Q&A: the Epstein files, Corbyn as PM, and are Reform clickbait?

This is a Global Player Original Podcast. Welcome to a special August QA edition of The news agents. We do'em every fortnight roughly. Is it special? Is it is is the content gonna be special or is the

Special because it's you and me and it's August. That's yes, exactly. Well the Countess is always away in August, as we know, so that's not that special. Right. Let's start with this question from Francis. Hi newsagents, love the podcast. I have a question that's not very newsy. I hope that's okay. I enjoyed your mention of Dictionary Corner and Call My Bluff on Tuesday's episode and it made me wonder if you could host any TV show, past or present.

Which would it be? Well did you I hope you enjoyed equally our singing of the theme tune. Mm. Maybe we'll have to do that again depending on the one we choose. Yeah, okay. Hmm. Oh I mean s honestly there's just too many. As a true quiz show. Aficionado. There's just too many. There's too many. Countdown. I mean obviously we talk about that. Love countdown. The Krypton factor. Oh yeah. What else would there be? Oh I'd love to do the crystal man.

That would be great. I know all that Richard guy does it, but I don't think he does it terribly well. I think I could do it a lot better. Oh no, I've never thought about that, John. I definitely would not think he lied to genuinely I definitely wouldn't like that. What about you? Naked attraction? Yeah, that would be me. Yeah. Uh

No, I want to be Attenborough. I just want to be You want to be Attenborough And there's going through the jungle and there's the lesser spotted Lewis Gooddle approaching his you know, etcetera. You wouldn't like a quiz show? News at ten?

Fancy bit of that? No. No. Boring. No. Boring. A man who spent Vuci's entire career on the news at ten times in fact that is quite boring at this point. But I think being a correspondent, great, where you're telling the stories. And if you're just reading an introduction and saying Here's this report from Lewis Goodall. There's your headline daily mail. John Sopel, news at ten. Boring. Welcome to the new. What does it all mean?

I mean realistically it's not that interesting a job. Realistically look, I think that being a correspondent, being the editor choosing what goes into it, but actually being the newsreader He's probably really dull. Sorry Clive, welcome to the news agents. The news agents. It's John. It's Lewis. And I've probably just got myself into a whole heap of trouble for decrying all my former colleagues at the BBC and at ITV who read the news. Sorry guys.

Yeah. Not really. Sticking with it. Yeah, well fair play. Thomas Ireland has sent a question. And has said this. I graduated from university last week with a first in genetics. All right, Tom. All right. All right, don't get it. Don't get boastful. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, show off. Thank you for being my go-to study podcast about genetics. Why don't we ever discuss genetics on this podcast? Not enough as far as I'm concerned. My question is do you think if reform or the new Corbin Sultana Party won a general election?

There would actually be dramatic policy changes that they would campaign for. Has the public's tolerance for radical change opened up enough, or would it just be a Liz Truss style blip before a return to a more moderate, technocratic style of the major party? That's a great question. Look, I suspect the problem would be that if you go in with a whole heap of pledges that the markets think are nonsense or unfunded.

Then you get the bond markets reacting, and you know, there's that great quote from James Carville, I thought I wanted to be reincarnated as the Pope or a King. But I realise now I want to come back as the bomb markets'cause you can intimidate everybody. I don't think that a Jeremy Corbyn Sultana government would be immune from that. And they exist in a real world, in an interconnected, globalized world, and I just don't think they would be able to do whatever they wanted.

in that narrow sense without facing a likely economic crisis in the same way that Liz Truss with her unfunded tax cuts did. Yeah, I think that's um one of the really Sad, disturbing, worrying, but nonetheless I think immovable trends of contemporary British politics is.

the rise again of the of the bond markets. It was something that was more prevalent in other parts of post war British history, particularly th the nineteen seventies. But it is true that, you know, Britain is more indebted than it has ever been.

servicing our debt is now pretty much the third or fourth biggest government department in terms of spending, depending on h on how you measure it. And I know there'll be people listening to this who say, no, this is a sort of very conventional way of looking at economics. You can have

MMT monetary theory, the government can just print its own money. And yes, there are of course different versions of macroeconomics that you could try to experiment with, but it is undoubtedly the case and I think it is Unaarguable.

that we are not in the mid twenty tens anymore. In the mid twenty tens, when the ear in the era of loose monetary policy, in the era of record low interest rates, there was far more capacity with such demand for government bonds and government debt ex existed at that time. There was far more capacity for states, for governments that were in debt.

To borrow cheaply and to finance their debt inexpensively, which opened up a whole range of policy positions. When Corbyn ran in 2017, I would say both Brexit. And Corbinism were in their own ways and it's it's a slightly indirect thing, but I would say that they were in their own ways products of that era of that cheap money era. Because you could do things like Brexit.

Which were clearly a macroeconomic risk. And you could do it with reasonable certainty that it wasn't going to be the bond markets weren't going to come for you. For indulging in that risk. Likewise, when Corbinism was at its peak in in twenty seventeen, you could pledge To do many of the things that he wanted to do with increased borrowing and it not seemed like a systemic risk to the economy. We are in a different economic era now.

And as we saw with the truss experiment and so on, I think we would potentially see again with Corbyn, he would be governing in very different circumstances to when he looked like he was close to governing. I mean look, you've seen that report this week about the size of the black hole that Rachel Reeves is going to have to fill when she does her budget. You know, there's a forty million forty billion, sorry, I should say, black hole that needs to be addressed.

You can't just will these things away and I think that were she to announce that there was going to be a massive increase in taxation on this, well then she'd be probably breaking her manifesto pledges. If she was to come up with other taxes, it would probably be unworkable. If she was to come up with a massive increase in borrowing

then the cost of government bonds, selling government bonds would go up and up and up and so that the debt would become unsustainable. I mean this is just the real world that you're living in. And so I think that and e and equally, you know, even if it's let's just say it's a Farage government and reform has won the election and Farage wants to get rid of all the, you know, illegal immigrants.

As you said earlier on in the week, Lewis, well what are you gonna do? Throw them out of planes and drop them onto Afghanistan? I mean there are no easy answers to some of these problems and that's the problem of the crisis. it would seem to me of politics at the moment that you I've got people wanting more and more radical solutions and governments less and less able to shape how they can do things kind of you just can't pull levers.

that you thought politicians were able to do to suddenly dramatically change course? Yeah, I mean the the closest equivalent I think that there would be'cause there is some history of this happening before, would be what happened to the the Mitterrand government in the the French Mitterrand government in the early eighties, which again was elected on a

I mean it's a bit anachronistic, but you could broadly say a sort of Corbinite kind of type of politics. And that government struggled precisely because at that time France not as indebted then as it is now, but The bond markets did come for them and it did force a profound change in reversal in the sort of Keynesian left wing statist economic policies that Mitterrand was pursuing. Now Mitterrand went on to be reelected and was a successful French president, but there is for people who sort of

would doubt the sort of things that we're saying. There is there is history to it. Now I think what Corbyn would do, and I think the way in which he would be different. to um Starmer and certainly, you know, some of Liz Trust, both radical in their own ways, is that clearly he would be far more interested in more aggressive wealth taxation, more aggressive income.

taxation, he would expand the percentage of the economy that was devoted to state spending. Again, um it would be an interesting experiment and I think there are things you could definitely do on on wealth taxation. But of course, you know, we are dealing in an era of of where capital is mobile, people may leave, you know, there are trade offs in all of these things.

you know, Corbin would be able to do things and I think you would certainly see big changes in or some some changes at least in terms of foreign policy, you'd see a more radical left foreign policy, things that were cheap to do. I think there'd be a lot of symbolic things. When Corbyn I remember asking Corbyn once what would the first thing that he would have done if he'd won the twenty seventeen election and people forget now

he was only ten or fifteen seats away from becoming the largest party or at least being able to form a government. You know, Theresa May if she'd lost another ten seats, she wouldn't have been able to form a uh deal with the with the DUP. He said he would have, you know, stood outside the steps of Downing Street and had said, Homelessness is gonna end tonight. No one will be homeless. Councils will be forced, obliged to take people. I think you would see those

sort of slightly more micro but nonetheless important, big sort of symbolic actions. But in terms of the wider macroeconomic picture, a Corbyn government would struggle. Just as this government is struggling and any incoming government would struggle with all of the problems we're seeing. It's interesting to look at it through the historical lens and say, Well okay, where was there a radical change of government?

after a general election. I mean the most radical change of government was not after a general election, it was when Liz Truss became Prime Minister and she suddenly introduced her budget, which was suddenly completely outlandish. But the you know, the move from John Major to Tony Blair. Forty five, probably, right? Yeah, forty five. Forty five the establishment of the health service. The closest in the modern era we would have come to would have been twenty seventeen.

to decry Corbin and to, you know, say that he was a political failure and of course his leadership ultimately was a political failure. People do forget now. Astonishingly, he got forty percent of the vote in twenty seventeen. He was this close, this close to becoming Prime Minister. And that would have been a very radical change from the Theresa May government. And that's why I think one of the reasons I don't think he should be underestimated.

For those of us listening and not watching it, when Louis Goodall was saying it was this close He had his thumb and his forefinger, and they were very short distance apart. Yep. Something I do a lot. Yep, watch on YouTube. That was a deep analysis there from your local friendly podcast geneticist John Sober, Lewis Goodall, otherwise known as the Crick and Watson. Of political podcasting. Also why d uh look Thomas, congratulations on your first But did we need to know you got a first?

I mean did it add to your point? Don't lay into it that much. We've done it already. I mean, honestly, the poor lad, he's just proud of his first. Good on him. He'll probably be treating you not that you've got genetic problems, I assume, but I mean, you know, he'll probably he might be treating you at some problems. At some future day. Now Paul Graham has sent us a voice note and a question.

Hi guys, um Paul here. Uh firstly I just want to say I absolutely love your relationship, Lewis and John. You have me crying laughing sometimes. You're like a modern day um listen large. Anyway, Seriously, Benjamin Netanyahu, do we think do you think that we could ever see him being arrested for war crimes? Do you think it's in the near future? in the not so distant future or do you think if he's ever

gotten out of office, he could get arrested and put away. Again, just want to say love the show, um and uh good luck with today's QA. That really is a question in two halves, isn't it? A bit of a gear change from pointing all the way through the the the glorious relationship of Lu I mean

Lovely to hear. Yeah. Little and large little and large. What next week is that we've got to do that. Maybe that's the T maybe that's T V show we go back to. Yeah. Yeah. It's fair to say you sometimes have me crying rarely crying laughing. But anyway, there we are. Let's not get into that. Um You know, it's hard to see at the moment that Netanyahu is going to fly anywhere where he's got any risk of being arrested.

I mean there was the whole example of Pinochet coming to London and being arrested and the kind of enormous diplomatic incident that followed uh from that. But there are people. I mean, where the long arm of the law, Rodrigo Duterte, from Trump's first term, was the president of the Philippines. He is facing war crimes now. And Is in The Hague. So these things are not impossible. And I think that the legacy of Netanyahu is I mean we discussed it on the podcast on Tuesday.

is pretty horrific for what he has done and what he has done in a bid to keep himself in power and away from these corruption charges. Yeah, I find it I find it hard to See the circumstances. I don't know about you. I mean, like I mean, obviously Israel isn't signatory to the to the Rome Statute, which is the treaty that established the the ICC. So even if there were a future

government in Israel that had a very different view about what happened, they'd have to sign up to the ICC which feels extrem unlikely. The US obviously isn't either. Obviously if he ever comes to the UK, then the government at that time would, according to the treaty at least, be obliged to start the processes of of his arrest. But I think that is one of the many reasons why Netanyahu will never come to the UK or anywhere else other than the United States and Israel again, possibly for the

the rest of his life. But I I find it Which in itself is remarkable. Amaze I mean at Star You know, which in itself is remarkable. He was a regular visitor to this country. There is a significant Jewish population in London, but he's not going to London, he's not going to Paris, he's not going to R you're all these countries. being basically forbidden yes because of the nature of international law and and our membership of the ICC. Not being able to travel to a country like the UK.

And that in itself is I bet it hurts. I bet it is a source of shame. I bet among Israelis they will hate the idea that they are becoming a pariah state. And I do think this is kind of there is a pressure Building. I mean we discussed on the podcast the other day th w what's going on in Israel and I met someone this morning who's

cousin is Israeli. They said to me he will go to prison rather than go back into Gaza. He will be a conscientious objector. I think that there is things happening there. As we said on the podcast the other day, Israel is not Benjamin Netanyahu.

Matthew Hulbert has sent a question. Saying why are the Lib Dems largely no no compliment from Matthew by the way as well. So I'm I'm almost I'm almost loath to read it out. Either about our genetics expertise or our our comedy material. Why the Lib Dems, Matthew, I'll be generous, largely ignored by the media.

when they are the largest commons third force in a century, or is moderation too unsexy for the increasingly clickbaity media of today? Thanks. And it's interesting you should ask that, Matthew. I know for a fact from conversations I've had with very senior Lib Dems that they are very pissed off about this. That they believe that um particularly with the BBC but others as well.

that they feel that there is such agitation, there is such a desire from the BBC and others to prove that they are not ignoring reform and Nigel Farage. that they are ignoring their obligations to other parties. And don't get me wrong, it it's a it is a tough thing to calibrate because you have two slightly competing imperatives. On the one hand, you've got the fact that reform

are in commons terms tiny. You know, I mean they sort of hover around because various different MPs get suspended at different times, but they're at any given moment they're between sort of four and six. And then you've got that Lib Dems, who as as Matthew rightly says, they're the biggest commons third party force in the Commons since the nineteen twenties.

Apparently ignored. I mean I was very struck the other day that when Farage was doing one of his press conferences and he was saying very little. He was just talking about his latest plans on this, that or the other, but it was pretty sort of minor stuff. It was being carried live by Sky and the BBC.

And there's no way in a million years that if Ed Davy were getting up and just having a press conference and it wasn't something reasonably substantial, it wouldn't be covered live. I have some sympathy for broadcasters trying to kind of calibrate this, but I think the calibration is too far in one direction at the moment. Do you know what? Years and years ago when the BBC did the live coverage on B B C one and B B C two of the party conferences and I used to kind of present that coverage.

There was a dinner that the then directed? No, it's great actually. I've I have to do that. If it had been the ten o'clock news it would have been boring. Which I was invited to, and the Liberal Democrat leader comes along to this dinner and John Burt said to him, Right, should we leave our guns just outside the door and we could just sit and have a civilised dinner? Because the Liberal Democrats I think have always felt that they have been given a bad

treatment by conventional broadcasters'cause they're neither one thing nor the other. And I think that the clickbaity point is true. That we want to hear from Zara Sultana. And Jeremy Corbyn, and we want to hear from Nigel Farage because of the progress that reform is being made, and we do give the impression. That unless you've got an extreme point of view to articulate

then frankly, yeah, we'll cover Labour and we'll cover the Tories, but we're not really interested in anybody else. Yeah, and I think that this is why this deficit of coverage is one of the reasons why if you ask sort of Lib Dem AIDS and operatives

Obviously Davy got some criticism from the way he conducted the twenty twenty four general election. You know, there wasn't a log flume in Britain that wasn't that wasn't that wasn't graced by the Lib Dems the Wib Lib Dem leaders behind. But it was nonetheless An attempt from them

to break through in a way that did not indulge in some of those deeply kind of simplistic and populist messaging, but nonetheless created some attention, created some interest connected with people. And I sort of felt kind of

two things at once about it, I thought I could totally see it. And it was very effective. It was really effective. It generated loads of publicity. It was great social media content and so on. It's also a little bit depressing at the same time that a leader of a party with the historic stature of the Lib Dems or the Liberals before

would feel compelled or obliged to have to do it, but that is the sort of media environment we're in. But yeah, I think it it is not, by the way, a discontent or an unhappiness. that is shared or is had by the Lib Dems alone, other smaller parties and indeed even the Labour and Conservative parties have some complaint with the level and volume of coverage.

that Farage achieves. That is partly to Farage's political credit that he's able to do it. He does know he's a skilled player of the game at this, but I think it is undoubtedly true that some of it is being generated and born from a worry and concern of being seen not to cover them. And there is an over correction and overcompensation. It's the self apologetic aspect of the media where we got it wrong, Brexit. We didn't realise what the country was thinking.

We didn't realise that the people were so concerned about immigration as they were. If Nigel Farage says something, we've got to cover it. Because we'll then be accused of being the mouthpiece of mainstream politics. And I think that it's gone just touchy. Too far where Farage opens his mouth and he gets on the television regardless. And we're gonna shut our mass briefly for a break. We'll be back just after this. This is

So let us crack on. We've got a voice note from Sean in Newcastle. Hello, John, Emily and Lewis. This is Sean from Newcastle. Firstly, thank you for the brilliant podcast. I'm eagerly awaiting Lewis's John Sobel biography. My question relates to RFK Junior, who's the current health secretary in America.

This week he announced a withdrawal of five hundred million dollars of funding for the development of mRNA vaccines, which comes after he fired all seventeen committee members that issue official government recommendations on immunisations. with some people who have criticized the safety and effectiveness of vaccinations. My question is, how does this impact those of us outside the US? Finally, is there any opposition to the changes in the US?

or are RFK Junior's vaccine sceptic views generally accepted? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Keep up the great work. Thanks. A nice compliment there. That's very very important. Let others learn from that. All right, so we're only going to include questions now where people are sycophantic or saying how wonderful they are. To be honest, I thought that was a policy position we already possessed.

I'm amazed that some have slipped through the net. So you've either got to be complimentary or have a first in genetics. Yeah, something like that. We're getting a few messages from uh various T V news presenters by the way as we're going through there, calling you a complete wanker. Tom Bradby says honestly who the h the hell does this guy think he is? Fuck off. Even Trevor MacDonald's got involved. Honestly. We've got we're getting some bile in for you. Honestly, any has she commented yet?

Uh not yet, but we've sent the word out, so we'll get that s we'll get her comments before the end. Yeah, Moria Stewart as well, by the way. Yeah, we're still waiting to hear from her, but she's so polite. Right. Is this riff going to carry on for another couple of minutes? So our editor in that break just said to us Can we be a little tighter in the second half? And somehow we've mentioned Moira Stewart. Um do we think it has much of an effect outside the US?

Well my question is does this impact those of us outside the US is in his vaccine scepticism and and the what he's done in terms of funding? Well I suspect that the some of the big pharma companies if they've kind of thinking Well the grants have dried up here and if you're at universities and you were getting grants from the US and you suddenly might start thinking

I wonder whether I'd be better off in Canada or London or anywhere else where you've got great seats of learning and you've got a history of academic research. I think it's incredibly short sighted. I mean I do think RFK junior is a fascinating Health and Human Services Secretary. Because on the one hand you've got the kind of appalling vandalism of just saying, Right, we're gonna take all this money out of MRNA research when the vaccines allowed a lot of us to kind of resume normal life.

post COVID. But he's also doing some really interesting work in terms of wanting to take on big ag, big pharma, the food industry and the like. And so I think his kind of legacy is pretty mixed. Yeah, I I actually think that, um long after the Trump administration has has shuffled off into the far distance of history, I think that one of the things that will the most impactful legacies that will linger for a long time is the effect on scientific research and so on.

that happened really early on with Doge and Musk shutting off federal funding to Harvard and other research institutions. I mean there was there was so much going on in those early days, but I remember so being so struck by

some of the reporting that was coming out talking about, you know, astonishing work on cancer and treatments for cancer, you know, being stopped in their tracks. Just being stopped in their tracks. MS. other degenerative diseases just being stopped because either because people were losing their visas, either because federal funding was disappearing and there's you say, John, that stuff, once it's gone, it's gone and it's not easy to pick up again and there'll be su

Reluctance from the leading research scientists of the world and so on to resume their work in the United States because even if let's say, I don't know, Gavin Newsom becomes president or whoever in in twenty twenty eight, there's always that lingering sense and worry about whether science in the US has become so partisan you know, views on science has become so highly partisan that they are gonna be permanent political environment which is just polarized.

And which is going to be a sort of systemic risk to to scientific research over the long term. And you have to do it over the long term because scientific research doesn't fit neatly into electoral cycles. It it takes place over years and years and decades. And you look at the treatment of Anthony Fauci. who was the head of the spearhead, the medical lead in the fight against Covid nineteen. He'd also

done AIDS research. He was an astonishing public servant. His commitment was to public health of the United States of America and the rest of the world. Under under presidents of of both parties. Under presidents of both parties he had been brilliant during the Bush era, Obama era. And suddenly he is now a political football requiring bodyguards twenty four seven. And you just think, why would anyone

who put themselves forward for that. I why don't I just do have a private list of patients who I'll see, I'll make a ton of money, I'll join the country club, but I won't get the shit that I'm gonna get by being in the crosshairs of a partisan country which sees scientists as part of that political football. And in terms of answering the question about is there opposition E within the US. It's like, Yeah, of course. But that's the point. It starts to divide down partisan lines and thank God

You know, we haven't had that to nearly the same extent in this country or in Europe, but you see glimmers of it. And I think that's one of the ways in which the RFK stuff does affect us.

It's not so much directly in terms of the development of vaccines and so on, although doubtless there will be medical treatments, as we say, which are never developed or are delayed substantially, which would eventually have been rolled out to us, so that will affect us. But I think the general kind of anti science discourse, the sort of sense that

science becomes polarized. It does obviously legitimise when you have someone like Trump or someone like RFK at that level of American government. It legitimizes this stuff. And we see clearly we see it in the effect of that in the politics of our own country. It's a slow thing.

But it legitimizes it in a way that it would not have been legitimized or widespread only a few years ago. Look at the uptake of the measles vaccine. Yeah. Does anyone want a return of measles being widespread with the devastating effects that that can have? And yet at the moment the numbers of people getting their kids vaccinated with MMR is in decline and you just think this is terrible. This is madness.

Question from Ace, nineteen eighties Doctor Who companion, of course, Ace Playboy. Ace of Bass?

Ace. Oh just ace? Yeah. Oh right. Oh I got what's the song? Uh Oh we're not gonna sing again, are we? Yeah we're gonna sing again. Oh, okay fine. Um no ace played by the great Sophie Aldred, if you're listening, Sophie. Anyway, is it naive to think that the Epstein files will ever see the light of day?

No, I think it's naive to think that you're gonna learn everything, that there's gonna be a wholesale distribution. I mean the House of Representatives have subpoenaed the Department of Justice to hand over everything they've got. That ain't going

to happen. I think there'll be highlights of Grand jury testimony, which we already sort of know about, which led to the prosecution of Ghlaine Maxwell, which was the case that was going to be made against Geoffrey Epstein if he hadn't killed himself in prison or been murdered.

Let's feed the conspiracy theories, but I don't think that they were gonna hand over anything that could be in any way compromising to Donald Trump or embarrassing to Donald Trump. I just don't see it happening I mean when you consider just how Profoundly damaging this entire episode has been to Trump. The only thing that's really touched the sides since his restoration and reelection. And even that is just

So interesting, right? Like the kind of the MAGA movement learning that if you live by the sword you die by the sword. And that you in the end you can rail against the establishment and you can create this politics of conspiracy and paranoia and augment the deep sense of paranoia that there's always been in American politics and you can ride that wave and you can ride that wave and you can ride that wave. And then you become the political establishment. You become the state.

And then suddenly those exact forces, those same forces don't just go away. I almost felt sorry for Truman I didn't but I I almost I had sort of had a sort rueful laugh. when he was saying the other day that everybody just needs to sort of stop asking these questions. That's just getting silly now. It's like, well you can't. You know, you've opened Pandora's box or at the very least you've you've ridden this way.

And when you become the establishment, when you become the state, you find yourself subject to exactly those same pressures and exactly that paranoid style that you have done so much to heighten and to augment. And there is a sort of poetic justice to that. Yeah, there is nothing more deep state in a conspiracy theorist's mind

than to say there is nothing to see here. And that is exactly what Donald Trump is trying to say to the American public. Oh, move on, nothing to see here. It's all nothing. It's like that old joke about conspiracy theorists. You know that one about you know the one about conspiracy theorists dying. Goes to heaven. Yeah. But do you want to tell it? I'll let I'll let you do it. Out of deference to your age, John.

Conspiracy theorist dies, goes to heaven, and God says to him, You've got one question And the guy scratches his head and says, Okay Who killed JFK? And God says to him, it was Lee Harvey Oswald and he acted alone. And the guy looks aghast and says, This goes even deeper than I thought. And it is that sort of comedy styling that makes us one of the unparalleled comedy duos of our age. We'll be back just after this.

This is Before we go, a question from Josh. It feels like we're living in really dangerous times, with seemingly greater global tensions and nations at war than at any time I can remember. So I wonder when you think within the last, say, hundred years. Global tensions were at their calmest and the world was seeing the fewest active wars, and importantly, do you think we were aware of it at the time?

This is a really, really interesting question and it gets to the heart of um something that I think is a real narrowness of our politics, our media and also, going back a little bit to the discussion we had on on Hiroshima earlier in the week, the narrowness of our understanding of history. Because it is very it has received wisdom and it's been very commonplace to say that, you know, we're living in

times of almost unprecedented uncertainty, a time of of poly crisis, you know, where there's just crisis everywhere and it and it's all linked. And of course things are profoundly uncertain. There is huge geopolitical tension. It can be scary. I'm not sure though that by comparison to much of the twentieth century, with perhaps the exemption and I think this is where a lot of this this is coloured from, the late nineteen nineties. Yeah. Pre two thousand one.

Actually you can point I think I could sit we could sit here and go through each decade of the twentieth century. And you can point to endless crises. You can point to endless geopolitical Even in eras and periods which we think of somehow as sort of being grey and dull, people often talk about the 1950s, for example, and this rising consumer.

kind of wave and all that and all that's true. But you also have the Korean War. You have the prospect of of nuclear conflagration between the United the Soviet Union and and the United States. To take another one people always talk about, they talk about um the Edwardian period and the kind of golden summer of that time. did not feel like that. If you were living then in Britain you had huge geopolitical tension with the rising United States.

and Germany, you had massive kind of conflagrations at home with kind of, you know, protests over rights to women and suffragettes. You had, you know, massive industrial discontent with, you know, rising trade union movements. You go forward to the nineteen twenties, you have the general strike You have Ireland basically coming to almost civil war in the nineteen ten. So if you were, I think, sitting in almost any age You don't sit there and go.

We're in a golden age of relative prosperity and stability. There is always in any era, and often in any era, profound unease and angst about the future, because that is what we're like as human beings, and a lot of tension within the geopolitical system. So sometimes I think we get a bit We almost aggrandize ourselves to believe that we are living in uniquely difficult times. And actually I think that that often if you look through history is not the case.

I would say that the year you were born, nineteen eighty nine, felt like a year of optimism. when the Iron Curtain came down, the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a kind of move towards democracies.

Francis Fukuyama wrote this book, The End of History and people thought oh well it's the triumph of liberal democracy and we all live happily ever after, which of course it didn't turn out to be. But there was a kind of You know, growing up and we talked on the other day on the podcast about Hiroshima. And the effect of that. You know, I grew up very aware of every time there was a sort of rise in tensions between

the Soviet Union and the United States of America and could this lead to nuclear war and the, you know, invasion of Czechoslovakia in nineteen sixty eight or whatever it happened to be. There would be these things, fixed points where you think, Oh my God There'd be these books about how to protect and survive and what you're to do in the event of a nuclear war. It felt at the nineteen nineties. That the risk of that had depleted considerably. It felt like we were there.

living in a unipolar world, that the Soviet Union had collapsed, that China wasn't the great power that it is today, and that American hegemony was there to stay. And of course, look, within Europe there was the breakup of Yugoslavia, which caused the most terrible fighting. But it was pretty localized. It didn't feel like it was ever going to spread to anywhere that was going to affect your life.

And I think it did feel and of course, you know, nine eleven was the kind of okay, we're a new century now and w it's being defined by what happens on nine eleven with those planes flying into the World Trade Centre and the like. And I th so I think there was a brief period then you could breathe a little easier and governments were taking decisions, right, well we don't need the old biblical line of turning swords into ploughshares. Yeah the peace dividend. The peace dividend.

Obviously the period in the late nineties. of unusual stability. It was a very rare moment of unipolar power. You know, these moments don't exist very often where there is one power that is so hegemonic that it's able to create order. And the world, I mean the w in a way, the world which epitomises our own period, it feels, is disorder. And it feels as if the world is increasingly disorderly. There's also which is probably unique, the the threat of of climate change, which is so

systemic and overwhelming that previous periods have not had. But I suppose what I'm trying to say is exactly that. The period of order, of geopolitical order and stability, which did exist in the late nineties for a few years, you know, smattering views, that is the aberration That is the abnormality. Actually generally speaking if you take the sweep.

of modern history, certainly in the twentieth century, but even before. Generally speaking, there is not a hegemonic power. It was British Empire was for b large periods of the nineteenth century. Yes, we had the United States at the end of the twentieth century. But actually what they're generally is what history is usually characterised by

Is geopolitical tension between established powers and rising powers. That is a tale as old as history itself. And more than that, History is usually characterized by ideological contestation, of big ideas being fought between states for

dominance and for their own to try and project their own vision of order. That's what we saw in the Cold War between the United States, capitalism and communism with the Soviet Union. We're seeing that different forms of global order on display from China and the United States in our own era. That is normal. And it sometimes sort of annoys me. when people

almost complain about the times that we're in as if something is unusual a about it. Actually the times we're living in now would be far more familiar to say someone who is living in the nineteen twenties or nineteen thirties, nineteen sixties or even, you know, the early nineteen eighties.

Than the late 1990s would have been. We will be back. Thank you for all your questions. Remember, compliments, and only people with first-class honours degrees need apply. We'll see you soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.