TRIGGERnometry - What's It Like to Work for Jeremy Corbyn?

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Matt Zarb-Cousin is the director of Clean Up Gambling and is a former spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People on the left are like, why he still remember the Labour Party? Why would you vote for the Labour Party? The reason I would vote for it is to destroy it. I'm sorry for Jeremy Corbyn between 2016 and 2017. I'm off. One of the things I really like about you is you, you know, whatever your ideological leanings, you're someone who tries to work across different lines

and you're interested in talking to people with different points of view and trying to persuade people as opposed to, you know, screaming, shouting, the way we do politics nowadays, right? And how do you reflect on your time and politics? Does it allow for that sort of thing? Have we got worse at doing that, better at doing that? What were your experiences like? Well, I've slowly come to terms with the realisation that maybe we're not going to build socialism in Britain anytime soon. Have you now? How did you realize that? That's a genuinely interesting question. Or was that just a joke? No, no, no. I mean,

look, obviously the Corbyn project went the way it went and had its many different structural challenges that were impossible. He's gone into political speak now, hasn't it? It didn't work out. It didn't work out. And look, I mean, I think that there's a lot of areas where public policy and governance can be improved and I'm willing to and quite enthusiastic about work. cross-party and working with whoever wants to deliver those things and improve those things and

quite pragmatic. So if people share my objectives and perspective on particular policy areas, which like I think gambling cuts across political lines, obviously there are ideological elements to it, of course, as we've touched on, but I think fundamentally like it does cut across political lines and their scope to work collaboratively and I think that there are other such areas. And I think that that's kind of where I'd prefer to spend my energy because the Labor Party and the internal politics can sap a person's energy quite quickly and create a level of despondency that isn't productive. Yeah. Well, I wasn't getting at it actually from a sort of left-right point of view. I think actually there's increasingly this is also happening on

the right, this sort of tribalism and you believe this, therefore you. You must be outcast and we're going to cancel you from this tribe. You don't belong. Like we had David Starkey on the show some time ago and he said that he's pro-mandatory vaccination, which to me is an abhorrent view, but David Starkey has a right to say it and I'm still going to be, you know, polite and have that conversation, even though I massively disagree. And then someone wrote an article saying, David Starkey is not one of us, you know. And I'm just like... You're not going to get very far in anything you're trying to solve in the world

if your attitude is this person has a position I fundamentally disagree, but therefore you can't be spoken with and had a conversation. Did you see that is that a new thing in politics, or has it always been like this in your experience? I think it's a relatively new phenomenon, and I think it's been brought about by social media and the kind of silos that people create and the echo chambers and positive reinforcement that people get from like-minded people.

And I think that that's part of the issue, yeah. I mean, David Starkey may be a slightly controversial example given some of his comments in part. But like, yeah, I mean, I think that it's a relatively new phenomenon. I think it's part of the social media era. And, yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I think, like, because, like, a political strategy, particularly for, like, a left populist or even any kind of populist movement would be to mobilize the base and move the middle as a result. And a lot of emphasis goes on mobilizing the base and keeping the base on side and happy.

And as a result of that, you know, dictating the terms of debate. So I think populism as well as a political strategy is. probably fed into that. I think a lot of parties and successive political leaders have adopted that approach which does, I think, polarise people more.

And Matt, looking at the future of politics in particular the future of the Labour Party, do you think that it's got any real future in a party as a whole? Because the reality is, look, you would probably identify as a left-wing progressive. Is that fair? Yeah, as a Social Democrat.

Yeah. And then you look at Kier-Starmat, your values in Keir Stamas are completely opposite and I can't imagine you being on board with what Stama does can the Labour Party really hold these broad coalition of people together? Yeah I think it's quite illustrative of how polarised the Labour Party is given you've got a situation where a new leader has kicked out the previous leader I mean I know that there's a context and I know that there's other you know But that is quite like a Stalinist thing to do, is it?

Exactly, yeah. It's like, and, you know, I just noticed that poster up there. The audience can't see it, but we've got the poster, which actually is in our merch store, which says cancel culture is a myth and it's Joseph Stalin's face on it. Yeah. That is the sort of thing that happens generally in dictatorships, right? You come in, you get rid of the previous people. Yeah.

And that's kind of, yeah. So it does show, I look, I mean, I think one of the thing, one of the best things that could happen to the Labor Party is proportional representation and the Labour Party to split into its various different factions and form two or three different parties and then everyone goes their separate ways and we can all live in peaceful coexistence.

He really didn't have a good time in the Labour Party. I agree with you and I disagree with you. I agree with you that actually it would be far more harmonious people could get their views properly represented. You know, it would be far more effective as a party, and people would look at it, the left-wing progressors would go, well, I'm going to vote for the momentum party, you know, the centre-left people, the centrist, you know,

the people who have pro-remain, etc., etc., would vote for this party. But doesn't that mean that you're never going to get a left-of-centre or a left-wing party ever be elected ever again? Well, under PR, the Tories would end up being split as well, I think is mad point. I think that's right. The point, and it's interesting that David Starkey's come up, not entirely by design, but actually the point that he made when we had him on and we were talking about this, he said one of the benefits of the first past system is it prevents extremists from getting

a voice in the conversation. And he was talking then about the right extremists. But I am someone who's seduced by the idea of proportional representation, but I'm also increasingly aware that it's got tradeoffs that may not. be what we want. I can see why from your position, though, breaking up the Labour Party would be a good thing. Yeah, so the only way you're going to bring that about is if there's a minority Labour government. Yeah. So people say to me on the left, like people on the left are like, why are you still member the Labour Party? Why would you vote for the Labour Party? The reason I would

vote for it is to destroy it. I would vote for it. So we have a minority Labour government that passes proportional representation in a confidence in supply deal. with the S&P or whatever. Yeah. And then we all go our separate ways. Really? So what you're saying is that you don't see any future in the Labour Party? No.

I don't look, I think it's a completely unstable coalition between democratic socialists like me, you know, the social Democrats even, and Blairites now who control the party, who are free market neoliberals, who don't want to change the fundamentals of the economy, which, you know, the fact that they can be in the same political party, it would only ever happen under first past the post.

Both parties are, I think, unstable coalitions of many different factions. And you're right, I think they'd split as well, the Tories. Yeah. Do you think there's also, I mean, one of the things we explored, because look, the reason we started trigonometry is we were two remain voting comedians, quite, you know, sort of center, left of center. And then Brexit happened, and we were trying to understand what had happened and why. Because the one thing that I found very unpleasant about that particular conversation was I'm a dark-skinned Russian first-generation immigrant.

And the idea that half the country voted for Brexit because they hated dark-skinned people or they were racist was that to me is just a lie. And it's a smear and it's slanderous. And to say that is just, to me, that was just awful the way that that conversation was being had. But one of the things we learn in exploring and talking to a lot of people who were former labor or members of labor or blue labor or whatever who'd voted leave was the fact that the Labor Party no longer represents the very people it was founded to represent, right? At least that's how they feel. You might disagree. I don't know if you do. But do you think there's also a class issue within the Labor Party?

There are some people who are, you know, university educated and very progressive in their thinking and they've read a lot of the right books and whatever. And there's also quite a lot of people who were just, you know, they thought the Labor Party was about representing them in employment relations and regulating certain things that the free market doesn't regulate and making sure the state looks after people. And they are not on board with identity politics. They're not on board with some of the more sort of new ways of thinking, let's say. Do you think that's also a big split? I think the culture split is interesting. I mean, I don't know enough about whether that it does cut across. economic lines. So I feel like our way of conceptualising class now is quite outdated. I think, you know, we do it, we do it along the lines of education and we do it along the lines of, like, what job people have and all that kind of stuff. When actually, I think if you look at class on the basis of someone's income, there are a lot of consistencies across, like, a say like there's a lot of

consistencies across like who they vote for so people who are on lower incomes overwhelmingly vote Labor still even in 2019 but if you had if you have like a self-reporting way of conceptualising class like

asking for example retired homeowners who have a few biotell in the red wall whether they consider themselves working class they'll probably say yes because they had a working class job when they were working because they had a job

that didn't require a degree when they were working. So there's lots of ways that I think we conceptualise class that's quite unhelpful in the kind of broader sense. But how, quote unquote, the working class, people who identify still as working class, even though their material circumstances perhaps tell a different story, might perceive some of these culture,

the culture issues, I think is very different to how I would perhaps define the working class, the low-income workers who were often, very often also graduates. You know, like people who went to university and work in grad jobs in London in their early 20s and are paying like 50% of their income after tax in rent. You know, these are also the working class. From my perspective. So I find, yeah, basically the way that we conceptualise it is quite interesting.

That is difficult for me, Matt, because, like, on the comedy circuit, you meet people who went to Oxford, who are very well-educated, who both whose parents, you know, are wealthy and they make 10 grand a year on the comedy circuit. Now, by your definition, they'd be working class, right? Well, if they're from wealth and they don't need to earn a lot of money. No, they do need to. They just don't because they're comedians and they idiots. Oh, okay. Right. I mean, there are lots of different factors, I think, that can, you know, contribute to you know, how we conceptualise it. But I think the income is like the primary one.

I think like that is probably the thing that we should be foregrounding. Whereas I think like what job you do is sort of whether you need a degree to do your job or whether you don't. It's kind of, I don't think that's as relevant as how much money you earn. Yeah.

It's an interesting point. And the realignment is happening for sure. You're right. I got you with that idiot. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Because they are. But do you not,

are you not worried, Matt, where we are politically? Because I would place myself in a different space to you in the political spectrum. But I look at Labour. They're fucking useless. I look at Tories.

They're imploding. They've got a fat buffoon in charge. You look at competency on either side of the political spectrum. There's a dearth of it. Do you not worry and think to yourself, where is the left you know, where the new left's ideas?

Where are the new right's ideas? And if you don't have good ideas on the left and you don't have good ideas on the right, they're not going to be able to challenge each other and we're not going to be able to move forward as a nation. Yeah, I think there is a real problem with a lack of vision and agenda. I don't think we've had a government with an agenda

for quite a while in this country. I mean, the only thing that I can really remember in the last 12 years is get break. exit done and it's done and like there's no kind of there's no vision for the country where the country needs to go we've got leveling up now which is like a computer game I don't know one knows what it means but we're leveling up it's it's it's like there's a there is a lack of ideas and I think we are in an in an era now where there are so many different challenges that need to be confronted

and there are different ways of confronting them obviously but you know the housing crisis climate change, lots of different things that are happening that need big idea politics. And everyone, lots of people

criticised Jeremy, obviously, for their own reasons. And he at least did have a vision and big ideas. And when he said after we lost

the last election that we won the argument, what he meant by that was, he was able to define and dictate the terms of debate. everything was around, you know, that agenda and lots of things that are now coming out of leveling up as a concept.

But because of, you know, Jeremy Corbyn putting that on the agenda. So for me, there's a role for the opposition to try to influence the agenda of government. Absolutely. And Stama isn't doing that. He's just sort of hoping that they collapse. I think that that's quite high risk because no one knows what Stama stands for. if all of the problems can be pinned on Johnson, which by the looks of it, the Tory party is going to do,

then the new leader is a clean skin and they can just move on and they might well have an agenda. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's disappointing that in this moment, the Labour Party could be making some quite compelling arguments for how to reform the energy sector, you know, lots of different things, they're just not on the playing field.

Do you not think that Jeremy Corbyn, by the way, Jeremy Corbyn, I agree with you, completely. He was a person who had vision of what he wanted. Now, I personally don't agree with what he wanted on most things, but he had vision and there's no denying it. But isn't Jeremy Corbyn exactly the example of why our politics is so broken now? Because he had a vision when he was on the backbenchers. He came into the leadership and the fundamental issue on which he was clearly Eurosceptic. If you're trying to convince me, he voted Romaine. I mean, come on, right? But because of the way that party politics works and the way that the media works and the way that our brains work where someone has said something we don't like, that means that person is over, we don't care what else they believe.

But as long as they, you know, in his case, if he just came out and said, well, look, I've always been a Eurosceptic. I'm a man of principle. I know that my party doesn't share my vision, but this is why I believe. But even someone who I genuinely think Jeremy Corbyn is a principal man. I really, really do. But he couldn't do that. he could not have the courage of his convictions once he actually had some measure of power influence within the party. And I think that's why you see it on all sides. The moment you

commit to a vision, people start attacking you. And in our world, we just, we can't handle it. We don't want it. It's too toxic, whatever. And I think that's why politics is broken. Yeah, I think when I was there, 2016 and 2017, we did feel, I think, the whole project for much more insurgent and we took more risks and because we felt like we had nothing to lose. And then... But it changed. Yeah. After 2017, you think, okay, we might get into government and I think you start taking less

risks. And I think that that was one of the things that really changed after 2017 was, you know, in that election, we did accept the result of the referendum and, you know, it was very much on domestic issues. And then after that, it was like, okay, we need to sort of keep this coalition that we've managed to build together, we don't want to upset anyone. And then when you get into that frame of mind, that's kind of it. That's it.

You're trying to placate people. You're done. And then it's just like, then he was just like any politician. Yeah. It became like he was. Exactly. That's how people saw him. Like, so.

Yeah. So that was. And that wasn't his game. He's not good at that. No. He's not good at being. And you're right. It's the same.

Like, if we did this and we didn't want to upset anyone, we couldn't do it. It wouldn't be honest conversations. Because an honest discussion always will offend and upset some people. And that's why we like doing this. Matt, do you look back at your time with Corbyn and think you missed a real, not you personally, but the Labour Party missed a real opportunity. If only they'd been a little bit braver. If only they had a little bit more integrity.

If only they'd come out and said, look, Brexit, we need to do. Brexit. Brexit means Brexit. I mean, Theresa May, Theresa May stood in 2017. She didn't have a domestic agenda. She said, give me a strong-handed negotiations. I'll deliver Brexit. And she couldn't do it.

So at that moment, Corbyn should have said, I'm the only leader, Prime Minister, who could deliver Brexit. So that should have been the message. And then failing that, when she brought the deal back, which was criticised by everyone and probably needed Labour's, it needed Labor's support to pass it should have been they should have abstained on it and just let it pass

you know and then Brexit becomes the Tory's problem but then what happened was the deal was blocked it looked like Labor was blocking it because it was voting against it therefore it looked like Labour was blocking Brexit and then we had two years of whatever it was a year of wrangling over a people's vote and the salience of Brexit was suddenly

at the top of the agenda and that's not an election that we want to fight or we're going to win and that's what happened. So yeah, there were successive errors I think that happened obviously it's easy in hindsight but there were some of us at the time that were saying, you know, we

should be saying we're the only party that can deliver Brexit because it's true, we would have been able to do it. And Matt, whenever I see the Labour Party and I see their policies. I just don't think they understand ordinary working class people. I look at Brexit. They didn't get it, really.

They didn't get really why people voted for it while people were frustrated by it. I look at their attitude to lockdowns, and I just think you're crippling ordinary working people. They didn't seem to get it. They wanted more lockdowns. Don't you think the fundamental problem is that realistically, you look at this party, and they just don't get working people who they are

and what they represent? I think for the first time in quite a long time, I think, well, I would argue since 1997, in 2017, we had an offer to the majority, the vast majority of working people, people, you know, that would have credibly improve their material circumstances. And there was a, you know, a blueprint of how that was going to happen. and it was, as I say, people bought into it and it was a popular agenda even though we didn't win. So that's where the Labour Party should be from my perspective is like,

what policies are going to improve the material circumstances of people who are living and most people are living paycheck to paycheck. And that's where it should be, yeah. And I mean, I agree, I think, on the civil liberties stuff around the pandemic, things like vaccine parties, and supporting the government in the restrictions that came in, particularly towards the end,

I think was a mistake. It's not where the Labour Party should have been. Yeah. I feel bad because you were here to talk about gambling and we did. You can just see we're really interested in what you have to say on this. So it wasn't like we sat down and we went, you know what? We'll do 20 minutes on gambling and we're hitting with the Corbyn stuff. That wasn't the plan. It's really great to have the conversation. And as I said, you know, earlier on, I think it's the people that we always are interested in are people who are not tribal and who are not attached to a particular tribe. Now, you have your own politics and your own vision, but you're interested in the conversation.

So we really appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much for that. We're going to ask you our final question, and then we'll do a couple of special questions for our locals-only supporters. Great. But thanks very much for coming on. And the last question is always, what's the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be?

We're not talking about fan ownership of football club. and getting the billionaires out of, well, not out of the Premier League necessarily, but at least reducing their power. Football clubs are community assets. And I feel like that has been undermined by the marketization of football. And, yeah, fans need to have more of a voice. Finally, a socialist policy I agree with. Thank you, Matt.

Seize the means of production. You have nothing to lose but your chains and your football club. Matt, thank you so much, guys. Thank you so much for watching. and listening where we're going to ask Matt a couple of very special questions from you for our locals only. But in the meantime, we will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you

soon, guys. Tony Blair has a lot to answer for.