TRIGGERnometry - Geoff Norcott on Conservative Comedy, Brexit & Free Speech

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Right-leaning comedian Geoff Norcott (@geoffnorcott) discusses conservatism, being a working class Tory, comedy, offense culture, free speech, diversity of thought, immigration, populism, austerity, Brexit, the European Union, Tommy Robinson, the far right and a lot more with the guys at TRIGGERnometry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin. And this is a show for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts. Our fantastic guest this week is a wonderful comedian,

Jeff Norcott, welcome to Trigonometry. Thanks for having me on. It's great to have you here, man. Listen, the question we always like to ask our guest before we get into the interview itself is, how are you where you are, what's your back? What's your story? Now, we know quite a bit about it,

but tell us anyway. So I am a comedian. I'd probably be better known for being right of center, conservative voter, leave voter, working class, just scumbag,

basically, depending on who you ask. But I've been around for a while. You know, I was talking about when I arrived here, I've been a circuit comedian for a long time since the early noughties. Then I did, like,

writing for television. You know, lots of different phases of my career did a period where I did a lot of gigs for the Armed Forces. Obviously, I'm not totally pitching for,

Jim Davidson's been in there. But yeah, and then, you know, sort of around about the early noughties, I sort of decided to chat about the fact that I voted conservative, because I thought it was just odd. My wife was the one that said it. Oh, really?

Well, I just said to her, like, you know, the club game is brilliant, do you know what I mean? Yeah, you do end up talking a lot about gender and stuff like that, and I still do, to be fair, and she said, I need a new subject, need a new angle here, you know,

what's, and she said, we're voting toys, a bit weird, isn't it? Now, it's hard to calibrate that now, because that was in the middle of the coalition, right, which is a slightly different era, a bit more, it wasn't the Tory brand that was much of a problem as it was the Eaton set or the Bullinden Club, right, and austerity as an idea was a problem. So I started talking about it, and people are like, yeah, yeah, it's interesting, but I think the real change maybe happened in 2015 when there was

that surprise Tory majority, and then again in 2016, when the Leave vote happened. So basically, as the country sort of descended into political chaos, things have been, you know, pretty Christian. Well, what about you? It's interesting because you come from a working club. background. You talk in your comedy about how your dad was disabled, right? Yes, yeah, yeah. So you're... Not according to him, though. He had one arm, but it's above the waist. It's not disability. But traditionally, someone from that background, you would not expect them to be voting.

Well, expect, but traditionally, I mean, there's plenty of, like, you know, evidence that has been the case. I mean, I think in the 1992 election, it was called Mondaio Man, you know, which was people that sort of like, Donald Wright, you know what I mean, bit aspirational. moved out of London, bought bigger house, you know, garage, stuff like that,

that just wanted to keep doing well for themselves. And I think that's one of the things, I suppose, that I've always had a problem with the Labour Party, particularly, you know, in recent years, is what message do they have

for aspirational working class voters, of which there are many. And, you know, and that's the thing about British society is there is these written rules about who you vote for, but actually all the evidence suggests that things have always been different.

If anything, you know, the Tories right now are doing very, well with working class voters, Labor doing very well in city centres with middle-class metropolitan type. So the idea that any one party has a sort of entitlement to your vote, I think it's a bit dated as an idea really. And have you always voted Tory? No, no, I started off. I think I always was a Tory, if you know what I mean, like looking back, looking back. Even when you were a teacher? Even when I was a teacher. Yeah, I mean, you talk about, like

admitting that you're a Tory in stand-up, in a staff room. I mean, I remember once I bought the telegraph into a staff room and they were all like and I didn't really I didn't even realize what I'd done wrong there but teachers yeah they're pretty militant you know and I I think as a kid I look back now on some of my attitudes and I think yeah it's got a judgy little bastard at times you know I mean because I lived on a council estate and stuff and I remember like some days me and my sister would be the only ones going to school and I'll be like look at them just sitting around wasting their fucking lugs and scrounging get one with it and stuff and I was I remember

One day in particular, like, you know, my family always giving me stick about it. It was, apparently I was about nine and I really gave out to my mum for the fact that she was still in her dressing gown. Like, sort of when I came back from school, I was appalled by this fact. I was like, what do you have, you done anything of your day? You know, you should get out there, should motivate yourself. So there was evidence that it was always there. But I did vote Labour the first time, you know, 97. We all did, right?

Things were going to only get better. Well, that was the Tory government basically, wasn't it? It was kind of, yeah. And in 2001, more the same. 2005, I remember at the time there was a lot of stealth taxes, a lot more than Annie State coming from Labor, and I just instinctive, the council tax. Everyone forgets this, council tax more than,

well, certainly where I was living, doubled, you know. And I thought, where's this going? And I voted Lib Dem in 2005, and then it's been Tory ever since 2010. And do you think you'll stay with the Tory? Do you think you're a fight? Well, it's difficult, isn't it? I don't think I'll go any further, right?

You know, but equally, yeah, it's weird. I think in a way some of the stick I've got has radicalised me, you know, as a Tory. I might have just kept these views personal. At this point, I mean, I'd never vote for a Labour government under Corbett, never. That's just not my cup of tea at all. That's interesting, why not? Well, because of the brand of politics and it's just not a set, it's too hard left for me. You know, what I believe in, you know, intrinsically and part of the thing that makes me a Tory

is a small state, you know, a lean benefit system and relatively low taxation. I mean, that is the opposite of what Jeremy Corbyn, you know, wants. And I also think it's quite a regressive approach to politics generally. But I suppose if I hadn't spoke about my politics, if Labor, you know, a more centrist type, more sensible person got in charge and, you know, they sort of moved back to the centre.

There would have been a chance, perhaps. But I've just been called a Tory wanker. So many times, I sort of think, well, I'm going to live out my days as a Tory wanker. That's why I am now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's how I am. You know, and the Lib Dems, my problem with them is obviously, you know,

their immediate response to the referendum. It's very hard, you know, to call yourself Democrats and then just immediately kind of ignore a huge democratic mandate was a problem. At the same time, as Tim Farron was sort of revealing that, you know, he didn't agree with gay people having sex. And I thought, were you sort of a lot of liberal or democratic, really? I don't know what you are. I mean, I've got some sympathy for the Lib Demand.

My mum was a liberal. my dad was a Labor vote and stuff So maybe there was a part of me that was just making up You know, the trio of very politically motivated people It's an interesting thing where you touch on Corbyn Because you talk about aspirational Working class people Because the thing that strikes me about the hard left

Whether that's Corbin or people in America Is this sense of victimhood That is being spread so much within that ideology This mentality that people who are working class Or people who are ethnic minorities or whatever They're victims of life Yeah need help from the government.

Yeah, I mean, for me, some of that gets in the way of what I'm able to achieve. Now, I, you know, my white working class male lived on a council estate for a bit of my life. The problem is, from my point of view, there are opportunities that are perhaps, you know, a lot of people would see me, you know, relatively high up that pyramid. You know, some people, you know, compared to would you rather be like a posh woman or a working class man? You know, it does get complicated. But the amount of time, all the time you spend worrying about that, you're not actually achieving the things that you want to achieve, you know,

And you could, I think mostly the things that I've wanted, if I've wanted them enough and I've worked hard enough, I've got. Now, I know people right now watching that would be, go, want you say that as a white man. But there's no doubt that the more time you spend chasing a goal, you know, to use a phrase of the left, I can't be what I can't see. So, you know, it's better to spend that time going for it.

You know, some people obviously have to protest, but that's not my style. I'd just rather go and do it, do you know what I mean? I mean, there was no real precedent for, or certainly modern precedent for being a, a Tory comedian, but I thought rather than moaning about, like, why, there are no Tory comedians on? I thought I'd just see if I could write some decent jokes, you know, first up, and then make it to that point where you've put yourself in a position to get some of those things that you want. I remember when you first came out as a Tory, it sounds ridiculous.

Came out as a Tory. It sounds ridiculous. Well, it wasn't totally dissing, I mean, the old man was disappointed. Yeah. I mean, not a lot on the gay thing, but as a Tory, he's like, you know, raised. I'd rather you were gay. Yeah, yeah. I thought I'd raise you better than this, son.

Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, you know, that phrase has been used before. But I suppose that's the context of the stand-up scene, isn't it? It's how it identifies itself. But going back to what I was going to say, like, the moment you came out as a Tory and I saw it on Facebook, I thought, well, Jeff's career is fucked. Yeah.

And that was my initial impulse, my initial thought. That was that actually you've sabotaged your career by saying that you're all right of centre. What was it like, you know, the first time you did... Well, the time I did it, I didn't really have any profile or anything like that, so it's more like an anomaly, do you know what I mean? I wrote a couple of bits on Chortle and stuff like that.

People are like, oh, all right. Like I say, it's easy to forget that it wasn't as toxic then, perhaps, you know, with the passage of time and, you know, certain things that have happened, it's seen as more toxic now. I think perhaps the, in a way, coming out as a leave vote, I felt more like that. Really?

Yeah, the morning after the reference. referendum you know I because I voted leave I believed you know still believed in the long run it's the right thing for this country but I didn't expect it to win yeah so when I voted I was like now I had a very young son at this point and I was like well I don't you know because because also I looked at Facebook and it's it's a decent sort of focus group how the industry see something and it was like stupid fucking racist yeah and I thought you know this might have overdone it you know just in terms of my own sort of you know career and stuff like that and I was very

worried about not being able to provide for my son on this basis. Because there was that couple of weeks, wasn't there? Afterwards, everyone lost their fucking minds for a minute. A couple of weeks. A couple of years. Every time there's a bit of negotiation. Yeah, we're all going to be eating rats, all that stuff. But yeah, that was more perhaps a time.

And it's funny how people sort of misremember what happened because I've also been accused of cynicism as well. So the opposite of what you're saying was, I only said it to get myself a career. Now, what happened was, I just did off my own back. There was no real dialogue in 2013 about the absence of right voices. And I did a show. It was February at the Leicester Comedy Festival, and it got nominated for Best New Show.

And then I think it was in the March, Caroline Raphael, who was head of comedy at BBC Radio 4, said, where are all the right-wing comedians? I was like, so I got my agent and sent her, you know, an email and try and get on her radar. But I think what happened, because those two things were quite close together. Everyone thought I read that article

and was like, oh, I'm going to become a Tory. Because... There's a character act. Except the character has my name, beliefs. It's a way of speaking, opinions. But do you ever find when you're talking about Brexit in a comedy club where everybody goes on goes, you know, believers are scum,

toys are scum, well... In fairness, I think that that period, I think things have changed now. I think that there was a period where a lot of comics did do that. Yeah. It's been a while since I've heard that, but I think that, yeah, people might have misjudged the mood.

All right, and you've never felt like you do pro-Brexit material, especially in Zone 1 in London, and just feel you lose. But wherever you go, but wherever you go, there were a lot of people that voted leave. I mean, this is one of the weird things about it, you know, with the sheer numbers game. You know, you talk about in London, what is it, 37% voted leave. I mean, if you were in a room of 100 people, right, and 37 of them voted leave, 63 of them voted, that would feel like a lot of people. And in some ways, at times, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference of, you know, just looking around on a pure optics level who's in the majority here.

So there's always a lot of people that most of them don't give as much of a shit as we do, you know, in the comedy game. A lot of them are, most people are reasonable people, you know. The remains that you hear online, the ultra-remainers are exactly that. Most people are happy to have the piss taken out of them. And the other thing is, is it's not pro-Brexit material as such. I think that it's very hard to do any comedy about something where you're saying, I really believe in this man, and here's some. jokes about what I believe in. I mean, comedy almost exclusively comes from what you think is shit, you know.

So it's aiming the satirical fire back at the, you know, the Remain way of thinking. And I think that, I mean, the simple rule I have is like satire is always possible as if, if the three Hs, right, hysteria, hypocrisy and hyperbole, right? Now, if you think about all those things and you look at, you know, some wings of the Remain Camp, hysteria, you know, hyperbill, yeah, I think we'll still have sandwiches. you know, hypocrisy. That's the big one, hypocrisy. There's so much of that flying on both sides.

So much of that flying. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. And they're all, they become like each other. That's what so odd. You know, I think ultra-remainers have become exactly. And maybe that's what you, sometimes they say to defeat something. You have to become the beast in order to beat it. But you sometimes think, do you realize what you're saying here?

Do you realize how fucking mental it sounds for you? And I think that one bit of project fear that has worked, actually. I think a lot of it fails. but I think the thing of making it seem like a no deal Brexit is actually the cliff edge. I think that that's actually worked for most people, you know, for the Remain Camp. The language is stuck, isn't it? You know, a cliff edge Brexit crashing out of the EU. There was an interesting stat about, you know, they talk about the reduction in GDP against,

because it's not actually a reduction in GDP, is it against what Britain would have otherwise had. So the worst case scenario, right, was over 15 years. This is Mark Carnage's prediction, so you know this was pessimistic. I mean, if that keys and told you it was raining, you go, hang on, just check out the window. But he said it would be 7.7% lower over 15 years. Now, that roughly works out about half a percent of GDP a year. Now, you think that's not obviously that's a big sum of money. It could build hospitals and schools.

Would the average punter recognize that year in, year out? I don't know, you know. But they've been quite successful in trade in that sort of environment and that sense of fear. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world. So let me tell you about something that's actually. right. Sleep, specifically getting more of it, better quality, the kind where you wake up and feel like a human being, rather than someone who's been thrown down a staircase. Most mattresses are just layers of synthetic foam and crossed fingers. You're spending a third of your life on the

thing, and most people have no idea what's actually in it. Avicardo green mattress is different. Their mattresses are certified organic, built from natural materials, designed to actually support your body properly rather than just hold you in one position until, morning, the craftsmanship is real. These are mass-produced objects. Someone has put thought into them. I'll be honest. I'm not the person who thinks carefully about where he sleeps. My dating history will tell you that. I'm the person who's been on the same mattress for eight years and called it fine. But the older I get, the more I notice that fine isn't actually fine. Your body tells you, if you're going to invest in anything for your home, your bed is the one that pays you back

every single night. Avocado products are made. not manufactured, and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. Go to avocado greenmatress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Well, actually the stats show that about 70% of leave voters would happily sacrifice a chunk of their income. Yeah. For example, reducing immigration.

Yes, yeah. And then taking back. Well, I mean, the top thing in the Lord Ashcroft pole was sovereignty, wasn't it, right? Self-determination in a pure sense. But that is one thing, right? And I had this chat with the producer of the Mash Report, Chris Stott, who's at Ardenham Maynard. A really good bloke. And we just, we just accept this to the one thing like he doesn't understand, you know.

And at least he's honest about it. They just don't get it. They just don't get it as a principle. And you think, in a way, you have to respect that. There's two years on it. If people don't understand sort of totaled self-determination now, they never will. And I think that, you know, they'll say things, oh, but we do so. I mean, we don't, because there's things that we can't do as a country.

And I think that immigration was interesting because, like, it's always perceived that if you was, if you was against freedom and movement, that's because you wanted really low immigration. It's not, for a lot of people, certainly myself, it wasn't that. It just seemed quite an absolutism, you know, freedom and movement in perpetuity for all time. You think that, you know, any nation state shouldn't be allowed to, you know, sort of appropriate their needs based on what was happening in their country at that point. I just thought it was strange that that was decided centrally, you know. And also, you know, when it comes to immigration,

sometimes for a long time now in Britain, people have been able to, successive governments have been able to go, well, you know, it makes it a negative thing, doesn't it? We go, well, you know, the EU is better for us, freedom of movement, it's just one of those things that comes with, you know, goes with the territory. Whereas if you actually take responsibility for the amount of migrants coming here, you actually have to sell it to the public in a positive way, you know.

One of the reasons that the Windrush scandal had broad sort of sympathy, from the public is that was how that that was sold to the British people at the time. People are coming to Britain because we need these people to come and do our jobs. Whereas for too long now, it's just been seen as one of these unfortunate byproducts of being part of the EU. Well, that's what I was going to say. I'm an immigrant here, right? You know, Francis Madoa came here as well to this country. I don't understand how they've created this cultural meme in society

that if you want to control or reduce immigration, that's racist. I don't understand how that came to be the... I mean, there's no doubt there's some people that want to end it that are. Yeah, absolutely. But I think there was that watershed moment, wasn't there? Do you remember Gordon Brown and there was that woman who... Gillian Duffy. Yeah, Gillian Duffy.

She spoke to him about a lot of different things, you know, a lot of stuff that was very pro-NHS, and then she ended it by saying something about immigration, and he called her an awful woman. And I think it was like, you know, things were changing very fast. You know, the Labour government had sort of underestimated, you know, the impact of it. And I don't necessarily comes from a place.

of total cynicism but but they just hadn't legislated it's a way of filing it away isn't it well if you've got any concerns about migration whatsoever then then you're a racist and you know the problem is is it just breeds a backlash right and and I think that you know I think I think that for this economy of this country to be successful they will be you know of course they'll be like no one ever said migration was was ending but again that's one I suppose that's one of the remain bits of hyperbole that has stuck, the idea that, you know, people will say, well, I won't be able to go and work in Europe now.

You go, you know, that relative of yours that works in the United States, right? That's not part of, you know, the EU. So these things will be possible. Admittedly, they might be slightly more. Then would be, you know, there'd be more forms to fill out and stuff, and it won't be as guaranteed. But, yeah, the absolutism has been quite jarring.

And there's a people's, well, there's a march for a people's vote on Brexit. Yeah, yeah. Do you agree with that? Well, I don't agree. it of people's vote. Right. I just don't. I feel like,

you know, because I'm an AFC Wimbledon fan. It's like I won't call that football team in Milton Keynes, you know, I won't use that

because it's not, is it? It's not, they are not the MK. I can't say it. I still can't say it. And it's not a people's vote, is it's a second referendum.

And I think that in some ways what that betrays is like, you know, people like Andrew Adonis who just, they think they understand the public. They've got, you know, they've got this arrogance

that was perhaps born of the Blair years when they perhaps were on the public's pulse a little bit more. When they say, oh, you know what, what are people like? People like people. You know, for the many, not a few. You know, what should we call? We call it a people's vote.

And then it was immediately, massively, you know, patronising. But it's gaining traction at the moment. You know, there's probably more people in favour of the second referendum now. But I think that that was inevitable as you got to the crunch point. What has been interesting about this process is that some people seem surprised that a negotiation is like a negotiation. I was like, this is what happens, right? You know, Brinkman shit, and the stakes are incredibly high, so it's always going to come to this, right?

But yeah, the way that the markets get spooked and stuff. I'd love to be a currency trader at this point. It must be the easiest job, but you're just sitting there just watching like Guy Verhofstadt's Twitter feed. They're going, oh, he says we're in trouble, pound goes down, you know, there's going to be a deal, pound goes up. It's amazing how these words, you know, Remember right at the beginning, Theresa May was saying,

like, oh, we're not going to provide a running commentary on Brexit. And everyone said, well, we should know. I bet you even some Remainers are going, do you know, it would have actually been better if they'd have just, you know, fucked off and just come back, said, this is where we're at, and then we could have made a decision then. Do you know what? That would be a great sketch, actually,

if you just saw, like, it was like a horse race. You know, the Remain campaign, the Leave campaign, and there's negotiations of Brexit. And then there's a running commentary about the fall of the pound and whatever else. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because... Go on, you do it. I've done a lot of driving.

I really like the idea, and I went to run with it, but my brain was going, you got fuck all the days. But I think the issue is, right now, I have just got... And I've voted it, mate, and I've just got sick of the scaremongering. I can't be bothered with it anymore. I'm now at the point where I want to leave.

Because I just think that the scaremongering, you know, every time you pick a paper up, you just say that the entire country is going to collapse, Yeah, people don't believe it, I suppose. I think that's the problem is if you pitch your fears in a reasonable way, you know, like stuff like data roaming and stuff. I swear to God, if Remain had just

mentioned data roaming in the campaign, they might have won. If they had said, these are the material things that will definitely change as a result of leave. But they had to go for the... And this is one problem with, like, liberal and progressive politics. They're bound up in dystopian thinking. They're the pessimists, do you know what I mean? They're the

Cassandras all the time. And maybe that's what happens when you're not in power. But they're always the world's coming to an air, the world's, you know, you often hear this thing about the world with the world's such a dark place right now, you know, we're going to hell in a handbasket. And, you know, obviously there are certain personalities, certain things happening.

But, you know, overall, you know, and often it's quite parochial to just judge that on a Western sort of metric as well, just because we feel a bit uncertain in Britain, you know, they've got a slightly, you know, a very unsettling president at a moment. Can't just say the world's going to hell in a handbasket, just because you're going through some political rocks and rolls.

Well, that's crazy, isn't it? Like if someone who comes from Russia, I've traveled all over the forest. I mean, we talk about how things are terrible. There's never been a better time to be alive. Well, I mean, there's that thing isn't there, like a lot of people on the left often dismisses, is that global poverty is halved in the last 20 years. They cannot accept it.

They're like, no. You're like, but it just fucking has. Every metric of life, less wars, less pollution, less famine. But they're just like, no, no, no. And it's one of those, you know, there's the information gap. I can't remember what it's called. but like, and it works on the right as well. So if you ask people in Britain, you know,

what percentage of Britain do you think is Muslim? You know, a lot of people, I think a lot of people think it's 28% which is not. It's like about 5% right. But equally, there's a lot of people on the left that think that, you know, the global poverty has doubled in the last 20 years. And I guess it comes down to a way that you wish to see the world almost.

No, completely. Well, Francis was concerned about your career when you came out. Yeah. But actually his concerns were unfounded. You've done very, very well. He's been alive with the Apollo, the mass report. etc. Why do you think that is? Because I'm fucking...

Smash shit off me. Great to work with very professional and... No, I think that... Look, I've been around a while as well, that's the other thing. You know, I've done the circuit since 2001, so when... And this is the weird thing for me in a way, is like, you know, people on the right would often kind of speak out against diversity and stuff like that. And I could, I suppose, but I'm also like quite a big beneficiary of it.

I'd like to think that, you know, once the opportunities came, I was at a point where I could take them. But it'd be fathuous not to acknowledge that if I hadn't had my politics, it would have been hard for a man of my age to get on those shows, you know. It took me a while to work out, you know, how to do it as well. It's hard. You know, I think the thing with right of sense of comedy is that there are less subjects, right? There are a lot less that lend itself, you know, to comedy. But once you land on one, it's great because it's almost low-hanging fruit

because no one else is talking about it, you know. You get first bite at a lot of those cherries. And you also benefit, I think, from one thing that comedy always needs, which is misdirection. You know, what was the audience's expectation and what did you say? Now, if they're all thinking that you're going to say that you're probably remain and a Labour voter, and you do the opposite, straight away you've subverted that expectation. So, you know, I've been learning and even this tour that I'm doing at the moment,

traditionalism. It started off at the Edinburgh Festival last year, and, you know, I had to make certain adjustments there and then took it out on tour early this year, a spring tour, and then took it back to Edinburgh for a run. It's been changing all the while. Right now, I feel like it's closer

to what I want to be doing, you know, than I ever have been. And it's a mix, I suppose, of hard-pee, political stuff, social commentary, and then, you know, some of it's just observational comedy. Because, believe it or not, I don't want to stand up there

the whole time for a whole hour wanging on about politics, and I don't think many audience members want to hear it, really. And do you sometimes feel that more kind of middle, class or upper middle class audiences. They sort of, the moment you come out and say, right, you know, and you talk about this right wing, well, not right wing,

but right of centre politics, they immediately go, racist, bigot, all the rest of them. I think that less so. I think that the time when that was most feebrile was maybe 2017. Yeah. I suppose when I went up to Edinburgh Fringe, it was post-Grenfell and stuff. And, you know, there was a lot. It was a, it was a difficult time, you know,

to have these views. I remember I did it idiotically. I did a Facebook campaign, advertising campaign. And you guys are very tech savvy and stuff. So you tick certain boxes about, you know,

whether you do a bit of targeted or generalised. And I was like, people who were interested in stand-up comedy. And I meant it to, you know, people who are interested in like, I often use a newspaper, like, you know,

the Times or something. I didn't tick that. So it just went out generally. So I paid money for like, the best part two of you fucking talk. You know, you want to you go. And it's funny the way that they perceive you.

If they've never, you know, if they've never met you, They always make, oh, you posh boy, you know, your Tory boy, why don't you go back to your, you know, your landlord with your portfolio. And they basically ended up describing a lot of things that I wish I was, you know. And it actually made me annoyed where I was thinking,

I wish I was a successful, they've pissed me off now because I feel like I'm not doing well enough. But yeah, I think that I think what's happened as well is with, you know, Labour's trouble with anti-Semitism and stuff like that. I think that the idea that one side has this kind of, total monopoly on virtue. I think a lot of people get included up to some of the more unpleasant politics on the hard left. So it's harder to just say it's not like Jedi versus SIF anymore. It never was. But some people like to see it that way. You know, I'm a good guy because, you know,

every five years, I take a certain box and you tick a dish a, it's just, I mean, it's still, I mean, I've been thinking about this for years and it still blows my mind that people think that there's just one way to be a good person, you know, or one way for a government to help people. No, absolutely. And that's one of the thing that blows my mind about, you know, like you said, about the left is they've got this belief

that they're in the right. Like you look at Corbyn, they go, yes, Corbyn is the Messiah. And you go, but what about Venezuela? What about what's happening? Oh, no, no, no, it doesn't. And it's this complete belief in the problem. Well, they often say about Venezuela.

They say that, you know, socialism's never been properly tried in any country. I'd argue that capitalism's never been fully tried. You know what I mean? You look at any, you know, perhaps the sort of paragon of capitalist virtues, which is Britain and the US. There's still got state institutions, right?

There's still a lot of, you know, interference in the market. I'm not saying I disagree with all of it. But, you know, that hasn't been tried at Eve Rendon. I think if you look at both experiments that have happened, not that hard. Yeah, one of them tends to end up with higher inflation. Let's put it that way. And so coming back to comedy,

you were talking about how the atmosphere was very febri in 2017. My sense of it now is with people like yourself coming, through. We talked about Finn Taylor, who's I don't know whether he's right off centre or not, but he's someone who does satire in a kind of. Yeah, a contrarian sort of, yeah. Exactly. So I start to see people like you coming through. Do you

think that people in Channel 4 and the BBC and the people who control comedy on television are starting to wake up to the fact that half the country doesn't actually want to be constantly bombarded with these same, same, same message? I think definitely at the BBC. You know, it's interesting for me because, you know, I

there's some, even people to follow me, seem to think I'm being like excluded. I'm like, well, I've done live with the Apollo, you know, match report and question time. So things take time as well. I think that maybe there was a period where things would let slide and it became, because there was always balancing political comedy once upon a time, wasn't it? You know, I grew up probably yourself, like a spitting image.

You know, they always went for Kinnock. So that was how my political comedy psyche was formed. I think something happened somewhere along the line where that just ceased to exist. I don't know why that was, but something changed. And I think that what happened with the Brexit vote was It was like Avengers Infinity War Everyone was fighting each other, you know It was all kicking off and you had you know

You had metropolitan Tories who were slating you know Kind of rural Tories that had voted leave You had liberal Labour voters slating sort of socialist that voted leave And I think it was a real set in resetting politics And the idea that you could still I think most people accepted that comedians were probably Labour voters For whatever reason they just did I think Brexit was different

And I think it took the industry a while to kind of come around to that. But trust me, they're conscious of this fact and they want to, you know, and I have meetings all the time with people that don't agree with my views and stuff. But, you know, the producer of the Mash Report would be one example that, if anything, pushes me, you know, to be more honest and stuff. And, you know, there was that clip recently about breaking up with the Ramona, did like half a million views. And, you know, the other thing is numbers talk and bullshit walks.

and I think that would have raised some eyebrows, really, yes. And you know when you were talking about, so being pro-Brexit, being Tory, and the abuse you get? I sometimes feel, like, especially when it comes from the left, like they think that they're actually persuading people. Yeah. That, you know, oh, you know what? If I say enough horrible things about somebody,

that they're going to go, actually, here's my epiphany, you were right all along. I will join your side. Yeah, I think that it's just a way of, like, patting your... yourself on the back, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know what the emphasis was. And I think, you know, it's like,

I think it's like being a tough guy, right? You know guys that can really fight? They really need to tell you that they're tough. It's the same- I do, mate. Yeah. I've seen the tattoos, but they are of flowers. So just see that right hand are coming in and then a weird little face stroke, you know.

But I think it's the same as if you're a good human being, you know, like, if you really felt confident that you're a good human being, would you need to keep going around? saying that. You know, I think I'm a fantastic like, you know what I mean? I'm just fucking lovely really.

But I think what I do in comedy sometimes is everything you do in comedy is a slight amplification of a part of you. And what I got asked when I did Mash Report, particularly the first episode, was like, oh, you're making it up or do you really think these things? Do you think, well, I might,

like, if you have a conceit, right, or a hyperbolic thought, you might not think it all the time, but you certainly had the thought once. So not in terms of my overall politics But just like I had this idea for the match report basically Which was the people over the age of age

You shouldn't get NHS treatment Because I just sort They're just taking the piss And you know And you know I still like even as I say it I'm like you know It is a sledge am at a cracker nut

But like I just don't You know why you're still knocking around for You know it's one way I'm not saying like I don't know like the logistics That they would just be But maybe they'd be a bit more careful I don't know

I don't know. I'm sort of appalling myself, as I say it. But this was the point. I did have the thought, right? So I thought, that's funny. It's funny that I thought that, right? And so sometimes with my comedy is like, you give the inner bastard a little bit of a runaround, right?

You know, it's not a fake part of you. It might not be the total part of you. But what happens when you get critiqued by people, especially if they're not disposed to your comedy, they'll point out that fact. You don't really think that, so, you know, you're a fake or something. You think, well, on the left, I mean, if you look at it,

like Stuart Lee and Frankie Boyer, who don't get me wrong, I think they're brilliant, do I mean? Brilliant political comics. But they, so much of it is hyperbole, right? But if you already agree with that point of view, so if somebody's talking about, you know, post-Brexit, we'll all be eating rats, you're like, yeah, fucking stick it to them. And going to go, well, no one really thinks we're going to be eating rats, right?

But that's just the way of making a point. That's comedy. You have to exaggerate to make things funny, right? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. And the funny thing about that routine was my wife's granddad, who's still about. He was like, you know, he's like, yeah, I don't know what I'm still fucking, you know. He goes, it's just boring.

And he goes, you know. And then we got chatting and that was where the line, you know, I think there was a line I said about, you know, what he's sitting around for another golden year in the day room watching cash in the attic, when actually we want your cash that's in the attic, you know. That's the idea. But, yeah, mostly people, mostly people get it. I do think that there is this thing that I have had,

whereas if people just don't like the idea of me, you know, it's like, because I'm working class as well, because of the way I communicate, Some people see it as a bit aggressive. I just see it as I grew up in South London. Yeah. Well, you had to have a little bit of an industry so you didn't get decked at school.

Yeah, I did get decked at school. So did I, mate. Often by girls, actually. I went to school in Wanderth for a while called Southfields. Yeah, yeah, my mate taught. I don't know what it's like now. Problem with schools these days, if you don't mention it for 20 years,

someone go, yeah, that's a really good school now. So all your war stories are fucked off out of it. And you're like, yeah, and then I'll tell you now the story about getting beat up by kids. girls and you'll be going no no it's a really respected you know faith school now and uh but um but yeah so i'm just i don't know what we're talking about i've lurched back in the memories of i can't remember her name is Lorraine something being beaten up by a girl yeah it's so humiliating because you know

you're raised that way by your parents never hit a girl but it's really difficult when a girl's literally kicking the shit out of you and we're not i'm not talking about like slagland i'm talking like actually landing shots do you know what I mean like and at the point where she landed one of them I was like that was a good punch it was really proper like landed square on the jaw yeah it's You would get beating up by a girl called Lorraine as well. It's a good old-fashioned. Yeah, Lorraine from Wonsworth. Yeah.

Well, I was going to take you back to a more serious point about voices like yours now being heard. Learcus, the bright wing comedian, he's starting to get a bit of traction. Do you think we're kind of past the point where we were so polarized that we couldn't listen to the other side and now voices like yours are kind of going to start

to lead to a bit of a rebalancing? I think that for us, There's still, I would imagine, the vast majority of people in this country, because obviously most of them won't have heard of me. If you say a Tory comedian, they're, what? I mean, that still be, you know, still, I've seen, like, the flying team that I have in Edinburgh when they're selling it to people. That's still the reaction, you know.

So, and also the time that I'm getting on some of these shows, the overall audience for a lot of mainstream BBC comedies, you know, I mean, compared to the, I mean, Lively Apollo now gets, what, just over a million, you know, a lot of comedy shows get around, that, the good ones get around that mark when they were clocking in at four or six million once a point, the time so so you know the idea that you can completely change people's opinions with one you know stuff sitting around online actually surprised me that that actually just getting your clips up there

you know on my YouTube channel but you know just leaving it there letting that that stuff grow as well and I think that for the average punter in the public you know there's just balance is a part of life it's only within our world that the idea of somebody having right of center views or being a lead vote in comedy was weird and that's what I found actually after the leave vote I was doing the cutting edge two nights later at the comedy store and obviously the majority of that panel were sort of left-leaning remain voters and we've gotten well with us you know we had a good conversation backstage and they were like right we're going to go out there and we're going to hammer you and stuff so they did but what happened was the audience was like well quite a lot of us

so straight away and also then it worked for me because it looked like I was getting bullied back to the playground with Lorraine yeah yeah and yeah so it was an early sort of like reminder of the sheer scale of the numbers involved. And even if there was a room of 70 people that, you know, 70% voted remain maybe, all of those people have got relatives that voted leave as well. And they'll probably know that, you know, in the most part, they're not evil as well. So I think that that's what's happened. We're still in a phase of just getting to grips with this absolute reset,

you know, that's happened politically in British public life. I think one of the great things about your voice is that, like, a lot of people in comedy just don't seem to acknowledge that your voice exists. And especially when, you know, are the echo chambers of Facebook, I thought we were going to storm it with...

Yeah, well, the first one was 2015, actually, when that happened. People were like, I can't believe that the powerful charismatic leadership figure, Ed Miliband, isn't Prime Minister of Britain. I always thought with Miliband, it was him that was, you know, right from when he got the job.

In any culture, in any civilised society, leadership is something you expect. you know, whether it's irrational or not. And he just wasn't the guy. I mean, like, in so many elections, being prime ministerial is a big deal. Part of the reason that Theresa May didn't get a majority last year was because she didn't seem prime ministerial. So, like a lot of things, I wasn't shocked that the Tories won a majority.

I think the echo chamber thing, I think the people are conscious of it now more. Although I've actually started to like the echo chamber thing. I think I've started to create one of my own, and I've sort of, you know, It took me a while, but when you've got one, I mean, this is nice. It is very nice. Like with the show that we do, we have a lot of people

who think in a similar way to me. Yeah, it's lovely. And it's very nice. And you can see why it's so comforting. Yeah. Comforting. But actually, I was thinking Ed Miliband is exactly the kind of guy

you see on a playground, beating up by a girl. Yes. I don't know, he's quite tall, though, Ed, quite rangy. If he just sticks him, I'm not, by the way, suggesting,

it's a beat up girls. No, no, I'm not suggesting a strategy. We're going to clip that, by the way, that's going to go viral. Jeff Norcott says Ed Miliband beats up young girls. Yes. I'm saying he could.

You know what struck me? I remember watching you on Live at the Apollo, and this is the shy Tory phenomenon. You got how many people in here voted, I can't remember whether it was voted Tory or voted Lee. Yeah, voted Tory. Voted Tory. And in the room of, what, how many thousand people?

Three thousand. Three thousand people. You got to be honest, I suppose. For me, that's great for me. Of course. Because it makes it look, you know. I did say them beforehand. If loads of people cheer, can you edit that out?

Because I'm going to act. But it's true. No, in that room, yeah, there wasn't like a big, and that was, you know, last year, and that was while things were so tense. And it's not, it's weird, because somebody said to me about the other day about, like, a kind of, like,

a balls out maneuver. I didn't, I don't know why. I didn't really think of it at the time as being like that, because I've just been saying that at the Edinburgh fringe and stuff. But when I look back on it, in a room that size. And the gig, you know, it's live at the Apollo, biggest gig,

closest thing any comment gets to playing an FAA cup final, right? Yeah. And then I did the equivalent of like a half time just bringing on the tricky little winger, you know, while it's still,

you know, while the game was still close. But the audience, I think most of it, right? And this is true of all comedy. The audience are looking for a sense of who you are. Is this person a bad person? You know, a nasty person? You know, what's the tone of this comedy? I don't want to get into this whole

punching up or punching down thing because I think we've got too locked into the idea that, again, like it's a binary, thing. I think it's far more complicated than that. And to be honest, I'd rather like punch, you know, sort of sideways, 360, I think it's possible to play with those boundaries. But I think if they get the sense of you that you're not

an arse-up, or some of them would have thought I was an arson. Do you know what, the funny thing about that, live of the Apollo appearance, and in some ways, like an indication of the age that we live in, the biggest pushback I got off that online. So I mentioned, I did a joke about concentration camps as well. I talked about being a Tory and stuff. I did a routine, a really innocuous routine about my wife taking shoes on holiday.

And I got these responses quite standard was about you can't say that about women. I'm not saying that about women, I'm saying that about my wife. You know, I've become quite cautious. One thing I did listen to from feminists was like, you know, you extrapolate about all women. Sometimes you lose people because they think, well, that's not me. So I thought, all right, if I talk about my experience, no one can ever tell me that I'm wrong about my own relationship, as long as I know I'm being honest. You're so naive.

Yeah, yeah. No, you're wrong about this, but you're such a hoary... And then the thing is, I think, like, now you're slating my missus because you're going, like, you're saying, well, this is a hoary concept of what a woman is.

I'm going, this is how my marriage is. It might just be, you know... And, you know, yeah, a controversial concept that, broadly speaking, there are quite a lot of women that are, like, shoes. This is the problem with, like, the modern online communities. They make it easy for me to seem controversial. They make it way too easy.

Because I'm not controversial. No, no. You know, I've got like, you know, my views are more or less, if you look at the Overton window, like, I'm almost bang in the middle of it, right? And yet, I come off like some sort of edge lords for saying, and this is what I say to them sometimes, because when I was on mocked a week the other week,

so I did a few jokes about Remainers, and they all made the edit, right? So when it went out, obviously, people were, there was a certain kind of person that was a bit surprised, a bit triggered, a bit shocked. And then so, like, I was just having a chat with somebody, and they were saying, yeah, when I read the Twitter stuff,

I went on it thinking, what did he say? And of course what I said wasn't that, you know, sort of adversarial. It was just a couple of jokes about the idea of a second referendum. But what happens is people, so if like a tweet about me, you know, like gets a lot of likes, then people will see that. Then they'll think, fuck, who is this guy? Yeah. This guy's out there.

He's mental. And then the only thing that annoys me about it is the idea that they come to my shows and they're expecting me to talk about, you know, sort of drop kicking a toddler or something. And the truth of the matter is, is that, you know, I see myself as, you know, with reasonably familiar opinions, you know. But ultimately is the age we're living in, isn't it? Where, you know, you can say, like, we can, the amount of things, like, I'm pro-fascist, apparently, because of this podcast. You can say something that 10-50...

You see the way I just checked you out there, when one... This is out of words, you said pro-fascist, I went like, yeah, you know, but that's the way it's... That's the way it's gorgeous. On what base, I'm just interested, on what basis are you pro-fascists? Well, I just got like a few Hitler posters, mate. But no... Yeah, a bit in Second World War, memorabilia.

Yeah, marching up and down with my... Big helmets. MG 42 in your way. Yeah. But I just think, it's when you say something, like, for instance, I don't agree with Corbyn. I would never vote for Corbyn. I'm not hard left.

I'm sort of left centre, centre left, left, soft left. And because I disagree and say, I would never vote for somebody, like Jeremy Corbyn, all of a sudden that means you're not part of my camp. You are the enemy, therefore you are a fascist. I actually don't think it's about that at all. I think the reason that we get called a right-wing podcast or a fascist

or Nazi apologist is not because of what you say or because of what I say. It's because we talk to people from both sides. Yes, yeah. That's why. So if we have someone who's a little bit controversial... Well, you talk to people from both sides of the Nazi debate. Yeah, the Nazi debate, yeah. There's only one side to that debate.

And one side of one. But no, we talk to people on the right. We talk to people on the left. And I think it's that. It's the fact that we talk about free speech a lot. I think that's the number one issue that makes you a fascist now. That is a problem.

And I think, you know, we talk about the tone of the debate on the hard left is some of these terms like fascist, racist and stuff, is that they, you know, they seem to think that they're like, you know, in karate kid, the crane kick, you know. Yeah. They seem to think that that's always going to be

the conversation end there. And once upon a time, possibly it was. Yeah. Problem is, is like, you keep rolling it out every single day on Twitter, you know, every single day online, for people that patently aren't. It's such serious words. It's such an awful thing to be, like a genuine, like biological racist, which is probably the worst sort of view that you could hold. So once people see that applied to people that patently aren't, then the word has already lost its power. And that's what I think that they're running up against now.

And in a way, and this is a problem for the left, is that, you know, some legitimate call. I mean, it is very much the boy who cried wolf, you know, isn't it? Some legitimate criticisms of people are now people are able to sort of shrug them off because they're now looking at in the litany of things where people have, you know, again, it's this thing hyperbole. People have tried to get an idea across the line with emotion and guilt trips rather than with reason. And it's a good example of what you're talking about because every time Francis calls Tommy Robinson far right on our show, we get a bunch of people going, he's not far right, he's just a, you know, a normal guy.

And you go, well... I mean, if he's not far right, what... Right. And I think the reason people now think that way is because that label of racist or fascist has been so debased that no one really knows what a racist is anymore. Yes.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, and I think as well, like... And this is one of the problems is in public life is like, do you remember when people get accused of being racist? No one ever owned it either, you know? And I'm not... This is not a proven of racism, but I thought... But people say that things that are patently racist, right?

or been caught saying stuff that's racist. You know, Mel Gibson, I mean, those phone calls. If you've never, I mean, they're just mind-blown, right? But if someone just come out and just said, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, they never say, they say, and not only that, they always go to the opposite of saying, I'm the least racist person. You guys, mate, you ain't the least.

You know what I mean? You don't use those words, Mel, if you're not a little bit, you know, I'm just saying it's a spectrum and, you know, you're closer at that end than you are that end. So I think on both sides it's being fudged, right? You get the people that are calling people who are racist that possibly aren't racist, and then people are clearly racist,

like you say, going, no, no, me, you ask anyone in the tiny community of my wife, right? And they'll tell you, I'm a lovely bloke. You know, a person that possibly depends on me being in work, weirdly, they will support, you know, my character. No, where we are politically, and we've called so far to the left,

and I'll be honest with you, the Tories where they are, do you think the Tories are going to win the next election? And do you think, more importantly, do you think they're missing a trick with voters like me who are drifting around in the centre going, I've got no political home to go to? Well, they are trying to, they are trying to pitch for you.

I mean, like, Theresa May did that one recently where she said, you know, Labor voters, if you're not happy with Corbyn and stuff. I think that before anything is known about Brexit, it's going to be hard to make a real land grab for those voters because people are, it just feels like we're treading water towards something. I think post that.

And I think if Brexit, isn't as bad as people think it's going to be. And I don't think it's even possible that it could be the sort of like... I keep thinking it's like, you know that cartoon When the Wind Blows, you know, like the one we had about nuclear holocaust where we go.

The problem is the main campus, if you set that there, if it comes in anything above this sort of like, you know, mad max territory, you could claim it as a success. Go, well, you said we'd be eating rats and actually we're eating pigeons. So Brexit wins, right?

Yeah. But once we get beyond that point, think that there is, and I do think that the Tories have a few tricks that they can play. I think the next generation of politicians that they've got are actually will surprise people. You know, they're probably, they do need to look at the diversity in their own ranks because ultimately young voters value that. But luckily for them, they've got talented politicians like James Cleverly, you know, a lot of people like Ruth Davidson, they've got Sajid Javid, you know,

Sean Bailey Am, who's the London mayoral candidate. So I think that the tough thing for Labor, at that point is once you get a more diverse Tory front bench, some of the old cliches aren't going to stick, you know? I mean, if, like, you know, if Ruth Davidson is the leader of the Tories, what, I mean, if you're working class lesbian? Yeah. What are you going to say?

Well, you were part of the bullying. I mean, you're eating, you, nothing. So I think that, yeah, going forward, I think that the Tories can get some sort of Brexit deal that isn't quite as catastrophic as people think. I think that it's easier for them, because I don't see how Labor can get rid of Corbyn for them. next two or three years. And while he's in power, I mean, you know, I've been doing this tour and

stuff. And you go up to the north-west, there's a lot of Labour voters, socialist that just don't like the man. So he is toxic figure, you know, to some people, but it's very hard for them to get rid of it. So I think the Tories have got a chance to pivot sooner than Labor have. We talk about the left a lot and we, you know, a lot of our guests will criticise the far-left and you've done and we do. Because it's fun. And they're nuts. And they're fucking mental, some of them, the far left, you right? On saying mental, that's offensive. Oh, right.

I forgot about that. Yeah. Okay, that's my comedy. Suffering from severe mental health issues. Well, mate, both our comedy careers are pretty much over on the basis of this show. So that's fine. I was going to ask about the right, though, because the far left has gone mental, but the far right is gaining traction. It certainly feels like it.

I mean, we mentioned Tommy Robinson. The guy's got a million subscribers on YouTube. He's all over everywhere. The UKIP are talking about bringing him. into the party. So there does seem to be that movement that is picking up.

And I imagine someone like you who's centre right would be quite concerned about that. Of course. And in many ways like this one of my big concerns about a second referendum and about the need

for there to be a meaningful Brexit is because if there's not the narrative for the far right it becomes so easy, doesn't it? I mean like in terms of a pitch that disaffected you say it's simply this. Like they didn't listen to you,

we will. That's all they have to say. You know? You, them what you wanted, right? You know, there was a vote, you know, and it hasn't been actioned. You know, especially, I mean, like, you know, it's one thing of thudging Brexit, but some people, I mean, this is just find amazing people, I just think we should just stop, just stop it. It's like, you know, when there's people like, like, like, just like a really harassed

mother with a headache, you know, like, just, Nicholas, stop it with all the Brexit, it's giving mother a headache. Just, like, it's this bad thing like getting passed over for a promotion that they can just make go away. You can't, you have to deal with this hot potato, And if you don't, that is the problem. And you look, it's scary. Like, I watched that film yesterday by Paul Greengrass, 22nd of July, about Anders Breivik. And you think this is going back to 2011.

And this is broadly a factual, factually based film and about that rise, you know. And it would have only carried on. And the need to engage with those concerns at the very least, because there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of people that feel that way. and if you literally ignore a democratic mandate, I don't know what happens next, genuinely. And I think that what people could end up with, you know, people on the centre-left and left

thinking that, you know, and people like myself, thinking that UKIP, they'd be think, oh, UKIP were the good old days of, you know, at least UKIP were embarrassed about their racism. At least they would pretend that they didn't say stuff, you know what I mean? You know, you know when people there was a difference between like the IRA and Al-Qaeda?

And then people would say, oh, the IRA were the gentleman bombers, right? Yeah. because you've got a warning. So UKIP would have been the racists that would phone in a warning. Whereas you might end up with something. You know, and people express a lot of people left.

You know, they're worried by something like Tommy Robinson. But, you know, in the future, it alarms me the idea that there could be people actually, maybe not MPs, but there could be people that sitting on councils and stuff. Like, you know, I mean, it happened. And the idea as well, like, that sort of Brexit started racism in this country.

I think that it's so, it's so ignorant because if you look at like, you know, back end of the naughties we had, didn't we have a BMP councillor in Burnley? You know, in the early part of this decade, the EDL were formed and there were marches. And this was before a referendum was even on the table. So yeah, it may have bought some, and there's no doubt that, you know, there is a branch of Brexit thinking that comes from that. But the idea that this is where it began, I think, is another way of ignoring a really tricky issue.

I agree. And do you think, like, just to finish up on Brexit, but do you think when you have people like Katie Hopkins coming out and peeing bro Brexit, what it actually did was taint and diminish what the movement was about? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, one of the tricky things for everybody about Brexit is you end up standing on a really long platform

waiting for a train with, like, you know, in any pack train there's going to be some pricks on it, right? Yeah. So, but that doesn't mean, like, you still believe in the destination. And it's true for, you know, and I know for a fact, there were some people that were nodding along to David Cameron during the, you know, the referendum campaign. Some people who've despised Tony Blair for years,

but, you know, he's a leading light. It's made us, it's forced us all in some really quite uncomfortable alliances, but that's because it's a binary idea. It was always going to do that. And, yeah, there are, you know, but there are plenty of personalities involved in the remote, I mean, Andrew Adonis, I don't want to keep going to, it's a fucking, I cannot believe he's a real person.

I don't know if you saw he did this video, right? He said, like, you know, we've got to get out of the metropolitan bubble, you know, and I want to get some answers and stuff. So he goes this video, right, and he literally speaks to like two Leavoc's around. And he goes, hmm, mm-mm. And then he's like hanging around with these really young people in a playground and they're like going, I think Brexit's going to ruin my life. He's like, yeah.

So in this two and a half minute video, what he claims he's going to do on his kind of like journey outside, you know, outside the Metropolitan Elite, he does it for about four seconds. and I think he's a divisive figure. I mean, yeah, Katie Hopkins is divisive in a very obvious way. I think something like Andrew Adonis is not to that degree, but certainly, you know, some of the patronising way

that he talks about leave voters is, he doesn't realize, you know, maybe he doesn't realize how triggering that can be. And I do get sometimes when I hear Remainers, especially in, you know, in a metropolitan London and the way they talk about believe voters, It's a go, oh no, you just don't like working class people. That's what it is.

And that's a stereotype that they like to conjuring their heads. It has. It's just how I feel. You know, it has brought that issue. And this is one of the reasons that I always thought right from the beginning. And I might be proved wrong because of the way that negotiators had been handled by the Tories. But I always thought it would prove more of a problem for the Labour Party because it would kind of lance this boil of what the party really is, you know,

what the majority of their MPs are. how they feel about the world and, you know, that other part of the Labour Party and bring it out into the open. And certainly in the first six months after, it seemed to be, weirdly, they were cast in the role of sort of left-wing patricians, weren't they, really? Yeah. Sort of saying, no, no, you know, we shouldn't have had the vote. You shouldn't have been allowed to vote.

Leave it to us. You know, we'll sort of take care of stuff. You just return us to power. You know, we'll take care of things. And I think that a lot of people have evolved their thinking since. A lot of people on the left, you know, there's, don't get me wrong, it's plenty of old-fashioned, I mean, that was one of the interesting things about the vote was, you know, people like Dennis Skinner, you know, Tony Ben and stuff.

People just conveniently forgot that there was plenty of very solid left-wing reasons for voting leave. Well, Corbyn himself probably would have wanted to vote. It's so weird, isn't it? I mean, it's such a simple thing, but to stop and think that you've got a prime minister, who's a remuner that's trying to make leave. And you've got an opposition leader who is a lever that's sort of being pulled towards. It's so, in the weird way, they're like the only two people in the world to understand one another. Yeah.

Like, they do you ever be, you know, like one of those old toy action men, like they just ring up and go, oh my God, what a day we've had. You know, just get fucking hammered together, like in secret. It's very strange once you actually stop and reflect on what's happening. But you know what I do think as well? I do think that a deal will happen in the end. And I think that what will happen then is the press will continually report on any. evidence that, you know, things are going wrong or right. I think most of British people will go, okay, I'd really like to talk about something else

for a while. You know, I'd really like to give it a year or two and just see how it goes because we've done a, we've done a lot of this. And, you know, like a lot of lead voters, it's not like, I think I've softened my stance a little bit in the way, you know, I was very, you know, because when you get represented in a certain way, you know, the natural thing is to either become that thing or to be, to be resentful. But I sort of think like, you know, it was 52, yeah, it was a close vote, you know, and ultimately you've got to move forward at some point.

And I don't think that, and it's part of the reason, you know, in terms of the comedy that I do, I could probably get a bigger audience, right, if I was like, yeah, you remainiac pricks and, you know, stuff like that. And it's just not, I don't think it's constructive, do you know what I mean? And I think that in a way, it's a harder thing to do to get somebody to reluctantly who started off maybe thinking that you're a stupid racist prick to just end up. thinking you're a stupid prick. Well, on that positive note, it's time for us to wrap up. So the last question we always asked, Jeff, is what's the one thing that no one's talking about, that we should be talking about?

I think the sexualisation, the representation of men and the way that women talk about men's bodies and looks and stuff because obviously there has been... I really didn't expect that. No, I know, I know, I know. So Jeff is with the men's rights to money.

No, no, no. I'm such a men in this is such a shit word. But I think that what's been happening, there's no doubt like the objectification of women is still greater and stuff, you know, and of men is still less. But if you look at the direction of travel, right, and I've noticed this a lot in social circles and stuff,

the women are quite bold in talking about what they like about the way the men look. And, you know, it's sort of like they're experimenting with a certain liberty, you know, like Pol Dark and stuff. And I even heard on Radio 5 Live, the film review program. And they were talking about Henry Cavill.

These were two female sort of host and guests. they were like, well, you know, Henry Cavill's there, so that brightens up the place. And I was thinking, that is literally the kind of stuff that was said in the 70s by men, brightens up the place. And I don't mind, because, you know, I've grown up in an age where there probably was like a massive imbalance,

but I do think that, you know, for my son, who's two and a half now, you know, he'll grow up in that age where it would have gone full circle where he'll be doing a bit of weight instead of, you know, work, and then a woman would just smack him on the ass and he'll go, you know, actually I don't feel comfortable with that level of contact. And I think that if you just look at the direction of travel,

I mean, I've done a couple of corporate gigs recently. This is a bit tricky to talk about. Where I was, you know, you get guidelines, right? And, you know, just be careful around issues with Me Too and feminism and stuff like that. And then you're on stage posing for photos and you've got a woman grabbing your ass. And then you mention it afterwards and everyone laughs.

You know, that's fine. Look, I don't feel under threat in that situation. But I think it's not an issue perhaps for me. It's probably an issue 15, 20 years down the line where it won't be seen as quite such a playful thing. Well, you'd be able to do a social media update 20 years down the line, won't you? What, told you so. Yeah.

And on that note, it's been a lovely interview, Jeff. Was there anything that you'd like to plug? You got your tour? Yeah, so Twitter, you know, come and say hello. What's your Twitter handle? It is Jeff Norcott, Jeff Norcott, N-O-R-C-O-T. Most thing, that's where the biggest sort of following is. So YouTube channel, though,

but got a few more subscribers there. do more on that. And then the main thing, obviously, is I'm on tour at the moment and right through till the last date of the winter bit is December the 7th, Leicester Square Theatre, all around the country, and then there's one straight date in January in Exeter.

But it's been brilliant doing the tour as well. Like, I think one thing that people sometimes think about coming to my shows that it's gonna be this kind of echo chamber of like meathead, like levers. But so far, I've done five dates of this leg and it's been a majority of remainers. It's been a slim majority,

but sometimes a slim majority is all you need, Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. If you haven't seen Jeff before, he's absolutely fantastic comedian, check him out. We'll put a clip for your YouTube channel. We'll make sure to connect that.

We'll be all over Twitter and everything else. Jeff and I are both actually performing Comedy Unleashed in London on November 13th, so come along to that if you're free. And as always, follow us on social media at TriggerPod. Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you enjoyed it. And we'll see you next week with another brilliant episode. Absolutely, guys.

And also, if you're on iTunes, leave us a nice review. That would be amazing. See you next week. Bye-bye.