Why are Tories predicting a revolution?

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That is a sound and indeed a sight which is becoming more and more familiar with each passing week. That was Canary Wharf, the latest. place where anti-migrants, anti-asylum seeker, anti-asylum seeker hotel protests. have taken place with mums and others from the area taking to the streets chanting, What do we want? The boats to stop. When do we want it? Now, I think that's the way that the other thing is that the other thing is an air of crisis almost

Of moral panic over what is happening with the small boat arrivals and the migrant hotels. But are things as bad as they seem? And why does it appear that some on the Tory benches are stoking with? Welcome to the news agents. The news agent. It's John. It's Lewis. Konichiwa. Thank you, Just same to you. Same to you, pal.

Same to you, pal. So back from Japan, good trip. Uh very good. Very good, thank you. Thank you for bowing as I came in. I appreciate that. Indeed so, rightly sir. Which is what you've had written into the contract, which is what I must do now when you arrive. We'll be coming back to Japan. Later on, but something very exciting we have to alert you to is to the newsagents.co.uk. Yes.

We have our own website available from now with in depth articles. You can listen to back episodes of the podcast. You can hear the thoughts of Mate Lis, Goodall and Sopal. As if you haven't heard enough of that already. Yes, so visit the newsagents.co dot uk. Um we are gonna talk about this question of migrant hotels, asylum seeker hotels, whatever you wanna call them. And obviously it's something which has bedeviled British politics now.

For at least a year uh longer and we seem to have with each week obviously it's been happening in Epping yesterday in Canary Wharf each week more and more protests. against the use of asylum hotels. Yesterday we saw all over Twitter protesters accused of trying to break into a hotel, the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf, the Met saying that protesters were making concerted efforts

To breach the fencing and access the hotel. Also accused members of the group Many of whom were wearing face masks, uh family with children, waving flags outside, listening to speeches outside this hotel, met accusing members of the group of harassing occupants of the hotel and staff.

and trying to stop people from making deliveries. Officers were forced to step in after flares were let off in the crowd. And look, there is clearly a lot of tension and concern out there about the use of of these hotels. I think what is most Intriguing and notable is the extent to which many politicians on the right of politics right now, rather than doing historically,

What politicians tended to try and do in these situations, which was to try and take the froth off a bit, try and lower the temperature a bit, every time this happens, doing quite the opposite, deciding to raise the temperature. increasing the invective and generally making the situation potentially worse still. And so just so that you're clear that this isn't just us sounding off. I mean let me give you an example of some of the kind of posts on social media

Over this past weekend, Nadim Zahawi, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, not seen to be on the far right of the Conservative Party, posted on X the reason why the people of the United Kingdom will revolt. And he was quoting in turn Isabel Oakshot Who said that police have just banned protests outside the migrant hotel in Canary Wharf for twenty eight days? Well that's not strictly true.

The Met pointed out we have not banned protests outside the Britannia International Hotel. We continue to encourage those exercising their lawful right to protest to do so responsibly. Anyone who crosses the line from lawful protest into criminality can expect to face police action. So you have the Metropolitan Police now. Correcting what's being put out

By some Conservative MPs. Let me give you another example. Neil O'Brien, who's in the shadow cabinet, Shadow Minister for Policy, Renewal and Development, posted, joke regime, we must end it all. And that was quoting a G B politics article claiming to show video of migrants at the Canary Wolf Hotel. working illegally as delivery drivers for delivery or ha whoever it happens to be after one day after their arrival. Didn't turn out to be true.

And yet the readiness with which people are retweeting and kind of going to arms. Nick Timothy put up a tweet, he's taken it down in fairness to him. Where he said it showed an illegal delivery worker getting a police escort and wrote This sums it all up. The Home Office pretends to get tough with companies that depend entirely on illegal immigration but doesn't. And so that got deleted. But it got deleted because again the met

actually were tweeting I mean this is a conservative shadow minister, right? The Metropolitan Police Tweeting him saying, that isn't true. That there was no police escort for this delivery driver. It was just simply that this person was being attacked as they were trying to get into the hotel and so on. So you've got this I mean I think just to dwell a little bit on on the examples you cited there, John.

I mean I do think sometimes and we we talk all the time on this show and have done. for some years now about the idea of the Overton window moving. That's the idea the Overton window, you know, basically the sort of acceptability. What is acceptable in politics? The sort of parameters of politics moving further and further to the right. I think it's not just moving at this point, it's galloping. fueled and egged on by social media, by must, by egg.

by GB News and others, to the point that you now see, you know, shadow ministers and you know a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadim Zahari, someone who I actually respect and like in lots of ways, but you know, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer saying this is why the people of the United Kingdom will revolt. Revolt You know, Neil O'Brien again

You know, someone generally in the past being considered on the sort of moderate wing of the Conservative Party, talking about the regime. You know, this is the elected government of the United Kingdom, the regime. I mean, this is a sort of thing if if a left wing party, if a Corbynite party, talked in these terms. They would be rightly excoriated

and dismissed as student politicians, because this is the language in some ways, of student politics, but also of extremist politics, talking about regime and revolution. But this is a sort of language and tone and terms which are now commonplace Not just on reform, but within the Conservative Party itself. Yeah, and and w what you almost get the impression is happening is that they are s sort of

They're waiting for the violence to erupt, which they will condemn, but then say I told you so. I mean we did warn. We did warn that there was a tinderbox atmosphere and that the atmosphere was getting more and more toxic and polarised and you failed to address the underlying issues that are of concern. to the British people. And whilst I don't condone any violence against police

This is what happened. Because it will vindicate their worldview. It will vindicate their worldview, which they're sort of laying the groundwork for. And you've seen I think the master of this, Farage, who always walks up to the line. And never crosses it where he's ever can be accused of inciting violence or is a you know a conductor of it. But at the same time when he says, Well

Told you so. I did say, I warned, I don't condone this, but you know the threat, the danger has been there and evidence to see for some time. And you feel that some conservatives are doing that as well now. Yeah, and what's striking as well is is that you know if you look at the data on this

If you actually look and actually just are a bit more sober and a bit more level headed about it, you can see that actually the use of migrant hotels or asylum hotels is way down on the peak. You know, September 2023, under a conservative government, It was at fifty six thousand. And to be fair, it came down under Conservative government and has stabilised at roughly around thirty three thousand. Now I don't for one second want to dismiss people with concern.

about the use of asylum hotels. I completely understand I've reported from them, I've spoken to people in areas where they are and I completely understand that suddenly if you're you know, you're just living your life and, you know, a local facility, in this case a hotel, is suddenly taken over, requisitioned

And suddenly you get a hundred people who aren't from the area, many of whom often yeah, men, young men. I understand that that's that's can be worrying. It can be worrying, you've got concerns about it, you got and particularly sometimes if there's association with increasing crime, which there can be sometimes. I totally

Get it. You feel like your community is changing very rapidly in a way that you haven't consented to. You don't really understand why it's happening, and it's happening really quickly. I completely understand it. That is espe why it is especially important for politicians, mainstream politicians, yes, to channel those concerns, to hear them, to talk about it, but to do so in a way which does not readily spread not just misinformation, but conspiracy.

And that is what we're seeing, I think, in the tone of what were formerly mainstream centre right politicians and the Conservative Party. It's not so much talking about it. I think we should talk about it. It's important to not allow the really far right forces to have a monopoly on those concerns and to exploit them in that way. But to readily spread

Conspiracy and misinformation. We've we've had Neil Basso, our colleague formerly of the Met but now on the Crime Agents, on the show, talking about how he and his many of his colleagues who are still in the Met consider one of the biggest risks to public disorder. in Britain or public order in Britain now. This spread of misinformation which we see especially on X or a tone of invective that we see on X, which is raising the tensions even further.

than where they already are. And what I think is astonishing is that so much of that is at the hands of mainstream quote unquote politicians. You're absolutely right that People have utterly legitimate concerns about illegal immigration. It does look horrendous when you see these small boats arriving overcrowded, people wearing life jackets, women and children risking their lives to cross the Channel.

in this way, it is absolutely unacceptable. I think there is some blame for politicians who, you know, Rishi Sunak, we're gonna stop the boats, Kirstama, we're gonna smash the gangs, and unable to do it, although they've been able to give out glib slogans. People are absolutely right. The other problem with it all is, of course, and this contributes to it. Is it such bloody good television?

It's amazing pictures that you'll get on the beaches of near Calais and all the rest of it of these people. jumping onto these little rubber inflatables and you're thinking, God, this looks terrible. And but of course any TV company is going to be all over social media. It's going to be everywhere because it's good pictures. And that and good pictures makes for easily inflammable situations, which is what we've got now.

And I just think that, you know, it's absolutely shocking the level of people smuggling that is going on and the money that is in this industry. It's grotesque. But at the same time, let's keep it in some kind of perspective. Which as you say, you know, the amount of use of migrant hotels

is going down. But I do think it is the most urgent problem that Keir Starmer faces and I think frankly Donald Trump was right when he was in Turnbury saying, you know, if you want to get reelected, you've got to deal with the migration crisis. I think

It is part of the sort of the dark tone of the reaction on the right, I think, is part of a bigger picture though. which is an increasingly and y and you see this on the online radical right and and Robert Jenrick or someone like Robert Jenrick is is a great a example of this, but there are plenty of others as well. There is a sort of deeply apocalyptic tone I would say. which has taken root on the right of British politics over the course of of the last year and it goes far beyond

you know, immigration. It is this idea that Britain is uniquely at a moment of profound crisis. in every way, to the point that th the state itself is about to collapse or society is about to to revolt. And and that is not to say or to undermine the idea that of course there are profound problems in in British society, British politics. We talk about them all the time. But it is this tone, this tone of darkness, an almost sort of near apocalypse, which has sort of taken

root and it is very it's profoundly bizarre. When you consider, of course, particularly on the Conservative side, if you think that Britain is in a state of profound crisis, well, it hasn't happened in the last year. You know, I mean the the Conservatives were in office for fourteen years. The kind of ability to elide

I saw Mel Stride, for example, you know, talk tweeting out today saying that Britain is about to be in a in a in a debt crisis and it's unsustainable and out of control. I mean much of that debt most of the really difficult bit of that debt was added to the national debt over the course of the last fourteen years. You can have her argue about good reason or bad reason. But come on, if we're in a debt crisis, it hasn't just appeared over the course of of the last year. And it is so

Th this this dark this sort of sense of impending doom is bizarre, right? Because if if Britain is as broken, as profoundly broken, as many on the right are now saying, you gotta ask like, well compared to what? And compared to the past or compared to other countries? Well if you compare it to other countries

you know, you would say that most other similar European countries have similarish sort of problems, whether it's France or Germany or wherever. The United States also, you know, big problems. And if you're comparing it to the past, well one of the areas that they're obsessed with and you see increasingly fevered talk endlessly is about crime. You know, the idea that crime is so out of control, particularly in London and they have a particular obsession

With London and cities, which again has a quite sort of dark tone to it. The idea that crime has come completely out of control. You can barely walk out of the street in London now, according to so so many of these kind of radical right accounts, but even accounts within the Conservative Party, you can barely walk down the street.

without someone snatching your phone or coming to rob you or whatever it happens to be. Well again, I mean, just look at the stats, right? In nineteen ninety five there were twenty million incidents of crime in England and Wales. Twenty million. There were fewer than nine million in twenty twenty five. So let's be realistic here. Let's address the problems, let's soberly talk about the problems and profound sense of tension which there can be.

But what is happening is that this tone of political darkness I would say and feverishness is galloping away on the right of British politics. And what it's doing is it's perpetuating itself. Because the way we know algorithmically, the stuff that gets the likes and it gets the retweets is the darker stuff and which get darker and darker again. in turn. And so you're seeing that kind of radicalization, that online radicalisation, which was once at the fringes of the online right world.

spread to and take hold in mainstream conservative politics and opinion. Well I said in the introduction, you feel that there is a moral panic at the moment, that this is kind of unprecedented and that things have spiraled And spiritual spiral is the right word. It's gone terribly out of control in the past year. Well no, it's been a continuation. of what we've had for years. It's just the language which is being used now.

is different. I thought it was interesting Nigel Farage today. He made this point about there are some people coming to this country. I mean there are other statistics around that are being used by the writer. I mean so Robert Jenrick used one of them this morning saying that in London Twenty-five percent of the population are migrants. But forty percent of sexual abuse crimes are being carried out by foreigners. And you think, Oh my God, so the problem's got way worse. Now

It may be that this statistic is right. It's come from a freedom of information request from uh a kind of right wing think tank. So I you know, I don't know what the the numbers are, but you can see how that is being weaponized. And Farage was saying Today, well there are some societies where people are just, you know, are more prone to this and they shouldn't be allowed in. We have to recognise something. There are some people who come from certain cultures.

That pose a danger to our society. It's as simple as that. The mistake for the left would be to think. just to condemn him as a racist and say that is totally wrong. There are societies that treat women very differently. You know, if you if you go to Afghanistan today and see what is happening to women living under the Taliban. It is a very different way of life than what you would find if you were a woman living in Western Europe.

So there are areas where, you know, violence against women is much more commonplace. In some of these societies, is absolutely true. What the left mustn't do, or centrist politicians, is to say this is complete and utter nonsense, you're a filthy racist. There are things that Farage says which need to be addressed and that's what he does so cleverly. Yeah, I think it's far better to take Farage to task on some of the detail, which is, for example, again

just sort of it's completely lacking. I mean again at that press conference he was asked about what you do with migrants when you can't send them back to an unsafe country like Afghanistan and he says, I'm sorry, I've had enough of this. If you come from Afghanistan, you go back to Afghanistan, I'm done. Like that's fine to say. But guess what? you know who's in office and uh Afghanistan, the Taliban. We do not have a returns agreement with the Taliban. We can't fly people, practically speaking.

into Afghanistan. Forget about the legal framework. We can't fly them in. What we're gonna do? Parachute them in? Just sort of do an airdrop of people over car. Over Major Sharif or whatever. Yeah, I mean like come on. And that's and this is again the problem with the kind of radicalisation of the discourse is that it happens in its own terms, in its own bubble, in its own world and

reality will never the twin shall meet, right? And and I think this is the the bigger problem as well, with mainstream conservatives, centre right politicians becoming moving, as I say Galloping with the Overton window to what used to be the preserve of the radical right. Because what that means is, well, what is left for the actual far right. Where do they go? Well they move even further to the right. And you know, you can see this in terms of anyone who's been on X recently.

can see the level of profound racism, which would once have been confined to the darkest corners of the mainstream, internet and mainstream discourse, wouldn't have even been in public dis discourse, is so virulent. So ubiquitous, being rehearsed and rehashed by people who have got shows on television news channels and huge online followings and certain academics, quote unquote.

So repeating and regurgitating this stuff. Let me give you an example. I think it would have been completely beyond the pale anywhere in mainstream discourse for there ever to have been a discussion about whether Rishi Sunak was really incredible. This is a discussion which has been basically spreading like wildfire across X and across accounts with huge followings.

on X over the course of the last week, after Rishi Sunak sent a, you know, completely innocuous tweet where he did a selfie on Yorkshire Day and said, I'm just so proud to be from here, from this country and You know, it was also rehears a uh a sort of discourse that went on about six months ago as well about whether he was truly English or not. Of course he's English. Of course he's English. On any reasonable estimation of what Englishness is. And instead instead what we have

is a discourse talking about kind of actually whether he ethnically is English or civically English and all of this sort of thing. And, you know, as I say, I think what it means is, what it what that is representative of, is a profound radicalisation of our political discourse and that is to some extent happening at the hands of mainstream

Conservative politicians. And it's also to some extent happening because also I think Keir Starmer and the centre left is not offering sufficiently robust opposition in ideational terms. politically intellectual terms. to these ideas. All of the energy of politics right now is on the radical right rather than being on the left or being in terms of opposition. The left doesn't quite know how to respond, let alone the centre right. And that means that our politics just keeps getting dragged

in this direction which I think is pretty dark in every sense. And you see the way the language has zigzagged all over the place on immigration. So one minute we're an island of strangers which had sort of power echoes and the next minute You know, Kirstamer saying, Oh, I've got that wrong and maybe I shouldn't have said that and it just seems to be this intellectual uncertainty.

over what the government is trying to say. And I just think that a grown up conversation, you know, there are skills shortages in this country. There is a declining birth rate in this country and an aging population and probably we do need an awful lot of immigrants to do certain jobs in this country if we're to function as a society.

But you know, the fear for politicians or the feeling for politicians at right now is they've got to say something condemnatory about levels of migration and we've got to bring it under control and we've got to do this and we've got to do that.

which are d largely difficult to do and probably not in our economic interests either. But I think crucially, John, I think the shift has been and this is where there has been the shift to the radical kind of cultural right, is That the debate in Britain about migration, at least sort of you know, for the first twenty years or so I think of this century, was largely about

uh though not exclusively, but largely about Britain's capacity to absorb people in terms of our infrastructure, our public service and so on. Again, a perfectly legitimate discussion and debate. And of course we've been talking about illegal quote unquote migration. It's dwarfed by comparison to the size of legal migration which has taken place, particularly in the in the post COVID period.

The debate on the right now is less about infrastructure. It's far more Power Lite, far more like Enoch Powell, the sort of Power Light discussions which took place in the sixties, which was is this idea of it's not just that we might lose our public services to immigration. It's we'll lose ourselves. We'll be swamped. We'll be swamped. Not just by people culturally.

There's this idea that Britain is losing itself, is losing its essence, is losing its soul. And that is why, in particular, you'll just see online these. Endless, endless references to London in particular, this idea that you know you'll see it from these radical right commentators. I was walking around London today, I could have been in Lagos.

I could have been in Islamabad. I could have been in Kabul. Really? Have you been to Kabul recently?'Cause I tell you, it don't look much like Balgravia, all right? So, you know, this is just kind of fevered nonsense, but it is becoming Mainstream this idea that what immigration is doing, which actually has been shown repeatedly as nonsense.

th that what immigration is doing it means that Britain is losing its sense of self and its essence and its culture despite the fact despite the fact that actually, although it's had its problems What is remarkable about British culture and Britishness and Britain is its capacity to repeatedly absorb waves of migration and for the children of those migrants to become profoundly British culturally. Rishi Sunak

is the best example of that that I can think of. And that is why these people go after him and go after Sadiq Khan. It's because in a way they're afraid of them. Because those people are actually the perfect embodiment, perfect rapport So they're twisted thinking. Because what are they? Anyone could look at S Sadiq Khan and anyone could look at Rishi Sunak and see that they're as English as you or I are. And that's what scares these people. We'll be back after the break.

So I said we'd be returning to What Louis Goodall did on his summer holidays so you go to Japan for two weeks and it lurches to the far right. Look, I basically what I'm doing is I'm trying to get ahead of the Overton window, but it just keeps catching up with me. That's the problem with it. That's Don't lose the job.

To be such a stable place where politics was utterly boring and you knew it was gonna be centrist politician after centrist politician and suddenly you go turn up there and the far right start doing well. Well it's because I like to time my holidays with uh elections wherever it's possible, you know.

It actually has been really interesting being in Japan over the last two weeks'cause it did coincide with their their election. So it was in sort of you know posters everywhere or whatever and inevitably try to sort of talk to people about it as best as best as I as I'm able to do. Not expecting getting too weighed about Japanese politics while we're there.

But it is really interesting. And as you say, what's really interesting about Japan at the moment, or is that is the fact that it's interesting at all. You know, Japanese politics. Possibly I mean obviously if you go way back it was much more interesting, but certainly since the war or so, you know, boring possibly the most stolid. stable politics anywhere in the world. I mean the Tory Party

likes to claim and it just sort of says it just reflexively without ever actually bothering to check. Tory party always says, Oh, we're the most successful political party in the democratic world, you know. It's like Mm. Have you checked with the Japanese Liberal Party, Democratic Liberal Party? Because you know what's amazing about them, the LDP, Japanese LDP, they've been in office.

for every year but three since nineteen fifty five. I mean it's astonishing. Like basically Japanese politics hasn't really been contested between parties. It's mainly happened within the LDP. This quite sort of centrist, centre right.

small C conservative force which obviously, you know, Japan has had a t transformational history after the war, became the second biggest economy in the world for a while, and so on. And yet For the first time really, it feels like that their hold on power is potentially starting to shake, partly because Japan for the first time is having this arise of a hard right, far right radical force, this party called Sencito.

which just won a clutch of seats in the upper house elections, Japanese Diet elections.

Depriving the LDP of their majority in that chamber for the first time ever. And the really interesting thing is about it is that it's both familiar and slightly different. Familiar because they are running on something that feels like their politics is catching up with that.

in the sense that this party since I so starts off as kind of basically a YouTube only anti vaccine kind of force, basically has become far more mainstream, use YouTube incredibly effectively, especially with younger voters, and is based on this idea of, you guessed it, Japan first or Japanese first, and its leader actively praising and basing himself

on Donald Trump. So it's another one of these Trump inspired radical right forces around the world. So the last time I was in Japan, which was I think two or three years ago, the ambassador there who I ha ended up having a dinner with was Rahim Manuel, who was Obama's chief of staff back in the day and is gonna play a big f part I think in democratic politics.

going forward. But he was making the argument that the reason that the politics of Japan was so popular and hadn't succumbed to the populism that we'd seen in America during Trump's first term. all that we're seeing now in France and Britain and Germany and Hungary and wherever else is because It's so ethnically pure. It's because immigrants can come and visit, they can come and stay for a little while, but they're not Japanese.

And what I felt when I was in Japan was my God this is the most kind of you know, everyone is Japanese. You don't get the diversity that you get walking the streets of London when you're walking the streets of Tokyo. And you know, foreigners are welcomed as tourists. But don't think you're living here and don't think you're Japanese.

Yeah. No indeed. And it has historically low I mean by by comparison to to Western levels, you're right, it has very low levels of foreign num foreign born residents and and so on and immigration. But it has been going up. And again this is where the story is quite familiar to ours, right? It it's been going up.

Partly because Japan has a profound demographic problem. You know, its population is probably about to peak and is expected to decline rapidly over the next twenty years. The government has had to try and do something. about that. So the number of foreign residents has gone up from two point two million a few years ago to three point seven seven million over the past decade. Again, by Western standards, very, very low.

But profoundly controversial in Japan. And again, this is why one of the reasons the LDP is sort of shaking in its boots now. is because so this this phenomenon, Sancito, has got All of the hallmarks that we see of populist right wing populist parties across Europe. They target living standard stagnation. Remember Japan has had the twenty years of stagnation where we've only had ten because of their particular economic problems that they've had. Food prices.

Increasing. Rice prices are hugely controversial there because they're basically set by the government and they've been going up very, very rapidly. But then it's got these particularly kind of Japanese elements.

And this is where I think it's quite interesting. So one of them seems quite prosaic. It's like tourism. San Sito are running hard on a question of over tourism. Because Japan has had I suppose I'm part of this problem, right? Has had this huge boom, mainly from East Asian countries actually, China and Taiwan.

huge boom in tourism over the past twenty years. You only had like four million tourists a year in Japan twenty years ago. They've just had last year they had thirty seven million tourists. So, you know, all of these tourist hotspots like Kyoto and so on getting completely swamped. Sancito is literally running against them, basically talking about the idea that foreigners

are again, sound familiar back to our previous conversation, that Japan is losing itself to foreigners, even tourists, that they're behaving badly, that they're not respecting Japanese culture. And then you mix it with the darker thing again Which is Sancito's talking really quite openly about the idea of Japan needing to be ethnically pure, right? And as you say, John,

You know, Japan has a particular obviously it's got a particular history, right, of imperialism, profound racism and isolationism, you know. And so it is scary. Japanese political elites that you might have a force which is kind of reanimating and reopening.

these really old instincts and ideas that have been buried, entombed really in a lot of ways, in Japanese politics for a very long time. Because what's in situ I think this is probably quite unique at least to the Japanese hard right, what they're managing to do is basically create a thread or weave a thread that links tourism and people coming in from the outside with immigration as well. So it's trying to basically set up a politics which is anti foreign In every conceivable sense.

And is having real resonance in Japanese politics, right? That's that is so incredible, isn't it? When you'd think that tourism would be a kind of welcome money spinner. It's become Jap Japan's second biggest industry. Yeah, and it's not it's not like kind of, you know, the protests that you've seen in Venice. or Ibiza or Mallorca where people are saying

you know, Airbnb is driving us out of our homes and we can no longer afford to live here. No one is saying that. It's just we don't want foreigners here. Well it's particularly interesting when you consider and again this is what's playing in is a uniquely Japanese thing, it's playing into particular

Japanese histories, which is that actually it's not European tourism or even American tourism. You know, top ten tourist destinations to Japan. I think America's seventh, but the rest none are European. That's it's China, It's Taiwan, it's Korea. This is where the explosion comes from. And there is such profound geopolitical tension still and political tension between these countries and talk of

Japan being sort of swamped by Chinese, Korean and so on. So it sort of links into sort of old, particular Japanese histories. But it also links back the sort of rise of the Japanese hard right goes back I think to that first discussion we were having as well. Because Japan is interesting because it is always

always cited by the British and actually European sort of far right generally as an example of the sort of country that we ought to be. As you say, you know, it's ethnically very homogeneous deeply proud of its of its histories, never apologises for its history. I mean, you know, by comparison to Germany, for example. The Japanese, despite the absolute horrors that were committed in the Second World War in Manchuria, in Korea and a and elsewhere, um, never mind of sort of Western stuff.

to some extent apologized for by Japanese politicians, but largely not reckoned with, nearly in the same way as happened with with Germany and the Holocaust. So all of these tensions sort of still less, deeply prior country. But the reason the far right in Britain sort of cite it is and you see this again online all the time. It came up with the Rishi Sunak stuff.

If someone like you or I says of course he's in They would often say, Oh so Lewis, if you moved to Japan and you were there for thirty years, would you be Japanese? And the answer is like I th no, I suppose I wouldn't. But that's because partly because of the way that Japan chooses to view itself and questions of ethnicity. And my point would be to say is that Britain, France would be the same other European countries, the United States as well.

Has a far richer understanding of what ethnicity, citizenship, Britishness in our case can and ought to be. I would much personally rather live in a country where it is considered axiomatic and reflexive that Rishi Sunak or Sadiq Khan or wherever it happens to be are English or are British rather than living in a much more for all of its

And it's a great country by the way, not knocking it. For all of its great, great attributes and merits. Rather than living in a country like Japan or China or wherever it happens to be. Far more closed in insular countries are

Which would say, no, you know, this person who is born here, even if they're born here, but if they're not ethnically Japanese or Chinese or whatever, aren't Chinese or Japanese. I would much rather live in a country like our own, with our understanding of what ethnicity and what citizenship is than a country like that.

Do you want to know a fun fact I learned about Japan, John, while I was there? Do you know what they have for their Christmas dinner? I mean obviously it's done we celebrate Christmas. Turkey and soy sauce. Kentucky. Kentucky Fried Chair. KFC. KFC's most popular uh Christmas meal in Japan, yeah. K the Kentucky they do um they do a whole sort of special selection for it on Christmas Day. So if you ever fancy it if you ever fancy

Christmas in like an hour. Which I'm sure you would. Yeah, I'd quite like that. Well I I spent Christmas New Year in New Zealand and we had Kentucky Fried Chicken. First time I'd eat Kentucky Fried Chicken. Well, do you have it in New Zealand as well? Well KFC's everywhere, mate. Well I know, but for Christmas

No. Oh, OEC, right. Oh, it's just the Kentucky Fried Chicken. When was the last time you had Kentucky Fried Chicken? Uh a long time, have to say. I think when I was a kid. Kentucky I said well we'd call it B Kentucky in Birmingham. Not KFC, Kentucky. You see that shows you how far your accent has been, you know, southernised. No. I mean you are part of you know receive pronunciation now. What's she talking about? Okenauer. Yeah, yeah. Okenauer pal. We'll be back in just a moment.

She's a registered Republican? Oh, now I love her ad. Is that right? Is Sydney Sweeney? You'd be surprised at how many people are Republicans. That's what I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic. Okay, thank you. Very much.

So that's Donald Trump opining on Sydney Sweeney's ad, which we discussed on the podcast uh when you were away last week. Have you seen the ad? I I have seen the ad, yeah. I mean it is an ad which has caused outrage.

yw'r American Eagle Jeans sydney Sweeney sydney Sweeney sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n

the pun being on jeans and Donald Trump wading in to say that he loves Sydney Sweeney. So speculative I would have guessed that. Yeah. I don't I'm not surprised. That he loves with Sydney Sweeney in all sorts of ways. Well, one Republican, two blonde hair, three blue eyes.

For good looking, what's not to like. But I mean it's an advert that has uh caused absolute controversy and it's good to see that there is no subject that Donald Trump won't wade in on. Yeah, I mean I also how far does it go? I mean what you know, if he discovered I mean anybody was a re registered Republican presumably would that that that would be enough? Like presumably, I mean is that fine? But Donald Trump has spoken before in these sort of

you know, the kind of good looking Norwegians. I mean, you know, you something that you married a nor good looking Norwegian. But I mean, you know, he has spoken in those pairs. Oh kinda quite likes the area. Well no, but they're really proud of that in Norway. They're really proud of like when he was like when he you remember when he said, Oh why we're we're having all these people from shithole countries, we should have more people from Norway. Yeah. They still go on about that.

Really? They still talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, not so great if you're from a shithole country. Well no, indeed, yeah. Exactly. Well quite so, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so there we are. Donald Trump, Ezek one with Sidney Sweeney. I'm sure she'll be invited to the White House very soon. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.