Comedian Andrew Doyle takes apart woke comedy and political correctness - BQ #5

talk about offensive tweets I think it was there was it Glasgow police who tweeted out saying if you say something unkind unnecessary we might be knocking on your door this weekend right this stuff is not good to get hello I'm Stephen Edgington for the Sun and today I'm interviewing Andrew Doyle Andrew Doyle is a comedian commentator and playwright he is behind the fantastic satire account - Tonia McGrath which basically is a satire of leftist woked people on Twitter he also co-wrote Jonathan pie which is a satire of news anchors for three years and is the author of woke a guide to social justice we're going to be talking about woken us comedy and politics Andrew thank you very much for joining us hello why did you invent the carrot cut character - Tonia McGrath I was getting very frustrated with the woke movement and what we call the the the excesses of the social justice movement and one of the things that I was trying to pinpoint about the movement is that they're impervious to reason right so that there weren't sort of talk I mean I was often often involved with debates and things that things like the battle of ideas at the Barbican and trying to get someone from that side of the political spectrum to sit down and talk with people who don't agree proved to be really hard and what you end up with is a situation where people say well look at that panel everyone everyone's agreeing with you you just sort of reinforcing each other's existing views and I would say but no I tried to get one of the wou crew on board but they won't talk and part of the reason is what they say is certain things are not up for debate and therefore we're not going to dignify that by it by talking and so if you can't reason with someone what else is there to do but to mock them to attempt to try and burst that bubble through satire and that's what I was attempting to do and that's why I emitted the character and really it was just for myself I had no idea that it would become like a thing I was just doing on Twitter there's a bit of a laugh in the early day she kept him bound all the time in which every couple of weeks there would be a one day ban or a couple of times over a seven day ban so I thought well this isn't going to last long anyway and then it just sort of took off and eventually she got banned permanently and then reinstated so they sent me the email saying this is gone now you can't do this anymore and then there was a bit of a bit of an outcry and they reinstated her what was the reason they gave for banning well they don't give a reason like they're like Kafka so what they do like the trial you know where someone's on trouble they don't know why no what they do is they send you an email and they say you violated our Terms of Service and then you look at their Terms of Service and this is big sprawling nebulous thing that doesn't really mean anything it basically means we just want rid of you and we don't have to tell you why and you can't really appeal because if you appeal you just get an automated response with more of the same it's very frustrating am i known look I know lots of people who have been banned on Twitter for saying absolutely nothing I'm not talked about there are some people to say some absolutely horrible ghastly things and I'm not talking about that I'm talking about people who've expressed an opinion or made a joke or whatever and they get ditched from the platform and then they try and find out why and the sort of the autocrats of twitter don't deign to tell them you know because Twitter's got that weird most of these sort of huge Silicon Valley tech giants have could they hire thousands of people to monitor the content right because they decided one day they decided that they were going to be that they weren't about free speech any more than what they were about is monitoring and curating what appears on their platform which is weird cuz whenever they're sued for what goes on their platform they say yeah but we're not a publisher we're just a platform well if you're curating material you are a publisher and therefore you should be subject to the same laws as everyone else and it's a weird one is something that we need to tackle I think we'll get on to free speech later unless stick with titania though for sure why do you think she blew up so much what did it hit us or zeitgeist I think it's because if you mock the like I think most social justice activists are really good people and they've got really good ideas and they want to make the world a better place and I think the causes of anti-racism anti-sexism anti homophobia and transphobia all of that kind of stuff these are good causes that moves virtually everyone gets on board with right so we're talking about a minority of social justice activists who have so much power that's the problem is that if it were just that a few people on Twitter mouthing off right Oh care about that it's is a minority but they they seem to have infected all the sort of major institutions in the country right so they're there in the quangos right there the to him the government out sources all kinds of authority there they're there in the law that they're in education they're certainly there in the media they're 100 percent they're in the arts you know they totally dominate comedy in the arts and drama and TV so so when you have a small group of people who come generally from very ball to our back whereas a face off privileged people talking about how oppressed they are but running everything that's kind of funny so it's it's quite a good idea to to to mock that because I think that personally I like I like to punch up in comedy you know there's all this stuff about punching up and punching a Mariah and I like to punch up I like to to attack those in power and I and this is where the debate lies you see the people who don't like what I do will say that I punch down minority groups even though minority groups are never the target right so that's that just kind of a basic misinterpretation but quite a common one but I'm sort of attacking those who would who would patronize the minority groups those who who want to try an engineer society and they're in the way that they want those who have a complete a complete intolerance to any kind of dissent any kind of alternative viewpoint any kind of even even to a sort of basic discussion of principle you know now you wrote a fantastic article for the independent that was completely out there and they published it and you wrote it you submitted it under not your name can you talk about that and why you think so many people fall for tetani McGrath being wheel so you're talking about an article by Liam Evans which is for the independent yes so Liam Evans submitted an article Liam Evans doesn't exist and it was obviously a hoax like this is so clearly a hoax what what he was saying was that comedians need to be subject to hate speech laws and he gave a couple of examples and said you know basically the police ought to get involved now this is this is such a kind of maddeningly authoritarian stance that you know if I were working at the independent hour I would look at that and think well this is not real is it this isn't this is made-up this is someone trying to hoax us but the fact that they published it because they agreed with the sentiment right that's what it exposed it also exposed the kind of the I suppose the the lack of any kind of background check this was a complete unknown to someone with no online presence sprinkling the skills so nothing there all is is they wanted to push awoke agenda right and it's just it's just that in that article which is still online if you take the fourth letter of every sentence it spells out - Tonia McGrath wrote this you gullible hacks now I'm not suggesting they should have spotted that but but the article in of itself was so obviously made up and of course the point of this I mean I know some people accused or suggested that what the point of this was to try and suggest that this is so widespread view that this whites we're sort of intolerance to comedy and this widespread sort of Puritanism when it comes to comedy there is that I don't think it's as widespread as people think but but it's there but actually the the target of that satire was the media was the woke media who absolutely will just go along with absolutely anything with no thought just sort of blindly push an agenda and you know so it works but I mean you have a look at the art it's ludicrous it's it's totally stupid and saying that ever since then there's been a few articles that have come out that have been even worse published in the independent and the Guardian that they're the ones that have a particular track record of this stuff that is calling for sort of monitoring of comedy and hate speech laws and all this sort of stuff so it's not that far away from what people are actually saying now you use the word woke quite a lot already in this interview and you've written even a book woke a guide to social yes this what is what can you just explain it to people so this is a problem isn't cuz we've been talking out for about five minutes and I've used the word a number of times and maybe the people watching this don't know what it means so they will have switched off already woke is well it's an old term I mean actually comes in the the black civil rights movement it was about it was initially about about waking up to to injustice you know it was initially about a good idea it's been appropriated by by contemporary social justice activists and what it means now I suppose is it's actually quite difficult to put your finger on it's kind of like being hyper aware to issues of injustice racism sexism homophobia etc but to an extreme degree where you're looking for it where it doesn't even exist where you'll determine to find it that's what you hear them talk about power structures you know these sort of vague entities of power strokes our unconscious bias you know you you may never have said anything racist or thought anything where they know that you you secretly have this lurking within you and worse than that they think I mean we've got we've all gotten like infinite unconscious biases I'm sure but the idea that we could control that or legislate against it you know the you know when you have a I think it was berming in university that had older white male academics being mentored by young female black academics that achieves absolutely nothing it's a it's absolutely nonsensical and it's silly and you know and it needs to be called out so that's what that's what woke so that when I use the word woke what I'm talking about is you know the kind of guarding colonists a kind of very pampered rich normally self-identified his left-wing but they're not really who who pushed this kind of agenda want to be offended by everyone they want to give more power to the state to control what we say and think and they want to say to minority groups will look out for you will stand up on your behalf because you don't know what's best for you so you know there's a kind of weird soft racism within that movement and of course what all of this stuff does is it generates an awful lot of resentment you know you've got poor people like people on the PAC's your poverty line I'm being told that they're privileged because they're white you know or they're privileged because they're won't because they're heterosexual or whatever it might be and they're thinking yeah but I kind of forward anything and you've got like a millionaire guiding columnist telling them that that she's the oppressed one because of her race or sexual orientation and they're thinking hang on a minute I kinda I can't afford food right you know and and that sort of stuff does cause and this is the thing about the cultural and this is the thing about whoa culture it has a massive impact it wins and loses elections it was a huge contributory factor to Trump's victory it was it was certainly in the last general election here I think it was the same thing you know use Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party bought into this this ideology and they sneer of Jeremy Corbyn was announcing his pronouns things like that you had that pink bus that was a Harriet Harman with her pink bus about push it you know and this very patronizing view of women that women need to be infantilized essentially and we need to hold their hands and give them a bit of a leg up and again it is sort of low-level misogyny masquerading as feminism and this sort of stuff and then you had the Liberal Democrats doing exactly that you know they they they well they're not liberal are they because they want to completely undermine the brexit vote because they know what's best it's very paternalistic viewpoint and when pushed to ask whether whether there were two genders on other Joseph Winston had a real trouble with that whether there was such a thing as a biological man on the biological woman she had a real problem with that because she's bought into the this woke agenda and therefore she can't answer a very straightforward question any more people mistrust this that's the thing they don't like it so that's why it and across the board there's a really good book by Mark Lilla called the wants of huge liberal which is about the way in which identity politics and extreme social justice activism loses elections all the time you know look at what Hillary Clinton did you know she she broke down the American electorate into their various demographic groups you know she said we're going to target the Latino vote I'm going to target the LGBT vote and well I'll look after you I'll help you you know that thing about women should vote with their vaginas you know this I didn't vote for another woman you know this idea but ultimately when you're voting for a politician you're voting for the ideas and the principles and the policies if you're voting on the basis of skin color race gender sexuality all of that sort of stuff you're making a huge error because those things just simply don't matter I mean I'm with her was her slogan for the whole campaign and I think that sort of shows you what Hillary Clinton really was all about and again as you say she lost that lost that election let's talk about the effect that woke nurse has on society now you you sort of touched on there the sort of authoritarian kind of line at they're pushing for yeah in that you know we've seen in Britain police going to people's houses because of tweets we've seen a woman being sacked because of tweets she made about trans issues and she went to this employment tribunal was told by the judge that what she said was basically outside of our democratic values or whatever and I can't remember the exact quote so what kind of effect does the woke movement have on on Western societies and how dangerous is it it's incredibly dangerous if the police are if the police think it is their business to monitor what the general public say and think absolutely straight out of all well you know which has become a cliche but it's very difficult to think of any other way to describe it you know in the in the Harry Miller case which is the recent case of the the doctor from homicide who and what did he do he retweeted a transphobic poem or a poem that was deemed to be transphobic and the police investigated this they phoned him up they said we need to check you're thinking that's a specific new or William phrase I mean they may as well have got that out of nine a four and he's currently taking the police to court because he said because of their justification was this is a non crime hate incident and we are obliged to investigate that right the police should have absolutely no business what they got to do with it I'm done cry don't know that's like you know people have been not breaking the law and getting away with it it's outrageous it's stupid right and but it's not just stupid it's sinister so you've got that you've got the my for starter case which you mentioned about the woman who had the tribunal on the basis of her belief that that biological sex is immutable now that she is totally entitled to that belief I mean when it comes to that whole transition we need we need a discussion we need it you know I'm not I'm not saying that the one side is wrong on one side is right I mean I do have my own views but I'm open to persuasion but how can I be persuaded if we don't have the discussion and I think that's that's some and then we you know we are we have got a government website at the moment on hate crime which has a whole paragraph on non-crime non crime hate incidents and also what you found over the last few years is the police have been actively trawling for this so you'll see these tweets from the police officers saying um contact if you've been offended by something you've heard something that's offensive contact us you know and I'm not talking about targeted harassment or someone hurt you that's against the law right we're not talking about that's already covered talk about offensive tweets I think it was there was it Glasgow police who tweeted out saying if you say something unkind unnecessary we might be knocking on your door this weekend right this stuff is not good and when the Humberside police were challenged on their treatment of Harry Miller with the non crime hate incident stuff they said but this is standard practice and it is because it comes from the college of policing guidelines which is what is currently being challenged in the court by Harry Miller I hope he wins because we have to that we have to stop that it's so I mean I'm not saying we're living in through this kind of free speech crisis but every generation has to be vigilant when it comes to free speech right you have to watch out for it and you certainly have to be careful if the state are trying to assert powers that they should not be having and and this is a really good example of that so we just need to keep we just need to keep check on them we need to keep you know media to curb it and I think that's what's happening what I find fascinating with this whole issue is that it's never really talked about I mean in the mainstream press I mean I you don't see it very much you see it under quite a bit but well there's no real discussion is I think I think because people think that the culture war is like a sideshow I think they think it's it's something that doesn't really matter it's just sort of youtubers and Instagram influences it's all in our basements kind of keyboard warriors but it's not is it because if you listen to the way our politicians speak when you hear David Lammy saying that the ER grg are worse than Nazis right that's straight out of culture war that's culture war 1.01 of one of the biggest tactics of the left-leaning side of the culture war is to smear people as fascists and racists the fact that mainstream politicians and commentators mainstream publications mainstream journalists have bought into this utter fantasy that we live in a society which is populated largely by Nazis and neo Nazis and fascists and they're around every corner the bland truth is that most people are pretty decent and we live in a really tolerant country you know major study last year it was the you go study about attitudes towards immigration and in Britain turns out is is the most tolerant of all the major European countries I mean that's even the EU zone research shows that attitudes towards immigration of soft and since the brexit vote so we are an extremely tolerant country but when you have people saying yeah but there's this thing called white privilege and there's unconscious bias and everyone's a racist and everyone's a homophobe and people in the real world are thinking well that's not that doesn't match up with my experience you know and it's so yeah it's it's it's something that needs to be addressed it's something that Britany infects our politics and until until the mainstream media do treat it as the serious issue that it is it's not going to go away I don't think let's talk about the history of woke the woke movie yeah okay I think people will be fascinated to see where this comes from and why is here today and I think for example if Winston Churchill was alive today I think they would probably call him a fascist or no Nazi what they have done they absolutely have done you know they've said that again on Twitter and social media or academic articles and some newspaper articles saying that Churchill was a white supremacist was a well I mean he had some dodgy views actually about about people of color not incredibly atypical for his time though it should be saying who yeah it's pretty nuanced if you actually and I'm reading a book on Churchill's right right I would know about this but you know they if you go into the detail of what of his views at the time they were more liberal than most people sure and they're extremely nuanced he wasn't just an out-and-out racist there was lost you have to contextualize it historically you're absolutely doing judging the people of the past by the standards of today makes absolutely no sense because because the truth is that the people who were criticizing the most if they'd have grown up at the same time as him they probably the same views so it doesn't make any sense to do this so what does this come from as I say the bedrock is good intentions so I mean if you the the reason why I consider the woke movement to be a fundamentally reactionary movement is because it is undoing all the good work of the civil rights movement if you go back to the 60s and the 70s if you'd talk about the black rights movement gay rights movement women's liberation the new left groups which all agreed that we have to have free speech in order to achieve any of our goals groups that were all about liberty and about empowerment and that is not what this is so I really like to draw a distinction between what the civil right you see that's the problem is that the sort of far left and the anti-fascist movement talk about how they are sort of carrying the baton from these struggles they're not they're trying to undo those struggles right because those if you look at Martin Luther King who's all about the content of the character not the color of the skin they want to invert what he believed you know there's no way that the civil rights activists of the 60s would be on board with the woke culture they would see this as an affirmative to their worldview so that's the background you know and I think what happened is we went through a period of little correctness in the 80s early 90s which I happen to think did some very good things I think it's difficult to argue with the point though before that time you did have very casual unpleasant kind of language and and and discourse which was pretty horrible you know about race and about sexuality and the light and we we got through that and sure there were mistakes made things went too far there were some stupid Oh some stupid overreaching on the part of political correctness I get that it's not a simple thing but the truth is as a result of that we've ended up in a situation where we now live and have done for many years in a country where if you say explicitly homophobic or racist things or sexist things you're treated as a pariah and rightly so like we're not interested in that as a cult as a country as a culture so what's happened though is you've got the the the sort of political correctness movement has sort of morphed and and perverted and become this thing now these sort of them these these people are just desperate to fight to keep it going almost almost to pretend that we're still living in that time I mean if think about comedy like I get this all the time like people say to me because I'm saying that free speech in comedy is really important they're saying well you just want to go back to the days of Bern and Manning what Bern and Manning was a self-confessed racist I mean by the way a very good comic technically very good calm there's no denying it but he admitted to being racist and that informed a lot of his material and certainly his audience saw it that way I mean there's no disguising that but there aren't people like that on the comedy circuit anymore so so when you try and say well or there's all these people out there doing these problematic jokes that normalize hate and legitimize oppression of minorities that's simply not true I you know I I always push these people I said we'll name names who are they who are these people because I know a lot of comedians and I don't know a single racist among them not one Gooden anyone so this is this the what I'm saying is why occupy a kind of mythological world and why not just occupy the world that we actually have been you see if you go back to the and it's weird that this is coming from the left now if you go back to the 80s and the the late eighties say where you had most of the sort of reactionary fantasy stuff was coming from the right-wing tabloids wasn't it it was this sort of like we live in a world where asylum seekers come over here and they get showered in tiaras and diamonds and they get whatever they want and they and all of this stuff wasn't real let's face it that wasn't true it was this fantasy that they were also believing and they believed that Christmas was being banned and replaced with winterville which by the way even the Daily Mail admitted wasn't true so there's that fantasy world which is a sort of right-wing tabloid fantasy world and now you've got a new fantasy world which is the left-wing Guardian independent kind of fantasy world where you've got sort of prominent culminated commentators who just genuinely think that anyone who wants to have a discussion about politics anyone who thinks that there are two sexes you know anyone who anyone who has a qualms about gay marriage must be a fascist must be a raging neo-nazi that goose steps their way home every night this is utterly ludicrous right an egg comes when people not talking to each other right that's what I think we need to get back to I need I think we need because I think the woke movement is sort of so hostile to the idea of discourse and just chatting about things and talk to me I've been I've been interviewed by right wing commentators and afterwards I've been told where you're one of them now right well firstly what I'd say to that is I don't think being right wing is bad I have no problem with being right wing it just doesn't happen to be true in my case you know I have my views are predominantly on the left I have some sympathies with certain conservative views so I don't tend to think in terms of an ideology you know I just sort of decide on the individual issues and I'm open to persuasion and I want to have an open mind but by talking to someone who has completely different views than these not contagious it's not like I get like like there's a process of osmosis and I suddenly become that person this this guilt by association thing is so damaging because what we need at the moment more than anything is more speech we need to be talking to the people that we don't agree agree with rather than shutting them off so this is what social media ruins for us in currently it sort of encourages us to to create these echo chambers to - to just ignore anyone who doesn't you know I will always on Twitter I will always talk to anyone who comes with me politely with a disagreement I will always engage with that if they come at me and say you're a Nazi Your Honor I'll block them all right because I'm not you know my view on that is like if someone's come up me in the street and say you're an effing Nazi you're at our era would I engage what I say yeah it's a good point let's chat about that a little bit no I'd walk away so but anyway I will never block someone who wants to talk politely about these issues and and disagree I think that's a really good thing we need to do more of that and we need to stop saying don't normalize them by it or legitimize them by talking to them actually is true do you really think they actually believe that you are an artsy for example when they accuse you of that right I don't know I mean the thing is if I thought if I thought you were a Nazi right now if I thought you were a neo-nazi i probably leave if I would write I know there are some people who can talk to neo-nazis and try and persuade them out of their delusions right there's a guy called Darrell Davis a musician in America who has de radicalize members of the KKK and has all the hoods to prove it right this is quite an interesting idea literally through kind of yeah right so and great I'm glad there are people who can do that I can't I don't have the skill I don't have the patience I see Nazism neo Nazism has been just such a fundamentally delusional I mean if you like talk to a cult member and explain to them that God is wrong you know you I could not deprogram that person all right so I wouldn't do it and I also don't like them I don't like someone who thinks that a certain race is superior to another I find that really rebar Bertie of and unpleasant and so but do they think I'm a Nazi well I've never expressed any view that remotely comes close to it is the opposite of my worldview right and you won't find me on record ever saying anything that even remotely comes close to tallying to Nazism so what it is is people have imagined in their head that I must be and then this is a sort of it's a way it's a good out card for them because then they don't have to engage well what you're saying what you're saying is a willful thing there and you're saying it's calculated and I don't I couldn't possibly speculate speculate about someone's motives it could well be I fear it might be legitimate I fear there's a kind of mass delusion you know I've lost friends who have caught me to my face and Nazi right close friends and do those so why do they give specific try to and and again it's that thing of I know what you secretly think and I'm thinking what point what have I said what have I done any and they can't because I've always been so vocally against racism and vocally against injustice and Prejudice and and for equality and for liberty and for free speech which of course the Nancy's clearly loved it's like so and it's impossible to argue with that so if someone imagined something about you that isn't true and they've just decided it how'd you then and let them have you not a Nazi because that's what announced you would say so it's this kind of impossible situation and so I think you know I think it must be genuine prefer for people to think that I think it must be a genuine delusion I don't know where you even begin to to challenge that and I think it is about a cultural shift I think it is like we need to know if you call someone a Nazi of course meant even racist that's one of the worst things you can call someone you better be damn sure about that you know you better have something to back that up but they don't it's become I mean Blair white you know the activists in America I don't know she's an activist but she's a trans prominent transfigure in America tweeted out the other day about how racism homophobia sexist when she said when I hear those terms my instinct now is not to believe it's true because they become so watered down and as she said that's dangerous right because those terms mean something and they should have weight and gravity if you're calling someone a racist and they are a race that then we need to know we need to eat now I'm the same when I hear someone cause I'm a right a racist I think are they probably not they probably they probably just read the Daily Mail of the Sun and and and they've just said you know it's you know when when Owen Jones has anyone who writes for the Sun is supporting fascism you think this is well for one thing is historically illiterate but it's also really damaging to his own cause his own ideas you know because that he will never persuade someone that way I think it's really sad let's talk about comedy obviously your comedian you do a lot of comedy shows let's look at the history of comedy so you're talking about the political correctness in the early 80s 90s yeah and how that has kind of adapted to today because it's completely different isn't it as totally if I mean you had the alternative comedy movement at the 80s which is a reaction against that kind of working men's club what they perceived to be racist jokes and homophobic jokes and that kind of thing and that and that was very much tied up with political correctness and there were a lot of great things that came out of the alternative comedy movement and a lot of fantastic acts right people like Joe brand of course Joe brand now finds us hoping the difference duration today when she makes a joke and is accused of inciting violence right so that gives you an example of how different things are you know the the the the fundamental difference is the alternative comics were railing against the establishment they were reigning against the norm you know now the woke comics are the establishment and that's the that's the difference you know you're not you're not anti-establishment around on guard if what you were doing is winning all the awards and getting write-ups in The Guardian you know you have it's not that's that's just very safe and that's why you know the stuff that passes a satire which is just simply talking about how Donald Trump is orange or or you know the Tories are evil about it that they you know orange man bad right exactly you know it's not satirical you know it's just confirming an establishment for you right so and that's complicated because of course Trump is the establishment as well so you've got to sort of levels of establishment haven't you've got the the political establishment which is obviously right-wing at the moment we've got a Tory government here we've got the the Republicans in America but then you've got the culture war and you've got the cultural establishment which is very much of the the more social justice mindset and that in by the way has infected the Tory Party as well so I mean that's why it's so complicated because it's not as simple as right and left anymore I mean really what this is about it's about Liberty and authority I think but yet when it comes to comedy it's now quite subversive to be a bit morally ambiguous in your comedy it's it's quite subversive to be a Tory comic you know there aren't many I can name it's almost unheard of it's about three or four you know I think I could name it's uh you know they're just not there the the last survey I think artists for brexit did a serve and it was something like ninety-seven percent of all people who identifies artists were pro-eu right so that's interesting so tiptoe within the artistic community it just became the norm say bricks of roses were stupid and racist because that was but that is the that's punching down that's what that is how is there this gap between the 52 percent of the country and then the 97 percent of those artists who believe differently when you have such an almost uniformity of anyone is partly to do with privilege I mean in order to be a successful stand-up comic it's much easy if you come from independent wealth much easier that's why so many disproportionately comedians and artists are probably educated or from rich backgrounds because they can afford to stay at home all day and get their parents to pay for everything and then go out and gig at night you know it's very hard if you're working a full-time job during the day and then going out it's really really difficult so and we have seen that there is a a kind of class division it becomes more complicated brexit because it almost felt like a kind of alliance of the working class and the aristocracy on the one side and then sort of upper middle class and the bourgeois R on the other and that's that's really interesting but of course if the arts and comedy generally is so steeped in bourgeois politics and of course none of its left-wing I mean that these aren't these people don't talk about redistribution of wealth or the welfare state you know they talk about microaggressions you know they talk about jokes about gay people being homophobic even though they're not they're just jokes about gay people which is not the same thing as a joke that demonizes gay people that thus over this very way and above all what I hear from a lot of self-identified left-wing comics is that certain jokes normalize hate and what they're what that means is what the implication of that is is basically working-class people don't know the difference between a joke and real life and so if they hear an off-color joke they'll all go out like these creatures these gremlins and they'll go out and they're just sort of mindlessly enact violence on people utter utter nonsense no one's ever been able to point at an act of violence that has been stimulated by a joke you can do it doesn't happen like Joe Brown I mean know when he's waiting for Joe Browns permission to go and throw battery acid at someone no there's not a thing so you know the idea that comedy is a literal representation of something that it shouldn't be morally ambiguous is is just absurd because just for those who don't know Joe branded me to joke about Nigel Farrar being a milkshake with that battery acid or something and then there's this huge wave all the time and it was cited violence yeah you know I'm I'm unpersuaded of the whole incitement of violence thing anyway I think that you know there needs to be a serious discussion about about what qualifies as in Simon to violence a joke is not yeah a joke is never inciting violence she wasn't saying go out and throw battery acid at people you may not like the joke right a lot of people I know found it really if deeply offensive but when Nyjah frosh suggested that the police should get involved that was a mistake because you know what what he should have said he's I find that really offensive I think it's really distasteful and I don't think it's funny he's totally entitled to say that you know but she was performing you know on a show called heresy the context is clear it's about saying things that you're not meant to say if you listen to the recording there's a big laugh from the audience the audience liked it you know I did it it doesn't matter if you liked it up is the only joke that you wouldn't tell yet loads loads I mean I think ever I think as a comedian you should think about I can justify every joke I've told I think you should be able to defend your jokes and I think if I can't defend my jokes I should people shouldn't say that to me you know I mean if I saw someone in a comedy club stand up and make jokes which I just thought were there were just literally expressing horrible racist views I would say something I'd be the first to say something I'd never seen that though I've literally never seen that but I would say something I think you have to be able to defend your jokes so what kind of what kind of jokes wouldn't you tell well I wouldn't joke about I wouldn't do the punching down thing I guess that's why but but here's the thing I saw you draw the line yeah but here's the thing that's my line yeah so if you wanted to go out and tell jokes even if they were genuinely horrible homophobic jokes that's up to you that's your line I think the only line you can possibly draw is for each individual comic to have their own line that's up to their content audiences decide that audience this has decide right okay the whole freedom of speech system is about you say what you want and then other people can say what they think about that right and that's a good system that works I mean this is myth I hear all the time from guarding comments about how are you're saying that the freedom of speech means freedom from consequences I literally know nobody who thinks that but the consequences are great if it means more speech if it means protest if it means disagreement dissent I'm all for the hundred cent while at what we mean when we say that free speech and our consequences is no consequences of being arrested or beaten up right that's that's that's the distinction you know I think if you if you find something if a joke I mean I've had it recently I posted a joke a couple weeks ago and a number of people found it offensive and they contacted me and they a lot of them were angry some were just rude and I ignore them but some asked me to talk through my thought process and I did the joke was an anti-racist joke which was interpreted as a racist joke well that's happening more and more though because I think because of the way the social justice activists talk about comedy as being damaging and hateful is that people now are sort of having a more literal minded interpretation of jokes and again completely misconstruing it getting it all backwards so it's difficult now to joke about these issues without being misinterpreted let's talk about 2020 comedy the mainstream comedy and then we'll get onto your kind of style of comedy which is completely different I think and I've been to your comedy shows it is complete different so if I go and switch on the TV on Friday night yeah and see have I got news for you or or mock the week or one of these kind of BBC programmes do you personally think they are funny and do you think there's what I find really interesting is that someone made a point to me the jokes that they make aren't necessarily funny but the people in the audience clap because they agree with them vertically yeah what do you think about that someone said that recent comment what I wish I could they said that if you know you know if it's a progressive comic because there's more applause than laughter and I think that's hit it right on the nose you know I'm always really mistrustful if I do a joke I mean I when I when I toured with the Jonathan PI show and I did the opening slot there's all the opening 25 minutes and of course you know and I was mocking the Tories mocking Theresa May and the audience would dominantly left-wing and I'd get rounds of applause for the jokes about Theresa May and then afterwards I have to reflect and think is the joke good enough are they applauding just because but because they hate Theresa May but the good thing about that tour is the audience's were also predominantly pro-eu and I was doing a pro brexit set to that audience and so I had to make sure that the material was good because you should be able to do jokes to anyone about anything and it and it should work that's how you know whether whether a joke works or not but yeah when I watch those sorts of shows I mean the thing is comedians a terrible audience members by the way like we don't laugh very much a comedy we sort of look at it and think would I have done that or I could see how that joke works and whatever that's why if you get too many meanings in an audience if you tend to not do well so I'm not the best person to judge on that but I don't I think I find it a bit obvious if it is just I said quite lazy though though I wouldn't like to say it's lazy I think we're all working pretty hard I have a kind of inherent sympathy I mean this probably made jokes about the Tories isn't every day every week it's it easy there to write a good joke about the Tories I don't think so I think I think there are you can write lazy jokes about anything but there are some vmn the anti Tory comics who are hilarious and clever and sharp about it and can make Tory supporters laugh right that's the dream I agree with you they sometimes if your punchline is breaks it wrote as a racist well I'm not gonna laugh at that because it's not true for one thing and also it's not funny or insightful or or good quality a good standard of comedy is there a backlash against the kind of mainstream comedy now obviously you run your own comedy show comedy unleash and you're doing your tour with Douglas Marion they're gonna be talking to people all across the country yeah in May about this which is gonna be I'm sure very interesting yeah I hope so so is there a backlash do you see sort of huge numbers coming in and being interested in this comedy well yeah I mean we so Douglas and I are doing this talk of resisting woken us which does sound quite provocative but actually in truth we do want to get all people anyone who agrees or disagrees with us I mean Douglas and I disagree on all sorts of things anyway you know Mohicans very much from the conservative tradition and I very much come from the left-wing tradition so we have that but we do share this concern about about woke culture and about social justice and about the way it divides society but more than anything it's this general feeling that so many people have that they have to be very careful about what they say right now what we're not we're not talking about censorship in we're not saying that there's some sort of there's people saying no you mustn't say this you know I'm often accused of saying or you can't say anything anymore which is a statement I've never said because I don't believe and I don't know anyone who says that actually what we're saying is that people are nervous about what they say about speaking truth or what they perceive to be truth about joking at work all this kind of thing but they get very nervous because they get misinterpreted get reported to HR they lose jobs they lose livelihoods you've got social justice mobs on Twitter who will smear an attack and demonize and destroy your life I mean they're very they're not good people so I I want to talk about that I'm going to talk about that and and we want to go around the country in we'll have a big Q&A with people I mean above all most of the things that drive me are a real hatred of bullying right and I can see that the social justice movement legitimizes bullying it makes it okay it makes it okay for anti-fur to beat up a gay Vietnamese journalist and call it opposing white supremacy I mean just think about that for a moment doesn't make any sense but it makes it okay to to go after people's employers to target them and say this person had this opinion so you should fire them it makes it okay to trawl through everything anyone has ever said try and find something remotely objectionable and make an issue of it and try and ruin their lives right these are this is bad behavior this is bullying and and so I I want to mock it because I want to stand up against that problem is when you do that they go after you I mean that's fine that's part of it you know I'm in a really privileged position because I work in comedy and the media so I can say whatever I want and I don't have a boss and Douglas has said this before he doesn't have a someone in charge of him we can't get fired for what we say it's why ricky gervais says whatever he wants no one can no one can fire him you know so there's a freedom to that and we have this incredible privilege and what I want to do with the tour is get people along who don't have that freedom don't have that privilege you know when I was working as a teacher I would have to if I was still a teacher can you imagine I'd have to be very very careful well it wouldn't be possible with it I couldn't have my titania McGrath character tweeting the way she does and then go into work it was already bad enough when I was a teacher I used to go in and the kids had printed out like quotes from my set and put it on the desk or I had someone complain to one of their head miss mistresses about there was a pair and complain like I've googled this guy this is the stuff he'd did you know about this before you employed him it started getting untenable you know in the end and you cut so you can't but even like people joking at work in the staff room you know what people do now is they go on whatsapp and they encrypt their jokes can you think about that for a second they are they're actually having to encrypt it in case it's overheard and misinterpreted almost construed you know what if you're on Sheffield University and you've seen this yes--and story where they're hiring I think it's nine pound 34 an hour if anyone's watching that you can go to Sheffield University and be hard to prevent micro aggressions or so this is the Stasi all right so this is so and it's so bad right when when a university is paying its students to snitch on other students to eavesdrop and did you see some of the examples they gave right so think like so the microaggression thing is like if you say God bless you in some sneezes that's a microaggression against atheists right or the examples again where where are you really from right which isn't something that I hear very often but then I'm not I'm not a person of color I suppose but but but then also the people I speak to who would fall into that category they never hear it either so it's an interesting one that and the other one they gave on the BBC website I think was why do why are you trying to find everything offensive which is a good question particularly for them you know what actually one of the examples I gave isn't it's insane it was a stop telling me about your holiday to Africa I've never been there literally no one has everything literally no one has ever said that except for me just then because I was quoting it but it's a fantasy but also it's just not good to foster that kind of mistrust and division right and to impose this idea that there is one way of seeing the world and that must be monitored by the authorities and we're gonna pay kids to do it you know what else is a university for but to explore interesting alternative difficult ideas to have those debates I mean what what the hell I mean that it's at that I mean that one is a particular particularly egregious example that there are lots of them I mean stur Oxford Union recently banned applause in a clapping events because they wanted jazz hands justjust doing that because it's less rigorous less triggering although wider people with sort of sensory problem right exactly so but again I sent but as some blind people to play no that's not good for them that sort of stuff is and again right it comes from a good place right so there are some people with sensory issues right but they make provisions in their own life to deal with that right what they don't do is try and make everyone else change because that's it that's like the essence of entitlement you know if I have an allergy to a certain food I don't demand that no-one else eat that food they even must be most arenas remove this from the shelves because I might be offended right it's that's what a lot of this is tied into entitlement right and and and we do what we're a good nation of good people who make provisions for people will you make sensible provisions when it comes to disability access when it comes to people's illnesses when all that sort of thing we do it to an extent but what we don't do is completely ditch a tradition such as applause which is frankly quite instinctive you know babies just do it naturally you know to register approval and try and re-engineer society to do and not even to help those few people because actually I bet you most of them don't give a damn what it is is they're they're saying look how good we are looking at virtuous we are and I know I'm doing that thing of intuiting their motive but it's difficult to get around is that I mean whenever I'm on on Twitter and things that line you see either pronouns announced in the bio or a rainbow gay flag right I can guarantee they're going to be a pretty nasty piece of world like most of the nasty horrible vicious vitriol I've had they've always got pronouns in the bio and that the thing about that is it's meant to signify tolerance it's meant to say I'm a good person and I'm inclusive but then it's like it's the most angry bullying nasty vicious behavior that comes with it tends to not again not all you know sometimes people are just trying to be inclusive for trans people but a lot of the time it's just it's it's basically saying it's like a label saying I'm compassionate now I hope you burn in hell and I hope you die in pain you know it's that weird kind of cognitive dissonance yeah it's this kind of odd patronizing to to various groups because I said let's take cultural appropriation which is one of that big sort of things that they like to complain about if you go actually speak to people who are you know are Mexicans who might get they say get offended at people wearing kind of sombreros and Halloween you know if you don't speak to Native Americans where we're people wearing kind of Native American costumes they don't care no I know it's it's really interesting it's again it's a soft form of racism when someone says I can speak on behalf of an entire people right and you get this quite a lot you had this with a few a Hersh writing in the New York Times I think it was about saying that all black Britons think that Megan's been treated from a position of racism or but I mean she's basically saying arrogating to herself the role of speaking on behalf of all black I mean how patronizing and and arrogant you know and then you get this all the time you get this with them oh there was an example in the the Atlantic did a study about political correctness and they found that the vast majority people who find the political correctness is a danger is actually going to foreign is a danger tend to be the very people it's aimed at protecting minority groups people of color they're that so that and the ones who support it tend to be posh white liberals so you've got this wit that's what titania is all about that's why it's Tanya is is rich Kensington girl right who's never had had any issues in her life but she's had everything on a plate because she patronizes minority groups she sees them as pets you know she's a kind of race as she is and she's and she's um but but she's she's masking it all in this glow of virtue and that's the thing that I see an awful lot from anyone who speaks on behalf of anyone I hate it if someone says like you know gay people shouldn't have to listen to this joke I think you know why do you get to this I what gay people get to listen to you know why do you why do you say that it's not up to you you know it's up to the individual I think it's that's where identity politics leads us it leads us to this myth this illusion that we are all homogenous that they're all gay people are like this and all black people are like this you know Simon Peter teal came out as a Republican supporter and who was at the Advocate which is a gay magazine in America the Advocate said he's not he may sleep with men but he's not gay because he supports the Republicans or Kanye West putting on a maggot app and all of a sudden he's not black really you know then you do get people say this stuff I'm not making this stuff up it's like really our identity now is about politics is about your political worldview well you know there are gay Republicans gay Democrats gay people on the Left gay people on the right we're individuals and you have to see us as individuals you know that's the that's that's why it's so amazing you touched on there where people's minds are out and I know it's impossible to really know this but I think it's an interesting idea of you know are the woke people in the majority are they in the minority where do you think people were generally at and let's say Britain in America very much in the minority but they're but like I say they're disproportionally represented in the media so therefore you think they're the majority that you think they're everywhere and also because they are in the human resources departments and because they are in management and because they're in that there's not many of them but they occupy the powerful positions and that's why it's dangerous so that's also why people get surprised with the election results and referendum results illness um because because you've got a silent majority people know that if they say speak out about this stuff they all have their lives ruined and they're not in a privileged position like some of us we're where it doesn't matter if you speak out you know it does matter to most people so what you get is you just get silent resentment that is brewing and and that's a very dangerous position to be and so we need to that's that's part the point of the tour we need to have the conversations so that people feel they are having the conversation we have the same thing with immigration the fact that we said for many decades ever since Enoch Powell really in the rivers of blood speech when one of the worst things about that speech there was lots of terrible things about that speech worst thing about it was that it completely made discussion about immigration impossible for a long long time you know and as a result of that you ended up with this kind of brewing kind of harboring resentment against immigrants er I'm very Pro immigrant and I think that a pro immigration and I think you need to have the sensible discussion about immigration and not demonize people who are concerned about wage depression or various consequences of immigration and freedom of movement that's a legitimate concern to happen we have to have that conversation without anyone throwing the word racist about you know so yeah so it is that thing of yes it's a minority view but it is escalating and it is coming mostly from my generation I have to be honest about I mean I think I I can't stand this whole demonization of generations aired and the millennial generation of being snowflakes and saying that you know they're all if they I mean there is a problem with resilience amongst young people I know because I've taught young people but that's our fault that's that's that's awful that's our generation the way that we cultivated and taught them and I think it's these things and it's a smart pose didn't help either but in truth be told a lot of the the resistance that I see and a lot of the really kind of extreme social justice stuff comes from people of my age I mean I I did a talk at Aberystwyth University recently and then it was I was invited by the International Politics student group right and they were great and they didn't agree with everything I said and there was there was a some did some didn't and there was a real discussion and people wanted to talk and they wanted to be challenged right the department the politics department refused to publicize the event because they said and now they show me the email somewhere nowhere they said they said something like um any talk that was opposed to what culture is not in line with our diversity values right that's what they said right a universe at a university this is a politics department not only did none of the policies prominent even turn up to see it and to be challenged and to talk they actively didn't publicize it they were actively opposed the students were totally up for it and they wanted the discussion so it'd be I just say be very wary whenever you hear these stories about the extreme like I mentioned with the Student Union at Oxford that's a few student activists with way too much clout that's what that is or the ones that no platform or protest or put pressure on and then you end up with speakers being disinvited because of security issues because it is too expensive to hold those talks those are not normal students they are the minority who love or I presume really love the power and who gets in student politics you know but it's not fair to smear a whole generation on this basis it just isn't and the more I talk to young people more I realize how sick they are of this particularly generations ed I mean they're really I mean let's not forget the Millennials are getting old now and the generation said of turning against that whole culture and they're dead you know so many of them that I talked to somebody they're very young sort of people in their late teens who come to the comedy Unleashed night and they just tell me how sick they are because not only do they have to deal with all the nonsense which has now been institutionalized they've also got to deal with the perception that their entire generation are these weak feeble creatures so there's that one this sort of a double whammy you know so yeah once you create that kind of mainstream woke establishment then yeah never to be gonna have the kind of rebellious young you go against that right yeah and they won't be able to cope well they like the people who because they they've convinced themselves are on the right side of history and they've convinced themselves that they're rebelling against the establishment and they don't see that they are the establishment and they're the ones that people are gonna repel against they're not gonna cope no nightmare a great example of this kind of distance between the let's say the woke movement and young people yeah it's Ricky de maiz no he made a fantastic monologue at the Golden Globes recently I went absolutely mega viral I mean a huge amounts of people watching this and obviously it huge like Geist in I think many young people on Twitter for example yeah why is that because what he was doing was he was basically standing there and saying what he wanted to say and what was really great about that is he was he was punching up at powerful people you know he was attacking major multi-billion corporations he was attacking the Hollywood elite these are the most pampered rich privileged people in the whole world they couldn't be quite literally yeah make surely the most privileged people who have ever existed right and and yet after that he was called it conservative he was told he was right-wing and all they sort of by the way you did yeah now that and even from prominent left-wing comedian saying that he's right-wing and it's like these are the very same prominent left-wing comedians who once upon a time would have applauded someone raining against the hypocrisy of the ultra-rich and now they're not now they're not maybe because they are that now but it's but it's but it's it's incredible that what he was doing there which is so clearly an attack on pomposity and hypocrisy and really well done I'm really funny because those gigs aren't easy right like that that audience that it's not a comedy night no it's it's it and he still got laughs yeah from some of them like even went wrong Michelle wolf did her president you know the president's press dinner right and it's not really my cup of tea and I didn't like it but you know I had to admire her because they weren't enjoying it they were so it was a kind of discontent but it's tough it's tough to go there and also you're hired to do a roast you're hired a yeah and that's why the thing is that with ricky gervais system and he was he was doing joke the sort of jokes that he's done MIT for many years like he's always pricked pomposity he's done it at the Golden Globes before I don't know what anyone was surprised that he did it again but I think what is different is now the culture shifted so quickly so I think whereas if he'd have said that on his first outing at the Golden Globes people would have been they would have reacted in the way they react and some people would've been offended nor the rest of it but not to the extent I mean now people saying you know he should never be allowed to again the independent I think it was a hoax article again it wasn't me saying that he should you know if that hopefully this will be the end of rickety race at the Golden Globes all the rest of it and and he's very pretty puritanical Mary Whitehouse is I mean in bet they're out Mary Whitehouse basically saying that this is disgusting this is disgraced for all the rest of it and that just makes it funnier this is the other thing it makes it funnier and he he he embraces that and plays on that when people call him right-wing because he's mocked the the posh the rich that's funny right it's the same reason why millionaire guy guarding column is talking about how oppressed they are he's inherently funny right hypocrisy is funny Ricky Gervais is I think he is one of if not the most popular and rich comedians in the way yeah his Netflix deal with his recent stand-up I think the biggest in the world so maybe he kind of represents that the majority of people are with you and are with his kind of outside yeah I can rather than with these kind of work comedians yeah exactly I mean he's never denied that he's he's in a really privileged position I don't think you me and he can do that on this working-class background I think that's why he's like he is because he's lived both the kind of life of most people watching yeah and the life of these rich celebrities so he feels that he's able to kind of criticize me exactly am is tricky because he has to entertain the people in the room but he also has to tend entertain the people at home you know so you end up with that kind of it's it's difficult to judge but I think the solution is just to go all out and don't self censor that's the thing I mean not why fine generally in comedy is the biggest threat is self-censorship it isn't censorship right it isn't it isn't these sort of weird little comedy nights that have the rules that you can and can't say certain things there's not many of them by the way there are some and they're entitled to have those rules I'm it's fine see what color you do whatever you want that's that's not a problem with me but I think it's really bad for the art form it's really bad when you say to a comic you better cut you better could tell yourself you better constrain what you what you're going to say which is why at our club we say just do whatever you want don't worry because if you offend people then that's fine that's part of it you know this should always be the potential for offense in a comedy night you know if you were just gratuitously offensive and unfunny no one's gonna laugh at you and people might say to you that's just you know that's not good and that's that should happen so finally let's talk about the solutions let's look at the optimism because I've asked all my guests why optimistic this year what what brings you optimism and I want to ask you that into relation to comedy what resolutions how can we move forward how can we move away from this kind of polarization of people that disgust and abuse people get online because and you know someone comes up to me and cause me a racist how do i how I meant to deal with that right you mean you're assuming I'm optimistic you're actually right I'm very optimistic I think it's about we've got to get you're thinking back in schools actually people need to learn but if they throw an insult what we used to call it a dominant a tap if they say if they go by until guilt by association things and you spoke to that person therefore you're evil I mean the left has always had this problem I mean there it's typically right-wingers have always thought that left-wing is a bit stupid and a bit misguided but you know left wingers have typically said that right-wingers are evil and diabolical and should go to hell that's the distinction right so I think the first thing is always assume that the intentions of the person you're talking to a better than you think the the the instinct on the part of certain left-wing activists to say Tory's Tory voters they want poor people to die they want you know all of that sort of stuff it's obviously not true I mean what it is is it's a different economic worldview they believe that you know if we empower attract more rich people to the country we accrue more tax there's a trickle-down effect and actually benefits the poor right but that's the that's the generous interpreting this is a good-faith interpretation and then it comes about well which which solution is better is it well for redistribution or is it trickle-down economics right so then it's that's a discussion that's a good-faith discussion so the best way to deal with it is to try and cultivate those kind of good faith discussions don't entertain people to come up and call you a racist right so that's you're not obliged to have a conversation or a discussion with anyone who insults you just ignore and block anyone who is abusive right there's absolutely no point because they're not they've already announced that they are not in a position to be me persuaded they've already announced that they're not good people and they're not open minded I mean some people like I've seen Peter Hitchens engage with people on Twitter who have just insulted him and you know his view is that you should always try and that's great for him but I think most people should you know you it takes a lot of patience and a lot of skill you know so I'd say no but talk to those who are willing to be spoken to talk to those who are willing to politely disagree and you know set that example for yourself I think like look it's not like right when people don't get aggressive and don't throw insults and I think any one individually should be able to politely disagree without resorting to mudslinging that's that's the the first thing and then the second thing is not to assume bad faith on the on the other person and if people just agreed on that I mean I think 99% of Twitter arguments would disappear if people stopped Mis character what the other person says all of my Twitter arguments seem to be people saying you secretly think this and I say no I don't and where'd you go from there then it's just a matter of faith and that gets us absolutely nowhere the other thing is don't debate on Twitter probably I think get to forums where you're actually face to face that's another reason we wanted to do the tour so I'm hoping that people will come along and challenge us and we can have the discussion like adults basically but I do think instilling this in schools is important I mean because I come from that back I used to teach critical thinking I used to be a teacher I don't I don't know whether having critical thinking lessons is the way I mean that's what I did I'm not sure it was seen as a kind of dos subject I think it's instilling it into every aspect of every curriculum the just the idea of being open minded and listening to what people are actually saying not what you imagine they say all of those very basic skills that expose artists or to different views exactly so so yeah that's exactly right so um mmm making sure the people aren't stuck in their echo chambers but but in the effort sort of has to I mean yes so educationally you can socialize people into doing that but I think as adults we have to take a responsibility ourselves to to to open ourselves up to different viewpoints to read different ideas there's a I know why we don't there's a comfort in just having our existing prejudices reinforced you know it's it's more fun for me to read an article by someone who just agrees with me and puts my ideas in an inner in a more in a better way than I could and I you know there's a kind of excitement enough it's better for me to read someone who doesn't agree and for me to work out why for me to refine my own views and maybe to acknowledge that I'm wrong I mean that's the main reason for talking to someone who disagrees with you is you might be wrong and and you know I'm still changing my mind about all sorts of things and that's what I want what I what I really guard and I failed on this an awful lot but I what I am trying my best to do is to to allow myself to be persuaded when I might be wrong to not hold on to things when they're being disproved you know taking the more sort of scientific approach and to actually welcome you know if someone proves that one of my points is wrong in my mind if they prove it that should be something I celebrate because that's making the bringing me closer to the truth not something I resent there's a thing called identity quakes this is how it's been it's called identity quakes where if your whole identity is wrapped up in a politicized worldview and suddenly you realize part of it isn't correct you feel like that part of you dies something it's got actually quite traumatic but we have to we have to embrace that that possibility that when we're wrong we should be proven wrong and that's that's a good thing for us to do there's a really good book by Peter pegasion and James Lindsay called how to have impossible conversations I really would recommend it because they talk about how you do this and how you how you were you have these difficult conversations and it's so important at the moment but unfortunately because of social media it's not just confined to social media it's in fact in our politics and that's why you get Maine politicians and major politicians just doing the same thing throwing insults saying that the other side of our evil saying that the other side you want to do all these horrible things throwing about words like fascism and all of that sort of stuff we need the adults back in the room basically we need to not dignify that stuff that's what I'd say and on that thank you very much Andrew thanks a lot you

Channel: The Sun

Views: 1,040,116

Rating: 4.7946115 out of 5

Keywords: The Sun, news, breaking news, ricky, gervais, ricky gervais, woke, woke comedy, andrew doyle, titania mcgrath, johnathan pie, political correctness, politically correct, PC, pc gone mad, left wing com

Id: IqQBLIzDDUQ

Length: 63min 33sec (3813 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Darth__KEK]

He's also the guy behind-the-scenes co-writing Jonathan Pie.

[u/agentace7]

is he the same guy behind the joe keskold account?