TRIGGERnometry - Our Honest Opinion on Israel - Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Our Honest Opinion on Israel - Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster Triggernometry is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: - Masa Chips! https://masachips.com/trigger and use code TRIGGER for 25% off your first order. - Evening Being by Verso. Get 15% with code TRIGGER at http://evening.ver.so/trigger - Watch Chuck Norris’s video to discover his secret to staying strong and active at 84. Click: https://ChuckDefense.com/Trigger Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a rees. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heighten taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a reeses. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Salas, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery.

Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. We survived World War III. A bit of a damn squid. Twelve days. The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say, is a mainstream position now. But when it comes to the propaganda wall, there really is only one winner. They don't understand this.

They cannot wrap their head around the fact that people, think differently in different cultures. They have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is. Iran couldn't give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians. To the contrary, the more of them die, the better

is for Iran? Who is it that's preventing the conflict in Gaza from coming to an end? All right, Francis, welcome back to another episode on whatever this is. Good news, we survived World War III. Exactly. It was a bit of a damn squid. 12 days.

Yeah. But there were a lot of people got very excited about it, which I thought was quite interesting in telling, because there were people calling for Dave Smith called for President Trump to be impeached.

Tucker Carlson explained that this was going to cause thousands of American casualties. And really, it was over pretty quickly. And not that big a deal. No, no, but it's always good to hear from the moderates. Yeah, I'm looking forward to World War IV.

That might stretch out a full two weeks. Yeah. No, but seriously, we're joking around, but I just thought it was such a telling moment because it just shows you that the people who are always losing their shit online and in the media, which increasingly are becoming the same thing. They really don't know what they're talking about a lot of the time. And there's so many clicks to be had from pretending that you know and from presenting the worst possible scenario and from amplifying and exaggerating the worst voices and doing interviews with the most extreme people. And then you get a very distorted picture of reality being presented to people. Absolutely. And I think you really hit the nail on the head where you were like, we are incentivised.

And by we, I mean, people in the new media, in the media. But we are too. We could have done those things and got all the clicks from doing that if we chosen to. Absolutely. Throwing a little bit of trans in there as well. All of a sudden, you're on to a million. But the reality is we are being incentivized, much in the same way as the old media was incentivized.

if you think about the tabloid press in our country to come up with ever more salacious stories, salacious headlines, because you know that that will generate clicks, it will generate engagement, because what you're doing is not actually giving people information. You're playing on people's emotions. You are triggering people emotionally. And when people react emotionally, what they're not doing is reacting logically. And in many ways, people enjoy being triggered emotionally because it means you're feeling something. you're getting something. It's why if you actually did an entire podcast

just presenting people with dry facts, nobody's really, or very few people are going to listen to it because actually what people want, whether they're reading, whether they're listening, whether they're watching, is they want to feel something.

Right, stick around because we're going to do a lot of trigger and we're going to talk about all the stuff that outrages you. But actually, I think you make a really good point. And I think it's a worry. However, you wonder what the impact that that will be because obviously a lot of people

said a lot of things and then came out and were completely discredited as a result. President Trump stared them down in effect, right? Because there were a lot of people effectively trying to say he's choosing the wrong path. He was proven entirely correct in the approach that he took effectively.

And you wonder what that means going forward, whether that means that people will stop listening to those people as much as they have been or whether these people carry on as if nothing ever happened. and people carry on listening to them as if nothing ever happened. But for me, it was a really important moment.

And the whole conversation about Israel is evolving as well, isn't it? It is indeed, you know, because one of the things that I find really interesting about Israel is that people in our space tend to be pro-Zionist, they tend to be pro-Israel, we're both pro-Israel. How are you defining our space? Our space, as in kind of the little, that's a very good way. That's a very good question. By our space, I mean the people that we know in the UK. Oh, okay, that's a very narrow way of looking at.

When I think of our space, I think of like the YouTube channels and the podcast, right? Yeah. In that space, I think it's very divided, actually. Yes. And in fact, what I'm seeing when I talk to people, and when I talk to people I describe as normies, and when I ask them about Israel, what I find very interesting is actually how much they disagree with our point of view on Israel. The idea that Israel is now committing a genocide, I would say, is a mainstream position now. Within regular people, they will say it's a mainstream position. It's not even a debate anymore. That is actually what Israel are doing. Now, you may ask them what does that define genocide? They may not be able to do that,

but they will say, with absolute conviction, this is genocide. You will look at Piers Morgan. Piers Morgan is actually saying Israel is committing war crimes. And I think what Israel needs to be very mindful of is the fact that they may be winning the war against Hamas and against Iran and all of these countries and organizations. But when it comes to the propaganda war, there really is only one winner and it ain't Israel. Well, let's go back to talking because you kept saying our position. And I want to maybe lay out how, I don't know about you, you can talk for yourself, but how I arrived at the position I have on that. issue because people who watch our channel will know that neither you or I ever had a position on Israel. No. And this latest flare-up of the war is obviously very significant, there's very heavy

casualties, et cetera. But it's not the first time Israel has been at war, including in our lifetime, really. This has been going on for a long time. So our first encounter with this issue as an issue was it would have been 2019, I think, the first time we interviewed Melanie Phillips. And as I said, I think to her face when we last interviewed her. I didn't come away from that interview thinking, well, you know, Israel is like pure than pure and whiter than white and everything is great. I came away from it thinking, you know, Melanie made some good points, but overall, the creation of the state of Israel is clearly a contentious issue, right?

And that was really my entire takeaway from it. And I never really had an opinion. And I didn't have an opinion when October 7th happened other than October 7th happened other than October 7th was really bad, obviously. It's a terrorist attack. And then I just, we interviewed people from every side of that conflict, Basim Youssef, Norman Finkelstein from the pro-Palestine side. And Basim Youssef was a big eye-opening moment for me because I remember before we started the interview, it was all friendly, it was all joking around, you know, we're going to have a great conversation. And I asked him what I thought was a very simple and reasonable question to

ask, which is ultimately, once October 7th has happened, what do you think? Israel should do, given that you are advocating that it shouldn't do what it's currently doing. And he just wouldn't answer the question for such, and I felt really bad because people who watch Asha regularly will laugh at this, but I really don't like the idea of hogging the mic, and I'm always worried about, like, I've been talking for a long time, it's time for you to chip in and whatever. But with him, we just kept going round and round and round around this question. And I kind of realized, first and foremost, that many, many people who are talking about this issue, they simply have no interest in actually being rational about this entire situation.

They have no interest in trying to work out what the solution to the problem is, first and foremost, right? And then you add on top of that that I'm pretty certain that if we had had modern technology like the camera phone and the internet, in any other major conflict in history, in which we were involved, the West, I mean, right? We'd be experiencing many of the same things because in every war that Britain's ever been involved in or America's ever been involved in or God forbid Russia's ever been involved in, the troops of that country, whichever you align with, have committed war crimes. And if you look at World War II, I mean, Britain and America destroyed 80 German cities. We were dropping like way more munitions on Germany than Israel

is dropping on Gaza per head of population to the point where, you know, according to some analysis This is like several nuclear weapons worth of munitions every month, flattening entire cities. I mean, killing somewhere between 3 and 600,000 civilians, German civilians, just in the bombing, right, from what I understand. So I think a lot of this is to do with the way that we, on the one hand, living in relative peace and safety, we talked about this in our upcoming interview with Dominic Sandbrook, which is a great interview, are then confronted with the reality of war, if you want 24-7 on your phone, you put that together and the emotional reaction of that coming back to where we started this is so overwhelming that critical thought, I think, becomes very difficult at that point, right? And I know this, and I'm not, it sounds like I'm saying that the people who support this

particular view are like stupid. I'm not saying that. I just mean that being confronted with the reality of. of war is such a powerful thing, it becomes then difficult to actually think about this from a more historical and rational perspective, which is how does this map onto everything else that's ever happened and therefore what is actually right or wrong? Do you see what I'm saying? I'm completely seeing what you're saying. I think, look, it's part of the reason why I make sure that none of that content ever gets through to me because I don't want to give myself PTSD via my phone.

It's why when we were invited to go and see the films of October 7th, I didn't want to go because I can read about them and I've read about them thoroughly and we've read Douglas Murray's book, I know what happened. I know the awful atrocities that were committed. I've read about them. I don't need to actually see them and essentially damage my psyche in order to ingest that content. But also, I think if you are going to have a strong opinion on this conflict, which you have every right to do, every right.

Then is your responsibility, and I use that word, responsibility, to understand what is actually happening. I have family in Lebanon. When I talk to my family in Lebanon, they talk about Hezbollah. Hezbollah are evil. They are evil.

They are Islamic fundamentalists who believe in establish a global Islamic caliphate, women should be subjugated, gay should be killed, they believe in their absolute rule of law. Well, we all agree with part of them. Yeah, of course, of course, the women think, come on. But the reality is these people are not good people. And they have contributed to Lebanon essentially being in a state of civil war for decades now.

So this idea that Israel is just psychopathic aggressor that enjoys destroy. drawing Gaza and wiping Gaza off the face of the map. It's a very, to put it kindly, one-dimensional view of the situation. And I really do believe, if you're going to have a strong opinion about this, have a strong opinion, but make sure you've done the reading.

You actually understand the geopolitics behind it. Well, right. And also, the reason I've come to the position that I've come to on it is, you just conduct a mental experiment in your head, and you go, imagine that you are the Prime Minister of Israel on October the 8th. And actually imagine it. Don't say the words.

Imagine it. Thousands of your citizens have just been slaughtered or wounded. Hundreds of them have been dragged off as hostages by extreme jihadi fundamentalists, right? This is Euphoria Calvin Klein, the new Elixir Collection, featuring three perfume intense scents, inspired by a unique orchid accord, paired with. with vanilla, each with its own distinct attitude, each with its own universe, bold elixir, sensual, woody, addictive, magnetic elixir, sweet and romantic like a lingering touch, solar elixir, a radiant expression of joy, ultra-concentrated for amplified impact and lasting power, find your euphoria,

discover the euphoria elixir collection by Calvin Klein. And then you go, okay, if that had happened to Britain, or if that happened to America, or if that happened to any other country that you might be a citizen of watching this, A, what do you think your government would do? And B, and this is really important for people to think about and really be honest, is what would you want your government to do, right? And people go, oh, no, I'd want them to do really, you know, be careful and do this, really. Is that what we saw on 9-11? We saw the American public be wanting to be really surgical? I don't think so. And my thing with this is, I think the truth is there's a luxury belief thing going on, which is we sitting in comfort and safety and plenty are judging Israel, which experienced

the most horrific terrorist attack in the history. Right. And if we were in their position, I hope we would be as careful as Israel, but I don't think we would be, is the truth of it. I don't think we would be as careful. I don't think we would be as the ratio of civilians to combatants killed would be anything like what it is now. And historically speaking, that is how it's gone down. After 9-11, America invaded two countries, one of which had nothing to do with 9-11. That is the level of overreaction we saw there.

So you can definitely say Israel is committing war crimes. Every country of war has committed some war crimes. And this food distribution thing is sus. And the settlers in the West Bank, a lot of questions about stuff like that. I think there are very legitimate criticisms to be made of the way Israel has prosecuted this conflict. But as a broad thing, is Israel doing what we would do? I don't even know because I suspect what we would do would be far worse in the same situation.

So I'm not going to sit here in an air-conditioned studio in a place where October the 7th could never happen and judge them for the way that they're proceeds, for the fact that they're attempting to destroy the people who did this. to say nothing of the fact that, of course, all the figures that we get told and all the news, et cetera, are Hamas lies, right? And, you know, there are people like Pierce, by the way, who say, well, they should let journalists in. I'm not necessarily against that,

although I do think what would happen is, basically a lot of them would get killed because it's a tiny little area, highly urban conflict. Some of them probably get set up or killed by Hamas. And then you've got them being used as a, their deaths being used as a propaganda weapon as well. So, anyway, my broad point is,

I've come to the position in Israel that I have by engaging with the arguments and then going, okay, but what would I do in the same situation? What would my government do in the same situation? And not being a hypocrite and not holding Israel to a different standard that we would hold ourselves to.

That's the only thing. So I don't even consider myself pro-Israel. I don't think I am pro-Israel. I have just looked at the facts of this issue and that is how I see it in this particular conflict. Israel can be engaged in another conflict. I'd be anti-Israel if I thought it was the wrong thing to do.

What I'm saying with pro-Israel is I believe Israel has a right to exist. Of course. Which we think is a pretty mainstream position. I'm going to be honest with you. Amongst young people, I don't know how many of them do. Well, they are the ones that are then generating this conflict for eternity. Because if you don't think Israel has a right to exist, you're putting Israel in a position where it has to continue to fight for its existence.

And then this entire thing is going to keep going. But you look at, for instance, the footage coming out of Glastonbury with Bob Villain, chanting death to the IDF. And the fact that he was getting chanted back in a sea of Palestine flags, if you look at the amount of people week on week going to these protests, you know, pro-Palestine action protests, 70 people being arrested, that is telling you something quite fundamental about young people's attitude. Is it?

I think so. First of all, I don't, I didn't hear much chanting back on the death to the idea of thing. He was notably much more muted than the other stuff. And by the way, we should talk about that because it's a free speech issue as well. Yeah. And a lot of people started losing their shit about him. And I thought, you know, make fun of it, criticize, whatever. But like, if someone went on stage and chanted death to the Russian armed forces,

would the people melting down about that, about the chance to about death to the IDF, be having that same reaction? I don't think so. I personally think, I don't agree with it, obviously, but from a free speech perspective, a musician has every right to do that. No, look, I agree, I agree. And I think it's in, I get really uncomfortable when I see people on the right a couple of years ago screeching about free speech. And I'd be like, yeah, you're right. You know, it's bad that somebody gets canceled for their views. Yeah. And then, you flip markedly in a space of, you know, a couple of years and demand and celebrate that this person loses their agent, gets their visa cancelled, isn't able to play certain shows,

gets deep platforms, and you're going, hang on, you've got to be consistent, which goes back to the emotion part of it. And I do think a lot of people are just governed by their emotions and they can't help themselves. And the moment they see something that triggers them, And look, I understand we all have our triggers. We all have some things that touch us, and then we react in a way that is emotional, not logical. But if you're on the right and you have championed facts don't care about your feelings. Well, I don't know if that saying applies to this situation.

What are the facts here? The facts are, is that free speech is important, and you shouldn't cancel people because their speech differs from your speech. That's a fact. And by the way, I imagine his agent knew that this is the stuff he was doing, presumably. Yeah. Right? Because it's not the first time he was doing it.

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Ready to try them? Go to masachips.com slash. trigger and use code trigger for 25% off your first order. That's massacips.com slash trigger and use code trigger. So, so a Palestine action have been prescribed as a terrorist organization. So they snuck onto a military base in Britain and they damaged, I think, some war planes or some planes, which again, I wasn't certain that they, they have committed an act of terrorism in doing that because they were sort of just, they sprayed some pain on it. However, what I was very surprised by is like if I snuck onto a military base and started

mucking around to put it in a very British way with planes, I'd expect to be shot. I don't understand why that didn't happen So I don't think they're terrorists, but they also should have been shot when they entered that base, right? I completely agree I don't understand how you can break in to that type of highly classified I don't even know the word for it. Restricted, whatever. restricted area and expect to damage property, which is important for our national security and for nothing to happen. Yeah.

I don't understand. But it has created this thing where you've got some granny in a Kaffir sitting there and getting arrested because she supports this group or whatever. I just, my sense is that once you open the door to the policing of speech in the way that we have seen over the last, particularly five years since the pandemic,

especially. Now it's just fucking all, it's, it's censorship all the way down. Now, you're going to get people with this view and that view. And this is, by the way, what we have been saying from the beginning, do not open this door because it will be used against you. And now you're seeing people on the left, suddenly they're massively per free speech. I go, you're the dick has created all of this. When you had the ability to enforce your views, you did it. Yeah. And now it's being used against you. How do you like it? Yeah. And this is what they don't seem to understand. And this is the thing that I really struggle with with people. I remember one of our guests who shall remain nameless who basically said, oh, you know what? It's only until my side started getting cancelled that I realized cancel culture is a bad thing. I'm like, really, it's only when you saw your friends lose their jobs, their livelihoods, suddenly being unable to provide for their families, having their reputations destroyed, being pushed to the point of a nervous breakdown. You understood that this is bad? But it's also a difficult one, right?

Because with this Bob Villan guy, like, are you saying his agent should have kept him on? Are you saying the United States should allow him to come and do a tour there and keep his visa? Are you saying concert organizers should maintain his bookings? Like, that's where there is a, there is that line about, like, people don't, you have the right to speak, but there are consequences that people will voluntarily. choose to apply, right? And that's the gray area, I think, because I defend his right to say whatever he wants, but then I do also think that if I were organizing a series of concepts and I thought that his appearance would be detrimental to my business, that would be a decision you'd have to consider. Now, is that cancel culture? I think many people would say, yeah. Yeah, look, it is very

difficult, but also as well, look, when it comes to the arts, You have to look, and this is just my point, opinion, and people will push back on it. Artists have always been transgressive. Artists have always pushed the boundaries. Artists have always said the unsayable. It's part of what great art is. A great art is presenting something, in my opinion, if you think about great comedy, that we may be uncomfortable with, we don't like saying,

but we will say it through the medium of the art. I would not go as far as to call Bob Villains' music art. But it's subjective. There are lots of people who would. I don't know. For me, it's not creative enough to be called art personally. However, I did the kneecap is different. Kneck's music is actually really good.

It is. You know, my YouTube history is now all fucked up because I just listen to it just to find out what it's all about and it's good. And now I've got all these Irish protest songs. Like, Go on Home, British Soldiers, Go on Home, that are playing, the shower. Anyway, my point is, I think you're right, though, which is music, comedy and other forms

of art. They're very good at allowing you to suspend your critical faculties and not think about the content as much as the music. So if you put a nice beat to something, you can pretty much say anything. Kanye West is the ultimate example. Ultimate example. So anyway, this is a very long way of wrapping up the conversation about Israel. But basically, I think, and by the way, something I wanted to say as well is, We didn't really talk about the Israel conversation for a long time on the show because I really wasn't sure like what I think about it. And I was just listening to different perspectives or whatever. And then at some point, you said something because I was having all these thoughts in my head. And then you just went, you know, the truth is, Constantine, that a lot of people are just not being honest about that issue.

And I think you were totally right about that. Yeah. the moment you saw people engage with it, I remember listening to people of both sides and I love talking to people and I love listening to people. That's what I really enjoy. This show wouldn't work with that. Yeah.

Yeah, we'd just be holding court. But yeah, and I really like listening to people and seeing what they think and why they think. And I would talk to them about Palestine and about Israel and the Middle East. somebody who has family and knows a bit more about it and was raised by my grandfather, who was South American but was very much an Arab, first and foremost. And then I see people talk about it.

And it was all done through the lens of emotion and righteousness. And I was like, okay, but can we just accept about what the Iranians are doing? And what the Iranians are doing is effectively a program of destabilization through the Middle East. Let's be even more honest, Francis. Let's just say it like it is. Israel is surrounded until very recently when some of the Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE started becoming more accepting of Israel. And Jordan. The reality is Israel is surrounded by countries that have repeatedly invaded it in an attempt to destroy it and would like it not to exist.

If our countries were in that same position, whether it's the United States, was at constant. threat of invasion from Canada and Mexico, or Britain was constantly threatened by, you know, whoever. That would be a very different context in which we'd be operating. And we would have a very different posture towards the world and a very different attitude to our neighbors and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, of course. And to me, the key to all of this was Iran. The more I looked into it, the more I saw what Iran were doing. And I was thinking to myself, well, what is Israel meant to do? Right. What is Israel meant to do? One of your neighbors, is advocating that you are wiped off the face of the earth.

It compares you to a cancerous tumour. It funds terrorist organizations across the region which are trying to kill, rape, and essentially wipe you off the map. It's started a proxy war, because let's also be honest about that. October the 7th was done in the most provocative manner possible in order to start a war.

And also, let's be honest as well. Iran couldn't give a flying toss about the lives of Palestinians. To the contrary, the more of them die, the better is for Iran. And the better it is for Hamas. Yes. Hamas are explicit about this. They want high civilian casualties because it helps them do what they are doing, which is when the PR war against Israel.

Exactly. So you have all of that happening. So you go, well, and I wouldn't mind if the people on that side were like, look, I accept all of this. but Israel needs to change part of its tactic here. He needs to change part of its tactic here. I think that is a very important conversation to have and to still be having.

Of course. Because like you said, every country commits war crimes. There are things that are happening in Gaza, which are awful and terrible, and civilians are dying. Awful. However, until you address the issue of Iran

and you are honest about what the Iranians are doing, rather specifically the Ayatollah and his cronies, what they're doing and what they want. And talking about that problem, honestly, I don't really think we're having an honest conversation. Well, let's be even having even more on this conversation. I think we don't need to say, however, after we've said the terrible things are happening in Gaza, which they are, it's not however, it's an end. And the responsibility for that lies with the people who are preventing that war from coming to an end. Who is that? Who is it that's preventing the conflict in Gaza from coming to an end? It's Hamas. They are the ones that are refusing to release the hostages. They're the ones that will not hand over the terrorists who took them. They're the ones that won't surrender. And this comparison, people get very triggered when you bring up World War II, but I think it's the perfect comparison for the simple reason that Nazi Germany was a country that was held in the grips of a death cult. Adolf Hitler was effectively willing to fight to the last German. In fact, I, I, uh, I, uh,

someone should fact check this, but I'm pretty sure he said at some point that if the German people will not, cannot triumph in this conflict, they don't deserve to survive, right? In other words, he was prepared to see all of Germany destroyed in this fight, right, for the cause. And we had to, we were forced to, Britain, America, the Soviet Union were forced to invade, were forced to destroy just like Japan by the very fact that they wouldn't surrender. Right? So if Hamas holds on to the hostages, won't capitulate, won't surrender, and won't hand over the terrorists who took the hostages and who committed October 7th, Israel, for the sake of its own survival, has to go in and try to finish that job, get the hostages back, et cetera. So the terrible things that are happening in Gaza are terrible, and it's Hamas who should stop them. Yes, and I agree. But the reality is nobody is prepared to have this conversation. And what people don't understand as well, I remember having a very, I was in a green room, in a comedy club, and there was one particular comedian who was made a B-line for me

and was so, would you think about the things that are happening in Gaza? I think that's great. Brilliant. Yeah, loved every moment, mate. Actually, don't watch Pornhub anymore. Just do that. Just do that. But, and I said to him, and he was just like, what do you think?

And I said to him, and I said to him, the thing you need to understand, is you were looking at this situation through Western eyes. You were looking at it through a Western lens. Hamas do not have your values. Hamas do not think the same way as you do. Amas's objectives are utterly different to what your objectives would be in that situation. Your objectives would be, let's bring this to an end.

People are dying. Innocent people are suffering. they don't think about that. They don't care because they have a higher objective in their eyes. The more people die, the better, because they're going to go to heaven anyway, because they are righteous, and then they are going to be able to achieve their goal. That's all they care about. And to look at it through a Western lens and say, oh, these people are suffering and, you know,

we must bring this to an end, as if that's what Hamas wants. Hamas do not care. The Ayatollah do not care. Hezbollah do not care. They don't care. If anything, they like it. So if you looking at this situation through a Western lens, and this comes from somebody who has family who are Arabic,

who has seen the very real anti-Semitism that lies in the Arab world that we haven't even begun to touch on, you don't understand hatred until you talk to those people. The reality is, your view is, valid, you're Western, you're not an Arab, you're not Muslim, and you're not a jihadist. It's as simple as that. Well, and if you look at, I mean, there is not much difference between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad and ISIS. Now, you look at what ISIS did when they controlled

swether territory, right? They raped and butchered people that they didn't consider to be them, the Yazidis and whoever, right? Now, if these people are your neighbors and they are going to to raid across the board. I remember I interviewed Wilfred Riley. Do you remember it? He talks about Native Americans and the way that they would just butcher people, etc. In a very similar situation actually

some people might argue like you know you've got people from another continent who've come and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah ultimately you cannot deal with that through ceasefire? How can you have a ceasefire with people who want

you eradicated? You can if they're prepared to accept certain conditions, right? But they're not. They're not handing over the hostages. They don't want a ceasefire. Hamas do you not want a ceasefire, and they've demonstrated it repeatedly. If they wanted a ceasefire on day one, they could have just handed back the hostages, said, look, we'll give away, we'll hand over the people who committed this terrorist atrocity

for justice, right? Israel would have no, nobody would support Israel bombing guards. I wouldn't support Israel bombing gas in that situation. Would you? No, nobody would. They have that option and they don't take it precisely because they want exactly what's going on right now. They want this. It's them that wants this. Of course. Of course. And people in Brooklyn or in parts of North London or wherever it may be, they don't understand this. They cannot wrap their head around the fact that people think differently in different cultures. There's this great liberal life. There's this great liberal life. when we go, oh, everybody's just like us, people are all the same. They're not. People are different.

People are different culturally. I even think back, in Venezuela, I always remember being really quite horrified, even as a little boy with the attitude over there that if I screw you over, you're dumb, I'm smart. In Russia, it's the same. Because you let yourself be screwed over, therefore you're dumb. And I was there coming to it from an English perspective. going, yeah, but if we do this, then society can't work.

You've got a low trust society. Once you have a low trust society, I mean, I wouldn't have been that articulate as a 70. But I was going, but this can't work. How are you meant to have relationships? How are you meant to run a business? How are you meant to do anything? If every time you step into the room and you think, well, he's just going to stab me in the

back when my back's turned. Do you know, there's a phrase in Russian, something that's a lot of lieger-like, It means that something is lying in the wrong way, lying somewhere. Like this mug is standing in the wrong way. I mean, basically, I'll say, oh, I stole it because it was not sitting there properly. Do you see what I mean? Yeah.

So this culture is pervasive. And it's something actually, I think Jordan Peterson, when I was on tour with him, he talked a lot about the fact that a healthy society and a healthy community in which people voluntarily reciprocate good things toward each other and do good things towards each other and a unhealthy society. society is one in which they don't, right? So there's a massive difference between cultures. And of course, one of the big concerns with our country at the moment is that it is rapidly heading in a low trust direction. Thanks to mass immigration, the decriminalization of crime. We just had a great episode of Lawrence Newport come out who basically left the bike to be stolen outside Scotland yard. The police basically refused to do anything about it. He told them where it was. They refused to do anything about it, etc. And there is, you know, it's time to talk about Britain now. And it does seem like, you know, I am almost optimistic now because I just think things will get so bad, they can't not change.

It's really. But that is where it's headed, right? That is where it's headed. Being sleep deprived messes with everything. Reaction time, memory, decision making, even your emotions. It's like walking around legally. drunk, and the long-term effects, just as bad as smoking. Most people reach for melatonin, but here's a problem.

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which used to be a battle. Shut it. Of course it did. Head to V-E-R dot SO and use code trigger to get 15% off your first order or click the link in the description. That's V-E-R dot SO. code trigger. And there's been certain markers for me. I find I'm very interested in culture and I'm very interested in how internet culture mirrors what's going on in society, but not in the ways that sometimes people think.

Like, do you remember that clip of Robert Jenrick in the tube talking to people who didn't, were just forcing their way through the barriers at the tube station refusing. to peg. That went super viral. And people, and you go, why? Because it touched something really fundamental. And by the way, I've seen this happen time and time again. You go to a tube station, people force their way through the barriers. But you know something, Francis, before you go on, I don't know if you remember, I tweeted about this a couple of years back, because you and I

talked about it. That is a very new thing. It is. It's a very new thing. Yes. So I basically, I used to go on the tube all the time and then I think at some point I might mostly cycle around London so I hadn't been on the tube for like a year or a year and a half and then I went on middle of the day and it was a different

environment entirely people were not paying there were kids running rampant on all over like pressing the stop things on the elevator like being genuine nuisances and nobody was doing. It is a very new thing, and it's happened very rapidly. Agreed. Agreed. And it's really interesting because I see this, and I talk to people about it. I had a clip from my own podcast just go quite viral, actually, where Peter Blexley was talking about it,

and he was getting really angry, and people were sharing it all over TikTok. And the reason it's resonated isn't because of the tube. It's because of something very fundamental, and people are going, I contribute to, society. I pay my way. I do what's right. And this law don't, and they are allowed to run rampant, behave in a manner that is antisocial, nor contribute, and nothing happens. And you know what's interesting in that generic video and other people have done similar things since? One of the things that shocked me was, look, 17-year-olds jumping over the barriers and being dickheads, 17-year-old boys are going to do stupid things and we all have been there. But it's like, people in their 30s

going to work but not paying. Yeah. I don't get it. And what you see is people literally not doing anything and this is run rampant through our society. I was in Walthamstow, a very she-she part of East London. There was a group of about,

this happened literally yesterday. There was a group of seven police officers, maybe more. And they were all congregated talking, having a laugh. Parme is going with what's going on in our society. should you really be doing that firstly. This guy on a deliveroo bike

cycled pass them on the pavement. The police officer went, don't do that. The guy ignored him, carried on cycling. He turned round to his mates. They all laughed about it and carried on chatting. And you go, that is a... That, right there in that tiny microcosm of what I've just seen sums up so much

of what is going wrong. Well, I hope it keeps going, Because like I say, I don't think there's any other way. I don't think people are actually going to wake up until things get really bad. I'm convinced of it now. I just, every time something bad happens now, I celebrate. I'm serious. Yeah.

Because I'm just going, if things carry on being like quite bad but not terrible, everyone's just going to keep acting like nothing's going on. This is what they do. And people do this in their own lives. If their lives, if their marriage, if the financial situation is really quite bad, but not terrible, they'll just put up with it. They won't make any changes. They won't try and improve anything.

And that's where we are. Yeah. It's like the proverbial alcoholic. You need to hit rock bottom. And to be fair, I mean, we're going down there pretty quickly. We seem to be. And it's something that I think is happening across Western societies. You know, you see the election of Mamdani in New York.

And, you know, I wrote a piece of my substack about it. But there's a lot to discuss about it. Which I think, you know, it's very easy. for people to go, you know, young people are stupid and whatever. But the reality is it's it it has become very difficult for young people to lead what we would consider a normal life. Even on very high incomes because of the way that housing is completely screwed up in this country and in the US, but particularly in Britain, it's such a massive issue that people go,

oh, you know, these young kids are spending five quid on lattes and whatever. And it's true. But if you can't afford your own property and house prices are going up so much faster than your salary, you might as well have a coffee and you might as well go out for a nice meal because what else you're going to do? Yeah. Yeah. And people don't seem to understand that. I get really frustrated by people on the right when they lambast the young and they go, oh, they're woke and they don't buy into society and they're nihilistic. And I'm going, look, it's like a game. Let's say we get the board out and we're going to play

a monopoly and we're going to have a nice game and monopoly and we've got all the team involved all the older ones and we're going to have a nice game but we say to all the young ones like Jack no mate you can't play you know what you're going to our producer yeah jack's the producer and this is actually an accurate depiction of our business model anyway and we're going to but you can't play and not only

are you not going to be able to play we're going to charge you an exorbitant amount not to play right eventually you're going to go do you know what mate fuck your game. That's why I think of it. And that is basically what is happening. Yeah. And that is what's happened with woke.

And now, woke has kind of lost its energy and its steam. It's still there, but it doesn't have the cultural force or relevance behind it. But what we're going to get from the left is something quite different. Well, and the right,

because you're seeing an equal and opposite force on the right now where, you know, I wrote an article a while back about I think it was the one called Tucker Carson and the work right. But basically one of the points I made in it was that this new movement on the right, it was sort of looking for how to frame it's who the enemy was. And it kept like talking about globalists or whatever.

But now they found Israel and Jews as like the thing to latch on to. They're the problem, as if all of the people's lives are really caused by that issue. The problems in the lives are caused by the issue, which of course they're not. And on the left, you've got that. But plus, they've got all these ideas. about socialism and rent control and all of that's really going to fix everything, which, of course, it never does. But I think what I'd want people to understand is that anger that is building on both left and right, it's actually not random. There are good reasons why that's happening.

And Matthew Saeed, who's a favorite guest of us who we've had on, he had a great article in the Times Today talking about basically how people like him who invested in the housing market, 10, 15,000. 15, 20 years ago, are now in position of such locked in advantage that it makes everyone else's life very, very difficult who's coming up behind them. And actually those people do need to pay more in a very particular type of tax, like a land tax, for example, which is actually something that's right-wing and left-wing economist support. Because if you maintain this housing situation where essentially housing prices are going up way higher than people's wages, because in Britain, people's wages aren't going up in real terms. It's no surprise that people aren't having kids.

There's no surprise that they're looking for a cause to rebel. It's no surprise that they're voting for lunatics. Why would they want to preserve a status quo that doesn't work for them? I read a horrifying statistic in that very article. I think it's 21 to 34-year-olds. 40% of them live at home with their parents. And then we sit here and go, well, we've got a collapsing birth rate. Well, of course we've got a collapsing birth rate, mate.

How are you going to bring up a kid? How are you even going to have sex when you've got your parents next door and your sister below you? I mean, if you're into that thing, I don't know. But the reality is that ain't going to happen. Right. It's not going to happen. But also, you're not going to mature.

I don't know about you, but when I first started living my own, it forced me to really grow up very quickly. When you live with your parents, lots of things are made easier for you or made possible for you, that you're simply prevented from growing into a full-blown adult, right?

And so all of those other things go out of the window. and I think it's a massive, massive issue. And that, this is why, you know, when people always, like, people always call us right wing or whatever. Like, inequality, particularly when it comes to housing and things like that, is a massive issue. And the right mostly wants to ignore it. The left will bang on about it and come up with the wrong solutions. But actually, the right answer is you have to make opportunity like that possible. Because it's all, you can talk about pulling up, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps all day long.

But the reality is if you work really hard, you should have the opportunity to get on in life. And that is increasingly being denied to a lot of people. But another thing is Fraser Nelson, former guest of us infamously, due to debate him and I had. He wrote a brilliant article that you sent me, which was about the fact that a lot of this is also to do with what's called delete of a production. In other words, if you overeducate, if you educate too many people to hire, you know, hire. education level, university, college, whatever, you then basically have a lot of people who have very high expectations and may even have not skills necessarily, but a high education. But there's not the jobs for them. They get very frustrated because they're like, look, I'm supposed to have,

you know, a hundred grand a year or two hundred grand a year job and be able to afford a house and marriage and kids and whatever. And I can't, in the big cities especially, which partly comes back to housing. Absolutely. Because, and I think, look, that's a great point. But also there's something emotional going on here as well, which is that generation have been lied to. When they went to school, they were told, work hard, go to college, get a good degree, you're going to get a great job. They were told that. They were told that by teachers. They were told that by parents. They were told that by elder siblings because that model worked for their older parents, they worked for their parents, it worked for the older generations, it worked for the teachers.

Right. The reality is, is that model no longer works. And again, partly that's because of technology as well, right? Because ultimately, we have an interview with Daniel Priestley coming out, in which I think he's absolutely right. And look at me and you. Like, the opportunities to make something of yourself are still there. But you probably are not going to get a job that's going to be your stable job for 40 years. The world has changed. So I do think it's probably still the best time to create and build and not have gatekeepers and really make something of yourself.

But you're going to have to work so much harder and have so much more success to be able to achieve the very basic things that people 50 years ago just thought was normal. Like, you know, dad goes out to work in a factory, mum's at home, two kids, three kids, house, car, right? That used to be normal. Now you have to be a millionaire to achieve that. For a lot of people, that's what it feels like, especially if you're coming up and you don't have inheritance from parents, they're not going to be able to help you out, get on the housing ladder. In London, I mean, look at the housing prices. It's insane.

It's insane. So that's where I think a lot of these really stupid and really counterproductive ideas on both left and right are coming from. It's just the fact that young people are looking into the future and going, this is really not a society that is looking after me. And by the way, I will say this. You know, we and I are elderly millennials. I don't think we can quite be blamed for this. But I really respect Matthew Saeed for making this point because I think he's a little older than us.

People who are rich and the kind of boomer generations, they've got to realize if you keep screwing young people over because you keep voting for people who only do things that are good for you, you're not going to find yourself living in a comfortable retirement 20, 30 years from now. Someone's going to have to pay for that. Someone's going to have to wipe your bum in a fucking nursing home. And it's not going to be these people. right? Because people need to, people have forgotten something, which is for society to work,

everyone has to contribute and sacrifice for the greater good. And if the only thing you ever vote for is for your house prices to keep going up and for no one to build a house in your backyard and for you to hold on to the three rental properties that you've had, well, you're going to brew a hell of a lot of resentment in society. It's going to come out one way or another and you're not going to fucking like it. No. And this is what people don't understand. And then they turn around and they blame young people. And you know what you're going to get? You're going to get more Zoran Mandanis. You're going to get more Jeremy Corbyn's. And they're only going to become more popular. I think what we're going to see as when you look at our electoral systems, more and more,

and we've spoken about it ad nauseum, but this two-party system, it's not fit for purpose. Well, And it is breaking down here in the UK. I mean, reform is leading the polls at the moment. And they are a fairly, you know, as far as a right-wing populist reaction to what's been going on goes, like, you go, thank fuck we've got them. If you look around Europe. Oh, yeah, AFD. Yeah, you know, those boys are a lot more spicy. So with Nigel Farage and Reform, you know, Nigel, I don't know if he said this publicly, but he certainly said to us he feels like this is, you know, we're drinking at the last chance of Loon as a kind of.

And I think he's right. And I am, you know, I have to be honest. Nigel, so there's a lot of things to say really about reform. I think the first thing is Nigel is the greatest talent, political talent of his generation. There's no question from a politics perspective. He's incredibly likable. There are a lot of people who don't like him. But generally speaking, he's incredibly likable.

And I think the mood music on him has changed a lot. a lot more people are now receptive to him. As for the party policies, there's a lot to like, and there's probably a lot to question in there as well. I mean, I think that obviously dealing with illegal immigration is a massive priority. Everyone would accept that. Mass immigration being reduced to something reasonable.

Again, net zero, dealing with that as important. But I also look at the economic policy, and I go, you are really promising a lot of things to a lot of people, and you are effectively, you know, being, very high, you know, I'm not, either it's not all going to add up or you're going to do a lot of the kind of left wing economics on this and you're just

going to go big on everything. Giving people money to these people, those people, et cetera. So I think they are the hope for a lot of people. And I'll be honest for you. I hope they win the next election. I do too. Not necessarily because

I believe that they will create some kind of utopia. I don't believe that's going to happen. Britain has a very long road to recovery. But I think we've seen that both the conservatives and the Labor Party are just, they're not going to deliver any meaningful attempt at change. And Stama's government, if you thought it was going to be bad, I mean, look at what they're doing on the illegal immigration now. They're going to reduce it by not reducing it. Well, he said he wants a one-in-one one-out policy. I'm going, great. You turn my country into a fucking nightclub. But I don't, why

What do you want? So their idea, I think, is they're going to bring in asylum seekers and get rid of illegal immigrants. But I honestly don't think that's what the British people wanted. How about, and I know this is controversial, we control our borders. And we do our best. It's not going to be possible to reduce it to zero. How about that? How about we actually be a country that enforces our borders and goes to illegal immigrants? If you come here illegally, that is a criminal act, you will not welcome, and you will be deported. I know that sounds pretty fascistic. Does it? Every other country in the world does that? Yeah. Except stupid countries in the West. Yeah.

But I was being kind of facetious. But, you know, that is a sensible position. That's common sense. But the fact that we can't even say, say it. The fact that we bow down to the French time after time, the fact that we're given the best part of half a billion quid a year to actually deal with this. And then it's only now that they manage to like slash a few boats to stop people coming. You're going, what is going on? What is going on? It's weak leadership. All right. Bit of an unexpected one for you,

but this actually got my attention. The other day, I was scrolling online and came across this video from none other than Chuck Norris. Yes, that Chuck Norris. He's in his 80s now, and according to him, he still feels like he's in his 50s. And honestly, watching it, I could believe it. The video goes through three specific foods he says you should avoid like the plague. And a few other things he's doing to keep in shape and stay sharp. I was skeptical at first.

The stuff he suggests is genuinely simple and actually makes a lot of sense. If you're interested in health, energy, or just curious what Chuck Norris swears by a 80 plus, this is worth your time. Watch a video now at chuckdefense.com slash trigger. That's chuck defense.com slash trigger. And we put the link in the description below to make it easy. And the economy obviously is in a lot of trouble. Not only that, but the tax situation is such that they're going to have to raise me. more taxes and more things.

Yeah. And that is going to massively, you know, we know that we're losing entrepreneurs and wealthy people at a rate like you've never seen. It's absolutely crazy. And that's where you hope a reform government might actually implement some pro-business policies that's going to create more jobs for people. Because that's the only way out of this, really, is you have to have the businesses of the future and the people who are going to create and start and run them in this country.

instead of chasing them out. And with this current administration, I mean, to be honestly, I still meet a lot of people in Westminster who think, like, you know, the Tories are going to come back and do, and you just go, I haven't heard from them.

Have you? No. Have you heard anything from the Tories? Yeah. Robert Jennerick's doing some good stuff, but he's not the leader. No. I don't really hear anything out of the conservatives.

But, so, yeah, anyway, we're in a lot of trouble. And like I say, I genuinely, I know this sounds evil and cruel and whatever, but as things get worse, I'm like, well, at least there might be a chance we get out of this. Do you know what it all comes back to and has been the problem that we've spoken about time and time and time again? And it's about all of the issues that we talk about is there is a lack of honesty. People aren't being honest. They're delusional. We've been living in La La Land for a long time.

wherever they're thinking is girls can be boys, which is the most ridiculous of all the arguments, or what's going on in the Middle East, all the fact that, you know, if you have borders, that somehow makes you akin to Joseph Goebbels, or the fact, you know, the no human is illegal, despite the fact that sounds like something Jeffrey Epstein would say. But all of these things, and you just look through it and you go, you can only indulge in these types of nonsensical narratives for a period of time. And then unfortunately, the rubber hits the road. But here's the problem, Francis, is given where we've got to,

we are kind of like the alcoholic. And the alcoholic really doesn't want to wake up, right? Because if we did, we'd have to recognize that we're all living beyond our means. We can't afford the current levels of spending. We can't afford even the shitty public services that we have now. Yeah. We can't. We can't afford.

You know, the levels of. benefits, unemployment benefits and sickness benefits that people are getting, especially the young now, it's absurd. We cannot have a country in which that number of people, you know, they're a bit depressed or they're anxious or whatever, and they're getting basically paid to not do anything. Like, I remember as an 18-year-old being super depressed because I was supposed to finish my education. I couldn't afford to.

I was really depressed. And then the answer to my depression, was to try and work, I had no choice. I had no choice. I'm sure you've been there as well. Almost everyone has been at a point where they were really depressed or really anxious

and you just have to find a way to deal with it. And you have to find a way to cope and to work through it or maybe to live with it and nonetheless keep moving forward. That's what life is. Life is not about the government, which is other people,

giving you money to wallow in your discomfort. That is not to say that there are not many people who genuinely are unable to work because they're mentally too unwell or physically too unwell. But we have stretched those definitions way past their remit, way past their remit. But that is a truth no one wants to hear. Of course not. Of course not. And that is the issue. The moment you say to yourself, I cannot do this because of X, Y and Z, what you're doing, it's learned helplessness. That's what it is.

And the government is facilitating people to say, I cannot do this. this. But you know what? If you say you cannot do something, I guarantee you, you won't be able to do it. There are times in all of our lives where you just think, I don't think I can go on. This is too hard. It's too difficult. Too many things are going wrong. I have sick parents. I've got this. I've got that. I've got, okay, but what's the choice? Do you know, I remember when I was a student, go into the student employment office just to look at the job office. And I would be sweating just looking at them because I was like really anxious and nervous. I didn't know what I was doing.

I did loads of jobs I did not want to be doing. And they weren't like terrible jobs. They just weren't jobs that were suited to my personality or whatever, being a waiter or doing this or whatever. I wasn't very happy during that time. No. I wasn't happy at all. You, I'm sure, had loads of jobs you didn't enjoy doing either, right?

But that is part of life. It always has been part of life. My understanding is I think there were fewer people as a percentage on unemployment and sickness benefits in this country after World War II than there are now. And that's when there were people with no hands, no legs, no arms. And suffering from severe shelter. And PTSD, right? And now you've got someone who's a bit anxious playing on their PlayStation all day. A country can't work like this, right?

But again, is a Farage government going to deal with that? because that's going to be unpopular as hell. And the thing is, is when you implement those types of policies, people get hurt. And some people will die. Yeah. And it's awful. Yeah.

And it's awful because things will go wrong. People will make mistakes. Right. There'll be somebody with terminal cancer who gets their benefits cuts and will die. And that is terrible and it's awful. Yeah. But we can't keep going like this because what we're going to do is we're going to bank on the country. We want to kill people with cancer.

We're going to bankrupt the country. But look at Trump and his immigration. Somebody's just died in detention. There are issues that I have with some of the way that is being prosecuted, right? So it's going to have to be calibrated pretty carefully. But I think the point is the problems have got so bad is going to take fairly drastic action. And that is drastic action is always a high risk thing. It's always painful.

It's always disruptive. It's always going to hurt people. and you always want to be very, very, very careful, which is why I would much rather, we didn't continue building up to things being that drastic, to being so bad that drastic actions necessary. However, I think we're past the point of no return now.

That's why I keep saying, I'm kind of an accelerationist on this one. I think things need to get so bad, the British public just go, you know what, fuck it. The right window treatments change everything, your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels.

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when people, when addicts are so bad and they're so out of control. They stage an intervention. What happens normally with an intervention is your family and friends essentially surprise you in a pretty unpleasant way and go, look,

you need to go and get professional help. I think we're at the point now where you say, you look around the country and go, we're not too far away from that. And you talk about drastic action, I agree with you. But the more you go down this road,

the more drastic the action has to be. and it's becoming worse and worse and worse and I'm looking and going pretty soon it's going to be it might be the case that medicine it's going to be like chemotherapy it might save your life but it's going to make you really sick at the same time. Probably. I think that's inevitable

and the hope is but look I mean you probably know more about this with your Latin American roots but Have-MLA came in in Argentina he cut like 30% of government's spending. Like he cut a lot of spending. He cut pensions. He cut benefits. He also cut taxes a lot. And it's working so far. It's really, really working. So I look, I just, I don't know, man.

Maybe I'm just getting soggy as I get older. But I really care about this country. And I wanted to be a good place for people to live. I wanted to be a good place for my children to live. Britain still, even now, the potential to be a great country. Yeah. A great country. It's got highly educated, intelligent, capable people. Many of whom want to get on with life,

many of whom want to work hard, many of whom have great ideas that they're willing to implement. It's got amazing infrastructure compared to lots of other countries in terms of being able to start a business and do things. It is very compassionate and we do look after the people at the bottom. It's a great country to be poor. Yeah. It really is compared to most places.

but that British spirit has to be revived. It has to be revived. Otherwise, I just, I really don't see a good future for this country. Do you know, I'm patriotic. I love this country. I know this sometimes comes across me. Gay. Guy, we'll marry you.

Look at you trying to be positive. No, and I criticize this country a lot. And the reason I criticize it is because I love it deeply, and it breaks my heart to see this. You know what I hate is when I go over to America and my country and my city, I'm a Londoner, is now become the punchline for every crap hack joke from Americans about how bad this country is, how bad London is, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's why I was so happy Mom Danny got elected, because now we're going to stick it back to them. Yeah.

Now they're going to find out what socialism really looks. like. Exactly. Go on. Enjoy it, mate. And it's just, and it's just, and they're all there laughing. And I'm, it's tragic that we went from being a country. I remember going to Venezuela in the 90s. I told people I was from London and people would go, wow, you're from London. And they want to sit down and talk with me because, because of the amazing things this country has created, the scientific and technological innovation, the art, the music, the literature, just the amazing. things this country has produced and how it's changed the world.

To now, I'm sitting in a green room of a comedy club and it's been reduced to a cheap punchline to a crap joke. That's tragic. Well, here's another thing, man, I think is the truth. You know, we just had Ian Dale on that episode. We'll go out in a bit to talk about Margaret Thatcher. He wrote a book about her. And I remember at the end, I asked him,

so, you know, what was her sense of, like, what British, you know, What would what did Britishness mean to her? And every time we talk about Britishness, it always goes back to, well, this country has a great history. That's not enough. A great history is not enough. We're going to have to forge some kind of forward-looking identity.

And until we do, I just, I don't. And what that means is maybe is something like happened under Thatcher, which is it's about a go-getter mentality. It's about some way of having a positive vision of the future. which we currently don't have. That's what we need, because this current shit is just not going to cut it. Yeah, and there's a certain nihilism. I see, and we've covered it amongst young people.

But there's, look, words matter. Words have an impact. You know that saying sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. That's nonsense, and we always know it is. It's something you tell kids, but the reality there's names of obviously... It's an aspiration, it's not a reality. It's not reality.

But it's like if you were constantly talking yourself down, you may not believe it at the start. Oh, but you know, blah, blah, blah. But eventually you keep saying those mantras and those sayings about yourself and those narratives, even though they might not be true. Eventually, you will start to believe them. So this idea that we're an evil country, we're a terrible country, there's no future, we're in terminal decline. A lot of what was actually said in the 70s before that actually came into power. Well, eventually you go, well, this is all true. And you look at what has actually been a wonderful country.

It still is a great country. And you just do it down. You say everything's terrible. Everything's awful. Well, eventually you're going to believe it. Well, in fairness, we have been saying that for the last hour. But that's only because the problems are real. And we would like those problems to be dealt with so that we can move forward.

That's the reason we're talking about in this way. And I think it's a really important point to emphasize. that ultimately this is going to, what we need is a revival. Yeah. And we need people to believe in something. But the only way you're going to believe in some, lead a revival, let's be honest, a lot of the time revivals start with young people. They provide the energy.

They provide the dynamism. They're the one that go out, start companies, create bands, do this, start so, blah, blah, blah, all these sorts of things. But you're only going to be able to engender that in young people if you give them a chance. to be part of society. And if you shut them out and you say, you're never going to own anything and you're never going to be able to buy property,

whatever else, then they aren't going to play the game because you're not going to let them. Well, these are the questions for reform to address because, look, clearly, the concerns about immigration are extraordinarily widely shared for very good reasons. Mass immigration has been way too high

and detrimental to Britain. Illegal immigration is completely unacceptable, of course. But I always keep saying to people within reform, you know, once you've achieved your Great British dream of deporting all the illegal immigrants, you're going to have to then have something beyond that because that's not going to transform the country overnight. It may make you feel better and rightly so. We shouldn't be spending money on migrant hotels. We shouldn't be doing all of those things. But that is not going to transform the country into what you want it to be. There's got to be an economic agenda that is actually going to deliver for people, is going to rebalance.

the economy. And that's a big, big project. That's a big project. So that revival, it's not going to be an easy job. But the way things are going now, my sense is, you know, some people think there will be an election before the 29. But if the election is in 2020, my sense is things are going to be so bad, reform are going to be with a very good shot. not least because if, you know, this Zara Sultanah and Jeremy Corbyn and whatever form their own party, they will split the left

in a very helpful way for the right. Absolutely. And by the way, this fragmentation of the big political parties, I think it's a good thing that Zara Sultan and Jeremy Corbyn are forging their own party. And those people who have those views

will have their political views cater to. Great. That's democracy. And the same with the people on the right, Well, there are about 57 parties on the right now. And they all start with re-trained, reclaim, reform, restore. What's another one? Redraw.

Jack, you must know all of these. Yeah. Re-invigrate. I don't think there's one called reinvigorate. But anyway, but there are a lot of them. Yeah. And I'll be honest to you, I don't think that's particularly helpful. Certainly if you want to see actual change, like,

I don't see how this narcissism of small differences on the right is helping anything. I really don't. For me, there's only one person on the right who's capable of delivering real electoral success. That's Nigel for us. And you either get behind them or you're just not helping. It's my personal view. I understand there are a lot of people who have questions. Some people want him to go further on certain issues and whatever.

But the truth is, come election time, is either going to be him or star Marie Fis Still in Power or Jeremy Corbyn. You know what I found really interesting about that. I skipped the Conservatives. Yeah. Yeah, because they don't. Let's be honest.

I'm not going to say his name, but someone that you were talking to at the Spectator Party, a very senior figure in the Conservative Party. He was talking to me, and he was like, oh, so what do you think? And I went, I think the Conservative party. I went, I think you're fucked. He went, why do you say that? And I went, my dad is somebody

who has been a conservative voter, off and on for nigh on majority of his life, over half a decade. You know what he said to me? He said to me, Francis, I'll never vote conservative again. And I said, my dad, it's just a regular guy who went to work. There was nothing special about him, but he's the type of person who's, this country is built upon decent, hardworking people. people turn up every day, do their best, work hard, pay their taxes, go on one holiday a year, because, you know, that's all that they had. But they believed in something they believed in this country. And you've got people like my dad saying they're never going to vote for you again. That is a damning indictment of the past 14 years of your government.

Anyway, the conversation was over after. Do you know what? I find increasingly a lot of people within the Conservative Party are starting to understand it. I mean, Jake Barry, who's the former chairman of the Conservative Party, I actually remember arguing with him on question time about Net Zero. He's a massive fan. He's just defected to reform. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But nonetheless, my point is you will start to see a lot of defections over time

because a lot of the Tories know they fuck. And I do actually hope that happens. You probably want to see defections from more senior figures who are still MPs, who have more views that are much more aligned with. the reform defecting. But I think reform are in with a real shot. And then it's a question, hopefully, if they do get elected, of what are they actually going to do?

But we're a long, long way away from any of that. So for the moment, we've got Stama. He's probably going to keep making things worse. And as I keep saying, maybe that's a good thing. And on that upbeat note, final question is always the same. What's the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be? mate climate change is fucking brilliant no no do you know what it's too hot the summer the summer's been incredible man i'm out in the garden i'm going for walks with my son it's beautiful no i hated every

moment and by the way if you notice something right i'm going to join just up oil hold on a second there's solar panels everywhere right yeah do you don't find it's interesting that you need climate change to make green solutions work yeah now there's solar panels everywhere they actually make sense yeah climate changes look i'm just saying scrap net zero climate change is brilliant. That's what we should be talking about. I'm going to join Justop Oil. I'm going to get myself one of those orange t-shirts. I'm going to start... You know, that's not actually going to help, right?

Yeah, but I feel like I'm doing something. All right, what's the one thing we're not talking about, Francis? You know, I go back to an interview with Barry Strauss, the ancient historian, which I always... We're not saying he's old. Yeah. He's a historian of ancient history. Absolutely. And he said something about the collapse of the Roman Empire.

And I think you or I went, why did it collapse? And he said a lot of things. And he went, inequality between rich and poor. The rich got richer. The poor got poorer. There was no middle class. And essentially, the vast majority of people stopped believing in the Roman Empire and the project. And then it fell.

And I would say to every single person on the right or who's got money and demonizes young people and looks at them and goes to them and goes to them. goes, oh, we're, you know, moaning, voting for stupid parties with stupid policies. We either solve this. And if we don't... This mom done is all the way down. Exactly. And I finally started making money. So please... Now head on over to Substack where we answer your questions. Tomorrow, we're posting a clip from the Substack portion of our incredible interview with Daniel Priestley. It's where one of our viewers asked the question.

question to Daniel, what's the five things we need to do in order to save the UK economy? Is there any answer to the immigration-induced social collapse in which we find ourselves other than mass deportation? What does each of you think your blind side is? What is the thing that always gets you even if you know it happens now and then? Do you guys ever get sick of each other? Can you give us any advice on navigating differences that arise in business relationships? Some follow the noise. follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the

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