TRIGGERnometry - Comedians Review 2023 - Andrew Doyle & Geoff Norcott X TRIGGERnometry

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

💥Join us on our Journey to 1 Million Subscribers💥 Andrew Doyle is a comedian, broadcaster and friend of the show. Geoff Norcott Comedian and host of the What Most People Think Podcast British Bloke Decoded - https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Bloke-Decoded-Everything-explained/dp/1800961294/ref Geoff's Tour Dates - https://www.livenation.co.uk/artist-geoff-norcott-1252793 Go to https://drinkAG1.com/triggernometry and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase.  Go to https://givesendgo.com and raise money for anything important to you.  Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ 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 (@francisjfoster) 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

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I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kisson. This is, of course, our year review special. It has been a brilliant year in Clown World, and there's no one better to discuss it than our two favourites. Satarist and presenter Andrew Doyle and comedian Jeff Norco.

Welcome both back to the show. You're looking at each other weirdly. It's slightly uncomfortable. It's not weirdly our sexual tension. Because we only ever see each other over Zoom, don't we normally. We do, yeah, on podcasts and the like. And I was thinking this is actually,

because a lot of people watch this and go, oh, here we go, you know, there's not much diversity here. But... We don't do diversity, a trigonometry, man. But, having said that, I was going to point of you and go Jew, but that sounds bad. No, no, it's apt for the current moment, mate.

You are Jewish? We've even got a little Palestinian scarf if you want to wear it. Yeah. Latino? Yeah. And then homosexual. Homosexual? And then just gammon. Yeah. Yeah. So where you said homosexual. Well, there's a slight element of judgment about it.

No, no, no. I judge myself for my inclination. I would just, I thought you'd just say gay, but you know, homosexual. Just say gay. I think we should reclaim Sodomite. That's what I'm going with. Well, that's just not just the gays. I mean, anyway. Oh, that's true.

Yeah. You straight people steal everything from us. Yeah. Well, that is kind of true. And I like the way you said homosexual, as if to say, there are two sexes and I'm attracted to the same sex. That's right. Yeah, exactly.

Because same sex attracted has become a dog whistle. Yeah. Apparently. A right wing dog whistle. We'll talk about all of that. We've got lots of stories from the year that we've picked out to talk about. Believe it or not, the most upvoted story that we had was actually about Nicholas Sturgeon, which will come to in a minute.

minute. Yeah. But sort of working our way back chronologically, we could talk about nihilath and diversity that you brought up, or we could talk about October 7th and the response, which has obviously been the biggest story in recent weeks. So what did you guys make of that? And I mean, Andrew, you've been warning for ages about the left-going loopy. Yeah. Sort of gone really loopy now. Well, that's the thing about what has happened since October the 7th is that there are elements of the left that have exposed themselves really, in horrendous ways. I was genuinely surprised by all of this stuff. This kind of

overt expressions of anti-Semitism on the streets of London. People calling for jihad and then other people making excuses for them as though a jihad was just something sweet that you did, something nice. Did you actually see the Met Police? When his but Terrier, which is a group who are outlawed in most Arab countries,

calling for jihad in London, the MET police put out a tweet saying, yeah, but jihad doesn't necessarily mean Holy War. It can mean lots of other things. It can mean a kind of face massage or a yoga. retreat or something. I don't know what it they meant, but it was absolutely nuts that they were doing that. It's like, no, stop making excuses for the very worst kind of people. And we saw it again. And I know there's always a few bad apples in any protests, but there seem to be a lot of rotten

apples, you know, a lot of people being very explicit. What I thought was interesting was the evolution of the word sort of Zionist, because if you get like sort of far right looms, they at least can, they know that racist words are bad words. So if the camera's on them, they'll go and they'll, they'll check themselves. And then they'll, they'll, I'll say a different word potentially, right? But then there is this sort of blind spot on the other side, which is where you go Zionist, I know what it used to mean. I do feel now that it just, in a lot of cases, it just means Jewish person, you know.

And it's this kind of like workaround that they've got. Well, they could almost get the far right in and have a seminar and go, look, we've been doing some incredible work out here. And we've realized we found another word you can use and claim that it's not racist. I mean, it has been an astonishing thing. I think there is, like, you know, what's happening over there is one thing. but I know this country, and I know that what I've seen since October the 7th

has been startling. Yeah, you know. There's just been this hierarchy, isn't there? That the, well, if you want to call them the woke, they always had this idea that there were different oppressed groups and that they're on a different level of the hierarchy, and Jews were always privileged. And so they can't bring themselves,

even when there's a massacre of over a thousand Jewish people, they can't bring themselves to say, this is anti-Semitic, this is a pogrom, that whatever, they have to whitewash it and work around. I find that an incredible blindsperson, But, I mean, because the word was used in a lot of cases was like minimizing, you know. And it's like, it's almost like from the makers of microaggressions. Macroaggressions.

Oh, macroaggressions. There has been a subversion of a lot of the things that we were told over the last few years were important. And I do think, you know, there is that thing when you look at what's happening. A lot of people would sort of say, given what happened, you know, the Israeli state, you know, had to do something. You can't let your civilians feel like that on an ongoing basis. There's also the issue of the concentration of population in Gaza and whether or not the maximum care has been taken to protect civilians. You know, that's definitely up for debate.

But it's very hard as someone like me to know enough about that to comment with total confidence. But like I say, when you look at what's happened repeatedly on the streets of London, you know, I've got Jewish friends who aren't like, you know, they're not prone to like dramatism or anything like that. But they said that they don't want to go in central London. anymore, particularly at weekends. And that, in, you know, in 2023, is bad.

Andrew, and the point about what the Jeff makes about, you know, who knows what's happening over there, I don't think any of the four of us are Middle East peace process experts, exactly. But the reaction domestically has been the thing that I think has opened a lot of people's eyes. And we saw it recently with these presidents or whatever they are, these major American universities. Yeah, yeah. Being asked in a hearing is calling for genocide. of the Jews harassment.

Yeah. And they were, well, it depends on the context, which I actually would sort of be fine with if that had been consistent throughout the last seven years. Whereas these people have been like, oh, you asked me where I'm from. No, I mean, they've kicked out students and professors for microaggressions and less, you know? So, you know, these are people who have been rigidly policing speech on campus and say that there are very, very clear violations of code of conducts.

And actually, it's based on the perception of individuals. So if people perceive that they are offended or upset, then you're going to be punished for that. But calling for the genocide of Jews, that requires a bit more context, but more discussion. What is the argument? It's like, as long as you don't do the genocide. That's what you're saying. Yeah, that's it's quite a hard thing to carry out. So, you know, you have to, it's just, you know, that in any other kind of historical kind of grievance against the race of people,

that those rules wouldn't have been applied. It's, again, it's like from the makers of words of violence comes words. That's what I wish that whoever was doing the questioning in Congress had said, just, okay, then, in that case. But from the makers of words of. No, not a Jeff Norcott routine. If she had just said, you know, well, is it okay to call for the mass murder of gay people, for instance? Is it okay to call for the genocide of black people?

And to put that question to them, they would immediately have to say no, no, no. And then you get to the Jews, it's like context. So, you know, it's the double standards, I think that bothers everyone, you know? I mean, you could say, you could take an absolute free speech line and say anything should be able to be said on university campus, but they should apply it. Not just, you know, they can't fall back on a free speech defense when they've been so terrible at upholding free speech standards in the past. It just doesn't work. Why is it worse to say that there are two biological sexes and men can't become women? Why is that worse than calling for genocide of the Jews?

Because we're dealing with an ideology that is internally inconsistent and incoherent. So it doesn't, you know, you're looking for rationality where none can possibly exist. But the thing that I find bizarre is that surely that is so obvious that anybody would look at that and go, yeah, I mean, this doesn't make sense. Yeah, you would think. The one thing I wonder, you know, on this panel, there is a chance I'll be the woke one. Yeah. I think so.

You are the woke one. You're still in the comedy industry. Tell us your pronouns. I used to have edge, I used to have each once upon a time. But I do think, you know, as we're talking like, you know, time of recording, you know, the death toll in Gaza, whether or not people take those numbers at face value. You know, we talk about serious numbers, even if it was half that, actually, in a short space of time. So I am conscious of this thing of, and some people will call it like mealy-mouthed,

of trying to militate between all of these things, between concern for British Jews, between understanding why any nation, the experience what happened on October 7 would have to react, but also whether or not what's happening is something that historically, you know, we might look back at and go, was maximum caretaken? Is it for us to say? I mean, there was a report in the Lancet that seemed to corroborate, you know, the health authority. Now, it's a Hamas health authority. So it's really hard. And there's a lot of times where people have said, well, if you give a nuanced answer to this, where you're an enemy or you're complicit in one side of the other. But, I mean, this is a historical grievance.

It's all about nuance, you know. way. The one thing there's no nuance about is what happened on October the 7th. And that attack was so designed to be disturbing, right? It was it was set up and predicated and designed to disturb and appall and traumatise people, you know, in a way. And what's been odd since is people acting like that wasn't in a way the intention of it. That's my view. I mean, my concern about that is I think you can have nuanced discussions about, you know, is the Israeli government doing enough to prevent civilian deaths, etc. You can have a discussion about the history. You can talk about the establishment of Israel in the 40s and whether, you know, there were atrocities committed at that time, et cetera, all of those things.

You can have that conversation without just being completely blind to the sheer medieval barbarism of what going on on October the 7th. Why can we not all agree that the mass murder, rape and torture of civilians is just horrendous and wrong? Why do we have to obfuscate? That doesn't need, that's in my point. There's not a moral equivalent. There's really not a moral equivalent. You know, you're dealing with a group of people, Hamas, who are genocidal. They are explicitly. They tell you, they say they want to wipe Jews from the planet. They want to wipe the state of Israel away. They film themselves murdering and raping and torturing and put it out there and boast about it. And then we say there's a moral equivalence between the IDF who, you know, if they were trying to commit genocide,

wouldn't be, you know, showering the country with leaflets to say, get out so that you don't get killed. You know, there isn't a moral equivalence between a terrorist group that targets civilians for rape, torture and murder and a military response to that that actually goes out of its way to avoid civilian death. That is short, where do we reach the point where those things are comparable? Because I don't think they are. Right. And I also think it's important, I mean, coming back to what you're saying, Jeff, is to emphasize

that I don't think any of us has a particularly strongly expressed position on how Israel was created or the right military tactics. Because I don't think any of us really are qualified to talk about that. effectively. What I think we're talking about is the reaction domestically. And I think it tells you a lot about the state of our society that people are making, A, that moral equivalence. I also think, you know, Jeff will probably cringes the work one on the panel. But it tells you about the impact of mass immigration on our societies, particularly from countries where people are coming in with values that are just so alien to our own.

But I wouldn't cringe you the way. I think that what you have is like groups of people that have priorities now. And also, though they're like a cohort in the world. the electorate that actually there's a lot of politicians that are getting elected. So we will represent you. And then at the point where there's an issue that they all care about, they're going, all right, represent us. And that's where it became tricky for the Labor Party because they go, well, you know, it's nuanced. And they're saying, well, not for us. That's why we voted for you. We thought that you would represent exactly what we thought. We thought you were the Muslim candidate. Yeah. Yeah. Why aren't you doing what Muslims want?

Well, I would believe more in a responsible sort of form of politics where it's left to that. but they're not a delegate, it's not like a union thing where you're tasked and you have to have one opinion on that issue. But I think that those, these are fault lines we've never crossed in British politics before. It's sectarianism. There is something very interesting in what you raise as well in terms of our commitment to liberal values in this country because a lot of people on the anti-woke side are talking about, advocating very sort of anti-liberal perspectives now, about deportations, about the idea that we just cannot tolerate the intolerant. and therefore we have to impose these. And I'm not so, you know, ban protests, for instance,

arrest people for hate speech. And I just think if we're not, you know, steadfast in our commitment to say anyone should be able to protest, anyone should be able to say whatever they want, even if we find it abhorrent. I think this has been a real test. All of this stuff has been a huge test. Yeah, it has, yeah.

It comes back to the point about the universities, though, Andrew, because if you have a situation where a bunch of police officers are exchanging WhatsApp messages, and they get prosecuted for that. If someone goes and pray silently outside an abortion clinic and they get prosecuted for that, if someone tweets a transphobic, inverted, commas, limerick, and they get arrested for that.

And then you have people openly calling for jihad en masse in the streets of London. I don't think it's unreasonable for people at that point to be like, why didn't we see some consistency here? Yeah, I think the public and the British public generally got a fairly good sense of fair play. Some of the interesting stuff coming out of the protest was being like people have said,

well there was 300,000 people and so relatively there wasn't much of this you go well 1% of 3,000 is still a lot, you know 300,000 is still 3,000. That's a lot of people doing anti-semitic stuff. That's interesting though because I've had this debate with a few people about, do you remember when there was that

trans pride rally in London and a trans activist stood up and said if you see a turf puncher in the fucking face and the whole crowd cheered. Now for me that suggests a normalisation within that movement of violence against women. It's not, you know, And it's incitement to violence as well.

Well, there's that as well. So what I would say, and people would say, yeah, but you can't tar everyone with the same brush. But I'm like, if I were at a protest and someone stood up and called for violence and most of the crowd cheered, I would think I'm probably in the wrong movement here. I think that's the point is that anti-Semitic signs, right? Why aren't people grabbing them and saying, don't do that? You're going to bring our movement into this. Why is it tolerated? I think you're right.

Like there was a time when that's, you know, people on the progressive left were saying, well, what are you adjacent to? That's what people sometimes said to me about voting Brexit was like, well, who, you know, look who else voted for that. Look who else was in favour of that. And then suddenly those things are less important. I mean, there's been like a very, you know, there's been, it's true that 300,000 people, there's a lot of people, 1% isn't a lot.

But like, that's so many different incidents. And then the police, the police have done this weird approach to policing it, whereby it's almost like, tag them in. It's almost like a classic modern social media thing. Do you know who this guy is? Tag him in. Like, no, police in the moment, please, because you cannot, justice has got to be applied

without fear or favour. So if you're saying, well, we don't want to arrest that person there because we're worried about what would happen next. You can't do that if in other situations you would weigh in. And it's been, yeah, it has been an eye-opener in a way. But like, I wonder if like Brexit where our institutions were tests, and actually, whatever you think about Brexit, they sort of did survive it in a way,

is that these are sort of conversations that we needed to have. Obviously, the reason we have them is dreadful. but we're finding out a lot more about what Britain is in 2023. And there's also something as well which people don't discuss because they don't know enough about it. So a little bit of background, my grandfather was from Lebanon, so he was an Arab and he was a good bit. He was Christian, but he associated Israel with Jews

and he was vehemently anti-Semitic and wanted Israel to be got rid of because it was partly because he saw it as an abomination, what happened to the Palestinian people. But a large part of it was because he was anti-Semitic. And the reality is that if you actually ask a lot of people in that crowd what their opinion is of Jewish people, and they were honest, it's quite unpleasant

because, look, the history is a history and it's complicated. But there is also a large dollop of racism and hatred that is also mixed into this issue, which if people are honest and they won't be, it is impossible to disentangle. It'd be good if they were willing to apply. Because I think a lot of people, I think a lot of those people on those marches

weren't anti-Semites, but I think they're willing to sort of block out, like they're wearing blinkers if it's going on, to sort of deny that it's there. And they also play, they're playing these word games. You know, you have people openly calling for interfaida, and you can say, yes, well, technically speaking,

that word just means an uprising against injustice. Okay, fine. But then you have to blind yourself. to the connotations of that word. You know, we think of the interfaider. People in Israel think of the interfaider. They think of mass murder of civilians, terrorist acts. You can't just pretend and wish away those connotations.

These sort of word games, like I just kind of... Well, that was another problem, wasn't it? Where for a while we were told that whatever people from a community felt about a word or phrase believe them, you know, hear their words, all this stuff. And then when you get to the river the sea, it's going, yeah, but they're a bit sensitive, you know, the Jewish guy. You know, again, there's this complete, there's this complete fling. There's this complete flip. I mean, I do wonder as well with the protest whether to a degree there's like,

there is a lot of anger, I think, post-COVID. I've never known it in this country. A lot of different people are angry about a lot of different things. So it's just like, this is the thing. You go down Saturday. This is the issue through, and I'm not saying people aren't emotionally invested in this, but for some people, it's just a way of expressing, expressing like a broad anti-establishment sentiment. And some of it, you know, is passionately felt.

But there's also been proper people's front of Judea moments. There was, I mean, I don't if you saw the clip in Mac, McDonald's where obviously people were told to get out from McDonald's. And there's this one lad on the loud haler. And he was going like, everyone, get out of the McDonald's. And there was a lot of people with Palestinian flags who were going, no. Like we're getting chicken nuggets. And you can see him sort of realized that then no one's going to leave.

And he's going to go and then he goes, unless you're going to use the toilets, I suppose. Like his belief in the cause was way for Finn. And then his mate, she said, the thing is the toilets in here don't even work. I thought, well, how would you know if you hadn't been here? You know, so there's been this thing where some of it is vicious. Some of it is the usual protest crowd. And then some of it, like these people who are shouting and people coming outside of McDonald's, like, shame on you.

They're sort of laughing as they're doing it. It's just shits and giggles for some. Don't you think it's also that thing of there's a sense of it's compulsory? So if you have that mindset, the won't mindset, you have to follow a certain set of beliefs. But when it comes to the Palestine and Israel conflict, they just know automatically which side they're on, even if they don't know nothing about what's going on.

I mean, we've seen people interviewed about river to the sea. What river, what sea are they talking about? They don't know. Or they're interviewing someone about what happened on October 7th. Oh, did something happen? You know, they don't know. It reminds me the Brexit thing where all my lefty friends who had no interest in the EU, never expressed an opinion on it in their life, suddenly started waving the EU flag or painting

their faces in EU colours. It's like, you don't really care about this. You just know that in this world, that's the good side. And you're on the good side, so therefore you have to. Is that true of like on both sides of whatever the culture war would be supposed to be? So if like someone says to you like they don't like Megan Markle, you can kind of then go, well, you probably don't like Greta. You probably do like top gear.

You know, like I think I think you're right. There's almost like for some people on whatever the culture war is, there's almost like this kind of standard raft of opinions. And I think the most interesting people you speak to in Britain in 2023 are actually the people that would just surprise you and go kind of like, yeah, you know, I'm pro one issue. actually, like a proper geese and a, oh, I love a bit of Greta Thunberg. You got, well, you might be worth speaking to because I didn't expect you necessarily. That's important, there isn't it? To be, like, I hate the fact that I can so often predict someone's opinions on everything if I know their opinion on one thing.

Just one thing, yeah, yeah. And that's not the case for most of my friends, actually. I found that people, most people that I know now are quite surprising. Do surprise me every now and then in a position that they take. But that's the thinking, you carry on, Jeff. Well, I was just going to say, like with Meg and Markle, there is no real reason that if you like Megan Markle, you should be concerned about the climate crisis. There's no logical reason that connects those,

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Check it out. And now back to the interview. Speaking of being surprised, I don't think any of us would have had David Cameron being foreign secretary. No. on our card of whatever the card is for the year. No. No. Just when you thought the Tories were running out of ideas,

they brought that old thing back. I mean, it's a weird one, isn't it? Because, no, I didn't expect that at all. But it feels like a sign of desperation. Like, they don't really know what else to do at this point. Well, it's kind of weird because James Cleverly was sort of doing a pretty decent job. You know, a lot of people that worked with him said that. And then he gets thrown into like, right, you've got Rwanda, the legal bill.

You know the job where you're flying around meeting presidents? No, no, that's all done, mate. You've got currently the hardest thing in the Tory party. And then I think Cameron comes back. It was genuinely the closest to like an East Enders doff-duff moment. I've ever seen. Like we go, it's David Carroll. He's like, I'm back in the square.

And he... Why do you think he did it? Because I kind of think, like, he was in hiding. He was so embarrassed about Brexit and the pig thing, the pig gate thing, which we've all forgotten by the... Why aren't people making more of that? You know, but he's coming back. Do you think he did that, though?

Well, the pig thing? Yeah. Oh, he definitely, I mean, no, no, no, to be, give him his due. Yeah. The accusation was that he, can I be explicit, yes. Fucked a pig's head. Yeah.

And that's not true. I wouldn't have thought so. No, what he did was he placed his flaccid penis into the dead pig's mouth. See? I mean, who hasn't done that? Morally, they are on different levels. Yeah. But I'm not saying he did, by the way, in case someone's going to sue me.

That was the allegation. That he placed his... There was never an allegation that he had sex with a dead pig. But it became that he fucked a dead pig. Yeah. That particular dead pig, but it clearly wasn't his type. But that does sound like a university, like, initiation thing. It sounds like something that would have happened.

I mean, I think at the time... That won't start up in court, Andrew, by the way, just so you know. That sounds like something that could have happened will not stand up in court. Oh, will it not? Okay. I mean, I know he definitely didn't do it, by the way. Andrew was there. I think also there was an interesting moment, like, when he stepped out of that car, where you heard the journalist be surprised.

And this is just me pushing my agenda here. But Kay, is it Kay Bernie? She was like, oh, he's put on weight. And I thought, my God, you would not say that about, like, if a male news journalist, broadcaster, anchor, said that about a female politician, you go, after the break, that guy won't be it. That's how quickly it could happen.

And I thought, you know, it wasn't the most surprising thing about David Cameron coming back either. It's not really great journalism. I mean, what was really surprising was somebody comes out of the wilderness. I guess it was the only job that had the prestige that he would have come back for. Foreign Secretary is the only one that's got a bit of glad. There's a big job. Oh, God, yeah, yeah.

And they all want, you know, what is my legacy? And he's got worse and worse ever since he left off of it. Don't they make a lot of money, though? Like ex-prime ministers, they do the tools. Yeah, but it's not about money. It's about ego. Yeah. It's definitely about ego at this point.

What I thought was interesting as well, broadening it out a little bit is obviously the reason that happened is Suella Breivman made some pretty strong worded comments about two-tier policing, about the protests, about the marches, etc. She was removed. She was basically forced out because of that. And that's how we've ended up here. And what seems to me to be the long-term impact of that is the Tory right, which she represents effectively, is now going to splinter off. Suddenly the voters to reform or probably more likely not vote at all. We're going to have a general election next year. And I just wonder if this isn't going to be an absolute disaster for the Conservatives.

I mean, absolute disaster, it seems like to me. First thing to say, Suella was correct about the Tatea police. That's absolutely right. What do the Tories think that they're doing? Who are they trying to placate? Should she, like when your home secretary, I agree that most of the public, or a good portion of the public would see a lot of truth in what she said. But when your home secretary saying that about the police publicly, also in an article,

you do have to have a bit of collective responsibility. Look, I'll be honest. I'm not the biggest swear of. fan. But I did feel at that point she was sort of like a midfielder going in, putting in two-footed tackles under the nose of the ref going, go on, send me off. What else can you do? Because if you think about

it, when Pretty Patel was Home Secretary, when Sewellabrogram, they issue these directives to the police and the police ignore them because they are so ideologically captured. Or the same with the Civil Service. We had a whistleblower recently talking about how in the Civil Service, any policy regarding immigration, is going to be ignored by the staff members. We just put it out on episode with Steve Hilton,

former advisor to David Cameron. who basically told us story after story about how they tried to do things. And you just can't because the civil service will sabotage anything you do that they don't like. Exactly. So if I were Home Secretary, I'd be slagging off the civil service constantly, slagging off the going for them publicly. In many ways, I think people saw Soella Breverman as the one person who was willing to slag off the people that needed slagging off. Because nothing gets done. It's just about the realpolitik element of it. You know, like when Cameron said to Jeremy Corbyn, you know,

put on a tie and sing the national anthem. You know, when your home secretary, just one of the things that you're going to run into trouble if you do is if you slag off the police in public, I understand all the reasons that you're saying where the frustration comes from, but it becomes very hard after that to manage, you know, manage relations. And it puts, you know, it puts Rishi in this weird, I've sort of been calling him Brittany Sunak a bit. The amount of costume changes that the geyser has had in the space of a year, you know.

He was stability guy, you know, stability Rishi. Then he was, what was it, long-term decisions for a better future guy. Then he was Ulej Rishi. He was like, fuck the climate. Then he was like, and then now he's, then he was the change guy. Yeah. At conference, I am the change candidate. And now he's, actually, let's just bring back David Cameron.

And it looks like, it looks like bring your dad to work day. I mean, the thing is, if you're already, the prime minister, looks most like an eight-year-old boy, right? I would not have someone who looks like your dad and your uncle come along with you. I mean, I think he's found himself, because the polls haven't changed in a year, he's just found himself lurching. And the impression that the public get, and I think it's a fair one, is that he doesn't really have a core set of principles at this point.

But you could say that about Starmu as well. I think that they are two cheeks and the same ass, like, really. Yeah. The problem is, though, is going back to the Suella thing, is that what it really means is that democracy doesn't exist, because people voted for the conservatives, because they wanted a government that is conservative, that had conservative policies.

But if a conservative government can no longer implement conservative policies because the blob or whatever, the civil service, whatever you want to call them, refuse to enact them, then what are you left with? So what's going to happen next time then? You know, because the Labour will get in

and then the conservative party presumably will shift to the right because that's what the voting base want. And then you'll get a full-on, hardcore Tory government that does a bonfire of the quangos But they can't. But they can't.

Bonfire of the quangos does sound like one of those weird films from the 70s starring Paul Newman. Yeah, we did purely for the money. But I disagree that I don't think they will ever. You don't think they'll do it? No, because I don't think they can do it. Or they're certainly not the political will to be able to do it because if you're going to do it, you're going to get into it. Is this new though? I mean, we used to have a program called like, yes, minister, yes, prime minister.

Yeah. It's this idea of the civil service pushing back for continuity. Maybe it's just something that occurs when either administration flips to the right or indeed the left right. But you're right, whether that's democratic or not, is another issue entirely. Problem is with the way that press operate in this country

is that if you talk about civil service or even if you criticize public health bodies, it's all Trumpian, you know? Or it's Trumpian. When there's, like, I mean, this COVID inquiry has proved it that there are civil servants with quite clear agendas, you know, that effectively take political decisions.

It's fine. If we have that in the conversation with the British public, And the British public go on fine with that, fine. But we've never had that chat, really. And Jeff, none of the three of us has really followed the COVID inquiry. What I hear out of it is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear out of it. It seems we didn't lock down fast or hard enough, apparently. That's their conclusion.

Is that right? Well, the thing was, I thought, is it to inquire what happened or is it to prosecute the idea that the government were a shit shock, right? And it's certainly with people like Hugo Keith KC. That seems to be his focus. And, you know, there's all these salacious WhatsApps. Oh, he called himself a tibuck or a bumwank or, you know, and that has been, you know, that has been what's often led the news, whereas I think genuinely, the interesting thing that

comes out of it is how did the instruments of state work under pressure? We know what happened with the government. Most people have come to their conclusions. But the civil service don't come out of it well. And also, a lot of decisions that people thought were the government were actually sage. But because, again, there's this thing in the liberal press whereby, you know, somehow health bodies and the civil service are sacrosan to never make shit decisions. They never make egotistical decisions.

Like, for example, like the Cheltenham Festival, a lot of people were frustrated that that went ahead. That was under sage advice. You know, literally under sage advice. So I actually think that the headlines that have come out of the inquiry have been pitiful, really. Oh, Boris probably shouldn't have shaken someone's patient's hand at the hospital, going, we all kind of had that chat around the same time all those celebrities were singing,

imagine, you know. And then three years later, this is headline news. I think the much more interesting thing is who, you know, who do we rely on for our health advice and did they perform under pressure? And do you think that this is all too little, too late, and it's pointless, isn't it? It's pointless. Well, I don't think it's going to change many people's minds. But, you know, with Sunak's testimony, what was interesting was you finally get this

discussion of whether or not, you know, risk versus reward. I'm sure those questions have been asked, but they're certainly not been the ones that have been leading the news at 10. And the general sort of spirit of it is it should have gone sooner, harder, all these pornographic type sooner or harder long. But actually, you know, if you look at Omicron,

it was the opposite. So they say, if you're going to make a decision, make it soon, make it hard, make it long. And whereas Omicron, if we'd have done that, we'd have screwed the economy even harder for a lot longer when actually we found that that was the right decision was to wait for more evidence.

So as you watch the inquiry, do you come away from it going, if there's another pandemic, in my lifetime. Yeah. We're going to smash that one. We, well, I think it'll be more like that show.

You've seen The Last of Us. Yeah, we're just everyone. Is that a zombie one? Yeah, yeah, kind of zombie. I think it'll be more like that. It'd just be, get a machine gun and head to the hills. Yeah, it just seems like we haven't actually learned any of the actual lessons.

I mean, when you look at Sweden, for example, and what they were able to do there, the comparison is night and day to me. And instead of looking at them and going, how could we adjust what we did to get better results? Like you said, it's about prosecuting the politicians who we want to hold guilty. But you won't get compliance, will you, if it happens again? As in people now know that the masks are ineffective, so no one's going to wear masks.

You say that, Andrew. I thought you wouldn't get compliant. I never thought the British public would accept this curtain twitching fucking looking. Oh, he's gone out for a second walk, bullshit. But we all did. Well, there's still a majority, there's still 20% of people think the nightclub should be shut forever. They're still 10. Forget about COVID-10.

They're called your audience, yes. There's still 10% of people that think that we should have a 10pm curfew. So these people, I think that they would, I think you're right, but I think that there will be less compliance. And this thing about prosecuting an idea, I mean, there's been so much ego from some of the KCs and he's got this little code, Hugo Keith, where he sort of says, forgive me, which means, I think that's bollocks. But he says, is it not the case, ego, oh, are you going to tell us what you think now, mate?

Is it not the case that that was a short of, shit show. You know, you think, I didn't think, and maybe this is how they work, inquiries. Maybe it's the first one I've watched closely. But I didn't think it was supposed to be like you've got a theory of everything went wrong and then you essentially cross-examine. I thought you just ask questions maybe, find out what happened. But I guess maybe you have to put them under pressure to get the truth. I think that the problem is with COVID is that it turned us into, like, we all thought, it was like, you know, when you watch England football team, you go, yeah, I could do better than that, you know. But, but, but.

But everybody thinks that they could have, looking back, thinks that they could have handled it better, whilst at the same time, and look, the government made huge mistakes and I disagree with a lot of what they did. But I also think we forget how terrifying it was. Do you, go to cause your mind back to early March. I mean, I don't know about you, but, you know, I was bricking it. Well, I mean, one of the things that... Yeah, we're a lot more of a way back then. Yeah, it's true, mate.

One of the things that come out was, like, how quickly things happened. And so the idea that's taken root in the public psyche is that the government, like, delayed for a long, long time before locking down. The first mention of lockdown was in early March, something like 7th of March in Cabinet, and lockdown happened on the 13th of March. So it's true that those delays might have caused, you know, like more deaths and stuff. But in terms of the amount of days, the perception is now that they were just sitting on their asses, Boris the trolley, you know.

I mean, there's been some funny stuff that's come out of this, let's be honest. Like the idea, calling it, calling it. I'll definitely use the idea. that a mate that changes his mind a lot is the trolley. I mean, that's a good, that's a good nickname. Or the fact that a prime minister got brought down for having a cake. Well, in the end, it was, it was the Chris Pinscher guy, wasn't it? Oh, it's Pinscher, yeah.

Because this is how we remember stuff. We remember the cake. I mean, let's be honest, that weakened him significantly. But, yeah, it's sort of forgotten about Pinscher. Yeah, yeah. But the cake is much more. Guys, is this not pathetic? What, with this conversation is so pathetic?

We're talking about Prime Minister being brought down by Kemp. But constant, it was a handsy bloke called Pincha. Let's never forget that that happened in British public life. I mean, in a way, it dovetails with the inquiry in a way, is that they tended, the coverage of the inquiries tended to lead on the most frivolous stuff. And I think that's a real disservice. That's what I mean. But anyway, speaking of British politics, I mentioned earlier,

the most upvoted story from our supporters for us to talk about was one Nicola Sturgeon. We actually have a clip of her talking about this. issue. We'll play that and we'll chat about it. Let's get that up. Trans women are women, but in the prison context, there is no automatic right for a trans woman. So there are contexts where a trans woman is not a woman? No, there is, there is circumstances in which a trans woman will be housed in the male prison estate because of the nature of the place in which a woman born as a woman will be housed in the male estate? Look, we're talking here about trans women. And I'm now asking about women born as women? I don't think there are circumstances

there, but... So it's different for trans women? Yes, and I'm not... So they're not equal? That is not, there is a risk assessment process done for trans women that takes account of the nature of the crime. Clearly, significant concern arises out of sexual crime and whether it's appropriate for them to be in a female prison or a male prison. Moving on to your legislation, should someone who has a history of committing sexual crimes against women be allowed to get a gender recognition certificate? Well, there are, of course, provisions in that legislation, which, is not yet in force, whereby if somebody is going through the process of getting a gender

recognition certificate and there are concerns about that, there can be a pause. And do we not also have some articles about what's happened with her later? So she's resigned, obviously, and so her husband was then arrested and their house was searched. And also, So the other thing that's happened lately is the UK government banned, not banned, the UK government prevented their act from going through. And it's been found that that is legal. The fact that they've prevented it from going through. That's right.

Yeah. So I think the reason people wanted us to talk about it is, hey, we have a lot of turfs that watch this. Yeah. Right, number one. They love it. They absolutely love it. Birds love trans, mate. It's a catchphrase of the show.

Jeff is pringing because he's the work one for the purpose. Yeah, can I say that it's very problematic? What, saying birds? Well, I also think that with the people that watch your show, is given how the year's been politically, the downfall of Nicholas Sturgeon was like the one bright spark for people. That's the thing that kept me going through the difficult months. Well, the reason I think people care about is,

obviously, as we just saw, it exposes the complete, you know, moral inconsistency of everything that they're saying. It doesn't make sense. They're trapped in the faulty logic of their own argument. But also, there was then the possibility that she might be arrested and prosecuted and go to prison. And that's where it really gets interesting because I think a lot of people feel like

the reason these crazy ideas are able to mature to the point where they're represented at that political level is its luxury beliefs, Rob Henderson, who we've had on the show talks about this, which is people having ideas whose consequences they're never affected by. And suddenly this woman who's pretending that,

is it, Ila Bryson. Isle Bryson? Ila Bryson, Illa Graham, two-time rapists, absolutely male, being sent to a female prison is okay, this person might be about to go to prison themselves. That's why she was in such a muddle. I mean, but the thing is, she talks about a risk assessment

for Isla Bryson, whose real name is Adam Graham, double rapist. They were housing him in the female estate while they made that decision. What risk assessment do you need? Double rapist. That answers your question, doesn't it? And that was the thing about, you know,

when Westminster vetoed, the gender reform bill, and which they were right to do so, we forget that there were all these amendments tabled to that bill. The SMP could have made this palatable, right? There were amendments to protect single-sex spaces in hospital wards. They're single-sex spaces in prisons. They were saying that prisoners who had been, who were on trial for rape, couldn't suddenly apply for a GRC during the process.

They're sensible stuff, and they just said no. So in other words, the bill was faulty and wrong. they knew it would be vetoed. They were warned it would be vetoed and they did it anyway. Hamza Yusuf took this, you know, took Westminster on, knowing he would lose. I mean, everyone said you're going to lose. This has been an absolute shambles from start to finish. And so she deserved to get nailed on this.

And by the way, we're not talking about the dodgy corruption and the accusations because they have very strict contempt of court rules in Scotland. So nobody's really been talking about it. But it dwarfs Boris Johnson and the cake. Like this is a like, but we should be talking about this a whole lot more, but we probably can't. Well, this idea that you can sort of like you're saying, I mean, the fact that we, for a moment, a politician in Britain was considering this idea that you can have this prison onset gender dysphoria. Like you get to the courtroom and suddenly, oh, I'm a bit trans. Like, it's ridiculous.

No, but they are now. I mean, the Scottish government is now saying what they will do is that they will still house men in the women estate if they identify as women. They're doubling down on this. But they're saying, you know, they're reducing the numbers, but they say we'll organize sort of day out so that the trans identifying people can go and associate with women in the women's prison. They are seriously considering this. And I would a thought that you look, it works, doesn't it? Just segregate prisons by sex. It works.

It's perfectly fine. And why are they so obsessed with the feelings of rapists? Why are they worried about them? Why aren't they worried about the women in prison who are among the most vulnerable women in the country? Surely they should be the priority, right? I would have thought. I think what was fascinating about it was that when the UK government, Westminster government intervened, there was a majority support for that among SMP voters. Now, I would say that if you're a nationalist party and your voters are supporting the intervention,

you couldn't have got it more wrong. And there's been this paradox in the SMPs politics for a while. Both, like, you know, on one hand, want to be out of the union that is Britain and the UK, but want to be part of the EU, you know. And there is also this. sort of line between their politics, which is independence. I don't want Scotland to leave the UK, but I understand that sentiment. And this progressive agenda that's actually not necessarily, because nationalism in Scotland used to be coming from a more conservative place. You're right that the voters, they overwhelmingly didn't support.

Because we keep hearing this bill had cross-party support. 75% of Scottish parliamentarians supported it. But the public really didn't. So is it the case at the SMP? Because they've always relied on this thing, that it's all about independence and the support has been because there's this passion,

this nationalistic fervour in the country that they could just endorse any ridiculous policy and bring these people a lot almost like they're trolling them. Do you know it's like you know Sky Sports like Sky Sports a lot of people get it because you go, I want the football.

Yeah. Football is independence and then they go Sky Sports so you get the bad men as well you go I'm not really interested in the bad men I want the football. The football is the independent. I think they're pushing it. I think they're taking the piss.

Like what else can we introduce? Why don't we introduce a hate speech bill that makes it illegal to say things in your own home. Let's do that. Everyone I hate it. It doesn't matter because they're one independent. In fairness, in fairness, I think if I'm not mistaken, it was part of their manifesto in 2019. So they have sort of sought. But again, it doesn't matter. But whether or not, how high that was up, the average SNP voters priority list, we can only speculate. And I do think that there is a sort of symmetry between the SMP and the Tories in a way, is that if you're in power long

enough, there's like a hubris that creeps in. And there are blind spots. There are things that you do because you've been in power so long, you forget that you have to refer to the people. I mean, like, you know, example, where the Tories started going wrong, I know we'll get back to the S&P, but was actually the Owen Patterson thing, was where one of their mates got found guilty of something by the Privileges Committee, and they're like, well, we'll change the rules. And people just went, well, that's the worst stereotype about you is that there's different rules for people than there is for you. And the S&P have had a succession of things now that have almost run in tandem with the Tories

in Westminster. And it's almost like this subconscious thing of maybe you don't want to be in power anymore. Isn't it good that they're being punished for it though? I mean like even if you take it just on the terms of the cause or the campaign for Scottish independence, the support now is much, much lower. Like they were edging towards that majority they needed that if they did have a referendum they would win. They held it now. They'd lose. And that is because of all these other batship policies that they've advocated for. They've lost support for the independence thing as well. Ultimately, that's what's happened. But it's, you know, they say that about TV series. The term jump

the shark is when they do something in the series, it becomes so ridiculous, and it becomes so unbelievable that everybody goes like, you know what, I'm done and I can't watch this anymore. And the Isla Bryson case, for me, was the moment the SMP jumped to the metaphorical shark. If you remember back during question time, where it was an SMP member, there was an SMP member of Scottish Parliament, and they asked her, is Is Is Is Isle Bryson a man or a woman? And she went, they're a rapist. And I'm like, no, no, that's not what I'm asking. I think it was actually, I think, who was it?

It was, I can't remember, but then she was asked again. Yeah. Are they a man or a woman? They went there, a rapist. And all you heard from the question time audience was this huge audible groan. Yeah. And I was looking at that and listening and going, you're done. It's over.

Well, I mean, in that interview that we saw with Sturgeon, there's that point where the paradox of her thinking almost dawns at her. And she last because she realizes she's hit a point. Now, like if she was essentially consistent in her, thinking. She should have just doubled her and said, no, that, you know, that Eiler Bryson is a woman and therefore, yeah, and the, absolutely should be housed in a female prison. But what she, once you've acknowledged that there are some exceptions, well, now, now we're just, it's like that old Oscar Wildcott, now we're just discussing the details. We've established what you think. Now we're just discussing, uh, the finer details. Isn't it scary to think, though, that it was a kind of

coincidence that brought her down insofar as that Eila Bryson case happened to happen at the time that they were pushing through the bill. And it's that visual image, you know, of that guy in that dodgy wig with his leggings that showed his male genitalia. You know, that image, everyone's like, what, they were going to put him in a women's prison. That's what changed it. It's like there are these moments, there are these visual things that happen. And if it weren't for that, I think they would have got away with it. We'll be back with our guests in a minute. But first, do you remember the Canadian trucker protest in 2022, where thousands of Canadians came out to protest COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates? Now,

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then don't go to the big tech platforms. We recommend you do it. on Give Send Go. Starting a campaign on Give Send Go is easy and intuitive. Go to givesendgo.com today. That's givesendgo.com to start raising money for whatever is important to you. And now back to the interview. And Andrew, you were just saying there's an article about a recent case. You mentioned that essentially quite consistently now in the UK media, when there's a case about a trans woman, a biological male who's committed some kind of horrific offence, it's always covered in a way where you don't get told that they're trans until the very end of the article.

So the people don't have their bigoted thoughts about that. And now they don't even do that. Right. What was this article? So the recent article is about Naomi O'Brien. Elliot, can you pull that up as well? So Naomi O'Brien was complicit in the abuse of a four-year-old child. Naomi O'Brien is a man.

The article on the BBC about this actually had the phrase predatory woman in the headline. one of the police officers, a spokesperson for the police, for the Greater Manchester Police, used the phrase, predatory female, predatory woman. Everyone's lying about this.

The police know that this is a man. The media know that this is a man. The BBC know that this is a man. The BBC used to slip in at the end of an article. They'd use she-her pronouns for a male racist or murder. So you're not talking about the headline here. You're talking about the whole article. Not once in this BBC article does it mention that this is a man.

So it's she-her. all the way through, there is no, not even like, this is someone who identifies it, not even transgender, that word isn't even used, it's just a woman. Whereas if you take, there was an article last year, which was about a New York serial killer who dismembered women and, you know, and you read that and it was all about a woman, you thought, this doesn't sound like a woman. And then in the last, in the penultimate paragraph said, who recently identifies as a woman, you're like, oh yeah, it's a bloke. Of course, it's a bloke. Yeah. So they used to do that. And now the BBC has moved into just flat out saying this is female, this is a woman with no...

And people are getting sick of it because for two reasons, I think. Firstly, it's not true. So it's journalistically, it's really deeply unprofessional and unethical. But also because they don't have to do this. We've been under this delusion that all these media outlets that use she-her pronouns for rapists are obliged to do so because of ipso, say, or because of off-com. And none of that is true. There is no reason why they do this.

It doesn't have to be. Even right-wing newspapers do it, right? Why? So what do you think then, and I'm mildly playing devil's advocate, in that headline, what would you prefer to see? What do you think that, you know, from the BBC's point of view of getting some balance between things, how should that headline run? Transgender predator incited man to abuse child would have done it.

Mm-hmm. Or man. So I'm also very uncomfortable with the freight. I believe balance is important, but in this instance, we ought not to have balance between truth and lies. It is objectively not true that this person is a woman, right? So I don't want the BBC to present me a balanced position on whether gravity is real. All I mean is just the situation that they, because obviously if they were to go down that road, and there's a lot of really strong arguments why they could and indeed should,

is that they're then going to get kicked back at the other side. That's what I'm wondering. But doesn't it matter that? Yeah. that crime stats are being skewed. If I was a woman, don't get me wrong. If I was a woman, I'd be... Which you can be, Jeff.

I mean, what an incredible phrase for me to use. If I was a woman, Jesus Christ, I am as dim as I look. All you need to say is I am a woman. As a woman. If I was... Look, I'm the woke on it. I'm not going to tolerate this. If I was...

Like, one of the things, if you look at the relative merits of the biological sexes, right, is that you say, your men have qualities, women have qualities. One thing that women can generally say is that we're not broadly... speaking, the violent ones. We're not the ones that do fucking deprave shit all the time. So looking at it from a woman's point of view, to have that down on your chart and your score,

you can absolutely understand the rage. Yeah. And this does result in misrepresent. We don't know how many of these rapists are male or female because so many police forces are recording crime by gender identity, not by biological sex. I mean, there was a freedom of information request by a group called keep prison single sex. And I think 24 odd police forces responded and I think 15 of them said they reported they recorded crime by gender identity. Two said that they did it by biological sex, which means that even the police don't know, right? And again, there is no legal requirement for the police to record gender identity instead of biological sex. It's not there. So all of these people are independently making these decisions

that skew the crime stats and that's really, really bad for everyone because it's the truth matters, right? Yeah. I mean, one of the things I've been conscious of over the last few years is that we've lost distinctions between now just trans can mean anything from somebody that's fully, you know, transitioned their body as far as they can and have been living as a woman for so many years and somebody that's made a very short-term decision. And that's where I do worry for people, but were living essentially calm and serenised, had gone through that. And broadly speaking, I think if you go through that, that is genuinely how you feel. If you literally change your body, now I understand some people would never see that person as fully a biological woman. And

And maybe the problem is we've lost this distinction. But that's the fault of Stonewall. Just saying trans actually covers such a broad range of experience within that. It's really not... But we didn't do that, activist. No, no, no, no. I absolutely agree. Yeah.

That's now a trans umbrella, which includes trans. What you're talking about is transsexuals, which is what most of us thought of as trans all those years ago. People have gone through the procedure, right? Who won Big Brother. Now that wasn't a problem. Nadia. Nadia.

Yeah, Nadia. So everyone's like, a trans woman, and it really wasn't an issue. And then when you got people that were wanting to make very short-term decisions with very little commitment in their private life to that difference. Suddenly those got merged into one thing. And I think that's, again, one of those moments where the British public, who essentially, I think broadly, if someone has fully transitioned their body, would certainly relate to that person as a woman, if that's what they chose, suddenly felt, well, there's a massive fucking difference between those two things.

But that's the problem. So a lot of people are very deeply supportive of, the kind of person you describe who needs to go through that terribly expensive and painful surgery to be, to feel comfortable in their life. Most people have sympathy for those individuals. And they would consider them, you know, you'd want to support them. But when you bring in that same umbrella, fetishists, cross-dressers,

you know, someone who just throws a wig on and does nothing else, like the Green Party candidate, Melissa Poulton. Now that image of him just saying, yeah, anyone who criticises me as a transphobe, you just think it's, because he's not even a good wig. You know what I mean?

So, like, you're bringing in all these sort of people. Does it come down to wig? I think it comes out to wig. Then that becomes a class issue. Ritching people that can afford better wigs. But it's not a transsexual. Yeah. That's a bloke who's put a wig on.

That's not the same as a transsexual, right? But we've lost those, those, and that's been a deliberate... So what point then? So I've had, you know, through trying to talk about this on my podcast, I've had people who've got in contact with me saying that, you know, there is a legal requirement of time to, where you do have to sort of, as you're transitioning, essentially just present as a woman. So is there a point in that process?

Is it that when you've fully changed your body, what is the point at which someone can legitimately at least sort of represent for you as that gender then? And I'll realize I'm getting very conceptual here. No, that's a good point. And it is a problem. Is it like a benchmark moment? Because you're saying, I think what you're saying is somebody putting on,

you know, on a wig like there's that very early part, which a lot of the public would have hesitations about. But where is it along that spectrum? No, it's not. No, because you're talking about early within a process. process where someone is tending towards transsexualism surgery. The vast majority of the people who we now call trans have no intention of removing their genitalia or male genital or anything of that kind.

They just want to be treated as women, have access to women's spaces, even though they are intact male bodies. And that's something that is very, very dangerous. And it's that conflation that I think has caused all the problems. And it's also why so many decent people have gone on board with really really, really, reactionary ideas because they think they're supporting transsexuals, but they're not. That's what I think has happened here. And it goes back to your original point when we were talking about anti-Semitism, which is the power of ideology. Where you have a mantra, which is trans women are women. Well,

what does that mean? It means that anyone can be a woman, anyone can identify as a woman, which means you obliterate the meaning of the term. Right. So if you take this year, we had Jenny Watson, who had a speed dating lesbian event. There was a guy who identified as female who turned up, was very handsy with some of the lesbians in the toilet. And it got to the point where Jenny Watson had to say, look, this is just for biological women, for lesbians. And then the event got shut down because activists went after the venue, right?

So if you have a situation where lesbians cannot gather in a romantic context, speed dating, without men demanding entry, to me, that's really regressive. And that's what's happening. Well, it comes down to, again, the fair play limit. I think most people have recognised that to be an unreasonable development.

You know, like that is a freedom of association more effective. But if you say trans women or women have to be treated as women in law, then actually it's right to shut that down. Andrew, can I ask you something that may sound a little personal, but you are someone who has covered this issue

a hell of a lot. And I know that in private conversations, we've talked about that this is something that is particularly affecting gay children. Yeah. And I know that for a lot of lesbians and gay men in particular, it's a kind of personal issue as well

because they sort of look at it and go, you know what, if this had been happening when I was a boy or when I was a girl, I might be one of these people. I might have been led down this part. That's why so many gay activists are coming out of retirement

to deal with this issue. And that's why the notion of an LGBTQIA plus community is such a lie because so many of the principles behind the TQ plus aspect of that are directly antithetical to gay rights. That's the problem.

So now we live in a time where it's the most dangerous time to be a gay kid, basically. Because when I was at school, you know, for a start, you wouldn't be out. There's no such thing as an out gay kid at school at the time I was at school. You would be beaten up, you'd be bullied. You'd have homophobic abuse from the staff, from the teachers. But now if you're a gay kid, you'll have figures of authority teachers, Stonewall mermaids, implying that you might be in the wrong body

and you need to be put on a pathway to medicalization. Now, no one saw that coming. No one saw coming the idea that we'd be medicalising gay kids in the name of progress. That's such a bizarre sort of situation. And because between 80 and 90% of adolescents referred to the Tavistock Clinic were same-sex attracted, we know that this overwhelmingly is about fixing gay kids, heterosexualizing gay kids, whether that is conscious or not. That's the impact of this.

Do you think would it be conscious, though? It feels unlikely. That might be the net effect of it. Well, why then did so many whistleblowers at the Tavostock say, there was homophobia endemic in a lot of the referrals. Why did they have a dark joke? Why did they have the joke? Soon there'll be no gay kids left.

Why did they have that? Well, I'm just, it's very hard for someone like me. You know, I'm looking into various different communities. I don't fully understand. But how a sort of left-wing progressive organisation, I do think I've got it wrong on so many things, but would become homophobic. How did that happen?

Yeah, I really want to know the answer to that question. Did it happen? No, but it did happen. But I think what, you know, Groups like Stonewall and Murmys, as far as I concerned, represent the biggest threat to gay rights at the moment. They are hostile to gay rights, but they don't say they are, I agree.

And I don't even think they think they are. I think you're right. I think they have actually brought into this ideology to such a degree that they are advocating and promoting anti-gay ideas in the name of being pro-gay. I think they are. I think you're right. I think it is a complete, you know,

and I feel that that's why a lot of gay people are frustrated when they see that progress, progress pride flag spattered everywhere. A load of gay people think that that, basically if that's outside a pub, they feel they won't go in because they might get attacked verbally abused, whatever. And it used to be the case that the rainbow flag

was like, well, I know I can go in there and I can hold my boyfriend's hand and I won't get trouble for it. If I see the progress pride flag now, I do not go into that bar. I'm worried someone might start verbally abusing me, right? But just for being gay or for having a view on same sex biological attract, right?

But being same sex attracted is in, is a countering. counter to this ideology in and of itself because it implies that there's only two sexes. Well, they say being same sex attracted is a dog whistle. Right. So Stonewall on its website and its promotional materials changed the definition of homosexual to mean same gender attracted. Activists say things like genital preferences are transphobic.

Not all activists, but some do. They have this idea that's why Grindr now is full of young women who've been led to believe that they're men. That's why in Australia it's illegal for lesbians to gather now. because you have to admit men. So, but gay people aren't attracted to the way that you perceive yourself. Like, gay men aren't attracted to people

who think they're men, they're attracted to men. And lesbians aren't attracted to people with penises because they're lesbians. This is the thing. There's this thing called homosexuality. This is by my mind. It's an education. The title of this episode

would be the red-pilling of Jeff North. I just, there's so much to take on here. Homosexuality, gay rights has been secured on the understanding that are people who are innately attracted to members of their own sex. But now those people are being shamed for it. Wait, you don't include people with penises in your dating pool lesbian. Then you are evil bigot.

So this is the question maybe I'm asking is I think that that view that you're expressing absolutely exists is how prevalent, right? If we get outside of social media or even more metropolitan type centres, if you go to an old gay pub in Wolverhampton, you know, are we saying? Is that one? Do you know what? There absolutely is. I did a gig there in 2005 and it was terrible. I'm not sure I was the right booking, is what I would say. That's what I'm wondering.

I'm wondering if maybe those voices that you're talking about have disproportionate volume within the debate. But I wonder how broad that is. But not just a debate. They also have a disproportionate impact on government policy, police behavior. They're in the college of policing. They're in the NHS giving trainings, etc. That's the issue. It's not about, you know, Andrews spent too much time on social media. It's about the fact that this is having an impact on real people.

Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't impacting people. Yeah. All these kids who've gone through now, you know, puberty blockers, which almost always lead to cross-sex hormones and sometimes to surgery that cannot be undone. I've met detransitioners. I met a gay guy who's just an effeminate gay guy, and he doesn't have genitals anymore because he was encouraged to go down his path. And it does sort of matter, I think. Well, matters.

It does. It does. But look, Jeff's looking at his watch. No, no, I wasn't looking at watch. I was just about to make a really flippant joke. And then you said, so you're very serious. And I just looked down because I thought, I am so glad I didn't make that joke just then.

Can I make the point, though, about, look, in Iran, the government funds sex changes because they hate, they hang gay people from cranes. Or are they just really progressive, Andrew? Well, you say that. But when the Pakistan government started doing a similar thing, which they've since stopped doing, yeah.

Pink News put out a video saying, oh, great, Pakistan. and said yes to trans rights. No, the Pakistan government was funding sex changes because they kill gay people. I am genuinely blown away by this. This is why you stay away from this issue because if you listen to enough people talk about it,

you eventually come out very hard line on it. No, I mean, look, I'm getting all you said, but it's when pink news were hyping the Pakistan government. Okay, okay. So speaking of progress, as we wrap up this particular segment of the conversation, Andrew, Do you feel that with some of the things we have seen this year in this country, we actually have made progress in terms of the pushback against this?

We saw the Tabistock Clinic, the Castro, we've seen all sorts of other things happening where you go, okay, some of the madness is being dialed back a little bit. I think that's absolutely right. And I think it's because of what Jeff was saying is that most people don't know it's going on, right? Most people just don't realize they thought that the Tabistock was just helping kids who were suffering from gender dysphoria. They didn't realize that it was, you know, what?

35% of referrals were autistic as compared to 2% of the population. They had all sorts of other co-morbidity, co-issues going on. That all of this is coming out now. Kemi Badenock has mentioned this in Parliament, has talked about transing away the gay, has talked about people who are using the ideology of gender identity and are effectively heterosexualizing gay kids. It's a real threat to gay people.

Now that that debate is open, you know, I was talking to Dennis Kavanaugh about this the other day. He's the director of the gay men's network. And he was saying, like, the stuff that Kemi Badenok was saying, would have got a band from social media a few years ago. But now it's out in the open. Stonewall always had this idea of no debate.

That was their official policy. We don't debate this. You know, because their ideas were so extreme. Yeah, I saw one of their guys on the news, literally saying, I can't talk about this because it's so obvious. Right. It's a settled issue. Evidently not.

So what's happened is you have a minority of activists with incredible power in society who are treating their own extremist views and presenting them as though we've reached an established consensus in society. And it's not true. And now what's happening is people are waking up to it. More and more people are seeing the impact of gender identity ideology in schools and on their kids and to gay people and to women especially. And they're pushing back against it. So I think it's, I think it's all it's going to end. I mean, honestly, I'm feeling very optimistic. I think too many people know about it now. You know, it's going to take a long term to unpick it.

Like the Welsh government is basically putting out gender identity propaganda in all of their, teaching materials and stuff like that, they're going to, they're probably doing something that's not actually legal because the education act actually forbids ideological and political teaching in schools. But so we'll get there eventually, I think, and we'll get back to the idea of liberal values and and gay rights and women's rights and free speech and all of these things that we had sort of agreed on at one point. I'm really optimistic. I think too many crazy things have happened.

I think it's images like Leah Thomas on the podium. towering over those women, I think every time something like that happens, people think, what, this is actually happening? Did you know that male rapists were being housed in female prisons? Probably not. But I missed a bit when being cool with gay people was cool. Like, you could say that and feel really liberal, you know. And that made that brief window. Yeah. Well, my son's, you know, his godparents are two married gay men. I used to love throwing that in the face of people that would think like, you get kudos for that. I mean, but back in the Edinburgh Fringe, years ago. I used to say that and the room went silent. I was like, yeah. I out-liberal

you. But now it's like, being fine with gays is very last year. Well, gays are the problem now. Yeah, yeah. Except your non-binary. Don't get rid of gays. Love gays. Jeff, are you as optimistic as Andrew about the pushback? There are a lot of debates actually where the pendulum goes one way and you think it's and then it comes back the other way. I think that ultimately the debate that has the most chance of resonating with reasonable members of the public will be the one that triumphs in the long run.

Yeah. The interesting thing to me is I'm temperamentally very tempted to agree with Andrew. But then I have, how long have been doing the show six years? And you've been spending a lot of time with me in that time. And I've been spending a lot of time with the depressive. So I look at the last six years. I sort of think we probably would have said that

at every point, every year around Christmas in every point in the last six years. And so far it just gets worse. We have seen a lot of actual progress. I mean, Hannah Barnes, who's a Newsnight editor. She had a brilliant book about this, and it really got resonance. I think you're seeing Stonewall and Mermaids being pulled out of the institutions where they were giving advice. All of these things are to be welcomed.

But broadly, I'm torn, honestly. Because we now can have the debate, because the era of no debate is over, once you have this debate, it's fairly clear which side the public are going to fall on. Yeah. The reason why Stonewall always had no debate is because this stuff doesn't withstand that kind of scrutiny. What do you think, mate? I actually, I'm in agreement with Andrew. I think that... What, five years do you think? Give it five years and it'll be gone? Well, I think this is the start because you've got to hit a moment where, like I said, that jumped the shark moment. And for me, it was Isla Bryson with a face tattoo, two-time male rapists in a

woman's prison where people like, what? And I think more and more. And I think the thing that we're not talking about, but that's actually really going to play a part in all of this collapsing, is the fact that mainstream media, they're hemorrhaging viewers, their hemorrhaging influence. If you look at Channel 4, which does all this kind of stuff on the last leg, the last leg, I was talking to a producer, I think it was a Channel 4 comedy producer, who was basically saying to me,

look, where hemorrhaging viewers, no one's watching the stuff anymore. They're putting out all of this content, it's crap, it's just lecturing people, people and nobody's watching it. And I think the more and more that happens, the less powerful and less prevalent this is going to be. Is this really true, Jeff, because you're someone who does all the big shows, comedy shows on TV. I did most of them once. But you know, you're very much in that kind of environment. I'm a double agent. Call, let's call it what it is. You play both sides, man. You're bisexual. Yeah, you're non-binary. You're non-binary. Is it because I think there's a danger of people like us, particularly the two of us, and not sort of

some extent, Andrew, where, you know, we spend a lot of time in this kind of online space. It's very tempting for us to tell ourselves the story, oh, look at the mainstream media, they're crumbling, their ratings, look, they cancel, mock the week, oh, look, they cancel this, the mass report's no longer there that you used to be on, I used to work with you on, et cetera. Is it true? I think that if, like, the last leg still does well in relative terms, you know. So if it's still on, it's probably because it's doing well, particularly on a, on a commercial channel. So I think that there's a problem, I mean, such a big problem for terrestrial

television generally. If you look at the drop in ratings that might, I don't know what last legs ratings are, but whatever it might have dropped, it would probably be in line with most of it. So, you know, the problem for comedy generally, if that's kind of where this discussion's going, is just at the time, right, maybe about 2016, 2017, where streamers started to have influence, where YouTube, like, people could basically go and get the comedy that they want, whether it's edgy comedy, one-liners, introspective, they can basically go and get it. Just at that point, on terrestrial television,

it became afraid of its own shadow a little bit, you know, and it became risk-averse, and it had all sorts of things that it had to attend to, which got in the way of simply going, is this funny, is this going to appeal to a broad audience? So it's been kind of, you know, it's been kind of hampered in a big way. Because if you go, comedy's so visceral, right?

You watch something, you go, that guy's funny, or that one's funny, I'm going to go and see him on top. It occurs within you. It's a physical thing. So you can't put in a laugh track or do any of that. And if you're not satisfied, right? Because it's so visceral, you'll go, where else can I get that feeling? Because laughing is a great feeling. That's exactly what they negated, wasn't it? What the activist did to comedy insofar as they were expecting audiences to sit there, hear the joke, assess whether it was morally pure, and then laugh to endorse the point being made. And that's not how laughed at work. I mean, I think that there is now, it's going back a bit. You know, like when I have meetings and stuff and I speak to, to people. You know, if for example, Channel 4 last year, they backed Jimmy Carr after that joke from his Netflix special. You know, we see him Netflix stand in their ground. The meetings that I'm having with people at the BBC, they're like, we want it to have Tifa. We want it. It's just

it feels like there was some lost years in there somewhere. I mean, I would say that one place that's genuinely, you know, that talk to Jim, um, Jim Davis, this will go down well, Tim Davies, when he said about having diversity of opinion, which is not a controversial view to anybody. I think the BBC Radio actually really was the only ones that really consistently ran with that, you know? If you look at things like particularly news quiz where just have, you know, every softener lab,

someone like me, someone like me. Someone like you, you know, Alan Cochran all pop up on there. Because I think it just makes it better. The point is, it's nothing ideological. Yeah, I did the moral maze this year as well. I mean, they are trying. Yeah, something's changing because I've noticed this with, It's like, you know, when I set up Comedy Unleashed like five years ago with Andy Shaw,

and lots of people said, oh, there's no need for any of this, which we don't get that criticism anymore, because comedians do get cancelled. But we've had recently a Guardian article about it that wasn't a hit piece. I mean, it was, you know, it was a bit sniffy and sneery, but it wasn't a hit piece. We had a nice thing in Sky, Sky covered it. They came along to, I thought they were going to do a hit piece, and it was just actually quite nice. No, I think that there's really good, like, green shoots of a kind of recovery. Recovery is just to remember it that comedy is comedy

and it's supposed to be funny. But the controversy around Matt Rife, right? So, you know, a guy who got huge... What is the controversy? So the controversy was, there was a joke at the beginning of his special, which essentially was... It was a domestic violence joke in many ways.

Personally, I didn't like the joke, but I recognised that it was just a joke. I was surprised that it was in his special. I just didn't think it met the quality threshold for something like that. But ultimately, that was his choice. The audience on the night is fairs to say laughed at it quite heartily.

What I thought was really heartened on TikTok and other places was the young people coming from him no one was saying he should lose his job no one was saying his thing should be taken down what they were doing was they were attacking the joke they were attacking the idea and I think good that's all that's happened is

it's gone back to how it should have always been really it's not quite there yeah but even within a year I mean if you take like when Jerry Sadowitz's show got cancelled by Pleasence last year last Edinburgh Fringe and he's like as you know major veteran of the circuit and respected by all the sort of woke comics as well. But this year when our show got cancelled

by the Leith Archies in Edinburgh because Graham Linehan was on the bill and then it got cancelled by a second venue and the show ended up on a platform outside in the open air outside the Scottish Parliament but lots of people said this was ridiculous even some people I didn't expect. You know the people, the comedians who normally say

yeah well you shouldn't say problematic things then started coming out and say actually so I mean just don't go and see a comedy show if you think you'll be offended, don't cancel it. That's a big shift, even within that year, I think the responses to those two shows, shows that it's changing. Well, do you know what happens, though, is over time,

everyone would have been told off, the longer this thing goes. So I think in many ways, left-wing comics, you know, progressive comics, get more crap than we do because people will look at us and go, well, these guys, they'll say out of all the stuff, that's what they do, they're assholes, you know, and stuff. But the thing is, when you're on the left sometimes, you're hemmed in where there's,

these expectations. If you step out of line, you'll get absolutely devoured. So over time, what happens is comics goes, well, I thought I was on that side and you all tried to destroy me. And so they realize... They're worse with each other, right? They can be. And what they realize over time is, like, actually, it's really precious to just be able to have the right to get it wrong. No, I don't mind if people say, I didn't like that joke because it's when I didn't like that joke and you should lose your living. I mean, it really is a terrible thing to not have a sense of humour or to be, I think, of all the things you could be upset about at the moment, comedy is just the weirdest one.

And on that very point, unless you wanted to. I was just going to just add as well, it's, uh, it's... I should have mentioned my tour at that point. I mean, it was absolutely... Oh, Jeff, you're on. I mean, Tonsor did it was literally looking at me, like, okay, we got it onto the comedy subject somehow. Yeah.

And my incredibly controversial show, oh, people being... Jeff, remember, you're the woke one on here. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my edge lord, basic bloke, bloke. people have been passing out. It's like, you know, those horror films in the 70s? It's just, yeah, that's on tour next year. But I say this is like one thing that never changed,

and I'm sure you guys would have experienced this, live audiences were always great. You know, more or less always. There was a tiny percentage of people that got emboldened, but it was never like how it was on social media because, you know, most people are adults. That's right. Yeah, that is very true.

I did get booed at a gig on Thursday, but... Well, let's leave that aside. Yeah, but what's just a quality? What did you say? Can you give us a flavour of what it was you'd upset how you'd upset then? Well, it was a new material night and they were very, very progressive. Was it your new material night? No, no, no, no. Because I did his one. They were all psychopaths, yeah. Yeah, they heckled you off the stage. Yeah, yeah, and you deserved it. And I gave them a little

round of applause when you left. No, I remember you were looking at going, what is going on here, and that was a truly beautiful moment for me, Jeff. Well, you made me realise, that my audience just seemed like like rabid centrist compared to whatever rabble you've procured. Yeah, the absolute lunatics. Yeah, no, I just did a joke about pronouns and... And you got booed by your audience. Yeah, yeah, well, no, no, no, no. This was a new material night, which is a very nice gig, a new material gig. And then they were, they were already upset. And then I went, look, I'm going to bring it down. Let's not, let's not get upset. I'm just going to do some bits about Israel, Palestine. And that really, like, even though it wasn't controversial,

bit. They heard the words and I did it and it just went further and further. And you know it's bad because the only laughter I could hear was a laughter of the comedians. Well, that's when you know it's really gone. That's still quite enjoyable, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. What was the pronouns joke? What was the pronouns joke? I'm still working on it. So, yeah, no, it was just a shit joke. Yeah, because if it was a groan, that's a slightly different thing. No, it was a hiss. Wow. Wow. Wow. Pan Am season's begun. Yeah. Anyway, smoothly moving on. Very, very. smoothly. Jeff, you were saying, I can't believe people would get upset about comedy in the current moment. And of course, next year, we have two elections. One here, one in the United States.

Donald Trump might be running from prison unlikely could happen. You know, what's going to happen in the UK as well? Like, we're looking forward to that. What are you guys thinking about? I think America is insane. The idea, how gangster would that be if he ran from prison? Like, he does it over Zoom, right? He's like, that would be, that would be astonishing. And I didn't realize you could do that. But apparently in America, that, you can. Even if you've been a prosecutor, you can still run. But I just think

it's, it's, is that the best they can do? And Biden, I mean, I don't think the Democrats ever wanted Biden around. And I don't think he wants to be there. And the whole thing is so tragic. I don't know. The poor city of options is going to be an issue in both elections.

You know, and that could affect turnout, which you'd say might sort of benefit the more conservative side that tend to be more mobilized for voting. But when Trump won against Hillary, a lot of left women people lost their minds. How could you do this? This guy is a toxic figure. I don't know if it'll be the same next time

because I think even those people might go well, the other guy is senile. Like it really... And it's an incredible situation where Trump gets to seem like the sprightly young thing. I mean, you've got two guys essentially that could cause a world war. One because he was upset and the other one

by accident. You know, Joe Biden I mean, it's such a serious thing in the States, being a commander-in-chief, having the nuclear codes, all those things. And you cannot judge an American voter who at that point says, I don't want somebody who's clearly suffering with mental issues to be that person. And on that very point, I think one of the things that really plays into Trump's hands, and he's clearly going to be the nominee, as we sit here today, and he's ahead of Biden, as far as I understand, in terms of the polling,

is that what you have seen since Biden has come in, And this may be, maybe correlation is not causation, but it might be, you know, the collapse of American power around the world. The fact that people are quite happy, you know, Putin's quite happy to have a little nibble at Ukraine, you know, under Biden's watch. Look at what happened in Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine. I mean, that is clearly, you know, it's America's central ally in the Middle East. Iran feeling free to support Hamas into making that attack. It just shows you that the fear and respect that America commands around the world is declining. And when you've got a guy who keeps falling over and is clearly not at his peak in charge,

it's not unreasonable for the American public to think, well, whatever that guy might be tweeting and January of the 6th was not a good look and not a good thing to have happened and lots of other issues that people will have with Trump, You just look at that and you go, on balance, do I want this or do I want the guy with the mean tweets? And I think a lot of people will see that as quite an easy choice, I suspect. I think the thing with Trump, you notice that some of the foreign policy, the issues overseas didn't happen because I guess it's partly because he's a deeply flawed character of Donald Trump. But part of that is was Putin was unsure of how he might react. Do you remember when he bombed that airstrip in Syria, no one expected that to happen. clearly surprised the Russian administration.

It doesn't seem to me, right, when did Trump leave office? It was 2020. Right, so the inauguration. 20, 2021, right, because they had the election. Yeah. Invasion of Ukraine happens, you know. So are you saying it's quite a good thing. No, no, that happened in 2022.

But a year after. But there was Afghanistan first, yeah. Afghanistan pull out was first, which was a disaster. Yeah, yeah. Then you get Ukraine. Yeah. And now you get Israel. Palestine.

I'm not saying for one second if Donald Trump's in position, none of those things happen. But the unpredictability of him, if you're wargaming a reaction, I feel with certain certainty, they could say, well, there's a line that Biden won't cross. I wonder if that's the same. But the downside of that is that he might cross that line. Yeah, it's a psychopath. So you could say, you know, having someone unhinged in charge is great because people are nervous. Yeah, he's my psycho.

I'm so surprised the Republican. I think you're probably right. It is wrapped up for Trump. But, you know, if they had gone with someone like DeSantis, then Biden would have been creamed. I think Biden's creamed anyway, mate. I'm not so sure. Because the resentment against Trump is so extreme

that the ones who would typically vote Republican, there's a lot of them out there who won't, who won't do it. But do you think that there are younger voters that were so hell-bent on getting Trump out at that time? It was almost like get Brexit done in a way. It was one of those single-issue things that actually people mistake it as a mass endorsement of a party or a politician when actually it's one thing.

Get Trump out. Now that having happened, And Biden, having frankly disappointed a lot of people on the left left in the States, I wonder if they see they're as mobilized or motivated to do that again. That is a good point. And by the way, Biden has been very strong on supporting Israel. And has alienated a lot of his voters as a result. Yeah, the people that, you know, the Democratic Party has been courting for some time.

So Biden, it's not like Biden has done everything badly, but you have to look at it on balance. And for the Americans, especially, you know, Francis, and I are fortunate enough to spend a little bit more time there nowadays. When you talk to people there, I think seeing their country become weaker on the international stage is something that really affects people and how they see, how they see their present, how they see the political system. And also, if you look at the economy, you know, things are getting so expensive. And that may have happened under Trump, it may not, but, you know, the economy is something

that people will judge a politician on. even if it's not their responsibility. And it hasn't been a good time for America. I mean, I'm now thinking maybe I've been a bit unfair on Biden with foreign policy because they were initially with Ukraine, it was a very strong sort of reaction that's ebbed away. I guess there's a chance with Trump that he'd have just gone, not my business, not committing our money there, not committing our troops, you know. But that's the point in a way with Trump.

Is it just not clear cut what he'll do either way. But that is an advantage. I mean, in geopolitics, that is an advantage. If people don't know what your move is going to be, it means they have to be extra careful as a result. And you are then not in a war where Ukraine has been invaded because that has already been prevented. Do you see what I mean?

That is the argument the pro-Trump people will make. So we'll find out what happens there. But interesting for us, obviously all four of us being basically in the UK, is how that maps onto the election here because my sense is Labor are going to win, quite possibly a landslide win, without actually that being an endorsement to your point of the Labour Party.

It might just be a plague on both your houses, but there's more plague for the Tories than for Labour. And as a result, Labor ends up with a majority. Well, I mean, you know, the 2019 general election victory, so much of that was put down to Boris, the force of personality. He's done it. But he also was up against, you know, get Brexit done, which was a great campaign idea.

Labor's position at that time, and I love to mention it as often as I can, was they were going to crack a new deal and then put it to a referendum when they campaigned again. against it, which was a complete non-position on the single biggest thing facing the country at the time. Corbyn was massively unpopular. So again, some of what happens in the elections is things get mistaken as a single thing that drove it or a single personality. And yeah,

like if Labor get in, it will be interesting to see what Stama, I'm going to say, if it's almost overwhelmingly unlikely, is what Stama interprets that as. I think, like, in a weird way for him, a big majority could be tricky because there'll be loads of Labor people that go, right, we've got a 200 seat majority. Let's do some really left-wing stuff. He's like, that's not what I was voted in for. They go, all right, two years in, you're out, son. We'll get in Andy Burnham.

Because they'll feel like they've got time to pull it back before the next election. So I wonder if just like when Cameron, there was that coalition in 2010 that kept people in line, whether for Stama's point of view, a 60-seat majority might be more manageable than a 200-seat one. Well, maybe it won't be that. Maybe there won't be a landslide. I mean, I have a kind of feeling that what could happen here is that it won't be a landslide. There'll be a coalition. I think that. And you might even end up with a situation where he has to go for electoral reform as part of the bargain. And if that happened, and I hope that happens. Do I think we need, something needs to change fundamentally. And I think PR is the way to go. I think proportional representation is the way to go. I think if that happens, then the whole field is open now. It means smaller parties can make some kind of a difference. It means that we can get, we can have a more democratic society. And it works perfectly well in European countries, these coalitions. I don't have any fear of that. Well, you know what a third.

funniest things the last couple of years were when it was still quite tight between Labor and the Tories, there was all that stuff. Hashtag progressive alliance, the Lib Dems, bless them, they got so excited. And then the moment that Labor opened up a significant poll lead, the Lib Dems just got ghosted out of existence. And that hashtag stopped appearing. It is a weird thing with the Lib Dems, right? They should be a force right now because you've got a deeply unpopular party in power. You've got a Labour Party that are apathetic and disappointing in their base already, we've all they've have even got in power. At least Blair waited than two years in four years, right?

Lib Dems, they just don't have an identity nationally. And when they campaign, they tend to like, they'll say one thing in one constituency. They'll say, oh, we want to build loads of ours. And they'll say, well, we don't want that. And they'll go, well, Lord do we. We're against that. And then they'll go to another by-election and they'll say the opposite, because they're able to do that in by-elections. I think the moment

they have to have a national platform and they're going to struggle. I mean, this is weird people. So why has this ended up being a beat up on the Lib Dems? I guess the point is that this should be ripe for a third party to make a difference. And actually, the third party that's more likely to make a difference now is reform. Exactly. And the interesting thing about reform is, is not actually reform. It's the person who set up reform, which is Nigel Farage. Who you think is going to be the leader of the Tory party.

Well, I don't think, I don't know if he's going to be the leader of the Tory party. But I think Nigel is a political joker in the pack. And the move that Nigel makes will significantly influence the result of the next election. I think if he puts, if he goes full on reform and it's like, look, we're going to hold the Conservatives' feet to the fire. We can all agree the Conservative Party is no longer fit for purpose. You may vote for them and they may say a few things, but it's not going to happen. We all know it. Vote for change. That will have a very real impact, not only on the Conservatives, but also on Labor, because there's this attitude amongst Labour that, oh, you know, working

class people have been disappointed in the Tories, they're going to come back to us. Well, why should they when you have failed them for generation? When Soella had to leave the government, actually what you saw is a lot of people saying, well, working class people in the North. I mean, that basically lost the Tory party, the Red War, per leaving. And those people, they're not going to vote for Labor. A lot of them are going to vote for reform or abstain completely. And Labor may end up getting back in, but that isn't, do you see what I'm saying?

The thing about reform, though, is they don't stand a big, just like you, Kip, chance of winning in any single constituency. So they can pile with 11 or 12 percent, whereas the Lib Dems, actually got chances of winning seats. If we had PR, you know, they would be big players. I agree with you, Jeff. But what they can do is take maybe enough votes away from the conservatives that somebody else comes in like a Lib Dem, for example.

Or maybe they could mobilize enough of the traditional working class old school labor that it might mean that another party gets in or a conservative might win. So it's going to be very interesting to see the moves that Nigel makes because I think that is going to have a very real significant impact on the result of the election. I mean, it was interested with Farage on I'm a celebrity. I don't know if you saw him. Did you see him in the shorts?

No. I mean, this is very flivorous, but he's packing heat down there. He really was. I mean, have you not seen this? No. What do you mean by that remark? Packed stacked downstairs. Oh, I thought he meant he was armed.

No, no, no, no, packing heat. Imagine if he'd gone in a jungle with a shiv. And he's just like, right, well, well, belly is quite tough and, you know, I need to handle myself. Yeah, I'm basically saying he's got a big cock, which is probably like the most low brown thing. I could have said he also dressed to the right, which a lot of people know is. But I think what was interesting about him on that was that I don't actually think he mobilised people who have vote for him very well. But all he did was a sort of politician's job on that. I think he has like, he has a strong appeal because he communicates in this direct.

way. But I don't know if he's going to... The problem with him going to the Tories, right? Is they're already in a battle in the Blue Wall now with Lib Dems? If he goes to the Tories, then there's a lot of people just go, well, I'll vote Lib Dem, because that guy is distasteful to me. So they're in this weird electoral thing that Labor I almost had in 2019. So I don't think it's as simple as Farage goes to the Tories and that sorts them out. That just presents them with another set of problems.

But the difficulty with Nigel Farage going to the Tories is the Tory party is actually against him. The Tory party is way to the left of the Tory voting base. So that's why I don't think that will happen. Yeah. So I don't think that will happen. But what I think will happen is whether reform is... See, I don't think most people could name you a single policy that reform has. It's a protest vote. It's not criticism.

It's a sentiment, isn't it? Like, things are out of control. The country's going... If their slogan was the country's going to the dogs, you don't... Absolutely bloody whine is. Absolutely. But one thing I'm not so sure about Andrew is this idea. that the PI's answer to all our problems. I don't look at Europe and think, oh, that's how we should do it.

I mean, one of the things, you know, we've talked about this, I think with David Starkey, when we were talking about proportional representation is the first pass-the-post system we have here that produces two major parties is very good at defanging the extremes of each party. It prevents the emergence of extremist parties. I think if you went to PR now, you are going get some pretty extreme things on both sides. Well, I suppose I should clarify. I don't think PR is the solution to all our problems. I don't think that.

But I, but I am a Democrat and I do believe in democracy. And I do like, I think it was completely outrageous that when you could win that massive share of the vote and they ended up with what one seat or something. I mean, just something really ridiculous. It's like that's just not democratic. So I think on a point of principle we should have PR. Whether, whether it, even if it fucks everything up eventually, I still think we should out of P. It's like with Brexit.

You're still on the left, mate. Principle about or above reality. A lot of people say, well, Brexit would cause economic ruination. Okay, fine. But we should still do it because the principle is right. You should be able to vote out the people in charge and we can't do it when we're with the EU. Speaking of the EU, I heard an interesting theory.

We've had a lot of European countries, partly because of PR, moved to the right, quite significantly in some cases, is, I think it's in the new statesmen, as an article saying that in 10 years time, you could find that a lot, as the EU moves in line with those sort of political movements, a lot of Remainers go, well, maybe, you know, not necessarily, oh, we don't want to be in it, but well, perhaps it's not the kind of band of kindly wizards that we once thought it was.

And then loads of Brexiteers going, oh, the temperature looks nice in there. It could be time of rejoined. Because actually, ultimately, we've got the European elections coming up, is that if there's far right or significantly right-wing administrations in a lot of these countries, policy would eventually have to reflect that. No, that's good though, isn't it? That's what I mean, that's what's good about PR, is that if the risk is that a far right party can come to power

or at least have a major clout because the centrist parties just aren't addressing those issues, then that's a good argument for that, isn't it? Because that means... I know, I'm just saying that we could see an interesting flip on Remainer and rejoin sentiment. It's not that they don't like... Not that they don't like the idea of the European project,

but the temperature of that swimming pool is like, oh, that's a bit, you know, that's not my... That's not my scene as much. And also, I think, you know, when it comes to rejoining the EU, there was a graph that I saw today that shows, like, basically, the surge in belief that we were wrong to leave the EU literally goes in line with the cost of living crisis. Of course.

Now, I'm not going to say that once the economy improves, everyone will be pro-Brexit, but I do think that the sort of dissatisfaction with it has been exacerbated by the fact everyone feels fucking skin. I don't think the rejoin thing is ever going to happen. But the thing is, there are many countries in Europe that are worse off. And as you know, both of us voted remain. But there was a, you know, there's this Larry something.

I can never remember. Elliot from the Guardian. The lone straight white man who still writes for the Guardian. What's going on with the Guardian? Are they based now? They just have one. They keep around. They have one for diversity.

But I gave him a good review. Yeah. It's weird. He wrote an article, no, this isn't the one. He wrote an article basically saying the rejoin thing's never going to happen because people actually do realize that, yeah, things are not great in the UK. they're much worse in many European countries. Yeah, we've recovered better than Germany, better than France.

You know, it's not, it's, it's, the argument is stuck up. And look, we're talking, look, I don't know about a great deal about, you know, European politics and, but there are some, let's just say, very right-wing parties that are doing very well in a lot of European countries. Yeah. So this idea that, you know, you're going to move to, we're going to go back into the EU and everybody in the EU is having this wonderful time, it there's a lot of very angry, very frustrated people who have got a lot of legitimate criticisms with the EU. If you look at basically

the vast majority of southern European countries, they want out of the EU, a lot of them do. I just hope Holland doesn't ban weed. On that happy note, should we do a couple of frivolous stories before we head on over to our paywall section where we talk about our predictions for the future and all that? We had the Somerset Gimp. We had the French priests get amber a lot for noncing. We've got to go. I mean, I've never thought I'd say it's good. Could we do the French priest nonce instead? Yeah, let's do the French priest nonsense.

I want to know about the Somerset Gimps. Yeah, we will do. We will. Jeff is worried for his career. Yeah, exactly. I genuinely think, I genuinely think it's a very dark news story. It sounds funny. Yeah.

So this is a story about French Catholic priests will be forced to wear scannable QR code so the public can identify if they're a sex offender. Does that imply that the majority are? Well, that's sort of, where the funny angle in this comes in. Because actually, this is a story about priests abusing children. So it's not that frivolous.

No. However, if you think about the fact that this indicates that most of them probably are noncers, then it becomes really funny. I think it's a bit like, you know, you know when you've got a cat that kills loads of sparrows, you have to put a bell on it. Yeah, it's one of them.

But for noncers. My favourite about all of this is red I get, green I get, that's all clear, you're good to go. What about orange? Orange. It's where you're sort of not sure, but you're willing to take the risk. Is it a colour code?

Yeah. Catholic priests in France will be made to wear traffic light coded identification tags to allow the public to check whether they may have faced sexual abuse charges. Cards will feature a QR code scannable by a mobile phone

that will flag a red, orange or green light depending on whether it's holder had been stripped of clerical status. The scheme, announced by the Bishop's Conference of France on Wednesday, will allow easier identification of priests, able to lead mass and hear confessions. This cannot be real.

Isn't this also with a decorum issue? You can't just go around scanning priests. Well, unless you really have to. But look at their history. But how would this work in practice? You see a priest, you go up to it with your phone. Do they just acquiesce to this? Is there any kind of discourse that takes place?

Could I scan you father? Does the father get to consent? I mean, there's all sorts of. It's a minefield, I think. Honestly, at some point, I thought you were going to say, like, oh, it was mentioned at a town meeting. You know, some of these stories that have got a sort of like fairly baseless. This is getting decided at the highest level. This is like the Premier League of Nouncing, mate.

No, the Vatican didn't sign up on this. There's no way the Vatican signed up. No, no, they don't want scanning for nonsense. No, exactly. How are they going to replace their entire workforce? So who put this in? Was this the government? Was this Macron? No. It was the French church. Yeah, it's the French church. No. So here we go. Members of the public will see either a red light, an amber light,

or a green light upon scanning one of the new cards. lights indicate that a priest has been stripped of their status and cannot perform various clerical duties. The database will be updated a standard once a year or immediately in cases of serious misconduct. Orange lights will indicate that a priest has limited powers due to experience or sanctions. So that's a semi-nonce. Yeah. Like, so that's someone who's done a bit of non-s. Yeah. Yeah. So someone's just dabbled in noncing. Yeah. But we don't know. Yeah. It's a Shroding does nonce. Okay. You know, like, when I watch Christmas specials growing up, It was more common-wise, Vondre Preby.

They didn't talk about non-sie priests. I'll tell you that much. When are we doing the song and dance routine? You know, I just think, like, what do you do with those orange ones? No, exactly. You can't. I don't think you should have any kind of system where you have to, like, wear something to show that you're not something terrible. It's like, you remember when they tried to introduce the safety pin that you'd put a safety pin on if you weren't a racist?

Yeah. And there was a campaign to do this. When? When? Yeah, that happened. That was a thing. I actually know the woman who started it. I used to be friends.

When did this happen? It was a while ago. When was it at concerted about... I noticed you weren't wearing a pin, mate. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Where's your pin, mate? Why do you hate them? Silence is violence.

The default expectation of a priest should be that he won't commit sexual... Mate. Well, not based on facts, mate. He or she. Sorry, I apologize. And also, let's look at the facts, because we've got to be objective. I don't think if you look at the history and the facts, that is the basic assumption we should make about a priest. No, but surely if a priest has a red thing, right, they wouldn't be a priest anymore.

more anyway. They would be they would have been ditched. It says they'd be so why would you need to scan them? That's a good point. Do you know the things that like when you do something like this you've you sort of war game what could you get in trouble for? There's so many subjects where he could have I reckon it'll be this I reckon it'll be comedians not just joke about but endorse nonsense. They'll get a little bit of what we said here. What do you mean we're anti nonce? Yeah. Well I mean I're the woke so you have to go the other time. Yeah. Oh Jeff. You've got to be prone. What's my own. What's my attracted to people. pedophiles.

Yeah. Is that a thing? Minor attractive people. And there are some activists who want that to be part of LGBT. Yeah. At this point, it's got to be, it's a sexual orientation.

According to them, they can't help it. This is a prank. You cannot tell me that they're minor. He's seeing his mainstream looking. Gen. Just the fact of this. Mine are attracted persons, Matt.

Yeah. Jeff, who's saying this, though? Relax. All these TV shows that you do, they're dying anyway. Welcome. I mean, the water's lovely.

What? Who's saying that that's a thing that should be. Look, forget about mainstream. Who is saying that minor attracted persons should be the word instead of nonce? The map activist. Map activists. And these are, there are some of them. Yeah.

But there always have been. It's like, I feel like a 1970s. I'm blowing me down. Harry and Harmon, Labour MP, used to be a member of something called the paedophile information. Well, she wasn't a member. I think she endorsed or supported or helped. Yeah. Yeah.

Something. Yeah. Something. I take that back. She didn't used to be a member, War Wash. Andrews. I think she appeared at something that they did or at least wrote in support or said She was Peterfile information exchange of Jason.

Yeah, that's the, that's the best. This was before the internet. Now we're just playing like cancel mine sweeper, I'm there. Yeah. You know what, Jeff's uncomfortable face is the best thing about this. It is. This has been the highlight. I don't mind cancel the stuff, the litigious stuff.

That's the, you haven't said anything, mate. You haven't said it's us that are going down, mate. Silence is violence. Yeah, exactly. My favorite thing during that whole episode was there was a girl in a T-show would say silence is consent. Yeah. And I was like, have you applied this to other contexts?

Yeah, that wouldn't work, would it? No. Because it was about racism. She was saying if you're silent, you're consent. She made complicity. Yeah, yeah. But it said consent and you're going, if you map this onto other things. Yeah. That's the point with slogans.

They sound great when you say them. You're like, yes. And then you think, you look, you do it down a bit. There is a tendency on the left that they do like, the progressive left, I should say, where they like an incantation. Oh, they love it. No one's safe till everyone's safe.

It's sort of like, well, that's not like, it's just my logical brain keeps in. You go, but that's not exactly true. You know, with someone's liberation is everyone's. And you go, maybe it just feels good to say these little sing-song things. Often these slogans, though, what's it, Robert J. Lifton called them, thought terminating cliches. Because you say them in substitute of an argument because the arguments don't stand up. So instead, just have a slogan.

And you have to agree with the slogan. I think that's the part of the topic. We were a pro-Palestine protest by accident, we were just walking past. And it was interesting to me, while Hamas holds hundreds of Jewish-Israeli hostages, they were chanting no justice, no peace. Yeah.

And I thought, have you thought, I mean. No, they haven't thought any of it through now, have they? But then you said there were queers for Palestine there at that. There were. At that one, they were actually queer for Palestine. Yeah. I went to another protest, a pro-Palestan one, which was a smaller one,

which was, you know, there's a video on our channel that's, I think it's approaching like half a million views now, where it was a kind of interesting range of opinions and it wasn't like that silly, but the one we saw was like completely incoherent. Yeah. And the argument is completely incoherent. Anyway, we're getting serious again.

Shall we do another frivolous story? Yeah. Well, I think we should do the gimp thing, just because I don't know about this. I think is going to sink into it. No, no, no. I didn't know that Somerset had gimps. Well, it's very progressive.

No, you talk about the BBC with a misleading headline. I don't think it's wriggling is the problem. I think it's dry-humping stuff. Yeah. So what happened? Can you tell me what happened? Well, some-read the headline. If you stick the headline back up. Somerset Gardner banned from wriggling in gimp suits.

Excellent. That's more of a pirate accent. Yeah, there is more pirate. Yeah. So why do you think this is a very dark story? Well, because this guy, you know, at first it was like there was sightings of a gimp, and that was sort of funny. Yeah, the word gimp is funny.

But it sort of turned out that, By and large he was just like making women feel uncomfortable. What do you think Gimps do? You've been around left-week media. Gimp, in my mind, he's a consensual type businessman saying, can I be your gift? Look at that, mate. Tell me that picture is not funny.

But what was he actually assaulting people? No, he was just making them uncomfortable. Yeah, but then there's a lot of weird. Look, I put this way, if my wife come home and said that that guy had followed that, I'd fucking batter him. That's against a lot, man. Exactly. And what you're doing there is quite literally punching down.

I don't get, I will happily advocate violence for blokes to follow women in gimp outfits. Is it legal to walk around in a gimp suit? Why not? Well, that's what I'm asking. Why don't we read the fucking article? Oh yeah, so I'm in a good point. A gardener who terrified women in Somerset, in the Somerset Village rather, has been banned from writhing on the floor in an all black body suit in public. So I'm guessing it isn't illegal, but he's been banned.

Okay, okay. Yeah, so immediately wriggling to writhing. Riving. Riving. That's quite an escalation. Yeah, because wriggling, I think it's fine, writhing is his step. Anyway, what is this legend's name? Joshua Hunt 32 was found guilty last week of causing intentional harassment, alarm or distress to his victims.

He has now been handed a sexual harm risk order, which prevents him from wearing any type of mask unless for medical reasons. The order will be in place for five years. So he's not allowed to wear any kind of mask. Yeah. I mean, that does seem to be extreme. It's going to make carnivals so boring. It doesn't sound to me like he'd done anything illegal there. I think what's weird there is because they also don't understand the mask thing.

They've just got just any kind of mask here. So they don't understand it, I guess. I mean, first of all, you're just rolling back down. The mask, I mean, that doesn't really fit with what I, that's more Halloweeny, I would say. It's a little bit Beast of Jersey, isn't it? It's that sort of like scary fetishy thing. I mean, but is that illegal?

I mean, if you're going to criminalise that kind of thing, do you remember when there was that spate of people who dressed up as clowns and chase people with chainsaws. Yeah. That, to me, is comparable. I think there should be something in that. But I had two chainsaws. I think they did just as a kind of,

with the chain removed or something, but it was like a... You didn't know that. Yeah, exactly. The restrictions on this guy get better. Among the restrictions imposed, Hunt is now banned from being in possession of any type of mask or face covering in a public place,

so no pro-Palestine protest for him. Yeah. Waring or being in possession of black all-in-one garments in a public place. So you can't wear a burqar either. crawling, wriggling or writhing on the floor in a public place whilst wearing a full body covering clothing that appears like a full body covering

and or mask, full face and or full face. I think this sounds quite authoritarian to me because now your policing is dressed sense. But you know, there is that modern thing is like kink shaming, right? They say, you should never shame in with his king. Yeah, you should, you should. There's some stuff that is utterly depraved.

I'm happy to go like a 1950s conservative on this. he needs bloody help he's wrong in the head if that's how he gets his kicks I think you should be able to fucking watch this this is the exact opposite of what the BBC have promoted you see this episode of Doctors about furries

where a guy basically who gets a kick out of dressing as a bear is thrown out of his house by his prejudiced old grandfather and then he goes to a nightclub and takes the grandfather along and someone's sitting there dressed as a cow and there's a pig and there's all sort of

and the grandfather realizes he just needs to be accepting It wouldn't be the first bear in nightclub. Boom! I was going to say, I have, like, with people like furries. That's a Christmas special day. Exactly. With people like furries,

there's a kind of sympathy that I have for them because there's a moment when you're young where you're discovering your sexuality, where you're finding out what it is that you like and what you don't like. Can you imagine realizing that you really like it when your partner gets into a cow suit

and you're in a bear outfit? But it's not a thing you keep to yourself, isn't it? You should be ashamed of it. Yeah. I go straight to the therapist. I go, right, something's gone wrong here. Why do I like this? There's a big furry community now.

You know, it's kind of a big, it's the next civil rights issue. I'm definitely going to leave this with more questions and answers. The education of Jeff Northguys have progress here. Do you know, Jeff, this has been beautiful, mate. It's just watching a mind slowly have his mind blown. I want to sit in my little Middle England bubble. you know, getting a bit cross about something. I'm like to think of myself as a diet gammon,

not the full, the low sodium gammon. Yeah. Well, too late. Well, on that happy note, gentlemen, we're going to head over to our supporters where we're going to talk about our predictions for 2024 and catch up on a bunch of other stuff. So that is going to be extra special content.

And we're going to be wearing weird hats as well. We've got all sorts of Christmas outfits. Before we go, let's get them out for the lads. Elliot, what we wear? Get them out for the lads. There we go. There we go. I can't have the antlers.

I quite have fancy the antlers. I thought Jeff bags you the antlers, didn't he's got the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that goes on there, didn't it? Yeah. Oh, does it? Oh, no, you got that. I mean, this isn't especially festive on its own, I'll say.

Here we go. It's just a... I'm not wearing... Is this a wig or a beard? I think, is it a beard? It must be a beard, yeah. You should go to be a big, because it'll go in your trim, baby. Actually, he's giving me a just-stop-wilt-a-shirt, which I'm not going to wear.

I mean, this has got to be the weirdest recorder. We've got right from the most serious issues and I've ended wearing a fucking deer stalker. All right, head on over to locals and check out the bonus content there. Santa's always been fetishy. How don't you mean? Well, because he comes down your chimney at night. Oh, no. No, I didn't mean that in a sexual way.

Yeah. I mean, that's a fantasy.