TRIGGERnometry - Why Labour Keep Losing - Geoff Norcott

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

The brilliant Geoff Norcott returns! Pre-order his book Where Did I Go Right?: How the Left Lost Me here: https://t.co/Pu3fjEcvPt?amp=1 Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/  OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.PayPal.me/triggerpod 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

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kitten. And this is a show for you, if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. We do have a fascinating guest for you today, but just to set the context, we're recording this the day after the local elections in the UK, where the Conservative Party, which has been in power for 11 years, has actually advanced and made more progress, particularly by capturing the working class vote. So we thought, who better to get back on the show than our regular, one of our favorite guests. is a comedian Jeff Norcock. Hello. Welcome back, mate.

Yeah, I mean, I was thinking when I was on this before, it feels like I've been saying the same thing about what's likely to happen for quite a while. I think there's a few people who have been saying this about the working class vote. It's not an unfamiliar narrative. And then here we are. There was this iceberg that the Labour Party were warned about.

And they just went, no, we just keep fucking sailing towards that ice. I think we could sort of chicanne around that iceberg. I think iceberg would be okay. And it's interesting, you know, like in terms of normally, I like good politics, right? You know, the idea of an opposition, it's sort of funny when Labor do badly. I can't explain exactly why that is. I think we know.

It's sort of funny. And yet, I don't know, man, as this is happening, I find myself slightly melancholic for the state of the opposition, you know, because it's quite sad in a way. You know, I think when I love cricket and when England play Australia, you want to beat Australia. But I mean, there was a period when we were battering them at home. That's not as much fun. And it's also not good for cricket. And I think there's probably something true about that in politics as well. Well, the thing with you is you didn't always vote Tory, right?

You only started voting Tory about 2010. Yeah. And you've written a book, which is where I went right, which is about your journey. How the left lost me. Yeah, yeah. Which they would call victim blaming. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, the timing, this kind of comes out on the Thursday, the 13th of May.

I mean, and all anybody's talking about at the moment is about the migration of working class voters away from the Labour Party. Interestingly, the way that the pandemic's gone, there were times last year, because we finished the manuscript, you know, I filed it in November. And I was like, Jesus, like, this is going to look ridiculous.

Everyone's going to have deserted the toys. If the management of the pandemic is as shambolic as it's been so far, and then now it probably goes the other way, you know, where, if anything, I might have slightly underestimated things. And you, I mean, we are where we are. Why do you think it is that the working classes, particularly up north, have turned their back on labour?

Well, I suppose, you know, there's so many reasons, aren't there? There's so many, just pick a hot tape, man. Jeff's not excited about this at all. This is very sad. No, I am not a kid to the can of stuff. What I thought was about my own process of voting on this occasion, let's bring it right down to the ballot box. What happens when you go there?

And people might not think that I do this, but I always ask myself last-minute questions about, okay, could I vote for the other lot? You know, even when it was leave, when it was the Brexit referendum, my choice was between leave and abstain, right? And I always asked myself that question. You know, even in the 2019 general election, there was aspects of the Tory campaign

which I wasn't fond of, and again, I asked myself that question on this occasion. I thought, okay, there have been things I haven't liked about the Tories over last year. So let's just go through the other options. I went, could I vote? No, I can't vote. It's just a million.

A million reasons. Why not, Jeff? Why can't you vote Labor? The offer. I think it's the overall offer, isn't it? Of the left is not a good offer. What do you mean by the offer? It's not just the Labour Party as well.

The image, the perception of the left. That's often what people are partially voting for in their mind. I put an X here. What do I get? It's not just about the Labour Party. It's something beyond that. What am I endorsing? And there's a culture within and without the...

the Labour Party that is way left of the country, you know, in terms of you look at their activists and their membership base and where the country's at and what the country thinks of priorities, who wants to tear down statues, who wants to get on with things right now, you look at even corporate culture. You know, a lot of these companies are trying to send out appealing messages. You know, I don't know who they always think that they're appealing to, but they seem to think that young people, the only people that buy stuff and that young people won't get more right-wing as they get older.

always quite an interesting misguided supposition. There's just, there's so much. There's so much, there's the current leader. Keir Stommer, I don't think he's a bad guy. I don't think he's a bad politician, but he doesn't summon anything in me. And people want to feel something from a leader. People want to feel sort of not inspired,

but they want to feel moved. And when he came into power, when he became leader, there was a lot of talk about forensic here, and that was touted in social media to be a good thing. And, you know, it's a good thing when you're a QC, to be forensic. But if you're, look, this is a very base analogy, but if you're on a stag do

and you've got forensic care and rugby tackle Boris and the night splits up a bit or we'll go in different places, where are you going? And I think that people want to, people like Boris. People, I'd say this, the country like Boris a lot more than I do.

I'm not, wouldn't close me. I was going to say that you talk about a leader making you feel something. Boris Johnson. I mean, look, I'm going on the stagulling. On the stag do, I'm going out of Boris. The following day, I'm like, oh, mate, I've got to get an earlier train. You know what I'm not necessarily wanting to hang out with a bloke,

but he makes people feel something. And then you've got what was, what have the Labour Party done? We've had these existential crisis in terms of Brexit and COVID. And it does seem that in both instances, their strategy was, this was a tricky one for the Tories. They're in a bit of a mess. Let's just see how this plays out. They've done that for both things.

And this is within, you know, within the space of two and a half years, we've seen them do this. They've prevaricated. And they've essentially sort of hoped that there was a coach crash, right? They've seen the coach veering off the motorway. And they've gone, the most important thing for us to do is that there's no footage of us with our hand on the wheel. That is cowardly in a way. And, and yeah, the MPs, the parliamentary Labour Party to an extent,

they just don't feel connected. They don't seem to see the world the same way that I do. And another thing to just remember is that, you know, in the very recent past, the Tories have grappled with difficult things and got results, right? So whether Brexit completely unfells and this deal has proved to have been shoddy, at this point, they did it.

You know, they actually did deliver something. And in Western democracies, for a long time, No one's done anything radical, right? He actually, you know, and the left are probably their own worst enemies in that they've made it possible for Boris Johnson to look like fucking he-man for doing things that weren't that impossible. You know, he'll never get the withdrawal agreement open. He did that, right?

Never get a trade deal within a year. He got that, right? Never be prime minister. Never win an election. He'll never turn COVID round. And he's done all these things. And he ends up sort of by didn't get more. credit perhaps than he deserves for these things. I mean, even as I'm talking now, I'm bouncing

around things because there are so many different reasons. I mean, the economic news that's come out in the last few days, that once again, the most dystopian prophecies of parts of the left about what's going to happen to this country have underestimated how dynamic and vibrant the economy is. Do you think that's it, Jeff, like everything now, and it's not just the left, it's also people on the right. Like, we catastrophize everything so. And maybe it's just so common now to be like, well, you know, Brexit will never happen or if it does, it will be the end of the... And that's because they're trying to stop it happening. And in...

Well, they go over the top. But that's my point, right? It's like, they go so far because they think that if they say you're going to get super gonorrhea and there'll be no sandwiches left. Like, that will stop Brexit. That was the most two most powerful arguments for me. That was the only time... Oh, wait, well, hang on, no sandwiches. Yeah.

I got a flaky dick. I yeah they they slightly over-egging well a lot right we're all kind of in that in that loop of like the media exaggeration the Twitter hyperbole but then there's a price to pay for that down the line when the public go actually

none of that has happened so you've been bullshitting the whole time why would we take you seriously now no absolutely and large swathes of the sort of centre-left media commentary have sort of fired all their bullets they spend their credibility one in respect of how dystopia their predictions about Brexit were.

And two, you know, some of the attacks on Boris, there are certain things that were absolutely legitimate, but there have been times within the last year where he does something odd to intelligent people, he makes them a bit deranged. They hate him. They hate him so much. We've just got to fucking just get Boris out of power.

Something would be cleansed. Something would be okay with the world again. And I think the public see that sometimes, you know, whether it's an opening, homily or a monologue on news night or it's a certain story's being fanned slightly beyond their actual relevance to a lot of people. I mean, the most recent one is curtain gate, you know. I think it was fair for Kea Starrma to ask those questions at PMQs, maybe not as many as he did, but I think it was, you know, he has to bring stuff like that up. And then like the following day,

he's in John Lewis and he's looking at wallpaper. And like on social media, that gets a lot of credit. They're like, oh, oh, sick burn, Kea. You think, it just made him look fixated. It made him look fixated on a triviality. And at a time where there's a pandemic, you know, we need to rebuild the economy. You've got what's happening in India. You get six questions at PMQs,

and he did three on curtains. But don't you think a large part of the problem is that people in London, who are very middle class, don't understand working-class people? They don't really talk to them. They don't really encounter them. They don't know what it's like to live in a town like Rotherham or all the rest of it.

So how can they represent them? Well, I mean, we've seen yet again, yet another election where in some courts, and I'm not saying this is true, it's definitely not many people in the Labour Party and generally on the left are saying this. But there's certainly people on the centre left, that there's standard reaction to losing yet another election is, why won't these gullible fuckwits vote for us?

I mean, these stupid people, once again, self-harm, they've been duped. I'd say, you know what? If they're that easily duped, why can't you jube them? Right? A lot of politics is about propaganda. It's about fluffing an idea. Every party, to varying degrees,

is selling something beyond which is something way beyond. I mean, this leveling up thing, right? It's fantastic. It makes me feel good. I'm not sure how much of it they'll be able to do, but that's a job of politics to sell something hopeful and something positive. And so that's the Labour Party's job is to do the same thing,

but they can't dupe anybody at the moment. moment. And also, I mean, the NHS is a good point in a way. Some of the old certainties about politics have been shattered. But, you know, I know a lot of left-wing friends that have said to me, and this is a classic anecdote, isn't it? When I've got a point I want to make, it's like, actually, I was speaking on the doorstep to someone convenient who I made up. But genuinely, a lot of left-wing friends have said to me that the furlough scheme really surprised them. You know, the way they'd been conditioned their whole lives, it certainly wasn't that the Tories would swoop in and pay people's wages.

And the original furlough was probably more generous than it needed to be. And I think the fact that the country have accrued 150 billion quids worth of savings suggests that they might have not got the balance quite right there. And then the NHS as well. You know, you can make a really legitimate argument about whether or not the NHS was funded enough going into this pandemic. But the truth is it's been prioritised within the context of it. And a lot of right-wing people would say that it's been too prioritised.

It's been too protected. So these are the two old certainties, right, of British politics. The Tory party, they don't care about you. They won't spend money. They spent money, right? Well, the NHS, they want to destroy it. And for the last 15 years, every single election, it's the most obvious one in the playbook,

is the NHS, it's minutes from death. Is this the end for the Cape Crusader? It's almost like those old Batman, Adam West. Is it the end? Of course it's fucking not. He's got another episode next week. And the NHS, I mean, the NHS, it would be the quickest suicide note in political history

would be to end the principle of healthcare that's free at the point of services. Conservative Party will never do that, okay? What they will have now is this, I think, amusing challenge in a way is they've got this new broad coalition of voters. And I fully expect them to become a lot more northern. They've done a bit of it, haven't they, with the old Rishi with the Yorkshire tea, but they are going to lean into this, you know? They're going to lean into this hard.

And some of the things that they've done are just people sell their performative gestures, right? like moving treasury offices to York. Okay, it is a symbolic gesture. But Labor could have done that symbolic gesture. You know, had a long time in power where they could have done it. It's just good politics, right? And also York is posh.

York is the one place they go to, isn't it? They get a nice train journey up there on the East Coast main line, have a little bit of lunch up there, a rive half cut. Yeah, I mean, they're not doing it in Wakefield. Let's put it that way. But like, this is common sense

to spread the power base around the country. And I'm not saying it. This is weird because I probably was as uncertain about voting conservative in this last election as I have been for a while. And yet it's really not hard to work out why they've done well.

Let's talk about your journey, actually. I just wanted to make this one question. All right, so they're in the ship, right, Labor. We all know that. Okay, please don't show you this Diet Coke. We've got sponsors, Jeff. Come on. It's okay. I made it at home. It's my own.

To your home room. My own recipe. Why do you think you're so happy? Because it's fueled with something. Right. But so we've got the Labour Party. How do they turn it around then? How do they capture the ordinary bloke on the street?

Look at his face. They can. I don't think that they can. Look at his face. I just, I don't. That's why I feel a bit bad for them in a way because this isn't just about things that the Labour Party have done by the way.

This has been other factors that are partially beyond their control. I mean, they were egged on to a position of second referendum by a London-centric media. No, no, this is how everyone feels. You know, Lynn, hot yoga. We all think that there should be a second referendum. They were egged on, weren't they, by Kea Starm.

No, no, no. We've got an E petition. Well, you know, a lot of the Gmail addresses sound fucking similar, but we've got this six million person petition to revoke the referendum. So they were egged on in that. And let's just quickly briefly stopping that before I go back to your question.

Within the last year and a half, the Labour Party, right, the party of the working classes voted or moved to a position, a farcical position whereby they did not respect the democratic outcome. Now, I know at that point, there were a lot of issues with getting Brexit delivered, but their job, like when you vote, that is the only time you have true equality in this country, right, whether you're Jacob Rees-Mogg or whether you're, Brian Cox's weird reference point.

But you know what I mean? They probably are at the other ends of the culture war. They're supposed to protect. that and they didn't protect that. And that, if you think about how long it took the Lib Dems to get past tuition fees, this is way fucking beyond that. And then another factor, Francis, is you've got like this migration of people out of those towns. Like a lot of people, youngsters are going to metropolitan centres like Newcastle or Manchester or London or Bristol, but it kind of leaves these towns vacant of people that might vote Labour. And I said on my podcast at the beginning

this year. I said one of my boldest predictions was that the Labour Party might formally split. And you always think, well, they look into the abyss and then they reunite. But it feels more fundamental this time. And I don't honestly know how the two wings of the Labour Party can reconcile. It's something we've been talking about on this show quite a lot. And I just want to, people maybe watching for the first time or not familiar with our views, like Francis and I are not happy about what's happening. We, you know, him and I both used to vote Labor frequently, Lib Dem as well in my case.

Sorry, I apologize. I've been there, look, we all have, you know, we all did crazy stuff at university. Yeah, exactly. So, but you know what I mean? Like, I don't think it's a healthy position at all where you've got a party that's in power for 11 years and it's doing better and better,

and the opposition is worse and worse. And I think your point about the media in particular is very true where, and doing the show has actually shown me that to a large extent. There's a whole body of people, particularly outside the big cities, and particularly outside of London, who just don't, they don't feel represented

by anything they see on their screens. That's mainstream. And the Labour Party is pandering to that as opposed to actually trying to connect with people. But if anyone is not familiar with you, I want to talk a little bit about your background because you talk about it in the book. When you talk about growing up,

tell everybody a little bit about your backstory, your background, like what was your childhood like? Because that informs a lot of your views, I think. And that's why I always found interesting about you. Well, I mean, like, inherently, I should be Labor. You know, a lot of people think the South East. But as you all know, there's a strong working class tradition and Labor trade union movement in the South East as well,

despite perceptions. My dad was a trade union man. You know, both my parents were disabled, lived on council estates and council properties. So I was kind of had a lot of the sort of tick list. Eventually, you know, went into comedy. But, you know, that, in a way, is the point of the book. Where did I go right, right? Like everyone always says, well, how does someone like you

end up voting for the so-called baddies. But then it goes, you know, it turns out now, you're asking that question of a lot of people, right? That is now no longer an uncommon thing. And I think the truth is, is that I voted Labor in 97, 2001 and stuff. Initially, it was just the ubiquitous, you know, we all did there in Brit Pop.

I was in London. I thought everybody voted Labor. I just thought this is what you do, right? But if I look deeper into my childhood, I can actually see that they were at least small C conservative things. you know, I've got a bit of stick for this because of an article in a mail on Sunday, but I can remember one of my first memories, not one of my first memories, but an early memory

of just people on wearing dressing gowns all day long, you know, on this day, I fucking can't handle, I'm like, get dressed, you know, that's quite a judgy little conservative reaction, isn't it? Like, for God's sake, get dressed. What are you doing? I've just got this theory that, you know, you shouldn't wear a dressing gown after 9 a.m.

Unless you're ill or Hugh Hefner. Those are only two contexts, right? And I remember getting free school meals and not liking that and hating that and just wondering, you know, I was told that were the state pay for it? And I was like, who's the state? Well, if they decide they don't want to pay for it? I can remember the anxiety of being not poor.

This gets overstated. You know, people want me to sort of hype this up. We weren't, but we had periods where it was really close to the breadlong. But overall, in the context of where we lived, we did okay. But I remember those moments because we'd started, off doing all right in my family. We had a private property in a decent street in Wimbledon, but then the family got, my mum

and dad got divorced and then we moved to a council estate. So that's quite an interesting status drop at the age of nine, so it might have heightened my sensitivity to it. And we used to get like clothing, grants and stuff like that, and I was dressed like a fucking tramp. I remember once, I had

these trousers that was so tight. I went to school in Wonsworth, and as you remember Francis, cussing people just like an Olympic sport. you know, best mates being as mean to you as possible. I had these skin-tight trousers before they were fashionable. And one of a lad said to me, he went, my God, Jeffrey, he goes, I can see your pulse.

Which is a put-down I still use to this day. So I guess there was a material thing in me quite early was I just wanted more. And a lot of people in this country just want that, right? Just I want to do all right. I want to do it right for myself. This is the most human thing imaginable, right? Is to want to do okay for yourself

and improve the situation in your family and beyond that, improve society as a whole. For a lot of people, those are the sort of stages of priority that you go through. And yet there have been times certain, this is not just from the Labour Party, but the left, that kind of aspiration has seemed like in some ways a dirty thing. And I read an article in The Times this morning by Janice Turner, I think, was saying that just a lot of people don't have the same sad, drab lives

that the Labor Party think they have. You know, in Hartlepool, yes, salaries are a lot lower. But so houses. So there's a lot of things. A lot of people in Hartlepool are having the things materially in life that a lot of us are looking for. And this period, particularly under Corbyn, whereby everyone was painted to be a victim.

There's a lot of working class people don't want to be thought of us having shit lives, right? There are definitely, there's people in society that are really struggling. And I think that you should definitely focus more resources on those people. Outside of that, if you've got a gaff, car, a couple of holidays a year, a couple of nights out a month. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer?

Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. It's a good life. But it's the thing as well, it's like I think people massively misunderstand just from my experience. And I'm talking in Russia, there's working class people in Russia as well.

Like in many different places, people don't want free stuff. Really? Most people don't want free stuff. They don't want free internet access. They want a job and they want to work and they want to do well. They're not looking to get loads of handouts. Now, if you say to them... That's where they went wrong in Russia in the end.

I would say that would definitely be the worst country to have communism. Yeah. We don't actually want for us, no. Terrible accent. Where was that? If was I anywhere in Eastern Europe? Serbia. Yeah, I think you were in Serbia, mate.

Probably the most racist country in Europe. Come on. It was the really liberal bit of Serbia. You know what pisses me up? The bohemian bit of Belgrade. People say that my Russian accent is worse than many other comedians, even though I'm actually Russian. Yeah, we all try it. And then we all also say, well, where was I? Croatia. Yeah. I don't know where it is.

No, but you know what I mean? Like, yeah, if you ask people, are you in favour of free internet? A lot of people will say, yeah. But in general, they're not in favor of the state, providing a ton of free stuff for people. because they have to work for a living and it's kind of like ingrained on people. Well, that loss of responsibility for your own stuff, right? You might get a free ticket to go and see a great band at the O2 or whatever. And you will enjoy that night.

But I'll tell you something, the ticket that you paid for when, that you sat, and the day it was coming out, 9 a.m., they go on sale, and you sat, I was going to say on the phone making myself, okay, boomer, right? I was sat there, I was looking on C-FACs until the U-2 tickets come up, But you did yourself, you're going to enjoy more. It's got a sweeter feeling to it. And I do worry that over the years,

and this is under successive governments, and also a lot under the Conservatives, we've got a lot of these patrician elements themselves. It's just bit by bit, taking stuff out of people's control. I just worry that if you remove those things from the human character, you stop evolving in a way.

It's a really important thing, taking responsibility for your own shit. It's an empowering narrative because the good thing about it is that you have a capacity to change it yourself. If you sort of abdicate, responsibility, you're powerless. I have to believe that I can make stuff better for myself, sometimes to a deluded fault, you know, but all the time you spend thinking other people

have kind of taken away opportunities from you. It's time that you could be spent pursuing them yourself. Obviously, there's certain elements of social justice that need to be pursued. But in terms of getting shit done in your own life, that's mainly what you'd have to focus on. And the thing that I was very, very surprised by, and I didn't predict in the slightest, was this new authoritarianism creeping into the left, particularly when it comes to COVID. Oh, we've got a lot, I think it was Zara Sultan.

So we've got to lock down everything until, you know, there's not one COVID case left. Are you nuts? I mean, there are certain incantations on the left that really worried me, and I think that no one's safe till everyone's safe. First of, no, if you can imagine someone doing that, as they say it, it's probably bollocks.

No one's safe till everyone. That's just fucking not true. It's not true of anything. No one's drunk till everyone's drunk. That's not true. Okay. No one's safe till everyone's safe. Sounds like the kind of thing that Jason Staven would say just before he hops out of a fucking Chinook. Okay, no one's safe till everyone's safe. What's that, Jason? That's not even logically possible, right? And I think the problem with those kind of incantations is the purpose of them is not for other people.

It's because it makes you feel good as you say it. And if you're saying or doing something, because it makes you feel, feel good rather than because it makes a change for the people that need it, that's selfishness. That's the opposite of what the left purport to be. And you know, the Blair project, a new labour, was about the left kind of reining in certain instincts, because they knew that the only way that you could really make a change for people was to have the levers of power, whereby there are some elements of the modern left. For them, principled opposition seems to be a more important thing than actually being in power, which I'd argue,

weirdly, it's narcissistic. Francis, do you like biscuits? Stupid question. If you like biscuits as much as him, you have to try Zingi Berry Bakery. There are small family-run bakery that make award-winning sweet cookies and savory crackers.

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And get your biscuits today. I think I'm eating too many biscuits. Never heard him say that before. The point that we always have to ask ourselves is where do we go from here? Because the reality is things are, it seems desperate. Are you all right, mate? Yeah. I'm not.

I'm going to look. The thing is sweet. He's sad for democracy. I'm genuinely sad. Well, I mean, look, we've got one party states in three different parts of Britain. Yeah. Right. It's not great.

No, it's not. It's not great. S&E, Labour got Wales. Wales. Yeah. Great. The big one. Yep.

And, you know, the one place that can actually win you a majority in Parliament, which is England, is run by the Tories. It isn't fantastic, but is it maybe a degree to which we've all retreated into identities? Yeah. People who are Tory now more Tory, aren't they? You know, I do worry about this as well. So it's something that the left, certain people on the left, on the online, hard left have done is every time there's a vote

and every time you get called selfish or stupid, they sort of radicalise Tories. People that voted Tory for the first time. I think, oh yeah, just on this occasion, I'll lend Boris my vote. Or maybe I'll vote Cameron this time because I think that, you know, after the credit crunch, Labor had spent a lot. Maybe, oh, I'm a fucking ignorant, selfish twat.

It's like, you know, like certain things the US did in the Middle East, radicalized radical Islamists. I think you've got people that are way more Tory now than they would have otherwise been. And of course it goes the other ways. And, you know, I have noticed on the online right, there's an element of kind of intellectual certainty creeping in. And those people on the left are never going to come over if they've been called

certain names as well. But I just think that if you look across a 10-year period, that was a phenomenon that certainly seemed to start on the left. And you go, great, that person is probably going to vote Tory for the next three elections. It is weird. Do you know, like my old man, he was in the Labour Party. I am sort of sad about what's happening. And that might sound mely-mouthed. But I wanted to be like, yeah, you know, the old thing. But I don't know, something happened for me after that 2019 general election. I'm not as tribal as I was. I start, you know, this culture war thing

it's a bit ridiculous sometimes and it pulls you into points of view that you wouldn't have otherwise had. You go, I don't know why I'm dis-angry about. Meg and Michael, I don't know. I actually don't care that much. You know, so there are certain issues whereby you go, no.

So I'm trying to just stop and think, what do I think exactly? And I think we've had this chat before Constantine. Actually, the more precise about what you think, the more that you piss people off, right? So I did a Radio 4 special recently, and there was a section in the middle of it about Black Lives Matter. And of course, I critiqued some of the hypocrisies about how people responded to the mass gatherings and also about certain political motives on the groups.

But also, after a couple of weeks of Black Lives Matter, it did make me stop and reflect about the experience of, you know, black people in this country. And the message that I had in that bit was probably one that would be seen as quite liberal and left wing. And of course, I had like twice coming for me on Facebook, you know, direct messages. get the cowards on direct messages and then are you sold out to the libs and stuff? The idea that like the consequence of a culture war would just own every single opinion I have is ridiculous. Yeah. But the danger is is when you step out of line, then, you know, the way that the left have devout

their own, I do wonder if that's something that's going to start happening. Well, it is happening. It is happening. And it's not even left to right. It's anything. Like nowadays, the moment we interview someone whose views don't align precisely with like John 7321. Yeah.

He's outraged, and John 73's never watching trigonometry again. And it's like, well... Well, then John 7321, I would argue... That doesn't have any conviction in his views, right? The truth is, and when I have people on the podcast that disagree with me, the reason I'm able to nod along and listen is because I have conviction in what I think. I'm not challenged.

If there's something that makes me challenge what I think, I'm glad about that. Oh, I'd never thought about it that way. But I'm not, like, fundamentally triggered. I mean, that... Remember that gif of that girl, you know, the triggered girl? You always say that, and I always think about it. She could probably tour off that.

The triggered girl. I wonder whether, because that giff is quite old now, isn't it? Yeah. From Trump. Yeah, from Trump. She's probably, she might even be a Republican now. The triggered girl. But that was always like a trope of the left, and it does concern me that these guys,

the last thing these kind of like hard right guys or people that are really enmeshed in the culture war would think is that they're anything like that girl. And yet when you get upset by who's wearing poppies and who's not wearing poppies, I'd argue you're exactly like that girl, you know? And I would love it if everybody wanted to respect the sacrifice that were made in World Wars for this country. I'd love it if everyone just felt like that. But if they don't, maybe that's partly what we were fighting for.

Was their right to fucking not do that? Yeah, completely. Now, we've been in lockdown, we've seen the cultural ramp up. What effect do you think that's going to have on comedy? Well, it was interesting, wasn't it? Because I think last time I was on, we were like, hey, man, let's just all chill out. Let's do some balloon modelling. And actually, I think the capacity for people to just stay at home

and kind of lose themselves in online opinions did exacerbate. And I think that there was a period of, you know, certainly with the start of the statute toppling. And certain everything seemed to be, everything's more radical. Every protest became more militant. And, you know, in particular last summer, in particular last summer, You know, there were shows getting removed from the BBC, and it did seem...

I think that that period, again, if you want to analyse all the things that have caused this vote swing towards Conservatives in England, that's all part of it. Of course it is. Because people go, that's what the left is, you know? They want to stop things. They used to be the fun guys.

I remember in the 90s, the left was the free speech thing. You know another thing I found funny recently is... You'll probably both have had this. It's people online. They don't understand how they sound to a broad audience. of people. So often they'll say, yeah, he's one of these free speech guys. He goes, that sounds all right. Yeah, he's one of these free speech warriors. Well, sounds like a good warrior. Why would be in a free speech warrior? How the

fuck have we got to the point where left-wing people think that identifying people as being a free speech warrior is a bad thing, but that is one of the processes and consequences of descending and burrowing as hard as you can into an echo chamber. And the first chat we had about echo chambers was after 2015 election and it does feel like of late everyone was like no I need to get outside of my echo chamber but of late it feels like people go no I think I need to fucking reinforce with concrete balustrades and a steel roof because they've sort of experimented with it they've realized that they can't persuade people so they've they've kind of hunkered down and also we haven't been able to see people face to face like we might not agree on everything but we can

have a chat and the human element is there and we're sort of understanding that we'll both human beings, but online none of that exists and none of that happens. You're just an avatar to me and my job is to destroy it with facts and logic. Well, that's what I find so often when people, I've had falling out to people on Twitter, then we meet in person. They go, there's a thing called between us. I was like, we fell out on Twitter. Do you know what I mean?

To me, that's like playing your mate at PlayStation. You're lobbing the joy pad and just fucking going for a walk around the block because you're angry. That's the level I see it as. But a lot of people have made that confusion between that and real life. And even on my lad's WhatsApp group, where there was a couple of political discussions over the last few days about Brexit. And I thought, you know what, let's just stop talking about it

because I know that if we had this chat over a point, this would be fine. This would be absolutely nothing like the chat that we have now. But I wonder if people become addicted to the adrenaline that a good old tear-up gets. People like feel alive, don't they? You know what you're opposed? You know what you believe in? People feel a lot of these, it's mainly middle-aged blokes, let's be honest. He is always middle-aged blokes.

They watch Question Time. They drink some Merlo and they're. And I think I don't feel like that. I'm not, I don't think and maybe I communicate badly I don't feel like a combative person but the problem is

is when you know when you tweet something I'm often, they'll think I'm being, I tweet you and like, this is a bit funny, isn't it? And they'll think I'm in a finger jabbing fuck you left these way. But that's not my style and maybe that's why I'm really excited

to get back out touring in September. Yeah, he's then... Well, that was smooth. Yeah. Oh, that are so smooth. Keep it touring. Keep telling. Keep telling.

But just because then, if someone wants to pull what you're saying out of context, they'll have to literally invent a mood that wasn't in the room. Yeah. You know, when you're in, what the brilliant thing about stand-up is a very permissive environment and you say things that people can see you're being a bit cheeky,

you know, they can see your body language, then you go, all right, if you want to come out of that room and then pretend that I meant something else, then fine. But at least you knew in the moment what I was driving at. That's what, you know, talking about comedy Francis was asking about it,

But that's, you know, I opened for you a few times. And that's why I was found about your approach to comedy. Even, you were much less even than me. Like, you are really trying to see things from the other person's point of view. So I would be the controversial person opening for you. And then you'd come in and tone it down. Well, that sort in a way was probably more conciliatory than the one that I'm taking out. You've got completely contradicted.

No, I just got... Fucking transgender's coming over here. Well, I've just got more... I think I've got more... I know what I think more now. I've wanted to talk about culture war stuff for a while, but I haven't had the jokes, I haven't had the way of saying it.

But just recently, there have been a few things that have occurred to me that I go, yeah, that's what I think. It's like, I'm genuinely not angered by anybody having a different sexual identity or fitting in someone on this kind of, like, rainbow spectrum. I mean, it'd be a bold mood, if you were, Jeff, just coming out. You know, the gays, right?

Yeah, I've got a right problem with that. But on the other, you know, we talk about, like, sexuality and gender and having so many different versions. It just suddenly occurred to me that masculinity and femininity were already a spectrum. We already knew, you already had members of your family, that you knew that the simple notions of masculinity and femininity didn't exactly apply to them. You know what I mean?

So your uncle John that collected the porcelain dolls or whatever. You go, you knew John, like, it was different for him. And you know that fucking Kim Kardashian and Sue Perkins aren't the same, right? So that already existed. People are smart enough to already know. So if people want to have 100 words, that's fine. anger me, but I also think that it's perhaps a bit, there's a bit of presentism about thinking that previous generations weren't aware of those differences anyway. And that's my point is,

I suppose the point of the new tour in a way is going to be, I'm not angry about this, but I do think some of it's a bit fucking weird. But why he, yeah, and it is true, it's a bit fucking weird. Like, so, it is. I'm glad the way he doubled down on it as well. Like Jeff was like, it's a bit fucking weird. France was like, it's a bit, fucking weird. Yeah, well, I mean, right now, there's the kind of quote. So if somebody was against you in that moment, this is how the internet will work,

they would think that what I was saying is it's a bit fucking weird about other sexualities. If they already think you're a bad person, that is what they would take for that. When I was talking about the kind of totality of culture war stuff and the changing of liberal languages and definitions, that's a really good example of how that could work.

Why is it, why are people who are not exactly like you fucking weird. Jeff Norcock. And vice versa, there'll be John, whoever, who are going, I can't believe, there's only two genders.

Well, maybe there is, but Jeff is just talking. He's just having a chat. You know, like he's got some jokes about it. Why do you go and listen to them? Yeah, I'm not. I mean, the truth is,

I'm not angry about anything. And my counselor would tell you, that's one of the biggest problem. One of his, I'm freakishly not angry. I would actually probably be helpful for me if I could get on and have it out with John 72.

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I mean, that's a fair point. Go to be a rebel.com. That's b-I-a-r-e-b-el.com and get a tasty flavor of the east in your dinner time. Where do you think the landscape is going to change when it comes to comedy on TV? Because the mash has been cancelled. There's a real thirst for centrist political comedy, comedy that attacks both the left and the right. Do you think that there's going to be a TV company who's bold enough to make that?

Or do you think we're going to be playing the same furrow as before? Well, I mean, as I always said, I think comedy's already changed. It's a question of whether TV catches up. So we know that. You boys have been successful in doing this and other things. Andrew Doyle has a best-selling book, Simon Evans, tours, Leo's done great thing, Dominic Frisbee's had a hit song, you know, and if I'm

leaving anybody out, there's just, there's a lot of evidence that it's already changed. So the only question is, does TV catch up? Interestingly, this last set of election results, I think the Liberal Left have been guilty of thinking, well, we'll just, normal order will be resumed soon. Brexit was just, I think, okay, the 2019, a general letter,

but they'll all come back to Labour eventually. Normal order will be resumed. I think that these local elections have underlined perhaps that there is a more ongoing change and I don't know if TV companies can forever ignore this huge percentage of people and it's not about I don't want to be in a right wing comedy show I don't think anyone in Britain is going you know what we need we there are a few people they're mainly online but he's going we need a view we need it all the other way that would be a massive mistake to go from a left wing bias to a right wing

bus but what they do want I think or find it odd that there doesn't exist is diversity of opinion so say for example you're on a topical panel show and the issue of of Megyn Markle comes up and say she said something massively, wildly pretentious that is obviously fucking ridiculous to a lot of people. But you may have people on that panel that feel because of the culture war, they're uneasy about criticizing Megamarkle, a woman of colour who already gets a lot of unfair scrutiny from the press. So what you end up with is a panel of people that don't say anything bad about Mega Markle.

You go, well, that's not really where Britain's at. You know, my own view with Meggin and Harry is, again, it's not about anger. It's just that I liked them at the beginning. And bit by bit, they started to piss me off. And they sort of reminded me of, you know, like a couple you meet on holiday and you befriend them for like a day. You go, oh, Megan and Harry, like, such a great couple. And then three days later, you're like, Jesus, I cannot take these two.

You know, that's a simple, that's supposed to me, right? It's not a controversial thing to say. But even that opinion, you wouldn't really hear within a topical panel show. So, you know, I have discussions with people. There are plenty of people in TV that get this. And again, this will be something that a lot of... defund the BBC type of people won't want to hear, but there's a lot of people in very high up in the BBC

that get this, but it's a huge machine. So there's a BBC on one hand, you know, there's various seniorities of commissioners, then there's production companies, you know, and in fairness to production companies, when they get into TV, there's a kind of TV show that they want to make. And, you know, the platform in,

as they might see it, right-wing views, maybe wasn't why they got into television, but the truth is, if terrestrial television doesn't accommodate these views, you know, topical comedy, on terrestrial television is going to continue to diminish. And the worst thing is, like if you're pro BBC, right, it's one of the easiest sticks to beat the BBC.

Isn't it? Most topical output would reflect a certain bias. However, one show, and then people just think I'm ass-kiss in it, but I think one show has proved how well it can work is the news quiz. Andy Zaltzman, now the resident host, absolutely brilliant. But it seems in their lineups, most weeks, they're having somebody from the other side of the... fence. And I think it helps everybody because it has certain views represented and it also for

the, crucially, for the left-wing comics, it stops them from feeling like part of the establishment. Do you know what I mean? So somebody brilliant like Alan Cochran goes on and he makes a joke that might make a lot of sense outside of metropolitan areas. But then the left-wing comic can then come back on that. And it's just more natural. It's so blindly obvious that this is what needs to happened. But as you guys know, the last time this argument happened, there were people insiders at the BBC that somehow claimed that, well, it just doesn't make as much sense in London. That's where we record most of our stuff. But they also said right wing is on funny. There was someone doing that. Oh, there's no one out there. Well, let me tell you, I give, I've been

given people a list of people that I know. And I've said, if you ever want to have a chat with me, after that came out, I said, look, these are all the funny people that you could call upon, if you so wished. And the idea that somebody like me couldn't have a good gig in London, London, and people wouldn't believe this, but it's the easiest place for me to sell tickets by a factor of a billion. Maybe not. Maybe not. Because that's untrue. It's not by a billion. But even when you sort of factor in population differences,

that is, you know, that's the place where we do best. And even if you just break down the demographics of London, I mean, look at the current London mayoral vote. Even the amount of Londoners that voted leave were still several million people. Yeah. So I think there is a resistance in certain quarters, But I think in the long run, they're not really doing the BBC any favours, actually,

because it's one at topical comedy is one of the easiest sticks to beat the BBC with. And you don't need like a whole panel of people like me. You just need it out. Say there's five people on the show or seven. One person per show has that few. Yeah. I don't think that's too much to ask. And the thing is, if they don't do it, the internet will kill them.

It's just as simple as that. The internet's already doing it. You know, my podcast and you guys with this, we, we're, The reason that these things have done all right is because it's low-hanging fruit, and it's amazing. Thanks, mate. The reason this is not all right is, you're a bit shit, but no one else is doing it. No, but you do it well, and there's an audience...

I know exactly. There's an audience for it, you know, and I think certain figures have said, oh, the reason right-wing comedy, and I don't think this is about right-wing comedy, by the way. I think it's comedy that reflects another point of view, perhaps a small-city conservative view in society. It hasn't done well because there's not a market for it.

There is. And also, you can't say that when the audience for legacy topical shows and television, it's just steady managed decline, right? There's just literally no evidence to stop change in comedy on television. So let me ask you just one quick thing on that. How do you feel about MASH being cancelled?

Well, Mass, yeah, I mean, look, I enjoyed it while I did it. And I think that, in fairness, the show, it gets a lot of stick from the left. It was and remains the only show to give somebody anywhere right of centre a regular platform. That's true. No one has even come close to that. A lot of people think I've been on.

certain shows and I haven't. I'm happy for them to think that I have. MASH gave a regular, you know, and obviously the tone and stuff of that show, I had to fit in with the show to a point, but I was still able to say things. I was still able to make jokes about J.K. Rowling, Gary Lineker, you know, jokes about second referendum,

jokes about Jeremy Corbyn. I think what it was was when it went left wing, it went very left wing, but it also had jokes from the desk that were about Corbyn and stuff. So it did have quite a lot of balances. in it? And I look back on the bits that I did with Nish and I think that I didn't realize that at the time, but that was something quite unique. You know, there were two people of very different opinions trying to sort of get along. It was, you know, it was a challenging thing to do in terms of

getting a piece that kind of worked together. The audience, the audience were good to me, by the way. You know, they were very left-leaning and Romani, but they were fair with me. And one of my best memories of that show was it was at the time just before, I think it was late 2019, right? Labor didn't really have a Brexit position. And they'd come up with this position, which was that they were going to get a new deal, take it to Brussels, and then have a referendum on it, where they campaigned against it. And I was trying so hard to write a joke on it. And then I just said that in the room, and then the audience pissed themselves laughing. And I thought, that's a left-wing, Romanian audience, mainly. And it just underlined that there was a spirit of fair play in the

room. So, yeah, it's, of course, a show that you're in regularly, it's a shame. But then I think if that show's not going to exist, there needs to either be in existing shows, there needs to be more of people like us, or they need to be something new that picks up that slack. Do you think it was a political decision? I might give you an now political answer. I think when a show doesn't get renewed,

it wasn't actually cancelled, actually. It was a slight difference. It is more than just one thing, you know. It is more than just one thing. And, Jeff, don't you think, like, you see, the fact that these producers look at declining engagement, decline viewership,

don't really do anything to change it. Is it mirrored by left-wing politicians seeing declining votes and again, seemingly doing nothing to change it? I do think that. Do you know what? I've learned this thing when you're doing interviews. You put it so well.

I went to go, all I'd have done was say what you said with different words. Yeah. Yeah, I agree, basically. Yeah. And again, that is a problem, but I don't think they're going to change, if I'm being honest, because to me, to me, they see it as a moral issue. They see conservatives right of centre as being immoral.

But who's they, though, when you say they? I think the people who are on the left, the people who are staunched Labourite. We see them, and again, look, it's all anecdotal. You look at the social media, whatever else. They see the people on the right as being immoral. There are a constituency of people that see it that way, and you're going to love this. But even with the book that I've got coming out. But the editor of that book, the guy that commissioned me to make that book,

the guy that's invested in that book, is very left-wing. There are people that do see that this is not helpful to the left, and maybe, I guess what I'm saying, Francis, maybe that's where it will come from. They've realised, you know, I've got this cycle. I'm such a simple person right, but Norcott's cycle is the right-wing. elections left double down on culture. That's it. Right? It keeps going like that. So they think, fuck you, okay, you won that last election.

I'll tell you what? Our TV shows are going to be even more left-wing. And then working class people go, well, I'm a bit worried about all that. I think this doesn't seem to represent my experience. I think I'll vote to-tory again. He goes, oh, vote to Tory again, did you? Well, check out our new TV show. And this cycle. Check out our adverts, right? And check out our stances. And it's this ridiculous

kind of merry-go-round. When what it really needs is people on the left to actually go, this, it's just good old-fashioned conservative, pragmatism. This isn't helping us. We've now had 11 years of this. We haven't really won any major elections, apart from Khan in the last mayor election, probably again this time, by a smaller margin, maybe we should do it differently. And by, I think the fear maybe was that if we allow it a voice, it'll get bigger. Well, it's got bigger without having a voice. There's a little sound right. Did you see the way I did like that then? It's got bigger without fucking flipped it around,

didn't I? And what do you think is going to be the future of the beach, Jeff? Do you reckon it's to survive? Yeah. I want it to survive. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why right now, thumbs down on the video. We are both on record saying we think the BBC should survive, provided it can evolve with the times.

Yeah, yeah. I think, but there's lots of reasons I've heard recently that I think, I mean, one is like a BBC music on air, like commercial radio stations, their playlist, are a fraction of what the BBC is, right? So if you, one thing I love, one thing I'm really patriotic about in this country is our music culture.

It's incredible. Yeah. We absolutely smashed the... But per capita, the amount of great songs we've produced in this country should be a source of pride for fucking everybody. And part of the reason for that is that you can get a lot more different music on when you've got a state broadcaster than when you've just got a commercial broadcaster. And I think, you know, the investment in comedy.

And sometimes, you know, we did the funeral of Prince Philip and the early days of COVID, there is a capacity to bring people together. And I think that there are, like I say, there are people at the BBC in a very senior position that do get this. now becoming a fundamental point is that diversity has to include diversity of viewpoint. It can't, the whole, the idea that the output in media, TV shows and stuff from news should reflect broadly what Britain is. It's a good idea.

You know what I mean? It's a fucking logical idea, right? Everyone should have a place at that table. But it loses credibility if it doesn't include viewpoint, right? That's where a lot of people tap out. But that's not fair. You're prioritising all other kinds of diversity apart from people you disagree with. So people do get it.

The point is, is the culture, I mean, it's such a huge employer of how much time the people that are currently at the top have. And I mean, it's like oil tanker turning it around. It's the same message again and again. We're not changing this. This is the new course. And you're going to have to get on board. And again, it's like this will benefit the left. If people love the BBC, then actually a bit more diversity of viewpoint and also, you know, programming,

from people from working class backgrounds, that's going to help you because it's going to help the BBC to exist longer. Jeff, listen, man, it's always great to chat. It's good to see you again. Last time we recorded an interview, it was literally the day before the pandemic, like, properly kicked off. Oh, there's a new one coming.

It seems to have hit the Labour Party first this time. But there's not really a new pandemic coming. You both look to me. What's he talking about? What the fuck has he heard? Didn't check the news this morning. morning, apparently there's a new pandemic, guys. Everything's going to be fine.

You know, what's all part of my politics? Just optimism. I have a general feeling that things are going to be all right. We're going to do okay. It's a great country. And that's what allows someone, like a fucking occasional Charlotte and like Boris Johnson to do all right, because that's all right.

Level up. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Jabbs, jab, jab, jabs. You know? You know, I don't often say this, but to the Russian mind, Boris Johnson being the leader of this country's inexplicit. It is inexplicable. It is weird.

Have you got this guy? People love him. That fucking inflatable Boris Johnson. Yeah. In Hollywood. Do you know what I mean? I don't think I've ever, you know, the most conservative I ever was, I still didn't have a thing in the window.

Yeah. You know what I mean? That person's gone, you know what I'm going to do? You know what, Jeff? In the interest of balance, and this is what balance looks like, we spend 50 minutes bashing the left. It's always good for me.

We're going to do two minutes at the end about the Tories. Our mutual friend who you've already referred to Dominic Frist, be tweeted about this election that's just happened saying the problem with this is it's going to make the Tories think they're doing a good job. Yes. I mean, that was a brilliant point because they haven't on a lot of issues. And one of the biggest issues with the Conservatives is communications have been dreadful, often dreadful, flip-flopping, coming out with really strong stances, Gavin Williamson, right? I'm going to take schools to corn. Oh, no, actually we're having a lockdown anyway. Fucking just stand back a bit, mate. Just fall back until you've actually got a policy.

they're also quite patrician and nanny state-ish. And the other thing is, Boris, because in a way his own vanity needs him to have younger, more impressionable politicians around him, they did away with a lot of really experienced politicians. Javid's case important. Javid, Penny Morden, Amber Rudd, really good skill people. People like Nikki Morgan have gone. So there's a generation of politicians below them

that just have been learning on the job at really difficult time. I think one thing is they have done the hours now. It probably be good to keep them around because they've done hours and hours of media time. But someone are like, for a conservative, somebody like Matt Hancock, who suddenly decided he was the nation's stepdad, has been very difficult to stomach.

You know, I think when the new variant came along, everything changed to a point. But before that, Matt Hancock sort of go, well, I'm going to try and let you have Christmas. And he said, who fucking gave this guy? Somebody, I mean, I'm not advocating bully, but please just flush his head down the toilet briefly. Because I, there were points last year.

I would love to be there. But you know with Matt Hancock, he'd be the guy that after the third time that happened, he'd learn to love the taste of toilet water. That's how he would power himself, like a sort of supervillain. We've got Tory MPs that watch this show, mate. Look, I'm not owned by anyone. You know, like, and there have been plenty of times. One thing that has been odd to me is, like, people have presumed,

like, oh, you just got on to kiss the Tory's arseys. No, I like critiquing politics generally. I have a bias, definitely. I have a bias. But over the course of the last year, if anyone has listened to my podcast or see me on shows, I've had plenty to say about the toys.

And I do think that some of the cronyism is something that, you know, I think they're quite happy now that it seems to have died down and the interest has died off. But once you get out of the context of a pandemic, saying it felt right at the time, is one of those arguments in history.

There's a lot of stuff that felt right at the time, Matt. But what I don't want to see is you and everyone you know riding around on fucking jet skis because you got rich of a pandemic. I understand they made certain decisions which needed to be made quickly, but that context

will fade away over time. And maybe that's one glimmer of hope for the left is we might have a stream of look at this guy who bought a place in the British Virgin Islands. You know, you might see people that got very wealthy off a pandemic and that might be one of few routes back for the Labour Party. Well, Geoff,

it's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on. If people want to find you online, is the best place to do that? Twitter, Jeff Norcott, and yeah, as I say, you'll find out of the book, which comes out May 13th and then the tour, I Blame the Parents, is in September. Check both of those out. And we're going to ask Jeff a couple of questions for our local. Before we do that, Jeff, our last question for the main interview itself is always the same.

What is the one thing we're still not talking about that we really should be? Annoyantly, when you said that, I've mentioned them already in the interview, but I do think this desertion of the kind of people that would naturally vote Labor to city centres I think that that will be where some of the Labour debate goes next there's not many people talking about that right now and then the other thing is something that I've just said just now which is about Tory cronyism

I do think that you know the major government in 92 but you know got elected with a reasonable little majority but over time slees nipped at their heels I think it is a mistake to think it's very easy I mean I've just said a Labour party is going to split But after the 97 election result, Tories finished forever, they'll never come back for this. Policy, we're all so stuck in the present now.

I would be cautious about thinking that this is now 10 years of Boris Johnson. I mean, just look at Boris Johnson and think, could he go 10 years without doing something that sees him launched from office? So I think there may be the thing that we'll be talking about soon is perhaps there's a lot of hype at the moment about the Tories are embedded.

for a decade. I personally think that one way or another where it's through different coalitions of parties, I don't think it's quite as nailed on as that. I think he's going to carry on doing just fine with even younger and younger and younger girlfriends and younger and younger kids, mate. And the public will just celebrate. Yeah, exactly. He's had his 15th kid. Well done, Boris. Yeah. Well, you know, there's that weird thing in a lot of other democracies when there are scandals that are supposed to hurt the politician.

Do you remember who was the one, Jean Hollande, the President of France? Like when he had that affair, apparently one of the main things that lost in points in the polls was the tacky way that he arrived for it. He arrived on the back of a moped to his mistress's place. A lot of French people go, and that's outrageous. You're going, yeah, cheating on his wife.

They go, no, no, he's on a moped, man. Turn up in a fucking limo, mate. Yeah, do it with a bit of class. It's France. They have class, mate, when it comes to these things. Anyway, Jeff, thanks for coming back. Where I went right is the book and the tour is Don't Blame the parents.

I blame the parents. I blame the parents. It's where did I go right. We're going to cut that bit out, mate. Leave it in. Leave it in. Where did I, where did Constantine go wrong in saying, where did I go right? I don't blame the parents.

It's early in the morning. Maybe if you're a lefty, it's called, maybe I need two titles. It's called I don't blame the parents. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah, exactly. Make sure you follow Jeff. He's one of our favorite guests ever, one of our favorite comedians. Jeff, thanks for coming back.

We're going to need a couple of quick questions for locals. But in the meantime, thank you for watching. We will see you very. soon with another brilliant interview like this one or a raw show all of them go at 7 p.m. UK time. Take care and see you soon, guys.