Q&A: Should we abolish the monarchy?

This is a Global Player original podcast. So if you were expecting a special question and answer edition of the news agents last Friday, we of course let you down because there was that minor bit of breaking news concerning

Prince Andrew, sorry, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. But we're bringing it to you this Friday instead. And we're going to start with a question from David Beecham.

Is there anything in the rumour of Trump building a palatial bunker under the ballroom? Obviously still under construction. I absolutely love Trump and his ballroom fixation. And this for me goes back to Nearly fifteen years ago, the first time I ever met Trump, and he showed me his ballroom in the Waldorf Hotel New York, and he told me it was the biggest ballroom in New York.

And my producer and I looked at each other and we kind of went, hmm, I don't think it is actually. I think he's I think he's got his square footage wrong. I think he's got his whatever cubic metre wrong on this. And we kind of went, Well, are we gonna call him out? And then we were like, No, of course we're not. It's a boring. Who cares about a borroom? As it turns out, Trump does. He cares a lot about his ballroom. So is the East Wing Ballroom a cover for his sort of Prepper escape route.

No, I don't know. I haven't heard that one. I think for Trump the ballroom is the thing. Well, there's it's not just the ballroom though. If you look at the Oval Office every time I see a picture of the Oval Office and when I was there you used to get called in quite regularly to a pool spray when a Prime Minister or President was in town and they'd be sitting in the two chairs by the

uh by the fireplace and you'd you know you'd stand there with your boom mics and all the rest of it and try and get an answer. The the Oval Office is being transformed, it's gone it's gone guilt. There is gold paint everywhere now in the Oval Office. Trump is changing the White House and you can imagine what this ballroom is going to be like. And the other thing he did at the weekend, I don't know whether you saw this now, that he posted pictures.

that had been redecorated. There is the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House. Which was kind of I think it was built in the nineteen forties, so it wasn't from Lincoln's time. But Trump decided it was out of kilter because it was too art deco. And so he says, I have installed a bathroom now that is much more in keeping with what it would have been like

In Lincoln's time and you look at it, you think, No, it's not. It just looks like a kind of, you know, uh four seasons hotel bathroom. It's got white and black marble that's very speckled and very classy. But it the the idea that this is somehow a restoration to Abraham Lincoln's time. It's just preposterous.

So we don't know about the bunker. We don't know about the bunker. I mean, goodness knows what he's doing. He loves the idea of demolition. And apparently with the White House, you don't n need to get permission. To demolish things. If you're rebuilding you need to get historical buildings approval before you can do it. But you can be demolition. And so the bulldozers have gone in to the most iconic landmark

In America and just started ripping it out and nobody ne seems to know anything about it. There are these mysterious donors who are stumping up the money and we have no idea what they're getting back in return for it. The news agents. It's John. It's Emily. It's Lewis.

And there was silence. And there was silence we didn't know. Shall I kick off then? Why don't you kick? Snoogle silky. I like Snoogle Silky, it sounds very Halloweeny. Um, is it time finally to seriously explore republicanism? Surely everyone can see how preposterous the idea of a modern monarchy is. Please don't suggest it would decimate tourist numbers. My first question is

Lewis, is your name Snoogle Silky on Twitter? I wish it were. I mean look, I mean uh I assume they mean republicanism in the monarchical sense rather than I mean all let's shall we get the Republican Party to sort of start up over American. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean you know, it's a thought I mean I do think there is something really interesting going on at the moment in politics and it's it it's a slow burn thing. But the generational difference that there is

in terms of views towards the monarchy is stark and profound. And that's not always been the case. It's not always been the case, a bit as people sometimes say that, you know, people move from the left when they're young to the right when they're old. Generally speaking there has been cross generational support across the cohorts for the monarchy over time.

In recent years there has been a s sharp cleavage opened up between older voters and younger voters in particular. So whether we think or not it's wise to start thinking about republicanism, I think it is undoubtedly true that republicanism if those trends uh sustain will become more mainstream over time. And that's why I think the whole Prince Andrew thing has had such purches. over the past couple of weeks.

People where once upon a time you might have said, Well, you know, that's the royal family and we'll just accept and kind of don't people are really furious about it and people it's kind of common pub conversation about why are we Doing all that. I don't think that's about the monarchy though. I d I just don't. I don't think it's about the monarchy. I think it's very specific and it's driven by a c a bigger question which is, you know, why are

powerful men getting away with terrible things. And you could ask that across any bit of Public life. I don't think it is about the monarchy. I think the trouble with You know, the whole kind of question of the title and all that kind of stuff is like What is the question you're asking fundamentally at the bottom of that? Is like, well, did he earn that title? Did he deserve that title? And once you've once you've asked that question, it's almost impossible

To carry on the whole charade, right? I mean it's a ridiculous thing to say, well he did earn that, but they didn't earn that, but he earned that, but his brother earned that, but of course not. That that's that is the point. You have to suspend your belief willingly to believe in the monarchy as an institution. Of course you have to suspend your belief. And the only thing that the r royal family have got I mean what

If you were a management consultant and you were asked to say, What is the key performance indicator of the royal family? It's how many ribbons you've cut and how much airtime you've got. place in the world, it's about the way you manage to do a very subtle kind of diplomacy that maybe politics misses. You know, when The king goes and speaks Italian in a speech. When he goes and meets Macron, he speaks French. These are all doing the things.

That are trying to repair the immense damage that Brexit created for us. And it's done through the back door of the monarchy rather than through the front door of number ten. Prince Andrew could have been king.

I mean you know, i if things had worked out differently, if Charles had got killed on that ski slope, you know, thirty years ago, you know, and he hadn't had children you know, Andrew could have been king. Now you can get into a big kind of a debate or argument about whether his life would have been very different had he been the heir rather than the spare, but it's entirely possible and credible that it wouldn't and he would have had these predilections or whatever and he would have had this

story and clearly then he would have had to abdicate or he would clearly have had to sort of step back from from things. And this is the problem with hereditary monarchy is like, yeah, for every Queen Elizabeth you get a Prince Andrew.

And for every good king or a a good queen, you potentially get a real wrongun. And, you know, that is just inherent and inevitable. And not only that I actually think I think actually the strongest argument for republicans is nothing about the country,'cause I can see the strong ar you know, that there is an argument

for a head of state who is non political and around whom the country can kind of cohere and we extract identity from them and so on. I still think you could have a much more slimmed down, less kind of ridiculously kind of ornate monarchy than we have, but you know, whatever.

Um I actually think the strongest argument is for them. I think their lives are absurd. I think they live in a gilded cage where they have no freedom to decide anything that they want to do. I was reading a story today, so apparently that Prince Andrew, you know, at one point was so helpless. Because, you know, he has a cook following him everywhere he went that, you know, he decided that

he needed they w this cook was going off on a sort of Christmas party or whatever and he called them back because he was desperate to have a baked potato. You know, such is the kind of like infantile life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm su I'm sure. But like such is the kind of infantilization of these people that we basically breed this family to have an infantile, miserable life and I think that's the strongest argument is for them rather than the other. Do you know what though? I mean there are a lot of people in public life Leave office and

And find that they are pursued forever by their you know, bodyguards or their m personal security or whatever. And they also have these incredibly trapped gilded lives, right? I mean it doesn't have But they chose to be there. They chose it. So And the Royals don't. Yeah. Yeah, th that's a fair point. But I do think that on the stability front

They do give us something and you know, you started it kind of when you kind of made the quip about are we talking about a Republican party? You know, well you think well would you rather have Donald Trump as your head of state or King Charles? Broadly speaking, I'm kinda happy with where we are at the moment.

Yes, but then you but then there's the whole question I think that once you take away the mystique and if you s you know, we talked about accountability and you know, the kind of finances needed to be less opaque and there managed to be much more transparency. I think once you do that though What are you left with? You're left with this family that looks slightly dysfunctional like many other families, but probably worse.

And then you've kind of destroyed the mystique of it. I think if you're happy with the monarchy and pro monarchy. Yeah, I think if you're happy with the monarchy you have to be happy with a gold piano. Yeah, you know and and a castle. And a palace. It's like wait till they find out Exactly. Wait till they find out about the palaces. Yeah. Yeah. But except that loads of other monarchies don't operate that way and they're very successful.

So like you know, y you can find the Scandinavian bonnox cycling along the main street of Oslo or Stockholm. I'm not saying maybe we wouldn't want that. We probably wouldn't like that because we do for reasons I don't understand. I look I get I'm completely cold by the pomp and the pageantry. I find it I I hate it when people go. Oh, and you've said this, John, and it annoys me. When you're like, Oh, we do this so well. It's like doing what so well? Frippery and flummery and

Stu you know, just putting people in stupid Is that the best we can do in our country? Put people in big black. This is where we have it all out, yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna say I think it is very cohesive, actually. Well, apart from Republicanism in Asia, yeah. Exactly. Snoogle silky, do you see what you've just started in here? Snoogle, you fiend. You fiend. I bet they work for another podcast. Let us move. Hi, John and Lewis and Emily.

After the by election in Wales, a lot of people claim that is proof that Labour can win the next election, as voters on the left will unite behind them to beat reform. I think this is possible, but only if Keith Starmer is replaced as leader. Given his quite deliberate alienation of his base, both in the Labour leadership contest and in government, he clearly is not trusted by the broad left in the UK. Isn't Starmer himself the biggest obstacle to a second term Labour government from France?

Wow, Lewis do you want to start on that? I mean look, there was to go back to the what we were just saying now, there was a poll out today which should perhaps give number ten some pause for thought which showed that Keir Starmer was actually less popular than Prince Andrew. Uh which is not a completely ideal place. I mean to be honest it was a kind of you know, there's only one point in it. But even a statistical tie about being as popular as Prince Andrew.

Is not a good starting place. And we've talked a lot on the show about whether Starmer is a good conduit for the sort of politics that we're in at the moment and when you need to be able to project. A kind of compelling message, he's not brilliant at it. He can have his moments. He's been a much underestimated politician. I still am of the view that

He is more likely than not to lead Labour into the next election. That's not to say there aren't lots of preparations going on by certain people. We're streeting hello, if you're listening. Like trying to sort of prepare the way in case he chooses to resign. That is going on.

But because the Labour Party it's not so much that like they're bad at getting rid of their leaders though that's true, it's because, you know, the factions of the Labour Party are such that they are always they always cling to nerfs for fear of something worse.

And that is why, you know, you get someone like Harold Wilson sticking around for as long as he did, because they're all afraid that if they get rid of them, particularly with the Jeremy Corbyn example i in their mind from twenty fifteen, you get rid of him and then there's a leadership election and you can't control.

the outcome of that election. So whether he is an impediment right now for a second term or not, I think it is more likely than not that he leads them into the next election, but who knows. Yeah, I would just put on a warning of reading into the future too quickly because it wasn't so long ago that Boris Johnson was telling us he was gonna serve a ten year complete premiership and he was going to win another term and none of us thought

that even sounded extreme or extraordinary. And I think it was gone within Four months, six months after saying that, and the rest as they say is history. And I think that we never mention them. But I just think that We are so far away from our next general election. I know it's a really obvious, boring thing to say. But I just think I think we've overestimated Farage up till now. I think there is such a thing as kind of media momentum.

where you feel if you're not joining the circus of everyone talking about the thing that might be about to happen that somehow you feel like you're being left alone. And sometimes that is the worst place to be. You have to step back from the circus and say Actually, who was coming for him?

Or who are the challengers who could technically do we all thought that Gordon Brown was gonna be replaced, didn't we? We all thought that it was gonna be a challenge to Gordon Brown. And there were, I think, six almost challenges to Gordon Brown. I think the question for me about Keir Starmer is can he change? Can he change the way he does things? Can he I mean, it's n you know, w we understandably focus on

his interaction, his interface with the public, the electorate, and how well he's doing that and is he kinda coming across any better? Is he clear about the argument he's trying to present as to why he's the right person? Speak to anyone in the cabinet. About what it's like dealing with Keir Starmer.

And they say he's just yeah, he doesn't speak to any of them. He's a Sphinx. He's a he he's alone. He's got a couple of old mates that he's hangs out with. No one goes up to the flat in number ten for a beer afterwards or a chat about the state of politics. That's what they say about every Prime Minister. I mean Boris Johnson was

Similarly very isolated, didn't have real friends in the parliamentary party. You know, and they said that Rishi was too aloof because he had too much money. You know, there was And and Liz Truss was odd. I mean, people always say and maybe that is just what goes with the premiership, you're in a very, very odd position. You're part of a pretty small club. But normally you've got a coterie of people who are

there and they will send a message out to other bits of the party or to the trade union movement if it's the the Labour government. You know, there there are people there that will do that work. And Kirstama seems sort of uniquely uninterested. devouring the latest poll and trying to see what else is going on under the surface of the headline numbers. That's what Well no, but that's what you hear about how he operates. And there are people who are thinking

Okay, I've now got a really senior position in the government. I'm now gonna really kind of be able to build up the relationship. with Keir Starmer and you do not see him or speak to him from one month to the next. I think it is true that Starmer I mean he because he came into politics late and because in so many ways he was an instrument for other people's political projects, um, he he is qu relatively

I hear what you're saying, Emily, about like the the often PMs are isolated. I think but I do think he is relatively alyless, you know, because he didn't really have a faction of the party. And insofar as he did, he basically it was supplanted or it was replaced by another faction o of the party. So there aren't like there aren't Starmerites, right, in the Parliamentary Labour Party, which has always made his position internally weaker than perhaps

other Labour leaders. Sometimes it's also enabled him to be quite sort of nimble because he's sort of not come in with those sort of years and years of baggage. Yeah. So it's sort of been an advantage and and and disadvantage. But I do think it it means that he's

relatively kind of friendless in politics. I think the exact question is about whether it is possible basically he will be able to construct a kind of progressive coalition, i.e., as we saw to some extent in the Dutch elections which we're talking about the other day or or or obviously in Kerfilly the The next election is a kind of anti farage.

Assuming that's you know the dynamics stay in place. That the next election is a kind of anti Farage election. Given that he has such history with the left and he's so disliked by the left. Can Labour maintain its position as the natural leader of the anti-Farage kind of block? I think that's an open question. And the only thing that I would be quite worried about.

at the moment, number ten, is if I do think the Polanski surge is potentially dangerous because as we've seen, it doesn't require you to have loads of seats in Parliament to give the impression that you're dead, right? The Conservative Party has

way more seats in Parliament than the Reform Party does. And yet the Reform Party, because of its lead in the polls, has basically projected an idea that the Tory Party is dead and they are now the natural leaders on the right. If the Green Party it's a big big if. If the Green Party were to

able to overtake Labour for a sustained period of time by a good margin, they could try and pull that trick off. Now it's harder'cause they're in the government Labour, so they're always gonna have more advantage. But that could be a big, big problem in seats across the country. Right, let's do fantasy football for a second. Is there a world in which the next election is won by a progressive coalition and the demands of let's say the Greens and the Lib Dems are we will support you

But not with Kirst Starmer as leader. Is there a world in which Yes, I think that is absolutely Yes. Okay, is there a world in which Polanski would ever become PM? No. Because you'd have to have the number of seats. But you could imagine a world in which there was Th there was a deputy PM for either Davey. He said on the show to me that he wouldn't work with with Star. Did he say that? Yeah. But not with Starmer because he accused of complicity of drums. Your party been such a spectacular flop?

Yeah, I mean Polanski's part of it. But also you've got to say, you know, Tony they flopped before Polanski was a few years. But Tony Ben Tony Ben always used to have his mantra, it's about policies, not personality. And this is about personalities. I mean, it seems that Jeremy Corbyn and Sultana are kinda hooked this thing together, having not worked out any of the fundamental questions, both want to be leader. Both have got very different ideas about the way this should be done.

And it's turned into an absolute shit show within seconds. Of launch. I mean it's like kind of you know, one of those little not exactly fraternal socialist kind of loving, you know, respect for your colleagues. We got over it, but that's how we started. I do think it's the it's the dirty laundry that is the worst bit. I think it's totally understandable.

that you have rivalries even within, you know, a government like sort of obviously the Blair Brown days. But it's the airing of it so publicly. Don't don't put that stuff up on Twitter. Don't contradict each other. so clearly for everyone to see. Don't start pulling, you know, your membership numbers back and then putting them out and all the rest of it. I think that that's become the really uncomfortable thing because it feels like there's two very angry people.

shouting at each other over the kids, right? I th I think there's three things going on. I think one is about leftist politics, which is often deeply fragmented and um the sort of tyranny of small differences ha in fact minuscule differences occupies a kind of unique pedigree o on the left. I think you're seeing a bit of that. I think you're seeing two personalities who are actually quite ill suited to ironically enough

Collectivist collaborative working. Corbyn one thing I think is always mis bit misunderstood about Corbyn is that um obviously because he has this image as a kind of slightly sort of grandfatherly kind of sort of gentleman gentleman, you know, doing work on his allotment.

He's got a lot of pride, you know, he's quite a prideful guy. Um sometimes I think, you know, at times teetering on a certain sort of arrogance, you know, some people have have talked about before. I can see why people would say that. Um lots of people in politics do, but I think that he would be very, very reluctant to sort of share that

stage with Zoltana, clearly they've clashed. I mean there was all this talk about them being a kind of Bernie Sanders AOC kind of and you can see that that's quite an interesting kind of parallel. But the truth is I think the two are Not really in that league, um, in terms of of that comparison. And the third the third thing is I think that, you know, I do think it's the Polanski thing. You know, there was a moment when there was a clear open space For an economically leftist.

Populist party to break through to Labour's Left. Unfortunately for your party, just as they got going, and obviously they sabotaged themselves as well. Polansky has occupied that space. So there's just an obvious point which is what's the point? What's the difference? And when you know Zoltano's been asked about that, basically it gets into, you know, pretty marginal stuff.

about attitudes to Israel. She saying that there should be you know, we think uh your party thinks there should be no diplomatic relations with all with Israel and the Green Party does support continued diplomatic relations. It's like if that's the point of difference that is not enough to sustain a separate political project. A job share is quite hard. I mean going back to that earlier question about sort of charisma, there is something where you coalesce round one person.

You know, and listen to their thoughts. When you've got a job share at the top And you're kind of ping ponging between two people's views however slight the differences are, it becomes much harder to know why you would sort of invest in them and and the leadership that represents. It's inevitably fraught. I mean think of

Going back to David Steele. So you share the stage between two or three people on a daily basis, so I can't imagine. No, no, no, no. That that would no, that was that's just a recipe for disaster. I mean, remember David Steele being in the pocket of David Owen and that was it's kind of completely undermined.

The sort of alliance back in the early eighties where David Steele thought he was being p p perpetually undermined by what Spitting Image was doing to him. Anyway, right, we'll be back after the break. With a ward win. Okay, under rank. Here in Edinburgh. Marks. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff. Listen on our LBC app. Leading Britain's conversation. The news agents. And we're back.

Hi gang, love the honest pod. My question and all the work Lewis has done with AI, he can answer. Latest estimates is that AI will take 300-600 million jobs by twenty thirty. When the jobs figures came out last week, no news outlet or politician asked how many of those job losses were due to AI. Even if the UK losed twenty million jobs the next five years because of AI,

Are the government or any government in the world planning for a big drop in income tax and benefit payment increases, keep up the good work? Could ask Lewis or could just ask Chat GPT? Yeah. Should we do that? Yeah. Oh I'll do I tell you what, you t you talk, you talk and I'll just do a you're answering the question. I'm answering the question. Well look I think i I think it's a a really um I think it's a really a pertinent question because

when we did the report that in References, which is there's also now a a film version of that, which is on YouTube and Global Player, which you can watch, that was kind of the whole point of it, which is there's been loads and loads, there's been endless sort of tech coverage about how amazing or how terrifying

AI might be. But in a way we're not in a position necessarily the best p people to sort of address that. But what I do think we can address, and what needs to be talked about more, is the political consequences of of this. And the tax revenue point is a really interesting one because I think most economists would say, most economists would say that certainly in the short term there are going to be significant job losses or

Rather there will be less hiring than there might have been. We saw Amazon just this week say they were gonna lay off twenty two thousand people in their corporate structure, largely powered by AI, you know, about four percent of their global workforce. And of course there are revenue implications for that.

I mean the hope obviously will be that the productivity gains that AI unleashes will be so significant that you will be able to generate lots of new revenues and there may be such efficiency gains in say the public sector, NHS and elsewhere

that maybe that itself sort of generates enough savings to offset it. But of course, no one knows for sure. There's the other big economic question of course which lots of people are talking about is whether so much of this stuff is a bubble. I mean I don't know if other you saw yesterday that NVIDIA, which is just insane. Nvidia, you know, not just AI, but like chips. You know, they are now valued at eight.

trillion dollars, right? Like this is more than GDP, I think, pretty much of every country in the world apart from the US and China, right? This is mad stuff. And the AI Boom in particular just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger because so many firms don't want to lose out. They're so terrified. Investment firms and banks and the rest are so terrified of missing out on the bit this sort of golden goose.

But of course it is possible that a bit like the dot com bubble in the late nineties it could burst and that will have all sorts of economic implications. Right, do you want the answer? Chatty Jeeps? I've just asked. Chatty Jeeps. No, you can't be saying that. How many jobs have been lost to AI in the UK in twenty twenty five?

I could not find any relying on the Well they would say that, wouldn't they? It's a cover up. You're covering it up. I'll just ask if it's a cover up. It does say yeah, they quote the IPPR, the Institute of Public Policy research estimates jobs that could be lost. Is this a cover-up? There's so many elements to this though as well. It's not just like uh in terms of revenues and governments not thinking about it. Like to take a slightly different example, it's like electric cars.

What happens with the foot revenue loss from from fuel duty? The only way really that you can really seriously probably do it is road price. And no one wants to talk or even think about that. There there's example example after this. We're in this this this extraordinary new wave of technological development with so many political implications. Well also I mean going back to your point, Lewis, about the bubble, is that the fact of the matter is that we don't know whether AI

It looks like it's going to deliver a fundamental change and it's going to be as anything as big since the you know, the internal combustion engine or whatever you want or you know, the internet. But it we we don't know yet. what the impact is going to be. And that's why it could be a bubble, because if it doesn't deliver these dramatic changes, then huge numbers of people are going to have invested vast sums of money

that we'll all end up paying for that will make the two thousand eight financial crash seem, you know, quite genteel in comparison. So Yeah, the only thing I'd say is that the dot com bubble which struck in two thousand was obviously not the end of either dot or com or the internet. You know, so sometimes you can have the bursting of a bubble because we are not quite at the point of maximum capacity at that point. The financial crisis wasn't the end of financial services or banks.

Exactly. You pick up and it and it happens again. So all that happened in two thousand was that the overvaluation had come too quickly. But now, you know, look at what you're saying about NVIDIA. Nobody's kind of going, Oh yeah, the internet never took off, did it? This is a really good question from Paul Hayward.

I hear you all talk about the Overton window. Can you please explain its origins and meaning? Thanks. So yeah, so but we do use it all the time. We probably should explain more. We talk about the overton window all the time, which is basically we might talk For example, when we were talking about Sarah Poachin, say the other day and what she said, you know, following in Robert Jenrick's fine example of just counting as many white faces as she can.

and counting as many black and brown faces as she can and then getting really angry about it. We would say that maybe the fact she felt able to say that and say it that it visits was just totally normal is an example of the Overton window shifting, i.e., an idea that would once have seemed forbidden or taboo from saying, she now feels able to say it. And that is an example of the Overton window siss shift. Joseph Overton. Joseph Overton. A former senior vice president.

at the McKinnock Centre for Public Policy. And he proposed that political viability of an idea depends on whether it falls within acceptability range rather than individual preferences. So in other words, you think that you're thinking things according to your own individual choices, but you're not. You're part of something that

has grown to understand a different acceptability range than the one that you used to see. Brexit's a great example. Yeah, Brexit was once considered a completely fringe idea on the absolute fringes of politics and gradually over time it shifted into something that became mainstream and now is not just mainstream, but basically is sort of accepted received wisdom across much of the political spectrum.

Same sex marriage would be another one, something that seems completely fringe and extreme, eventually becomes centre. So the window can shift and it can shift in lots of different things. Common misconception is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the Overton window. And apparently for the Overton window to be a true Overton window, lawmakers have to respond to what is the public mood.

Of whether or not it it has shifted. Well same sex marriage is a good example of that. It's who drives it, in other words.

often a mi and it basically this is really interest it's a really interesting it's a really interesting thing to think about because it's sort of like basically it poses the question where do ideas in politics come from and how do they germinate and how do they become acceptable? And the truth is is that Often there's all sorts of different ways and and ideas that start off often fringe, you know

written about by academics or think tanks or whatever it happens to be, you know, gradually sort of percolate their way through the system and eventually become the same. The only thing I'd say is that I think that the missing key in that is the media. And this goes back to the conversation that we're always having, which is

You know, do lawmakers come up with the ideas or do the public, you know, tell the lawmakers what they want? And we sometimes underestimate the power, particularly I think that the tabloid press has had in this country, at completely changing what the public perceives as okay? I would say in relation to that, look. talk about gay marriage, I would say the biggest change in my lifetime is attitudes towards homosexuality. And the tabloids were trying to still do kind of gotcha

stories on a Tory MP having a gay relationship and there being no other story other than it was a gay relationship. The Sun headline when David Furnish and Elton John got married was Elton takes David up the aisle. Ha ha ha ha ha. And you can see there that the attitudes about that had not shifted at all. But the public had shifted. And the then the papers had to catch up with where the public was. And I think that that's an area where I think that we can overestimate sometimes.

the power that the tabloids have. to affect public opinion. And I think that, you know Well certainly now. Certainly now. I mean certainly now, I don't think they do have that same impact that they once did. I think what's interesting about the overwhelm window is it that it started to generate its own power within politics as a concept.

So what was basically started off at from an academic as someone trying to sort of conceptualise an idea, it's almost become a sort of objective in politics in itself.

You know, you've got political actors now who actively talk about shifting the window and wanting to shift the window and will and you see this is where the nexus with social media happens, will you know, positive extreme ideas or extreme language, as extreme as possible, with it even though they probably know that it well, they definitely know A it will get a reaction, and B

that idea might not be realized at that moment, with the aim of simply shifting the window along a little bit. And you're seeing this on the radical right a lot at the moment, particularly with regards to race. Some of it is simply about them sort of daring to say things they have long believed. Some of it is about trying to actively conceptualize the window and move it along so their ideas become more mainstream over time. Let's take it on the opp opposite side. You mentioned Brexit.

I wonder if NATO like Polansky went as close as I've heard him in the last couple of weeks saying, you know, if I if I w won an election I would take us out of NATO, right? That seems preposterous I think to most British people right now. I wonder if that would ever gain enough favour for

enough favour to kind of make that a totally normal position. Where you go, Yeah, don't really like being part of these wars, don't really like being part of Well we've got Donald Trump in the US considering taking America out of NATO, so doesn't that doesn't sound that far fetched, does it? We'll be back after the break.

The news agents. And before we go, one final question. Seeing as today is his final day working with the news agents, what's your favourite memory of working with cameraman Rory? And that question comes from Rory. We'll be back next week. See you then. Bye bye. Bye for now. This has been a Global Player original production.