TRIGGERnometry - Geoff Norcott: "Why I'm a Working Class Conservative"

Episode Date: March 22, 2020

Returning guest Geoff Norcott joins us in the corona bunker.  Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you. If you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant returning guest this week is one of Britain's only openly Tory comedians. Jeff Norcoe, welcome back to Trigonometry. Still out, still proud, brother. When you said fascinating, I thought he was going to say fascists. They were the only people having fascist conversations with fascists. Anyway, this might be the last one before society.

sort of like concertinas because of the coronavirus. What a great word, concertinas. I don't know what I came from. I went upstairs to the brain and the brain went, what are you doing? Why have you started with this? And then it come up with an actually needlessly complicated one. But yeah, this could be when we're all in self-isolation watching this.

This could be the last bit of, you know, new content. Yeah, it could be, mate. People could be watching you from the bunker. This could be it, you know. And then when future societies that rebuild after the Mad Max dystopia, that coronavirus will definitely be and we're not getting slightly overreacted

and then this will be it they'll judge culture by what we say in this next hour. Well, that's a lot of pressure on this episode but actually I was thinking back to the last time we had you on the show and I remember just think how much has changed has been less than a year.

My opening question I think to you was your working class Tory. What's that all about? Well, I think we've seen as I spit on you with my corona, sorry. That's what people normally do from the left when they tell me I'm working class tory. They say you're a workout story and then they spit.

They spit in your face. But anyway, that's enough about it. It was a nice loop. Yeah, it just went all over. It had a pleasing sort of trajectory. It was like a lot. But anyway, so... Just to say, I love the fact that we're all hyper

aware of now of saliva. Have you noticed that? Before, it wouldn't even mention, worth a mention. Now you're like, see it in slow motion. Well, see on the train coming down there, like, there's people coughing and that look. You know, like, in those alien films where there's some sort of contagion

and then one person on the ship has got it, but they're trying to hide it because they've got boils coming out on their skin. Yeah, Now, I was on stage the other day in Bromsgrove, and I had a couple of coughs come up, just as you do naturally. But the stakes for suppressing it felt so high. Do you know what I mean?

Because there's, you know, sort of several thousand people in front of you. I mean, this would be what's interesting, right? As if this ban comes in and they say, right, there's a ban on kind of gatherings over 500 people, then it will really show where people are at in their sort of touring. Because I go, I'll be fine. I am comfortably, yes, haven't become that successful yet. I'm unsuccessful enough to deal with the coronavirus.

No problem. I'm not even anywhere near 500 people. Smashing it. Anyway, sorry, you're saying about like... I was trying to make a serious point, but that's gone out of the window with corona. But my point was... It's my British kind of like Blitz spirit kicking in. Browl out the barrel.

But keep your distance for now. Is this how you close a show, Jeff? That is going to be it tonight. Just have like a little mask on. Yeah. I'm opening for Jeff tonight, so it's going to be me, him and three people who still turn up.

I mean, if the audience are really coughing, you might be doing the whole show. You'll just go, and Jeff Norcott and I'll be going, though. Just you, mate. There'll just be some stagehand saying that he left. He snuck out of the door. You know, those outfits that you're getting in E.T.

When the fellas arrived. That'll be, I'll come out on stage like that. You know, for now, I'm... I think what I have is, I was thinking about this the other day, is I have some... And this applies to Polis. and it does apply to your point is I have a mixture of optimism and apathy where I

I believe everything's could be all right in the end in almost every situation but that's also slightly born in the fact that I am true I'm apathetic enough to know I can't change things and in the situation where you can't change things you might as well be optimistic right yeah or if you're not going to do anything to change things there's no point getting upset about something that you're not going to actively try and orchestrate a different outcome so I'm going to call it optimism. Have you ever thought about tweeting about it though? Because that can make a difference. Well, tweeting, yeah. I've... What the interesting thing about tweeting, right? Because I suppose

we all come on to the culture war. I'm sort of thinking about why people still feel this need to believe that it's some sort of source like a force for good or even change, right? When all of the evidence repeatedly, every time the real public get a chance to have a vote on something, suggest that it's miles out. And I was thinking, one, I think it's because of me too, where that was one of the few times where I had genuinely was a genuinely impactful movement that was started simply on Twitter. But that is very much the exception

that proves the rule, isn't it? I think people have gone that, wow, this is what could always happen through Twitter, whereas actually what happened there was quite a useful way of women that had had, you know, like sexual harassment or attacks or experiences to come together. It made sense that that happened in Twitter.

Whereas all this other stuff, it just pisses away on the wind. You think every day there's things that don't happen on Twitter where people are trying to generate a movement or a meme. The last election result was a great example. We all sat there as on the day, the usual thing that was happening among the left. They were going, you know, I think it could happen, man.

I've seen reports of like seven people outside of polling station in Shortwich, I think. They're all baking their own rye bread. I think it could happen. And even I, even I, like with my views, was, oh, is Jeremy going to do it? You know, have we got it horribly wrong? And then, again, maybe in like the 2017 election, that was. was another exception that proved the rule. And Twitter is like a mass gaslighting operation, isn't it?

Like, you think that Twitter is real life, and then you have an election, you find out it really isn't. Well, gaslighting is a good example, a word that is pretty much only used on Twitter. Like all comics will make that mistake if we'll go out. And we say, hey, you're just gaslighting me, and you just feel like this thing in the room where, like, 97% of people didn't know what the fuck you were talking about.

Gaslighting is a Twitter word. Gammon is the same. Yeah, you know, gammon is exactly the same. Yeah, you know, I've used that about people, and I've used it in front of, people that would probably use that word if they knew what it meant, if you know what I mean. They'd probably find the word quite funny.

Gaslighting, you know, gammon, all of these words are kind of chattering classes' words. And when I say chattering classes, I don't just mean from the left. I mean all of us that are involved in this kind of heaving, fucking ongoing culture war online that just hasn't... It's like there's a country. And you know, like you find out sometimes you hear that there's war

in a country and then you think, well, how did daily life go on? And then you find out the war was only in this one bit. You know what I mean? Isn't that bit it's called London? That bit is with London, but yeah, just people are of that disposition having those debates. And that's how you end up, you know, with a very large Tory majority. All right. Finally, we're back to my question.

Yeah, sorry, man. It's a round about route. It's all about my question. So, I mean, the irony is that I asked you like working class Tory. That's a bit weird, isn't it? What we find out actually, I mean, half the country is now, seemingly, right? It seems to be. You know, and the last set of polling things.

is the, you know, Tory vote, the, the, with these Westminster intentions, right, where they poll, what would you vote if there was another election right now? I think most people vote of why the fucker we have another election. But in theory, and it's gone up to 50%. And actually, when you look at, like,

what's been happening in Labor over quite a long period of time, this actually goes back a long way. This goes back to, part of this is to do with how they perform in England, right? The last time they won the popular vote in England was, I think, in 2001.

Labor, you're talking about, yeah, 2001. So you think that's going back to the bit when it was good, right? Well, from their point of view, or the bit where they were propped up by Scotland or the Welsh vote. So it's been an issue with particularly the working class in England for some time. But if there's any consolation to labour, they've won the moral victory every time, Jeff. Oh, yeah. Well, they've practically a one-party state when it comes to since their inception. They've been in power.

They've been in unbroken power ever since, what was it, Nybevin, invented the NHS, which no one else was definitely, no one else was thinking about. I mean, like, it's not the hardest thing to invent, is it? I mean, it's sort of like just going, you know, it's health service that we have. Like, it does feel like there could be a national version of it, but I just can't put the words together. And then Nye Bevan just had this eureka moment.

That is odd, the way that, because apparently, apparently Churchill was, and, you know, there was a big mood at the time of lots of people thinking, how can we have a health service that's national? And Niveven went, how about a national health service? so genius. He did what Steve Jobs did with the, you know that Bill Burr routine? Yeah.

Steve Jobs just come and goes, how about if we, just put loads of shit on the phone? You know, get your songs and your map. No, Bevan did that with the health service. That is such a brilliant Bill Burroutine. Old phone can't fit the new charger. Is that your hero?

But anyway, are you happy in terms of, do you feel like working class people are really having their say and have been heard. Well, yeah. I mean, like, you know, if you look at like the Brexit vote, I mean, they're like the, what is it,

the CD2E demographic, which effectively covers the working class, was swinging towards the Tories from 2015 onwards. And I think it's one of those things that people have tried to put sticking plasters over and now have realised that this is a fundamental and more longstanding migration. What you had in this last election

was perhaps some of the last bastions of people that you would have thought would have never done that, you know? Because bear in mind, already had ex-mining villages in towns going conservative in 2015 and 17. Ashby, Ben Bradley, who's a MP for Mansfield, you know, that was an ex-mining town. So some people were just crossing the Rubicon because they just don't feel that the Labour Party in its current guise really represents them. And I know that, like, you know, a lot of Labour politicians were saying, well, you know,

our policies were very popular, you know. But I think they were saying individually, each policy was popular economically, right? But did they ever do a survey of, do you want all these done right now? Like in one parliament? Because I think that's a separate thing. A manifesto is saying this is what we're going to do in the next five years. But what they were polling was, would you like some of the water facilities to be made public again? You know, would you like a rising corporation tax for the top earners?

What they never said was, do you think we should do with this straight away? because it's like moving house, isn't it? If you were moving house with your missis or Mr. Right. Well done, mate. Well done. 2020. Good word.

Men can date women. Women could date men. I was just covering that one. So, but if you was moving house and you looked at loads of work and then like your partner would say to you, partner. See?

Sometimes liberals do think up good words. Yeah. But if they were saying, oh, we can do this. We can do that and we can knock out the kitchen and we can go through and then we could dig up the garden. Go, you know what? Let's just not move. You know what I mean?

That sounds like a bit much. And I think that maybe the electorate individually like those policies, but collectively thought that they were a bit much for one term of office. And also it's about realism. Is it do you think all those things can be realistically done in one budget? You can give away all that free stuff to people all at once. It was double the spending commitments of the previous manifesto, which was also seen as fairly spendy.

Fairly spending. And then obviously it gets to the comedy point where they're just going, free ball back. And you go, that almost sounds like, if you add like, if you, if you, to back a socialist into a corner and just like almost make them do word association until they come up with the most stupid thing, that would be it. Yeah. Just go, free ball ban, you know, like I blurted it out, didn't brief a lot of their campaigning, you know, sort of her constituencies and, you know, the parliamentary Labour Party, they're just like, yeah, free board ban. And it was almost like, if you could think of a pledge or a promise that was almost self-futable. parodying, that would be it.

Free boardman. Kids love boardmen. Make it free. But what do you think the challenges that this Conservative government are going to face now? In order to, because as Johnson said, they've lent him the vote. They've lent the party the vote. What do they need to do? Do you think that's true, first of all? Because you've been, your working class story,

you've been a working class story for many years. From the South, I do think that there is a difference. You know, like the culturally ingrained opposition to the Tories is certainly greater the further than go up north. Not all of the north, I mean, Yorkshire, a lot of parts of Yorkshire are fairly Tory and stuff. But I think it is really important. I think the first year is when the narrative will get set. So that's why a lot of people on the left are immediately trying to pin betrayal narratives on the Tories already.

Because by the time the narrative is set in politics, it's quite early. Like with Corby in his first eight weeks, he just turned up, looked scruffy and read out emails. And that felt like he was always like, you know, punching back a long way from there. So I think that they know that they have to deliver. and that's why you get them drinking the Yorkshire tea. You know, the old A-Ur-R tories. I do think they'll come a point where they'll just start speaking in northern accents as well. We had emergency meeting the corporate.

And we agreed that there was trouble at mill. And that we would all speak like Jeffrey Boycott. And they're both symbolic measures in terms of having Conservative Party headquarters up north. You know, and maybe having the Lord sit up north. I'm happy to put the lords on a permanent tour after their... Just like the England football team when it was a Wembley Stadium was getting redone. They could go on tour.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. See if they still want their podiums. Once they get outside the M-25. Because obviously, while Brexit was an issue, the attendance rate in the lorbs went up exponentially. Suddenly, they were all, you know, wanted to exercise this parliamentary power that they had, you know. But it took Brexit for them to do it.

So frankly, as far as I'm concerned, send them to Morpeth. No offence to people. Morpeth, but it always sounds like the grimmest town up north. But so do you... So it was offence to the people of North. So going back to the question, though... What do you think they need to do? What do you think they need to do if they're going to retain

this massive base that they've won? Well, I think that one of the things is that what they've already done is they've had a budget that was quite a sort of Blair-like budget, really. But it's also, I mean, it's already been skewed, isn't it? Because they had the floods, right? I mean, that almost seems like old news now. but that really depressed economic activity up north and then immediately they've had coronavirus.

So what they've done is is taken measures that are very much sort of squarely focused in on people in the most vulnerable position. So that's the first step. I think that budget the other day was a real win, a real win because obviously there was a number of levels in which it delivered. Not least that when Rishi Sunak got the job,

a lot of people, these kind of weird, ironic, paradoxical racists on the left and then say, oh what they just picked any old brown face to step in instead of Saj. I thought, yeah, wait, ruin his big day. Yeah. You know, you're just there because you're brown, mate. But actually, it turns out maybe they knew something.

Maybe Saj was given the nudge because this is an extremely talented performer. You know, he was, that was an exceptional debut. To do a budget, like after the floods, your first ever budget and the coronavirus and he's got to step up there and just talk. I feel a bit nervous before doing this. I get nervous for everything.

But imagine if it was like, right, you have to, the nation is teetering on the brink of economic collapse, on your go, son. You know, it's almost like when they put an 18-year-old out, you know, making his debut for a football team. But, yeah, I think... And he's got to pull one back in extra time, yeah. Yeah, but he did a great job.

But do you think, are you, I don't know what you're, whether you're fiscally conservative or not, you're not concerned about the fact that we just seem to be spunking money when we owe more than we've ever owed? Well, there's pragmatism as well. So that's part of, conservative sort of, I mean, when it's obvious that you need to spend money, you spend money,

obviously we're in a slightly better position to do that because we've got borrowing down. And a lot of people will be saying at the moment, you know, that proves and underlines that austerity was completely a choice. But you got to mean when austerity happened, we were already, you know, the percentage of our GDP that was for a structural deficit and borrow was massive. Arguably, right, you could say that we're able to spaff a bit of money now because we did what we did and in a way it's a good thing. Obviously that is highly contestable. I can imagine in all the ways I will be contested. You can see Jeff has had a fair share of online abuse at this point. He's hedging everything.

Well, yeah. We've all become a bit savvy, aren't we? Obviously, that's highly contestant. And then you do, like you boys do your sort of GMB edit of that where you find another bit of me just clunking my fist down. No admission that that could be debated at all. But that certainly, that is how I see it. And I I think that, I think, yeah, and I think in fairness, Corbyn, right? We've never heard that out of your mouth before. Yeah, when they're on their way out, you can afford to be unfair to them. Yeah, in fairness to the pensioner that is now on his way, is that he did draw the argument for left economically.

But, you know, as a lot of people have always said, it is easier for the right to go left economically than it is for the left to go right culturally because the left are such an utter distaste for anything that they see to be, you know, right-wing thinking or certainly in some cause patriotism it's really difficult for them to track back the other way but but the riot i mean the to always are brilliantly shape-shifting the way and so they go well no spent some money yeah that's what we've been saying it wasn't what you were saying look we are where we are and and now it's definitely the right time to be doing that you know and public services do need to be uh invested in but it is really easy to forget that you know in 2010 with

the amount that Britain Oden was lending, there was real potential issues of people losing faith in our country's ability to repay its debts, and we're not in that position now. And I was going to ask, why is it still? I felt like a real Tory AP

when I said. Mate, you're wearing the blue. I don't normally wear, this is me, I normally wear like polo shirts, but I thought, you know what? I'm 43 now. Maybe this is an audition, you know, I'll be the next Rishi soon now.

Do you know what? I went for lunch from my mum, who's a massive Tory. Massive, what is it in? Oh, she's fully right wing. First generation immigrant, right wing. But a normal-sized woman. A normal-sized woman with massive Tory views. She looked to me, she went,

Ritchie Sunnard Frances, 39 years old. Yeah. And she just stared at me, and then asked me how my comedy was doing. Oh, dear. How old are you now? 37. 37. That's all right, Rishi came into it, like?

Yeah. You say, you, just to go, what, mate, I will be, if I'm not prime minister, by the stuff, because obviously we're all going to die because of coronavirus. This is a good time to make sort of like pledges that you can't see through. Absolutely. You can bat way above your average after the corona's over if you survive.

There's going to be opportunities, mate. There absolutely is. But why is it that people are still ashamed, dare I say, to admit that they're Tory? I don't know if they are as much now. I certainly, I'd like to think that, you know, I've been at the vanguard of, you know, demystifying the Tory,

But I think, you know, part of the reason I got into talking about in the first place, I just thought it was so immature. Do you know what I mean? Like, it was so ridiculous. Especially after the 2015 election, we had this thing of shiatories, right? And I thought, it's so ridiculous when you've got these two, like, obviously two sort of sides of a different coin of how you manage the world and the economy and stuff. And the idea that one of them is inherently good and one is bad,

it was just fatuous to me. It was embarrassing, I felt. It was intellectually embarrassing. I did feel that that needed to be challenged. You know, and I've challenged that quite a lot. And I do think now that what's harder for the left, perhaps, is that if they want to be mean about Tory voters, now it's about a set of voters that are equally characterised as working class.

So when you're kind of digging out kind of like angry from Tunbridge Wells, I'm not talking about you there. He will end up Tory if he's living in. But they're not essentially. That's why I live there, man. I'm just in the closet unlike you. I know I'm out and proud And I think that

You know It's easier for you to just You know Take the piss out of daily mail readers In the South East When you know like the Tory may encompass A lot of people from ex-mining towns Again it becomes a lot harder

To pin pejorative's insults on people Is it? They just go racist Yeah Well no but that is leave That's more of a leave thing But not even then Like I just take our Leave USP

No right Leave is stupid and racist Tory is selfish and evil. Yeah, selfish evil and greedy, yeah. Really? Yeah, of course. So I'm a stupid, racist, selfish, evil person. So how did you feel, you must have felt vindicated on the day of the election?

You must have been secretly happy about it or maybe openly happy. Well, there was a part of me. I didn't particularly enjoy Boris's tone of campaigning. I felt that it was quite... Hiding in the fridge? Well, yeah, I mean, and ducking the Andrew Neal interview. I just felt like... But, I mean, obviously, strategically, they clearly knew what they were.

I just didn't appreciate it. I couldn't get why that wasn't a bigger issue because I just thought it was such a weak move. But we go back to gaslighting, right? Did you see the percentage of things that the public were fully aware of throughout the election? So they listed all the big moments. One of the biggest actually was Jacob Rees-Mogg's insensitive comments about Grenfell. And then after that, virtually nothing. So, you know, they probably banked on the fact that guys like us and, you know, us chattering classes,

commentary at whatever you want to call us, we're obsessing of. about this day in, day out, rest of the British public aren't given a toss. And there is something good about the degree to which the British public care is that they're able to zero in on what really matters, right? They're not getting confused by day in, day out, PR, cluster fucks, right? They are absolutely right. What are the top line issues here? And if you read the Lord Ashcroft report, which I obviously haven't, I've seen a tweet,

and I've absorbed a very small bit of it and thought, I'll chat about that when I'm next talking about stuff. But it's really interesting the way that it characterises how working class people saw the Labour Party because they're right. Like there's a really smart deduction of like, well, you know, intentions good. They've overcommitted. They don't really have the competence to deliver it.

Deliver it. They're distracted by social justice issues and niche concerns obsessed with Palestine. You know, like the public will right. And sometimes there's a real virtue in just because politics is so big and so complicated. There's a real merit into getting it right down, right? What are the main issues at heart here? And that's why something like Brexit, get Brexit done was such a successful slogan

because I think Labour's was, what was it? Oh, it said, it's time for real change. I mean, that's very, that sounds like a sort of like, if you're a pensioner that goes on a river cruise or something like that, change your river cruise. But all the good slogans for a while now have been ones that are dynamic. So, like, whether you agree with it or not,

make America great again, is a dynamic positive sentiment. Take back control is a positive sentiment. Get Brexit done. For the many, not the few, it was quite successful. The worst of recent times was probably Hillary Clinton's was,

I'm with her. Yeah. That's the shittes. Who signed off on that? I'm with her. Because the thing is, right, one, it alludes to a sort of feminist agenda, which could be a good thing, right?

But on the other, but it won't be to everybody, right? And then on the other hand, it makes it sound like, you're going to some sort of VIP bar and you're not even on the list yourself. I'm with her. You might not get in.

It shows the deluded sort of thinking that can go behind. I mean, you know, saying liberal bubble, all that stuff have become cliches, but they've become cliches because they're true. 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

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And that is something they've covered extensively, giving lots of interesting detail about the potential economic impact, what's going to happen to the markets, whether it might even be a good time to invest, things like that. So I really recommend checking it out. The Economist is your smart guide to the forces that are affecting the world and changing the world around you. You can get a free copy through us. All you have to do is listen to Francis. Absolutely. Probably the only time he's ever said that. And all you need to do is text the word trigonometry to 78070. That's text Trigonometry to 78070. And what challenges do you face now as being a conservative comedian when actually

you've won? Yeah, I mean, like I'm definitely broadening what I'm talking about. And on the current tour, taking liberties, which is out on the road to the end of, well, either humanity or April as things stand. Which may be both at the same time. I'd already sort of moved on, is the truth. Because I've been doing shows on this since 2016. right so I did one in 16 17 17 18 they're all new hours right so so you can't keep I mean obviously I'm playing

like bigger audiences now but you can't keep saying the same thing creatively so I was already talking about civil liberties and you know like nanny state issues which obviously Tory and labor are guilty of and and sent you know censorship and stuff and more broader subjects really so I didn't do that because I thought oh the Tories are going to suddenly win this argument which solves both like kind of like you know the sort of magic bullet that so was Brexit and the kind of minority parliament. But now I'm glad that I did because I was already talking about different things. I mean, obviously in the show I will talk about stuff as it happens. You know, like Labour leadership contest.

There'll always be things that come around. But I think it is interested now because it's been so long since there was real power at the heart of government, right? Probably to sort of mid-early-early. But now that there is, the fight is very much about who exercises that power. And that's just as interesting. And it still involves left and right, but it's just, it's left and right from within, you know,

the body of people, the executive effectively. And, you know, looking at the power struggles of people like Cummings and Johnson. I suppose another thing is as well, I feel much more easy in criticising the Tories now because there was a long, long period where I just felt like that comedically that wasn't coming from anywhere, you know, and I felt it was totally disproportionate. Whereas now, you know, ultimately I'm a political comedian, first and foremost.

So my job should be, if to make, funny jokes about what's happening politically. Now, obviously I've got a bias, so that will naturally come out. That will probably be more towards the left and liberal left and remain. But, you know, there's got to be something back the other way, because I don't even know if you could call yourself a satirist if there wasn't. Right. No, there's got to be balanced.

But you mentioned the Labor leadership election. I think this is maybe an area where you talk about the culture war being just something that people like us engage in. Yeah. Where I think I probably would disagree with you because I think the labor leadership is a good example of where the culture war issues that ordinary people couldn't give a toss about have now infected major mainstream politics to the point where it's affecting their electoral prospects.

If they keep banging on about trans women and all this other bullshit, you know, people don't care about that stuff. No, it's a really good example. And that's one of the problems. I mean, Labor has always been incredibly proud of their half a million membership, you know, and it's an impressive stat. But it also means that they're bound to create content, right? We all create content, don't we?

We create content, and we know sometimes the way that we need to shape that for the people that like what we do. You've got to throw out some red meat every once in a while. And the Labour have to do that for half a million people. And so what it creates is, you know, they used to have 12 and a half million voters. They've got half a million members. So they're often having to say things and do things, especially. And this is what's really killed them is how long this leadership contest is. I mean, they're the only people that are delighted about coronavirus are the Labor Party.

Right? Because they're like, thank God. We got to finally stop talking in public Because as you say the best example of that is Lisa Nandy Who I thought had had a really good campaign And she was give a very good account of herself Against kind of like the big attack dog interviews Like Andrew Neal

Nick Robinson not an attack dog But you know like a big figure Andrew Moore But then she kind of like she did what she did one public debate Where she was asked about legalising cannabis And she said Oh no Oh I go steady on you know what I mean

Steady on that's a bit you know I haven't had that chat and then she was no obviously she's been asked about trans issues where she holds a progressive view that is way ahead of the vast majority of the British public and you sort of there's this weird tension there that you're willing to say something that's so out on a limb and

potentially alienating you know or get dragged into it on one issue and you're asked about legalising cannabis and you're like a 1960s tour and go oh no well we haven't had a chat about that I think that's a long way off and I think that that is the problem is to win this Labour leader

election, you do have to curry favour with the membership who would like the world's most militant Patreon. You know what I mean? They're just constantly demanding the things that they give a shit about. And I think that we're starting to see that it could be a hamstring for the Labour Party because, you know, they're enthralled to the unions, right? We've always known that. We always knew that funding-wise, Tories were big business.

Labor were the unions and the Lib Dems were like the campaign for a fucking real-day or whatever it is, right? But now Labor have got this dual pressure, which is unions and membership. And then the unions, a lot of which have this kind of like, you know, 1970s style. Some of them do. They have quite an old-fashioned socialist agenda.

The membership have like liberal values from the year 3,000. How could it possibly go wrong? Sounds like a great busted song, mate. It does. A bit of year, not much of change, but they're still out of power. The only way to get cannabis legalise

is we need to brainwash them into thinking that it's part of the transition process. That way you can get it done. The thing about cannabis, I understand the reticence to a point, but sometimes the British public are ahead of the political establishment in terms of their liberal values. And I think the concern is right,

and it's always been that if you're the prime minister or leader that suggests it, the first thing you get is the Photoshop mock-up of you with a spliff on the front-play. Yeah, but Boris has had far worse. I mean, someone that shit that guy's taken. You think cannabis is fucking mild. Well, yeah, in a Tory leadership contest,

It wasn't like a day that went past with that, one of a meeting that they'd done smack fucking opium. It almost became like an arms race. I've done that weird shit where you see the devil, it was almost like, you know when bloke's teenage boys and sitting around going, opium, yeah. My dad's done heroin, yeah. Tory leadership is a new rock and roll.

It was at that time. It was at that time, whereas, you know, the Labour leadership. So, yeah, like you say, I think that they keep, I mean, Blair is right, ultimately. I think we are going this weird period of, There's a lot of people say this Tory administration could be quite Blair-right, because one of the principles of Blairism was don't go to war with the public unnecessarily. Do you know what I mean?

Like if you really want to do good for the country, don't get bogged down in kind of culture and identity debates. Whereas a lot of Labor thinking, particularly over the last five years, has been the opposite. Now, get bogged down, man. Don't worry about running the country. Get right into the nitty-gritty of things that the membership care about. And it's just, it is ridiculous to a lot of people, right? You'd say that, you know, I mean, I know that trans women competing in sport

isn't the biggest deal when it comes to the trans community. And I know that the vast majority of trans people, overwhelmingly, aren't competing in international sport. You know, they have a high rate of suicide. There's a lot of mental health issues there. So this is the real issue. But obviously, in this one issue, like with toilets and to a degree sport, I just think you'd struggle to find people that weren't perplexed

by the idea that someone who is still metabolically, metabolically, demonstrably stronger, can compete against a woman. I think that if you were polled, if you polled on that, I think you're talking in the high in 90s percent of people. I mean, this is just, like I said, I'm guessing at this, but sort of anecdotally,

that's what I'd suggest. So for Lisa Nandy, to not come out with a clear line on that was an odd shout. But in defence of Lisa Nandi, isn't part of the problem, which you've just alluded to, is that the Labour leadership is an impossible job

because the reality is you can't please the trade... It's like the England manager, isn't it? You can't place the socialists and you can't please the progressives at the same time. You're going to piss one or the either off. Yes, yeah, and maybe, you know, there was a lot of talk throughout Brexit that the Tories would be the thing

that would break the Tories, right? But they sort of forgot the way, again, that the Tories have this shapeshift and ability to just reform as something else. And whereas the Labour Party, you know, I always thought, and this isn't just being wise off the event, I always thought that it was a bigger problem for them in the long term because it kind of highlighted Brexit,

the fault line within their party between the kind of metropolitan liberal MP class and then, you know, obviously the trade union class on the other side, but now you've got this third element, which is the membership. I mean, like if Keir Stalmers becomes leader, right, and then as he probably will, he'll dilute the agenda over a couple of years, there'll be a lot of Labour members that will want something else. They want something a bit bit spicier, a bit more hard left because they've got, they finally got their chance to have that

and they won't want to see it go away so easily. When it was taken from them in sort of late 80s, they didn't have the size of membership, they didn't have the social media. Now they're not just going to blindly vote for what they see to be a quasi-blerite party. I suspect there'll be something that will come up in its absence. Don't give Jeremy another go.

I mean, if you had a Jeremy Corbyn party, they'll be like, they'll do okay. They'd probably half a million membership. They'd do better than change UK, of it. Yeah, they would be. But in terms of the Tories, I know you don't all have a WhatsApp group, but do you think... What Tories in comedy? Three people.

No, there's not. There's loads of them, but none of them can admit it. No, a lot of them are. They call themselves libertarians. I feel like, just admit, you're a tour. He's having a guy, Dominic Frisbee right there. But they're all the cool guys. Like, Dominic, they're all cool, man, and trendy.

I'm a tabloid reading. What tabloid do you read? Well, I read them online. now. But, um, no, you know what, you're right. It's probably up on that. What, in terms of you just sound like you read it. Yeah, no, well, this is the fucking dirty mail, man. I, I get my news from Gogh. Come on, man. You read the fucking times in the economists. I do, I do read the time. To be honest, I've stopped reading a lot of newspapers, a full stop and that's not like a conscious decision. That's be the worst. It'd be great if that's a bridge of me. It's a conscious decision

to play to my working class roots. No, no, I just, I just, I just, I don't know why. I'm totally self-absor is the truth. Get up, check Twitter, check all my stuff, like tour sales and all that. So it's not really a cool kind of like, no, man, I've tapped out of MSM.

It's just I've tapped into my own shit probably too hard. So in terms of the Tories, though, I mean, Boris Johnson, you know, for all the people saying, you know, we've got a hard right government. You know, he is a liberal Tory, right? So do you think that he's going to be able

to hold the Tory coalition together as more and more people who may be kind of, Economically harder, right, than he is, or culturally hard. I mean, look at the immigration point system that they've introduced. In my opinion, it's actually going to create more immigration, not less, right? So do you think that he's going to be able to hold the Tory coalition together effectively as a lot of the people who were delighted that he had a clear message on Brexit

start to realize that actually he's quite a lot softer than many of them are? Well, that was odd, you know, watching the election campaign and the way that he was represented. And obviously, there were those two articles, several articles. things that he said were at a very least unwise. I mean, certainly in the case of the watermelon smiles and the pickinny's, like when you read, I think it's totally legitimate for anybody to read that article and come to the conclusion

that he's a racist. But I do get the impression that a lot of people haven't read the article. So that's what I say is that anyone watching this, it's really interesting to read the article because obviously it was interestingly quite an anti-imperial. It was a themed piece.

I don't think he was being racist. Well, but you know what I think he does? does right, it's because he's smart. I think he sort of takes a stance where he knows he's on the moral high ground and then he uses that high ground to get in a few cheeky words. That's my honest taking it.

So I think he deploys that kind of language for comedic effect or to push the boundary because he's taking that stance. So I don't think it's actually as clear cut as any of the sides of the argument. What I did find it was interesting that just shows how something can stick politically is that every time I ask people

if they'd read the article, they hadn't read the article. The one about Muslim women looking like letterboxes, which was done when he was Foreign Secretary, I think, you know, it's even that's harder to defend, because it's just like, why are you getting involved in this sort of nonsense? Do you know what I mean?

Like, it's just, I just, I quite like serious politicians, you know, like, you know, an article written a long time ago as a columnist, I think it's quite different than something written when you were holding one of the five great offices of states. So it's obviously, you can make a defence of it on a free speech platform and all that sort of stuff,

but like, I'd rather say, you know, a fair bit of my free speech stuff for artists and Colin is not the fucking foreign secretary you should just be getting on with being the foreign secretary like he shouldn't be allowed to say it but you don't want the foreign secretary to be doing it just just you know just toad a line mate a little bit and he um but he you know that article again he was talking about he was talking about defending the right of women

to wear burqa and nicarbon and hijabes in public spaces right but he's done the same thing again he's sort of taking the morally liberal view but and I don't know if it's him throwing red meat to a certain side of what he believes to be his supporter base So he's sort of, that's what I find a bit duplicitous. He sometimes plays both in the angles. You know what I think with Corona, he might make it mandatory for women to wear the hijab.

Yeah, that'll be a protective measure. Yeah, that would be ironic. But come back to my point, which is, can he hold the Tory coalition together as a liberal Tory, given that, you know, many of the concerns about Brexit, I mean, there's a significant number of people who are seriously concerned about the level of immigration that we've had. and I'm not sure that he's necessarily going to be the person who is going to, you know, crack down.

No, I don't. I don't think he will be that. I think, you know, certainly from me as a Brexit voter, my desire for the take back control of borders wasn't to suddenly end immigration. It was just always found that having unlimited immigration in perpetuity was a bizarre sort of absolutism. Well, it's not sustainable. Unlimited forever. No circumstances could ever interfere with that, right? And so I wonder if Johnson, who is also a liberal like me,

probably that was what he took issue with more, because it's an example of a lack of sovereignty, isn't it? You can't take a decision based on your own needs. But I think that what, in terms of the parliamentary party, I think that they stared the abyss in the face so hard, you know, like literally bits of their, you know, like in the films where bits of their eyebrows are getting sucked into this fucking vortex,

so they will just be happy that the party exists. The other thing about his majority, the size of it, means that there is a number of ERG types that can comfortably rebel as well. You know, without sort of causing the downfall of the government. But what about the, sorry, I just want to get this point home. What about the people who are working class, northern voters perhaps,

whose concerns about immigration were hard aligned than yours, right, in terms of the Brexit vote and the 2019 election? Do you think there's a risk that you, he might alienate them by not having a kind of more hardline position. Possibly, but even more so than before there's nowhere else to go, if you know what I mean. So if he alienates them and we have a no, you know, so we've left the EU and the Labour Party are still as I think, what might happen to the Labour Party is after three years of being behind in the polls,

they might change leader again or they might change tax. So I can't tell what he'll be up against by then. But like I said before, a lot of things will be based on early impressions this is the first year or two. Maybe that's why Pretty Patel's, you know, the noises she's been making, right? You make those noises, you create a narrative. And in a weird way, the left play into this because they, like you say, the points-based system could easily create more immigration. But the left-wing press and left-wing Twitter and social media acts like she's the most

draconian, you know, anti-sor racist, essentially. He hates brown people, yeah. Since its time began when actually, so that might be the kind of thing in a way, if there are more nationalist-type voters that have gravitated towards Johnson, that rhetoric might be the thing that sort of saves him in a weird way. But do you not think we're at quite a dangerous point politically,

and I'm saying that as the only lefty in the room, because we don't have an option. I'm a centrist, mate. I'm a centrist, mate. It's how it starts. Yeah, mate, I know you're indoctrinating it. See, I've been introducing him. Chris Concertyen, me, Councillor Haynes.

What does you feel when you rub up against the... I've been opening for Jeff, so he's rubbing off on it. started as Lib Dem, he's now drifted further to the right. I used to vote for the Lib Dems, man. Yeah. Yeah, I did much. This is what you fucking done, man. Anyway, it's called, you know, how old are you?

37. Yeah. I mean, I've stopped at all. I'm not going any further right. I think I've gone. There's not much further right to go. I mean, there's no party that's really there anymore, is there? Yeah, and of course, the Brexit party would have argued that they weren't sort of

orientated. I mean, a lot of people argued against that. So, so in the absence of you, Kip, yeah. And maybe, like, going back to your point, maybe that is what will, Johnson is politically relying on, is that electoral reality? Where else are you going to go? But is that not dangerous?

That we do not have a credible opposition? We make jokes about the Labour Party. I know, totally, yeah, yeah. But it's dangerous. No, but this is part of, no one ever believes me, but this is partly why I dig out the opposition as much as I do,

because I think that in the age of spitting image, right, spit image was a great example. The thing that community is, a lot of communities are hesitant about doing anti- sort of Labor Party jokes because it's seen as by proxy being in support of the Tories, right? So if you say that on a panel of show,

it's your face on it, you're the one that would get stick. And maybe that was true in the 80s. The difference between the spitting image was, was these were puppets, there was a team of writers, people did the voices, it was almost like a Russian roulette thing if you didn't really know

where the bullet was coming from, right? So then you had a show like Spitting Image, which maybe 30 to 40% of it was about the opposition, which is what I always thought comedies should be. So when I'm doing the job, and I know that the people, left room people or Labor voters will be spitting at their last,

laptops as I'm talking. I honestly think I'm doing something. Honestly think I'm doing something of worth because it's that and you look at a lot of things that I and then the people that critique in the Labour Party have said in jest have been things if they'd listen to, they would have done better, right? If they would have been good advice to follow us. It's not a case of just taking the piss out of them for its own sake. It's saying, do you realize how you're seen by people like me?

But it's also as well, like, with all due respect, the conservatives were crap for the past few years. If you look at the way they handled Brexit, awful, dreadful. If you look at wind rush, a disgrace, all of these things, and yet Labor still couldn't win. I love the way he listed two things and then said all of these things.

Yeah, and also one of them was the outside of, you know, like, there was, yeah, I mean... Brexit should have been enough to sink the Conservative Party. It should have been enough, but one thing that I think is odd that gets discounted from the last few years is the job smart. I mean like, you know, it's Bill Clinton. I was going to say.

As Bill Cosby always said. I'm not sure how many jobs she created, mate. Sweet dreams. No, as Bill Clinton always said. We're going to clip that. It's up to you. It's a joke. Well, hey, Bill Clinton isn't that far away from Bill Cosby on the whole scheme. Yeah, I mean, they both like, you wouldn't let either of them babysit.

No, no. Oh, Harvey Weinstein. Yeah. Oh, how unfortunate, mate. He's going, he might die in jail. Yeah. It's funny. I saw a lot of things.

It was a really simple joke. Don't rape people. It's the only time I've agreed with Jess Phillips on Twitter. Yes, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. I think I like that tweet as well. She tweeted. He was complaining about how he might die in prison

and she just tweeted maybe this is why he shouldn't rape people. Yes, that was where I saw it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So not Bill Cosby, but as Bill Clinton said, you know, it's the economy is stupid. So like, the economy is the biggest way of people having skin in the game, right? Whereas having jobs, having houses, mortgages, whatever, right? You all need it to keep going.

So the record number of people in employment. As much as the left try and poo-poo it, you know, and say, well, this is because of zero-hours contracts. One, it was at the beginning of the jobs revival, but after that, for a long time, it's been full-time jobs that have been leading the way, right? People are working, right? Wage settlement started to outstrip inflation.

The irony is, is the Tories, for the first time in a long time, they were doing what they're supposed to do, right? The Tory brand is run the economy well, get people working, People feeling like they've got a few quid. But actually, that's been the thing that's been discussed least about them

the last few years. And what would be sort of ironic for them is if coronavirus and stuff derails the economy and they seem to have handled it badly. The jobs market is at a record peak. There's only one way it could go, right? So, you know, it could lose loads of jobs. We'd still be in relatively historically good position,

but it would look like things were catastrophic. And they'll probably regret, I think, not making more of that in the good times. Because weirdly, the toy spent a lot of them. a lot of time trying to deal with the ways that they're perceived negatively and turn it around. But actually, things they do positively. They're almost got this weird public school thing of not being able to pat themselves on the back. You know, they don't seem to know how to shine a good enough light on the buoyancy of the

jobs market. So that, in answer to your question, that is the biggest single reason, I think, that one of the two biggest single reasons that the last election result happened, because when Labour were talking about this, broken Britain and no one's got jobs and everyone's on the food, the truth was, for most people, that wasn't true. So they're talking about, you know, a political and economic environment that didn't make sense to a lot of people. It's not saying that there weren't people struggling. Of course they were. But, you know, people, you know, households had more people in work, more women in work, more ethnic minorities in work than ever before.

So it was a weird narrative. And do you think as well, the left, and again, part of the left, the deeply patronising attitude to ethnic minorities will go, well, they're all going to vote Labor because they're all liberal. and that is quite frankly, bollets. Well, but it's also like, you know, certain, you know, you look at, you know, British Asians for quite a long time.

It has, you know, there's not, there's always been a reasonable record of them voting for the conservatives. And I think that entitlement, one of the things that incites me most about the political age that we're living in is that all of the parties

are having to pitch for the business, right? That's how it should have always been. No givens, no gimmies, right? Every election, every vote, Well, why should I vote for you? Not because your granddad worked in a mill. Do you know what I mean? And not because your granddad was a doctor

and that's what our stories do. You know, more a case of a play-by-play basis. That's what democracy should always be. You know, like you get party officials and stuff. You're a small amount that have to stay loyal for the mechanism that will work. The rest of us, we're always, we should always be floating voters, really.

I think there are a lot of reasons why I will probably vote conservative, but it's not an absolute given. Do you saying you can vote Lib Dem then, Jeff? Well, probably, based on last election, probably it would be to not vote at all, because there was like, look at last election. There were times I got frustrated with the conservative campaign, but I was like, well, I'm not going to vote for Lib Dems,

it's just, you know, the arrogance of the way that they thought that they could, you know, revoke a vote. And it goes me great heart that the public were broadly in line with rejecting that sort of extremist stance. And then Labor Party, I mean, just a million miles away from a party I could vote for. So, yeah, it would have been just to not vote at all. And do you think that, we're seeing a sort of new humility amongst our MPs.

Because they've sort of realised that the game has changed. There's no such thing anymore, really, with certain exceptions, there's a safe seat. And we've seen it with the way Labor got decimated. So there's a lot of people looking at their seats thinking to themselves, well, there's a chance I could lose this. I really need to up my game and connect with the voter. Well, I mean, there's no surprise that a lot of the Labour MPs that were most sympathetic to the idea of honouring Brexit

were the ones that had to face constituencies that had voted for for Brexit but they were roundly not ignored but I mean how Labor changed policy on Brexit given the numbers and where all their marginals were in Labor heartlands I mean this thing they keep making out Keir Starmes is the grown up in the room you know

Centress loves this idea you know he's the adult in the room because he seems clever and he is like intellectually clever but he was one of the architects of Labor's change in policy on Brexit you know and he led the way on that and you know their argument that are Labor were snookered at that election to a point.

But when it's touch and go, you look at the marginals and all the marginals will leave constituencies. I just think in that election, because of the change in the party membership that you've talked about, I don't think there was a way out for them. They had to chop off this arm or that arm, and they would have ended with no arm whatever they did, you know. So being Labor, they chopped off their penis.

And that's not a trans reference. I was just going for another part of the body You can never join the Labour Party again, Jeff. Yeah, I'm sure you're disappointed. We've got a few minutes left, and you mentioned corona and the potential impact. I mean, one of the things obviously will affect the economy, but the question is, you know,

how much of a discount does the government get for the fact that it was, I mean, look, they can do stuff about it, but ultimately it's an act of guard kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, well, it will be how it plays out, right? If eventually it peaks in Britain in the same way that has been doing in Italy, and if the NHS is unable to cope,

and if the narrative sticks, the reason is because of cuts and stuff like that, even though there was a stat recently that showed that the number of hospital beds had been going down throughout the Blair years as well. But again, these things are whether the narrative sticks, right? So they may be held accountable for that. I mean, bear in mind, right, if you want to like a historical parallel, is that, you know, John Major, 1992,

surprise victory, right? You know, he got a huge, unexpected share of the vote. Immediately afterwards, Black Wednesday, right? Britain pulls out of the ERM, the economies tank, everything seems to be in freefall.

So this idea that, like, it's just a guaranteed five years of Boris. There's a degree of economic cluster fuck that could pull any government down, right? Any government. I mean, like, you look at the reduction in GDP that could occur through this. In final, even the worst elements of like,

I think like in the credit crunch, the worst in one, quarter was like minus 1%. This could be more than that because if people come to a pretty much a grinding hole you could be looking at record losses in GDP, right? You could be. Now I'm not being a catastrophizer because obviously the way that the

virus works, it will also recover quicker as well. But what happens in this period it could sort of set the tone and it's an enviable task right? Enviable, I never know. No, it's an unenviable task. It's not a good task for anybody

coming into this because the simple idea of like we'll shut the schools, you know, we'll shut the schools, right, who's going to stay home with them? Yeah, there's one kid. Dad drives a, you know, a coach or a lorry to deliver food, right? Or mum's a doctor, you know, so every time you talk about shutting stuff down, you're also taking people out of the infrastructure of the country. So at some point, you know, as much as there's all these broadcasters at the moment, I mean, there's this weird thing, like people are going, stop listening to the chief medical officer. Listen to this guy on this radio show. It's time we started listening to the broadcasters.

Broadcasters. Because these are really tricky decisions. And also there's a decision about how, you know, how you manage the degree of economic contraction. What about the effect that that has on people in the long run? You know, so this is, this isn't an aggregate of things. This isn't a, oh, you know, would, well, if shutting down schools and offices and public gatherings right now,

would it slow down the spread of the virus? Yeah. You know, but if you haven't shut a year for two weeks and then reopen, before the virus has peaked, It's still knocking about. So I've been surprised that the alarmism, and it's not said there's nothing to be alarmed about, but it's the scale at which the people expect the government

to abandon their plan, which is based on the medical advice that they've been given. And this is the weird thing. People are tired of experts, mate. But now, weirdly, I'm seeing a lot of people who remainers who are saying, we should be listening to the experts. And now they're going, fuck the experts. We should be listening to

Peter's Morgan. And then something like me, who let us be honest, as a Brexit, you had to ignore a certain amount of expertise. You're going, we're, fuck the experts. Now I'm going, no, it's the experts, and we should be listened.

So it's almost like God has sent us away to challenge our own viewpoints yet again. Yeah. He's going, right, I'll show you how subjective this all is. And obviously, in my view, God is like a sort of... Upper-class white, Tory. Deep voice. Yeah, benevolent, sort of like,

McMillan. God's a woman, mate, as we keep being told. Yeah, God is a lady. Have you never heard this? It's feminists, love that shit. No, I don't, but I've never thought of... I've never spoken to a feminist. If you asked me in a sort of like,

Evan Almighty type way, yeah, I'm seeing a male god. But like, if you really asked me what I thought God was, I don't think gender is the first thing. Because if it was the first... You know, it just wouldn't have a gender by definition, you know, which... So it couldn't compete in weightlifting. I'll tell you what.

is taking a turn this podcast, hasn't it? There you go. God is gender neutral according to Jeff. You know when ladies me's sitting there and when the space cake starts, anyone that's just watched the last year, that was when it kicked in and we just started paranoid. The next bit will be us going out to get a big bottle of Sprite just because we're all getting paranoid. Like, fuck, man.

Well, actually, the next bit will be our final question. Yeah, and the final question is what is the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be talking about as a society. IP Vanish protects every device you own, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IPVanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing private at home and on public Wi-Fi. And with no device limits, one account covers everything.

Stream with added privacy. Browse securely. Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83% off the two-year plan. Get started today at IPVanish.com slash audio and take control of your privacy with IPVVit. Well, I suppose the thing that precedes and will antecede all of this is the degree to which the state and people should be telling other people to live their lives, right? I'm not just trying to plug the saw show again.

But you have to look at the degree of incursion. I mean, you look at schools, for example, right now schools can in, have you got kids? No. No, right? Even at you ever hang out near schools? I used to be a teacher. There you go, right? We get a lot of comments about France's appearance that he'd,

looks like he hangs around around schools and not in the teaching capacity. Yeah. Yeah, I can see where it's going. But, but like, it would have been a case at school where you can look in kids' lunchboxes now. Really? Yeah, yeah. They can inspect some schools do that. So, so these are this, encroachment of the state. So, you know, whether the Tories claim that they've reduced the size of the state or not, in so many other areas, there are an increasing body of people that feel at liberty to tell you how you should be living, saying where you should be driving, whether you should be flying, what your kids should be eating at lunch. And this is all happening in the background.

And it's above left or right politics. It's beyond Brexit or remain. And even a pandemic, right, and quite rightly, government should take action. But the thing about when governments take action or they pass emergency laws, they rarely give them back again. It's like emergency taxes. Remember VAT going up to 20% just as a temporary measure. It's been five years now.

Or no, it's been even longer that. It's 2010, wasn't it? So that's my concern is that we're so used to omnipresent organizations and corporations knowing stuff about us and, you know, like clicking, you know, updated terms and conditions, whatever. I mean, who fucking knows what we've said to Apple just so we can keep having music over the years? Every single time we've ticked that. What are they saying in these things?

Yeah, I'm definitely a p-ed-ed-o. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Will you donate your organs while still living to the CEO of Apple if he has like an incurable kidney complaint. Yeah, it's just fine. It's just I don't want to lose my like, you two, uh, deluxe acting baby edition. So yeah, it's fine. Click, click, click. So it's not just that governments like have become more interventionist. If we have also these, these corporations and I blame us as human beings, right? We just lazily let this stuff happen. But, but they're also all up in our business. Yeah. To a fascinating degree. And I don't think it's,

I don't know if it's reversible at this point. You know, because let's be honest, Amazon is fucking great. You've got a terminal case of the nanny state is what you're saying. Well, yeah, and if you want to hear me talk about it more, you might want to come along to my tour show. Oh, I'll plug the tour show. Well, Jeff is on tour at the moment. It's jeff-norkot.com to get tickets?

Yeah, or if you just go, like, to my Twitter or my Facebook, I mean, Jeff Norkot tour, but I know the modern internet user needs to be told exactly where stuff is. Yeah, you could go to Live Nation. Go to Live Nation website, and, yeah, I'm on tour to the end of April. and yeah, like even despite the coronavirus thing, I had my attendance rate last week, you get no shows in comedy, right?

Was less than usual. I think that's the benefit of having part of your audience being quite Brexit. We're not saying at home. I'm going more out. I'll lick his face. Yeah, and I've been on top with Jeff opening for him on some days. It's an absolutely brilliant show.

Have you heard your face licked? That was the most random fucking question in the middle of me plugging our guest's show. He's done very well. He's done very well. But sometimes too well, like I've almost been like, okay, mate. Yeah.

Get the old club. Get the official. No, no. Jeff's like, no, no, that's never happened. He's always been mildly okay. No, no, you know. You've done great. Oh, my fucking shot.

I've just plodd. But this is the thing with comedians. You can't take it when you're just sincere. Yeah. I just told him he'd done great. And he got it freaked me out more than if I told him that he was, because he's lived in his country for too long. It's been an absolute pleasure.

And like all Brexit is, Jeff needs a little bit of Russian help every now and again. There you go. But it is a cracking show. Jeff is firing on all cylinders right now. He's really, really great. So make sure you go and check out one of his shows.

It's got all over the country. And you'll go into Edinburgh this year as well. I will be taken, yeah, and it'll be an amended version of the show. It'll be fully updated. So if anybody told me to do the work in progress last year, this is going to be a completely different show. I'll be up there for three weeks.

And also you do a podcast now as well. A podcast, yeah, what most people think. So the revolutionary angle of what most people think. It's just like what do most people think about this? Trying to come to a reasonable view on the big issues of the day. Oh, well done. All right, mate, touch my elbow. Thanks very much for coming on the show.

There you go. That was the most stupid thing we've ever done. We'll see you again in a week from now with another brilliant episode. Take care. See you next week, guys.