TRIGGERnometry - Owen Jones vs. TRIGGERnometry

Starting point is 00:00:01 I think the real disagreement here is I don't think you understand how the market works. So how could those things that happened in 1984 and 85 cause a recession in 1980? It says these policies help plunge Britain and the US into dire recession in the early 80s. But the policies happened five years later. No, that's not true. Deregulation begins immediately. People feel they're competing for scarce resources. Immigration has actually, without immigration, our economies would be poorer.

Starting point is 00:00:30 My policy is that we're much more selective about who we let into this country. Do you understand the word selective? No, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying, but it doesn't, I'm saying what does that mean in practice? I'm trying to tell you. Tell me. It's funny talking about economic insanity and problematic. It's one of the most insane economic ideas I've ever heard.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Well, the market. Are you interviewing me here? Well, it feels like I am now, yeah. Yeah, well, maybe you should stop. Are you too popular? Is life too easy? Then head over to our merch store and change your life forever by telling the world you watch Trigonometry. You'll be able to buy

Starting point is 00:01:04 hoodies, t-shirts, caps, stickers, posters, and of course, the world-famous Trigonometry mug. Go to shop.triggerpod.com.com.uk.uk. That's shop. Dotriggerpod.com.com. And become part of the show. Owen Jones, welcome to Trigonometry. Here I am in the Heart of the Beast. Beautiful. It's a really beautiful studio, by the way.

Starting point is 00:01:27 Of course. Thank you very much. We open with a compliment. Who says people who disagree, Conner? Can't disagree. Exactly. Let's keep it up. I don't agree. Looking very dapper.

Starting point is 00:01:37 Thank you. You also, not as dapper, but still, you know, presentable. I'm in a brown shirt, so keep him with a character. He said it. But anyway, it's so good to have you on. Thank you very much for coming on. And really enjoyed the book. And one of the things you talk about a lot is neoliberalism.

Starting point is 00:01:55 And I think it's really important before we delve into all the issues. Could you just define what you mean? define what you mean by it? Because it's a word we hear all the time. I don't think a lot of people know what it means. No, yeah, it's totally fair enough. I think neoliberalism is its privatisation of state assets, it's slashing taxes on those with assets and with wealth. It's curtailing organised labour. It's promoting marketisation. It's in practice, it's financialisation. It's about rewarding assets and finance over the productive economy. It's, it's a very important. It's It means an economy which is geared towards finance.

Starting point is 00:02:33 I mean, 80% of finance is recirculated through finance, insurance and real estate, rather than going to the productive economy. So it's the financialization of everything. Everything becomes a financial product. Companies don't invest anymore in the way they should in their own company. It goes to share buybacks. It goes to share dividends. So yeah, I think it's marketization, privatization.

Starting point is 00:02:59 financialisation. It's the kind of gist, I guess. Right. Okay. And so what are your issues with that? Let's just pick this apart. So what it's done in practice is less growth, which is less equitably distributed. So the average growth in the 1970s was almost the same as it was in the 1980s. In 1970s, the 1970s is portrayed as Britain is in a catastrophic meltdown. It's a sick man of Europe. It's stagflation all the rest of it. And no question. Britain is. the West or in a bit of a mess of the 70s, mainly because of the oil shock of the early 70s. Very, you know, a bit of deja vu, because we're kind of going through that again, because of conflicts in the Middle East, 973 onwards. You get the Arab states imposed an oil

Starting point is 00:03:44 embargo. And later you as well with the Iranian revolution, you get another oil shock. So you get massive inflation, but it's also caused by the Vietnam War because the Americans didn't print money, or sorry, they did print money, they didn't raise taxes to pay for the war, they printed money. So you get this inflationary wage, the international financial framework, Bretton Woods collapses under Richard Nixon. So the West is in this mess in the 1970s because of that, not, but Fascher and Reagan spun a story. This is because of the state, it's because of the unions. But what you get in the 80s is the same amount of growth in average in Britain. In the 90s, the growth is less. In the in the noughties it's lower. In the tens it's about the

Starting point is 00:04:29 same and in and in the 20s again it's very weak growth so what you've had since that tourism is 80s the same growth as the 70s less equity distributed every decade after that it's lower growth than the 1970s you get the privatization of utilities shit in our water railways which are obviously a rip-off inefficient mess which are subsidized by the public even though they're privatized and you get a housing four in ten of the homes flogged off by right to buy are now rented out by private line laws charging twice the rent. You get, because of the smashing of the unions, you get stagnating wages. Even before the crash they were stagnated for millions of workers,

Starting point is 00:05:15 but the average British worker now, their wages are pretty similar to what they were in 2008. You got the financial crisis, which was all about, that was what financialisation led to. So we've ended up with an economic model, which is, again, it's all about assets rather than productive industry. It's about complex financial products rather than making things. And which is why even the likes of Donald Trump talk about that legacy, they talk about deindustrialisation. They don't talk about the reasons why.

Starting point is 00:05:44 But we've ended up with an economic model, which works very well for a certain elite. But for actually for millions of workers in America, again, wages in America have been stagnant for decades. And for British workers and for workers across, the Western world. This is an economic model which has led to insecurity, stagnation, a public realm which is underfunded and crumbling. So I think neoliberalism is obviously failed. I don't see, I don't even see what the defence is because by definition, if you look back to the,

Starting point is 00:06:16 even the 60s, when you have high tax, public ownership and strong trade unions, that's the decade with the highest growth that Britain has. It's more equitably distributed. you get sustained rises and living standards of constantly improving public services. But that's all gone. We do have stagnation and decline. That's economic stagnation and decline. Social progress has come to an end. Technology improves. You get more advanced phones. We've got AI. But in terms of how people's lived experience, it's insecurity and stagnation, except for the people at the top. I don't know. I don't know what the defense of the economic model is. I don't see just any, the stats speak for themselves, I think. Well, and this is the central thesis of your book that in neoliberalism at home, as you call it,

Starting point is 00:07:00 all of the things that you described, plus adventurism or militarism or imperialism, whatever you might want to call it abroad, these two things combined are the reason where the West is. And you do a fairly good summation, actually. I'd say 90%, there's 10% where we can talk about later perhaps, but 90%, you do a very good summation of the kind of mainstream alternative arguments for the position the West finds itself in today, and the kind of central right-wing arguments, you explain what they are faithfully, actually, which is to a credit, and then you explain what you've just explained. And so the central thesis is neoliberalism at home, the way you've described it, combined with militarism abroad, let's say. Is that fair submission?

Starting point is 00:07:49 Exactly. So they collide together. So you get a bit of it. get this economic model which just factually speaking doesn't deliver the growth it did and it's less equity is defeated and it's going to all these financial products and the financial sector rather than making things. At the same time we've had military adventurism. I mean how many wars now how many wars is the west supposed to suffer a strategic defeat in before western elites face a reckoning? There was the war in Afghanistan which was a two-decade long occupation following as I detail in the book, the West, arming and supporting. Do you mind if we just stick with the neoliberalism?

Starting point is 00:08:27 I have more questions about that. Okay, as long as we come to military dentures. We may, depending on how much time we have. Oh, come on. No, I'm not again. The reason it's not interesting to me personally is we actually agree on that completely. We will both completely oppose.

Starting point is 00:08:39 Okay, but the way they fuse, though, the way they fuse, because they, because obviously Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Iran are all absolutely catastrophes which have disgraced. And we disagree with all those wars, so that's why it's not interesting. Fair enough.

Starting point is 00:08:50 But what, what, what, the reason The reason they collide with the economic model in part is you get destabilization and population movements as a result. I mean, Libya is a really striking example. That's a failed state. It's collapsed into catastrophe. And what that meant a population movement arriving in Europe, seven years after the financial crash in particular, where you get stagnating wages and that insecurity I spoke about, and then

Starting point is 00:09:21 you get this population movement who are then scapegoated for the economic model. And the way Muslims are portrayed, I think, is very important. We will get this part, we will definitely get to. Do you mind if we just stick, just for the economics? But the reason that's then the problem... I get the argument you're making. I think everybody watching will understand what you're saying, and we will talk about this. The problem of the economic model though is because after the crash, you get a great reverse.

Starting point is 00:09:45 Because with the end of the Cold War, the West goes... This is where I want to get to. Yeah, exactly. We've almost got, we wouldn't. But with the economic model, people feel, sorry, they feel they're competing for scarce resources. I understand. Because there's no growth. I get it.

Starting point is 00:09:58 And then they, and then when the far right, as I would describe it, say, it's because of migrants that you're struggling. People feel if there's no alternative, then they feel they're competing. I totally get it. I promise you we will get all this. The only reason I was interjecting is I want to talk about the neoliberalism part first. We will definitely talk about mass immigration and all of that in the second. So the central thesis, the one thing that I missed out in my summation. of your central thesis is that you say the reason that people thought neoliberalism was a great

Starting point is 00:10:27 economic vision and economic set of policies was that it was dominant and supreme at the time the Cold War ended. And so you've basically got a victory, I'm using your inverted commas, let's say, for the purposes of this. The West wins the Cold War with neoliberalism, therefore neoliberalism good. Fair summation? Yeah, so if you've got the Cold War ending during the 60s, for example, then get you down social democracy is dominant at the time. So that form of capitalism would be the one that would be seen as triumphant. And in the introduction, I just want to bring this quite up because it's kind of,

Starting point is 00:11:02 it sums up your point of view, and this is what I wanted to talk about. So you say, the Soviet Union's demise came at the very high point of what is variously known as Thatcherism, Reaganism or neoliberalism, the selling off of state assets, slashing taxes on big business, the wealthy and the wealthy deregulation, subordinating the real economy to financial institutions and hobbling, organized labor, all the stuff we talked about. And you say such policies helped plunge Britain and the US into dire recession in the 1980s. But later in the 1990s, the economies were booming.

Starting point is 00:11:34 So in the late 1980s, in the early 1990s, you get another recession. Because you get now, because of this, you get these endemic, big recessions which caused massive... But the first recessions that these policies caused were in the early 80s. Early 80s. So exactly. So I went back to Shepard. Sheffield where I was born and sort of that's a city that was devastated. You get industries that just disappear immediately. So entire communities have their hearts ripped out. These are places where people have, you know, they're often male dominated, their father, their grandfather, the great-grandfathers worked there.

Starting point is 00:12:03 Entire communities based around them, they just disappear overnight and you get this, I mean, those, many of those communities never recovered. You get, you know, it's, and this was done deliberately because what, what Thatcher's and did, is high cup interest rates to a very high level, but also used fritted away North Sea oil in our case, rather than Norway, which invested in a sovereign wealth fund. And what it did is it made our exports very, very uncompetitive artificially, which then just wiped out industries which could no longer compete. Okay, so the reason I bring this up is this is the first point in the book where I was like,

Starting point is 00:12:42 maybe I'm misunderstanding this. So I went, we used Venice AI to fact check stuff. So I went and looked at it. And this way it didn't make sense to me because the privatizations that you talk about, the BT and other British companies, they were sold in 1984. The recession was in 1980. The deregulation of the city when you talk about financialization, the big bang deregulation, that was 1986.

Starting point is 00:13:05 Yeah, but... Hold on. So the tax cuts... Sorry, I don't understand the criticism, sorry. I'm going to spell it out. Yeah, okay. You've got to let me make the point. So deregulation of the financial services, 1986.

Starting point is 00:13:16 The tax cuts happened in at the very beginning of the downtown by the time of the 181. In 1981, exactly. So two years in, two years. Recession started in 1980. And the mine, the showdown with the miners that Thatcher had happened in 19, mid-190. 1984 and 1985. Right. So how could those things cause a risk that happened in 1984 and 85 cause a recession in 1980?

Starting point is 00:13:38 Well, firstly... Which is what you say. It says these policies helped plunge Britain and the US into dire recession in the early 80. Yeah. policies happen five years later. No, that's not true. Obviously, what FACCHRite monitorism, which is what you get from the early 80s onwards, is, you know, as I said, what they did is they make British exports less competitive.

Starting point is 00:14:00 But what happens is you get, in the 80s, in the early 80s, you get that rapid deindustrialization which takes place. And then what that does is suck growth permanently out of the economy. So you get this artificial boom in the late 80s, which then ends in a crash. It ends in the early 90s. Oh, and I'm talking about you say that these policies, so I just want to read this back. So you say selling off of state assets, that's privatization, right? Yes, selling.

Starting point is 00:14:27 Slashing taxes, deregulation and financial reform, right? These things you say, and hobbling organized labor. You say these things caused the recession in Britain and the US in the early ages, but all of these things happened later. They happened after the recession. Well, first thing, deregulation begins to mean. So in 1980, for example, you get, that's when, for example, right to buy, they start announcing privatisation then.

Starting point is 00:14:53 And you get the removal of import controls and so on. So you suddenly allow at the time when monetarism is being introduced in Britain, you suddenly get the ability to, so capital can leave and inflows and outflows at the same time when their hiking interest rates. And they're hiking interest rates to deal with the inflationary pressures of the financial or the oil shocks. But I'm not trying to know because the oil shocks. Not because the oil shocks. Okay. But let's park that for a second.

Starting point is 00:15:24 Owen, I'm not trying to like catch you in a in a quote that you've kind of got wrong or whatever. The reason I'm picking this bit out specifically is it challenges the entire thread of your argument. Hold on, but let me explain my argument before you challenge it. I'm really welcome you push you back on this. I'm just trying to stress as we do with everybody. Yeah, of course. trying to stress test your argument. So your central thesis, as we established, is Thatcher and Reagan come in. They do privatization. They break up trade unions. They do all the stuff that you mention.

Starting point is 00:15:54 And that causes the economic stagnation and problems that we have. Which then we have permanently. Right. Because in the night, you that, what they do is they introduce boom and bust. You've got to let me finish. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Sorry. So you say all these things cause a recession. But what I'm saying to you is the things you say cause the recession, happened five years after the recession. You say, of course. Privatization does begin in the first time in the 1980. So when was BT privatized?

Starting point is 00:16:20 BT was 84. 84. And all of these other big companies that were privatized. They only really got going in 84, but the recession happened three years before that. So is it possible that your argument sort of breaks down on that basis? Because what the counter argument to your argument is, you have these two oil shocks, 73 and 79. And the reason that Thatcher, and this is kind of this.

Starting point is 00:16:43 narrative. Let me lay it out, you can then argue with it, is that the reason that we had a recession in 1980 was not because of neoliberalism, but because the decision was made, we either choose inflation or unemployment. Hold on, let me just finish the argument and then you can answer it. And we either choose inflation or we choose unemployment, and the decision was made to hike interest rates to prevent inflation. So what happens, privatization is a process which begins in the first term, because what

Starting point is 00:17:11 they do with these state-owned firms is they prepare them for privatisation. So what they do is they remove the state subsidies from those state-owned industries. And the removal of that, which is part of preparing for the privatisation, which they did, of mining, for example. So mining is a really striking example. You get the beginning of the privatisation, which takes place in the first term of Thatcher's government. What that means is market discipline is imposed on British coal. Now, British coal, is British coal privatised in the first time of the factory government? No. But is the state subsidies removed from the state-owned industries in preparation for privatisation?

Starting point is 00:17:53 Yes. Does that then cause, in part, because what happened in the early 80s, and this is part of the deregulation I talk about, is state subsidies are removed from various industries. On the basis of the states, this was that argument at the time, was picking winners and losing. So their view, the argument thatcherism was, we are going to remove this state intervention, the state support, in preparation for privatisation, we're going to impose market discipline, and that happened at the very moment they'd hiked interest rates and allowed the outflow and inflow of capital without state intervention. So that is deregulation and that is the policy

Starting point is 00:18:32 of privatisation because it's the beginning, it's the removal of state support. There's not deregulation. Yes, of course it is. Of course that deregulation. What are you talking about? The people who watch this show have generally done more thinking about how governments operate the most. But there's a difference between understanding the problem and having actually built insulation against it. That's the world Mikhail Thorup operates in. He's been living as an expat for over 25 years, visiting more than 110 countries and calling nine of them home. He founded expat money nearly a decade ago to help others do the same. When he helped someone build an international Plan B, the knowledge he brings his entirely first, Every recommendation comes from something he has already done himself.

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Starting point is 00:19:45 which countries actually make sense, depending on what you're trying to protect, and what it realistically costs. Go to expatmoney.com slash trigger or click the link in the description of this episode to download the report. There's no charge, no catch. That's expatmoney.com slash trigger. No, deregulation is when you remove regulations.

Starting point is 00:20:07 What you're talking about is removing state subsidies. Well, it's the withdrawal of the state. That's what I'm talking about. What facturism does is roll back the frontiers of the state. That begins in the, as soon as she comes to power, it comes to power with the imposition of market discipline, as she would describe it, on state industries, which she regards and argues are bloated and inefficient, and therefore state support needs to be withdrawn. And it happened at the very worst moment possible because interest rates had been hyped to such a high. degree and North Sea oil was also discovered, which also then made those exports uncompetitive. Did she privatise all those industries, including mining? Mining came significantly later, actually. No, but she imposed those policies of withdrawing the state from the economy at that time. And that is what caused a massive obsession. So, of course, I stand by what I said, privatisation is a process. But what the state did, I mean, you can see this with the railways. What Thatcher's

Starting point is 00:21:04 did is did is starve the railways of resources. And then the argument was, well, the railways aren't properly, they look at them, they're disintegrating the state ownership and they need private investment and so on. But it's wrong to look at privatisation as this happened in, for example, on this particular date, without looking at how she removed the state's support for those industries in preparation for privatisation. It's a process, of course. Well, the same is true in the United States, where the recession was in 1981 and 1982. And again, all of the things that you talk about, breaking up unions and all that happened in in 1986. That's false. That's false. Sorry, that's completely false. When is the first

Starting point is 00:21:44 bus stop between Ronald Reagan and the organised Labour movement? It's not about the first bus stop. When they actually did the Labour bus thing with 1986? That's not true in America. What's the big turning point with the Labour movement? You must know this. Tell us. It's the air traffic controllers. Okay. 1981 immediately. But that doesn't cause a recession, right? No, what it does, what that did is unleash a massive spate of you, all across the United States of America. And what that did is remove the organizing, the power of organized labor to sustain the living

Starting point is 00:22:19 standards of workers. But that doesn't cause a recession. That sucks, demand out the economy. Of course, that's what happens. But at the same time, I mean, under Reaganism, again, you get the withdrawal of, of, we don't, they didn't have the same levels of state interventionism that the social democratic consensus existed in America. And yet they also had a recession. Wouldn't that be more likely because by the old... No, because what they did is they started, they immediately introduced cuts

Starting point is 00:22:45 to public expenditure. I mean, this is, sorry, the other point which was completely missing here is the cuts, because this is what I was talking about is the withdrawal of the states. That's what we're talking about. So what Factor does in the early 80s, as soon as it comes to power, is imposed sweeping cuts, not just on the subsidies I'm talking about, but on state, from state investment. Ronald Reagan does the exact same thing. That sucks demand out the economy. And that's rolling back of the states, which is what they all did. And they did it on the basis of the let the market let rip, and that will raise prosperity.

Starting point is 00:23:17 But the cutting of state expenditure under Reagan and Thatcher during a recession, unlike the Keynesian argument is you invest at this time, because then that will, you know, it's countercyclical and so on. What they both did is they were ideologically committed to rolling back the state. And that is what made those recessions. in America and Britain so profound. And they did it at the time where they disciplined organized labor, which is what obviously Reagan did,

Starting point is 00:23:46 reducing the bargaining power of unions in order to raise the wages of the workers. So, of course, yes. I mean, everyone knows Reaganism and Thatcherism at the beginning rolled back the state. And I'm not disputed that. No one questioned that then caused a huge recession. The argument was...

Starting point is 00:24:03 The recessions lasted about a year. There was a double-dip recession in the year. US and in the UK had lasted from the, I think, Q1 1980 to Q2, 1981. So they weren't that long. They were about year long. And what's interesting to me would be, how do you explain the rapid recovery you see after that? Well, I mean, just firstly on that, what they all did is inflict lasting catastrophic damage.

Starting point is 00:24:27 Assessions do, sure. No, but these were, no, but that's not fair, reasonable. Actually, I'm kind of surprised at the argument, given the way Trumpism has particularly postured in defense of the Russelk communities, for example, because in all of these cases, you get a rapid fall, particularly in Britain, and Britain is the worst case where you get re-industrialization in a really rapid scale. And those communities then never actually recover. And then you get a, you get a boom, which is, because as I've said, in the 1980s, the average growth is the same as the the 1970s. But what you get is a, the way to explain that is because you get a boom and bust.

Starting point is 00:25:11 And what the boom does is it's based partly on the inflation of asset prices. You get the, and of big finance. You obviously don't get the big bang for several years in, in Britain, but that is such a misnomer in terms of how people think of financialization. I mean, financialisation actually started in the early 70s with under the Ted Heath government, when they basically liberalised cheap credit. But in the early 80s, after the abolition of exchange controls, that obviously has a huge impact

Starting point is 00:25:45 in the financialisation of the British economy. So you get a boom, which becomes about inflating asset prices and big finance. And obviously some people do very well out of that. And some people did very well, not least in the southeast, but at the same time, industry was

Starting point is 00:26:04 falling apart in the north. You get a bet you get then an economic recovery which is extremely weighted and it's weighted in favor of people who are affluent and you do get for example people I mean you know short-term sugar rushes people for example right to buy did some people working class people benefit from that yes question is what happens their children their grandchildren when four in 10 of the properties rented out to right to buy now rented out by private landlords charging twice the rent So the issue is you get, you know, when you get growth and no one questions you've got growth. For example, you've got a boom in. You get an actual boom in the late 80s in particular.

Starting point is 00:26:42 That boom actually helps build the economic model, which I would argue is one that delivers overall less improvements to living standards and wages. And that's what happens. I mean, you get a boom in the 80s which cemented the financial sector as the epicenter of the British economy. economy. And then in the 90s and the noughties, wages in America and Britain stagnate. And the only way that's compensated for where people don't feel that actually getting poorer is because of cheap credit. But what happens then with the financial crash? So yes, I mean, you could say, did regularism and thatcherism by rolling back the state and withdrawing the state from the economy, which is what happened immediately, which was my point, did that cause a recession? Yes. Did their policies also

Starting point is 00:27:30 calls a sugar rush, which causes a big boom in the late 80s, which benefits some sections of society at the expense of others, yes. Does that build an economic model? But Owen, that's true of everything. Is that an economic model then, which overall produces less rises in living standards? I understand what you're saying, but that's true of any policy, a policy of subsidising industry to the tune of Britain with subsidising industry. It also benefits some section of society at the expense of others. So all policies create the trade-offs, right? Yes, but. So South Korea was an example that I look at in the book. Because South Korea is cited by Thatcher and Reagan as a vindication of capitalism. Now, that's

Starting point is 00:28:12 because you could go, well, there's North Korea, a self-declared communist state, and then the South Korea, a capital estate. South Korea, North Korea originally is more industrialized, better off than South Korea. South Korea then leapfogs it and does much better. Hey, presto, that's a, that shows capitalism is innately superior to communism. Now, Stalinism doesn't work. The Stalinist undemocratic command economy doesn't work. It can industrialise a country quite quickly, often at great cost. See, we do agree on something.

Starting point is 00:28:42 There we go. But can we believe, you know, obviously a tanking. But can it deal with a complex consumer economy? It absolutely cannot do that. No. And you need, I mean, it's one reason, without democracy, how can you allocate resources properly? Full stop.

Starting point is 00:28:56 If you just have bureaucrats controlling everything from the centre, You can't do that. But South Korea is, you know, if people advocated for the policy South Korea has in this country, they would be called not just communist, they'd be called extreme communists. Because in South Korea, the whole policy was based on the nationalization of the entire financial sector, pretty much, as well as the commanding heights of the economy. And the point there that winners and losers is what they did is they strategically invested the money in the industries that they wanted to grow and they wanted to expand.

Starting point is 00:29:28 I'm in favour of that. And that's, but that, ah, but you see what Thatcher, then you can't support Thatcherism. I don't support Thatcherism. I'm just asking you questions about your book. No, oh, fair enough. But I'm trying to work out. But that's my job. But yeah, true.

Starting point is 00:29:40 Sorry, I didn't know. Politically, I thought you would have supported Thatcher. But the point is, but that's, so Thatcher went in the opposite direction. That's the problem. But, oh, and this is very black and white. It's like, I support some things Thatcher did without supporting all of it. What I'm saying is my view, it's always been that the government borrowing money to invest in the right things, that I think of the right things. is perfectly valid and a reasonable thing to do at certain points in the economic cycle.

Starting point is 00:30:03 So it's not black and white conversation, but in this conversation, I'm really interested in stress testing the arguments that you're making. That's it. Okay. So let's leave that there. You made your point. You made your point. Fair enough, though. But that is why if you look at the policy of the early... Well, I think we should invest way more money in nuclear energy, for example, in this country and should make it way easier to build nuclear power plants. It was a good example. But you want an industrial active policy, fair enough. But the point is, it's what Thatcher's and regularism did is abdicate.

Starting point is 00:30:28 responsibility to the market. You let the market, let writ, but South Korea, which they venerated, did the exact opposite. And actually, if you look at all those sorts of economies in Asia, that's what they did. And they didn't have the, you know, we pursued economic policies, which led to decline, an economic model, which doesn't deliver rising living standards, improve public services and improved security. That ended in the 80s. So we're talking about alternatives. One of the countries that you thought really worked at the time was Venezuela. You said it was an inspiration to the world, showed that there was an alternative. And everybody would know this on the show. They can drink. My mother's from Venezuela.

Starting point is 00:31:06 I saw in real time what happened when Venezuela literally descended into a, basically, let's be honest about it, a form of hell. Seventy-eight percent poverty, 38 percent extreme poverty. That means you effectively can't eat. 75 percent of Venezuelans lost 19 pounds on average, and obviously the poorest lost a lot more. Inflation, 10,000 percent. And then, you're it just skyrocketed. Caracas was a murder capital of the world, the kidnapped capital of the world. I mean, it doesn't give me any pleasure

Starting point is 00:31:34 to say this. It's a failed state, isn't it? No, I know that that's a completely reasonable point. And, you know, when I wrote about that in 2012, that wasn't the case. What happened under Chavez from 1998 to 2012 was poverty objectively fell very, very deeply. You did get public investment in public services and so on.

Starting point is 00:31:54 I went there in 2012. I went and, you know, And there was certainly the big issue that came up in 2012 when I went there was the question of violent crime. I would argue that that wasn't specific to Chavez. I mean, Venezuela in the 1980s also had very high levels of violent crime. And equally, I would know in the 1980s, under what I would termed neoliberal administration in Venezuela, you had as well, you had hyperinflation in the 1980s. Not to the same extent. Not to the same extent, but it was really high. It was very high inflation and the reason I think, you know, because, you know, there were other

Starting point is 00:32:32 examples in Latin America which didn't end up in that catastrophe which pursued like Bolivia, for example, which again reduced poverty to a huge degree, expanded public services, which didn't end up like Venezuela. And the big mistake of Venezuela and which, you know, which I should have obviously thought of at the time and definitely was something that I guess I've learned from, is, you know, they made fossil fuels, they made oil their absolute centrepiece. 98% of our economy was dependent. Well, of course. And what, you know, that was a disastrous policy, as we saw.

Starting point is 00:33:12 I do think US sanctions have obviously played a role. That's obviously throttled the economy. So I wouldn't, you know, that is a contributing factor. It was basically a siege on Venezuela. But nonetheless, the model, the kind of petro-socialist model is not. not a model which works. And that is a model we could see from 2013, 2014, just collapsed. And you can see it collapsing. U.S. sanctions did obviously play their role. But in 2012, Venezuela wasn't, I mean, as I said, violent crime is definitely a big problem. I don't think that was specific to that

Starting point is 00:33:43 period. But, you know, poverty had objectively collapsed in Venezuela. And it was also civil rights abuses, let's be fair. Chavez was an authoritarian regime. I had family members who were, I'll tell you a story. One of my family members was literally, he was the president of the Bank of Venezuela. He had a meeting with Chavez 2004, 2005. Chavez demanded he hand over the gold reserves to him. My relative refused. He went on Ola Presidente, which was the show where he took over all of the TV channels, said the words Diego Luis Fuerra and put him under house arrest until he handed over the gold reserves. My cousins were journalists. I mean, they were pretty much told from 2000. and five onwards, if you criticise the government, you were going to be in very serious trouble. I think the what I'd push back there, I mean, obviously I'm not denying the experiences that

Starting point is 00:34:33 your family had there at all, and I don't know the specifics and so on, is I met the opposition while I was there, and I spoke to the opposition, and they were obviously very, you know, denunciatory of Chavez and opposed it, but they didn't, when I asked them specifically as a dictator, they said, no, but it's our job to stop him creating a dictatorship, and they spoke to what they regarded as his demagogic. tendencies and all the way through that period the Venezuelan media was not just bitterly overwhelmingly opposed to Chavez but kind of beyond parody opposed and what happened in the early but to be just quickly in the early in the early in the early 2000s there was a Pinnisset-style coup

Starting point is 00:35:11 against the who what no one craves led a coup before that yeah well i'm not a coup guy and obviously you know he uh he he should but but but this was an attempt to overthrow yeah a democratically elected government, which no one questioned Chavez won those elections in the noughties. No one claims that he didn't win those elections. There was a coup which overthrew him. And a lot of governments after a coup against them would actually probably end up doing a far more authoritarian crackdown than that government ended up doing, actually. I mean, you know, my parents took in, as I remember in the book, Chilean refugees who fled

Starting point is 00:35:49 Auguste Pinnichet's regime, who was obviously put in power partly by the West. to overthrow a democratically socialist government. And I would know in Venezuela, in the 80s, you had a Western-backed government which massacred in the late 80s hundreds, if not more people. It was like, no, no, but it was like Tiananmen Square. So I would argue the human, we can talk definitely,

Starting point is 00:36:11 Majuro and what happened then, which, you know, are not going to defend. But actually, the human rights abuses in Venezuela, and I'm not denying, you know, that there weren't examples, but you had a coup against them. The media was, you could literally, almost the entire media. But that's right, Owen. If it happened in the United States, and look, there are many people on the American right

Starting point is 00:36:32 who said what the press have done against President Donald Trump is disgraceful, disgusting. If Trump had done that, I would have, the crackdown, shutting down 32 media outlets. Okay, well, I don't support shutting down any media outlets, but okay, let's just do a hypothetical here, shall we? Let's do a hypothetical here. Donald Trump is overthrown in a coup and the entire American media incite the coup,

Starting point is 00:36:59 support the coup. How did the Venezuela media incite the coup? Because they supported it. The vast majority of the media outlet supported that. You know that, come on, you know that. I mean, I've read, I saw, look, they were literally broadcasting and inciting people to come and join the coup. I mean, it was, and did they all get arrested afterwards? No. In America, if CNN, and MSNBC and all the rest of it,

Starting point is 00:37:20 literally called for people to overthrow the government and succeeded in a military coup or whatever against Donald Trump, what would happen to those media outlets afterwards? Just genuinely, what would happen? What would happen? There would be a arrest. Yes, but that didn't happen in Venezuela, actually. So I do you saying he was not an authoritarian that? I don't think Chavez was a dictator. No. I think he was a democratically. Oh, and come on. There was a very famous case in 2009.

Starting point is 00:37:45 I met the opposition. They didn't think he was. They didn't think he was a dictator when I made. They literally live there. Perhaps you can. Okay, so in 2009, it's a very famous case. You can look this up. There was, Chavez put a Venezuelan dissident in prison. It went to the Supreme Court. The judge let this person go. Chavez on national TV called her a bandita.

Starting point is 00:38:06 The UN spoke, the UN published a report on this and said it was completely egregious. And we can bring it up on Venice AI. She then let him go. She was then put in prison. And Chavez said he wanted her to go to prison for 30 years. She went to prison in the end for one year in one of the most notorious prisons in Venezuela. I honestly don't know the circumstances of that. All I'd say is I just do not think in even in Britain or anywhere else that if you'd had a coup against an elected government,

Starting point is 00:38:34 that there would, I would argue the government that was then restored. You don't think Chavez was a dictator. No, but I don't think you argue actually he was a dictator. I think he'd argue his authority. I think he was a dictator. So you don't think he won those elections? I think he won the first election, fair and square. Just like Vladimir Putin won the first election.

Starting point is 00:38:52 No, no, no. I was in 20. You could still be a dictator after winning an election. I was there in 2012, and I went around from the, I went around from polling station to polling station. And every polling station had an observer from the opposition and from the government to look over the process. They had a double lock on voting where people voted on paper and then voted electronically.

Starting point is 00:39:15 And then those different votes were then separately checked to make sure that there wasn't any disparities. Oh, no one's arguing with you that he won the first election. What we're arguing about is whether he then became a dictator after that. That was 2012. That's just before we died. And at the time, the Venezuelan media was largely opposed to him. So it's not the same as Russia where you have media outlets, which almost, you don't get dissident media in Russia. It doesn't exist.

Starting point is 00:39:40 No, yeah, it does. It does. They just have to say we're a foreign agent. That's the way of it works in Russia. Dissident journalists, dissident media outlets are... Oh, and I'm Russian. I know about Russian media. You do not have mass media in Russia. No, not mass media.

Starting point is 00:39:54 Okay, but that's what we're talking about. In Venezuela, you have mass media including TV channels, which were very against and opposed to Chavez in 2012. Does that change? Yes. And obviously, Venezuela descends into outright avert authoritarianism, which I would not in any way deny under Maduro. There's no question about that whatsoever. But did, was, you know, if you go to a government,

Starting point is 00:40:13 If he goes to a country at the time which I did, and you see media outlets largely opposed to the president, you meet opposition leaders who are obviously very angry and denunciatory about the government. Most of the things they, at the time they were talking about was a violent disorder, I would just know, who themselves said we don't regard him as a dictator. They did seem as demagogic. They said that. I totally accept all that kind of stuff. In the context where you had a coup de tat to overthrow him and install a pinnicee

Starting point is 00:40:43 style dictatorship of the sort that the Americans in the West backed in Latin America, which slaughtered thousands of people. Do I mean, again, I just, you know, I don't see that as a dictatorship. I do the economic model at the time did reduce poverty, but it wasn't sustainable because it was based on lawyer. I'm glad you said that. But that's what I accept. Well, let's talk about this.

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Starting point is 00:42:24 Well, it's not just petro-socialism. I mean, there are people who have experienced socialism like myself and Francis too, who would argue that very often what tends to happen, particularly with Western leftists who see socialism as the answer and as the alternative, as you said Venezuela was at the time, They have a very short-term vision because it's like saying, you know, well, you know, in the 1930s, the Soviet Union really did great. And there were lots of people in the West, by the way, at the time, who were saying it's wonderful. Look at the reindustrialization.

Starting point is 00:42:53 Look at the order. Look at the this. Look at the grand buildings that were being built, et cetera. And they look at a very short-term picture. They draw conclusions from it because it fits their priors. And they don't think about the long-term consequences. And if you speak to people in many countries which have gone through this, these experiments, what they would say is the reason socialism doesn't work.

Starting point is 00:43:13 You mentioned earlier that you thought, you know, you need democracy even in a communist country because otherwise you've got bureaucrats. I don't support any of those Stalinists. No, no, not Stalinist. But they wouldn't be, well, they wouldn't be there. I wasn't saying you support Stalinism. I'm making a point about the structure of a society. You were saying you need democracy because otherwise you've got bureaucrats doing everything.

Starting point is 00:43:35 It's not democracy that prevents bureaucrats from doing everything. It's the market that prevents bureaucrats from doing everything. everything. Even if you elect bureaucrats, they still end up running the country. And what then happens is, this is a structural argument about these types of societies not working. And we saw this in the Soviet Union is when instead of having the market being the power that decides, that makes these decisions, when you have people with this much power, money doesn't matter as much as the power does. And then you get a very corrupt society, which is exactly what Venezuela became. And all of these societies eventually become, where people will use

Starting point is 00:44:10 bribes and influence, etc., to make these decisions instead of the market making them through financial points. And so you end up with a very corrupt society, which is why these societies eventually break down. Just on that, because, I mean, firstly in Venezuela, I mean, Venezuela in 2012, that Hugo Chavez had a smaller state sector than Britain has now. You're saying he wasn't a socialist? Well, I mean, what he did is use actually the proceeds from oil revenues to invest in, in social services and in poverty reduction. You did get nationalisation in oil. Did he do widespread nationalisation?

Starting point is 00:44:48 But I'm asking you, are you saying he was not a socialist? Because you supported him and you said he's an inspiration. Well, I'm calling it. I'm calling it. Well, I mean, you know, I said it's a form of petro-socialism. I mean, I'm a democratic socialist and I believe in, you know, am I arguing for, you know, the abolition of all market relations? No, I'm not arguing that. I mean, I've never argued for that.

Starting point is 00:45:08 But in terms of Venezuela, did you have a government, which was a progressive government? It doesn't matter what label you put to it. It was a government that in that period I thought was using oil revenues to benefit people who were struggling in a way that I thought improved their lives, which it did, until it all fell apart. But that's what I'm saying is these societies fall apart. And you're only looking at the showtime picture because you like their ideas. No, I'm not because it didn't fall apart in the other Latin American countries. It didn't fall apart in Bolivia.

Starting point is 00:45:34 It didn't fall apart in Ecuador. I mean, Ecuador then you end up with a right-wing government partly. because a member of the ruling party when he was elected then shifted dramatically off to the right. But actually, in Ecuador, in Bolivia, in these other Latin American countries where you had left-wing governments, none of these left-wing governments abolished capitalism. None of them did that. But they did, you know, this was called the Pink Revolution at the time. It wasn't called the Red Revolution at the time.

Starting point is 00:46:00 But what they did is they were all different sorts of governments, but they used, you know, progressive policies to improve people. people's lives. Venezuela was the one that fell apart. Bolivia didn't fall apart. Ecuador didn't fall apart. So I don't accept that premise. And also we can't... Which premise? Well, because what you're doing is you're basically saying, you know, all of these, all of these governments and regimes are all in the same bracket. I didn't say anything about those... No, you said Venezuela and the Soviet bloc, but Venezuela did not introduce a Soviet-style

Starting point is 00:46:30 system at all. No one claims that. The vast majority of the country was privately run. What I'm asking is, do you not think that... Francis, is it fair to say that Venezuela became incredibly corrupt. Yes, yeah, the corruption. That's what I'm asking. These systems create the incentives for corruption, which is what you saw in Venezuela. So again, again, this is where I think is quite interesting.

Starting point is 00:46:49 When I went to Venezuela, you could, it just, it was like, it was a very capitalist society in lots of ways. It was like adverts everywhere, shops everywhere. They also seize private property, Ireland. You have to accept that. They see private property from farmers. But the state sector was smaller than it is now. I mean, in Britain, sorry.

Starting point is 00:47:05 So it wasn't, it wasn't, it's not a state-run society. South Korea, which have noted, South Korea had far, South Korea nationalized all their banks. They nationalized the top tiers of their economy. South Korea didn't. You know what this experience is like? It's like boxing jello, is the American? But I don't accept, but I'm asking you.

Starting point is 00:47:22 What am I supposed to say when it's a case of I don't accept the argument that you're making? Because factually, Venezuela didn't become a state-run society. A society that has an authoritarian dictatorship, you don't agree. So an authoritarian system in which people seize private property and, under popular demagoguery, take from the rich and give to the masses. Is that a socialist society? You clearly thought it was a good society. I didn't think it was a socialist society.

Starting point is 00:47:48 I thought it was a progressive government, which was reducing progressive. And just to clarify, Chavez, in multiple speeches, identified that as socialism. Yeah, but Chavez was really quite a complex political character, because when he came to power, he called his policies the third way and said he was emulating Tony Blair. I mean, he went on all sorts of fascinating political journeys, obviously. And obviously, they called it 21st century socialism. In practice, did any of those Latin American countries enact mass nationalization in the economy? None of them did, including Venezuela.

Starting point is 00:48:21 That just did not happen. They did seize private property. The vast majority, well, the vast majority of Venezuela remained in private hands. No one can dispute. That's factually what happened. After World War II, when Britain nationalized the railways and a fifth of them, the industrial economy. Do you regard that as... But they didn't seize it?

Starting point is 00:48:41 No, I don't support seizures. I support public ownership. I support nationalization. Well, again, the vast, they didn't largely because they didn't. They did. They just didn't seize everything. They didn't, they didn't seize the vast majority of the economy. That's exactly what I just said. They didn't seize the vast majority. I support nationalization. Okay, pause. Which means you transfer assets from the private sector into the public sector. Just pause. Okay. We've got into this like argumentative back and for so we can't actually talk about this stuff. What Francis is saying is, and what I'm saying is there's a massive difference between nationalization as in, I'm the government, I will give you

Starting point is 00:49:16 money for this thing that you own, and now it comes into private property. Andy Burnham, for example, is talked about nationalizing potentially water and rail, et cetera. I don't imagine he will do it by taking it against the will of its current owners. He'll have to pay for it. But what happened... Yeah, I mean, that's what I advocate. But what happened in Venezuela, which you supported at the time, was people were seizing property without paying anyone a thing. Again, I mean, list what you're talking about, which aspects of the economy you're talking about? Francis, I have to tell you what was seized, or we can look at it up.

Starting point is 00:49:49 So it's farmlands, potential. What percentage of the farmland was seized? That I do not know. Why does that matter? Well, I don't, I mean, I just, I don't know about that. If 100 farms were seized, which is not a lot by the scale of the country, is that okay? I guess the question. So you didn't know.

Starting point is 00:50:01 No, I didn't know about the farmland. That's fine, you didn't know. So I'd be interested to know what. Because I'd have to know what the context is and all the rest of it. I just don't know about agricultural policy in Venezuela and the on the Chavez. That's not what I was at the time, you know, what I thought was a big success was the massive reduction of poverty by using oil revenues to invest in social programs. That did succeed. It didn't succeed obviously when when you so what did you learn from getting that one wrong? That I think you can just because a model which you can see is working in terms of reducing poverty for, you know, at the

Starting point is 00:50:35 time 15 years that's how long it reduced poverty for that you should you should look under the bonnet well how is it how is it working and i think you know just using using in this case fossil fuels in order to you know to bet the house on that to invest in your social programs is not a good idea and that's what ecuador and bolivia didn't do because they didn't depend on oil oh you know that is something which obviously, I think, all of us who thought Venezuela was working in that sense, should have thought about. I mean, when you say, you know, I'm saying, it doesn't matter, Petro. So you think if Venezuela didn't have oil, it would have been fine? Well, they wouldn't have been, they would have had to do something else, which is what Ecuador and Belvedere did.

Starting point is 00:51:22 And so they, you wouldn't have had what you've had. Well, you can, again, you can, you can just compare the neighboring countries. But that's why I don't, I don't support, obviously, the Soviet system. I don't support that at all. No one's accusing it. No one's accusing him. Well, no, because you started talking about that there, and you brought that in whilst talking about Venezuela.

Starting point is 00:51:39 And I do think they're comparable because one is an overwhelmingly privately run economy in which state intervention is actually less than it hits. Do you accept that there's a spectrum of political systems? Like at one end, do you have fascism, the other end you have communism? Let's say, I mean, I personally think it's a bit of a circle, but it doesn't really matter, right? So would Venezuela be towards the communist side or towards the fascist side? I mean... Probably towards the communist side.

Starting point is 00:52:04 Can we agree on that? Well, I mean, you could say we're closer to communism in Britain than we are to fascism if we're going to go down. I mean, I don't know. But it doesn't matter. I don't know how helpful that is. Because their taxes on the rich were lower than ours, for example. They didn't hike taxes on the rich either. Communism is not just about taxes on the ridge.

Starting point is 00:52:20 But what made it communist then? Seizure of private property on authoritarian government. So if they hadn't, I don't know what farmland or how much of that farmland I were talking about. The rhetoric of Hugo Chavez about. I think there's rhetoric and substance, but I don't... You're making the pro-Donald Trump argument there. That's true. Well, that is true because Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 are very different politically.

Starting point is 00:52:43 But Trump rhetoric and Trump practices are also different. No, I don't... I mean, the big problem I would argue with Venezuela, actually, is one of the big problems is they did reduce poverty, but they didn't actually redistribute wealth, particularly. There wasn't some redistribution of wealth. They were also highly corrupt. Well, there's no question that you got, I mean, I don't think that's specific to Venezuela, by the way. Lots of poorer countries have endemic corruption in them.

Starting point is 00:53:10 And I don't think, you know, I mean, we could look across various poorer countries. P poorer countries and corruption, that often goes together. And it particular happens when you have, you know, a big, for example, rich resource. That's susceptible to corruption. But Venezuela, you know, I think looking back, you know, know, I think just saying, well, they're reducing poverty to a large degree, which they did, therefore that this is a successful model. First, you can't export it because it's oil-dependent. And secondly, they didn't actually change Venezuelan society. They didn't redistribute the wealth.

Starting point is 00:53:41 You still got the big oligarchs in Venezuela. They didn't. That's what always happens in socialist societies. That's the point. That's the point. The people at the top always sees a lot of the wealth and keeper for themselves. Yeah, but under a Stalinist system. No, not under Stalinist system. Well, under, I don't, I mean, under a Soviet system, whatever you want to call it. No, no, no, I don't. In societies that have this level of disparity between the power of different people at the top. Venezuela always had that.

Starting point is 00:54:07 That's the problem. Latin America is full of very unequal societies. That's not caused by Hugo Chavez. He came to power because Venezuela was such an unequal society. And kept it exactly the same. He didn't. Well, yes, I agree. Just like the communists did in Russia, just like they do in every country that they take over.

Starting point is 00:54:23 Are you saying the people at the top of the Chinese Communist Party aren't the super rich? No, I'm not disputing that. Right. But that's obviously, I mean... Are you saying the people at the top of the North Korean Communist Party? Yeah, but this is what I don't understand as well. Sorry, sorry, hold on a minute. Hold on. Let's pause this.

Starting point is 00:54:37 In those countries, what they did is they expropriated the rich, the bourgeoisie, if you like, the capitalist class, and the major landlords. They conversated. Yes. They did. I mean, they got expropriation on a scale. Those people then didn't become the top of the Communist Party. These are different people altogether. In Venezuela, he came to power.

Starting point is 00:54:58 He didn't challenge the existing oligarchs. What he did is use oil revenues to put into social programs which reduce poverty. That's not exactly. I don't see what the comparison is because he didn't hike taxes on the rich and he didn't engage in mass nationalization of the economy. There is actually no comparison. Did it work in the end? Absolutely not.

Starting point is 00:55:17 Should they bet the house on fossil fuels? Clearly not. But there isn't actually a parallel because they didn't hike the taxes and they didn't engage in mass nationalization. and they ended up with lower taxes and less state intervention in the economy than we have in this country. So they weren't socialist enough. All right. Well, obviously they were less state interventionist than we are.

Starting point is 00:55:36 That's just a fact. So Venezuela and Hugo Chavez was more right wing. Did they have a lower part? Did they have a low state sex? You've made your point. Let's move on. To come closer to home, we spent a lot of time talking about these fairly abstract thing. I fear no one's watching at this point.

Starting point is 00:55:52 Maybe not. Let's talk about. Europe and the UK and the argument you started to make at the beginning about the fact that effectively We've got these two decades now of stagnation, which you do after the financial crashes in 2008 And the reason people are upset about mass immigration and illegal immigration would you those we can bundle them together for this purpose people are upset about both Because their wages are stagnating not just Well, that gives it the intensity I guess it what? The intensity or more intensity?

Starting point is 00:56:28 I think the reason you get such an intense anger and fury, in my opinion, is people feel they're competing for scarce resources. Factually speaking, if you look at Britain, Germany, you know, people don't think in terms of studies and statistics, we've gone through that. But immigration has actually, without immigration, our economies would be poorer. I mean, with, I mean... Our GDP will be smaller, yes. Well, no.

Starting point is 00:56:55 GDP per capita would be higher. Our tax revenues would be lower. And also, migrants on average tend to be younger. So that means they're less dependent on public services. So they are net overall, tend to be net contributors to the exchequer. Well, right now they are. 20 years from now when they get older and need healthcare and pupil places and schools and all of that. What was the argument there, given our birth rates collapsing?

Starting point is 00:57:20 I mean, without them, we'd be in an even worse situation. I'll tell you what the argument is. We'd have a smaller work. population. I'll tell you what, and we have a big of aging population. I'll tell you what the argument is. So the argument is that people make, which is accurate, when you bring bodies in, you increase your GDP and some of them will work, therefore you increase your tax revenues, right?

Starting point is 00:57:40 But if you divide your GDP or your tax revenues by the number of people who are now in the country and include the cost of all the infrastructure that you then have to create, hold on, all the infrastructure that you're going to have to build, when you do it on a per capita basis, our per capita GDP, despite these massive waves of immigration that we've had, is flatlined, right? Which is what you mean when you say people's living standards are flatline. Firstly, obviously you can't divide GDP per capita because that's not how much money we all have. We don't live in a society where GDP has been equally distributed amongst the public. That's not what happened.

Starting point is 00:58:18 But what is just factually true is we would have less tax revenues in Britain and in Germany. And we'd have a smaller working age population. But you've increased... And a bigger aging population. That's the problem. Okay, but let's just take... Let's make this really simple for people, okay? Let's say you have a cake and the cake has 10 pieces, okay?

Starting point is 00:58:37 And there's 10 people. So each person gets one piece of the cake and they're all the same size. Hold on, hold on. Just let me finish the argument and then we'll talk about what you disagree with. There's 10 cake, 10 pieces, 10 people. You've now added two more people, one of whom is brought in a piece of cake. So you've got 11 pieces. you've got a bigger GDP, you've got more tax revenue, but there's now 12 people that you have to spread the cake over.

Starting point is 00:59:00 This is a zero-sum fallacy. It's just bad. It's just very bad. It's a very popular policy on the left, yeah. No, it's a really bad, it's just really bad economics. Because, because migrants expand the cake beyond their own needs. So what you mean, you end up, because of migration, people who are less dependent on public services, they're less likely to use of health services, for example, and what they do is they create economic output. They bring tax revenues, but they also increase economic activity. So what they do is they expand the economy in a way that means other people become better off as a consequence

Starting point is 00:59:45 because there's more taxes going into going, they are spending more on the, of the exchequer than they are receiving from the state. But in order for that to be true, they would have to earn more than the average British person in income and pay more tax than the average person. Well, no, I mean, study after study shows, it's just, I mean, this is just arguing. Basic logic. But every, every, if you, if there's 10 pieces of, okay. Shuddy show that the net contributors to the executive.

Starting point is 01:00:10 Oh, no, hold on a second. Just let's use basic logic instead of studies, because there are studies that show otherwise too. It doesn't show that, by the way. Because they're less dependent on the state in terms of what they receive. Well, they are right now. Right. What do you mean? I don't understand what you mean by that. Okay, I'm an immigrant to this country.

Starting point is 01:00:23 Yes. Okay. 20 years ago, I was making less than the average person in this country, but I was also consuming less than the average person in NHS services and whatever. I am now in my mid-40s. I have two children. I am now probably going to use all of the services that the state has to pay for more. I've remained an immigrant. And if I wasn't earning more than the average person, I would now be a net drain. And my children would be, and their children would be, and this carries on, right? So my big. The basic argument is very simple. When you have a large wave of low-skill, badly paid immigration, which is what we've had, by the way, under the Tories just the same as we did under Labor,

Starting point is 01:01:00 that reduces your GDP per capita instead of increasing it, which is exactly what the statistics show. No, it doesn't. Every study shows that economic growth. Every study shows that economic growth. May I finish my point? You've had plenty of time to talk, have you not? We are six in GDP and the people sell with the six largest economy in the world. economy in the world. We're 29th, or 27th, depending on how you measure it, in GDP per capita. But it's a bad statistic. Despite the wave of immigration that we've had, we are not seeing

Starting point is 01:01:32 people getting prosperous in the way that you describe. I know, I know, absolutely right. No, but that's because of the economic model. What the evidence, what the research shows over and over again, and I cite the evidence, we cite the studies into this, is that we have had weak economic growth, which we agree on, but without immigration, it would be even weaker. That's the problem. Okay. So it's not, no one is saying immigration has solved the problem of the economic model. I wouldn't, why would that be a socialist? I would go, well, we don't need to get rid of the economic model. We'll just have mass immigration. That will solve the problem. Who's arguing that? No one's arguing this. Well, you want both. I just, I believe that immigration has enriched this country factually, economically and socially compared to what it would have done.

Starting point is 01:02:09 But these two things, but what would happen with the care sector? What would happen to the care sector? Hold on. Hold on. So these, this is where it's actually really important to have the discussion because you say immigration is enriched this country. I agree. Immigration has also damaged this country. These two things can be true at the same. And I'll explain why. Not all immigrants are the same. Some immigrants contribute more. Some immigrants contribute less. Some immigrants are conducive to the cohesion of society and they start businesses and they create jobs. And some immigrant commit crime, right? Immigration is a word, but what it hides underneath it is millions of people who have different behavioral patterns, different cultural attitudes, different ways of being, different rates of committing. Yes.

Starting point is 01:02:49 certain crimes. Some of them are way more likely to sexual assault women and others less so, right? So when you talk about immigration has enriched this country, that includes people who've come here and opened a restaurant that we all go to and enjoy and have a chat in, and also people who commit grooming gangs offenses, right? So when you talk about immigration, it's not a catch-all. You could be more selective about it, which is what I believe in the selective immigration system where you get the best of the world and you don't get the worst of the world. And we've had pretty much the reverse. Here's something I've noticed about how people actually behave.

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Starting point is 01:04:42 dot com slash trig. That's QUO.com slash trig. You're absolutely right that. Migrants are people like anyone else. There was a whole breadth of experiences, of attitudes and all the rest. Factually speaking, we would have been in a far worse date because entire sectors of the economy would have collapsed. the NHS would have collapsed, the care service would collapse, you know, whole swathes of industry wouldn't exist, and we would have a smaller working age population supporting an increasingly

Starting point is 01:05:22 ageing population. In a 10-year period between 2014 and 2024, the number of people over the age of 65 increased by 1.5 million. Our birth rate at the same time is collapsing, partly because the government under our economic order, people cannot afford childcare, and they can't afford the cost of kids because of a housing crisis and how expensive child care is. So just factually speaking, if you end up with a low birth rate and an expanding aging population and you don't deal with that, you end up in a massive crisis. And you can see a demographic crisis in the places like Japan, where they haven't had mass immigration and their economy has now been stagnant for about 30 to 40 years.

Starting point is 01:06:01 So we can see that experiment in real time. In terms of migrants, you know, I mean in terms of criminal offences, the The percentage overall of migrants who commit offences is roughly the same as it's proportionate to the British population. But again, you're pooling people together in order to do this. So yes, it's true if you take Swedes and you take Russians and you take Ukrainians and you take people from the Indian subcontinent and you take people from Eritrea and you take people of Somalia. And then you average all of them out. Yes, you will get the same rate of offending average as the British public.

Starting point is 01:06:35 But that is not true when you drill down into the statistics. People from parts of the world where women are treated as second-class citizens where, like in Afghanistan, they're effectively not allowed to go outside without a chaperone. People from those parts of the world. So people fleeing the Taliban. Hold on. Hold on. People from those parts of the world. We know this in the same studies that you talk about.

Starting point is 01:06:54 And if the government allowed us to look into this and measure these things properly, we would see even more so. People from these parts of the world commit sexual offenses, for example, at a way higher rate than the number. the average British person, way higher rate. And so the average British person might be saying, why are we bringing them in? I think, I mean, Afghanistan's got an interesting example. I've met Afghan just, you like studies. So talk about the stats that I'm giving you. People from certain parts of the world commit sexual offenses at a much higher rate than the average person. Why would we bring them here? Well, I mean, in terms of Afghanistan, for example, because, I mean, firstly, as I've said, overall, there is no disparity. I mean, you said it's about averaging out. Yes, it is. It's about

Starting point is 01:07:32 I'm saying, but actually people from parts of the world, I'll give an example, I'll give an example. I'll give an example. No, I think it's a really good example. Take, because this comes up in terms of the dreaming scandals and so, because you mentioned that, you mentioned that. What is the rate of child sex offences amongst Pakistani British men? Tell me, what's the, what percentage?

Starting point is 01:07:54 Owen, can you just come back to the... No, I am. No, you're not. Oh, no, you're not. Yes, I am. Yes, I am. You're not. half an hour ago. Just come back to the question. I am, though. Owen, could you just come?

Starting point is 01:08:05 I'm giving an example. I'm giving an example. Everyone watching can see that you're dodging. No, I'm not dodging. Just come back. Do you think Pakistan is an example is an example? Is it is packet? No. Is Pakistan one of those places? Can you come back to... Is Pakistan one of those places? Just come back to the argument I'm made. I am. People commit sexual offenses at different rates depending on where they come from. Is Pakistan an example of a place? I don't have the state that you're asking. Okay, I'm not, I don't need to answer the stat. You answer this question and said, please. Do you regard Pakistan as a country in the world, where there were problematic attitudes towards women.

Starting point is 01:08:36 Do you? I think... Do you? Yeah, I think Pakistan is a place where there's a need for struggle, obviously, like lots of countries against misogyny and so on. But I'm asking... So it's a place where people treat women badly? Is it?

Starting point is 01:08:49 The role of women in Pakistan is... Well, I mean, they've had a female leader, unlike the United States of America. Is there... Is there a change of problems of misogyny in so in Pakistan? Yes, I'm not going to like that. So what's your point? Because if you look at sex offences committed by British Pakistani men, they are completely, they are completely, okay, talking about Pakistani, full stop. People of Pakistani origin. These are British people. People of Pakistani origin. Yes, but I'm saying this is different. No, this includes people who are born here or who have moved here. That's not who I'm talking about. Who are you talking about? This is ridiculous. Immigrants. We were talking about immigrants. So you consider British Pakistani's immigrants. No, you're saying that people from other parts of the world when they come here, some commit. sexual offenses more than others because of where they're from.

Starting point is 01:09:33 And then you brought a British-Pakistani, so they're British and therefore not immigrants. The statistics include people who were born in Pakistan and are migrants and people who are born in this country. Which statistics? The official statistics are- I'm talking about immigrants. I'm talking about first-generation immigrants who are not British. People who are quote-unquote fresh off the boat from Somalia and Eritrea commit

Starting point is 01:09:52 sexual offences at a higher rate than the British population. But that would mean in the case, for example, of those who are of Pakistani heritage in this country, that would mean they were. would have have an outsized impact on those offences. But they don't. They're not immigrants. They're British. No, the statistics include people born in fact, born in back and people who are born.

Starting point is 01:10:11 Not the statistics then. Which was you're talking about? You're talking about such small sample sizes. You can't, you can't talk about them. There are studies from all over Europe where you are actually allowed to measure this. We can bring them up on the screen for people watching, which show. You shouldn't do that because you need to bring the studies to me. You can't just say, no worries.

Starting point is 01:10:29 Dean, could you get my phone please? We'll get Venice out to show us. So, Owen, we took a little break to look this up. I just want to remind you where we pause this, okay? I made the very simple argument, which is people from certain countries around the world, particularly countries where treatment of women is not what we would all like it to be, are more likely to commit sexual offenses. And I think a lot of people are reasonably going to ask in that situation,

Starting point is 01:10:51 why would we not be more selective about that is that fair summation of where we parted? Yeah, yes, I'm fine, yeah. Cool. And I said there are studies that show this, and we argued you tried to bring up British-Pakistan. and I made the point while I'm talking about immigrants because British Pakistanis are British, blah blah, blah. So here are the studies from Europe that I'm talking about. Finland, there was a study in 2017-2018 that found that foreign-born offenders represented

Starting point is 01:11:16 27.2% of the suspects versus 7% of the population. So there's several times more likely than native Finns to commit that offense. In particular, Iraqi men are 12.8 times more likely to be suspected of a sexual offender. defense, and for specifically, I think it's 1.31 per thousand people versus no point 0.08 for Finnish men. These studies are replicated in Germany, in Sweden, and in Europe. And by the way, we're not allowed, the government does not collect these statistics deliberately in this country, and many people would argue that's to conceal the reality to, quote, protect community cohesion. So if, do you accept that this is, I'm reading out here, this is from

Starting point is 01:12:00 Venice AI, all these studies that you asked for. Do you accept this? I don't know those particularly figures, but I will take the figures that you just said. So we can accept them for a second. Okay, cool. So hold on. Okay. So if it's the case that foreign-born people from certain parts of the world are way, way more likely to commit rap, and we all, I think, agree, rap is bad. Wouldn't we be reasonable to be more selective about allowing people from that part of the world to come here? So the problem is it's not controlling for age in particular. No, these studies do control for age. And it reduces some of the effect.

Starting point is 01:12:31 I've got, I mean, okay, because I'm looking here. So it says, for example, and... It reduces some of the effect. But Germany is a really striking example, for example, because that, it dramatically reduces it. But it's still significantly different to the native population. That's, I mean, for example, a 2026 peer-reviewed study looked at all 23, 33 countries from 2008 to 23, obviously 2015 being the big population movement. And it found there was no statistically significant.

Starting point is 01:12:59 relationship between immigration inflows and record a sexual crime. But that's not what I'm talking about. But you're talking about the increase in... No. No. You're backing your own point. But I'm not. Because you're talking, you're not... I've got to be able to answer with that.

Starting point is 01:13:12 The figures that I'm talking here, so for example, it says... I accept what you said and let me answer it. But we're talking here particularly about... Let me answer. ...places with higher levels of immigration. No, no, you just said immigration doesn't seem to increase the number of sexual offences. That matches your earlier statement that overall immigrants don't commit sexual crimes at high rate.

Starting point is 01:13:28 It was looking at asylum. Well, fine, but that still doesn't change the argument. My argument is not all immigration is the same, and the evidence clearly bears that out. Now, you say, if you include the fact that these people are younger, young men, young men. Yeah, because that's what. Yeah, and those are the groups that are more likely to commit sexual offenses, then it's not as skewed. It's still skewed, but it's not as skewed. But that's the same argument you made about the NHS.

Starting point is 01:13:53 You say these people are great to have because they're young, and I'm saying, yeah, but they're young also means they commit a higher rate. wouldn't we be more selective? And particularly the point I'm trying to get you to accept is that not all people from all parts of the world are the same. They have different cultural values and some of those cultural values we might not want here. Well, again, I mean, what you're arguing there is about, partly about assimilation. No, it's not. It's not about, no, it's not what you're suspect it is, because again, I don't know what we keep dismissing, not least because it keeps coming up in this whole discussion, which is the main discussion we've had in this country about this whole issue, which is about the issue.

Starting point is 01:14:29 grooming gangs is that... I'm not talking about grooming guys. Yeah. I'm not... We're talking about sex offences. We're talking about those who commit sex offences. Okay. We've accepted all of us that in Pakistan, the position of women is significantly worse than it is in this country.

Starting point is 01:14:46 We have a large settled Pakistani population, but we also have large numbers of people arriving from Pakistan. The evidence shows that they are not more likely to commit sex offences or in the overall population and we've had obviously an assimilation of despite people claiming that Muslims are not assimilated this country. I know you said they're not assimilated. But you can see. I looked up and you said about British Muslims not being assimilated. When did I say that?

Starting point is 01:15:15 I can look it up if you want. You can if you want. The one start I've always, whenever I've talked about this that I've always given is I've said that I quoted the Guardian, which I imagine you're a fan of, which said that more Muslims have joined ISIS and Al Nusra than have done. joined the British Army. So I don't think that's evidence of assimilation. But a large number of Muslims are very well assimilated in this country, a large number

Starting point is 01:15:37 or not. But I think that part, we have a huge Pakistani population of British-Pakistani origin and we have large migrant flows from Pakistan to Britain. But you don't have, despite what we said about within Pakistan in terms of problems that women face, that women don't face problems in this country, you don't see that. And that is to do, obviously, with the fact that you obviously can bring people in from different parts of the world and people can assimilate. The point you make about Afghanistan, I just really have to just make this point because I think it is absolutely key, is this country helped destroy Afghanistan. We funded the jihadis, the Mujahideen in the 1980s.

Starting point is 01:16:18 I don't know if you support that or not. Do you support, do you support the West support of jihadis in the 80s in Afghanistan? I was about when did the war start? No, come on. I say that I oppose it. Look, I'm a geriatric millennial. I don't know how old you are. Yeah, I'm similar age. Okay, we don't need to play around, we don't need to piss around there.

Starting point is 01:16:34 Come on. You are the supporter, you don't, in hindsight. I think the West should not have... Do I in hindsight support the West giving money to them or Jehedeen? Yes. Good, we agree. But so we agree. Well, no, that's not a conscience. That's got, because lots of people still defend that.

Starting point is 01:16:47 They defend that on the basis of bringing down the Soviet Union and all the rest. So that, I mean, but it's not, I don't know. I don't, I've never seen you comments on these. So what's your argument? We help destroy Afghanistan there, but we have to accept that right. And then, we committed heinous war crimes in Afghanistan. Do you know what we did to Afghanistan? Do you know about the war crimes we committed?

Starting point is 01:17:05 I do. Right. So we have to bring in their rapists now. Because the vast majority of Afghan refugees are not rapists. No, they're not. No. And what we have, in my view, is an obligation to people in countries we've helped, in my opinion, destroy. And if you don't want to bring in refugees from those countries, then you should have loudly marched and opposed.

Starting point is 01:17:25 Did you march against war in Afghanistan? I did. against the war on iraqqqa san was a bit well i'm talking about did you support the war in afghanistan do you think we should have gone in at the time look don't do i was young did you support going into afghanistan i didn't have a strong opinion at the time because i was very young but my view on it was always it would be better to go in and take assama bin laden and al qaeda with special so did you vocally opposed the occupation when it was happening at any point i was probably what 16 at the time no you were and

Starting point is 01:17:51 it ended in 2021 did you oppose that occupation oh yeah yeah i've said i think i pretty pretty much said on one time I appeared on GB News. There was a catastrophic mistake. Well, we did, but no, no, I'm not saying after it happened. I'm saying during the occupation, did you say any, did you, what did you do to oppose it? What did you say about it? I was against it. What did, no, can you, come on, can you cite an example of you publicly? Did you protest about it? Did you write articles denouncing it? Did you do videos about the West occupation of Afghanistan? Did you do any of those things? Oh, and I became a public figure about six years ago. It doesn't, well, six years ago. So in that time, I,

Starting point is 01:18:25 I've said it was a mistake. You were citizen of this country and you could have used your position to speak out about this. You could have protested. You could have protested. You could have, you could have. Look, I encourage people to use social media as part of activism. There wasn't social media when the war in Afghanistan started. There was social media in 2021.

Starting point is 01:18:44 There was social media in 2020. There was social media in 2019. Don't be silly. You're being ridiculous. And I've always said I opposed to what happened in Afghanistan. Did you use whatever limited position you have in British society? Did you post opposing? Did you say anything opposing it?

Starting point is 01:18:58 It isn't. It isn't. Do you think everyone in this country who opposed the invasion of Afghanistan is tweeted about it? No. But I think I think that if you're someone who's vocally now speaking out about taking refugees in from Afghanistan, then you should, in my opinion, have taken a position against what we did to that country. Hold on. And we committed heinous atrocities against people.

Starting point is 01:19:21 We shot innocent people. Are you? Just poor. War crimes. Did we ever have war crimes? No, no, we're not going to play this game. It's not a game. It's not a game. Just stop.

Starting point is 01:19:29 We helped. You're just talking over me now. You're talking over me. I am not. We helped wreck Afghanistan. I accept that. We've got to take responsibility. I agree with you.

Starting point is 01:19:36 So take responsibility. I am taking responsibility. So what I'm saying to you is I can only take responsibility for my actions. My actions on this is I opposed it when I became a public figure and I've always said so. However, I do not. Owen, just stop, stop talking. However, I do not think we should not take. take any refugees from Afghanistan. I've never said so. I have never said so. What's the argument?

Starting point is 01:19:58 I said very clearly in language and people can go back and watch it. We should be more selective about accepting people from certain parts of the world where we clearly see, as we do in the studies, which you challenged, right, we see clearly in the studies that people from certain countries, hold on, hold on, from Iraq, for example, in the study that I quoted you, are 13 times more likely to commit sexual offenses in that study. Should we not be a little bit more selective before letting people in from that kind of the world? Again, again, we really, look, I went, as I spoke about in that book, as I spoke about that book, I went to Iraq, I went to Baghdad. And when people found out was British, they said to me, you destroyed this country.

Starting point is 01:20:39 Our forces in that country include the Americans predominantly, but also the British. I'm afraid to say, no, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not at all. I'm saying we have a responsibility. You're saying we should be more selective. Selective. Selective. Yeah, but what do you mean by selective? I can tell you, if you're interested, I can tell you. How are you screening for people who are potentially rapists or not?

Starting point is 01:20:57 I don't understand your argument here. What's your argument? Well, one of the arguments is you might be more careful about who you're in. That means you do extra checks. That means that you don't let in people with certain criminal convictions, which we currently do. How do you do that? How do you do what? Sorry, I'm really, I'm interested in what you are.

Starting point is 01:21:13 If you are right- Because you don't disagree as far as I can tell. I'm trying to work out the disagreement, actually. You don't- You let me talk, you'll find it out. But you're dragging this out. You support. You support.

Starting point is 01:21:22 Afghan refugees and people from Iraq. No, I don't. So you don't know it's where any of them come again? No, that's not what I said? Well, then what we disagreeing on? What we're disagreeing on, instead of listening, you keep interrupting me and talking over me. Tell me, tell me what your policy is. My policy is that we're much more selective about who we let into this country. Do you understand the word selective? No, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying, but it doesn't, I'm saying, what does that mean in practice? I'm trying to tell you. Tell me. So first and foremost, I think anyone who comes into this country illegally, that is, on a small boat, on a lorry, et cetera, is to me immediately far more suspect than anybody else.

Starting point is 01:21:56 What's the evidence for that? I'm telling you my opinion. I know, but I'm not interesting opinions. I thought we're doing empirical facts. You've got to let me explain what I'm saying. Why is an Afghan... Oh, and this is just degenerated and you interrupting the old is you just...

Starting point is 01:22:09 You asked me to explain, I'm trying to explain. So just be quiet for a moment and I'll explain. Okay, calm down though, chill out. If you are coming into this country by the first act that you do is you violate the laws of this country, right? You are coming in here deliberately, to avoid our immigration system, because you can apply for asylum, right? I have friends from all over the world who've come here by applying for asylum. If you don't do that and you come here on a small boat or you come here on a lorry

Starting point is 01:22:33 by breaking the laws of this country, it's clear to me that you should be subjected to a far higher standard of scrutiny because you are, in my opinion, far more likely to be doing so in order to get around immigration system, which would never have let you in in the first place. Before we just talk about applying for asylum, look, am I allowed to ask or is it just going to be? Okay. So is your argument, first of all, there, that your argument isn't even a blanket rejection of people who ride on boats? It is a blanket rejection of people riding on. So is that Afghan, so any, anyone who's, if they were an Afghan woman, for example, would you reject them?

Starting point is 01:23:07 I'm saying, would you? Would you? Honestly, I'm honestly, I'm not trying to check you by just to work out. Okay, fine. I would definitely not reject an Afghan woman who applied for asylum and is entitled to asylum. No, no, if she arrived on a, but I would definitely. She arrived on a small boat. How are Afghan supposed to apply to asylum? What we should do is create refugee processing centres in the region.

Starting point is 01:23:28 Here we go. Great. Oh, look, it sounds to me. When you let me finish, we find out that we actually agree on more, but you keep interrupting and misrepresenting. I'm not trying to misrepresenting. It's not because originally what you were saying is we need to do extra checks. I said, we'll just ring up the Afghan police and ask if they got in trouble with the authorities. I don't think that's going to work, obviously. Obviously, the problem we've got is we shut down safe and legal routes. That's why you've got a massive increase in people arriving. by small boats. In the early 2000s, the rate of people arriving in this country as asylum seekers is not actually that different at its peak from the level of today, for example, that they weren't

Starting point is 01:23:59 arriving on small boats. What we did is we closed down safe and legal routes. So when I met Afghan refugee, I don't know if you've met these people who arrived on these people. Have you ever spoke to an Afghan refugee? The guy who runs the taxi company that I use all the time in my local city is an Afghan refugee. I'm asking. I don't think he arrived in a small boat, which is why Okay, okay, fair enough. I went to Calais in 2015 and I spoke to people who were there. The reason they're arriving, they're moving to Britain is they speak English, almost all of them. I mean, they spoke English very fluently.

Starting point is 01:24:32 They don't speak French. People for the Democratic Republic of Congo stay in France because they speak French. That, you know, there's a fairly straightforward explanation for that one. And, you know, in one case, I met a 15-year-old boy whose father has. been murdered by the Taliban. In another case, I met someone who'd lived in Britain for, he came here as a kid and then he was deported from the country because he was clasped as an illegal migrant and he went back to Afghanistan and then he was jailed by the Taliban and then he fled and then he, sorry, he wasn't jailed by the

Starting point is 01:25:09 Taliban, he was captured and tortured by the Taliban, I believe at the time, because this was before the Taliban took over the whole of Afghanistan, then they had took over parts of Afghanistan, not the big cities. These were, you know, we destabilized a country. We both agree, as far as I can tell, that we need safe and legal routes, which would then reduce the number of people arriving by small boats. I don't really know what the disagreement is. I can explain to you what the disagreement is.

Starting point is 01:25:33 I believe those numbers should be far smaller than they are. So, example, just for people understanding the context of this, when I came to Britain in 1995, 96, actually, is probably more accurate. There was about 55,000 people coming here legally. every year legally. So say again. 1996. Total net immigration into Britain was about 55,000. We now have hundreds of thousands of people coming legally and we also have tens of thousands, maybe more than 55,000 a year coming illegally.

Starting point is 01:26:05 Yeah, it's a very small proportion of overall immigration, but yeah, that's true. Overall levels of immigration have massively increased, yeah. My view is we have society, we wouldn't be able to afford public services, they would function, our economy would collapse, We wouldn't support a aging population if they didn't, but not what was that is. I'm having flashbacks to Jimmy the Giant here. Fair enough. 55,000 people a year were coming totally legally when I came 30 years ago, right? Now that's the number of people who come here legally.

Starting point is 01:26:33 Now you can say it's a small proportion of the total immigration, but that's only because overall immigration has shut up. And the point I'm making to you is we now have more people coming illegally than we're coming legally 30 years ago. And don't you think that the... But that is a far better explanation of why people are upset about immigration than your argument. I think we shut down legal and safe routes, which had consequences, and we then helped destabilize the Middle East and also Central Asia.

Starting point is 01:27:00 We shouldn't have done what we did in Afghanistan. We shouldn't have invaded Iraq and slaughtered huge numbers of people. And if we hadn't have done that, then we wouldn't have large numbers. And Libya, where huge numbers of people, I mean, without Libya, people wouldn't even be passing that that route is obviously absolutely essential to people crossing the Mediterranean. My view is, you know, if you break it, you own it, and you shouldn't go around launching wars which slaughter hundreds of thousands of people more. I mean, in Iraq alone, the excess death toll is about 400,000. That was back in 2013. You shouldn't commit terrible crimes, destabilize entire countries,

Starting point is 01:27:38 and then when people from those countries arrive, then demonize them. And I would know this. I'm not demonizing anyone. Well, you're... I'm not, I haven't, when are I demonized? Well, I mean, we're talking basically what we're saying is that all Afghan men should be seen as potential rapists. I think that is obviously, you are because that's not. I said they can. Do you understand what per capita means? That's the de facto argument. I said we should be more selective.

Starting point is 01:28:02 Well, look, I believe we should have safe legal routes and that those safe and legal routes should judge cases based on their merits. So I don't disagree with you on that. I don't see what the disagreement is in that sense. I don't think a lot of your supporters would support opening safe and legal routes. The reason we had safe and legal routes for Ukraine, for Hong Kong, for the vast majority of the world, those were all gone. You can't apply for asylum in the vast majority of the world to Britain. You just cannot do that.

Starting point is 01:28:26 So people should just break our law and come here. The only way you can do that is it's not breaking the law. Well, it's not, you know, it's, you don't have. They're breaking into our country. You don't have to claim asylum under international law in the first country. You end up. But they are breaking our laws. They're crossing our borders without our consent.

Starting point is 01:28:42 We shouldn't have broken international war and invaded Iraq then, could we could have far braided. We literally broke into... So that entitles them. We, sorry, we broke into Afghanistan. We broke into Iraq. And I was against that. And we slaughtered, well, not very vocally about it sounds like, but we slaughtered huge numbers of people. Right.

Starting point is 01:28:57 We destabilized those countries. And what I find so offensive about what you're saying is millions of people were displaced because of those wars. And the vast majority of them stayed, either internally displaced or in their poorer neighboring countries. Sure. Your argument, your argument in practice is the country surrounding the nations, we destabilized, they should bear the brunt. They're the ones who should carry the burden on what we did. Why?

Starting point is 01:29:23 Why should Pakistan, which opposed the war in Iraq, and for example, well, sorry, Pakistan is Afghanistan, why should that be the place where millions of Afghan refugees, although the Pakistani regime has been driving them back to Afghanistan, Why should they take in millions of Afghan refugees when were the ones who were invaded and occupied Afghanistan? Why, in the case of Iraq, why should its neighbouring countries take in all those refugees when they didn't invade Iraq? Why? What's your argument is, we did the displacing, you accept that, but you're saying it's the poorest, the poorer country surrounding those nations, which do take almost the vast majority. The tiny percentage of Afghan refugees and Iraqi refugees come here. There were millions of Afghan refugees, although were in Iran and Afghanistan.

Starting point is 01:30:11 There were millions of Iraqi refugees which fled into the neighboring countries. A tiny percentage, a tiny percentage came to this country. And you think that's a huge outrage and they're breaking into this country. But they are. Well, again, we shouldn't have broken into their countries. I just let you talk uninterrupted for a very long time. I am perfectly happy for us to accept, you know, Afghan translators and other people who helped coalition forces.

Starting point is 01:30:40 And there will be other people who have particular risk, et cetera, et cetera, particularly if they care fully vetted. But what I'm saying to you is just because the West did this or did that does not entitle people to break into our country against Owen, against the will of the people of this country. Off them safe illegal reads, then. The people of this country have, you believe in democracy, I think, right? The people, hold on. See, the moment I say anything, you begin interrupting. The people of this country have voted over and over and over and over

Starting point is 01:31:10 to reduce immigration and to get illegal immigration to zero. Why is it right to allow, you clearly support these people breaking into our country? Who are you to over all the wishes of the British people? I've said that I support safe and legal routes. I don't want people across the challenge. Dangerous for them for start. I don't want that. So they shouldn't be coming.

Starting point is 01:31:29 open safe illegal routes and then you're reducing them. I'm happy to open a refugee processing centre. The problem is it wouldn't let in 90% of the people who are coming. Well, I don't know how you're plucking those, where you're plucking those statistics from. Most of the people who are breaking into this country are not coming from wars. Why was it under the... They're economic migrants. Most of them are economic migrants.

Starting point is 01:31:49 Well, we've already gone through actually, you know, the numbers of people arriving from Afghanistan and Iraq are two of the great sources of people arriving this country. I don't think that economic migrants. I don't think anyone would say that's a reasonable way of describing. I said the majority of the people who are breaking into this country, economic migrants. They're mostly coming from places actually of places which have huge conflict, all dictatorships, some of which supported by the West, I would know. What about Soweto when you saw hundreds, tens of thousands of people breaking into Spanish territory in North Africa? They fleeing Morocco that we overthroth?

Starting point is 01:32:21 No, they're just economic migrants. They want to come to Europe because it's a better quality of life. No one is arguing that you should, well, I'm not, because I think the caricature you're making is that I just, we should abolish borders. In the world in which we live, you have abolished borders. You can't do. Well, we haven't because otherwise, as I've noted, you wouldn't have the vast majority of the world's refugee population in the poorest or poorer countries. Because they can't get here. They're not willing to pay people smugglers tens of thousands of euros to get here.

Starting point is 01:32:48 I mean, yes, they tend to be better off people who end up coming here. Actually, yes, you're right. And actually, you know, the issue is that the vast majority. of refugees fleeing our wars end up in other countries which didn't cause the wars. You've made that point. Fine. No, I know, but that's one of that, but that's why I think it's just, I think it's an absurdity. You made the point. Your view is, your view is we should just trash these countries and then we shouldn't, we should have, we should have, we should have shoulder the responsibility. No, that's not my point. My point. My point, well, in the same

Starting point is 01:33:19 way I could say your point is that people should be allowed to break into our country. No, I've said safe and legal roots would stop that from happening. I don't want. people crossing the channel. It's really dangerous for them for start, as I've said. But when people arrive here, I think their cases be judged on a case-by-case basis. And I'd note, under a conservative government, why- Are you pointing me? I'm not a conservative. No, no, no, no, no, this is the point I was going to make. A conservative government which wanted to reduce immigration, it did. Why didn't they? What happened? Why was there a massive gap, I'm asking?

Starting point is 01:33:45 Oh, the same economic argument he made earlier. I mean, we've had senior conservative politicians like Suella Brahman, she was in the studio last week, making this very same point. The reason the last Conservative government refused to cut mass immigration is they didn't want to have to accept the total GDP would fall. No, they knew the economy, they knew the economic consequence would be severe. They wanted to reduce immigration. That was their whole, that became the whole thing. They knew that because we measure economic activity with GDP and not GDP per capita, I'm telling you what they said. Can I finish telling you what they said?

Starting point is 01:34:18 They knew those economic sectors and those public services would collapse without them. Can I just tell you what they told us? Is that okay? Who are you talking about? Suella Bravman. Oh, God. She was the Home Secretary. Yeah, I know.

Starting point is 01:34:29 She's now a foreign politician. Yeah, yeah, but she was the home secretary at the time. We had Liss Trust on the show. We've had Boris Johnson on the show. We've had all these people on the show and we've asked them all these questions. So I'm telling you what they said. Is that okay? Can I do that?

Starting point is 01:34:40 That's totally fine. But there is these all self-serving comments by them. What, well, you said, what did they tell you? I'm trying to tell you, right? What they all said was the reason that you can't cut mass immigration is that the Treasury, doesn't want you to because then the headline economic figure of GDP goes down and then people get upset because the media will be able to say you tank the economy. Can I say why I think they didn't?

Starting point is 01:35:04 Face-faithful. Oh, so you didn't want to know why they said it. You just want to express your... Fine, go ahead. Go ahead. You know, I studied history and what we were always told to do is not to take a source at face value. You look at the context and their purpose and particularly self-justification by historical figures. You don't just accept what they say.

Starting point is 01:35:24 We accept the headline polling figure that most people in this country want immigration to do. We accept that, don't we? Yes. Yeah. What happens when you start polling people about different, the main chunks of immigration? What happens? I don't know what you're talking about. The main subsets of immigration, for example, foreign students.

Starting point is 01:35:43 That is a massive subset of who pay 40 billion pounds a year into this country. You poll people about foreign students, They go, do you want to get rid of them? No, I don't want to get rid of them. Then you keep going. You go, what about people from Ukraine and Hong Kong? No, no, no. That's again, we've not already got here, by the way, that is a vast chunk of people arriving in this country already. And then you start asking people about, like, healthcare workers, nurses. When you poll people about the actual subsets of immigration, people, by large margins, say they don't want to remove those migrants. And then when you go, but that, but you end up with the vast majority of immigration.

Starting point is 01:36:24 And that's the problem. I can tell you exactly the immigration I'd want to reduce. It's very simple. It's a tiny proportion of immigration. Whatever you say will be a tiny proportion of immigration. It's not a time. Well, Owen, you've got to understand, you know, a lot of people from your position trying to paint the opposition to immigration in this country is an extreme position and an extreme

Starting point is 01:36:39 haven't said that. You haven't said that here, but I think you have said that in the past. No, no, I just, I haven't, I haven't, I get to the scapego to give my ignorance of problems they don't cause. I deck to that. So do I. So do I. Okay.

Starting point is 01:36:50 And I've said so repeatedly. I just have a video out last week saying immigration debate has become too white and white. The problem is if the conservative government had massively reduced the number of foreign students, then they would have lost tens of billions of billions. But this is why I can tell you the sensible immigration that should be reduced. First of all, yes, it's true that a lot of those foreign students are paying high university fees. A lot of them were not going to legitimate universities. And the evidence is very clear on this.

Starting point is 01:37:18 There were all sorts of fake schemes to get people into this country under fake student visas who are not actually studying. The same thing is true with some key workers. We've seen restaurants in parts of the country which have had 30 people come in under sort of key work envies, all of this stuff. But really, it's very simple. The way I would reduce it, I would stop all illegal immigration because it's illegal people. You're talking about a tiny percentage. Let me just finish. Well, it's more people than were coming here when I came here a year.

Starting point is 01:37:45 That's quite a lot. Okay, fair enough. But it's not. Can I just finish? I know, but I thought it was an interview. Well, an interview requires that you listen to me and I listen to you. I am, but I have listened to you for a long time and I'm just trying to make one point and you interrupt. Okay.

Starting point is 01:37:58 So I would reduce fake students. I would reduce the number of people who are coming here illegally to zero because they shouldn't be coming. I would also reduce the number of people, in fact, not reduce. I would just say there shouldn't be any benefits for foreign nationals in this country. There's no reason. Let me finish. And you can argue with it if you want. So anyone in this country, when I came to the country, when I came to the,

Starting point is 01:38:18 this country and I was a student I had a stamp in my visa which said no recourse to public funds that should be the case if you can't support yourself in this country you shouldn't be here and it's just if you do these long it's just such an important point you very but they're not that long okay go keep going because that's really go for it go on right and uh and at the same time I would make sure that people who come here who are net contributors i.e they're paying more in taxes than they're taking if they are compatible and et cetera et cetera we take those people so that would be a pretty sensible immigration policy in my view. So you're going to... That wouldn't reduce the good students and all the rest. So you're going to take tax credits off

Starting point is 01:38:54 all those care workers for you and drive them all into poverty. Is that what you're going to do? No. Why? You're taking away all benefits from foreign nationals. Yes. So you're now going to... If you're foreign national in this country, unless you're part of a very specific sectoral program, where we have said this. Really? Okay. Yeah. So, no, well, I'd be fascinated to know what you mean by that. So foreign national, so people who work in the care sector have very, very low wages. Yes. We, we, we, we, we, Most benefits in this, you know, it's not unemployment benefits that make up the working age bill. It's, for example, tax credits, which cost a vast sums of money, where the government steps in because the gap between people's income and their ability to live is too big because they're not paid enough.

Starting point is 01:39:34 The care sector depends on foreign nationals. So it does at the moment, yeah. Well, it does depend on it at the moment. Fair enough. Until we suddenly have this massive army of British-born care workers, which we don't have a million young people who are not employing or training. Look, look. And they could be doing those low-paid jobs and getting valuable life experience. That's a separate discussion because it is a separate discussion because it hasn't happened yet. I'm talking about the here and now.

Starting point is 01:39:56 I'm saying, would you strip away tax credits and all other in-work benefits for care workers who literally the whole country, what, in already underfunded, understaffed care sector? If you're a foreign national, I'm not saying you do it all overnight, but a phased in policy, absolutely. So then they will all leave the country and then we won't have any care. That's correct. Who's going to look after all those elderly people now then? Who's going to look after? No, tell me. I'm about to if you let me say it.

Starting point is 01:40:26 Okay. So what I'm saying is, first of all, of course, like with every sector of the economy, you have certain carve-outs for certain groups that you are okay with. But on the broad sweep of things, I'm perfectly fine out. So are you saying, Howard, can I finish for God's sake? Do care workers keep their binwood benefits or not? I'm asking. Are you interviewing me here?

Starting point is 01:40:42 Well, it feels like I am now, yeah. Yeah, well, maybe you should stop. Well, it's just because these long, long, discursive talks. I don't know. I'm just asking it. I'm saying what you say doesn't. I got about a sentence in to my answer. Okay.

Starting point is 01:40:54 I'm perfectly happy to have a policy that foreign nationals in this country do not have access to the benefit system. There may be some temporary carve-outs for certain industries where that transition will take some time. But in a country in which we have a million young people who are neither in employment nor in education, the idea that we can't find, you know, people make this argument about the hospitality sector. Oh, it's completely dependent on foreign labor. It is. It is. You can't go into a restaurant in this country without encountering someone who's foreign. However, those jobs when I first came here were being done by British people.

Starting point is 01:41:30 And yes, they've all now been replaced by people from other countries who are happy to work in worse conditions for less money. It's true. But the moment you prevent the system from topping up the wages of those foreign people who are here, British people will do those jobs. And the prices, by the way, will go up and so we'll work in conditions. Is your genuine argument, I just really want to absorb what you're saying here. Yeah. Are you saying that you're going to take away inward benefits from migrant workers in the care service, hospitality, retail, which will leave, and there's no question, them unable to live and pay their rent and look after their kids? They will vast majority, and they will no longer be able to.

Starting point is 01:42:11 That's the purpose of the policy, yeah. And then you're saying that all of a sudden, this, now all these sectors with millions in some case, if you put top them together of migrant low-paid workers who are propping up these sectors, which are often, we are propping them up, the government's propping them up. No, we're subsidising them because their wages too long. That's what propping up means. We're subsidising the bosses who aren't paying them properly. But all of a sudden, you're saying these sectors will suddenly,

Starting point is 01:42:38 there'll be all these people in this country to just start looking after elderly people, keeping hospitality running, they will just, all of that will happen and those industries won't just collapse? Are you serious? If you do it overnight. This is madness. Oh, and just hold on, you're misrepresenting the argument. I'm saying you do it overnight. I said phased in policy. How long? How long a period? Because you're betting the house on all, on all these sectors, being able to get care workers, retail workers, hospitality workers to fill in what you're saying will be, I mean, we're talking a, you know, potentially millions of people. migrant workers, I don't know how many in-work benefits.

Starting point is 01:43:13 Do you understand, I think the real disagreement here is, I don't think you understand how the market works, which is maybe why the basis of your entire worldview. Do you know how the market works? If there's a shortage of labour in a particular sector, particularly a low-skilled sector like hospitality, it's not, I've been a wait, it's not that hard, let's be honest, right? What happens is if you can't find enough staff,

Starting point is 01:43:33 what do you do as an important? Why are they understaffing? Can I just finish this argument? Yeah. But what happens is when there's not enough staff for a particular job, what do you do as an employer? You put the wages up so that you attract more people. And when that is the case, you make it a more appealing job for people to do. So is your genuine argument?

Starting point is 01:43:51 Because at the moment the care service, you'd accept us under staff. We don't have enough care workers, even though we have, obviously. So your argument is that what will happen is when these foreign care workers at the moment, literally, including, I'm sure, people watching, looking after their elderly parents and grandparents, parents and doing an incredibly difficult arduous job for the very little wages, they will now be made literally unwelcome in the country because they won't be able to live. They won't be unwelcome. They will be welcome because you can't afford.

Starting point is 01:44:19 If you take away from, if you take away people on that low pay, if you take away in-work benefits, not least when they have families, they won't be able to afford to live here. Then you're arguing that there will be a massive hike in wages and there will be this army of British-born people who will start doing care work, retail, retail and hospitality, including in companies with very little profit margins, if we're going to be really honest about it. Is that honestly your view? That's going to happen. And these sectors aren't just going to collapse. Well, if you do it overnight, they'll collapse. But if you do it over time, of course that will happen. This is, I think, it's funny talking about economic insanity

Starting point is 01:44:54 and problematic. It's one of the most insane economic ideas I've ever heard. Well, the market. The market, if the market works, then you wouldn't. Oh, and we run a small business. I'm telling you my experience as a business owner. Why is the care service want to staff then? Why aren't they increase? Because the wages are too low. That's why? Yeah, but if you pay... So why aren't they increasing the wages now in order to attack more care workers? Why isn't that happened? For a very simple reason, because you are, you are getting the government to give poor people from the third world money to come and fill those jobs. That's why if you... So why aren't we getting enough to do it then? Why isn't the wages are still too low?

Starting point is 01:45:29 So why, yeah, but I'm asking if clearly immigration is not filling, we do, we have all these industries where you still have vacancies. Yeah. So why hasn't, then they increase the wages to increase the number of people working based on the fact that they aren't getting people from these poorer countries to fill these gaps. They're getting lots and lots of people from poor countries.

Starting point is 01:45:47 It's undersnapped. Yes, because there's such a massive opposition to immigration. You can't bring in people who are going to work for five quits an hour. So then they should improve the wages, but they're not. But they haven't done that. They won't. As long as you have cheap foreign labor, they will never improve the way.

Starting point is 01:46:01 Yes. You're saying if there are vacancies, the market will adjust for that by improving wages. I'm saying that is not happening because there are vacancies and they're not improving the wages. Because there's massive downward pressure on wages by having millions of people from foreign labour. But then that's not enough to deal with a staffing population. Okay, we can leave it there. But all I'm saying is you would, you would, you would, you would crash the economy in a most devastating fashion. You are not obviously going to get people to suddenly fill all these. People can't do those jobs? I'm not, I'm saying that million people,

Starting point is 01:46:31 million young people who are not in educational training, they can't serve a plate of food? It depends. I mean, it depends on the circumstances. Because they've got too much ADHD or anxiety or whatever. Some of them actually are people who are disabled, yes. Some of them are, but not all of them are. But also, it's not a static population. This is the problem as well. You don't seem to offer this.

Starting point is 01:46:48 One million is not, these are people who are going in and out, of course. They're going out of often low-paid. So let's get them more jobs that are better paid. They're often in low-paid, insecure jobs or zero-hour contracts. Which is what I don't want. Fine. But the reason they're in low-paid. You really want to build a socialist state, like Comrade.

Starting point is 01:47:02 But the fact is they're an insecure work, which is often transient, which is that that's the nature of the service sector and the hospitality sector and all the rest of it. So if there were more jobs for them in those sectors and the wages were higher, they'd be better. Well, no, because you're reducing firstly the demand in the economy because there will be less people paying. There will be less people paying in the economy. That's what you'll do. You withdraw from the economy demand by huge numbers of people leaving the country. Yeah, but you said yourself, they need subsidies just to be able to live.

Starting point is 01:47:28 Yes, their wages are too low. So we are paying them. And the government's paying these people. That's then circulated in their business. That's then circulating in the local communities. So you want to pay. So you want to bring to foreigners so they spend money here. That's what you want. I'm saying those sectors would.

Starting point is 01:47:40 No, I'm saying those sectors would collapse. That's what those subsidies do. Those subsidies are for British people. And it doesn't matter where you're from if you're in these low pay jobs. Yeah. British people, most in work benefits are going to British people. Sure.

Starting point is 01:47:54 And it's because wages are too low. I want to increase wages, which is why I support a strong trade union movement. And that's why I want collective. bargaining. This is what you should support. You should support collective bargaining in the care sector. The point about care sector about care bargaining, sorry, the point about collective bargaining is it enables workers to use their collective power to improve their wages on the basis the market will not do that. That's why it exists. And in place like Finland, you mentioned Finland before, they have collective bargaining and they have higher wages and so on. But what you're arguing in

Starting point is 01:48:22 practice would be, it would literally mean millions of people potentially, a vast number of people, would leave sexes dependent on migrant workers without some huge army of people waiting to fill those jobs. And you said the final thing on it. Let me say the final thing on it, and then we'll move on, because we've got to let you go soon. What I'm saying is, over time,

Starting point is 01:48:42 I would like to replace people who come into this country who can't even earn enough money to pay enough tax to be net contributors with British people doing those jobs. You don't agree? I know, but can I... You don't, no, no. You don't agree.

Starting point is 01:48:54 I think that's perfectly possible. That's our disagreement. Just quickly, lastly, though. You do accept, because there's lots of costs to that, and one of them is that the working-age population will shrink relative to pensioners. You must accept that. It will reduce, yes. Do you not see that imposes really quite steep costs at the same time that you've just collapsed all these industries, by the way, but do you not see that...

Starting point is 01:49:15 I haven't collapsed any industries. You have. But do you not see that you have left... Which industries are like collapsed? What are you talking about? Care, retail, hospitality, large, huge numbers of huge... I mean, you have low-paid cleaners. I mean, you suddenly get...

Starting point is 01:49:29 We're going back around and so, course. Fine. You accept you get a smaller working age population, and that that imposes costs because you have an ageing population. Sure. Okay. Okay, fair enough. Owen, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Starting point is 01:49:42 Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Male suicide. Biggest killer of men under 50 is suicide. And suicide for anyone's been touched by it is just like a nuclear bond going off in people's lives. And even though there are, rate of depression and mental distress is higher amongst women. The suicide rate is much higher

Starting point is 01:50:03 amongst men. And that's often to do with it being seen as unmanly to talk about people's feelings and problems. There's a stigma attached to it. One thing I've written about before, which I don't think comes, might sound a bit surprising, is homophobia against straight men, because most straight men get homophobically abused at some point if they're seen as not manly enough, not aggressive enough, not going into a fight, not talking about women in a degrading way. And, you know, I interviewed straight men who were homophobly bullied throughout their childhood, beaten up, attacked, and all the rest of it, in a way that I wasn't as a gay man. But that has a wider impact, because homophobia is used, I think, to enforce gender norms. And one of the way straight men suffer

Starting point is 01:50:44 is talking about feelings and problems is seen as unmanly and gay. So I just, for me, it's about the stigma there, and it's about mental health, and it's about making sure that men who need help and need support get it and feel able to get support. So, Owen, thank you so much for coming on the show. You know, to fact, to have someone on from a different point of view, having discussions, it's been really, really heartening. Thank you so much. Yeah, bless you.

Starting point is 01:51:07 Thanks for coming on, man. Cheers, thank you. Cheers, cheers. And your book is out now. Owen Jones, the Fall of the West. And, well, we got into such a... How they really lost it. How they really lost it.

Starting point is 01:51:16 And we got into such a conversation that we don't have time for substack. But we'll see you again next time.

TRIGGERnometry - Owen Jones vs. TRIGGERnometry

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