543. Iain Dale - Is the UK an Island of Strangers?

You know, when I started this podcast, it felt like I had to become 10 people overnight. Producer, editor, marketer, designer. It was a lot. And I kept thinking, I wish I had someone in my corner to help me figure this out. That's why I love today's sponsor shopify it's like having a built-in business partner

Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, from giants like Gymshark to scrappy upstarts just getting going. With Shopify, you can launch your own studio or store using hundreds of stunning templates that match your brand's vibe. Need help with content? Their AI tools help write product descriptions and enhance your photos. Marketing, easy email and social campaigns built right in. Inventory, shipping, returns. Shopify's got your back on all of it. Turn your big business ideas.

Go to shopify.co.uk slash glassbox. Shopify. .co.uk slash glassbox. People do feel that this is an island of strangers. Well, do they? Yeah, I think they do. Well, why are they voting for reform? There were people that thought that in 1968. There were people that thought that during the Thatcher years. I feel that way. Do you? I do. You must see that a little bit. Don't walk down.

on the street thinking, oh, there's a Muslim or there's a black man. Immigration has to be controlled properly. Isn't it partly up to us to stop this being an island of strangers? But a good number of Muslims in this country do sympathize with terrorists. I have never met a Muslim.

who has had any degree of sympathy with terror attacks. You're talking about Muslims who are so adapted to this country that they listen to LBC. If you say there is a tipping point, well, what are we about to tip into? Into some sort of counter-revolutionary phase? where people take to the streets and take the law into their own hands. Well, it did happen in Iran. In Iran, yeah. We don't expect that to happen in Britain. Remember the first show I did on LBC? She then rang in the next night.

and said, I want to speak to Ian again, please. And she said, Ian, I've told my husband. I'm thinking, what have I done? And she said, I feel as if I can see the sky again. And it's moments like that. where you know that you've done something good. 61% of regular Heretics viewers haven't subscribed yet. Can I ask you a favour? If you love these fearless conversations, hit subscribe now because it's free.

takes two seconds and powers our mission. Ian Dale, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have you here. My producer's a huge fan of yours, so I just want to embarrass him by saying that, but I won't say his name so he's not too embarrassed. What did you think of Starmer's... Island of Strangers? Frankly, I was appalled by it. I mean, Keir Starmer has tried to metamorphosise from this sort of urbane London lawyer.

into somebody who's flirting with reform and i say that not meaning to insult reform but that speech was such a speech that Enoch Powell could have made. Now, Enoch Powell, I actually met Enoch Powell once, which was at a Conservative Party meeting in Bethnal Green in about 1994, just before he died. And I actually have a huge amount of respect for Enoch Powell. But you compare the language in this speech to some of the language that he used to use back in the day.

I couldn't believe that a Labour prime minister, as Neil Kinnock would say, a Labour prime minister, could indulge in this kind of rhetoric. Because language has consequence. And I remember back, what was it, 2015, 2016, when Boris Johnson made his remark, or I think he wrote in a column about Muslim women wearing hijab looking like letterboxes. Now, I don't think that was a malevolent remark. I think it was meant to be humorous, didn't quite work.

And I know from my radio show that Muslim women were attacked in the street, either verbally or physically, the next day after he'd written that, because it gives license to people with malign intent to do bad things. And that's exactly what I think happened with Keir Starmer's speech. And it was not a speech that, I mean, if he'd made it six months ago, before the local elections, when they lost all those votes to reform,

I think that was a different context, but it was so blatantly trying to go after reform voters. It doesn't even think we're stupid. You know what's funny is there's always a line at the bottom of the tweets, when it is a tweet, that's a threat, like, and we're coming for you.

It's like chat GPT, be aggressive. They can't win though, can they? Because people have gone from Labour and the Tories to reform. What can he do to get people back? People are pissed off. Well, I'll tell you what he can't do to win them back. Do a deal with the EU.

I mean, if you think about it, if you've got a strategy to get reform voters back, OK, you make a speech that sort of appeals to people who don't want any form of immigration at all. And there are Labour voters who think that. And then like 10 days later. You do a deal with the EU that effectively goes back on a lot of the important things in Brexit.

As Alistair Campbell would say, there is no strategy, it's tactics. And the tactics seem to change week after week. It doesn't stack up. And the reason this is, is because... He is not a politician. He came into politics very late. He was only, what, an MP for five years before he became leader. He doesn't really understand his own party, I don't think.

and therefore he makes these elementary mistakes. Did he write a word of that speech? I doubt it. Just says things. The thing, I get what you're saying about the language being provocative and a bit strange coming out of his mouth, of all people. But also, and I'm sure you understand this as well, I mean, people are pissed off. People do feel that this is an island of strangers. Well, do they?

Yeah, I think they do. Why are they voting for reform? Well, I think that there are people that will always think that. There were people that thought that in 1968. There were people that thought that during the Thatcher years. There's never been a time when there hasn't been a significant group in British society.

that is very anti-immigration. But that phrase, and they must have focus grouped it, I suppose. It's funny that I didn't think about that. I don't think that was put in that speech without intention. And if you want to appeal to people who think that every town in Britain is segregated into the Muslim quarter and the rest or whatever, fine, you're going to resonate with those sort of people.

Are they the majority of reformed voters? No, I don't believe they are. So I'm still at a loss to know why he concentrated on that phrase. I see. I think it might be most reformed voters. I feel that way. I feel that way. Do you? I do. Yeah, I leave my house. I live in the southwest of England, which you would think of as quite a sort of white area. Not that it needs to be white or anything like that. It takes about 10 minutes before I see somebody who's not wearing Islamic attire.

So I'm not talking about, I don't care if it's black, white, whatever color, but it takes a long time. And I've got loads of friends who are immigrants who have come here sort of the right ways or who adapt to this country, including some Muslim people who are very much, you know, I'm English and that's all British or white.

am whatever i am uh who are also just like bloody hell you know i came here for a reason i came here because britain was something and it's it's lost on those people you must see that a little bit I don't, if I'm honest, because I don't walk down the street thinking, oh, there's a Muslim or there's a black man, there's a Chinese person. It's alien to my head to do that. And I have thought about this a lot because living in Tunbridge Wells, as I do, I'm often accused.

of living in a white ghetto, as if there are no immigrants in Tunbridge, Wales. There are. But I think it's because I grew up in a little village in Essex, very rich area. I grew up on a farm. And primary school in the village, 100 kids at the primary school. And there were black kids at the primary school because we had an orphanage just up the road. And so there were lots of black kids from East London.

And I don't ever remember thinking, now, why has my best friend Paula got a different skin colour to mine? It was just, to me, a natural thing. And I think that has sort of made my brain work in a different way, in a sense, because I grew up... with that environment from the age of, what, four? And if I'm on a train and I'm hearing people talking different languages, I find that fascinating. Now, maybe because I study language and I'm trying to identify what the language is.

I don't react like Nigel Farage did. It's outrageous. We want to hear an English voice on the train. Maybe that makes me different. Maybe that makes me a snowflake. I don't know. But I don't feel threatened by this. And I think that's where a lot of people do feel threatened by the levels of immigration that we have. And I believe in... controlling your own borders i mean it's ridiculous for anybody to say they believe in open borders um

immigration has to be controlled properly and it isn't being controlled properly at the moment and we've got far too high a level of immigration to the extent that public services can't really cope with the levels that we have now the only people to blame for that are the politicians who impose the rules and the civil servants that don't actually obey them. That seems to be the problem, doesn't it? Yeah, we can all have a go at the Home Office of being not fit for purpose.

But the fact is, there are rules there. They're just not being implemented properly. I guess there's two different things. So one is, as you say, you didn't, you know, skin colour, who cares? And that's always been my way as well. You know, I just, it's not even a, who cares? With regards to culture, just by way of example, a great number of the immigrants that we've brought into this country in the last couple of years have come from certain countries in the Middle East where...

Pew research will tell you 97% to 99% of people have unfavourable views of Jews. So that's just one example. And we actually bring in per year... But that's because they're indoctrinated to believe that. and we're bringing them into this country, more of them than we actually have Jewish people already in this country each year.

So that's just one example. No, and that is a fair point to make, because I think a lot of people imagine that there are millions of Jews in this country. As you well know, it was 270,000. Yeah, I know, like, all of them. Like, that's usually a joke, isn't it? Like, you know...

Black person, yeah, I know all the black people. But as a Jew in this country, you sort of do. I mean, everyone's linked by six, what is it, six degrees of Kevin Bacon or something. But I think with the Jews, it really, it's going to be two degrees, you know, it's... It really is. So 200,000, you're right. And each year, several hundred thousand just from those countries alone who have 99% unfavourable views of Jews. What will that do over a period of time?

And that's just one example. We can go into pushing people from places where they push gay people off of buildings. That's what people are worried about. And that's where I really lose patience with the so-called sort of feeling left where... they, when it suits them, they ignore, like in Gaza, what do they think Hamas's views are on gay people? Yeah.

They see what the Iranian regime's views of gay people are for the reason that you've just said. But they seem to give them a complete pass on this and all these marches. And you think... I think I read over the weekend that Peter Tatchell was arrested at a pro-Palestinian march. I mean, probably the most famous gay person in the country, because he had a banner which said, no to the Israeli genocide, no to Hamas terrorists.

And he was abused on this march, but he was the one that got arrested. Yeah. Unbelievable. I think he tried to make it clear it was by the concern about the Palestinians that he had been offensive towards Muslims, I think, or towards Palestine. I mean, he actually...

Peter is the ultimate heretic, isn't he? He's been on. I know he has. Oh, we had an argument. No, we didn't, actually. He was good. I haven't listened to that episode, but I will do. Because, I mean, I really admire Peter. I mean, he's faced a huge amount of flack in his time. Some of it he does bring on himself, it has to be said. But I think he's an absolute hero. Every country needs a Peter Tatchell. He went and had a fight, I think, with Mugabe. Yeah. I mean...

What a character. If for nothing else, you have to respect him for that. I know. The only thing is, and I don't want to go into it, but I got a lot of abuse from people when Peter came on because of some things he's written in The Guardian previously, which he claims has...

misunderstood and taken out of context about adult child relations yeah when he came onto my podcast we had a similar similar reaction from people shall we say yeah i mean look that's what he says and i've got a lot of people unsubscribing because of that. So be it. As far as I was concerned, he was talking about a very different topic. We're debating gender. And he was...

one of the very few people on sort of the other side to me who didn't, he argued fairly, disagreed with everything I said, but he wasn't going for low blows, didn't call me a transphobe or anything like that. So I thought we'll talk about that.

And the rest of that is very tricky. And I don't need to touch that at that point because... you know he said he's he's said what he said which is that he says he didn't mean that and that's you know isn't that weird nowadays that just because you have someone on a podcast people translate that into you obviously agreeing with everything they think and say. And the whole point of it is that...

I mean, you and I will agree on some things and we won't agree on others. There will be some of your listeners, viewers who think, what have you got him on for? He's not a heretic. Well... Well, maybe we'll come on to a few things that might prove people wrong. I think you are, though, because you speak to people on both sides. You're a conservative, but some people... Oh, but am I? Or were you?

No, I am. I am still what I always have been. But if you believe Twitter, Twitter tells me every day that I'm a Liberal Democrat. And I'm thinking, well, if I was a Liberal Democrat... I would support the Liberal Democrats. I never have and never would because I don't believe in most of what they say. There are some things I'm sure I do. But I believe in a small state. I believe in low taxes. I don't believe in PR. I believe in Brexit.

They don't believe in any of those things. So why on earth do people think I'm a liberal Democrat? Because I'm liberal on social issues. And therefore, I'm a traitor to the so-called... small c conservative cause and it's a weird one because the social issues almost shouldn't be related to left and right really it's just it's just a whole mishmash isn't it yeah i mean what was margaret thatcher

um a liberal when she was one of the few conservatives in 1967 to vote to legalize homosexuality i mean was that betraying the conservative cause i don't think so We all have those little habits. Tapping a pen, chewing gum, fiddling with stuff while we think. Mine, I found something way more satisfying. This is Fume.

The sponsor of today's video, and it's honestly one of the most interesting things I've tried. It's a flavoured air device, not a vape, not a gimmick, just a really smart tool for people who like to keep their hands and mouth busy. without inhaling anything nasty. No vapor, no nicotine, just natural flavors. Weighted premium design you actually want to fidget with. Clicks, magnets and airflow.

that sound great even on mic. My favorite flavor, mint. It's clean, sharp, and leaves you with surprisingly fresh breath. If you're curious, over 500,000 people already use Fume as part of their daily routine. Grab the Journey Pack at tryfume.com.

heretics, use code heretics, and they'll throw in a free topper to level up the experience. Scan the QR code on screen and check it out. I wonder if there's also a generational... issue here and I thought this when I when I spoke with David Baddiel who uh disagreed a lot on sort of the you know he had that Jews don't count thing and he sort of his his argument you know I don't want to simplify it but it seemed to be they should allow Jews into this hierarchy of oppression

the woke hierarchy of oppression, rather than not the... And mine was, no, no, we should dismantle this whole, you know, judging people by their hierarchy of their races and things like that. And I got to think, he grew up in a world that was... in his mind anyway, very racist in terms of, well, I know he's accused of that as well because of the pineapple thing he did. But people were horrible just to Jews in the street, to black people in the street, to Asians and things like that.

I grew up in a world that was the topsy-turvy and younger people than me, even more so, you know, utterly devoid of any like, oh, not that there's no racism. I know I'm stumbling over my words here. And I wonder if there's a certain age you get to where that sort of stays imprinted on your mind. So no matter what happens in 30 years, I will still have my idea of how it is. Does that make any sense? To an extent. I said I am what I've always been.

Yes, to an extent, but you can't remain static. Somebody I was at university with, I don't know if you've heard of him, Mark Seddon, he ended up as editor of Tribune.

He was a great Michael Foot supporter. I remember doing debates with him at university. I tried to get him sacked as student union president because he was funneling funds to striking miners. Happy days. And he... what is it 40 45 years old oh my god oh now i mean he looks the same he dresses the same and his views have not changed one iota I don't look the same. I had lots of hair in those days.

My core views have changed the same, but the problems that we face in Britain in 2025 are not the same as 1979, apart from one or two things, because what I have worked out is that politics and economics are cyclical. In the 1990s, after the 1992 election, we thought there would never be a Labour government again because they'd lost that election, which they'd looked destined to win. We thought we'd eradicated strikes. We thought we'd eradicated inflation.

And yet 30 years on, hey, guess what? Jeremy Corbyn's leader of the Labour Party. We've got strikes again. And we've had inflation in the last two years. Unemployment's creeping up again. So there's nothing really new. in our politics and economics. You just sort of repeat things, and you have to learn from them. I mean, I think there are lessons that we can learn from what happened in the 1980s, but you can't just simply take the Thatcherism of the 1980s and impose it on...

the economy of the 2020s it doesn't work like that i think that's an interesting point then because i suppose you with more experience you have a greater appreciation for what's around the next corner uh due to the cyclical nature of history to an extent um But then again, you have once in a lifetime things like COVID, where I had to accept that probably for the rest of my life, we won't have a small state.

Because after COVID, I mean, furlough was the prime example of this. I mean, you couldn't get a much bigger state action than that. We can all have views on how it was implemented. But looking back, I think it probably did save. the economy to a great extent well it's going to take decades to recover from that and if we think that we're going to go back to the days when we would be when

32% of GDP was being spent on public services. It's for the birds. So you kind of have to recognise reality rather than, you can argue for a small state, and I still would do that. But you have to accept that for the foreseeable future, that's not going to happen.

What I would say is a once-in-a-lifetime issue. Another one would be the sheer levels of immigration that we've had. And I think that's why, just going back to my argument, I think that's how we became an island of strangers. So I get your point that decades ago we had this same, before I was... born concern about immigrants and so on. But there is a spectrum, isn't there? There is, but isn't it partly up to us?

to stop this being an island of strangers. For example, and I have said this before, so apologies to people who've heard it before. A friend of mine, this is a couple of years ago now, a friend of mine ran me up and said, oh, we've got Muslims moving in next door. I said, oh, right. He said, yeah, but you know. I said, what do you mean you know? He said, well, they could be terrorists. Now, I'm thinking to myself, what in his mind drives him to think that his neighbours, because they're Muslim,

would be terrorists. It's because most of the media coverage on terrorism acts is on Islamic... I have to be careful here, don't I? Islamicist. Is that the right one? Islamist, that's the one. And of course, a lot of them are. So I'm not saying that we should shy away from calling things what they are.

But he was convinced that this could be the case. Two weeks later, he rings me up again. So I gently ask him, how are you getting on with your neighbours? Oh, they're fantastic people. We're out of each other's houses. I'm thinking, well, that's how it should be. Yeah. But a good number of Muslims in this country do sympathise with terrorists. Too many. You're absolutely right. As a kid, I was told, you know, oh, it's 0.01%. It's nothing. It's something like 10%.

That sympathiser. 40% want Sharia law. It depends what question you're asking, I think. I mean, it's quite some time since I've looked into this, but there was a time sort of in the mid-2010s where there'd been a couple of Islamic conspired terror attacks.

And I think the Sunday Telegraph had a big survey on this and it was sort of, oh my God, the Muslim around the corner, more than likely they probably have some degree of sympathy with these things. I have never met a Muslim who has had any degree of sympathy. with terror attacks and when there are and i've been on air doing some rolling news during terror attacks and i always when i open up the phone lines

I say to Muslim callers, please call in and give us your views because I suspect your views are exactly the same as my views. And, well... You're probably never going to get someone phoning in saying, oh, yes, I agree that we should... Or, for example, if we put straight on the terrorist. Yeah, exactly. There have been a couple where I have thought, should I ring the Metropolitan Police now? Well, yeah. And not to mention that you're talking...

about Muslims who are so adapted to this country that they listen to LBC and they're tuning in to all the radio shows and those things. I mean, that 10% of terrorist sympathisers aren't going anywhere near your or my show. Probably you're right. to a big jury. I'll give you that. If Hasidic Jews moved in next door to me, I'd be calling you up going...

a couple of Hasidic Jews next door. Not that they're going to... Terrorism or whatever, but I don't know what kind of weird stuff. No offence to... People get upset because Hasidic Jews... I just had to retort to that and stop myself from saying it. What? No, I'm not going to say it. Something horrible. Well, I don't think it was horrible, but, I mean, it was to do with kosher. Oh, God. Well, two things that need to stop kosher and halal in this country. Oh, well done.

I've never met anybody who's, apart from me, who's actually had the balls to say that on a broadcast program. No, done. Out. Well. Out. Finished. We don't need to go further. I've got kosher family. You know, it sounds like I could eat them, but they've been blessed by a rabbi and I could eat them now. If I could do one thing, it would be both of those things. Now, obviously, kosher affects things significantly less. I mean, like you said, 200,000 Jews in the country.

5 million Muslims here. Don't care. There shouldn't be one person in this country slowly putting a knife around a cow's... slowly pushing it. I accidentally saw that when I was, because if I see animal stuff, I just scroll past it because I can't. And I was like, what is this they're doing? And I realized what they were doing to the animal.

This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Work pressure, relationship struggles, sleepless nights, that nagging tightness in your chest you can't quite explain. Stress and anxiety show up in different ways. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform connecting you with therapists via video, phone or even message from wherever you are. Life can get overwhelming.

Therapy helps you understand those signals and build tools to manage them. I genuinely am a huge advocate of this kind of therapy. It helped me hugely for years, and I don't think I'd have a successful podcast without it. It helped me learn to accept what I couldn't change. and understand myself.

so much better. Whether you're looking to set boundaries, process something difficult, or just want to feel more like yourself, therapy can make a real difference, and BetterHelp makes it accessible. Get the tools to manage your anxiety with BetterHelp. My listeners get 10% off their their first month at betterhelp.com slash heretics. That's betterhelp.com.

slash heretics. You see, this is where politicians, I have a little bit of sympathy for, because one of the first parliamentary constituencies I applied to be the candidate in, this was in 2003, was Chipping Barnet, a big Jewish area. Imagine if I'd said that in the selection meeting. I didn't because it didn't come up. But if they had asked me the question, what would I have said? Because if I'd said what you've just said and what I believe...

No chance of being selected whatsoever. I had the same thing in North Norfolk. They said, Mr. Dowell, I see you're a friend of Anne Widdicombe. Do you agree with her views on hunting? She's pro-hunting. She's very anti-hunting. Oh, she's anti-hunting. As am I. Right.

And I dodged the question by saying, well, just because she's my friend, that doesn't mean to say I agree with her on everything. But you do. But I kind of did on that. I've got friends who hunt and all that. I don't agree with it. But at least that is a sort of...

hopefully a bullet through the head kind of thing. The stuff they're doing on Kosho and Halal stuff. Well, no, it isn't, because the hounds are ripping a fox to pieces. I mean, I can't imagine more painful death. Oh, it's horrible. But, I mean, that, and to me, anyway, that issue is done and dusted.

shouldn't be something that where people are people decide on who should be a candidate on the basis of whether they they agree with hunting but you you hit on something there i think which was in and maybe it's easy for me to speak about because it's about

The Jews, and I am one of them, you know, so I can, and I can criticize my own or whatever. But you were in a constituency in England, and because of a culture that was brought, you can argue from elsewhere, or some might say, well, Jews have been here for hundreds of years, or whatever, but it's not an English...

culture, you felt unable, whether due to popularity and votes or your own safety or whatever it might be, to speak freely and to go with something that you felt was good for the English people. That is an island of strangers. Obviously, when it's only small little sections, I think we're fine. What many are saying is we've reached a tipping point now where up and down the country, there are people who are in a political position that you were in.

that no longer can actually vote for or push forward policies that represent the interests of the British people. When you say Again, you use that phrase tipping point. I mean, that's a bit of an island of strangers phrase. It's quite a provocative phrase. I don't know the history of tipping point. Ben Shepard presents it. Is it a show? Yeah.

But if you say there is a tipping point, well, what are we about to tip into? Into some sort of counter-revolutionary phase where people take to the streets and take the law into their own hands? Well, it did happen in Iran. In Iran, yeah. We don't expect that to happen in Britain. Well, why would we want it to happen in Britain? They didn't want it to happen in Iran.

Some did, those who brought that about. Yeah, but that was protesting against a terrible regime. Whatever you think of our government, I mean, okay, I've lost that one. No, I haven't, because we are a democracy. established ways of getting rid of governments that we don't like. But the problem is that we have reached a point where if by the next election...

The Conservatives are still in the turmoil that they're currently in. If Labour haven't delivered on their main promises, well, hello, Nigel Farage. Now, I happen to like Nigel Farage. I regard him as a friend. I wouldn't vote reform. But I wrote a piece in the newspaper last September saying I thought there's a 10% chance of Nigel Farage becoming prime minister. And this was his pathway to do it, what I've just articulated. I got ridiculed for that.

People say, W62, of course, it can't happen. They're not laughing now, because I think there's a 20 or 25% chance of it happening. Now... Four years is a long time. Reform could self-combust. Nigel Farage could decide he wants to go and be Donald Trump's ambassador to Venezuela or something. And the Conservatives could revive. Labour could get back on track. All sorts of things could happen. So I'm not saying it will happen.

But it could happen. And that's democracy in action, actually. And there is no divine right for the Conservative Party to continue to exist. They've got to come up over the next four years with an offer, what they call a... retail offering to the electorate, which they show no signs of doing at the moment. But then again, in 1975, 76, nor did Margaret Thatcher. What about, I mean, there's the other side, isn't there? So I would like reform.

to get in because I'm petrified. And maybe that's my bias as a Jew in particular. A family friend of ours bought us a mezuzah, you know, on the door. You've seen it a million times, a little thing that Jewish people put in their front doors. If you haven't, you've seen it unconsciously without realising.

them on your door. I mean, if you were a Jew in this country now, would you put that on your door, knowing it signifies that you're a Jew? So that's my bias, of course. I look at Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and okay, it might be some...

way away. They were helped to get in by the left in those countries. And then they, the Islamists then promptly killed the left straight afterwards, you know. And that's democratic. Most, a lot of our country, we don't vote. It's not like Australia with this compulsory vote.

So we're not voting. You don't need a huge number of people who are either sympathisers of Islam and Islam to actually get that independence alliance in in a few years. And people might laugh like they laughed at you regarding Faraj. I don't think it's out of the question. And that would lead to, what would that lead to? Well, you say it's not out of the question. There were, what was it, five independent MPs elected who effectively...

Well, I should be careful what I say here, pro-Gaza. I was going to say pro-something else. And they seem to regard their only function in Parliament as to talk about Gaza. Well, they're there to represent their electorate on all sorts of things. Or Islamic education they've mentioned as well.

They want to have that. But then they're not catering for all their constituents who don't believe what they believe. Now, that is quite dangerous. And you could easily get to a point where you have a block of... a few dozen of those i don't think they in the foreseeable future they could ever actually get any grip on power

but they could have an influence which they don't have at the moment. And that is concerning. But it's up to the normal democratic parties to put that right. And the problem I have with that is that I... And this is where... I sort of feel like an old git where I'm looking at the quality of politicians across the parties nowadays because I interview them all the time. Most of them perfectly nice people, perfectly respectable, in it for the right reasons.

But they're not of the highest quality. No. But then again, then I think, well, did people say this in 1983 when they said about Thatcher's cabinet, well, it's not like it was in Harold Macmillan's day. So you have to be a little bit careful of that sometimes. Well, there's a quote from Thatcher from your book, which we're going to talk about later on. It's a brilliant book.

I'm really enjoying that. But she said about a party, and I want to apply this to the country. And she said, you quoted this, no great party can survive except on the basis of firm beliefs about what it wants to do. It's not enough to have reluctance.

support. We want people's enthusiasm as well. I think a lot of us are feeling about this country that what even is it? Who are we? You know, if you think of Argentina, you know what that is. Tango and sort of they're all out in the streets and the party and the Vita.

I'm not sure we know what we are, and I'm not sure, and I think you said as well, it's up to us to make sure people adapt, but they're not. So we need someone, maybe it's Keir Starmer, maybe it's Farage, to stand up and actually be a bit firm on this. It's interesting you pick out that quote, because I sent that quote to Kemi Badenoch the day before she was elected leader. And I said, use this in your speech. Did she? No.

Shows how much influence I have. Because, read that last bit again about enthusiasm. We want people's enthusiasm as well. And that is where you're only going to revive a political party. I think Tony Blair did this very well. Margaret Thatcher did it, but possibly after she became elected, she enthused people. She wanted people to be not just members of her tribe, but to go out and sort of evangelise for it. And that was when I got involved in politics.

I don't see that happening now because, frankly, nobody really knows what Keir Starmer believes. After he's done so many U-turns since he was elected leader, ditched his whole manifesto for the leadership. Kevin Baden-Ock, I think, does have firm beliefs. But...

I don't know whether the country at large are willing to give her the time to put together a policy platform and to be able to articulate them. Because at the moment, the narrative is, well, she's had a terrible first six months because she hasn't been very good at prime minister's questions. as if that is all that matters. I find her very likeable. Well, I think she is likeable. And she is somebody who will say things even if she knows they're going to be unpopular.

um thatcher was a bit like that but i think i think bedenock has firmer a firmer right of center ideology than thatcher did when she became leader because thatcher was a magpie she would she would identify a policy that a think tank has come up with and she said oh i love that one thank you very much And she'd look all over the world and think, oh, I'll have that one too. So she wasn't a Thatcherite in 1975. She was a magpie. She only became a Thatcherite, I would say, after the 1983 election.

Well, Kemi Badenoch hasn't got that long. And her disadvantage is that she has a 24-7 media to cope with. Thatcher had three television channels and a couple of radio stations and an interview with the leader of the opposition. 1975 was an event whereas now we expect her to appear before the camera virtually every day she hates the media

And that's a disadvantage. And I've tried to sort of persuade it. You've actually got to get to love doing media because if you don't, it will show. Has she been on your show? She's done a couple of phone-ins on my show, each of which have gone really well.

until right at the end. She's a bit like a sort of Spurs central defender. Plays well for 89 minutes and then scores an end goal in the last minute. And in the last one, we did a sort of quickfire round at the end. And so I said to her, who's your favourite world leader? Now, who do you think she should have said? Well, I'm trying to think she might have said Milley or Trump or something, or Bukele. She should have said Zelensky. Instead, she said Giorgio Maloney.

She comes from a sort of pseudo-fascist party. And, of course, Labour are all over this right from the moment she said it. So she does have a tendency to say things in interviews that come back to bite her. But rather that... than a bland leader who's got nothing about them at all. But also, she's not trying to appeal now anymore to that sort of legacy media idea of a kind of, you know, the Ukraine stuff.

She can see that reforms through the roof. It's more of like an alternative scene now. But she can't emulate Starmer and just chase reform. because what she's got to do and bear in mind that the liberal democrats won all of those seats from conservatives too so she's got to go after liberal democrat or former tories who voted liberal democrats now she's not going to do that

just by talking about immigration or the European Convention on Human Rights. There's got to be more to it than that. I feel like immigration is the issue, though. That's the thing. Well, you've made that very clear. Yeah, no, I know. Well, you're right. I mean, that seems...

The fact that people are leaving Labour and the Tories... or to go to reform it i think that i think look i know you were i don't think it is all about immigration i think it is partly about uh economic promises that have been broken i think it is partly about people who feel betrayed

by various governments on Brexit. I think there are all sorts of things that come into this. I accept immigration is a big one, but any politician, whether it's Conservative or Reform, who just talks about immigration... I don't think they're doing it for the right reasons. It depends if they feel ideologically, I suppose, that they're saving the country in so doing. I know, as I've been going on about it, I can't stress enough what an issue I think this is. And the cultural part of it.

If we were taking people in from, let's say, instead of the Middle East, we were getting people from Clearwater, Florida, which is where Scientology's headquarters is, I think people would be up in arms, right? If a majority of people coming in were Scientologists. Well, Scientology's never thrown someone off of a building. Scientology's never committed any kind, anywhere near the atrocities of what we see in the Middle East all around it the last few decades.

This is altogether something different. But the level of immigration is, I would say, largely determined by the economy. And the fact is, over the past 10 or 15 years... maybe longer, we haven't been able to fill the jobs that we need to fill. Now, there are all sorts of different reasons for that, and you can lay that at the door of successive governments, I would say, from Blair onwards. We haven't trained enough people in the right things.

So therefore, we need to bring people in from countries. You look at the health service. I mean, it is actually criminal, I think, that we are recruiting nurses from countries that need them more than we do. I was in hospital last year for a week, and virtually every nurse I encountered was from Malaysia, from the Philippines, from Nigeria, from India. And they were all brilliant.

But I did say to one of them, why are you here? Because, I mean, not in a horrible way, but I just wanted to sort of understand. And they said, simply because we can earn more here than we can at home. But then there was one nurse, and this was in Tunbridge Wells, who said, I'm thinking I'm going to have to go back because I'm paying £1,400 a month rent. And I said, how much do you earn? And she said, £23,000.

I'm thinking, how can you possibly live on that in the southeast? So there may be a bit of a drain of those people, but it is ethically immoral to do that. Skilled workers... no problem with but we ought to be there ought to be some system of saying to people we have these 900 000 neats under the age of 25 what are they doing all day They ought to be the ones at the bottom of the jobs pile doing the manual labour that we can't get British people to do. Because if you have a job...

That will encourage you to get another job, a better job. And that's the way the economy has always worked, but it isn't working in that way. So I'm not surprised. I remember saying the Brexit referendum and... I remember saying to people who were voting leave, if you think that immigration is going to come down, you are deluding yourself. Yeah.

You really are. Well, I voted Remain because I thought it wouldn't make a difference. And I'm a big fan of Europe and languages as well. So, you know, like being all in and around Europe. I don't know how I'd feel now. I know you were a leaver.

And still am. But I do feel that a lot of the Leave, and perhaps not you, definitely not you actually, but a lot of people, it was really about immigration, even if it was a protest vote. For some people it was. And Nigel Farage tried to make it about immigration with that awful post. if you remember and i remember he used to i used to take over from him on lbc he did the six to seven show and then i did seven till ten um and he

On the day that that poster came out, when we did our handover, we're not really supposed to have a lot of banter. I said, Nigel, why have you done this? That poster is an utter disgrace. The look on his face that I'd actually had the temerity to challenge him on air, given that we got on and are friends. I mean, I just thought that that was a real low point.

Again, it goes back to what I was saying about language and that if you consistently use the wrong language to make your point on immigration, you're in a very dangerous place. Or the country can then be in a very dangerous place. We saw that in Southport last August. Now we can debate all the rights and wrongs of that. And there are a lot of wrongs. Let's do it. No, let's not. But I think that ought to be a warning. as to what could happen in an incendiary situation.

but let's not go there okay i was just thinking the same thing because that's going to need another 45 minutes exactly yeah i think people are feeling I mean, that's an interesting point in itself that you end up, as a presenter or journalist, and it's something I'm having to try to navigate, you end up friendly with people and then you have to...

do your job and potentially call them out in public. Well, I found that really difficult when I first started doing this because I became a radio presenter when I was 48. I'd kind of given up on getting into radio at that point. For the first couple of years, I did find it quite awkward interviewing politicians who were my friends. Now, some people, Adam Bolton, for example, says he has no friends who are politicians because he thinks it might influence him.

I've never really bought that. And now it doesn't bother me at all. And they know that I've got a job to do. I know they've got a job to do. It's not a game. And sometimes I think I probably go too far the other way. David Davis and Brandon Lewis, who are probably my two closest friends in conservative politics, they think I give them a harder time than any other interviewer.

that they get interviewed by because they think I overcompensate. I don't think I do, but I can't put my hand on my heart and say it's definitely not the case. But you do have a professional job to do. And I had a Labour MP on the other day, Mike Tapp, the MP for Dover. And he'd been on my programme a few times before. We'd always got on quite well. And he was coming on to defend Keir Starmer's speech.

And I gave him an absolute roasting. And that's not generally my approach. I said, so you've issued this Trumpian tweet about chaos and bringing immigration down. I said, let's just... See who you don't want in this country. Ukrainians, you'd like to send them home? No, no. Hong Kongers, would you like to send them back? I saw that. And I went through this list, and by the end of it, he was kind of on the ropes. And...

Normally, I don't do that kind of sort of forensic interview, because if you attack a politician right from the start, they're human beings, their shutters go up. And the listener loses out if you take that approach. And it's mean. Well, yes, it is mean. And I can have longer form interviews than most people because I don't do a drive time or breakfast show.

On those shows, you interview someone for four or five minutes. They know what they want to say, and they're going to say it whatever you ask them. And it's kind of boring, I find. And, I mean, I did the Drive Time show for five years, but frankly, even though I was... I was quite surprised when they took me off it because they got Eddie Mayer in. When I thought about it, I thought, you know what, you've been doing this for five years. Maybe it's time anyway. But long-form interviews...

You can have a conversation. And you can get things out of people just by using pauses and silence. Because if you're not talking, they know they've got to talk. And therefore they might say something interesting. unguarded controversial and often when i do these longer form interviews on the radio you get to minute let's say it's a 30 minute interview it's a minute 27 you get the news line

And you've got the producer saying, you've got nothing out of this yet. You kind of have to have the confidence to say, don't worry, it'll come. Are they shouting in your ear then? That's got to put you off a bit. My producers know that I don't like that. Yeah. I've had a couple of producers over the years...

who will always come up with far better questions than I can. So I don't object to that. I like them on the screen possibly rather than in my ear. Though I did have one producer who would insist on talking in my ear while I was talking. And I kept saying, you can't do that because my brain can't compute this. Other people's might do. And other people take a very different approach to this. Like Andrew Marr, when he was doing his Sunday show.

I remember we were both on the media show on Radio 4, because it was so media, and it was him, me, and Rachel Sylvester, and it was all about the art of the interview. And I was quite pleased to be invited, if I'm honest. And so the first question from Amal Rajan was, well, how do you prepare for a big interview? Well, he's great. Is he the guy from the University Challenge? Yes. He's really good.

And I thought, shall I tell the truth? So I did. And I said, I don't prepare for interviews. And I could see Andrew Marr literally open mouth. My preparation for a big interview, by which I mean a prime minister or party leader, is to have five bullet points on a piece of paper with the subjects that I want to cover. I don't have any questions written down.

Andrew explained that he wargames his interview, so he'll have the producer pretend to be the guest. So he'll ask the guest a question. Depending on what the producer says, he says, right, well, I'll follow that up. Oh, my God, the micromanagement. Well... It's not even that. It's that if I did that, my brain would go to mush. So would mine, yeah. And I know that I can't do that. And in the end, you have to play to what you know you're good at.

And I know that I'm good at a conversational interview and I know I can get things out of people. But the moment I try to be Andrew Marr or Andrew Neil or Jeremy Paxman... It doesn't work. You have to play to your strengths. I'm the same as you. It would be more of a Louis Theroux than a Andrew Martin. And we have both got quite soft voices. So we're unthreatening as interviewers. Therefore, people will confide in us. That's interesting. I remember the first show I did on LBC back in 2009.

I had to do an hour on the fact that Channel 4 had been given permission to show adverts for abortion clinics. Way outside my comfort zone. And but instead of getting callers on the advertising part, I got women phoning in telling me about their abortions. And I said to my boss afterwards, I said, well, did I handle that? OK. And he said, well. Your great advantage is that you're unthreatening. You don't interrupt. You've got a soft voice.

And you've got a likeable voice. Whereas if it was a more aggressive interviewer, I wouldn't have got those callers. And I've always remembered that. And in those sort of emotional phone-ins, which I much prefer to political ones, I deploy that. It's not a tactic, because that is me, but I know that I can get people to phone in to tell me things that they've never told their husband or wife or friends. I remember...

Anne in Enfield rang in. This is about 2013. We're doing a programme on rape. And she said that she had been raped at a family wedding by a family member in the loos. And she said, I've never told anyone this before. And I'm thinking, oh my God, you do realise you're on the radio? And she said, oh, and it wasn't a normal radio.

And of course, like a fool, I said, what do you mean? And she said, well, it wasn't up the vagina. And I went, oh Christ, this is before nine o'clock. So I then had to apologise to listeners. Anyway, she was on for quite a long time. She then rang in the next night. and said, I want to speak to Ian again, please. And my producer said, well, we're talking about HS2. Anyway, we left her on at the end of the hour. And she said, Ian, I've told my husband. I'm thinking, fuck, what have I done?

well you've helped maybe and she said i feel as if i can see the sky again and it's a moments like that where you know that you've done something good and when you're talking about whether it's mental health, depression, grief, whatever, I know that there are at least five people alive today who wouldn't be alive had I not done mental health hours during COVID, because they've told me.

I had a guy come up to me at a live podcast event, and I said, oh, it was in Cardiff. I said, are you from here? He said, no, no, no, I've driven up from, I better not say where. And... And I thought, 200 miles to come to this? And he said, I just wanted to thank you for your programs during COVID because I had pills laid out on a table and I was going to take them.

And then I heard you and Jackie laughing in your podcast. I thought, I can't. And this was two years after COVID. And he said, and again, I can't say the job, but... I said, well, how have you recovered from that? He said, well, I'm now director of mental health for a local authority. And I thought, wow. And it's that. That sort of thing gives me far more job satisfaction than doing a debate on Brexit with somebody. Of course. That's beautiful.

It's a really beautiful story. I don't know how to segue from that. I need sort of adverts or the LBC noise, or something. Awkward gear change coming up right now, ladies and gentlemen. What do you think about Gary Lineker then, anyway? BBC, what's he saying and all of that? Bloody hell.

No, that is beautiful. And I wrote a book, The Psychology of Secrets, which I don't want to plug because we're going to plug your book today. You just did. No, no, I'll blank that. I'm going to give you a copy after because I think you'll be interested because it is all about exact...

I looked into the sort of studies of what makes people reveal. It is absolutely fascinating. Yeah. I remember one day I said to my producer, right, let's talk about male rape on the programme tonight, like male on male. He goes, was that a thing? Oh, wow. I said, oh, yes. I said, it nearly happened to me once. He said, really? He said, oh, I don't think I want to know the details of that, being a 24-year-old wakey. And I said, no, no, it'll work, believe me. Within...

I think five minutes we had a full switchboard of calls. I talked about my own experience, effectively to give permission for people to tell their experiences. And it was an amazing hour. It really was, because no other presenter would ever cover anything like that. And after, I mean, I've been doing it now for, what, 15 years.

And I love the feeling of finding something new to talk about. So you're not just doing the staple diet of immigration, benefit reform, Israel, whatever. This is one of the issues with YouTube. You get into this pattern where YouTube, you know, you have a certain number of subscribers. This one is 400. You have quite a lot. 400,000. I know. Unbelievable. And that's just YouTube. What about Spotify? Oh, indeed. It's a lovely feeling. But look, they all came.

because they came and watched a certain topic that I was talking about when, when a lot of the legacy media were not, I mean, you were, but a lot of people were not. Um, And that's what those subscribers are interested in. So if I now go, gosh, Tottenham are in the Europa League final. It's just something that I'm interested in, I'm excited about, and I'm going to do a video on that. It's not like, imagine every video gets 100,000 views normally.

And this one will only get 90,000. No, this one will get 1,000. So... It's not just the revenue. It's also, what a sad thing. I put so much time and effort into that and nobody watched it compared. And then your next videos won't do as well either because YouTube goes, oh, his last video, they're not. So you're in a constant spiral. It's a shame on YouTube and you have to actually start new.

channels so this is my football channel this is my so-and-so channel but it is important that you do um it's a horrible phrase but give of yourself enable people to know you and you're not this anonymous figure i mean do you remember well you won't remember because you weren't alive but in the 1960s there was this um oh god what was it called

Anyway, it was a political interview programme. The interviewer was called John Freeman, but you never saw his face. He was always sitting with the back to the camera and the camera was always on the interview. It was a black studio, I mean, quite a dark studio. And it was a brilliant, brilliant programme. But I think successful interviewers are ones, particularly on speech radio, more than television.

Other ones where people, no, if somebody comes up to me in the street and recognises me, invariably they'll say, well, how are the dogs? Oh, West Ham having a shit season, aren't they? Sort of, watched the Eurovision last night, did you? They know stuff about me. My partner hates it. Can you keep nothing private is the usual phrase. That's my wife as well. Even saying that, I feel like I've given too much of her. No, because it's my job.

If I didn't do this, people wouldn't relate to me. They wouldn't see me as the friend that they've never met. And that is that personal connection that a radio interviewer has with the audience, where they're listening to you, hopefully every night of the week, and they feel they know you. even though they don't. Was it Mike Tapp, was it? Yeah, Mike Tapp. When you said about the Ukraine stuff, would you give those...

My feeling is that most people don't want Ukrainians to go back and Polish people to go back. And it put him potentially in a situation where he was going to have to either give a very difficult truth that I think a lot of people are on board with. Or just say, I don't know, and sort of get flustered like he did. But it's a truth that I don't even want to say in words right now. But I think it's an issue with people coming to this country who have an ideology, as I said, about Scientologists.

that is fundamentally runs counter to ours. And even now, people can't say it. Now, 15 years ago, 13 years ago, Stacey Dooley did a documentary for the BBC, where she went around Luton, and she literally spelled out... in her dulcet Stacey Dooley tones, a very friendly face, dancing on ice Stacey Dooley, exactly what people thought then. I think that feeling is far stronger now because there simply is more Islam in this country.

And that is, I think, what he couldn't say. Do you think that's fair? Not that he's right or wrong, but that's what he said. Well, I don't know whether he would have wanted to say that, but he got to the end of the interview without actually being able to identify anybody that he would want.

Not to be here that was here. But you can't, if you're making a great play out of wanting to reduce immigration, you've got to be able to say the kind of people that you don't want to come here. And he couldn't do that. Yeah. I think he could have articulated it in a certain way. Well, I don't think he could, because right from the start, when I talked to Corey, my producer, about how we were going to do this interview, and as I normally say, we don't prepare for them, but this one we did.

I said, I don't think he'll have an answer to any of these. Well, he could have said, we don't want people coming to this country who come from cultures, for example, that have 97% of people who dislike Jews. Well, that's a problem for him. Well. Fair enough. Natasha Hausdorff. Oh, excellent. I thought you might bring her up. Former guest on this show and clever person, Barrister. She is. Why did you cut the line? Do you do it yourself? Do you push a button? Yes and no.

I broadcast Monday to Wednesday from our studios at Four Millbank, just opposite Parliament. On Thursdays, I go back to Leicester Square, just so they don't forget who I am. On this occasion, we're in Milbank and that is effectively a television studio. So we've got a desk with five chairs so we can have a panel discussion. Leicester Square. I'm in complete control. I have the faders. I have a dump button. I have...

Everything. In Milbank, I don't. So it's everything in terms of, I mean, I can say to a producer, I think we've had enough of this call and they will get rid of them. I don't think I've ever done that. But there, I can't fade someone out. I can't press the dump button. I have a cough button. What does that actually mean, cough button? If I'm coughing, I can silence it. You can do if you are in the middle of an interview with somebody, like if you're on a Zoom call or something.

and I want to cough, I can press the button and it won't come out. If you've got other people in the studio with you, it doesn't really work because their microphone is still on. Natasha had been on the programme a couple of times before and... I thought exactly what you would describe her as very intelligent, very eloquent, a good exponent of the Israeli case. So she was on cross-question, which is our sort of equivalent of any questions.

And I'd had a guest on before her who... I'm trying to remember what we were actually talking about. Anyway, this guest had... He'd written a biography of Margaret Thatcher in the Middle East, so he wasn't some sort of lunatic, sort of pro-Hamas person, but she clearly interpreted him as a pro-Hamas person. And right from the off...

Actually, was she on cross-question? No, she wasn't. She was down the line. Right from the off, she started accusing this guest of misrepresenting the Israeli position. I let her do it. initially, and then she did it again. And I said, come on, it's a bit rude to sort of accuse, effectively accuse a fellow guest of lying. Anyway, on she went. And then she started...

on me and sort of accusing me of misrepresentation. Well, I mean, misrepresentation isn't the worst word that anybody can use. But when you consistently do it in an interview, whether it's whether you're accusing the host or another guest, it starts to grate. And then she started saying that she was being no platform by LBC. And I said, well, you're on this programme, so clearly that's not the case.

Oh, well, I should be on a lot more. I said, well, that's a matter of opinion. I said, you've been on my program at least three times in the past. I've heard you on other LBC programs. What makes you think you have a divine right to be on? And that really sort of irritated me that she could have that attitude. And then she used the misrepresentation word again. I said, look, you've said it at least twice. You don't get a third chance.

So I warned her what kind of what would happen if she did it again. 20 seconds later, she did it again. It's a red flag to a ball, that. And I'm thinking, I'm sorry, I'm not having this. Now, I will admit that I think looking back, I probably wasn't in the best of moods.

So that may have played a role in it. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. Could I have handled it differently? Possibly. But you're in the moment. I then... A listener emailed me about a week later to say, you know, she did this on BBC Northern Ireland recently, where she'd been on a similar programme with Michael Mansfield, KC.

Now, he's obviously got a reputation of being a sort of slightly lefty lawyer, but very high profile, respected, I think, by most people. So I thought, I'll go and have a listen to that. And it was like... My thing with her was being repeated in that she constantly needled him and kept using this word misrepresentation. Now, I don't know whether this is a lawyer's thing that they do, because I think, well, it's not saying lying, but that's what I kind of mean.

And Michael Mansfield walked out. He just said, I've had enough of this. And the BBC interview, I felt actually quite sorry for him because he wasn't able to intervene in the way that I... can on commercial radio i mean i'm paid to have an opinion i'm i'm not saying i'm paid to be controversial i'm not a shock jock but i'm never nobody's ever going to fire me for doing what i did he says hopefully um

But oh my God, the wrath of Hades descended on me. I went from being somebody who probably had the reputation as the most pro-Israeli presenter on British radio to a Hamas lover overnight. And I was really disappointed in the reaction of many Jewish people to this, because most of them must have heard me say things in the past where I was defending Israel when no one else would. And yet for this single incident, I was basically not to be trusted. I was clearly in favor of Palestine, of Hamas.

And I couldn't look at my Twitter feed for two or three days. What I'd say about that is I didn't think that at all about you. when i saw that it wasn't even on my radar oh this man's some sort of anti-semite or anti-israel was obviously two very different things but either of those things

And you know how it is when there's a pile-on. It feels like it's the majority of people. That won't have been most Jewish people who would have listened. I think where I was looking at it from another point of view, which is from my – I had my sort of alt-media hat on, because that's who I am. And I suppose –

I'm thinking we've been told, whether that's me or people who are also old media who have made me more into conspiracies that I'm not into, you know, that stuff, or all sorts of independent media. We are told every day that we are... spreading disinformation, misrepresenting and so on. And we sort of have to just come back with words and say, hey, you know, and it does get tiring, of course, whereas it feels like...

The legacy media, and in that moment you had a legacy media hat, I suppose, obviously it's legacy media. It's mainstream media. I'm never quite sure what that means because it implies that it's no longer relevant. No, I don't mean to imply it's not relevant. It's not a value judgment in terms of relevance. I mean more sort of a structural... It's a structural... There are owners... Well, we're regulated by Ofcom, so we are mainstream media. Because I can say what I want. We are owned by...

individuals, but I can honestly say in 15 years that I've never been told to either cover a subject or not cover a subject. And I wonder if that's the case on the BBC. I think Gary Lineker's been told not to cover a subject. Yeah, well... reasons for that yes um i've never been asked to adopt a particular position the only thing i can ever recall where i really did object to it was when and this was in the early days of when we were sort of

transforming ourselves from just radio into streaming and filming. And one of the digital people phoned down to the studio and said to the producer, can you get Ian to do a rant on whatever it was? And I just said... Uh, no. Yeah. Capable of doing a rant, but I've got to feel it. I'm not going to do it to order because we're not the daily fucking mail.

I don't mean to suggest that you were told. All I mean by mainstream media really is that you, just by virtue of being at an establishment, as you say, regulated by Ofcom, you sort of almost bask in that kind of responsible citizenship journalist of the Ofcom.

umbrella right and for good reasons as well i mean you know you've got we don't have those kinds of checks so there's a good side to that as well but because of that you're not accused of those things and we have to sort of put up with it every day no but we're accused of all sorts of things one day We're accused of being pro-Jewish because, according to the critics, we're owned by Jews. Which, of course, all of the media is. Is that even true that LBC is owned by Jews? I don't even know.

Well, I don't even know exactly what the ownership structure is, but one of the main people is Jewish. Well, so what? If he was constantly on the phone to me saying, can you ramp up the pro-Israel bit a bit? But he never has, ever. And I know that there have been things that I've said in the past on other subjects that he probably wouldn't agree with me. I never think to myself, oh, I'd better say this because one of my bosses will approve of it. I mean, I have to stand on my record.

I've been there quite a long time. And I'm sure you understand Natasha's side as well, trying to deal with this, because there is, on both sides, so much misrepresentation. The hilarious thing with her was I found out later that she was doing the interview from the home of a very good friend of mine, Lance Forman.

Oh, this is what I mean. It's all just one bit. It does blur lines. And you say, she's a really good person, you know. And I say, I'm sure she is. But I'm not going to have that kind of behaviour on my show. It's my show. And if you don't like the rules, well, don't come on it. But she was kind of saying that we were trying to prevent her coming on. And I'm sure she, well...

She's not in my little black book, because I do have a little black book of people I will never, ever have on my show again. And she's not in that. So maybe we'll have her back one day. Who's the most famous person in your black book? Probably Tommy Robinson. Why? Can I use a really bad swear word? If it's... Yeah, probably. Because he's a...

He's been very nice to me. Has he? Yeah. Well, lucky you. I remember the days when he used to phone into my show and pretend that he wasn't him, but it was so obvious it was him. It was hilarious. I think he's a deeply evil man. Real evil. Yeah. Why? Well, I mean, you're not going to agree with this because some of the things you said in the interview already, I think his main reason for existing is to stir up racial hatred.

And he's very good at it. He's a very eloquent man. He's the ultimate populist. And... And I think populist shouldn't be a pejorative word. I actually think it should be a positive word because all politicians need to be popular to get elected. He's never...

As far as I know, he's never stood for public office. If he has, he's never been elected. Put your money where your fucking mouth is, mate. And if you think that you're going to have some sort of influence over our political system, we'll stand for election. Then we'll see how popular you are. Don't give him ideas. He's about to get out.

I know. As soon as I was saying that, I thought, oh, yes, I heard that news this morning. I was listening to Ian Dale and he said, Tommy, you've got to do it. Can you imagine? Tommy, against what race? Well, if we're going to get into semantics here, I mean, clearly he's incredibly anti-Muslim. Now you can come back and say, oh, Muslims aren't a race. Okay, fair enough.

But we all know what his agenda is. He wants to paint all Muslims in the same way as if they are a sort of uni-race or whatever. He says not all Muslims, but he does also say that they should speak out, as I do about the Jews with kosher or the Hasidic Jews, and when they scrub out girls from... the educational books that the Hasidic Jews have and things like that, I speak out. And you don't see many high-profile Muslims speaking out against some of those things.

Well, over the years, I've interviewed quite a few Muslims who have spoken out against those things, including, I mean, I'm not a great fan of the Muslim Council of Britain, because I'm not even sure who it really represents. But their immediate past... I don't know what their titles are, General Secretary or whatever, Zahra Mohammed, a young Muslim woman, I thought was an absolute breath of fresh air. And she was quite happy to...

go down those roads in a way that some of her more conservative colleagues wouldn't have been. Now, she only lasted two years. I'm told that she left voluntarily and has been replaced by... Somebody who I think does have some questions to ask about things that they've said in the past. So I don't get me wrong. I don't give...

all Muslims a sort of blank check on these things. I want that they should be more outspoken, sort of Muslim leaders should be more outspoken in their criticism of some of the things that some people are saying and doing. But Tommy Robinson, over the years, whatever he's said in some cases... He certainly gives the impression of just wanting to foment racial hatred all over the country. But his origin story was, his supervillain origin story, was that his cousin was sexually assaulted, a gang.

you know, such incident by, you know, a grooming gang. And Luton, I mean, Stacey Dooley said a lot of the same things. And she's now sort of an accepted face of BBC. I said the same things. In the past, I think I was... This will be going back to probably 2013, 2014. I can't remember the years. But I remember sitting in front of the LBC microphone and saying, look, let's actually talk about the real issue here. The real issue...

is the background to these men. And I say it's not because they're Muslim, but it seems to be, to me, a cultural issue that... These men believe that white girls have less worth than Muslim girls. Now, then people come back and say, oh, yes, but there have been Muslim girls that have been raped as well. Well, a tiny proportion of them, as I understand it. It doesn't really help the argument.

So I'm not somebody who's trying to give people excuses or trying to excuse their behavior at all. I've called it out myself. And it was quite uncomfortable in some ways at the time with some of the reaction. But you have to call it how you see it. And I understand why you are saying what you're saying. I say it in a slightly different way. And I try and do it in a way, if I have got critical things to say.

I'll say them in a way that I hope doesn't sort of ferment any kind of ill feeling towards a wider community. He doesn't think like that. What I like about you is that you do understand why I say the things I say, as I understand why you say the things you say. And too often, I do think...

presenters on on tv shows radio podcasts have a total unwillingness to listen to or even think about why another person might say the things they do yeah they assume they're evil and it's just we're not and also there seems We've forgotten what empathy is, because I feel like people think empathy is feeling sorry for people who happen to share your view and are on your side, whereas empathy, I think, is...

understanding somebody else's argument and why they would think these things well it's worse than that because we've got to a point where not only do we think that some people shouldn't have a right to express a particular view They shouldn't even be holding that view. Well, who are we to judge that? And that is the fault, I think, largely of social media. And it's come here from America where everybody is in their own little echo chambers and silos.

and then just not willing to... I mean, Brexit was probably the best example of this, where... I kept getting people saying to me, but I don't understand. You're an intelligent person. How can you support Brexit? And I had a guy on the radio last night saying more or less the same thing. Well, you were misled. I said, don't patronise me. I knew exactly why I voted for Brexit.

And probably everybody had slightly different reasons for doing it. I said, for me, it was nothing to do with immigration, as I've been quite clear. Freedom of movement didn't particularly bother me at all. There were lots of other reasons. But the fact that people seem to think that anybody who's got half a brain should then have voted Remain tells me what I need to know, because they're not interested.

I mean, my colleague James O'Brien again yesterday, I thought, well, I better listen to what he's got to say so I can counter it later on. And honestly, I lasted about half a minute because it was the same old stuff. over and over again. And this idea that you should freely patronize people who voted in a particular way, they haven't learned from this.

And that's why, in the end, they will always be defeated, because the Remain campaign was a great example of how to piss off your potential voters. And all it was was Project Fear. There was no... positive thing about well this is where we think the european union could go and this is why britain should be part of it because we don't want to miss out it was all you'll lose your job well i mean unemployment didn't go up to five million as george osborne predicted in fact it went down

It's only now that it's starting to go up a bit for maybe different reasons. And I think if you take that attitude that you are somehow a more superior being... and you're not even willing to entertain the reasons that people voted for Brexit, then you don't win an argument that way. Well, you end up writing a book called How To Be Right.

Or How Not to Be Wrong, indeed. Yeah, that was James O'Brien's book, wasn't it? It was, both of them. Oh, they're two books? Yeah. He wrote two books? He wrote two books, How to Be Right and How Not to Be Wrong. Oh, don't. You mean you've only got one of them? I read it every night before bed. I mean, James is a really, really intelligent guy, and he's very articulate, and he doesn't have to pull in the numbers.

But I just think sometimes you have to try and make an effort to understand somebody else's point of view. That's empathy. It is empathy. And I... If we did a role reversal now and we had to debate each other with me arguing for Remain and you arguing for Brexit, we would be able to do that because we understand each other's positions. It's a great exercise to do. It is.

Yeah, and I exactly, I completely agree with you. I mean, I was at a point in my life where I was living in Europe, you know, mainland Europe, and I felt, you know, there's so many reasons for both sides. How can there not be? You've written a brilliant book about Margaret Thatcher. And to help people understand Thatcher, who were born maybe after Thatcher was about. I mean, that's like me. And I'm learning a lot. I've learned a lot from reading that.

What is probably the number one thing that you want people to take away from Thatcher and how they might apply it to today? Well, the reason for writing it, well, there are two reasons. I was approached by Swift Press. They're doing a series of books on prime ministers. And they said, would I like to do the one on Thatcher?

And first of all, I was a bit sceptical because I thought, well, Charles Moore has written the ultimate biography of Thatcher, three volumes, 3,000 pages. No one can beat that. And I wouldn't want to even try because I know I couldn't. And they said, no, no, these are just to introduce prime ministers to new people. And coincidentally, and this is going to sound really wanky, but I'd just taken on a personal trainer because I'd had a few health problems.

Well, that doesn't sound wanky with a bit at the end, the health problem. That just sounds sad. I'm sorry. It's not wanky. And he, at that point, was 25. And when he found out what I did for a living... He said, now, Margaret Thatcher, I've heard of her, but who was she? What did she do? I was thinking, oh, my God. And he's an intelligent guy. So I thought, I'm going to write this book for him. And that's what I've done.

So it's meant to introduce her to people who weren't old enough to vote for her, weren't adults during her premiership, and predominantly people who were born after 1990. And the other reason for doing it is I didn't want to write a hagiography. And I mean, I'd be interested in your view as to whether you think I have, because you are one of the few people that have read it so far. But...

And I have covered her failures as well as successes. But I wanted to explode some of the myths that have grown up about her, almost all put about by the left. who again never made any attempt to understand her. But the fact that a lot of what she did has not been reversed, and the trade union reforms, none of them have been reversed.

You look at a lot of her economic policies, privatisation, which nowadays people think of privatisation as a thoroughly bad thing because of water and electricity and all the rest of it. But it was one of our main exports in the 1990s. We exported it all around the world. And there was no reason that some of the industries should have failed. They were just privatised in the wrong way.

So I've taken that on. There was a myth that she was somehow in favour of apartheid and propped up the South African regime. Totally the opposite is true, as Nelson Mandela himself acknowledged. But... I mean, everyone, if you go up to an average person in the street now and said, was Margaret Thatcher in favour of apartheid, you'd get about 80% saying yes.

and the other 20% wouldn't know. Yeah. Well, they all sung that Ding Dong the Witch's Dead song when she died, didn't they? How absurd. There's a hilarious anecdote about when Nelson Mandela visited her in Downing Street right at the end of her premiership. He was there for so long. And she had been told by Sir Robin Rennick, who had been our ambassador to South Africa, sort of prime minister, he's waited.

like 30 years, to have this conversation with the British Prime Minister. So she said, so what you mean, Robin, is that I should shut up? He said, yes, Prime Minister. And for Margaret Thatcher to shut up for an hour was quite a feat. It got to the point where the waiting press outside in Downing Street were chanting free Nelson Mandela. I like that. So there's lots of things like that. And the last chapter is...

just called 12 Myths, and I go through all of the things that I think she's been unfairly misinterpreted as. So... It's only 45,000 words. They wanted 30,000. I said, that's a pamphlet, not a book. It's a short book, though, which I like. It is a short book. It's 170 pages, and you can probably read it in two or three hours.

But it was a very difficult book to write because you think, well, short book, that can't be that difficult. But how do you write about the Falklands War in 2,000 words? How do you decide what to leave out and what to put in? So it took me far longer to write than a much longer book would have done. But I really did enjoy it, though. And I've tried to... I think I write...

In the way that I speak, probably a little bit too much. It's quite a chatty book. It's not meant to be an academic tone. That's my style as well for reading. I like to read. I can't go. When I was 18, I'm sure like everyone is like, oh, I'll read all this Tolstoy or go to the modern classics.

never did i wanted to show off i was watching that nouvelle vague french black and white cinema which now i'd fall asleep after three minutes i need just someone telling me what is thatcher and i've really appreciated that falklands i used to live in argentina and obviously they're mental about

it over there and uh there's a day called dia de las malvinas which is the falcons day and uh i didn't know it was that day and i used to go and play football uh five a size like a 15 minute walk from my flat and i went out

And I never usually did this, but just by complete coincidence, I wore the full England strip. The full thing, head to toe, was all the England stuff. Walked down there, and I turned up, and I'm playing with all these argies, and they said, Andrew, what have you done? And I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, it's Falklands Day. And they're panicked.

So I took it off and played with the shirt off. And then the way home, because they'd still recognised the shorts and everything, I had to sort of just run. I ran all the way home, hoping no one would see me. Because they're so mad about that. Thatcher... This is a very YouTube question, and it might be that this isn't your area. Why do you think she... Did she stand by Jimmy Savile?

When there were rumours going on, you know, he was getting knighted around that time, and he was knighted around that time, there were already rumours out, might she have known about him? Well, I don't think there were rumours at that time. I don't cover it in the book. It's one of those things. I didn't really think it was that important. I think he spent a couple of boxing days at Chequers. They knew each other. I think it's...

People who weren't around at that time don't realise what a huge celebrity he was. And I don't think, even if there were rumours... And given that the press regulation then, I mean, like the knees of the world was in its sort of pomp, I suppose, at that point, would anyone have dared go there? I doubt it. You just thought the Iron Lady might. Having said that...

And in about 1992, I was playing golf with an advertising executive who had had the British Rail contract in the 1970s. And he told me that... It must have been an unspoken part of that contract because it couldn't possibly have been in writing that he would be provided with underage girls. No. So this was only two years after she left office.

Now, I wasn't anything in the media at that point. I mean, what was I supposed to do with that information? I did tell somebody about it about 10 years later, before all of the Newsnight saga.

they couldn't corroborate any of it and so this was from a sunday newspaper and nothing happened so it was only what 10 years later after that so literally 20 years after i was first told about it that it all came out i can't believe you were told that it is a difficult thing i mean i get messages all the time oh you know what tom hanks is up to you know and you go well come on you know

what am I going to, what am I going to do with, go to the FBI because so-and-so from some place who I've never, says Tom Hank, you know, what do you do? Yeah, I get those all the time too. Yeah.

I mean, I've gone out on a limb on occasion to defend people who have been accused of the most terrible sexual crimes. I remember, I think it was, what, 2000... three was it i can't remember the exact date when neil and christine hamilton were accused of being a woman called nadine milroy sloan that's right and they coincidentally happened to have louis through in tow doing a documentary well

They were friends of mine. And so I got a call from someone in the media saying, oh, this has happened. Can you come on Channel 4 News at seven? I thought, what am I supposed to say? I mean, I just knew it was preposterous. How did that end up? I saw the Louis documentary. I don't even know. I mean, they weren't ever charged. Nothing happened in the end, but it was a horrible experience. So I went on Channel 4 News and sort of said what I could say.

said it was preposterous. And then Newsnight called and said, would you come on and talk about them? And... Somebody said to me, you shouldn't do any more of this because it'll harm your political career. And I said, well, look, either I knew that a lot of the Hamilton's friends had dropped them after all the fired stuff. And I mean, in politics and the media, you have friends.

And then you have friends in inverted commas. And I wasn't going to be a friend in an inverted comma. I thought, if you are their friend, you have to stick up for them. So I went and did it. Harvey Proctor, another one, who... suffered the most terrible injustice and in the middle of one of my shows when I was interviewing him it's a 25 minute interview he burst into tears on a couple of occasions during the interview he was basically bankrupt

And I launched a Just Giving appeal on my show. And I do think to myself, not quite sure what the off-come rules are on this, but this is a guy in distress. And my listeners raised £12,000. And that basically saved him from destitution. Paul Gambaccini, I published his memoir about the accusations that he had. I've stood up for Cliff Richard. And there was another... woman who emailed me who wasn't in the public eye but her husband had been accused of downloading um pictures of underage boys

And she wanted to write the story of all of this. And it was the most horrific thing. And it's the sort of thing where you think, well, if they can be accused of it, anybody can. And the police have behaved completely disreputably. And I just said to her, you know what, if this only sells 100 copies, I still want to publish it because your story needs to be heard. And the only way that he was in the end acquitted was because some computer forensic guy...

ascertained that the very time that these pictures were paid for by a credit card, which didn't even belong to him, was at the very time that he was at the altar marrying his wife. Wow. And if he hadn't been doing that... That saved him. Now, in the end, the whole thing ruined their marriage. And it was a very, very human story. Now, the book didn't sell very well, but I'm still proud to have published it.

It's a very brave thing to do, to sort of align yourself with these people, because also you never actually, even when you're best friends, you don't actually know. Well, because when you defend a series of people in these situations, then people naturally assume that, well, you must be a bit of a people as well. Or sympathise. Well, yeah. There is still this narrative that gay men are sort of more prone to...

It's a complete bollocks, by the way. Of course it is. But there is still that narrative out there. I remember having a discussion on gay marriage with David, no, gay adoption with David Davis back in 2003. who's as i said before was one of my best friends yeah and i said why don't you think it's better for a child to be brought up by two loving parents no matter what their sex are

than in a children's home, because he'd been adopted himself, and I thought he ought to really empathise with this. He said, oh yeah, but you have to think of the children. I said, what do you mean? I said, what, you think they're more at risk with gay parents than they would be with straight parents? Oh, that's horrible. Now, I'd like to think he's changed his mind on that over the years. But it...

There is still that out there in society. We think that we've become accepting of gay marriage and all the rest of it, but there are still people who have those kind of attitudes. You know what's funny is...

I think I've been accused of being a lot of things, you know, the topics I talk about. And one of them was trans, which we've not gotten into and all of that. But, you know, I've, you know. Basically, I know what your views are and I agree with them. Oh, right. Okay. I didn't know what yours were on that. Okay. We can talk.

But anyway, it wouldn't have mattered if we had different opinions on it. But I've come to it, because what's the percentage of gay people in this country? Well, nobody really knows. It's something between 5% and 10%. I swear like 20 or 30% of my male guests are gay. Everyone's gay. Well, I don't know why it is that politics and the media attract such a high proportion of gay people.

it would be a fascinating thing for someone to do some research into but it is true everyone's not just theater and music and you often don't seem i wouldn't have not that i mean that's i don't want to be cliched or whatever but i i knew you again i forgot until you just said it good Because I've always said, when I did my selection in North Norfolk, they found out that I was speaking at a fringe meeting at the Tory conference for the Tory group for homosexual equality, as it was then called.

And the chairman rang me up in blind panic. Oh, my God, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I said, we'll just get someone to ask me the question. So just say, is this a subject you feel strongly about? So I then addressed it head on. I was the first candidate to tell the selection committee I was gay before being selected. And I did do a bit of a tearjerker of a speech and sort of, well, you all know somebody who's gay. You probably don't know it, but your dustman might be.

The guy that delivers your letters. And does them being gay affect their ability to do their job? And you can kind of almost see their brain starting to work. And I won with 66% of the vote. Now, it didn't do me any good to become the first, because when you're the first, you become slightly notorious. So I had, for example, Gabby Hinsliff writing an article in The Observer. calling me the openly gay conservative candidate. The Observer.

It's just bizarre. Because for them, they're having a go at you because you're conservative. Well, I don't know what she was doing. You're obsessed, though, with identity. But I said, you would not call somebody else the openly straight conservative candidate, would you? No. And then... I didn't obviously win that. And then in 2009, I went for Bracknell. And I thought I had a good chance of winning it. And then the Daily Mail diary column called me the overtly gay.

overtly what year was this 2009 and i took them to the press complaints commission did you good and lost oh not good because it was a diary column i mean what do you expect from a diary column could you say overtly gay if you're talking about someone who's camp Probably, but I don't... I mean, you've just said you hadn't thought of it until I just mentioned it. Well, no, you're not overtly gay. And I don't think I am. But would it be fair to say that...

Well, James Dreyfuss's portrayal in Gimme Gimme Gimme is overtly gay. That would be all right, maybe. We've got, I mean, Jonathan Sacerdote is about to come in ten minutes. He's coming in. He is. Is he overtly gay? He is. He is. I don't know. I know his name. I don't know what he's called.

Oh, okay. I would have thought, I thought you might know because he's in the sort of Natasha Hausdorff. Oh, no, no, no, I've interviewed him, yeah. Gary Lineker, we do some Gary Lineker stuff. And yesterday was Andrew Doyle. Oh, no, Andrew Doyle's an interesting one. He's great, isn't he? Do you like him? Because he was great friends with Simon Ward, who was a teacher, another one who was accused of misdoings.

And another one whose autobiography I published. In fact, it was, I think, Simon that introduced me to Andrew Doyle. And I went to his Edinburgh show, I don't know, 2016 or something. But no, he's an interesting character. I love Andrew Doyle. Where can people get, I've got one more question for you, but first, where can people get your wonderful Thatcher book? Anywhere that sells books.

Was it a good bookshop or a badger? It's rather unimaginatively titled Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, I thought so. I didn't want to say it's called Margaret Thatcher. But what I would say is, and I said this to you the other day, that they have done a gorgeous job. I guess it's a series of books, isn't it? It looks beautiful just to have it in your house. Well, they started off with a different series design because the first one was Churchill and they just put a cigar on the cover.

And the initial design for my cover, they put a handbag on the cover. But I don't think they thought it worked. So they've completely changed the design now, quite rightly, because I think it is quite a striking cover. It's just her looking. Is it to the left or to the right?

To the right. I didn't even think about it. It is a nice cover. Who's a heretic you admire? Well, I've given a lot of thought to this and come up with all sorts of different people, but I'm going to say David Starkey. Oh, he's been on here. Go on. Well, I'd be disappointed if he hadn't. I've always admired him. I remember sitting on a train home one day and he was sitting diagonally opposite me and I didn't dare say hello to him.

But I made the mistake of tweeting, oh, I'm sitting opposite David Starkey, should I say hello? Anyway, his partner at the time saw this tweet. And got in touch with me and said, oh, you should, David would have loved it. Why didn't you? Anyway, come round for tea. So I go round the house for tea, hit it off with David. And I mean, this is...

A potentially long story here, but I know we haven't got much time. He has been cancelled a couple of times. And the second time after the Darren Grimes interview, I kind of... tried to rescue him from his cancellation, and I invited him on my cross-question programme. And it was quite a big thing because he'd lost his book contract. No other media organisation would touch him.

and he was a pretty low point and it was sort of six months afterwards and i thought now he served his sentence now let's have him on my producers were very nervous about this and um Paul Mason was on the same program. Right.

And the first half of the show is, well, I agree with Paul. Well, David is absolutely right on this. And I was thinking, oh, this is going quite well. But I knew it couldn't last. And of course, I can't remember what the subject was. And then Paul Mason says, yes, but David's a Nazi sympathiser.

But did he say that to his sincerity? It didn't really matter. He said it. I don't know whether he meant it or not. It could have been a joke. And David sort of restrained himself. And I sort of said, come on, come on. We don't need that kind of thing. And there was a bit of a set to later as well. Anyway, I woke up at three o'clock in the morning the next morning and stupidly looked at my phone. Never do that. As you do. Never.

Email from David Starkey. You handle that terribly. Oh, no. I'm thinking, mate, you're attacking the person that has given you a way back. Oh, David. I thought, well, I'm not going to reply to it now. Eight o'clock, I look at the phone again. And there's another email from David Starkey. Ian, I'm so grateful to you for having me on your program. Can you please ignore my previous email? And I've had him at my Edinburgh show a couple of times. Oh, he's brilliant. What a relief.

He's a perfect guest, and I'm sure he was like this when you had him on. He's entertaining, he's educational, he's informative, he's controversial, he's emotional. What more do you want from a live guest?

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry I haven't been to any of those in the last two hours. No, you have. You've been absolutely wonderful. No, you really have. And when he was on, I asked him, you know, he said, why there wouldn't be so many damned blacks or, you know, and I said, I asked him about it and gave him an opportunity to sort of say he meant it quantitatively as in there's just a lot rather than and he said no I suppose I meant it qualitatively and I went oh David why would you say that

Stop! But he doesn't mean it in a not liking black people way. It was just a moment of madness, I think. Well, yes. I hope. I just hope that... I think he does stuff on GB News now, but I hope that he will be able to write a lot more because he's a brilliant historian. And another person who's gay. It's unbelievable, isn't it? Everyone on this show. People! Please go and get that Margaret Thatcher card. And you are not.

Well, not yet. This is a great loss to gaydom. That is true, actually. I always found gay people not that interested in me. And I used to get offended at sort of university. I was like, why do they not say? But, you know, my wife is, whenever I've said this, said, well, why would you? No, it was like, oh, good. No, it's gone fine. Everything's good. No need to be gay or whatever. Oh, so many comments come to mind, but I should keep them to myself. Well, you'll tell me after.

Oh, I was going to tell you something after. But that doesn't matter. That's not for all of you. Right, hit that like button and get the Thatcher book. It's really good. And how can we go on talking about these things if we don't know more about Thatcher, of all things? So get the Margaret Thatcher book. We'll put a link in the description. like this like this video and keep watching this there's a video here to watch this channel