They Tried To Cancel Me But Now I'm Free - Mike Graham

So what happened, mate? They didn't like something that appeared on my Facebook page. Do you know what happened with that Facebook post? I really don't. I said I didn't put it there and they wanted to investigate my phone. I decided it might not be the greatest idea to give my phone to a company that's been known to hack phones. They wanted access to bits of my phone.

As soon as I started talking to lawyers, they were like, don't give them your phone under any circumstances. I speak to people who are moving out of London now because London to them has become unrecognizable. It's different because it is now full of people from somewhere else.

And it didn't used to be. And the difference for me with New York and London was that all of the immigration in New York was people who wanted to be American. In London and in other parts of Britain, we've got these communities which are not British. And they don't want to be British. It's hard not to notice it. This episode is sponsored by Avocado Green Match.

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Go to avocado green mattress dot com slash trigger to get up to fifteen percent off. That's avocado green mattress dot com slash trigger for up to fifteen percent off mattresses. Avocado green mattress dot com slash trigger My gram? Welcome back to Trigonomic. Good day. I think this is my third time, isn't it? It is your third time. And you are now a fellow YouTuber. I am. Uh courtesy of some events. Yes, indeed. So what happened, mate? Very proud.

Um well, apparently I wasn't fired. Um this is my lawyers tell me I was not fired. I I was simply not taken back. Um, I was never suspended either, according to um News UK. Um but basically They didn't like something that appeared on my Facebook page. Uh I said I didn't put it there. Uh they said, well, you're gonna have to prove it.

that you didn't put it there, uh, because we've had a complaint from inside the building, effectively, from somebody at Talk Sport, who who tweeted out that I was a racist, effectively, or that I'd said something racist. And that sort of began a whole chain of events which went on for about a month. Uh during which time I tried to prove to them I hadn't done it.

which they weren't satisfied with. They wanted to see my phone, they wanted to investigate my phone. They wanted to investigate my iPad. I decided it might not be the greatest idea to give my phone to

a company that's been known to hack phones. Um with with the hope that they wouldn't look at bits of my phone that I didn't want them to see. Which was not anything to do with m my personal life, but was everything to do with my work life, everything to do with people I had conversations with. I mean So it became a kind of a fight between two sets of lawyers in the end.

which in which which never goes well, whether it's the divorce or whether it's goes well for the lawyers. Goes well for the lawyers. Yeah. They did very well out of it, I can tell you. Um still paying them off. Um And so So so just to get back to this thing about something was posted on your Facebook thing, which was a bit of a racist comment. It was a bit of a racist comment. It was basically uh it was a picture of some people on a tube train, which I didn't take.

Um and another picture which I had taken, which looked like it had been somehow doctored and put on the same Facebook post. It also went on Instagram because my Facebook and my Instagram are linked. Um and it was all about, you know, why there's so many non white people on the tube. Words to that effect, you know. And and uh, you know, the couple of swear words and it was pretty offensive.

And But you didn't post it. But I didn't post it and I was made aware of it on the morning of Monday the twentieth, I think, of October. Um and I looked in it and I thought, Christ, I don't know what that is. So I just deleted it. So it wasn't even really there for very long.

Um, and then I got a call after I'd finished my show, went home, got a call from my boss saying, you know, there's there's been a complaint about this Twitter post. Do you know anything about it? And I said, Well, I saw it this morning, but to be honest, I was doing my show

right in the middle of when I was, you know, told that it was there. And I just got rid of it. And I didn't even see when it was posted. I didn't really investigate it. But what I can do is uh show you that it wasn't anywhere in my log. that I didn't you know, my log proves that I didn't post it. I haven't got the picture in my in my cache of pictures, which I showed them. I was called into a meeting. I showed the head of HR and I showed my my immediate boss.

um that part of my phone. But then they wanted to go further. And as soon as I started talking to cybersecurity people and as soon as I started talking to lawyers, they were like, Don't give them your phone under any circumstances. That's not I don't you don't work for them, you know, I'm I'm an individual contractor, I'm not I'm not on their staff, they didn't pay me a pension, they didn't pay me for being off sick, you know. I was a contractor. I they said you're under no obligation

to do that. And they were asking eventually for access to my WhatsApp messages. for my emails, they wanted access to bits of my phone that I didn't think they should be able to look at. And I thought to myself, you know, they're gonna hold all of this information. They're gonna basically mirror the whole phone, forensically examine it. And they will be able to look at that.

No matter what they say to me. There's plenty of that stuff I meant to get you fired anyway. Well exactly. And some of the people that I was talking to that I'd had conversations with on WhatsApp.

were people that, shall we say, they don't like very much. Right. Um, because that you know, that's the business we're in. I'm a journalist, you know, and and aside from all of that, there are sources, people that I talk to, people that give me information, you know, um my cybersecurity expert that I hired said, you know, they can find this stuff.

They can look on your phone and see what's been deleted and what hasn't been deleted. They can still find it. So there's no point in even deleting stuff. So I then went and got my own forensic investigation done by a completely independent team. up in um near Manchester, um, at the advice of of this cybersecurity guy that I had. And they do stuff all the time. They work with the police, they work with, you know, law enforcement uh agencies, they they're very reputable

I gave them that and they weren't they it wasn't enough. They said, No, we want to do it ourselves. And I just thought, you know, and we got to the point of that stage, it was like two, three weeks in. Um I could just see I was there wasn't really any point. And from what was being said to the newspapers, there was a cohort of people that talk sport and also in the building

uh, who thought I was a bit of a bigot, a bit of a racist anyway, and they weren't very happy with some of the things I said every day, which I'd never been told about, you know. Um So it all kinda came to a came to an end. And eventually I actually asked them to fire me effectively'cause I was like, you know, you're gonna you know, shit or get off the pot, if you pardon the expression, because four weeks had gone by. I wasn't making any money.

And according to them, I wasn't suspended. And so my lawyers were going, Well if you're not suspended, you should be paying it. But no Do you know what happened with that Facebook post? I really don't. No. I mean the best I can I can imagine is that somebody accessed the account.

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Now I didn't have two factor identification. My my the cybersecurity guy brought in said I can't believe how unprotected your account was given how high profile you are and how how high risk you are. You know, somebody from the cyber team at News UK gave me a memo when I was called in to say this is how you can secure your account.

And I was like, well it's a bit fucking late now. You know, maybe you should have given me that last year. Um so I really don't know. And nobody knows. I mean everybody on Twitter, uh you know, the land of experts. Like it's easy to prove that you didn't do it. Just show them the the login and that somebody will be shown to have logged in. Well, there wasn't anybody there.

And I don't understand enough about cyber hacking. I do know that people get hacked all the time. People always get I mean, people are getting their Twitter accounts hacked all the time at the moment. You keep getting these messages from people saying, Please vote for me on this podcast and then something terrible happens, you know. Major companies are getting hacked every day. And you know, if I was to be a conspiracy theorist, I would say somebody was out to get.

Because, you know, a couple of weird things happened to me in the previous two months. I had my back window smashed in my car. And nothing was stolen, for example, and there was a case of wine in there, which, you know, might have been heavy for people to carry, but you think they might have taken a couple of bottles. They didn't take anything, it took a ja an old jacket. out of the back of the car. Yeah. Stuff like that. And you just think this is all a bit strange.

But i it's so interesting that we when we're talking about that because I used to work for Talk Sport. Yeah. And for people who don't know, Talk Sport is a radio station that goes out to predominantly working class men. who in their vans, driving around, etcetera. Or in factories, warehouses, all the rest of it. And the f and the the idea that talks sport would be

progressive that they would be offended by something you said. Just boggles the mind, really. Well, that would have been true maybe ten years ago, but not now. Because now the business of of media is is absolutely riddled with wokists, you know, people who have gone in who have completely changed the face, particularly of big companies. You know, I mean that building is full of

very, very different people. There's the Wall Street Journal, uh, which has got some pretty left wing people working for it. The Times is now a very left wing newspaper. Uh Harper Collins, the uh the book publishers, also riddled with kind of, you know Gen C Gen X, whatever they're called, Gen Z, I suppose, um, who complained once about my radio station or my show, which used to be pumped out in um in the elevators, in the lift.

They actually complained about it'cause they said all he does is talk about migrants and we find it offensive. So they stopped broadcasting it in the in the lift, in the building. Right? And they started putting virgin on instead. Some nice music. You know, and these were people who didn't work for like eighteen months while COVID was on. Just didn't bother coming to the office. You know, and they're all these kind of trust fund kids, they're all kids who can work for hardly any money.

And they're all woke. And I s I suppose that's what's happened to talk sport, you know. And yeah, you can understand people not wanting to work with a racist, but I mean I've been working there for eighteen years. And nobody's ever called me racist. Nobody's ever said I was a racist. I've never done anything.

I've had a few run ins with a few organisations and I've had a few spats with people on social media, but you know, I am not a racist. I'm sorry, you know. Um but it got to the point where I suddenly thought If they if they say you can come back to work Safeguards will they put on me? You know, will they give me a series of things I can't talk about?

You know, the station was under a lot of pressure from Offcom. We were kind of I was moving the station further and further to the right every single morning. Um and I was and I was, you know, pissing all over Keystarmer every single day and they didn't like it. Downey Street used to complain about me all the time. you know, um, officially and say, you know, would would Mike Graham please stop calling the Prime Minister a liar?

Well no, because he's a liar. I'm sorry. And so then I started asking other people if he was a liar. So I got Kevin Bednock in and I was like, Do you think Kirstar's a liar? She said, Yeah, absolutely Then every single guest I go, Do you think Kirstar's a liar? Yeah. So, you know, there was there was kind of things going on that were suggesting to me that we were you know, we were not going to be as free perhaps as as I wanted to be anyway.

And so and sometimes you just you know, I've been fired five times in my life from various different jobs, you know, never for being a racist. And in fact I always say to people, Well, actually I didn't get fired for being a racist, I got fired for not giving them my phone. And they put out a statement which was pretty brutal actually, after eighteen years, which basically said that they were gravely concerned that I didn't

um, want to help them out and with their inquiry and that I reneged on a and and I didn't renege on anything. You know, they say that I agreed to go and see somebody to give them my phone. Which I never actually did, because we never ever got to the point where I said, I'm happy with the parameters of this You know. I didn't want them to have my phone for they wanted it for nine hours.

So basically, you know, they didn't want it to give me a a substitute phone so that I could use that while they had my phone. And I'm thinking, so you're now going to give me another phone, which once I give it back to you, you're going to go through as well. Because that's what you do, right? So I felt like they were sort of about to get it. Um and none of that was helped by the fact that they weren't paying me and they sometimes would take days to respond to to emails from my lawyers.

You know, and I think they were in a real quandary. I think there was people that didn't want me to go because I was fifty percent of their output, you know, in terms of the the money. I was making a lot of money for their YouTube channel and all of that's gone now. But the woke is one. Isn't it bizarre in a way that you see media companies and a lot of companies as well, they prioritize. what certain parts, very sm certain minorities of their employees think

Over profitability. You just you just look at talk radio now, it's been undeniably damaged by you leaving. Yeah. And you just think to yourself, This doesn't make any sense from a business point of view. No. I mean what makes sense from a business point of view is to make it into a right wing

outlet, you know, which is what it started out as. You know, we kind of made our bones initially with the Brexit referendum and then the the subsequent rouse and, you know, the summer or summer of I guess it was twenty nineteen, you know, that stalemate summer when we went down into uh college green and we were literally like the rebels, you know, we were like the bad boys.

of Westminster. We had this tiny little tent, I used to call it the tent of shame. Um and we had these two really good looking Spanish producers. um, who would stop all the politicians as they were walking towards the great big edifice that was the B B C and Sky, um, and, you know, all these foreign outlets and and and they would sort of

managed to get them to come and sit in this tent where I would give them an absolute roasting, you know. Which they would never did I'd never seen anything like it, you know. And it was great. And it was fantastic. And they had to walk past us both ways. You know, at one point I asked a Campbell, um I was actually broadcasting and I was sitting with my back to Parliament and I heard and I saw Astro Cameron and he leaned in and shouted in my ear, Stop talking bollocks.

You know, so we were really getting to these people. Um Michael Hesseltine accused me of being impertinent. And I said, Well, I'm sorry, um, Lord Hesletine, but if I'm gonna be impersonate to you, then you must be superior to me, which I don't think you are. And he looked at me like

Nobody's ever spoken to me like that. The plebs are talking back. And I was and I kept saying to them and I had I had a great argument with Lisa Nandy about whether or not we had a you know, all the stuff's still on YouTube. So we kind of made our bones by being a bit punk rock, I suppose, when it came to politics, you know, which was brilliant.

And that was where we we made our niche and then G V News came along and they kind of took an o an awful lot of our people away, a lot of the producers, some of the presenters, tried to set up in a similar way, but they've now had to kind of, you know, calm themselves down a bit as well and they've all gone a bit kind of vanilla, seems to me.

Um I I'm still glad they're there. But you know, um As time went on, then then we got into COVID and we were really before G B News was even thought about, we were the only people saying You know, what's this lockdown all about? You know, why why have we been told to wear a mask? Why why when you stand up in a pub is it different to when you sit down? You know, what you know, what's a scotch egg?

You know, all of that stuff. Nobody else was asking the questions. Not anyone. I mean I mean you guys might well have been, but you know. In the mainstream nobody was doing it, you know. Well this is an interesting part of the conversation because I I see you you've been forced out or whatever. What not renewed whatever the fuck the term is. Yeah, they fired me, basically. Right.

But now you've got your own YouTube channel. I it's crushing. You're doing really well, mate. We're doing so well. And I mean I'm I'm in awe of you guys because I don't really know much about YouTube, you know. I d Neither do we, mate. We have y younger people. You don't need to worry about it, mate. I mean your numbers are are spectacular. And when I first met you um I don't know how many years ago it was, you had that little studio in Highbury and I remember coming up there to talk to you.

And I just remember thinking, this is quite really a cool thing, you know, but but you know, you you have the kind of arrogance in a way of of the mainstream media when you're in it, you know. Um and now I'm learning from the other side. what it's like to build something, it's actually really exciting. You know, I I I I'm loving it. I mean, you guys have done spectacularly well. Um and I take my hat off to you because it it I can see also how difficult it is as well. Um I can't quite believe

how quickly we shut up, we got you know, it's it's again nothing compared to some of the numbers that you guys do and others. Yeah, but we've been at it for eight years. Yeah. So I mean we've we've we've got nearly six million views in full five weeks, you know. Um we've got one hundred and twenty eight thousand I think uh subscribers.

we're working on trying to w build all you know, there's tricks of of how you build all that up. But the but the reaction's been amazing. You know, we we we look at the and I know that talk has got different um you know, outlets, not just YouTube, you know, so it's not really fair to compare. But, you know, we're we're doing four, five times what they're doing, um, just on the live on the live shows, you know. Um

And so we're yeah, very well, I'm really excited about it. Well, this this is the thing is, you know, talent is talent and the big platforms, the big mainstream media organizations, they used to have this lot on well, it doesn't matter how talented you are, if we don't put you on our show, you you're not gonna get seen and you're not gonna get heard.

It's not really the case anymore. No. And so this whole thing about like canceling people is just like uh is it is it like w w are you m I'm sure you saw with me in question time there's all these morons on Twitter running around trying to say, Oh, I can't believe they've had Like question time need people who have an audience. Well you've got a bigger audience than question time, right?

You know, and these people, these bozos who kind of see themselves I don't know what they see themselves as, as kind of media commentators going, you know, Why have they got him on again? He's always on.

And well,'cause he's actually rather good and entertaining to watch and he has a view. He doesn't just sit there worried about what's, you know, his party's gonna say, you know, when he gets back to the office, you know, and and question time needs people like you. I mean, I was watching some um sort of promo the other day for I I can't remember why I was on I T V but they put this promo on for some new game show they're doing.

hosted by Rob Bryden. And you go, you know, is he the only guy that works in television? You know, everything seems to be involving Rob Bryden. All that other bloke, Bradley Walsh. You know, it's all the same people. You know, um how Ed Balls has got a job working on Breakfast Television, I'll never know. Um And that's so... They're just so shit, really. I mean I can't think of a reason to watch regular TV and I really don't.

You know, I'd rather watch an old episode of Vera which says a lot more about me probably th than I should give away. But you know, there's ri literally no reason to watch breakfast TV in in in mainstream uh media. There's no reason to watch

I mean I watched Laura Kunzberg just because it's kind of cringe and and you can't quite believe what people are saying on it. And you know, this week's was particularly funny with old Zach Belansky, you know, and his you know, I've never had a drink and I've never taken any drugs. He runs in a very weird way, is all I know.

But you're absolutely right, because, you know, now the ordinary people, because of COVID, because of the Brexit um sort of a fit-up, because of um the way that politicians now lie to us all the time, as a matter of course. People have seen through all that and they've seen through the mainstream kind of Westminster bubble.

And they're not interested in in watching the questions that come from journalists anymore because I mean I was I was on Liz Truss's show the other day and I was saying, you know, they're not curious. Journalists aren't curious anymore. They don't ask questions that people want them to ask. They just kind of They just kind of parry things and and and kind of knock things around and it's all like a bit of a kickabout and then they will go to the pub later. You know, they're all mate.

I don't want to be mates with politicians, I really don't. You know, don't really like them. I'd rather just ask them difficult questions and watch them squirm. You know. And it's quite funny'cause there's, you know, an awful lot of MPs who used to come on my my old show who are still kind of nervous of coming on the new one'cause they're not sure if I'm a racist or not. And it's like, well, maybe you could make up your own mind.

You know, you used to come on my show, what's the difference? The news doesn't just tell you what's happening. It often tells you what to think is happening. And these days the biggest red flag isn't what's said, it's what gets Left out. That's why I use Ground News. It's the only app that compares how the same story is covered across a political spectrum and show you what whole audiences are not being told. The Blind Sport feed is one of my favorite features.

Every day it flags upwards of twenty stories that are being ignored either by the left or the right. Follow along at ground.news.com. trigonometry. Like this. A new study from UC San Diego found that climate change cost almost twice as much as we thought because earlier estimates left out damage of the oceans. That's a pretty big update, and yet no coverage. Literally zero came from right leaning outlets.

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position in the media. Because I knew you from way from way back when you did talk sport. But you started off as a Fleet Street Journal around four decades ago. The golden age of newspapers, the tabloids. To what they have now become, which is let's be honest, a bit of an irrelevance. Why do you think that's happened? And how did you see the change happen from the moment you started to where we are now?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the different kinds of media and the way that people now consume it, um, and the fact that you don't really buy a newspaper now unless you're probably over sixty. I mean I I I my my my kids who range in age from, you know, nineteen to thirty five. They don't buy newspapers, you know, they they wouldn't know I mean I think a newspaper's would put it in the fire and lighting it, you know. Um

And I think also the nature of the s of the power of those newspapers has has kind of rescinded. You know, the Sun used to be the paper that made prime ministers. Now it's not really polit politically, particularly powerful. Because The whole business is fragmented and the and different people are in it as well. You know, when I started, it was a very working class

job to be a newspaper reporter, you know? You didn't go to Oxford, you didn't go to do a PPE degree and come out with, you know, a load of your mates and end up working for newspapers with a very posh accent. You know, people were tradesmen.

They left school when they were sixteen. They went and trained to be journalists. They'd go to a a journalist college, they'd learn shorthand, they'd learn the law, they'd learn um uh, you know, all sorts of other tricks of the trade that they would have to then use

And they'd be paid as a kind of slave practically. It's an indentured um, you know, slave. It was a better time. It was. It was. But they learned about how to do the job properly, you know, and you'd and they'd get sent out with, say, the chief reporter, they'd go and cover the local courts. Nobody does that anymore. You know, literally there are no local newspapers. You know, where my kids grew up down in Sussex.

Um the local newspaper obviously is now a um one of those storage units, you know, for for you know, putting your stuff in when you get thrown out of your your wife's house.

And uh that's the only only big middle aged government. Those are the only people. Um although I w my my daughter actually once had to put stuff in. She broke up with a boyfriend and she was moving I had heard some amazing stories from the woman who was running the storage facility, including one where a guy used to come in every Friday night into his storage unit, open the door, go inside, come out dressed as a woman.

and then go out and then come back sort of in the early hours of the morning, dressed back into a man and go home. Anyway, that's I that's very progressive. Very yeah, very by the by. But um And so I think as as newspaper barons, I mean, you know, the Murdoch Empire, for example, is is still incredibly powerful. But not really because of newspapers in it. Because of the the Fox T V network, you know, basically that makes so much money.

both from the football and also from, you know, the news and and the politics. You know, the the the the British operation has become slightly irrelevant. You know, it's still there, but the sun isn't as powerful as it used to be. The Times

Seems to me to be a kind of apologist for the Labour government. Um, doesn't really ask very many questions at all. And it's all become a bit middle class and it's all become a little bit kind of um twee, I would say. And I think most people in Britain don't like that.

Most people in Britain and I don't actually mind Giles Coran, you know he's quite a funny guy and says some quite outrageous things, but most people would not like Giles Corran if they met him. If you saw him in a pub you wouldn't expect to have a long conversation with him because he's quite posh, you know, he comes from, you know, quite a wealthy background and all the people who work for for those kind of broadsheet type newspapers and even some in in the tabloids now.

Have been, you know, over educated. They've never really experienced much in in terms of life. I mean, when I worked even at the Daily Mirror, they had a massive operation in Manchester. you know, because the north of England was an important place. Now they have hardly anyone there. They probably got one person in the north of England. And so, you know, it's all become a very London centric. It's all very kind of

managed decline. It feels like managed decline. It feels like they're just kind of trying every year there's more budget cuts, they sack more people, they try and save more money. You know, they just they their business is dying. It is dying. And one of the things though is they you you talk about the middle class thing. I think there's so much

of that. Like when I was on questions time, the thing that actually shocked me the most was there was a point at which one of the panelists said, Well America is a democracy. Blah blah blah blah blah and like a good third of the audience just openly laughed. China is a dictatorship. The US is a democracy. It remains our closest it remains it is a it remains our closest military ally.

And I go, Well, you probably don't like Donald Trump if you're reacting that way. It's fair enough, people are allowed to not like President Trump. But he won the last election with winning the popular vote, the electoral college, every swing state. I I mean it is a democracy. Yeah. But but in their heads they're so i so brainwashed into this way of thinking. And then there was another girl who was like, Oh yeah, no, we shouldn't do business with America, we need to do business with China.

I'd rather be looking at China right now than I would America. At least China We know what's going on with them. America it seems like Trump, yn ymwneudol, mae rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth sy'n rhywbeth.

But is that a generational thing as well, with these these younger people? I mean there was you've probably seen it. There's there was a thing going around yesterday on Twitter from America where they were asking youngish women supposedly feminists, you know, whether Uh, they thought that women's rights were better in Iran.

uh or in America. And without question, they all thought, Iraq Are you going I mean is I used to say when I was doing the old talk sports show that I think that the world is actually evolving in reverse and people are getting stupider instead of getting more intelligent and more kind of, you know, sophisticated.

People is really stupid and thick because they're driven there's an old George Carlin clip which you've probably seen where he says if you're driven um if you identify yourself by an ideology, then you've already lost the plot because you're no longer actually being true

to your own self. You don't really have any beliefs. You just kind of have read some and you think, Oh, that's good because all my friends agree with that. So I'll just say that. And there's a bit of that in the media. I think that's again where you get um You know, I would go on I would go on uh the radio and and and piss all over the Times front page because they were talking about some kind of clean air.

campaign, you know, which everybody knows is a complete con, right? And I would say so. And, you know, that didn't make me very popular in the times building, you know, um and people didn't like it. But I was like I'm not going to be part of this media conglomerate where everybody's supposed to think the same thing. Obviously you're you're you're not going to be really awkward about it and start, you know, dissing the pr the products and all of that.

But surely thro Christ you can have a disagreement about what they're saying, you know? Well, you know that th the thing about ideology? I always say ideology is how you know what to think about about things that you don't understand. About everything. That's the y but but especially about things you don't understand. It gives you a template for what you're supposed to believe about

something as complicated as climate change. Right. Um and by the way, that's an interesting one because um Net zero, I mean the tide is turning so quickly on and suddenly ev everyone's talking about how net zero is total stupidity, industrial suicide as I call it. Like that that whole agenda is going away in a heartbeat. Yeah. But yet so many politicians, like Douglas Alexander, who was on with you.

are still clinging to it like it's some kind of wreckage going over a cliff and they're kinda going, Yeah, but this is this is what we have to do because everybody knows. I mean I was just thinking to because of the time I get up now, you like this, farmers farming today because

It's it's it's it's it's probably better than the timers radio that time in the morning. But they had some woman on talking about how Um, the there's a problem with raspberries and strawberries and and she said, you know, obviously the thing that's most important is we have to know what the carbon footprint is. of growing fruit in this country. And I'm kinda going, well it isn't actually. You know what's important is how much fruit you're growing and how much fruit you can grow.

And whether you can, you know, be competitive. You know, it's not you know, the the the carbon footprint of strawberries is ridiculous. I mean, what are you talking about? You know. But if you try and tell them that It's all about sustainable this and sustainable that and, you know, driving an electric car. I mean it's Fiori now about um

people who are having to pay, you know, a road tax for an electric car. I find hilarious, you know, because we said it at the time, you know, when people stop buying petrol cars, they'll be out of pocket. So they'll need to come after you for the money. Well, I'm still getting an electric car'cause it's the right thing to do. And now they're all going oh shit. You know. So so I'm getting taxed.

Welcome to the real world. You know? The the thing that I find particularly frustrating, look, net zero and all of this, but it's also as well It's just a very powerful symbol. of how they ignore ordinary people's concerns. Most people in this country do not care about net zero. No. That is a preserve of the upper middle class who quite frankly don't have enough to worry about.

I talk to ordinary people, regular people who watch trigonometry, they come up, they always want to have a conversation with me. That when they talk, what what they're concerned about is They can't afford to buy meat in the supermarket. They've got a family of three. Yeah. They have a regular job. Both put both people are working. Once you paid rent, once you paid gas, once you paid your bills, your council tax, the road tax.

What are you left with? That's what actually concerns people. And we're not having an important conversation, which is affordability. Yeah. Well I say this a lot, you know, nobody talks about food inflation and when they do, they say, Oh, you know, food inflation is really bad. That's five percent. You know, is it bollocks? You know, if you look at the prices just just as as I just go to the supermarket.

You know, things that used to be, I don't know, a packet of pasta for fifty P, it's now like one twenty five. And you go, well, when did that happen? You know, it's literally gone up by, you know, a factor of of more than twice what it was.

And it's things like that that people say to me and they used to say it to me a lot when I was on talk, you know, the the the sort of weekly shop has gone from a hundred quid to two hundred quid and they're not buying anything extra, in fact they're they're buying less.

And so you're right. And and you know, one of the things that one of the great labour lies is, you know, um, you know, we've got wages going wages have gone up since we got in. Well no, they haven't. They've gone down unless you happen to work in a public sector. You know. If you're a train driver, if you're a a nurse, if you're a doctor

Um, if you're a copper, all of you have been given a pay rise. But you know, in the private sector, people are worse off than they've ever been, you know, and everything costs more. And more and more and more people are c contributing nothing to the economy, um, and fewer and fewer of us are paying tax to pay for all of them. And it's not a sustainable I mean it's all about sustainable economy. That is not sustainable, right?

And tha and that's it. And that's it. And that's what ordinary people feel. They feel as if their concerns are not being addressed. So the elites are talking about net zero and bringing and being carbon neutral.

Well, the car who drives a van, he just wants to be able to pay uh pay his bills on time and make sure his kids don't go hungry. And more and more ordinary people are looking at their wages, looking at their outgoings and going And look at Rachel Reeves, you know, the world's most useless Chancellor.

Today, and I don't know when this is going out, but this week anyway, uh is the beginning of a new alcohol tax. The alcohol tax has gone up. Um we talk to pub owners quite a lot. Um and on something like a seven pound fifty pint. Your landlord's making about forty seven pence. Because everything else is going out either in tax or in overheads or in supplies or in staffing. You know, all of the the things that that contribute to you running a business.

And yet what she's doing is squeezing it even more. And then making out that she's doing them all a favour by not imposing extra business rates on them. And some of the business rates now are o outlandishly ridiculous. And you know, people running businesses are saying to me I think I'll just chuck it in and just not have a business anymore because it's too complicated, it's too expensive. And the tax is is ridiculous, you know.

Say w I mean the government puts a tax on sugar, on cigarettes, on alcohol, with the claim I mean, it's about raising money obviously, but the claim is if we put up the tax on these things, consumption of these things will go down. Yeah right?

So what happens when you put a tax on business? Hmm. What happens? Business goes down. The economy goes down. Yeah. And the reason as you say, the reason that all of this is happening is and more and more taxes will carry on is because we actually can't afford

the lifestyle that we have. We can't afford the welfare spending. We can't afford to have millions of people not working. We just can't. No. And the highest employ uh unemployment figure in five years is going to be announced this week. Right. Right? Because more and more people are getting laid off.

fewer and fewer young people are be able to get jobs. Um I was listening to uh something on the way down here. Um the student loan business is now also in crisis. Um there was a woman saying that she'd gone and done a degree

uh taking a loan out for thirty nine thousand, um done another postgraduate degree for another eleven, so forty-nine thousand. She finished in something like twenty twenty-two, but she now owes them, despite having paid them back money since she had a job, sixty-seven thousand. And you go, Well how does that work? So you are now owe them more money than you did when you finished your university sort of you know education and yet you've been paying them.

So they're literally ripping everybody off every single stake. I'm old enough to have been fortunate enough to go to university when it was free, and I didn't even take advantage of it, I only did two years, I got kicked out of there as well, funnily enough. I my youngest son isn't going to university. He's got a job. Um, he came back on Friday night with a new BMW Z four.

And I went, Where'd you get that from? He said, I just traded he had a mini, traded it in, he's got a job, um and all of his mates have gone to uni again. I'm the one getting education, you seem to have all the money. You know, how's that working? And he's not making a fortune, but he's working. And so in three years' time, when his mates are all gonna come out of uni with fifty thousand pound uh loans that they own and they're gonna start jobs for nothing.

They're all going to be in in in the crap, you know? And he's going to be flying high, probably by then love a better car. I don't know. But you know, there's there's if I was advising anyone's teenage kids, don't bother going to university, what's the point? Well th there are some subjects where, you know, if you're gonna do advanced mathematics or whatever, there's definitely some subjects that you would. But Blair's idea that you need half the country to go to university

to do f fucking media studies and Well he just made it into a business, didn't he? Right. I mean that's effectively it. And then when the foreign students stopped coming because they couldn't bring seven members of their family with them, they pulled the rug. And now they're all moaning that they haven't got enough money. Right.

Well how about you don't pay the Vice Chancellor seven hundred thousand a year for doing bogger all? The whole the whole country just doesn't work. I mean I've never seen it so bad. It's it's absolutely hopeless. We're at a strange moment where people are pouring their most private thoughts into AI, health issues, business ideas, political opinions.

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Speaking of which, I mean that is if you want a ray of sunshine and hope I don't a ray of sunshine definitely doesn't apply to one but to say, but some hope is things are so bad now you see politically I mean it's all moving in one direction, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Um and I find it fascinating how it's kind of fragmenting up as well. Because you've got the left fragmenting up.

into the Greens, who are probably the most bizarre party I think I've ever seen. I don't even know I mean it's all about net zero. They never mention it. You know, it's supposed to be the green party. You go well, haven't you got some policy on climate change? It's mostly about Gaza now, but the rich and, you know, giving everybody free drugs and a free house. You know. And you kinda go, Really? Okay then. Um and then the right. What about your party?

Your party, yeah. I mean that's hilarious, isn't it? I don't know. Is that still around? They're adorable. Yeah, they are adorable. Wait, is it still around up? It must be. Yeah, but nobody knows who's running it though. Because I don't even know if it still exists. I think it does. It does. Yeah. Well Zara Sultana still exists. She exists. And she still gets up in Parliament and talks absolute rubbish. Yeah. Uh which she did I think a couple of weeks ago.

Um and I think she was was she not booed somewhere where she got up and said something about I can't remember. Your point is the left's fragmenting. In in in in in my sense. I mean Kirstarmer reassured us all at the weekend that he's not going anywhere. to which there was a sort of collective groan around the country. But the guy is is literally an out and out liar. Um he went to China, nobody knows why. Um

He said that we've got billions and billions of pounds worth of investment coming into Britain, which isn't true. He went to Japan to see the motorcycle riding former heavy metal drummer who's now the Prime Minister.

And didn't seem to get anything out of that. I don't you know, I don't know what he's for. They're gonna lose they're not even gonna come second in the by election, uh uh up in Manchester. Um Rydyn nhw'n ysgrifennu, mae'r ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu'n ysgrifennu.

These young people think it's they think it's the answer though. They go, Yeah, you're rich, so we're gonna take your money and we're gonna give it to these people who haven't got any money and we're gonna take

The house that you that you rent out to some people because, you know, it's it's a little bit of extra income for you, um, we're gonna make that impossible for you to to to rent out. And so actually there's gonna be a housing shortage before anything else happens. And so but but Labour haven't got any answers here. You know, watching Douglas Alexander with you.

You just think you don't know what you're talking about. You're so far off being. And he's one of the good ones. Yeah. No, he's a smart guy, very talented in many ways, I'd say. But I guess what's y I think Francis mentioned that when you were on his show, Francis Foster sorts your life out, which people should check out.

That was great by the way I really enjoyed that. I was a bit worried though, because when I sort of got home I said I didn't say anything bad, you know. Um I don't think I'm I don't think I did. Not as bad as the things you've already said or said, yeah. No. Yeah.

But but he mentioned that you were talking about how basically the left's given up on the country, the left hates basically the the country and the West they think we're all evil racist, you know, bigoted, whatever. Yeah. But the right's also given up because, you know, it's had so much mass immigration, the country's fucked, country's ruined, whatever.

Which to be fair, the country's in a bad shape. Yeah. But I guess your point is we can still recover. I hope so. I mean I think if you if you take the view that we can't recover You'd have to be one of those people who just leaves. You know? And I know a lot of people that have and a lot of people that are planning on doing it, a lot of people who just going, you know, I'm I I can't take it anymore. And there is

You know, the only kind of the only thing that that that can save it, I suppose, is for people who do pay a lot of tax to stay here. Um, but the only kind of insulation from the madness is to make a lot of money. Um and the more money they take, The less you feel like hanging around, you know? Um, but yeah, I mean, let's face it, I mean, there's no doubt the Conservative Party ruined Britain.

you know, from when from the fourteen years when they got in. I mean Blair had set it up pretty well, um, for ruination and he'd recreated all of these, you know kind of shibbiliths, the you know, the Supreme Court over here and closeness to the EU and all of these migration um uh sort of targets and all that. And then the Tories came in and just completely fucked it, even worse, you know, for years. And and

And people say Boris Johnson was, you know, a great Prime Minister. Do they? Yeah. They still do, in the Tory party. Oh yeah. Some of them still say it. In the Tory party. Yeah. And they th I mean at one point when he wrote his latest book, I think it was a couple of maybe six months ago or so. Anyway, he was he was knocking around and and people were saying, Maybe maybe it's time for Boris to come back and I was going, No, the ordinary people who actually voted for him and liked him

actually think he ruined the country. You know, he screwed up on immigration, he screwed up on Brexit, he screwed up on lockdown. Everything he did basically just turned to shit, you know. Um and so when Starmer got in, I mean I have some sympathy for him, which you'd be surprised to hear, because it everything was broken. There's nothing working, you know, the home office doesn't work, the NHS doesn't work, trains don't work, the roads are crap.

Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. see reform as the only kind of saving grace. I mean yes, there's the that splinter off to advance UK and there's the and there's the Rupert Lowe people. Um but you know, reform really are the only hope. And I don't even know if that's gonna work.

I think we have to give it a chance. I think you have to kind of I mean, I'm not party political, I never really have been. I've only voted once in my life, and that was in nineteen seventy nine. And I voted not for Margaret Thatcher, believe it or not, I voted for Labour. Um'cause I was at university at the time. And uh so I've never voted because I think actually I d uh it's a bit like um What's his face he used to say it? But but So I I've I'm I'm not happy

I'm an odd sort of bed fellow of of of fandom. I don't like to go, These people are the answer, you know, they must get in because that's the only future we can have. I do think they're the only thing that are likely to be the answer and I think Nigel Farraz genuinely is a is a decent guy. And I think he's a great leader and I think he would make a great Prime Minister. But I sometimes wonder if he even wants to be Prime Minister because

You know, he talks about his life now being completely impossible. I don't know if you saw those idiots up in Newcastle at the weekend, you know, banging on the window of the restaurant he was in. And, you know, he gets death threats every day and he's got a sort of security detail to have to go

check out everywhere he goes before he goes in there, you know, when James Whale was still alive, he went down to see him um and when it was going to go to this pub and they had to send these security guys in two hours ahead of time to make sure he was going to be safe in the pub. So I mean, you know, a and and you do worry because the leftists are so deranged. You saw those people in Newcastle. A bit like in America, you know, they're violent

They're nasty, they're horrible. They genuinely believe that they're on the right side of of of God and and any on the right is somehow satanic. They actually believe that. And I worry about that as well, you know, in terms of my kids' future. What it's gonna be like here in twenty years. I don't know. But I th look if we look at causes for optimism

I think that the emergen of emergence of reform is a good thing. I'm gonna be honest with you. I think the emergence of the Green Party is a good thing. There is that side of the political left who I think are nuts, whatever you whatever else, but at least their politics are being catered to. And I think what we're seeing now, actually with the emergence of these news parties, is a more representative form of politics.

Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud. And you go, how much does, I don't know, a right wing libertarian have to do with an old school traditional died in the wall Tory and you know, you th the old school lefties with progressive liberals. So maybe what we need are these more kind of smaller parties, as it were, but are actually more representative of people in general.

Yeah, well you won't say that if they get in though, because uh you know, they'll have this place off you. Uh they'll you know be felt you've filled you'd be full of illegal migrants living here, you know, you might be able to do a recording stuff, you won't be able to make any money, you know. Um Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I mean I saw Jeremy Corbyn was one of the people leading the charge on um facial recognition cameras.

um which would be something I imagine that we would agree with him on that, you know, we don't want these facial recognition cameras all over Britain, you know, because that gives an awful lot of power to people that probably shouldn't have it. I don't agree with Jeremy Corbett about pretty much anything. But, you know, maybe there is that kind of, you know, uh genuine um

place where if people are proper politicians and they do believe in something. Trouble is I don't think Zach Belansky is the answer though. I don't think he believes in anything. I mean he's a very strange character. But yeah, I mean I don't have a problem with having a wide choice and I think that the two party system doesn't work. I think we know that.

Um I saw it in Scotland actually interestingly'cause I worked in Scotland for about five or six years, maybe more. Um and Labour had had a lock on Scotland. forever. You know, ev I f I don't think I think the Tories had one MP, famously every now and again. But before the Scottish National Party came along, Labour basically Rwy'n gwirionedd yw'n gweithio 48, 52 MPs. Ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. Ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.

you know, old what's his name? Kennedy. Charlie Kennedy was up in in the sort of the the the the very yellowy, huge area, but hardly anybody living there apart from a load of cows and sheep. Um But they took it for granted, you know, the people who came from the Scottish Labour machine, people like George Robertson, you know, had constituencies in Glasgow, some of the poorest places in the world.

And they did nothing for them. Mm-hmm. Because they just took it for granted that every day when they went down a polling station they'd vote over. And then suddenly The SNP came up with the idea of independence and they suddenly went, Oh I know, let's have devolution, that'll be good and then they lost control. And now Labour in Scotland are in a terrible place, you know, not least because Westminster Labour are doing so badly.

But because the SNP are now the sort of main power in Scotland and they're not very good. But you can see that things can change. And, you know, if reform manages to bust open the two party system, Who knows what happens? Well that's an interesting question, isn't it? I saw Jeremy Clarkson wrote a piece. I never thought I would say the words Jeremy Cl Clarkson wrote a really interesting piece, but he did.

No, no disrespect to Jeremy, by the way. I just don't think of him as a writer primarily. Right. But he wrote a piece which I I thought was really interesting. He he kind of said a lot of people think with reform get in everything they they think the day reform get in Britain is gonna turn into an Enoch Blighton postcard. Yeah. It's not gonna happen. No. Well, Britain again, it's it's too far gone for that, to to be honest. I mean, I I speak to people

who are moving out of London now because London to them has become unrecognisable. You know, you probably also saw the piece of video from Richmond at the weekend. We played it out this morning on the show of these two guys, one's got a hammer, smashing in the window of a jewelry shop and they literally just tear the window out and just start lobbying a load of jewelry into a bag and then they run off down the street.

You know, yes, of course, and people will say, Oh, but you know, um there was always that kind of thing going on. And yes there was, you know, crime was always a thing in the middle of of London and and you know, the first time somebody tries to mug me, I think it was you know, it was in the seventies. I was walking home from seeing my girlfriend. But y but it's different now. And London is different. How is it different? It's different because it is now full of people from somewhere else.

And it didn't used to be, you know. It used to always have, as every big city has, it had an an attractive kind of immigrant um aspect to it. But now white people are in the minority. Thirty eight percent I think of white English people are minority in London, you know? And I would say in the last five or six years it's become noticeably a different city. And not just because of the colour of people's skin, but you know, you I mean I I go I live in um s south east London.

And I'll go to the big supermarket there and I can walk through the entire supermarket, spend about thirty minutes there, and not hear anybody speaking English. You know, they could be speaking um Lithuanian, they could be speaking um, you know, Ukrainian, they could be you know, it's not a question of whether they're all uh not white.

that you you don't see very many English people there anymore. And a lot of people find that difficult to to cope with because it's you know, you look at the old shows like um you know look at the Beatles for example from the sixties and this is when I started when I wanted when I first was aware of, you know, what London was like.

And you when they filmed that show on the top you know, they they filmed Let It Be or whatever on the top of the Soho rooftop, you know, and you see all the people down below and everybody's white. And I know that that might be an un fair comparison to make. But you know, I went to New York in the eighties and the difference for me with New York and London was that all of the immigration in New York was people who wanted to be American. You know, it was people who said, if you ask them

You know, um, where are you from? They would say New York. You know, I famously I got in the I used to know um I used to work for the Murdoch Organization back then and we used to use these cars called Skyline Cars and quite a lot of Russians used to drive

And I got in there was a guy called Charles Bremner who had been to Moscow correspondent for the Times and he and I got in one of these cars and he was very kind of um quite pompous'cause Times people tend to be. And he obviously you could tell by the way this guy was speaking.

that he was Russian. And uh so Charles Bremner said to him, So where are you from? And he went, You're Jersey And that was where he was from. He wasn't from Russia anymore. And so their kind of Amer the American dream for them was to go to America, become American

you know, get a house, get a car, put your kid through college, put a y put a a in a flag of the stars and stripes outside your house and it didn't matter where you were from. Whereas in now I think in London and in other parts of Britain we've got these communities which are not And they don't want to be British. And it takes us back to that argument you made about

uh Rishi Sunak on um question time. Yeah but I didn't even make it so the distinction is good though because you see I'm for example my parents are both Scottish right? So I don't really see myself as English. I was born in London but I do see myself as British. But I kind of see myself as Scottish. and British rather than English and British. And I think that's an interesting distinction.

Well, see it one of the I mean there's so first of all, there's so much lies about it. So first of all, I didn't bring up Rishi Sue. Right. I don't go around going he's English, he's not English, he's like That's my job. That's France, exactly. Right. Fraser Nelson brought Rishi Sunak up and he said, Well, I think Rishi Sunak's like the most English thing that's ever existed. Yeah. Is he

E he's a British Prime Minister, no disrespect him, he's a pretty terrible Prime Minister. He's British. He's very, very culturally British. I totally respect that. And I am British too. I wasn't even born here. I am way more British than I am Russian. I mean Russians look at me and they go, Who the fuck is that guy? Um So that's the first thing. The second thing is they keep bringing it up like out of context and they keep saying

So this proves that you're a racist, in other words. Whereas I said in that very same conversation, my son, born to two immigrants in this country is also not English. Am I being racist against my son? So they're taking an opinion about the difference between ethnicity and cultural n an identity and nationality and making it into a race thing, right? But I think your point is and look, the thing is, when someone who looks like you says it, everyone sort of goes, ooh cringe

I have friends from all over the world who land at Heathrow, I go and pick them up at the airport, they're black, white, brat all and they all say the same thing. Yeah. What happened. Yeah. That's what they say. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that offends people, but that is what they say. Absolutely.

I mean I go to a gym, believe it or not, now. This is how the horror, what's going on? I know. Well I thought when I was making seriously good money I thought it would be really, really rude of me to drop dead. Yeah uh and not be able to spend all that money on my kids. So anyway, so I started going to the gym like last May, ran the back of Selfridges. And Boxford Street now is actually more

Arab than Dubai. Right? I literally and I mean, you know, these are all law abiding people. I'm not complaining about the fact that they're here. It's an observation, right? You see more and more Arab families. Yeah, you see groups of women wearing the full burqa, you know, five wives walking behind a guy.

You know, it's there for everybody to see. Yeah, always walking behind. Um and it's there for and i i it's hard not to notice it. And I'm sorry if people don't like it, but I'm not gonna live in a world where I'm not gonna say something about it because

When I used to go to Oxford Street when I was a teenager, it didn't look like that. You know. People were walking they were always foreigners, they were always fun. My parents used to used to r delight in taking us to you know, different foreign nationality restaurants.

Once every week we would go to a Polish restaurant, we'd go to a Italian restaurant, we'd go to an Indian. Various swamies we went to in the old days, you know, we go to Chinese restaurants, go to Jewish restaurants, you know, it was great.

Because that was part of being in London. It was a melting pot. But now it's not like that anymore'cause now it's a kind of it feels oppressive to me. that there are so many people here from somewhere else. And what people don't realise is when we're talking about immigration as somebody who was born in London, lived in London, grew up in a fairly working class part of London.

And has seen it change. The area that I grew up in is now very much more way more middle class. But you lose something when you have that amount of immigration come in because that sense of community, that social cohesion, it It changes. It dies when you have that level of immigration. And people don't seem to accept that or want to accept that.

Because I'm gonna be brutally honest, it's because it's not n it's not their communities that are being affected. No, exactly right. Although that may happen soon because apparently there's a plan uh with from the Department of uh DEFRA environmental fisheries and whatever they're called now. Uh they want to make the countryside more diverse. They say that it's too white and that they want to put more people from different nationalities and different ethnicities into the country.

and they p particularly want to populate the Chilcott um hill area because it's around Luton. And they said they literally have said, We want to put more Muslims into into the into the the Chilton Hills and we want to put more Muslims into the Cotswold. It's a story in the telegraph today and you're kinda going

Why are they even doing what's it got to do with the government department? You know, they're not supposed to be changing, you know, the demographics of the country. But that's what they're actively doing. And people don't like it. And and they've got and they've got every right not to like it. Let's talk about an unpleasant subject. The c the Cockneys. Yeah. Do Cockneys even exist then? Yeah.

Well, look at Whitechapel. I mean Whitechapel, which used to be, you know, home to a very big Jewish population. That was where the Krays used to hang out. You can still go to the blind beggar. People will say that's where they shot him, you know, over there. Bullet hole still in the wall. Bullet hole still in the wall, you know. Um

But it's yeah, it's it's it's unrecognisable. And, you know, I get the fact that that things change. But as I say, I lived in America in the eighties under Ronald Reagan when it was a very, very um interesting and and wide ranging and changing place. But it always with one

sort of, you know, central tenant which was, this is America. You know, you want to come to America, you become an American, you s you you you recite the you sing the Star Spangled Banner, you know, you pledge allegiance to the flag, and your kids will pledge allegiance to the flag every single day when they go to school. That doesn't happen to you.

And I think that's a problem. And it is. And what it seems to be as well is a sort of tacit acknowledgement that what they're doing is obliterating a culture. Yeah. And not only that, they're celebrating it. They're going diversity is our strength. And you go, well, what about the previous communities that live there, their culture, their heritage, like the Cockneys? Well, no, that doesn't matter. Get rid of them. And you go, Well

I mean, do you want to actually understand what you're doing to the literal fabric of this country? Yeah. And if they start making it sort of you know, a a kind of blanket situation, at the moment it's mostly cities, isn't it? I mean, you know, if you go uh even as I say to where my kids went to school in Sussex, you know, it's a very white area. Um and it's a very English area and there's not that many Foreigners there.

But even that's now beginning to change and you're starting to see the old vape shops popping up. you know, organised crime, um, which is which is nothing to do with ethn ethnicity as far as I'm aware. Um, but it has everything to do with, you know, an awful lot of people coming from foreign countries and setting up drug businesses and setting up, you know, the Albanians, for example.

biggest drug dealers in in Europe, you know, pretty much have a lock on every single part of the cocaine business from here to Turkey, you know. And it's been allowed to happen. And nobody really knows why. Nobody but the thing is this And then suddenly there's a bunch of barber shops and there's a bunch of, you know, clearly, you know, money laundering businesses. And nobody's stopping them. And and nobody voted for the and this I find frustrating because

You know, as you know, I'm an immigrant myself here. When I came to Britain, it none of none of it was like this. It's this has all happened in my life. It's accelerated massively in the last ten years. And it's not my fault. I didn't do it. Even though it has happened in that time. But you know, so many things I always say this. are a question of speed and scale. Yeah. I like ice cream, but if I had ice cream every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I'd be fucked. Yeah.

And immigration is the same. If you choose very carefully the types of people that you allow in, if you're very selective, if you're careful, if you say, Well, you know, we've got to make sure you're culturally compatible, the numbers are kept to a level where people as you say come, they integrate, they become British. Rishi Sunak is very British. Yeah. He's totally integrated. I'm gonna make that clear, right? Just like other you know

Myself, I've done the same thing. It's perfectly possible for people who come here to integrate. What is not possible is for millions and millions of people to come in the space of a few years and then for us to expect them for them to integrate, especially when we are incredibly shy about a what it means to be British and B about insisting that you do actually integrate. And i these are like these are just

D they're not even controversial things to say. They're things that everyone around the world, including billions of black and brown people too, just go, Yeah, of course I think it's a good thing. But of course it's true. For anyone who has uh uh uh got any nationality of any kind, you go to any country in the world.

You know, if they were going through what what we have been going through in the last ten years in terms of immigration, they'd be up in arms. You know, they'd probably be taken to the streets, you know. Um Yes, of course Brazil is a is a a a a multi ethnic society. It's quite a racist society as well, depending on what colour Brazilian you are, right?

But I can be pretty sure that there aren't thousands and millions of people coming there from from European cultures um to change the way that they live. Whereas we've got that situation here. And I think also the other sort of major part of why it's happened is the welfare system here because the welfare system has encouraged more and more Brits

um not to work. Uh it's also encouraged more and more immigrants to come here because they can also get welfare. We are now gonna be, I think, the biggest G seven uh country for spending on on welfare. Uh I think it's two percent of GDP. that we will now be spending this year on on on welfare of one kind or another. And, you know, again, it's a failed political system. It's a failed political kind of theory.

that's been propagated ever since the days of Tony Blair, then into David Cameron, you know, where hugger hoodie was a thing, you know, you didn't want to, you know, punish anybody for doing anything bad, um, you know Talk down to people, make out that they're too stupid to understand the the you know, the machinations of the state, let the state take over and become bigger and bigger and bigger, which is what it's done. And all of these things have conspired, I think, to just ruin the country.

And it's not just one thing. It's not just immigration, but it's a big part of it. And it to me, it comes down to something. I went to a a dinner where there was a very famous politician being interviewed by journalists and it ties back into what you were talking about. All the questions that the journalists gave the politicians they were just Nice questions. Nice and and I thought to myself

Like everybody in practically everyone in this room has had a better education than me, no doubt they're smarter than me. But want the but there's no courage or balls. They don't want to shake things up. No. Why is it

that we just don't want to be uncomfortable. We don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. We don't want to have a st we don't want to have conversations where we go, look, we need to limit immigration. Right. And it just seems that this has just been pervasive for our our society. To the point that we

Avoid discomfort for so much that we find ourselves now in the most uncomfortable of places. Because people are frightened to be seen as as wrong. They're frightened to be seen as as, you know, right wing. And again, this is the establishment. The establishment is now in no way, shape or form right wing. The establishment is now left wing and everybody who runs this country is effectively left wing from the civil servant

to the politicians, to uh the m the people in the media, to the school system, to the educations, the higher education sectors to the universities, even companies. I mean, look at what the banking sector is like now. You know, my sister worked in in the Big Bang days of the eighties. You know, and funnily enough, Nigel Farage was working there as well. She worked with him, uh, at Drexel Burnham Lambert before they got done for, you know, Michael Milken's, you know

chicanery, uh, where he went to jail for insider trading. But, you know, it was you know, it was balls out, it was gonna make as much money as you can, you know. Pike they used to call it piking when you'd get somebody to have to do a deal that they didn't really want, but they'd have to buy something off you and then you'd you'd sold it to them and they'd have to take, you know, delivery of it and people would you know, it was like the Wild West. And it was unregulated to some extent. Um

But they were very far from left wing. Whereas now you get the Bank of England and it's, you know, where are the gender neutral toilets? They're on the seventh floor. Oh that's all right then. You know, um and they debank people like Nigel Farage for having views that they don't like. And it's all very kind of

Nice. It's changing back again now in Wall Street. Wall Street has kind of given up. Under Trump, they've kind of come back a little bit and they've reclaimed a bit of that kind of, you know, right wingery, if you like. But you know, I don't know when it all happened. People like people in the Religious Trust asked me, she said, When did it all happen? I said, I don't really know.

kind of happened in the last twenty years. Um and w maybe we're all to blame for not seeing it. I'd say thirty years. I think what people didn't realise because Blair was Fresh face. You know, the Conservatives were tired.

he came in and also in the before the war in Iraq, it sort of felt like everything was great because they pumped a lot of money into public services, they improved education, they put money into healthcare, blah, blah, blah. But what nobody realized is in the background they were introducing all of the all of this legislation.

which has been with us for the last thirty years. Which has ruined absolutely everything. And it was kind of almost time bombed, wasn't it? That's right. So that nobody would really see it happening. And it would only be suddenly when the Supreme Court popped up. Yeah. And everyone went, Oh, when did that happen? Yeah. You know, I thought, you know, when I was studying politics, you know, the House of Lords was the highest court in the land.

you know, we didn't even pay any attention to uh to Europe to Europe at that point. And now suddenly You know, the House of Lords is pretty meaningless as a as a legal uh entity, you know? Well the same thing with the whole diversity agenda. Th under the Labour government they basically made it legal to discriminate against everybody who wasn't a minority. That's what they did. They said

There are protected characteristics which means that these groups of people because they're minorities or women as well, they ha they they get to have special treatment. So then the diversity agenda flows from all of that. If you look at the the boats coming across the channel, that's all to do with the Human Rights Act and the fact that basically you're not allowed to deal with people who are coming into your country illegally. Right. Right. All of this stuff.

Uh so it's been happening but but the thing is, as you say The Tories came in and I don't think they realised what the hell had happened. No. And then before they knew it they were balls deep on Brexit and then and then, you know, that took years and then the moment that's finished you get the war in Ukraine you get COVID, sorry.

the moment COVID's wrapping up, you get the war in Ukraine and before you know it, fourteen years have gone and

Nothing's changed. Put it sits there laughing at the West and going, you know, well you're weak and this is why we're doing what we're doing because you're not gonna do anything about it. That's right. Because you're too busy making sure that the soldiers that you're now recruiting um don't use words like manpower because you know, I actually had a call from a from a soldier who who said that he was asked, he got a phone call, he was in a barracks.

got a call from sort of the Department for Defense. and he was asked to go around every single notice board in the barracks to make sure the word manpower wasn't used anywhere. Right. And that's what they're doing, you know. And equally you've got this whole situation where um Cameron and then Theresa May tried to make the Conservative Party nicer. You know, remember when she said, you know, we we're known as the nasty party. We need to change that view. And you know, suddenly

hostile environment was a thing you couldn't say about the immigration uh police, you know. Well we wanted a hostile environment, so these illegal immigrants don't come here and they don't want to come here. It should be a hostile environment. You know, if it's not a hostile environment, more of them are gonna come. It's a pretty straightforward equation. And yet the Tories have spent the best part of the last, I don't know, probably fourteen, fifteen years trying to be nice.

And it's backfired horrendously because they've been stuck basically by everybody else. Or I might well let's hope Zach Polansky can fix it. I mean, I keep expecting something just very odd to come out about him because, you know, one, we know it's not his real name.

even though he claims that it was his family name before, um, you know, the Second World War, blah de blah so he he kind of reclaimed it. I just think he's he clearly is not what he says he is. Um he's meant to be coming from quite a wealthy family when he pretends to be this kind of, you know, Crusader for justice and I just I just My prediction for the year is that Zach Polansky was self destruct.

That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I actually studied hypnotherapy, so I'm very familiar. They're all fucking oh mate. Well again, he claims that that's a sort of made up story by the Sun. Uh is it? That that's says that you know, they kind of took a story that he was talking about and kind of ran with it. The thing is there is a video of him talking about

So he can't completely deny it. But he's he's sort of saying that the the son kind of took advantage of him um and kind of put that question to him and he ended up coming back. But you know, the trouble with it you know, he's managed to fulfil the first law of politics, which is just tell lies. You know, if if somebody catches you out, just deny it. Like Lord Mandelson.

I mean one of the interesting things actually touching on Polanski is just his economic illiteracy. Yeah. And when he was asked about what sh what should Britain do about the debt? Yeah. He said that we needed to be more like Japan, which is to effectively double our national Yeah, Japan is two hundred percent of debt to GDP if not more. Yeah. And he was saying that's how we get better public services. Oh, yeah, pretty more money. Yeah.

Well that's what we've been doing though. No, yeah, but you've got to do more of it, man. That's why we know where we are. Well when he was on with Laura Kunzberg on Sunday, um he was asked about this whole business of uh uh of sort of fair rents and and how to to to make it easier for people to rent for less money.

And Laura said, Well, all the countries that have used it, it hasn't been a success. And he said, Well, that's not entirely true. But then he couldn't name a country whose system he would adopt. because it would work better for landlords and for tenants. There isn't one. Because as soon as you put f you know, the so called fair rent act in the

But in terms of your plan then no you would not dictate rent controls, you would give the power to mayors to set rent controls if they wanted. That would be the way you would do it. Exactly. Based on local incomes, based on affordability, based on housing stock,'cause we need to build more houses too. I should say though, if national government wanted to do this on a national level, I wouldn't oppose that either.

Just someone needs to do that. And whether it comes at the most local level or the national level, that's a conversation I'm open to. But the problem that we need to fix is the spiralling rents that are getting more and more expensive. The only system that works, it may not be perfect, is capitalism. Can't do any other way.

And that's the real issue is that and it's not just Zach, there are plenty of people in politics who are just they're just not serious. No. And you saw that on question time. You I was looking at these people and they were talking, you're going Th you're just not serious politicians. You this not serio th they're just peddling narratives. They're just saying things that sound good and make you feel good, but the unfortunate and unpleasant reality is

They're not gonna the ideas aren't gonna work. And if they're not gonna work, then they're pointless. Well this is one of the things that people say about reform, isn't it? And some of the people that have d you know, kind of, you know, defected from the Tory party, if you like. And that guy Jake Berry, um, I think he's got a mention on question time, didn't he? Um

I feel bad for him I'cause I've gone at him pretty hard. It's not because I it's personal towards him. He's not a bad guy. But but he was in the Conservative Party arguing with me on question time, saying net zero is brilliant. Yeah. He's now part of reform. Yeah. You can see why people have questions. Exactly right. I remember having James Cleverley on once and I was taking um the Mickey out of I think it was Rachel Reeves.

who, um, it was revealed had charged her electricity uh to the taxpayer from her second home, you know, even though it wasn't that far away from London. And I could see him kind of squirming a little bit. And I said, This is outrageous, isn't it? I said, especially if you don't live that far from London. I said, You live in Essex, don't you? Yeah. Um, well you don't charge your uh your second home electricity to the taxpayer, do you? James?

And he went, W well, um, actually uh yeah, I do. And it was like You shouldn't be doing it. Just stop. You know, you're making a pretty good living. You don't have to just because it says in the book that you can do it, you don't have to do it. Same goes for that sort of, you know, hatchet man that they've got.

um Pat McFadden, you know, who's also an ex Blairite. He actually moved house to the house next door from the one that he owned because he couldn't claim mortgage relief anymore since they changed the rules. And he moved into the house next door so he could rent it So he could claim the the the mortgage on that so he could claim the rent on that, therefore could pay the mortgage. I mean'cause he rented out his his other house, right? So he sort of did a double dip.

And when I had him on I said, you know, how do you explain to people that they should trust you? Rydyn ni'n ei wneud, mae'r hynny'n ei wneud yn y rules. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud. Rydyn ni'n ei wneud.

And it's ridiculous. Well, see this is uh I mean I am uh actually, believe it or not, a little bit sympathetic on that because what happened for many decades is we basically never were allowed to pay MPs properly relative to what you want someone the caliber of the people that you want in power.

or i in in in those positions. So what happened is they said, Well, you can't be paid properly, but we will give you this like expenses slush fund where you can make as much money as you want. Right. So really it's double the salary that we're paying. And then they all got caught when the expenses scandal came out and on and

Actually I think MPs should be paid way more than they are at the moment. I I'd pay them a quarter of a million pounds a year. But if you get caught caught fiddling the books, we'd chop your fucking head off. Yeah. But would you give them expenses on top of that then? No, no, no. You just give them a flat amount and then you you know, do do whatever. But what I'm saying is you just need

Uh proper salaries because then that's your what that's how you attract proper people. In a like in any business, right? If you want to hire somebody to do a talk show, you're gonna have to pay them a lot. Yeah. Right. Or even if you don't

if they get a big audience, then you're gonna have to pay them a lot, right? So if you wanna attract the top caliber people to politics, you have to pay them well because it's a shit job, let's be honest. Yeah. Right. I mean, I wouldn't want to be a politician. I people keep asking me if I want to I'm like, Are you insane? Why would I wanna do that? Right? But on the other hand, no expenses and very, very, very severe accountability. Yeah. If you misbehave. Right.

Put those two things together, that's a good deal. Ordinary people in this country who have never seen a salary like ninety six thousand, which is what they get now, of course. But they already are getting a load of money. I know. And I know that for for for people living in London they'll say, Well actually that's not But they're they're not badly paid.

Let's face it. It depends what you want, Mike. If you want a bunch of mediocrities. Yeah. Well that's what we've got. That but what I'm saying is Look, if you were running a business, right, and that business was the most important business in the country, it was important for national defense, it was important for planning, it was important for the running the NHS properly, it was important for all sorts of things.

You would hire the top people. That's why the person, the chief executive of the NHS, I don't know how much he or she earns. I'd guess it's millions. I would imagine so. Right. Certainly certainly six big high six figures. I would think so, right. So you want the people who are running the country

to be that well paid as well. Otherwise you're gonna get this bunch of non entities that we have. But unfortunately that disproves your theory though, because the people running NHS don't know what the fuck they're doing. And so I don't know why they're getting paid the amount of money they're getting paid. That's fair. You know, um and the other thing is I just want to mention this is I don't know if you saw at the weekend the Sunday Times had the list of um

people who pa pay the most tax in this country. Yeah. And I would show that to Zach Polanski and go, you know, you talk about, you know, uh people not paying their fair share of taxes. Rachel Reeves says it all the time. It turns out she's gonna now punish the people who make about forty eight grand a year. They're gonna get taxed the most.

by proportion. But when you see the likes of uh some footballers, you know, sort of captains of industry, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of tax they're paying. And so so make out and that and you know, the top one percent I think are accoun account for something like

Nearly fifty or sixty percent. It's the top ten percent, isn't it? So top ten percent is sixty plus and the top one percent is thirty plus. And so, you know, that is a massive, you know, um sign, I guess, that that the the system works. Because they collect much more tax from the people who make money.

than they do for the people who don't. And you might say that's as it should be, but I don't see any reason to change it, is what I'm saying. They don't need to pay more because if you make them pay any more, they'll just disappear. Which they are. Yeah. Which they are. Mike, great to have you on. Glad to see that you're doing really well.

Thank you. Where where can people find your your show? It's the Mike Graham show on uh YouTube. Uh we've got a substrate which I don't understand, but we're working on that. That's the Mike Graham Show dot com. And um yeah, we'd we're we're just we're we're hoping

to do more shows as time goes on. We're a pretty small operation at the moment. Um so we're just kind of running, you know, constantly running ahead of ourselves, trying to get stuff done and trying to improve. We're trying to get to a point where we can take calls, trying to get to a point where we can do voice notes, things like that. um and really replicate what a mainstream m morning breakfast show could do, you know, and I think um it's gonna be a very exciting year.

The last question. Yeah. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? The one thing we're not talking about that we should be. Now you see you always come up with a good question at the end, don't you? The one thing we're not talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Well I I've told you a few things that people don't know about me. There are things that that people will never know about me, I suppose. Um I wonder if we should be talking about um Iraq.

And where that all goes because it's gonna go somewhere bad I think. Um I think Trump's gonna drop some bombs on them or something and I think that'll that'll kick off. So I don't know what that's gonna mean for the rest of us. But the thing that worries me about Iran is that and I know that many people have escaped the the Iranian regime'cause it's so horrible.

But you know, it takes that long to get thirty thousand Iranians out on the street demonstrating. How many Iranians are actually living here? And what will happen if the regime gets removed? Will they all go back? Or will they all stay living in act? You know, I don't know. We shall see. All right, head on over to Substack where we get to ask Mike your questions. She says the one thing that she doesn't agree with you on is your animosity.

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