TRIGGERnometry - Triggernometry- Ep. 2 Andrew Doyle

Episode Date: April 30, 2018

Triggernometry- Ep. 2 Andrew Doyle by TRIGGERnometry Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Book direct at choiceotails.com. See you on the room. Andrew Doyle. Welcome to Trigonometry. Hello. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kitten.

And this is the show for you. If you were bored of people arguing with each other on the internet over subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be experts. We ask the experts. We're here at the world famous Angel Comedy Club and our amazing guest this week is a stand-up comedian, columnist for Spike magazine, and co-writer for Jonathan Pye.

Andrew Doyle, welcome to Trigonometry. Hello? So, Andrew, tell us a little bit about how you came to be sitting on that chair? Because you asked me to do. It's that simple really. And what has been your journey? I'll just do anything that you asked me to do. Well, you've had a great career already. How have you come to the point that you're at? You were a comedian first? Yeah. Well, I mean, I started out writing plays and sketches and this kind of thing. And I was also a teacher at the time. And then one night we did a sketch show. It was an hour long with a couple of friends and we had a sort of

10 minute deficit. So I said, I'll just write a, I'll try a bit of stand up and I did it. I mean, it wasn't very good, to be honest, but I enjoyed it, and then I sort of went into it that way. And then that became my sort of main source of income. So I went part-time as a teacher and then left teaching, and then this is what I do now. And how did you get to writing for Spiked and then working with Jonathan Pye? Oh, so those are two very different areas of my life. But the Spiked thing came about because I'd met a couple of the people who were involved with Spiked, and the deputy editor, Tom Slater, got me to write one or two things, because I agree very much.

with their stance on free speech. So I wrote a couple of things. And I became very conscious and I was aware of how unpopular spiked is amongst the comedy circuit. And there's a kind of stigma attached to the publication based typically on a lack of knowledge about what the publication is, to be fair.

So I was a bit hesitant, a bit cowardly about it actually. And I thought, well, I'm not going to make this a regular thing. And then a couple of years ago, about two and a half, three years ago, I got to the point in my life where I thought, you know, I'm going to stop just being mealy-mouthed about what I think. I'm going to start saying what I actually think

because I think honesty is really important. It's quite self-destructive not to be honest. And also it's about respecting other people enough to be honest to them and know that they're not going to shun you for that. So I just started writing what I thought for Spiked on a regular basis, so I became a columnist for them. And it's been really great, I think.

But some people don't share that view. For the benefit of our viewers and listeners who may not have encountered Spike magazine, could you describe it a little bit what it is for them? Yeah. It's a radical humanist magazine. It has its origins in Marxism. It's, I suppose, it's on the left, but it's libertarian,

which some people see as a contradiction, but actually it is compatible. It's very much got, I mean, a lot of the authors disagree with each other on various points, but it has some broad editorial lines, as all publications do. I'd say it's very consistently anti-Trump, anti-New Labor, anti-conservative.

It's very anti-racism, pro-human rights. It believes in unlimited immigration, no borders whatsoever. These are the sort of central premises. It also has an editorial line where it has a certain skepticism about climate change, which I don't share. But on the whole, it's also predominantly a free speech magazine. And that to me is one of the most important things and the most important topics that we're facing at the moment. so I agree with more than I disagree and that's why I write for it.

Fantastic, and you said that this free speech is a very important topic at the moment. Why do you think it's become more important now as opposed to five years ago just to pick an arbitrary? I'd say something has happened over the past five, ten years and we have this kind of creeping authoritarianism that's occurring in our country in the West generally.

And I think it's come out of a kind of misunderstanding and misapplication of political correctness. Political correctness was from my era. You know, it's from the sort of 90s, this idea that we should have a kind of shared discourse, a shared understanding of the way in which it is polite to interact with other people in the public space

and the workplace, all of this kind of thing, which I'm very much on board with. And I think that's just a good idea, not to criminalise the way that people speak, but to sort of have shared understanding and as a society encourage and disencourage certain thing. I don't have a part. I think that's a really good thing.

I think that's sort of morphed into something new. What's happening now, I wouldn't call political correctness. I don't think that's what this is. I think it's something else, and I haven't really decided what it should be called. I'm not in a position to make that judgment, but it's not really political correctness. It's a new kind of identity politics, which is very much focused on intersectional grievances and the idea of victimhood as currency, and I think it's very, very damaging and extremely divisive, and I think it's something that needs to be resisted. It's also a means by which censorship can be called for

from a position of virtue, and that troubles me deeply, because all of the of the civil rights movements, all of the movements from the new left in the 60s and 70s in terms of gay rights, in terms of feminism, in terms of civil rights for racial minorities, all had at their heart a belief that free speech was essential, because if you don't have free speech, none of those other rights will follow. Now we have a situation where people are prepared, particularly on the left, or what I'd prefer to call the liberal left, to sacrifice the fundamental principles of democracy and the fundamental principles of free speech for something that is perceived to be a greater good. Which is what?

Which is the protection of vulnerable groups. I find this to be not only damaging to vulnerable groups, but it's a surefire way to generate resentment and divide society more and more and more. And we see what happens. We see what happens. Donald Trump is in the White House. I can't think that, I mean, he ran his campaign on the basis of being anti what he calls PEC, you know. It's a kind of frustration that you see

amongst huge swathes of the population that they're They are poor, they've got nothing, they've got no hope. Ever since the third way and the Clintons and the Blairs, they've had nothing at all. And all of a sudden they're voting for any kind of change. They just want to explode the system. They just want to change it. And they're told, while they're struggling and they have nothing, that they're privileged. And that they are racist when a lot of them are not racist, majority of them are not racist.

They're told they're homophobic. They're told they're sexist. And they're continually battered in this way. And it generates an awful lot of resentment. and then it backfires. So what I say to the proponents on the liberal left who push this kind of agenda is, this is self-defeating.

You are destroying yourselves. I'm coming from the left. So I'm saying we need to do better than this, because if we don't, then the problem is going to perpetuate. But you see, somebody would then go, well, actually, what, you're saying this and you're in a very comfortable career.

You are a man of privilege, you're a white man. Of course you would say these things because you've never been oppressed. There's a huge amount of assumptions in that statement. Yes. Firstly, that I have a successful career.

The jury is very much out on that. If I did have a successful career, I wouldn't be struggling for money all the time. I thought you were going to say, I wouldn't be here. Well, there's that. No, that would be rude. That would be rude. I wouldn't do that.

I like that. That would be rude. Though accurate, it would be rude. You see, often the accusation of privilege comes with all kinds of assumptions. And what I've noticed is the people who peddle this idea tend to be from very upper-middle-class backgrounds. It seems to be a very bourgeois concern.

identity politics at the moment. I'm not saying in all cases, but certainly the most prominent vocal elements of the Liberal Left. Tend to have double-barrel names, tend to have, I mean, the books that are being published about this stuff where people are desperate for victimhood tend to be quite well off people, people who talk about their holidays in the Pyrenees when they were young and all of this kind of stuff. So I don't know where the assumption that I'm privileged is privileged for me. Of course people face homophobia and racism and all this stuff and we need to stand up against that. But above all else, what privilege comes from money, from contacts, from opportunity, from nepotism, from all of the stuff that middle class people have.

Only 7% of this country are educated at private schools, but they're disproportionately represented in the law, in the media, in journalism, and all of the major politics, all of the major positions. So really, if we wanted to sort this out societally, we would address that imbalance. So I would never say to someone, your privilege because you are white, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, when Munro Bergdorf, the Labour activist, said that you can still be homeless and have white privilege, That is an incredibly insulting thing to say from someone who is so privileged, so upper middle class, and has had all these benefits. But as an ethnic minority and trans person, all of a sudden, the victim hierarchy shifts.

And so someone who's homeless is suddenly more, is privileged or potentially privileged. I mean, this is a nonsense. So I think we have to think in terms of class. I think if you're not thinking in terms of class consciousness, you can't really self-identifies left, in my view, although a lot of people on the left do seem to think that by focusing solely, and I must emphasize it, I'm not saying that tackling racism and homophobia and sexism isn't important. It's key to what I believe in.

What I'm saying is it is often done at the expense of class concerns. Now, it would be one thing if we were covering everything, but that doesn't appear to be, or certainly my reading of it, that is not how things are playing out in a practical sense. So if you say to me, well, my argument is undermined by the fact that I'm white, well, or the fact that I'm male, how do we know that I haven't been disadvantaged in other ways? How do you know?

I'm curious about that because we were talking just before we started actually. And I asked you if you're gay because I read that you did a show where you talked partly about that. And I'm curious that you haven't brought that up in defense of your right to speak, which I find interesting because that is the instinct we most of us now have, isn't it? To kind of go, wait, I'm oppressed as well, therefore I'm allowed to speak. I think it's irrelevant. I think it would be irrelevant if I were a black gay female. I think the argument is what matter.

I think this, okay, so this is where I think a lot of the liberal left are going wrong. It's they've forgotten how to argue. We don't have critical thinking at the heart of schooling anymore. I used to teach critical thinking at a level. It's really, really key, and it's important. The first thing you'll learn from a critical thinking course is as soon as you attack the person and not the argument, you've lost, it's an ad hominem attack.

So anyone who invokes your race, your gender, your sexuality has already lost the argument. It's not an adequate argumentative technique. So that to me is something we need to get back to you. You need to address the point. Okay, so let me give you, for instance. So if you say to me, if I make a point, make an argument about identity politics and you say, well, I don't accept that argument because you're white and you're male, right? What happens then when I introduce you to a woman, a black woman who is making an identical point?

So is the point suddenly, is the argument suddenly more persuasive? Is that what you're telling me? Now, this is the problem with people who peddle identity politics in its current form. They are undermining themselves. Because if your rebuttal depends on something that is individual about the person you're arguing, then when you are faced with the identical argument from someone who doesn't fit that demographic, you have nowhere else to go. Well, they do have somewhere else to go, actually, because what they do then is they call that person a race trait or a traitor to their gender,

internalised misogyny. Quite. Self-hating. Yeah, exactly. I can think of nothing more patronising than a woman saying to another woman, well, you're not thinking in the right way. I mean, that is underpinned by a genuine misogyny. or your suffering or you're an uncle Tom or yours or your self-hating. I mean, how dare someone make that assumption about someone?

Maybe someone just disagrees with you. And maybe that's okay, right? It's an interesting thing for me because I am from Russia. That's why I was born in the Soviet Union, but I'm from Russia. And people said to me in these kind of situations, well, you're white, you don't know what you're talking about. Interestingly, someone who looks like me in Russia, I had people in Russia come up to me in the street and say, in Russian, literally, you are black, go home. Wow. Because people who look like me in Russia are the discriminated against minority.

Okay. But no one in the UK could possibly know that without having a conversation with me first. Quite. So they've made an assumption. They've made an assumption based on their experience as opposed to anything about my experience whatsoever. So now that my oppression credentials are firmly established. It's a shame, isn't it, that we feel we have to do that, that we have to establish those credentials. It doesn't make any sense.

We should be able to talk about ideas irrespective of who makes them. surely. My problem with the whole debate about what is currently going on in the internet is I think it's quite selfish because I think a lot of these people do it not because they're actually interested in supporting or progressing the rights of ethnic minorities

or gay people, disabled or trans, or whatever it may be. I think they do it from a purely selfish point of view whereby they do it to essentially propel their own careers and make a name for themselves. The trouble with that, I mean, that could potentially be true. I would have with that is I'm very wary of

ever trying to intuit motive on behalf of the person I'm arguing against. It's far better to just address the arguments as that are presented rather than... Because otherwise... You're more reasonable than me. It's all... I mean, you might very well be right that there's this underlying kind of... Because we know, don't we, that now victimhood

has power attached to it, which is an odd paradox, isn't it? But the more of a victim you can present yourself as, the more currency you'll have. Now, we... And there's political clout behind being a victim, and we know that now. But the problem is if I assume that someone is not telling the truth out of a desire for personal gain, then I am as guilty of the thing I've just accused other people of,

which is I'm not addressing the argument. And also, you can defeat the argument irrespective of motive. So it doesn't matter what their motive is, actually. If you've defeated the argument, then job done. So whether their motive is malevolent or benevolent, it doesn't matter. You've still won the argument. So that would be my suggestion, in that case. People often impute motive to me all the time. So I make these sorts of arguments and it's

because I'm a self-hating gay man or it's because I'm a racist, I'm alt-right all of this kind of thing. Because otherwise they have to deal with the arguments I'm actually making. So it's much easier to mischaracterise your opponent and enter into a kind of straw man debate. That's much easier. People are very hesitant to address what's actually being said.

It's a big problem. Do you think that actually social media has just exacerbated the situation? because now people on social media, because they've got literally a computer screen in front of them and between their opponent, they suddenly feel emboldened to say whatever it is that they want and to make horrible claims and say horrible things to people

that they would never dream of saying it face to face. Yeah, it's terrible, isn't it? It's the anonymity of the online experience, of course. You have this kind of, yeah, I mean, I've had it recently. I suppose you call it trolling. I've been trolled by a group of anarcho-communists. And Narco-communist.

What's a narco-communist? Because my mum's South America, narco for me, it means cocaine. No, anarcho. Anarcho. Yeah. Cocaine dealing communists. It sounds like a contradiction in terms,

doesn't because if you're an anarchist, you don't believe in the state at all. If you're a communist, you believe that the state should run everything. But actually, it's a kind of, they don't believe in the state at all. They don't believe in the state at all. They don't believe in wage labor,

the idea of employment, that kind of thing. We're all comedians. We don't believe in employment either. No, there we go. So I'd say, sorry, they, and they're very much, you know, when you get involved with debates with people like this,

they are incapable of argument. Their entire belief system seems to be based on faith. It's not to do with them. They can't rationalise. But when you're being a sort of troll on the internet, even if it's only a handful, like, five or six people, it feels like the whole world is against you.

It's a, but I've got used to it now. because through a couple of the Jonathan Pye videos I've had a lot of that kind of thing I've got used to and I don't take it too seriously now and I just ignore it but like you say social media has exacerbated the problem hugely

and I think it's because these minority voices that aren't really very rational that haven't read very much, don't really know very much are suddenly amplified and they have this kind of power and that leads to a kind of polarisation of politics and we can see it can't we We can see it's manifested itself in terms of national politics as well, hasn't it,

in terms of the rise of parties that are further to the right than ever before. We've seen all over Europe in France, in Italy, here to a degree. We've seen, and the rise of maybe the more kind of leftist Corbynite style of politics as well. So it works in both ways. And that worries me as well. You're either one thing or the other. And particularly the debates that I see online, and it's very much, well, you've disagreed with me on this slight point,

so therefore I'm lumbering you in the other extreme, which is very, very, very dangerous. I mean, the example I would give is that because I write for Spiked and because a lot of people don't read Spiked and don't really understand where it's coming from, it's easy to just say, well, Spiked is an alt-right publication. Now, alt-right means, in common parlance, means white nationalist, irrevocably connected to white nationalists.

So how can a publication that's been consistently anti-racist for its entire existence, that criticises the alt-right explicitly again and again and again be alt-right. It can only be if you don't understand what alt-right means or if you're being dishonest about that imputation. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world so let me tell you about something that's actually right.

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These are mass-produced objects. Someone has put thought into them. I'll be honest. I'm not the person who thinks carefully about where he sleeps. My dating history will tell you that. I'm the person who's been on the same mattress for eight years and called it fine, but the older I get, the more I notice that fine isn't actually fine. Your body tells you, if you're going to invest in anything for your home,

your bed is the one that pays you back every single night. Avocado products are made, not manufactured, and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. Go to avocado green mattress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and first. furniture sale. That's avocado greenmatress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Coming back to freedom of speech, we kind of got into a little bit of why it's so important. And you touched on the fact that freedom of speech is essentially a guarantee of all our other rights and opportunities. And I wonder how you can communicate that to people in the

West now, particularly younger people, because I grew up in my first probably 12, 13 years I spent in the Soviet Union stroke Russia. Yeah. And I grew up with tales of my grandmother telling me about how she was born in a concentration camp, in a Soviet gulag for political prisoners. Yes.

And the reason that she was born in the Soviet concentration camp is that her dad had meetings where they discussed fringe elements of politics. Yeah. And this was reported to the authorities. He was sent to the gulag, his wife, much the same. And they spent 15 years each in hard labor camps. Yeah.

And in this camp, in my great-grandfather's camp, every morning the whole population of the camp would be led out onto the shore onto the ice of the lake this was in Siberia three people would be taken at random and thrown in the icy rivers in icy waters of that lake and killed in front of everybody yeah to remind everybody what happens if you speak out of turn if you don't follow the rules and such you this was the price that people paid for speaking their mind yeah now I don't think anyone in the West now has any conception of what that's like yeah right we have no physical and

connection to that kind of experience. We don't have grandmothers telling us that. So how do we explain to people, people who are reading or listening or watching or whatever, that that is kind of what happens when you don't have free speech. It's a path down towards that. It's difficult because free speech is something

that needs to be fought for in every new generation. It's something that needs to be maintained. And of course, see, what you're describing is such a horrific, unimaginable experience that we can't share. We don't have anything that comes, to that. I think a lot of the problem is that people of my generation and younger haven't experienced war or anything like this. We haven't had anything like that. So we take these freedoms

for granted. Whereas actually we do need to guard against this sort of stuff. And comparatively, the free speech fights that are going on at the moment in this country and in America pale compared to something like that. Of course they do. So it's very easy to say, well, this doesn't really matter. But of course, these things work in an inchmeal way, don't they? It's one thing. the next and these things gradually build and build and we've actually seen it in our country. I mean, now we have a situation where people are routinely jailed for things they say, right? Now, you might say, well, it doesn't matter. It's just a few working class teenagers making jokes about Madeline McCann on Facebook.

They're not very nice jokes, so it doesn't matter, right? Well, that's the first step, right? And what happens next? The law works in precedence. So then you get more and more people who are at risk of this kind of legislation. And it leads, I know a bit about history, I know where this stuff leads. it starts in increments. So you have to battle it from the...

You can't just wait until it's gone too far. And I know that sounds alarmist. And I'm not suggesting we're going to end up with a tyrannical government that's going to shoot every third person or something like that. I'm not suggesting that. But I am suggesting it's a possibility

and I'm suggesting that history teaches us this. That individual liberty is worth preserving. But it's an interesting point you raised. I mean, how much do you think... I mean, we'll just touch on Corbyn. Well, my mother's from Venezuela, and I don't know if you know what's going on in Venezuela. But we're pretty much going the same way as Soviet Russia, depressantly.

If you are seen to be talking or criticising the government, there'll be a knock on the door and you will disappear. That's literally where it is at the moment. And men in ski masks. We're less classy to come and take you away. I find it very, very worrying that Corbyn has supported. It supports a Venezuelan government and does not offer a direct criticism of them.

Do you find that worrying? because I say it to people on the far left and I get slammed down as being all right. Yeah, but again, that feeds back into what I was talking about. If you don't fully agree, then you must be part of the other faction. And not only that, the most extreme version of the other faction. I have reservations as well about some of Corbyn's sympathies.

I did vote for Corbyn as it happens. I think all three of us did, actually. Oh, did be? Yeah, right. Yeah, for Labour anyway. Yeah. So I do have reservation. There's no doubt that what's happening in Australia

it's going to seed. And sometimes you have to be able to say, I agree broadly with many of his points, but actually he's getting this wrong. And there's various things that he is getting wrong, I think, and we have to be able to talk about that. But I think we're in a situation where it is, that either you are on Corbyn's side or you're not,

and that's not how politics works, because people are complex individuals with many, many different views, and you have to be able to debate each perspective, don't you? I suppose a counter-argument to what you're saying about freedom of speech is where do you draw the line? Is it all right to use racial slurs, for instance? Is it all right for an Islamic preacher to say to go on a box in some way, I don't know, in Bethnal Green, for example, and talk and say that Western civilization is an evil, is evil, and that it should be wiped from the surface of the earth?

Because surely isn't he excising his right to freedom of speech? Yeah, and my instinct would be that he should be allowed to do that. I'm obviously I'm not happy when I hear a preacher I mean I've had it I've walked through this is playing a victim card again isn't it I walk through the city center someone shouting about homosexuals yeah how they all should be criminalised

and all the rest of it but you see and of course a preacher calling for the destruction of the West right yeah okay so these are not pleasant things racial slurs definitely not pleasant things none of us support it but I think the price you pay for living in a free society is that some people are going to say unpleasant things right

and I think on balance that is the preferable scenario. Also, I'm troubled by the idea that we will reach a point legislatively where racists and evil people are unable to out themselves as such. I'd rather know who they were. I'd rather know where they are, and I'd rather they were expressing themselves, because that way we can combat it. Otherwise, what you do is you drive it underground. You don't ever defeat an argument by censoring it. Anyone who knows anything about the history of censorship knows this. often you draw more attention to it in fact. You give it a power.

It's called the Streisend effect. You give it a lot of power. We've had it this week. The BBC Radio 4 are going to broadcast a full transcript of Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech. Now this was going out to a Radio 4. No one would have noticed, no one would have cared, right? I'm not saying there aren't people listening to Radio 4. I've written for Radio 4.

I like Radio 4. But look, let's face it, these people aren't going to go out and get on a big rampage, right? But because of the complaints and the Twitter storm that's happened today, everyone's going to listen. So you've just drawn attention to the very thing that you're not happy about. That's all that's happened there. So I would say in terms of free speech, we already have laws about harassment.

You know, if you are harassing someone or libeling someone. I mean, there are debates about whether our libel laws are too stringent. I suspect they probably are. But we have those laws in place. I don't think that it's sensible to curtail speech out of fear that it might influence the people in a bad way, because what you're doing then is you're allowing the perpetrators of crimes to not have responsibility for their own actions, which I don't think is right. So I'm actually

very skeptical about the concept of hate speech, full stop, because if somebody calls for you to go out and beat up gay men, and then somebody does that, the responsibility must lie with the person who did it, not with the person who said it. So you actually think people should be allowed to incite violence? I think it's a really difficult question. I think on balance, I think probably I don't want to see anyone criminalised for what they say or what they think. I think it's interesting because I personally wouldn't go quite that far. I think for me the cutoff is definitely the incitement to violence. If you're calling for other people to commit actions, which are illegal, right?

Then that shouldn't be allowed, in my opinion. You would go further than that. I think I would. And just because I think we have to get back to the idea of individual responsibility. I also don't believe that people are these mindless drones that are just going to. to be influenced in this way. I have a much greater faith in humanity than that. I think we have autonomy.

I am uncomfortable with anyone calling for violence. Very uncomfortable with it. I despise it. And I think protest, ridicule. These are the weapons to use against people like that. As soon as you shut them up, lock them away, you give them this odd kind of martyrdom that they don't deserve.

You give them this glamour. You end up propagating the ideas that they're attempting to spread. So that's why I'm, you know, I'm willing to be persuaded differently. My instinct would be to never police people for what they say or what they think. It's interesting. Well, let's talk about, you mentioned hate speech.

Let's talk about a couple of incidents that have happened in the UK recently. And, you know, the countankular thing, for example, has been talking to death, and we don't want to really spend too much time on the guy himself. But there are some implications that came out of that core case, particularly, which I think are hugely relevant to society. Do you want to tell the listeners and viewers, first of all, what actually happened briefly? and then...

Yeah, very briefly, because it has been covered, isn't it? Very briefly, a man in Scotland called Marcus Meekin created a YouTube video where he taught his girlfriend's hug to perform a Nazi salute and to react in an excited way to the phrases,

gas the Jews and Zeke Heil. And there's even a moment where the dog is watching an excerpt from Hitler's speeches, etc. So that's the joke. I'm really trying not to laugh because I have watched the video

and it's unquestionably funny. If you laugh, you're a fascist. I mean... Or I'm it. My Jewish great-grandfather died fighting the Nazis. Yeah, let's get that in. It's all fine. I'm allowed to laugh.

Very interested. I mean, I run a comedy night every month in London. We played the video last week. And we actually prefaced it. The host prefaced it by saying, you know, this probably isn't very funny. I mean, he didn't think it was funny. He said, I'm not going to tell you what to think. And then we played it.

And the audience laughed a lot. Because it's a Nazi pug. Where did you find so many Nazis? I know. Yeah. With a Jewish host as well, it's very interesting. But it's, it's a pug.

And I think whenever this argument comes up, we have to keep in mind it's a pug. Okay, now, people who haven't seen the video, okay, will tell you that it's the repetition of the phrase gas the Jews. It's a horrible phrase, that's the joke. Because it's a cute pug, and the joke is that he's using this really, really ghastly phrase

that anyone would find inexcusable. But that is the joke, okay? So whether you find it funny or not, or whether you find it offensive or not, is beside the point. No one, no one with a reasonable IQ could ever deny that the intention was to be funny. Now, what is troubling about this particular ruling?

And I don't want to get into the debates of whether it's funny or not, or whether it's offensive or not. It's irrelevant, isn't it? It's irrelevant. The whole point about defending free speech is you have to defend it when people are saying things you don't like. Otherwise, it's not free speech. The prosecution's contention in this case is that he's using humor

as a guise to disseminate anti-Semitic hatred. He's using a pug. Can we just remember that pug? I have to keep saying that. And they are the stupidest of all the dogs. Well, there we go. I wouldn't know about that. But if you are serious about propagating Nazism,

you're not going to use a pug. You're just not. German shepherd, maybe. Yeah, exactly. So, so it isn't... First triggering moment of this podcast is well and truly done. It is an important point.

I think that this particular case, is a new benchmark. As I've said, there's lots and lots of cases where the Communications Act has been used to jail people for making jokes. It happens all the time, but we don't hear about it. Certainly people are prosecuted and investigated all the time,

and there has been jail time served. We don't really hear about it. This case is a bit more significant. Firstly, because the man in question self-identifies as a comedian, again, there's all debates about, well, I don't think he's a comedian, is irrelevant. But he's put up a comedic video, so that's the first thing.

Secondly, the court has said explicitly that intention and context do not apply and do not matter. Well, if that is the case, then anyone making a joke could be in trouble. Can you just say that again? Because I think people don't quite understand the whole meaning of that. Yeah. The context and intention do not matter. The court said they decide the context. They do not believe his intention and they decide the context.

It doesn't matter. It's the repetition of that phrase. Now bear in mind that this video went viral. There were 3 million views, not one complaint. because people aren't stupid and they got what it was. Okay? And then comes the argument, well, this is offensive to Jewish people. Who gets to decide that because there's an awful lot of Jewish people who found it funny?

Right. So there's that. Not one complaint. The police took it upon themselves to investigate this. And what they did is they actively sought people out who might be offended. So they approached the Scottish Council of the Jewish communities and said, what do you think of this? Right? And then what happens is, of course, they say, I find it offensive.

Well, that's their right. Yeah. I find things offensive, you know. That's their right to find that offensive and to be upset by it, okay? But it's not the state's right to then imprison someone for it. Then, once the man from the the Scottish Council of Jewish communities testified in court,

then you have these awful people online sending him anti-Semitic messages and abuse, which is a terrible thing to happen, right? But then the media retrospectively pretend that those messages came out of people incited by the video. It didn't happen, but it came out for the testimony. I'm not in any way defending the abuse. But let's get the story right. People aren't watching this pug video and going out and thinking, right, I want to attack

Jewish people. That isn't, it's never happened and it wouldn't happen. So it's, it is very, very troubling. But this is the point I'm making about hate speech. And why it is so dangerous. Now, it's all very well you saying, and Imam standing up and calling for the deaths of homosexuals, it's a pretty clear cut. This is a nasty, horrible guy.

Now, look, I don't want to live in a society where that person exists or says what he says, but I'd rather live in that society than a society where. where people can be thrown in prison for what they say. And that's why I make that point. Okay, and I know that some of you are uncomfortable, or you might be uncomfortable with that, but that's my broader point, which I'm willing to be persuaded out of,

if you can convince me. But in this case, the court decided that the repetition of the phrase, gas the Jews, without context, without intent, is tantamount to hate speech and incitement to violence. That was their conclusion, right? So what we have here is a kind of concept creep, right? And this is why I'm also troubled by hate speech.

Because what if, okay, if you have that sort of case, where we could say, oh, that man is obviously hateful and awful, and we put that under the bracket of hate speech, who then decides, who then decides that me making a joke isn't hate speech as well? Because the parameters are constantly shifting, because the window is constantly getting bigger and bigger, then there comes a point where we're all potentially within that window.

And that's why it's probably better on balance to not have hate speech legislation at all, because the potential for abuse is too great. the police, the metropolitan police have a guideline which you can check online about what hate speech is. And their definition of hate speech is that irrespective of the intent of the person, so long as someone deems something to have been offensive and also perceives that the person did it out of prejudice or hatred for their sexuality, race or gender, that is enough to qualify as hate speech. So even if the person did not mean that, even if it was unintentional, it can still be a crime. So it is so nebulous that nobody in a free society is safe under that legislation.

Now I'm willing to have the debate about, well, someone calling explicitly for violence. That would be one thing. But I'm not confident that the state or the people in power or the police understand the difference between someone calling for violence explicitly and someone making a joke on Facebook. Well, that's an interesting thing because I was discussing this issue, this incident with Count Dankala, with comedians, other comedians on Facebook and different things. and there were a lot of people I found who were very happy to defend the court's decision and their argument would seem to be well first of all I didn't like the joke

which as you say irrelevant but the other thing is one incident in particular just blew my mind that I was talking to somebody and they said well the thing is I don't think he should have gone to prison he just needed to get a clip around the ear old school style and just teach him a lesson were you talking to my dad on Facebook

all the time what do they mean and I said well you are now in sight violence sarcastically but yeah right and they said well context matters and I said well that's the whole point the core rule the context doesn't matter yeah you know and people seem to miss this point entirely if context doesn't matter then even us discussing it I've quoted the phrase he used the number of times right if context doesn't matter then I've just incited anti-semitic hatred I just like to

publicly disassociate myself from anything that happens to I would do that because I'm all right yeah you know I mean people don't listen so but yes you're right I'm fully understanding of comedians who don't want to ally themselves with this guy. I understand, I'm not saying that if you don't, I understand in the Jonathan Pye video we wrote about this, we have a line where it's like, where are the comedians, right? But that's a character delivering that line.

I'm not saying comedians have an obligation to stand up for anyone or anything, right? That's an individual matter. But when somebody sides with the court, actively sides with state authoritarianism, I have a problem with that. And I'm going to argue against that. I think that's really dangerous.

And it's self-defeating. And I can't believe people can't see it. One of the interesting things for me as well is this notion, and not just in the candangular thing, but more broadly in society, there is this idea somehow that words can be violence. Words are violence sometimes. So people talk about the fact that it's like a forced continuum.

Like, first of all, you call me a derogatory name, and if that's okay, then you do something else. And if that's okay, then you're going to punch me in the street. Yeah. Now, how do you, what are your thoughts about? We have to be able to separate words from violence. I mean, we all grew up with the phrase, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will ever hurt me.

Now we believe the opposite. Why? Nobody is denying that words can cause psychological harm. Some of the most distressing experiences of my life have been from things that people have said, not things people have done. So nobody denies that, okay? But there has to be a distinction between words and violence, because when you are upset by words,

something that you have emotionally done. It's a way that you have interpreted something, okay? A physical attack is a different level, isn't it? I would have thought. Well, I mean, the problem is as well is that certain words that some people use, racial slurs,

they do cause damage and they are almost a form of violence, could you not agree? Like, if someone hits you on the head they're damaging your brain, right? If someone says something nasty, I don't agree with this argument at all, but I'm just putting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just propagating. Like, for instance, let's, you know, like, for instance, if you call an Asian person, Apaki,

that means that that is a form of violence, is it not? That is you trying to intimidate them. That's you trying to upset them. That's you trying to engender in them a negative reaction. You're trying to hurt them. What you've just described is unforgivable anti-social behavior. Yeah. Not violence.

I don't see them as the same. I think it's a failure of socialisation as well. I mean, I believe in adult autonomy 100%, but I believe at schools we need to have the debates about how children are socialised, what terms are. We need to be able to register objections to certain terminology and the ways in which we express ourselves and just treating people with respect.

What you were describing is someone who has not been successfully socialised, I would say. But I think we have to draw those distinctions. I think we do, because for one thing, it's often used as a pretext to justify preemptive violence. Like Antifa, what they're doing now. Good example. So they will say, words are violence. So that justifies us pepper spraying

a Trump supporter. As happened in Berkeley, I think. As happened in Berkeley and many other places. It justifies us kicking down the doors and charging into somebody's meeting or someone's peaceful discussion event. It justifies the violence then. That's dangerous.

So that's why I think we have to have, whilst we have an acknowledgement that words hurt and that we should be encouraging as a society responsibility in the way that we express ourselves and how we express ourselves and calling for empathy and all of the rest of it. Really important. But again, the dangers, the implications

of conflating words and violence are too dangerous to contemplate and therefore we have to be able to make the distinction. One interesting thing that just occurred to me in relation to what you said Francis is that actually you don't need to use derogatory terms to hurt someone's feelings. No.

Really. You could insult someone or have really heard them psychologically by using perfectly normal language. Yes. That's not insulting in and of itself, but you are diminishing their status or whatever it is that you're doing. You could insult someone and heard them just by speaking normal words. But in many ways, those words are a shortcut, aren't they? Yeah. So, for instance, you know, like if you use a racial, I'm not going to use a word, but use a racial assert against a black person. You know, that is a word that we all know that has been, you know, used as a derogatory term for gen.

generations and comes from horrific oppression. And immediately it's a shortcut for you to say to them, you are inferior to me. Right, so it has baggage. Language has baggage and it has implications. And no, but I don't think anybody is denying that. And so it is difficult. But I think your argument, though, is based on this utopian idea

that if we police people's language and the words that we are not allowed to say, suddenly we will fix society. And all of the people who have these instincts that are unpleasant will disappear, but it won't happen. It won't happen. And I think I'm more comfortable, you know, I don't like when people use horrible words against me as they have done many times. It's a horrible experience. It's really unpleasant. I'm quite a sensitive person in spite of the fact I probably don't seem that way. But, you know, in a sense, that is part of life that human beings are complex creatures and some of us are not going to be particularly pleasant creatures.

You learn who to avoid. You learn how to get out of certain situations. I just think the implications of criminalising speech are so vast and I'm not saying we tolerate these people who use these kind of language. You challenge them or you reject them or you don't associate with them, all of the rest of you. They become pariahs.

Thankfully, I think that is the case. I mean, I think if you start going on Twitter and using racial slurs, you're not going to get a job anywhere anytime soon. You will be a pariah. We live in a society where that is the case. It's become the case. Would you not agree with you?

with that. I think we are... Definitely. I don't know anybody. I could literally not name anybody that I've ever encountered on a personal level who thinks that calling a racial minority a term like that is acceptable. I don't, I wouldn't associate with that sort of person. It's something I think

racism is just unforgivable. I couldn't be a friend or even an acquaintance with someone who had those instincts. But it's also part of that in that you live in this sort of, again I'm going to use terms, but lefty liberal bubble in London, you know, where all you friends are, you know, part, again, I'm

generalising, but do I? Yeah. I don't know if I do. I mean, this is a big assumption there. Yeah. I wouldn't agree with that. Yeah. I mean, partly because of my family background, I know people from all sorts of life. My family are not from this London metropolitan elite.

You know, they're sort of working class northern Irish people. Yeah. This isn't, and I'm not saying that gives me license or whatever, but I'm just saying that my experience of people is perhaps a bit more broad than you assume. Yeah. But even if it Even if it wasn't, my opinion I think would be the same. So we were talking, we've been talking about a lot recently.

You've recently released a video. Well, Jonathan Pye has what you're talking about the gender pay gap. And it called widespread outrage, I think, is the right word to use. I mean, it depends on who you look. I mean, it followed off the back of the video we did about the Nazi pug, which I think probably caused more outrage. It was unfortunate because we'd written the video a few weeks before that. It just so happened that the pug thing happened.

And then we had to release this at this time because it was ready to go. And it looked like we were being deliberately provocative doing two consecutive pieces like that. Because that was the narrative actually. It has been, isn't it? Like, you've gone all right. Like Jonathan Pye has gone all right.

Sure. Yeah. But he's actually been criticizing the left by ages. I mean, hasn't he? You both, I mean, you have the two of you together. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're familiar with the back catalog, Jonathan Pye is a lefty who bashes the Tories

more than anyone else. The Tories and Trump more than anyone else. So, I mean, if you're going to pick out these few videos where he's, I mean, he does attack the left for where the left is going wrong because he cares about where the left is going wrong. So that makes sense to me. But the trouble is, I suppose, that the videos that cause contention are the ones that people remember or know about. And maybe they don't watch all of the other ones, so they don't get that perspective, perhaps. So on the gender pay gap, you made a video where Jonathan Pye interviews what he thinks is a feminist academic who's releasing a book. And he's asking her, expecting her to provide the usual narrative about the gender pay gap.

And what he encounters and very quickly gets frustrated by is that she's more of a second-way feminist and a third-way feminist. In other words, she's not into the whole victimhood thing that's now so popular, which is what you've been talking about. Right, so it's a satire in the media as well. The media have an expectation of a certain narrative that they have to produce. And then when they're confronted with something they're not familiar with, they don't know what to do. So it's a satirical piece. Yeah. And what was the response to that?

Okay, so, well, some people weren't. I'm loving the body language. Yeah, I know. Some people weren't, I sort of stayed out of this one quite a bit when the, when people started attacking us on Twitter. But yes, there was a bit of a backlash from certain feminist groups and from certain feminist figures and comedians more than anything. I mean, I didn't get involved, but I, I am aware of lots of threads that appeared on

Facebook in which I was described as an alt-right, anti-feminist, all the rest of it, because friends of mine could send me screenshots and say, look, look what these people are saying about you. And it's, and it's... It's good to have friends, eh? Yeah. They seem to take a certain light in it as well. It's, it's odd. It's odd that, for a start, a piece of fiction, a piece of satire can generate that

kind of response. But it's also, I'm up for the debate. You know, if anyone wants to email me and say why I'm wrong, great, and we'll talk about it. And also what was very interesting, on all these threads I saw, all these arguments, not once did anyone present a coherent counter argument to any argument that was made in the video, not once. It was just ad homonym.

It was just you're alt-right, you're anti-feminist. Well, I'm not. And I always called myself a feminist, always have. I worry now that to use the word means that, because the word is so currently being used, to describe a kind of victim-centered feminism, whereas I believe feminism is about equality and empowerment. And unfortunately, that makes me an old-fashioned kind of feminist. But on the other hand, I shouldn't allow people to misappropriate the word.

So in a sense, I should hold on to it. So that's what we were, I mean, the character in that video is, as you say, a feminist who hates the fact, for instance, that the BBC have promoted an app for your phone that will help women to speak up in meetings. And we make the point that this is horribly patronising. I mean, some of my female friends found this the most disgusting thing, but it's how much. as the BBC is this really progressive, wonderful thing. I would say that victim-centered feminism, although the people who promote it, are not, of course, misogynists, but the premise of it is misogynist.

The premise of it is that women are weaker and need extra protection, and that's why I don't agree with it. It's interesting because some of the episodes we'll be releasing probably after this one. We've talked to several very accomplished women who've been political advisors or economists or business people. and some of the stories they have told us there's unquestionable discrimination against women, right?

It does happen. There are situations in which women are paid less, not only for the same work, but actually for jobs that they do better than the men who are they competing against it. And when that happens, it is illegal and tribunals in suit, right? So not always.

That's been, from what we've been told. For the most part. But also, nobody is suggesting, I've certainly never suggested that there isn't discrimination against women in the workplace. In fact, the point is made explicitly in the video. I've never suggested that.

Well, I'm not saying you have suggested. What I'm actually saying is that that has been the smear that's been used against the whole video, which actually tries to make some factual points about the causes of the gender pay go. If you want to boil down, the main point of the video is actually about media. It's actually sat on the media. The Sky News survey that found that 70% of people in this country believe that women and men are routinely paid differently for the same work. that that is factually incorrect. And it wouldn't be a story if it was just a few people.

But the fact that it's 70% of people, now that suggests that the media is misrepresenting this, and they are misrepresenting this. The headlines, in all of these stories that Tom and I came across while we were working on this, it's always men at HSBC paid more than women, et cetera, men at Ryanair paid more than women. And then the articles themselves would explain why,

would explain the fact that there are more men in higher pain, but there were more male pilots and there are more female stewards, for instance, in the case of Ryanair, and the person who flies the plane generally gets paid more than the person who makes the tea, right? Now, that happens. Then you have another debate about, well, why is that the case? But that's a different debate.

Why is it that women tend to make different choices or why is it that women tend to end up in different jobs, right? And doubtless there's an element of discrimination involved there. There's all sorts of possible variables going on there. The video does not make a distinction about that. The video actually says, fine, let's have that debate. Let's have that debate. that wasn't what we were talking about.

We were talking about the fundamental misunderstanding about the media's deliberate conflation of equal pay and a gender pay gap. That's what we were saying, which is factually true. No one's been able to refute it yet. People keep sending me articles, which are just back up my point, and they think that they're refuting it, but they're backing up my point. So I don't think, I think it's a misunderstanding

of what the video is saying. I'm more for having debates about structural imbalance. Are there sort of these sort of, I'm very skeptical about it because I've studied post-structuralism and I think it's a very reductive view of the world. And I think what we're seeing at the moment is a kind of watered down, half-understood version of this Foucaudian idea of power networks that sort of infest society.

And I'm very skeptical about it. And I don't think, I think power explains some things, but it doesn't explain everything. And it certainly doesn't explain most things. I think it's so the problem with the current ideology is everything is to do with power. So first we work out whether you're, you're female, male, whether you're, what race you are, what sexuality you are,

then we try and put you on a kind of grid to see where you fit in the power structure. And that's how we, and we forget about class, forget about money and opportunity, get rid of that, doesn't matter. And all of these things are intersecting, okay? And then we kind of work out where you are, and that explains everything. Like every ideology, which is a simplification of the world, that's why anyone who subscribes to an ideology wholeheartedly is failing because it is inherently simplifying, over-simplifying, very complex ideas.

When you try and explain everything away because of power structures, these nebulous power structures that we can't pin down, that is not a convincing stance in my view, because it must ignore all kinds of factors. So that's what we're sort of get. So actually, we were trying to open up a debate. We were saying we can all agree, and we can all agree, I think, that it is illegal to pay men and women differently for the same work.

That is a fact. So let's just start by that at that point. And then we discuss why. why people end up in different roles. That's a different debate. We didn't have that debate. But people attacked us as though we were saying, there's no such thing as sexism,

there's no such thing as discrimination, we don't need to talk about it anymore, right? That seemed to be the criticism, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the video did. And again, what it shows is that people are just so polarized that all they can do is simplify, over-simplify their opponent's view,

and then attack a straw man-uponel. argument. Just attack something that attack a point that neither Tom nor I were saying, right? Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car's gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana, give it a whirl. Love you. So good. You'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on...

Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Do you think a lot of the reason that these sort of arguments happen and people get so upset is because they don't, like you said, they don't engage with the point you're trying to make because that takes time. Yeah. Really?

I mean, I'm not the... I'm sort of probably average in terms of intelligence. But in order for me to really understand an argument, I have to read something three or four times. Yeah. I have to go away and I have to think about it. And I have to mull it. over in my head, you know, whereas it's much easier to go and read something, to then have

an emotional response to it, and then do a rebuttal and 40 seconds, whatever it is or a minute. And actually, it takes real time for something to be able to truly understand something. That's why we do the show is because we're trying to get to the bottom of some of these issues. You can't have a debate in 280 characters. No, so absolutely that's right. partly it is people don't know enough they often some of the debates I've seen about this video people literally do not know what they are talking about

I bet you a lot of them haven't seen the video well there's that possibly I don't know that's been my experience with a lot of these discussions a lot of people argue about stuff they haven't actually watched that's that's almost certainly the case but I'm willing to accept that I you know come with me come at me with the facts and let's talk about the facts and maybe I'm wrong and then if you present facts that

prove I'm wrong so be it I accept that but that's but yes you're right it's a it's an oversimplified form of argument and that that is a pretty hard isn't it learning about stuff and but this is it you know like when people talk about the gender wage

gap I mean I wouldn't get involved in it because I don't know enough about it right I'm not I mean I read the garden I read the Times pretty much every day but I wouldn't I wouldn't say that I'm an expert on it it's surely not enough to then go and spout my opinion all over the internet well also you wouldn't

assume that someone who's raising an objection is inherently evil for doing so. Oh yeah, I would with that. Sorry, Andrew, the interesting thing for me I wanted to ask you about this video as well was that one of the main arguments that I saw being made about it was that here were two men who'd got a woman to spout their misogynistic opinions for them. And one of the interesting things that I pointed out, have you considered the possibility that maybe she agrees with what she's saying? I mean, I don't know if the actress that you had agrees or not, but that was the argument that I saw popping up probably more than anything.

Well, I mean, it's very patronizing, isn't it, to assume that a woman who did an acting job didn't consent to what they were doing. I mean, it's a bizarre thing to me. And also, again, I mean, this goes back to what we're saying about identity politics. Well, if you're saying that this argument is invalid because it was two men who wrote the script, what happens when I can introduce you as I can to women who have similar feelings to the campaign? character. I could introduce you to a number. Well, we know that. So internalised misogyny. Right. Oh, it's internalized misogyny. Which again is a point that we recognised in the in the video.

Because she dismisses that as patronising bollocks. It is. I think that's what she says. But that's exactly what it is. It's another strategy to avoid the argument. Right? So I call you, oh, right, I say you're suffering from internalized misogyny. Therefore, I don't have to talk to you. I don't have to bother engaging with the argument. It's a strategy. It's not good enough. So yeah, you're right. I heard.

that again and again and again it's the floor of identity politics in its current form is that it can't see beyond the person to the point it it can only focus on that and it's a it's why anyone who peddles those kind of politics can never win an argument they think they win it but they didn't win it and also no one is persuaded that way no one so where do we go I mean we've got a couple of minutes left where do we go from here it sounds pretty bad right we're in a pretty pretty difficult situation I think education is the key I really do I think we need to reinstate critical thinking at the heart of the natural curriculum. I think kids need to be taught that insulting someone or resorting to ad hominem attacks means you lose.

The assumption that people are wicked because they don't think the way that you do, we have to rid ourselves of that. That's not happening. The opposite thing is happening right now. So how do we counteract what's happening now? I don't know. But I know what I want to happen, but I don't know how to make it happen. we need to stop the polarization we need to stop that somehow i mean if you say we've got into the kind of camps into tribes haven't we so for instance if somebody tells you their position on

abortion i bet 99% of the time you could guess what their position on every other political point is right similarly with Brexit right people don't like me claiming to be on the left because i voted leave for instance and they don't they can't reconcile that for me on a personal level i can't reconcile voting for a right-wing corporate body to be anything other than a right-wing thing to do. So I can't reconcile being on the left with voting in favour of the EU. I can't. So, but that's my, that's my view. It's a separate issue. But the point is that the assumption is made. Okay. I write for spiked. Okay. Alt-right. Yeah. You know, I voted leave. Okay, right-wing, right? You're completely wrong about this, but it doesn't matter because your simplified world view, you can only,

you can only deal in confirmation bias. You can only deal in your own assumptions being played out. and therefore you don't bother addressing your opponent properly and in an adult manner. That is a problem, but I think if I were to suggest a solution, which I don't know, I think after Trump, for instance, after Trump happened, I was convinced, and it's part of the reason we wrote the video, I was convinced that the left would try and get its house in order. But actually what's happened is everyone's just doubling down on all the same stuff and making it worse and worse and worse, and pushing this form of identity politics,

which is pernicious and divisive. and we need to somehow find a way. I think it comes from criticism within its own ranks. It has to be people on the left that address this stuff. For instance, just to make this point, because I think it's an important one, the question of free speech should be at the heart of anything, of anything left or right. It transcends left and right.

But because the left have continually eroded free speech or allowed it to be eroded, and in some cases pushed for it to be resisted, what you find is when people mention free speech, you assume it's a right-wing person. When I set up this free speech comedy night, and what we really mean by that is that, you don't self-sensor or encouraging people

not to self-censor. The Sunday Telegraph wrote an article saying, thank God we've got a right-wing comedy night. It's run by two lefties. We do have some right-wing people, very few, because you couldn't fill a bill. We have had a few right-wing people, which we want.

We want people from all back. That's the point. But actually so far, it has been mostly people on the left in truth. But that assumption tells us a lot. That the connection of free speech, because what happened is the left created a vacuum around this issue.

They stopped defending the principle and then the right swooped in. And now you've got people like Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, God, you've got these people defending and they're right on the principle. This is the problem. The reason why so many people in comedians don't want to defend Count Dancula

is because he's associated with Tommy Robinson. The reason that association exists is because subsequent to the trial, remember that it doesn't predate the trial, Tommy Robinson came in to defend him, right? So now we can't defend him because the mantle's been seen by the right. What's going on there? No, we have to be able to say, actually, this principle

is bigger than Robinson. It's bigger than anyone. It's bigger than left and right. And it's, it's the, I'm so frustrated. I'm more frustrated with the failings of the left than I'm at the right because I'm from the left. I know what the failings of the right are. And people often criticise me, so why aren't you slagging off the right all the time? Because it's a given to me. Like, I know where they're going wrong. And I think, I think if we are going to get out of this quagmire, it has to be the left that put its own house in order. And the first step on that is ridding ourselves of this form of identity politics because we're dividing everyone up and we're creating a lot of resentment and we are not convincing anyone you know if you just block everyone

on twitter who has a different opinion than you well are you really serious about your convictions then because you're obviously not prepared to attempt to persuade anyone and i think that's a perfect way to end it actually absolutely fantastic stuff so before you go thank you very much andrew i think absolutely brilliant is there anything that you would like to plug whether it's your twitter handle whether it's spite, whatever it is. Oh, well, I don't know. I'm on Twitter, Andrew Doyle underscore com, so if you want to send abuse or any kind of accusations of Nazi civil fees,

that's where you go for that. I've had a lot of that recently. It's not fun. Yeah. What's your comedy night called? And where is it? It's called Comedy Unleashed. And it's every month at the backyard comedy club in Bethnal Green.

And it's the second Tuesday of every month. And we've got some great lineups. We've got Bobby Mayer is doing the next one. We've got Shazia Merzer, Jonathan Puff. hi he's going to come and do one and uh jeff norkot some very very uh fantastic acts uh so yeah do come along to that i've got a show on at the soho theatre in july can i plug that yes of course you're plugging it right now the cameras are rolling it's called thought crimes um obviously um what's that about yeah who knows just a random title i just chose um no it's uh it's it's it's about um it's the show i did

in Edinburgh last year and it's a lot of it is rooted in the idea of all the friends I lost over Brexit because of people's just unwillingness to debate or you know and just to make assumptions so it's it sounds very worthy and actually because this has been such a non-comed discussion I would like to emphasise that when I write comedy it's quite funny when I talk offstage it's it's not I would say as well it did get excellent reviews so go along and yeah thank you very much for coming along I'm constant and kitchen you can find me on Twitter at Constance and Kishin. I'm Francis Foster. You can find me on Twitter at Failing Human.

Yeah, send me abuse as well. Mostly people just do it. We're about my face or general comedy. So subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow us on iTunes and do whatever is to stay with us. And absolutely, please give us a rating on iTunes. Download it, follow us at TriggerPod, whether it's Twitter or Instagram. And thank you very much for tuning in. Have a lovely week.