TRIGGERnometry - Andrew Doyle Live: Why I Created Titania McGrath

Episode Date: February 16, 2020

Andrew makes his 3rd TRIGGERnometry appearance in this live recording. What does the Labour Party need to do in order to regain power? Join the discussion https://www.qutee.com/q/the-future-of-the-labour-party/ Paul Embery (@paulembery) is a firefighter, trade unionist, and columnist for UnHerd. Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So welcome back. What we're going to do now is we're going to bring Andrew Doyle on stage. If you don't know what Trigonometry is, it's a YouTube show where we interview people who have interesting and controversial ideas sometimes. Andrew's been on the show a couple of times, but the last time we interviewed him was a year ago, and we did not know at the time. He didn't even tell us that he was the creator of Titania Maguire. So please, welcome to the stage, Andrew Doyle.

Thank you. It's good to have you back. Yeah, it's good to be here. It's fun. Well, tell us, why did you create Titania Magrae? Okay, so for those of you don't know, she's a Twitter character predominantly, and I started it about last April, and the idea of the character was to kind of embody that kind of radical,

fourth-way feminist, intersectionalist, woke activist. And I did it as a satirical character on Twitter, and then she got a book deal, and then turned into a live show, and that's how it happened to sort of run away out of my hands a little bit. And why do you think it struck such a nerve? Because you started it last April. How many Twitter followers does it now have?

Oh, I don't like 380,000, I think. But I think what happened was very early on, because I did it sort of for myself, you know, as a kind of laugh. And very early on what happened is it started getting retweeting a lot. And particularly when I, because I wanted her to be like a slam poet. So, because I was really, I really like slam poetry. You know, it's so bad, isn't it? And it's like, it's really bad.

And I love, I love what. watching them do it because they stand there and they sort of do that really sort of self-important pausing at the start, you know, where like, oh minute, I just got to get into character and then they launch into it and it's just terrible. And it's always really earnest. I love that sort of stuff. It's really earnest. It's about important things. It's my truth, you know. And so I thought it'd be quite good for her to do that. And so when I was writing the poems, we're putting poems out there, they tend to get retweeted quite a lot. And then it started getting retweeted by sort of more prominent, what called amplifiers, like on Twitter. And then she got permanently banned. And so she'd been banned a couple of times, right? And then she was permanently banned, and I had an email saying

Titania's gone, you cannot come back. And then loads of people sort of kicked off about it. And they emailed me again saying, oh, it's all right, she's back again. So they undid the permanent ban, right? Twitter call it a permanent suspension, which is a semantic contradiction, but they're not literate, you know. So I

they're not, though. And so they But they obviously, like so this is the weird thing about like So she's had now four seven day suspensions, multiple one day suspensions, a full permanent ban. So Twitter obviously don't like this character. They're not going to

verify her, they won't do anything like that. So they hate the character because of ideological reasons. Because of course Twitter and YouTube and Google and Facebook all of these big Silicon Valley tech giants are all very woke and they all have the same political mindset. And actually they have to, in

order to get a job because there are thousands of moderators at these companies who sit there and there's these woke people who sit there deciding, no, you can't say that, you should say this. These little Mary White Houses, but they're just trendy and young, you know, and they're deciding what you should and what you shouldn't say.

And in fact, you have to answer a questionnaire in order to get the job to prove that you're sufficiently woke. And that's why they've all got the exact same mindset. So they obviously hate Tanya, you know? But it was after the band, just to make the point, After the permanent ban, when that was revoked, the next day I got 20,000 followers within 24 hours, because it's the Streisand effect. So you ban someone and then they get amplified.

So that's really why it's happening. We recently had the same thing with an interview we did with Posey Parker. Yeah. It's a very controversial gender. There we go. Somebody watched it. So it got taken down from YouTube as quote hate speech. Yes.

And then two days later it got reinstated. And then now it's got 10 times the views that it had at the time. Right. Exactly. Exactly. but it never works. This stuff never works. I don't understand why if you know anything about history,

you know that censorship doesn't work. It just gives the ideas you're trying to crush a kind of credence. And so it's self-defeating on their part. You know what I mean? I think if they hate what you stand for, then don't draw attention to it. Well, in Yemar, Germany,

they had hate speech laws against anti-Semitism. You could not be anti-Semitic. Right, exactly. I mean, Gerbils was prosecuted. All sorts of Nazis were prosecuted under hate speech. laws and they used it as a major PR exercise and it gave them a massive boost. This is the big myth about hate speech. It's like, you know, if only we'd had hate speech laws to stop Hitler,

no, it helped him. It always happens like this. And so, and the phrase hate speech doesn't mean anything. It means the opinion I don't like. You can't quantify that. And for me, I, this is why I do believe that hate speech laws need to be abolished full stop because I don't trust the state. I definitely don't trust Silicon Valley plutocrats, you know, billionaires, avaricious, capitalists who claim to be good and noble. I don't trust them and I don't trust the state. I don't want anyone deciding what I can say. And plus, people should be allowed to, if they hate things,

they should be allowed to say so. It's not up to me. You know, the way you deal with that is you attack those people. Like, I don't want to live in a society full of racists and homophobes and the rest of it. But I'd rather they were able to say what they think. You know, we know who they are. Firstly, we know who they are. You don't drive them away so that they can sort of fester and never be challenged.

that's the first thing because that just endorses their own views that emboldens them and the other thing is you know I don't think that's the best way to do I think any response

to nasty offensive speech is to critique ridicule counter argue or whatever because that way you can deal with it but trying to shut it down actually always inevitably

amplifies that and that's why I say this a lot and I'm very serious about this and I think people don't take it seriously I believe that the woke movement and the social justice movement, as it currently stands, is doing the PR on behalf of the far right. It is amplifying and boosting the far right without meaning to.

I think it's probably well-intentioned, but I think it's doing all the wrong things, and it is self-defeating. Can I just say we've been talking for 10 minutes and we've already spoke for about three of them on the Nazi, so well done everybody. We already got straight into it. And where do you think the character of Titania has been labelled far right?

I mean, it's a nonsense, isn't it? Oh, it absolutely is. Because people don't know what far right means. That's one thing. People have stopped reading books, and they don't know what... So I think there's a big confusion about what left and right means.

I mean, I had even the Guardian called us both right-wing comedians, right? I think, I mean, you're further right than me, aren't you? Thank you for that. I'm just saying, like... But given that you are far right, me being further right than you. Yeah.

I'm pretty fucked. Well, look, you're an old-school lefty. Yeah, exactly. I'm a centrist, right? That's what I mean. So we're both not. So if you take... Yeah.

If you take the spectrum of where we are, you're just objectively further right than me. But then the Guardian is further right than me. So, I mean, that's the weird thing. When the Guardian calls you right wing, you think, okay. But even the Guardian doesn't know what it means anymore. Well, they don't.

I mean, I've had, like, writers for the Guardian calling me alt-right. So I'm not. That's opposed to everything I believe. So these labour, they don't mean anything. People aren't educated politically. I think that's part of the problem. Tatania is mocking the woke left

but of course the problem is that the woke left aren't actually left they identifys left but they don't know what left means they're incredibly incredibly bourgeois like the woke movement is you know this you know this to be true like whenever you hear this stuff online or you see an opinion column in the new statesman or the guardian coming from this very woke perspective invariably like nine times out of ten

that person is privately educated really deeply privileged and they just want to talk about how oppressed they are and you know that's funny Ultimately, that's really funny. So let's dig in, because we use these terms left and right, and no one seems to know what they mean. I'm not sure I know what they mean anymore.

So I guess in your sense, being left-wing means a focus on class. On class and economics and money. Right. Right. That's what it's all about. And, you know, the working man should own the means of production. You know, the idea that you can just take away class and money and substitute race, gender, sexuality and identity politics

is a complete misunderstanding of what? That's why proper lefties, sort of old school lefties, they never sit comfortably with this kind of identitarian woke thing. Bernie Sanders doesn't fit well with a woke template. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't either. When Jeremy Corbyn stands up and announces his pronouns, it feels weird, right? Not least, because there was no one in any doubt

about what his pronouns were. And it's weird. There's a weirdness about it. When Jeremy Corbyn, you know, does that speech at Loughborough and white people are charged an extra 10 pounds to see it. And you just think, this stuff is it is not what he really is. It's not what socialism is and it's not what being on the left means. It's been sort of hijacked. And I think, I put it down to class issues.

I put it down to the fact that, you know, 7% of our country is educated privately. Those people, they run the media, the arts, all the law, policing. So they are the influencers. but they're this privileged woke group and that's the problem. And then you get this sense that this is everywhere. I mean, like we see it every day, don't we get these articles, this constant churning of woke stuff down our throats.

And you start to believe that this is the world we live in now. And it's not. It's a small minority. It's a tiny minority of really powerful, rich people who are pushing this woke narrative. You know when Kamala Harris said recently that Trump won't win in 2020 because the world is woke now?

And you're like, no no you're woke and your mates are woke people aren't the voters aren't and you'll find out what come election date you know this is no it's completely true what you said so this movement seems to have started as far as I can see from the last sort of 10 to 15 years and you say it's 7% but why

do you think it comes from guilt the fact that these people are born into great wealth they've had these wonderful lives they look around the world people are struggling and then somehow they want to be able to feel better about themselves whilst doing nothing. I'd love to know why. I don't know why. I Yeah, it's it's it there's an odd inverse ratio isn't there when you like the more privileged we become and the more, uh, the more tolerant we become as a society. You know, we live in one of the most tolerant countries in the world where we don't have

these problems of racism, sex and homophobic. I'm not saying they're not there, but when it happens, you notice it. It's weird because it's so unusual, isn't it? It's, uh, you know, whenever there's a homophobic attack in the news, everyone is furious, everyone is outraged. You don't get these voices saying, hang on a minute, maybe that was, you know, we live in that really sweet spot, you know, and yet for some reason, now, now that we've reached that point of greater tolerance, we are more convinced than ever, or certain people are more convinced than ever that we're worse than we ever were. So there's this weird thing going on. I don't know why. And it's interesting to me, because in my show in Edinburgh, which you know, because you directed

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Well, every night, one of the things I would say on stage is we live in one of the most welcoming, open, tolerant countries in the world. And as an immigrant, I'm allowed to say that, right? You're not. And every night, the crowd would pull back. Like, I've just said Harvey Weinstein is like a top lad or something, you know? Can I just say, we're going, Anton, who's our producer, clip that, please, and let's make it go viral. Someone will do it, right? So what I don't understand is how there's this terror of just acknowledging a fundamental reality.

It's weird, isn't it? Which is that while, of course, there's racism and sexism and sexism in my case with the act, actress, intolerance. All of these things exist. But they need to be taken in relation to the rest of the world. We are one of the best places to be an immigrant in the world. Why is that a controversial idea? How have they created this idea that this is somehow... So I think partly it's what you were saying.

I think it's partly to do with that sense of guilt. Partly it's due with our educational standards. I think are pretty poor. So I think there's that. People don't really know about history. They don't know about context. They don't understand where we are on that sort of historical spectrum. Why else is it?

I want to get to the bottom of it. I'd love to know why this is happening. I think the big thing, and I could be wrong, this is supposition, right? I think the big thing is like, so if you go back to the 80s and 90s, you had this political correctness movement where we were trying to work out we were trying to agree on a social contract about the way we talk to each other

and that was a good thing and you ended up with this kind of there were mistakes made and people were fired for the wrong reason it was very very messy but ultimately we got to the point where you didn't have just open expressions of homophobia people at least know that they're free to do it but if they do it people aren't going to approve

and that's a really good position to be in and that kept going when it should have stopped I think So I think we're at, we've got this, that's why I never talk about political correctness. I don't think what we're living through is a period of political correctness. I don't use that phrase. I think it's something, I think it's the deformed offspring of political correctness. And I don't know what you call that.

And I really struggle with what to call that. It's a weirdly authoritarian. It's, it's, it's a coterie of fantasists. It reminds me, so if you go back to the sort of 80s, 90s, there's a reason, right? There's a reason why all of the stuff you're going to read at the moment that's calling for bans and censorship and disapproving of comedians in their jokes, it's always going to be on left-wing press now. It's always in the garden. It's the stuff that you would have read Daily Mail Circa in 1985, right? That's what it used to be.

You used to have like the right-wing tabloids talking about we need to ban this film. We need to ban this filth. The movie Crash, the Express and the mail called for that to be banned. But that sort of stuff now you'll read on the left. so something's sort of flipped and I don't know what I don't know what that is or why maybe you have some insights

but do you see what I mean I think it's a something's gone wrong something's become twisted and the values that we used to believe on the left have been forgotten and particularly things about artistic freedom and freedom of expression and I think the fantasists are now on the left where they used to be on the right

so if you read like a column from Richard Little John back in the day and it would be talking about how the country is flooded with asylum seekers and they're being washed with benefits and tiaras and hotel rooms and diamonds and it was never easy to be an asylum seeker in this country right? This was this fantasy world that he lived in

but now it's the woke left live in this fantasy one this is a fantasy world where everyone's a Nazi where they're behind every pillar there's probably a fascist over there there's probably you know like there's fascists Boris Johnson using the word surrender is a dog whistle to fascists it's a military metaphor like it's that's what I mean about literacy

I don't I don't think I think the woke movement has lost any kind of it's like they're trying to find you know what it is like so they identify as anti-racist they love racism they can't get enough of it they want to see it everywhere

so so you know Sarah Silverman blacking up for an anti-racist sketch she's a racist yay we've found another one and it's it's fucking a Mary Poppins Right, no, so I make this point Because I tweeted as Tatania

Last August I took that moment in Mary Poppins I took a still, you know where she's got chimney soot on her face Do you remember that bit in the film? And I took a still and I said as Tatania I said this is black face This is disgusting, Julie Andrews indulging in black face

She's a racist, right? That was in August. February of this year The New York Times ran an article saying Mary Poppins and it's shameful flirting with blackface with a still from the same scene now that's the same as what I said but I said it to take the piss right

there was an article two days ago in the nation talking about how Thanksgiving's a great time forget about avoiding conflicts have a row with your Trump supporting family get into a fight this was in the nation I wrote an article I did a fake article last time. I did a fake article last year saying if I don't have a punch up with my grandmother over Christmas over Brexit, I'll be really upset. It was the same principle. And it really worries me that this stuff is so easy to predict. It really worries me because anything I can come up with at the moment, as ludicrous as it sounds, is probably going to come true. Right? That's scary. Not least because I don't want that sort of power.

You're a comedian. You do want that sort of power. No, I don't. I don't. I'm frightened. I'm terrified by my own prophetic ability. And you... Modesty. No, I don't have that. But there's a question that I want to ask you, which is we see the left gradually eating itself. Now, you and I are both lefties, and we, you know, we eventually want a leftist government to come in. We believe that that will make society fair and all the rest of it.

But you look at the behaviour of some of the people in inverted commons on our team, and you're like, you're ruining it. How are you going to win hearts and minds if you just start screaming at each other? We don't have a serious leftist option at the moment. I don't think we've got that. Do I... It's full of...

When you allow the woke movement to take over, you are allowing the bullies to take over. It's never going to work. I mean, that's what's happened with Corbyn's band now. And the worst thing about these bullies is they think they're good. So that's really scary. and then you get all sorts of problems.

So that's why I can never vote Corbyn again because I think he's brought into all this identity politics nonsense. I think hiring Munro Bergdorf to be your advisor. That's the LGBTIQIA plus activist. I apologize if I missed out one of those fucking letters. But, and that makes me think he's not a thinker. He's not a free thinker. I think anyone who buys into the woke movement,

I doubt their capacity for free thinking because when you talk to this, I got in an argument recently with someone who identifies as non-binary and as soon as they started talking I'm like, I know your opinion about everything. Now that I think is really scary because I'm no longer talking to an individual,

I'm talking to an ideology, I'm talking to a cipher for an ideology. And I don't want to feel like that because I like to treat people as individuals. But it's like, but if I can predict everything you're going to say or think about anything, you're no longer an individual

or indeed thinking for yourself. You know, I mean, this was someone who is a comedian apparently and um I like you look to me when you're yeah sorry about that and goes to various gigs and she said to me like I go

you don't understand I go to she yes because she's female evidently right no no I'm sorry look the thing about this is there is a biological reality to gender no listen I'm not okay

and that's the moment we get cancelled Right, look. Okay, look, let me explain that. So I'm a full on liberal. I'm a liberal. So I believe you should be able to call yourself whatever you want, identify however you want, and I have no problem with that. And also there are people who genuinely feel in their heart

that they have been born into the wrong body and want to do something about it. And that is something I support wholeheartedly. Do whatever you need to do. Right? So the idea of non-binary as a label is a form of self-identification. which has no grounding in reality. Right? It is the idea of,

it's actually an incredibly conservative idea because what you're saying is my version of being feminine or being masculine isn't right. I'm not feeling it. So what you're in fact doing is saying that I believe that actually boys should behave this way

and girls should behave that way. It's incredibly conservative. You're reinforcing conservative values of gender. I don't think there's a problem with a little girl being a tomboy. I don't think there's a problem with a little boy behaving in an effeminate way because I don't believe in those issues.

I don't, I think, so I don't like people re-inscribing the kind of conservative ideas about gender that we tried to get rid of. That's what I mean. So if you want to call yourself non-binary, that's fine, and I will support your right to do so. And I will oppose anyone who tries to demonize you for doing so. But I'm not going to expect other people to believe that it has any material reality.

Okay, it's a gender. We've brought into this faith-based idea that gender is entirely a social construct. Right? It's not. It's a very complicated blend of social and cultural and biological factors. And we don't always fully understand it. So any kind of ideologue that comes along and says, no, it's 100% about biology. Or no, it's 100% about a society and about culture. They're both wrong. And they're both unwilling to look at nuance. Right. So that's why. Sorry, this just came because I misgendered someone, right? That's all this came from, you know? You were talking about this comedian. Okay, so what she was saying was that go to a club and go up and, like, constantly having to berate comedians for the jokes they tell. Right?

And I was expected to say that I support this. I'm like, I'm surprised I'm being punched, to be honest. So the idea of, and it's really kind of, but I think it's authentic. I think this person felt genuinely harmed and hurt by the jokes that these comedians were telling. And that's just very scary because, firstly that suggests that there's a misunderstanding of what comedy is, right?

But also there's a real sense of entitlement there. That's what worries me about. It's almost like the whole world is different to what I want it to be. So I'm going to demand, not just persuade or talk, but I'm going to demand that the whole world changes around me. And I just totally mistrust that. If I get married tomorrow and I meet a, say, an evangelical Christian, and that evangelical Christian says,

I do not accept your relationship. I'm not going to call that person your husband. I can say, well, hold a minute, can we have a discussion about it or whatever? But ultimately, I can't say, if you don't call this person by husband, you should be arrested. It's up to them. That's their freedom. That's their conscience. So that's my defining line. The liberal perspective is you can call yourself what you want and be whatever you want and say whatever you want. But once you try to impose by law your own values onto someone else, then that's an illiberal perspective to hold, right?

So that's why I'm not on board with this idea of misgendering. If someone wants to call me she, they can. Right? And I can say, well, that's just factually wrong. But they, I'm not, you know, what am I going to do? That's their call. It's a bit stupid. But I mean, it's like, that's their call, isn't it?

It goes back to that conversation you and I had it unleashed, where before, you know, the difference between men and women was the hackest topic in comedy. Yeah. But now it's cutting edge and there is a fucking dangerous. Yeah, exactly. Like the moment you started talking about binary differences between men and women, there was a real tension.

There's a real tension in the room. But why? Like, it's, you should be able to, also we need to be able to, first thing we need to be able to discuss this stuff, right? And we need to be able to joke about this stuff, right? And by talking about it and discussing, you're not endorsing hatred against a particular group, right?

The opposite. You're saying, let's talk about why you feel the way you feel, and let's see how we can make this work. You know, I'm against that kind of intolerance. I'm against hatred, right? But once you start using language like, you are erasing my right to exist. What you're doing there is you're conflating speech and violence and they're very, very different things.

And it's a trick. It's rhetorical slides of hand and it shouldn't be trusted. It's gone very serious. We're going to do a Q&A in about 10 minutes. But before we get to that, I wanted to pick up on this thing that you mentioned about the woke movement reinforcing stereotypes. It's like the joke that Titania made about Francis looking Jewish, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. And I love Jews because they're cunning and all this kind of stuff. Right.

But it seems to me that a lot of this stuff is actually reinforcing a lot of stereotypes. For example, you're not gay because you don't buy into it, right? You automatically not, your gayness is erased by this thing. Or black people are not black if they don't vote for the Democratic Party or whatever it is. Sounds like a joke, but that's what people are saying. That's what people say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're saying that to be gay is if you basically are on the left.

Or like, you know, like Alexander the Great. It's very tolerant. Very tolerant. This idea that, and this is why I think it's so, it's rooted in a kind of homophobia and racism, you know, because it's this idea that basically,

if you're gay, you're all the same, aren't you? Or you should all think the same way. You're not individuals with different ideas. You know, there is no difference between, you know, Reggie Cray and Christopher Biggins. You know, like, you're all... It'd be a hell of a podcast. Sandra.

Right. But I find that, I find that more homophobic than what is often called homophobia. I find that worse. I find the patronising view of minorities. I find it when people say, you know, we had this,

it was at the Battle of Ideas where we had the debate where someone said, you know, about joking about Islam. And like, if you're saying that we shouldn't joke about Islam, I'm going to ask you why you have such a low opinion

of Muslims, frankly. Why do you, why do you look down on Muslims like this? where you think they can't have a joke. What's the matter with you? I think that's why I think a lot, that's why Titania is really a bit racist. And she is a bit homophobic.

She's got all those prejudices that she's projecting on everyone else. Because I think the woke movement, even though it's weird, it's a well-intentioned racism. When did that happen? It's well-intentioned, all of it. And yet it's, it looks down

on groups. It's like white liberals deciding what people of color should think. What is going, this is the weirdness of it. You know, and if they were just, if it was malevolent, I'd find it easier to deal with. That's the weird thing. If they were, if they were just cunts, then, well, they are cunts, but they're inadvertently cunts, right?

Some of them aren't nice. So we shouldn't let them all off the hook. So a certain contingent of the woke group are unpleasant human beings who just want to exert power. And a lot of them are comedians, let's be honest about it. And they're just not nice. They're bullies who enjoy bullying. That's what it is. And the reason why they get so angry about Tanya

is because it's someone standing up to the bullies and they don't like it. That's really what it is. Well, one person tried to agree with you during that speech. Everyone else doesn't give a fuck. Do you want to do one more question before we take it to the audience? Yeah, so you were talking that you were prophetic.

Yes, boasting, I think. You've gone fully into character. So we are where we are. It's the end of the year. What do you think, 2020, is going to bring as far as we can see. Okay. I think it'll be a Tory majority. Yep.

I think Trump will win again. I know I'm smiling when I'm saying that, but it's like I'm not a fan of Trump, but part of me likes that it's annoying these people. I do. I know there's a lot at stake. But it's the look of their face. You know, it's like, it's like,

Well, he triggers them like no other. I mean, I love that he tweeted that picture of himself superimposed onto Rocky's body. I look like, it's, it's, he is really funny. And that's it. But by the same token, I don't want the president of the United States to be funny. So I really don't. But since he is, you know, let's just like, I mean, wasn't that thing with Elan Omar where she wanted to go back to, to see her grandmother in Palestine.

And, and, and, uh, no, she, she, she applied to the Israeli, government and they'd said yeah, okay, you can if you just see your dying grandmother. And then she replied, say, no, I'm not going to. I'm not going to dig down, or whatever it was. And then Trump said, well, the only winner in this situation is her grandmother who won't have to see her.

And that was tweeted out from... And it's funnier because it's the president. That automatically makes it funnier, right? I'm not a Trump supporter. I agree with you, and I think the thing that if you pay attention to the democratic debates,

the Democrats, like you were talking about Kamala Harris, they've decided that they won't woke enough. Right. And they're going to go further off the deep end. Right. So that's why Nancy Pelosi hates the squad. Yeah. She can't stand the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes of this world, because they, whenever you think of Democrat, you're now thinking of her. And that was, that's Trump's, that's Trump's plan, I guess.

Yeah. It's a really good call. because woke politics is an electoral death. It doesn't work. People aren't going to vote for it. They just convince themselves in their little bubbles that they will. But in a way, it doesn't matter to them because I see a lot of the people who are on that sort of momentum side of the Labour Party,

and they almost don't care if they win. Because they have two narratives. Number one, if they win, we won, we're great, you know, the world is a better place. Or number two, the world is racist. It doesn't matter. Well, yeah, that's it. So if they lose, it proves their point that there's a problem.

Yeah, we had James Lindsay. of the hoax papers on trigonometry last week. And this is one of the things that he was saying is essentially is if they lose, they will only see it as reinforcement of their view. They basically say, well, we lost because the world is racist and terrible and bigoted. And that's

why everyone voted for Trump again. They don't see it. They don't see it. And they don't see that when they lose, the best thing to do is to reflect on why you lost. And maybe, with a bit of introspection, you'd realize that you're the problem. But they don't do that. They didn't do that

after Hillary lost, they didn't stop and think, well, why did we put up this, you know, millionaire, hawkish character who was really an unattractive, not, I don't mean physically, but I mean like, an unattractive prospect as a candidate, this dynastic idea

who felt entitled to the presidency. You know, there were all sorts of problems, someone who was willing to play identity politics and divide up the electorate according to race and gender and sexuality and say, you'll help you go, we'll help the Latinos, and we'll help the women, and will help the gays. And actually, we know, we know that that doesn't work in terms of elections.

So why not do that rather than go out on a big march in pussy hats and sort of compound the problem? Why do that? That doesn't make any sense to me. Same in this country, you know? I guarantee it'll be the same after Labor I think they will lose.

And after they do, there's going to be lots of people saying, well, there's a, you know, we've brought into this narrative in this country, and this is the real problem. The left have brought into this fake narrative that Brexit was about race. Okay? And they've brought into this idea that we live in a racist country and we just don't.

And the more they say that, the more resentment they are going to generate from the vast majority of just normal, nice people who are sick of being called racist. It's just not going to work. What I see in that is, and tell me if you agree with it, it's kind of like almost a little bit

like we're living through the last days that are an empire, where we've lost so much confidence. Quite grandiose, isn't it? But it is. Keep it light, mate. Fucking. At least you didn't say a Russian empire.

Yeah. It wasn't really that great. But it is, we've lost confidence in ourselves as a civilization, as a culture, to such an extent that we're now being encouraged to feel shame rather than pride in who we are. I think I see about that in that. I'm not, I'm not nationalistic. I don't really have that. So I don't, but I do understand the idea. But I also don't think there's anything wrong with being nationalistic.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with being acknowledging where you're from without. without sort of linking it to a sense of shame or sin. You know, I don't think that's helpful either. All right, let's open up to the audience. If you've got a question, just stick a hand up and we'll try and get as many as we can. Oh, you said the front, go for it. Go for it.

Go for it. Oh, God. I'd be interesting in your view on, it's interesting you say you won't support Corbyn, because I know that, broadly speaking, you're on board with his economics, I think. Two questions. One, I have a whole bunch of friends

who still refuse to believe that Corbyn is anti-EU and utterly deny any issue whatsoever of anti-Semitism within the party. Okay, so because if I... The reason I voted for Corbyn in 2017, the reason I liked him when he first came to power, the reason I supported him before he was leader, is because I got a sense from him

that this is someone who is not speaking through a kind of PR machine. He's literally saying what he thinks, and I found that really refreshing. I don't believe he is doing that. anymore. He's the biggest Eurosceptic. He hates the EU. He's been opposing it for 40 years consistently. He wants us out. And if he'd have just said, look, I want us to leave the EU, if he'd have said the truth, which you can't really call yourself a socialist if you support the European Union. Those two things simply cannot work because capitalism is built into the

constitution of the European Union. It's a pro-corporate body. So there is no way you can, those two things cannot be married together and he knows that. But he won't do it. And the reason why is because he's a, this support base of largely middle-class pro-EU, uh, capitalists who like to, who like to call themselves left wing. That's the,

that's the, that's the first thing. And then when you see the interview with Andrew Neal where that, where Andrew Neal says to him, uh, see, I've never heard Corbyn say anything explicitly anti-Semitic. So I'm very wary of putting that label onto him.

But what I would say is he was, he was asked an example of, I think Andrew Neal quoted a obviously anti-Semitic trope. And he had to bully Corbyn into saying that's an anti-Semitic trope. Russia conspiracy, yeah. Right, exactly. So he's not being honest there. So he knows that's an anti-Semitic

trope, anyone does. And what he's trying to do there is the same with the Brexit thing. He's trying to keep people in his party together because there are people who, let's face it, have such a problem with Israel that it does tip over into that world. And he's trying to keep them on side, but he's trying to keep the other lot on side.

And then with Brexit, he's trying to keep the Eurosceptics on side as well as the pro-EU people. that means he's not being honest anymore. So he's behaving like every other politician, and that's not why I liked him. That's what I mean. Well, you know, on the anti-Semitism thing,

it's an interesting thing, because 87% of British Jews now think that Jeremy Corbyn's anti-Semitic, 84% think the Labour Party is anti-Semitic, a number of Jewish MPs have left the Labour Party. Now, riddle me this. If Diane Abba, David Lamy, and Dawn Butler, had left the Labour parties claiming that it was institutionally anti-Black, And 87% of British black people thought that the Labour Party was racist against black people.

Would we be having this conversation? In any way? But we still should, in a sense, in that I don't trust these labels insofar as I need some evidence. Calling someone an anti-semi, as you're calling someone a racist or calling someone a homophobe, is quite a serious accusation. And I need some specific evidence of that, which I haven't seen of Corbyn. But I think the fact that he won't... Because I could tell from that interview that he knew that that was an anti-Semitic trope. He just didn't want to say it for political reasons.

That doesn't equate to anti-Semitism, but it certainly doesn't, it certainly won't quell the fears of Jewish people. Right. Who else would like? Yes, sir, gentlemen, over there with your hand up. I'm afraid you're going to have to shout because I can't reach over with the mic. It's actually a lady. Well done, mate. At trigonometry, we don't see gender.

Thank you very much. Just shout, please, man. I'm not seeing any masculinity in here at all, but I'm just curious, the free speech stuff. I'm just wondering how we start to roll that back, given the level of institutional, charities, HR departments, NHS schools that are all sort of jumping on board this, you know, curbing free speech and trying to make people say certain things, compelling speech about gender in specifically, obviously I'm talking. So I'm just wondering how we start to roll this back because we seem to be fighting

we're fighting a big tide here of compulsive speech, and that concerns me greatly. Yeah, and you're right to be concerned. It's the thing about, firstly, I think we need to scrap the quangos. I think we need to stop the government outsourcing powers to people who will decide what we can and cannot hear and see. The example I've given before is about the advertising standards agency who decided that certain adverts that promote gender stereotypes are to be banned

so that we're not radicalised by that? that even means. So you've got like a group of woke idiots in an office saying, well, look in the Volkswagen advert, there's a woman with a pram. And that might suggest that women can be mothers. And then you'll have all these people

thinking that women can be mothers. So I think, I think, so we get rid of the patronising quangos. But the problem is that it's so in, the publishing industry, the arts, all of these things, it's the government. There's very few politicians who are willing to stand up for free speech, who are willing to stand up and make

an anti-woke argument. And the only way it's going to happen probably is through legislation and things like that. So the recent case of Harry Miller, who is currently fighting a legal battle because he was investigated by the police for retweeting a transphobic poem. It is quite funny. And the policeman said to him, we've got to

check your thinking. You know, this is quite a famous case. And the problem with that is that that's come from the college of policing, which is not the same as the police. It's just a group of woke people. who've written a book, but that is how all the police are trained. And that's what all the police think. So you have to tackle that.

But the government doesn't stand up and want to tackle that, right? So it takes one individual who goes to a court case. And then when it gets to court, the judge is like, this is ridiculous. Like day one, the judge was saying, what the hell is going on here? And also the judge were saying that free speech is there to defend unpalatable views. That's what it's for. We don't have the conservatives. And now, now, interestingly, in the new conservative manifesto,

there is a commitment to free speech. there's a commitment to uphold certainly freedom of the press which is new that's quite interesting because up until then I would have said that neither the conservative because I mean Theresa May had a terrible record on free speech Teresa May kicked out Tyler the creator

it wouldn't allow a rapper Tyler the creator to come to the UK because of his lyrics and then he did a rap about Theresa May right? That's great there's like a rap about Theresa May online anyway so but also the Labour Party is anti-free speech explicitly you've had Corbyn's threatening

the press. Basically saying if we get in, you better watch out, right? And then we've got, like, do all that sort of trash talk. And then you've got like, and they're just generally speaking, they're not good on freedom of speech. So hate speech laws need to be abolished. We need to get rid of the electronic communication, section 127

of the Electronic Communications Act. But who's going to do it? That's the act, by the way, that says that if you transmit a right something online that could be deemed to be grossly offensive, you can be arrested. It's a dankula. It's clause. Exactly.

Thousands of people arrested every year under that clause. And some of them saying really horrible, ghasty things. But so what? As in, that's their right. Not that you shouldn't criticise them for it. But no, I draw the line of arresting anyone for anything like this. This is why Joe Brand was investigated by the police for an obvious joke. So this stuff you might say is not serious, but it is serious.

Because you've got to be vigilant when it comes to free speech. Otherwise, you end up like Canada. otherwise you end up like, you do. You end up like Mike Ward. Yesterday, it was discovered the comedian Mike Ward who was taken to the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal

for a joke he told about a disabled boy and the idea being that this is such an offensive joke and he was fined £42,000 in the end after some legal wrangling it got down to $35,000 sorry, and then he appealed

it and they've upheld his appeal won't be upheld he has to pay $35,000 for this joke. He's not going to do it, which means potentially he could go to jail. And he is not just some shit poster on YouTube. He's one of Canada's most successful comedians. So you've got, you know,

I mean, Canada has a terrible track record on free speech. It is now becoming one of the most illiberal countries in the West, which is really weird. You know, and I don't know, with under Justin Trudeau, who spends more time in blackface than out of it. Let's take a question from this section if anyone's got one.

All right. There you got. Gender non-specific person at the back. So I've noticed that I've actually been self-sensuring quite a lot in that lady, where someone sent me something. I wrote a little song to remind you, choice hotels, gets you more of the experiences you've out. The can be a hotel's got it all.

A rooftop ball. Have a ball Cocktails up here feel just right Is Camry You're amazing All right Bring a date Your team or even your mom

Book direct At choiceotails.com See you on the roof I think Oh that's funny I want to say a joke I'd be like Ah that's gay

But I don't want to say that Maybe you should be self-censoring It wasn't anime about volleyball or something like that And I was like, oh, that's good Volleyball is quite gay I mean if you've seen Tobgun, you know that If I get any type of success in my life Like, say 20 years from that way

That's going to get the offence of archaeology They're going to dig that out Yeah, he said that 20 years ago Yeah, exactly, yeah Like, do we just not say it or just keep that quiet Or is it like Because then we can't just joke about it Well, you should always think about what you say

and you should always decide whether, you know, can I justify that? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think where I have a problem is if you choose, if you've had that conversation with yourself and you choose to say what you want to say and then people are going to attack you for it and hound you out of your job.

I can't get on board with that at all. The offence psychology thing is a really scary thing. It's literally anything. Anything, probably some stuff I've said today could get me in trouble. Everything you've said. Yeah. And I just,

But no more than that. Mistakes that you've made. Like what if I've made a joke and it didn't quite work? Or maybe I've said things which I don't mean or so, you know, all that sort of stuff. And then someone can sort of find it and try and smear your character. But as Obama said, we're all human beings with flaws. And we're not perfect. And the expectation of ideological purity is a horrible, intolerant thing.

But then the New York Times just said, yeah, but he's a boomer. So he would say that. That's literally what they said. So that's the level of debate that we're out at the moment. I don't know. I mean, when it comes to things like racial epithets, homophobic epithets, all the rest of it, what I'd like to think is that we're sort of educated out of them, aren't we?

When we're at school, I think at school is where you can be quite militant about what people say. Because you said about it, because I think to be an autonomous adult, you have to be well socialized. So you can't just have kids just swearing and, you know, taking gack or whatever it is they're doing. You've got to control kids. and make sure they understand parameters and boundaries.

I think when it comes to adults, no, fuck off. They can say whatever they want and do whatever. They've made that choice. They're autonomous beings. You know? So, yeah, it's a tricky one. But I don't think anyone should lose their job for saying a joke is gay. You know, I think it's probably a silly thing to say.

But so what? But what do you think about this idea of self-censorship? Because it's something people ask me a lot as well. A lot of people, and I know this, from talking to a lot of people from doing, in my show, most people actually in the country, I think it's 73% of British people think that... I know you don't like this,

but political correctness has gone too far, basically. So most people feel like, to some extent, they are having to censor themselves. Yeah, but I know what they mean by that. Yeah, I know, I know. So how do we break out of that as a society of being in this kind of death grip of fearing to speak your mind?

So honesty is a really good thing. I think saying what you actually think is a good idea to a... agree. But I think like, okay, so I think in our job, we do say whatever we want, and we're very privileged. But you don't do that. I wouldn't do that if I was still working as a teacher. And I wouldn't tweet the things I tweet. Or when I worked at the call center, like a lot people when they work in place, they tend to just, they don't joke very much anymore

because they're worried about what people were over here and misconstrue and all the dangers that come with that you get fired from ASDA for retweeting a Billy Connolly video, stuff like that. That actually happened. So people are very nervous. nervous. So this is why I'm very clear about this. So when people say to me, the criticism I always get is, you're always going on about how no one can say anything anymore. And I don't say that, and I don't argue that. What I'm saying is we've created a climate where the consequences for being honest can be so devastating that people aren't going to do it. And that's why the polls are always wrong. Because if you have a mass media telling everyone in the country, if you vote for

Brexit, you're a racist or support racism, you know, and someone phones you up and says, which way are you planning on voting. You're not going to say, well, I'm a racist, you're going to keep it to yourself, and then the polls are misleading, right? So I think you've got two sort of discourses going on. You've got what people actually think of what they're expected to think. There's a thing called preference falsification, where what you do is you articulate

the view that you expect to be the most popular instead of the thing you actually think. And that's not helpful to anyone, because we need to have open discussions and debates about stuff. I'm willing, if you want to say anything I've said tonight is wrong or objectionable even, then I would love to have that conversation, right?

But what I've done what you're doing is phoning the police and saying he shouldn't have said this or whatever. You know, that's where I think is too far. Out of interest, if there's anyone who's got a question who would like to disagree with me, that would be really good because I do really welcome that. Oh, there you go. It's not a disagreement, but just something...

What did I just say? What's your take on anonymity? For instance, like, it's easy to be anonymous and say what you want, but it's harder to kind of put your name out there and say what do you think? So what's your take on that? Right.

I suppose it fits into what we've just been saying as far as I think if everyone were just honest, if everyone would just open about what they think, they would reach a kind of tipping point where you can't sack everyone. And particularly when it comes to the excesses of the social justice movement, because most people hate this stuff

and are sick of it, and I'm sick of being talked down to. If everyone just spoke their minds, we might realize that actually we're in the majority and this powerful clique of privately educated bigots wouldn't have the power anymore and I think that's why

I think it's really great when people and you end up with strange bed photos so now I have friends who are conservatives who I never had conservative friends that sounds awful but just because of the circles I moved in and now I've got lots and I've got friends from all over the you know with that event we went to recently

where at lunch there was the head of the atheist society sitting next to an evangelical American pastor right but they both agree on the free speech issue they hate everything each other stands for but they can talk about this stuff and that's what we want but that is that's a weird situation to be in now

isn't it where you have and also I've started meeting all these monsters of the right you meet these monsters the people who you've told are absolute monsters and you meet them and they're like you're nice you meet them and you realize that they're actually decent people they've just been completely mischaracterized and this is what this is the big

I spend all my, whenever I get into arguments on Twitter, which I shouldn't do, right? But whenever I do, it's always someone has mischaracterized what I think and misrepresented what I think. And they've said, you think this, you think this, you think this. And they're always completely so far off. So I end up arguing from a position I don't hold.

Like I end up sort of embodying this monster they've created in order to argue. And it's absolutely futile, you know? So we need to do something about, Again, I don't know any of the answers. But I think honesty is a really good place to start. You know, just saying what you think and not being afraid of...

There's more support than you think, is what I'd say. And the question that we always end on, every episode of Trigonometry, Constantine, would you do the honours? Is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be talking about? Okay. There's lots of things. I think education is a big thing.

I think, I wonder if I said this last time when I was interviewed by you, but fuck it out. We've returned so many times you're running out of answers to that question, aren't you? I'll be unoriginal, but I do think it is about critical thinking. I think it's about if you let people know, it's about political debate, it's about argument. It's that if you let people know that once they've insulted someone or shouted something, or pretended they think, your opponent thinks something they don't, you have automatically lost that argument. It's over.

So trying to instill that into people, trying to get people to think for themselves and not according to an ideological rule book would be great. Getting people to challenge their own ideas would be really good. All of this stuff comes back to what you embed at school, I think. Not just assuming that something that someone says is right. I'm terrified of people who cannot self-reflect

and cannot think about their perspectives and why they hold them. I think that's really scary to me, and I see that a lot in the woke movement. So, yeah, I think that's the thing we should be talking about. How do we make that change? Again, I don't know the answer to that,

but that's something that we could get to that point that would probably solve all of our problems in terms of political tribalism and all of that kind of thing. But how we get there, I don't know. And on that note, but guys, thank you so much for coming out. Please, please, please give a round of applause

to Alex Marshall. Give a round of applause to our guest, Andrew Doyle. And you've been absolutely awesome. Thank you very much, having an amazing rest.