more important to our long-term energy

needs yeah we just had an energy expert called Scott Tinker on the show it's not out yet but if I may plug in which he talked about the fact there's no such thing as renewable energy because it takes so much raw material to build the wind turbines, which then have to be... Okay, but honestly, that's like saying, look, it's a label. Like net zero is a label. It's what the label... Let's just say oil, wind and solar every time. But the reason... Alistair, you're being picky now. The reason it's important is that these things are not renewable. They cost energy to produce...

Everything. It costs energy to turn their light, those lights on. That's a very good point, Alistair. Okay, okay. You know what? You know, you've been a very good sport. We appreciate you coming on. Alistair, thank you for being here. Last question is always the same.

What's the one thing we're not talking about that you think we should be? Do you mean we today? I mean we as a country, as a nation, as a body politic. Well, weirdly, I'm going to say that I don't think we're talking enough about politics. in the context of why politics matters, why politics for all its faults is so necessary and important, and why we need to encourage more and more people genuinely to be engaged in politics. I mean, really engaged in politics. Because I worry that the way our debate is going, the real, the thing that's underlying a lot of the stuff,

that we've been talking about isn't just labor or Tory or green or reform whatever it's actually whether democracy's going to survive and whether people are going to think well you know say what you like about Putin but say we're like about G, but they've done stuff way better than we've done et cetera et cetera so I think that we we don't talk enough about yeah why why democratic politics really matters and why we've got to fight for it harder than we do Thank you. Alison Campbell, thanks for coming on. Thank you.

I'm sorry, we're not going to get to your questions because I hugged the mic. It's my back. All the best. I would have done them, but he's... Oh, would you? Okay, let's do them, Alison. You're a man of your word, okay? Let's do the bonus questions.

Bring us the funds. With hindsight on their RAC dossiers and W&D, what would you now do differently on facts, risks and moral trade-off?