What most people say. What most people say. Hello and welcome to this breaking news edition of What Most People Think. And before I tell you where I'm recording this, the reason I'm recording this is because it's been one of those weeks where the political news has just built up. It's built up like we've got political blue balls and we...
We need to get it out of our system. With Starmer versus Farage this week, I mean, that was a head-to-head, wasn't it? You know, Farage did his speech earlier this week, then Starmer... claps back, as the kids would say, you know, does that create space for the Tories, finally? We've also got Robert Jemrick, old Jemrick Lamar, Bobby Jay, going vigilante, confronting people, fair evaders, on the tube. And then you've also got these, you know, these issues with the Trump...
whereby he bought in the tariffs and then they were blocked by a court and then they were unblocked and then Elon Musk has gone. But look, there's a lot to unpack from a busy week. So we'll get into all of that. I should tell you where I'm recording this. I'm recording it in the Old Faithful, Travelodge Farringdon. I got the little nod as I was checking in from the receptionist. She was kind of like, oh, yeah.
She's probably expecting some kind of, like, lady of the night to walk in shortly afterwards. That's an old phrase. You know, they talk about, like, sex worker being a more positive word than prostitute or hooker. Lady of the night. Did it ever get any better than that for hookers? So yeah, I'm in a travelodge and I'm going away next week. So I am. Don't worry, I'm going to do... Don't worry, as though you're sitting there waiting for the podcast. But...
With the Patreons particularly, I see you as clients. So I'm never going to not do the podcast. So I'm doing a podcast on Monday with Dominic Frisbee. That'll be up as usual. But then I'll be away. I'm going to Ibiza, going on Tuesday, and I'm away for a week. And I've got to say, man, it can't come soon enough. This industry is changing quickly, trying to create...
opportunities, pitching, hustling, doing all that stuff, but definitely fraying at the edges. I'm not an angry person, but I've had a couple of kickoffs recently. Not fighting, but a little bit, a couple of diva strops. that suggests to me that maybe i need a break and even a couple of things that i've been on you know i've noticed that i talk fast anyway right my brain works fast i talk fast but even i've gone jesus christ is that is that geezer on something
So if you are a patron, remember you get this show early, ad-free, and with bonus content, and I always roast the name of new patrons. Now, I normally do it individually, but this week, three names came up together that just felt like... They worked as a trio. So let me tell you the names of our esteemed new patrons, Stephen Bullivant, Nick Parker, and Benjamin Alot.
I just feel like you sound like three rugger buggers par excellence, right? It's Bullivant, Parker and A-Lot. Everyone knows you. The BPA. The BPA. Thick as thieves, those lads. Thick as thieves. Rugger buggers. You know those polite lads that you find out that they, for a laugh, gave each other a handjob once? Just for a laugh. Just for a laugh. I reckon...
You're the kind of lads, you're good blokes, right? And together, maybe one of your mates got like prostate cancer and you did a midnight run dressed as the fucking Big Ben or something. I don't know. You're good, solid. Rugger bugger lads, right? People give rugger bugger lads the, you know, they give them stick, but I think essentially they're decent people. So you are very welcome. And usually we do domain talking point.
But that builds up. David normally gets in touch over the weekend and we do it for the early week show. But a few people have been in touch asking why I haven't commented on the Andrew Lawrence thing. So if you're not up to date with this, comedian Andrew Lawrence, who's been in trouble with the comedy industry several times before.
while that awful event with a car in liverpool was happening he did a joke uh about you know that he understood the driver because he was just trying to get the out of liverpool so it was you know a tasteless joke i think it was deliberately a tasteless joke first things first not my cup of tea right i sort of always went with the theory that comedy is tragedy plus time the time being the important bit but i'll never ever decry comics you know
you can say stuff you can say whatever you want you should be able to say whatever you want but i guess you've also got to be realistic that in a situation like that you know there's gonna be there's gonna be a reaction right you know comedy excels it benefits from risk and return right so without that risk it isn't a thing so you know like i say i just i sort of think while people are still being treated at the very least but anyway that's not my call that's the other comedian's call to make
What happened since then? You know, obviously there was a big backlash online. People entitled to be as angry as they want. Of course they are. But then... You know, you're publishing, some people are publishing the comedian's address. I mean, that literally to me is an incitement to violence. And whatever you think about the joke, it was a joke. You don't have to think it was a good joke or tasteful or anything. It was still a collection of words.
And then, you know, comedy clubs piling in to sort of say we're not going to book this man again. And, you know, and in one case, encouraging other people to not book this person. So, you know, I don't want to duck the issue. But I just think that I'm never ever going to think it's a good thing that comedy networks one or kind... I get one of them is based in Liverpool and I sort of do get...
You know, Liverpool is a very, it's very much a place in and of itself that they would, even if, I'm sure that this is what they wanted to do and what they felt compelled to do, but they would have also been under pressure from their clients if they hadn't done something. But other comedy clubs get involved.
I don't know. I've got to invoke union rules here and say that I'm never going to endorse that. And Andrew's doubled down and he said that he's done really well out of revenue. Maybe this is kind of like the sort of win-win.
he gets the sort of notoriety that works for him. He gets a bit of revenue and people are able to get their anger off their chest. And, you know, but yeah, but a couple of people asked me the question, what do you think? It's very simple. Not the kind of joke that I would make at all, but equally I'm never, ever.
going to endorse you know especially comedy clubs advocating for other comedy clubs to to cancel someone's work what most people think i just want to say thank you to all the people that have decided to finally follow this podcast i should have done this years ago so all i did was say look if you're one of these people that just searches for the podcast every week or gets it via my social media channels
How about you just subscribe to the thing, and that has had an immediate effect. All the numbers have gone up, and now I feel like a fuckwit that I didn't just ask people. I didn't just ask people before. Oh my God. I really love to think that I'm a naturally intelligent, inquisitive guy, but it takes me really, a really long time to work stuff out. I mean, if you look at the current format of this podcast.
Those of you that have been with it since the beginning will know that it only took me like five short years to work out that. So anyway. I'll get there. I'll get there in the end. The fuck you is to people who kick off on planes. I've seen a lot more of this, and I don't want to always presume that if I'm seeing a lot of clips or something, that it means it's definitely happening more.
But there is this trend on TikTok, right? I swear some of you are missing out. As the kids would say, you're sleeping on TikTok. You're sleeping on TikTok, fam. Because there's this really funny trend where, you know, the Jet 2... the jet two holiday theme you'll know when you hear it right if you just go on tiktok
and search Jet 2 holidays, right? You'll see just the worst behaviour. And I have to say, it is Brits. You know, when it comes to crowd trouble these days, I think the Europeans do get their beak wet, but the Brits, we are still, if there's one thing we're still world leaders at, it's having...
having planes land in countries that they shouldn't be landing in to disembark leary passengers. I mean, you've just got to think, if you're the police of that country, do you know what I mean? You're just sitting there, just Polish copper. And they say, you know, just a sleepy day at the airport. And they're going, OK, boys, lock and load. Unexpected flight landing. Is it Brits? Of course it's Brits. You know it's Brits. Always Brits. Some stupid...
person had five shots at the Manchester airport and tried to pull off a stewardess's wig. It's just shameful. And I just think it's gone. I think it's gone worse since COVID. It's one of those things where people forgot the protocols. Now, normally I'd like to be fairly libertarian, live and let live, but a cabin is literally a pressurised situation. Literally, figuratively.
Actually, I don't know how people grow up. From the moment I knew what air travel was, it was drilled into me, don't be a prick on a plane. Maybe that should be the slogan. Don't be a prick on a plane. You fly with Jet 2 holidays, but just don't be a prick. And I think that sometimes people, maybe they drink to quell their anxiety about flying, but then they drink so much that they become a sort of monstrous version of themselves and end up...
their fear comes out in the form of anger. And you just, there was this one guy who got disembarked at, I think he was at Manchester. And he was just abusing, he was saying horrific homophobic things, and there was one of the ground staff there. And it is beautiful, this. Find this clip if you can. Because he was like, what are you going to do? What are you going to fucking do? What are you going to fucking do? And then the guy with the high vis on just fucking gives his...
a dry slab and then the guy immediately like all bullies goes into coward victim mode going oh you're gonna hit me is that what you're gonna do you're gonna hit me yeah he hit you i hope to god if i tell you something if i find out that guy's getting sacked i will do a go I will fucking divert some of my salary because I support that behavior. So I just think there's a different set of rules. There's a different set of rules. Don't be a prick on a plane. Okay.
Speaking of... No, we're going to look at the politics. I'm going to start off this week with the big political beef, Starmer versus Farage. So earlier this week, Nigel Farage does a big speech aiming shots at everyone. I'm not exactly sure why he was doing this speech. I guess that you're the leader every once in a while.
You sort of speak to the press. He's doing well. I guess it's kind of flexing. Why am I using all these kids? My son's nine. This is why it's happening, isn't it? Although the best thing to do with a kid is to use that slang in front of their mates when they're there.
I used the word ops. If you don't know what that is, it just means your main opposition. So I said to Seb in front of his mate, I went, those guys are ops, right? And my son, the withering look. It is funny. It is funny to do that stuff. Make your kids cringe. But anyway, so he's flexing, right? And he's saying that Starmer hasn't connected. He's saying that he's going to increase, basically increase welfare spending. And I think he's going to fund it by taking down pride flags, I think.
net zero. I mean, the thing is, right, his plans are, you know, Farage generally has been liked by the right, but some of this stuff on welfare and where he's going to raise this revenue, the Taxpayers Alliance didn't like it, you know.
and The Telegraph didn't like some of it. So he's kind of moving politically. It was like, you know, Aaron Bastani said on this show a long, long time ago, brilliant political commentator. He said, what the British people, a lot of British people want is somebody who's towards Farage on immigration and towards Corbyn.
on economics. And this is where Farage is now doing that within himself. It's mental. So, you know, he is showboating with his poll lead and his new MP, but he's still on five MPs. But anyway. Later that same week, Keir Starmer, he's the Prime Minister at a time of European war, Middle Eastern war, financial crisis. He clears his diary. to do a speech, which is pretty much all about Farage. And one of the standouts from it was, had you trusted with your mortgages?
Can you trust him? This might be a good question. I mean, in fairness, Keir does look like a mortgage in human form. I mean, Jesus, if a five-year sort of tracker deal came to life, it might look a bit like Keir Starmer. But what was odd about him was he was basically in campaign mode, right? Because Keir, despite the sense of service, a government that treads more lightly on your lives, he is obviously highly sensitive to...
polling, bad polling and unpopularity. I mean, you remember the personal attacks on Rishi Sunak? Do you remember that? It was something to do with... What was it? It was about paedophiles, wasn't it? It said, do you think the paedophiles should be able to roam free and basically do their non-sin? Well, Rishi Sunak does. And there was...
There's no evidence. And the rumours are that that came from Starmer because he was annoyed that despite the Labour Party polling very well, at that time, his personal ratings weren't as different as he'd have liked them to be from Sunak. So he is, in his own way, thin-skinned.
And then they tried to peg it back to Liz Truss again. I do wonder if they slightly overestimate where the British public's head is at on Liz Truss, right? I don't think... Things move so fast politically now. 2022 just feels like a very... Because that... immediate aftermath of COVID felt like a different time in itself do you remember we were saying you know we need to help the children of COVID we need to put extra funding now a few years later you know what fuck them okay
If they're strong enough, they'll survive. Let's take some funding out of school then. But anyway, there was a different reality in the post-COVID period. So I think... The idea that the British public is still fixated on Liz Truss, I'm not sure that stacks up. I mean, we're barely thinking about stuff that happened earlier this year.
Jesus Christ, Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister less than a year ago, but it feels like a long, long time, right? And maybe part of the reason it feels like we've moved into a different age is because the, you know, things have happened since Labour have come in that were...
There are overlaps with what happened under the Tories, right? The economy has stagnated. Inflation has started to tick back up. Unemployment is up, you know, whereas that was one thing that Tories did. I mean, God knows what they did with the figures or who they discounted, but the actual baseline figure of employment.
pretty good throughout most of their time in office. 14 years. I mean, you won't hear that from Stummer. 14 years of high employment. You know, and the bonds, the cost of government debt went up. So, you know. I don't know if the trust thing lands like it did before. And he was talking about crashing the economy. Look, if you're a fan of Keir Starmer, can we just admit that that is not a true statement? It went tits up, and I am still furious with...
trust and quasi-quarting because they had, they'd laid the groundwork to rescind the corporation tax rights, right? But they just went so far. Do you remember? They were literally like, yeah, we've done that. We're going to roll back corporation tax. Then they did the higher.
They roll back the higher rate, and then they were like, and then Khoateng was apparently briefing privately, like, we're just getting started. Everyone got spooked. So I'm annoyed at them at trashing the good name of trying to create a low-tax economy.
But, you know, Starmer seems quite, at this point, he's mentioning trust, but he's fixated with Farage. And he said, I like Nigel Farage. I know what it's like growing up at a cost of living crisis. I mean, that is a good point of difference between them. It is good. You know, Farage, for all his kind of everyman pretensions, he still wears red corduroy trousers. I mean, you would not have got away with that on a council estate. And, you know, Starmer.
Son of a toolmaker. We still don't know exactly what his level of work, but I think it was like upper working class, right? He would have had moments, perhaps, where he felt the pinch of poverty. In fact, he went on to say that. I know what it's like when your family can't pay the bills. Where do you fear the postman? I mean, he does go on to say the bills that may be bought by the postman, but it's just a funny phrase, isn't it? Where do you fear the postman?
Starman Lees is in this weird world where people fear Postman and where people are constantly looking down on his dad for being a toolmaker. Do you remember that? He was just saying, he was just saying it for so long, it's just a bit of a shame my dad felt being a toolmaker. Really? From who? I've just never... I remember there was a period where I had a mate whose dad was on the bins. I mean, he got a lot of stick, but I never remember anyone's old man getting cussed.
Because they were making tools. What most people think. So the press were quite brutal with him, actually. He got asked loads of brutal questions about... I mean, that is one of the things where I respect any politician because they have to stand in front of a crowd of people and just not burst into tears. as someone says to them why are you so unpopular most of us mere mortals would just collapse maybe I don't know if that means that they're resolute or whether they're psychopaths but
He asked why he was focusing so much on reform. Keir said that the Conservative Party had run out of road and they were sliding into the abyss. An abyss populated by terrifying postmen. And I sort of wondered, you know, this early in this parliament, right, it's kind of odd that Keir's in campaign mode already. That's weird. Like, maybe you should focus on the now rather than winning another election. But I guess that's Morgan McSweeney's influence.
But the possibility is by sort of them ruling out the Tories, there was a chance in certain constituencies whereby the right-wing vote might be split. If they absolutely hammer the idea of Tories as not being viable as an electoral option, it sort of...
takes away that choice you go alright the Tories can't win here I'll vote reform so I'm not sure about the logic of some of this strategy anyway and then so but reform he's right to throw the light shed some you know throw a bit of focus on some reformed spending plans because one of their plans was that they were going to take the personal allowance threshold from 12 and a half to 20 grand right so that's estimated apparently it would cost between 50 and 80 billion quid a year
And you sort of think, why is he saying this mad stuff? Because on the one hand, people say, well, you can't scrutinise reform yet. There's a long way to the election. But equally, their leader is sort of hoisting himself by several petards. And there's just a lot of scepticism about how much money it will make if you end diversity or net zero. You know, a lot of...
a lot of the money in net zero is coming from private enterprise. I don't doubt that there are things that we are footing, you know, and I don't doubt there's an argument there that it's gone too far, but I don't know if there's all those savings there that Farage thinks that...
that there is. And I thought it's kind of, you know, if Farage is going to go down the higher welfare spending route, right, and Labour are doing U-turns in that area, do you think it's there finally a little chink of light there? It's a little bit of Chinkalai because it must have been a tough week for Kemi Badenoch. There's beef, right? There's beef, there's political beef, and she wasn't invited. And you know she loves beef, right? She loves a steak.
Quick shout out to Robert Jenrick, who obviously I have taken the piss out of on this podcast. I've mocked him in the past. You know, nicknames Bobby J, Jenrick LeBar, some people call him Robert Generic. But he's made this video this week, right? And I think he's done a good thing. I think it's going to connect. I think it's going to...
cut through he made a video of him in london basically confronting fair dodgers now if you are in london i'm sure other cities but particularly in london you just see these usually young men but not exclusively They'll just bowl through really brazenly. The most annoying thing about it is the cockiness of the walk. Now, I guess that probably comes from fear that they're going to get a tap on the shoulder, but they're obviously not that scared because they do it repeatedly, right?
And then so the first thing that happens, so he does this video of him going around confronting people, I guess at some personal risk. He might have had like a minder with him, but still. You know, there's a camera there. He might get a dry slap. You know, it might get worse. So I kind of admired the hutzpah of it. I thought, well, this is good. I think this will resonate with people. Low-level lawlessness is...
is a blight people when you see it this is what people so what happened immediately was there were people on the liberal left that just hate Robert Jemmick they hate him so much I mean I bumped into a couple today in my line of media work and they just they just can't compute that he might have done something that's cut through here it's just They just can't let themselves believe that Robert Generic has got his finger on the pulse of the British people. But in this instance, maybe he did.
And, you know, there was a guy, there's an account called The Secret Barrister that, you know, throughout the Brexit years and various kind of hot button political issues has always come down on the sort of lefty remaining side of it. And he did that kind of thing they do with, oh, this is glorious. This is the most...
Partridge is more Partridge than Partridge. And he's got loads of stick, and rightly so, because I don't think it is like Partridge. I don't think Partridge would have the balls to actually confront people. He's a coward by nature. So, yeah, was it politically expedient? It doesn't matter, does it? They're all doing that. You know, Farage is pretending that he suddenly cares about welfare payments. You know, Starmer has turned back on everything that he once believed. So, yeah, this is just...
This is just politics. And Jesus, did anybody think, did anybody have it on their, their accumulator? Bobby Jemrick to become like one of those, do you remember those New York Guardian angels from the, was it the 80s or the 90s? He should walk around with a red fucking beret on.
And I sort of thought he's laid down the gauntlet here because I know he's a Shadow Justice Secretary, but Yvette Cooper, there's a lot of pressure on Yvette Cooper now as Home Secretary. What are you going to do, Mr Cooper? What are you going to do?
Right? You've got to step up. You've got to now, if Robert Generic is confronting people, like fair dodgers, you need to fly kick people in the head. That's what I want to say. I want to see like an arms race of what politicians, of what politicians are willing to do.
In the flesh. You know, if they say that they're against stuff, like Keir Starmer once famously said that he was against the smell of skunk. Well, I want him to go down Camden High Street and start ripping reefers out of people's mouths. Okay, quick hype here. And I'm aware I can't just keep asking you to buy tickets for the tour. So listen, here's the thing.
I spoke to somebody the other day who came to a work in progress show, right? First up, thank you to all the, but those are fully done now. It's now previews in July, Edinburgh, and then the tour in September. And we've already sold, by the way, for this year, we sold 11,000 tickets. So if you haven't bought them yet and you just think,
and I'll get around to it just you know they'll start to fill up is all I'm saying but here's the thing I want to tell you is somebody said to me oh I'm so glad I came because I mean I wanted to come see you for years but I always thought there would be loads of kind of knuckle draggers and like kind of yobs. And I was like, okay, first up, it's a bit weird that you thought that, right? I mean, it's just...
No, is the short answer. But then I suddenly thought, who else thinks that? I know what the listenership of this podcast is. Are there other people sitting thinking that they'll all be people like me, but more violent? maybe so let me tell you what the touring audience is like they are mainly nice people mainly couples probably maybe a tad older than me but not much in the average age I get a lot of father and sons and fathers and daughters coming
which is nice, you know, so there are some young people there, but I'll be honest, they're usually with their parents. And on the last tour, I got a shitload of lesbians. A shitload of lesbians on the last tour. I don't know what that was, but that was great. I suppose that when I start moaning about her indoors, they're like, I feel you, bro. I've always thought that's an underexplored bond, isn't it, between straight men and lesbian women. We know...
We know the dramas, right, ladies? We know the dramas. So I just want you to know that if you're sitting there, hesitating to ever buy a ticket, it will be very much like if you've been to any tour show at that particular theatre, it will be very much like that. It might be a fraction older than like if you went to see...
James Acaster or somebody like that or Sarah Pascoe. But, you know, it's going to be like a touring crowd. So there's no worries, right? Uncle Jeff will take care of it. That just sounded noncy. Thank you. Okay, I want to do a bit of US stuff there because it's been a tricky week for the Donald, right? First up, there's the stuff with the tariffs and all that kind of thing. But there's also been a very funny development where I think the left might have...
finally got an attack line on Donald that gets under his skin and it might play with people. And the attack line is this acronym, TACO, as in the food, TACO. And it means Trump always chickens out. because they're alleging that in several instances he's gone close to the line of doing something radical and then he's backed down, whether it be through tariffs with China.
Yo, taco. Trump always chickens out. Now, this was put to him in a press conference, and he didn't like it one fucking bit. They're saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that's why markets are higher this week. What's your response to that? I kick out. Chicken out. Oh, chicken out. I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I said?
down to 100 and then down to another number and i said you have to open up your whole country and because uh i i gave the european union a 50 tax uh tariff And they called up and they said, please, let's meet right now. Please, let's meet right now. We have the hottest country in the world right now. Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead.
We had a dead country. We had a country people didn't think it was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that. It's called negotiation. You set a number. And if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number and I go down. a little bit you know a little bit they want me to hold that number 145 tariff even i said man that really got up you know how it got because of fentanyl and many other things and you added it up
I said, where are we now? We're at 145%. I said, whoa, that's high. That's high. They were doing no business whatsoever. They were having a lot of problems. We were very nice to China. I don't know if they're going to be nice to us, but we were very nice to China.
And in many ways, I think we really helped China tremendously because, you know, they were having great difficulty because we were basically going cold turkey with China. We were doing no business because of the tariff, because it was so high. But I knew that. But don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah, I sort of had to abridge that because it was a long rant. But basically what happens is he's...
I just think it's such an object lesson in how not to react when something has crushed you, is you've got to not let them know. It's like with comedy. If a heckler gets you, you've got to kind of push that shit down. Not let them know they hurt you, but he... just the worst thing is at the beginning where he just doesn't realize oh what's that oh you just see how crushed he is and then he goes on this long riff of
He makes a fair point. It's about negotiation, but he also weirdly kind of gives away his strategy as well at the same time. But he's basically saying, well, I don't ever mean it. You know, the first time I pick a number out of my fucking ass. And then I just love his classic Trump at the end when he goes, that's nasty. That's a nasty question. It just becomes like a fucking child. It's so funny. It's so funny. I just think the left have been absolutely appalling.
at taking on Trump in his first few months of his presidency. But you're kind of like, this is it. You do it sort of with humour, taco. It's just, it lands. You know, it's the same with Starmer. When Starmer negotiates, Britain loses. For whatever reason, some things land.
So we'll see where it goes with his tariff, you know, with his tariff deals, the appeal, there's an appeal on an appeal and stuff. But I don't know. What does that do to the UK deal as well? Does that mean we've got a better deal? Because we kind of negotiated against the 10%.
tariff and maybe starmer got concessions on cars because they existed i don't fucking know but i do know this elon is gone elon is gone and in fairness they always said he would go around roughly around this time but um but man did he burn brightly and beautifully What was it? He said, move fast, break things. Well, yeah, you did it, bro. And he, I mean, the funny thing was, was that like he...
I think it genuinely seemed to surprise him that he became quite unpopular after, in one of the most binary and divisive areas of politics, he came down really hard on one side. It's the thing about these guys that always makes me laugh. There's always something so unbelievably thin-skinned about them.
but um he's on his way out he's starting to trash talk the donald a little bit and he was talking about donald's uh finance bill that's going before the house next week i think was it trump called it is big beautiful bill and elon musk said well i think it can be big or i think it could be beautiful i don't think it could be both and there's one thing you do not want to do with donald trump is tell him that he can't use that many superlatives
That's what he lives for. It's big, it's beautiful. It's one of the most amazing builds I've ever seen. You can't tell him that he can only use one word, right? Elon, you're out, mate. Okay, speaking of how I probably need a nap before doing Times Radio tonight. But just thank you so much for listening. I know that there's so many podcasts launching every single week. I think Peter Crouch has now got about 17. But you listen and I appreciate it.
that I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I'll be back for the patrons you'll have your episode Tuesday of next week and everybody I know it'll be Monday evening everybody else it'll be Tuesday have a great weekend We'll be right back.