Owen Jones meets Peter Hitchens | Full length

there's been so much popular pressure it's almost like this popular uprising has taken place demanding that we release the Peter Hitchens video here's a full video we did have to stop and start the video for various reasons and there was a bunch of very enthusiastic children for example unlike you believe I think I might need to wait a second longer I hope when you want you to realize there wasn't some grand conspiracy and we were just trying to edit it so keep it watch it but I hope you enjoy it I think these it is in great form but it is a one-off because otherwise poor Adam here he's gonna have an absolute nightmare of having to do normal edited video and the third year what we'll start with actually is a each year is your family you your background because your I mean your fab use a naval officers and the Royal Navy wasn't here and I mean I didn't just tell me a bit about your pet what implants you think your parents are the lasting influence they've had on you in terms of your beliefs your look it's I thought thought about this probably not all that much because they they stood back an awful lot from my upbringing I not because I think they wanted to because they felt they ought to they sent both my brother and meats and boarding schools from very early age and my mother was as it's quite funny this my mother must have been in the nineteen fifties one of the very few mothers who went out to work and during the school holidays my brother and I would run pretty much wild there was nobody there knows so actually this is I'm not trying to be disrespectful I think that their influence on me was quite small I see this thing with a booger obviously and until you're both huge figures in your own right and what growing up what was your relationship oh I'm cereal yeah we would not we were not close enough to be we were twins or anything like to be the good friends and siblings on those go me were far enough apart to be wholly independent of each other so we were fighting for the same territory a lot of the time and quite frequent sending into violence you both quite ambitious from an early age he certainly was I think I may have picked it up from him I look back on my childhoods being period was total relaxation I really wasn't worried about anything it was the kind of dream time it was a much later that I realized it might be necessary to be ambitious I think he was ambitious in the moment emotional room but you scratch he's got yes Wow so it did anyone bully anyone was it wasn't like that I do it with the word bullying Lisa such as many applications he was bigger than I was I like to think I hit quite hard so you David he was very good at pretending that I hadn't hurt him I always say okay on holidays um I mean just you know we keep with her everything and later on in life your relationship is often quite a strain wasn't it really it was more distant than strain he decided he loved rouse and he decided to have a row with me about something I wrote which oddly enough had sent it to him in advance to let him know I was going to write it and also I'd said before in his presence I found out this this Apple later if I'd known it at the time was maybe even more ridiculous I'd said it before in his presence on an interview with c-span with Brian lamb exactly the same thing and he laughed but on this occasion he decided he was going to make a war out of it so he did it was the way he reminded him that he had taken a fairly relaxed view of the Soviet Union during the Cold War just after he'd become a sort of American super patria just after September the 11th what were their timing is all I think but he decided to make a really big rout of that we'd like to pick his Rousey thing he had a great rail with James Fenton he was the most inoffensive person who you could ever meet about the Falkland Islands and for ages he wasn't on speaking terms which is very hard not again speaking Susan James but he's managed to do it for me ahead Oh James is just such a nice person he just is I mean it would just be very hard to have around with but he managed to do it over the Falklands I remember it well and I think you did it because he enjoyed it we in the end I mean how ideologically different were you what were the main differences you had with him hydrologically I'm not really very I mean he he sort of introduced me to he came there wasn't all that much cause it's not household until he went off to the LEAs school Cambridge the age of 30 he was ahead of me so he was there and I was and in the 1964 general election he somehow other became the school held a mock election he became the Labour candidate and I think also nobody else in this town he came under the influence of a charismatic teacher who was amongst other things of the left and he came home and he was absolutely full of it and I found it rather appealing and after a while I thought yeah I felt persuaded by but there was really not much politics in our house until then I can recall I mean after died how did you fit in terms of his followers I suppose do you make a distinction between those you know the way he's been portrayed and the body you actually know the fan the fanboys are impossible they they they have they have seen obviously no idea what kind of person he was in fact there was an illustration of this at the memorial event in New York City where quite a lot of it consisted of people reading out things that he'd written now I have to say that most of us there in the front rows that have invited guests were very familiar with the isn't we thought that's nice to hear this getting but it's and we're being reminded of Rosalie said wrote which were good but we didn't even at the jokes table cuida laughter but towards the back of the room where the fans had come in they were all hooting laughter at least since because they've obviously never heard or read them before they hadn't read his work they didn't actually know all they knew was here was this person who had come along and given religion a kicking which is what was really important to know about what made him a rock star in the United States and I've always thought the college generation in the u.s. brought up in religious homes under the influence of pastors going to church then going to college wanting to live a life of sex and drugs and rock and roll and really being delighted to find an articulate educated voice saying to them that's okay all your pastors are stupid all the religious ideas you've been fed bankin and what your parents have told you doesn't count for anything and I think that's what did it I only realized it when I went and did that dreadful debate with him at Grand Rapids Michigan where I expected to be in a small room with perhaps 150 people who were vaguely interested and found myself in a huge converted Church with a thousand people who hated me that I felt well they did I didn't hate me because they because because of anything personal they hated me they've come to see Christopher they couldn't work out what I was doing there it was like going to see the big movie and finding her to sit through a B picture for for a half an hour first and it was I felt their pain I know I understood why it was they were annoyed because it has it dawned on me what was actually going on that Christopher had become a rock star I could see why it was my presence was completely superfluous he must have felt surreal t-to be in a situation like that you're with your brother and your there surrounded by his fanbase were very hostile to you well they became more hostile to me as the more they knew who I was and what I thought the more hostile they became to begin with it was just what is this guy doing here as the evening went on it was it was what is this guy doing here and we hate him do you enjoy that to agree did he kind of relish me I didn't enjoy that evening at all no because I hadn't prepared that I come a long way I've been actually quite enjoying the trip and I'd been looking forward to the evening I thought it would be quite humorous and relaxed and it became quite serious and also there was another profound problem Christopher by then had got his antitheist act together it was pretty much wholly formed and he didn't as far as I can see really cared very much what I said he would stay the same thing anyway but I quite needed to know what he was saying so I could rebut it but the sound system was such as I couldn't hear what he saying one point actually had to go down to the audience to try and pick it up it was awful people sometimes writes me and say I really enjoyed that debate between you and your brother and Grand Rounds on could you enjoy every tears of you so I mean there's a lot of people don't know is for a while you know because people see you now right for mail on Sunday someone on the right of politics although we'll talk about that as well but used to be a trots gift for why certainly what you were in the International Socialists which for people who don't know is the forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party it was in those days Barney as we made a V we did not believe that 3000 people could constitute a political party in exhausting moments we called ourselves a tendency but we would never have called ourselves a party how did you get involved the is also Christopher who had I think got involved with it through Peter surgery who pretty much got him in and then I I was looking at this stage and several things when I was looking for an organization that was great Joyner as roundabout as seventeen I was looking for an organization I could join him there it was the Oxford is meeting every Thursday evening I think it was above the port Mahorn province and Clements still remember it and this was more than a flirtation you were true believer for very much so yeah you believe the socialist revolution oh well I thought that I thought that masses and learners and have pretty much the answer to the problems of the world yeah how do you look back about now giving well yeah it was a reasonable mistake to have made I'm glad I made it because unlike people who've been vaccinated against a disease I've actually had the disease never totally immune from it in a way that a mere vaccination couldn't possibly provide leave 11 supply those police that you had then i repulse by what you believe in I can't you see in all honesty you can't pretend that you didn't do it it was something that you did that you meant at the time that brought you into contact with many people some of whom you liked at the time I would still like if it weren't for the political gulf that's now as an opportunity it would be a dishonesty and a betrayal to say that there's nothing in it that I learnt from all that I enjoyed all that I could write man it taught me how to think in a lot of way so I don't regret the experience tool is interesting it says thank everybody should have it in a way but it's not just not available to most people this interest because a lot of people got their political education from these groups I mean I could go through from front line politicians whether it be Eric Pickles a conservative he was a communist or whether it be half of New Labour where it's fascinating as my ex chose our political education like Leo Eric is reasonably frank about it I think but unlike me most of them especially the Labour ones tend to be very coy about discussing I think it's actually because it's much more important to them is to me and also because it still has much more influence over them as on me and that's whether I talking about this what is the political education I suppose interesting ideas maybe it gave you do you think also there's store thread in terms of in terms of your your your political passion I suppose you know your sense of you know having a ideological commitment which you still have and has that I don't really I don't really have Nigel isn't perfect actually I wouldn't say I did I've sought rather to avoid ideological commitments or any form of utopianism or anything of that plan since then one things going to ask you about that is do you think the difference partly between so the similarity between me and you is that were outside a political consensus in a certain way but for me it's more it's the economic consensus the so-called neoliberal or free market consensus for you it's the kind of socially liberal consensus yeah is that how you well I mean it certainly but I'm not that keen on the free market society I know that seem to me to be an answer to anything it's a matter that all these things are attempt to construct some kind of a total worldview without religion well on that on that on the female market the market for a lot of lot of nominal conservatives who aren't actually conservative talk in general liberals the market has become substitute for God they see Adam Smith's hidden hand as as a kind of divine providence some of people don't realize you support for example you'd prefer public ownership of the railways for example immediately you know let's tell it Wow I mean you called yourself a social democrat before it's all I've seen well sort of I mean it's it's a way of explaining how my idea is ten I mean it's not it's probably not strictly accurate because there's still real social democracy there's still an animus of Marxism I'm not but in terms of actually trying to work out how to organize a society sensibly then obviously the the intervention of the state in a lot of areas is essential you can't you can manage without it even the most and there are wild conservative well liberal free marketeers who say that you wouldn't you don't need a Navy it could be done by some privateers patrolling the Seas on your behalf but it's obviously ridiculous you every state has to intervene in something and if you once you've decided you can you must intervene by creating a navy then you've pretty much sold the principle honey the states obviously useful sometimes in which case it can't be you can't rule it out as being useful at any other time except on pragmatic crowds well don't just talk about some even specific ideas I suppose if I was going to come up I mean not just in terms of obviously the fact we both have you know in some ways outside a political consensus of us of a sort but I suppose a difference I think between mean you know just what partly want to explore is it is my beliefs I'm very optimistic in kind of hope drives what I believe in dissent or three this is what I want to talk to you about you see because I think that's my those are all life fight well will say you know I'll have a life of disappointment I'm sure bit you know just want the fact the odds seem stacked against a lot of what I believe in and I still have the sense of things you know that there is a sense that that that you know history is the the illusion of every year rates temper it's transient and it can change often quite dramatically years so it good you seem very pessimistic about your beliefs you seem you know a lot of the stuff you write about you've got the passion fear beliefs that you seemed completely defeatist you don't relax I realized that the the in the evening in my days which I've now pretty much reached I realized that Diana I the I realized that that most of these struggles are futile that they aren't you where they succeed and I hope to some extent than your your utopia doesn't come about because you will hate it more than anybody else I'm not you taking when it arrives so you take okay will am I utopia is a semi topia whatever it is I hope that I hope that your ideals are fulfilled because you will be the person most disappointed I'm away but I think because it will never it will not work out the way you thought it would it's it's perfectly absolutely true that it's better to travel have freedom to arrive and all these things the actual practical application of the noblest idea turns out in the very best to be tedious than the worst to be often very different from what you don't for though I think the real utopians were there the factorized they had a very ideological view of how society or something and what you say that though they adopted the utopian view to justify what they've done already I don't think many many of them actually set out to do what Thatcherism was invented they made it up as they went along all gonna lose at the other point not just your pessimism but you often when you tweet your articles you often refer to yourself as the hated Peter hit you know it's quite fun isn't it I haven't really but you're not hey do you is that I was wrong people who hate me I've written a small blog essay this week on why this is which is that I'm not apologetic about being a moral and social conservative it's perfectly all right and a society dominated by moral and social liberals to be a an apologetic conservative who clearly knows his place but my problem is I don't know my place and my other problem is that I use against my opponents the very raucous slightly rude methods that they are used to using against people like me and they're quite surprised by that and a lot of my brother's admirers if they come and they come along to my Twitter feed and they insult me I got my kinda quite rude back to who we cut how it no so you're a Christian I own your really horrible and I thought yes as a matter of fact there is quite a lot of instance in the gospel of Christ being fairly route is there's detritus it's not there's nothing new about that but they these are people who admired Christopher for force for for swiping his opponents quite severely but when it's applied against them as shocks to find a conservative doing it back so that's it I think that I don't accept that fundamentally I'm inferior and wrong and that I hit back with the weapons which they think of their own when you when you get that appear I mean when you you know well it'd be a group of eight you or the abuse you get does that upset you some particularly no I know it it tight it what upsets me far more isn't is the inability to communicate but you simply cannot get some very simple things across to people and they're they're you you feel after a while always treating mind is open until you've discovered otherwise but you feel after a while after a few exchanges that what you're dealing with is a mind which is hopelessly closed and the person who doesn't know how to respond to arguments so you make a point and they neither rebut it nor acknowledge it I don't mind they can do either but as long as they do one if you make a point and they just ignore it and change the subjects if you never said it then that's not an argument that since are you people you don't have to argue is like playing chess for the squirrel there's no future because of course sometimes you see you see yourself is you're surrounded in this kind of socially liberal myths you know and you're this kind of lone voice tries leaked out about alone but there aren't that many others don't think the express the mail the the Sun they provide a big platform there's in total agreement that's it's it's a lot of the things that that conservative papers support I use the term loosely particularly the conservative part of yourself but to my mind is socially liberal is look at you that's why one asking about because people again you call yourself a moral and social conservative in unapologetically so but you're not a Tory in fact you're very hostile to the modern tureens you know why well it's all just asked me this for a for a preliminary conference I'll give you the same answer I get it because it calls itself the Conservative Party if it called itself the Socialist Workers Party I would never lean against it it's not my second it's not left-wing parties a left-wing party it's a guy Terry it's openly under Clinton and declaring the ago Terry but you see the distance it's it's it's it's it's opposed to the maintenance of the which is the absolute pillar of mole social conservatism it's opposed to national independence it's completely wedded to our membership of a supranational European Union which robs us of sovereignty I could go on many other ways and list the things that it does that it's got much more in common with the swp in housing conservatives do you think the open here a gated camera I'm George Osborne coming out with things which I used to say when I was trot well I think the difference is that I knew when I said they were trotsky's things to say they have no idea they are left-wing but they don't know their left-wing did you think just even more alarming in some ways at least Jeremy Corbyn knows he's left do you think the Socialist Party would privatize public services imposes there's always as I set out long ago in my 1999 book the abolition of Britain that's not what politics is about anymore politics ceased to be about public ownership it ceased to be about the Soviet Union all that in the period between the nineteen sixties in the nineteen eighties once the Soviet Union collapsed it was quite clear and the Euro communists who pretty much shaped New Labour knew this perfectly well the struggle was was from now on was going to be about moral and social issues not about ownership who needs ownership when you can regulate there's obviously no point for a state can have just as much control over the economy regulation as it can with ownership and less responsibility CD why not do that so all that's gone but the the intervention in in private life that you can de nationalize the railways and then nationalize childhood which is what which is presented yes I jolly but the the the the whole idea of public policy towards childhood now is that children should spend as much time as they possibly can away from their mothers but isn't that that's subsidized that I am taxed so that children can can actually be put in nurseries so their mothers go out and work in call centers not something you sense mornings at all just letting it boil it separate I'm not am i recommending this this is a course of action no I'm saying it happen but this cancels in is what my parents believed good heartedly but in my view incorrectly was was the right thing to do the Conservative government they've introduced a tax breaks for married couples that's the sort of moral associates at Ogden and I think what you can see that it's a token it's tiny sum of money is it what what actually needs to be done for marriage is to reprove it in far greater ways the real blow struck a knife is struck in all major Western societies in the 1960s by the introduction of what was in effect no-fault divorce which means that Adam once you've heard this summary you'll never ever be able to get out of your mind it means that although two people may have sworn a solemn oath to stay together for the rest of their lives if one of them decides that earth no longer Cannes and that one person is going to abandon that if the other one seeks to abide by his or her oath and to maintain the marriage and wants to stay in the home and keep the knives together the state will intervene up to and including dragging them out of the house with force and threatening them with prison to break out that private relationship that's what I mean by the nationalization of childhood and indeed the nationalization personal life there is absolutely no suggestion there has been none since the 1960's in any major political party that the introduction of that form of divorce was a mistake but it's completely altered the relation between state and the individual personally with a relationship like it's tragic when relationships break apart often and you know when people get married they intended their mind if we can have that argument you want but you're missing the point and I'm making if you want to argue about the reducing rights wrongs and I'm saying that the here is a colossal alteration okay in the relationship between the individual in the state the relationship between the family and the state the relationship between the child and the state and Charlie's family it is a huge social and moral revolution and it's one which all the major political parties support either by default or or actively and wish in some ways to take further and it's one which the crucially not just the political parties but the the bench of judges and indeed lady Hale and the Supreme Court have been specific about that they actually really don't see that marriage as it was before the 1960s has any real purpose in our society - do you think the fact I wasn't you it's what whether you like it or not in this room you know all kinds of like whether you like that is a major change in society and one which which is in my view far more revolutionary than who owns the gas port do you think the fact a woman and a woman or a man and a man can marry has any impact on you know I think is I think it's a side effect of it I think it's I think that it's it's it's a consequence of the collapse of heterosexual marriage and I I regret now getting involved in the argument about same-sex marriage because it was it was a stalingrad a diversion there are principled arguments that one might make about it but nobody listens and and also it wasn't it wasn't the point why is one worrying about a few thousand people you won't have same-sex marriages well not being a son at all about the collapse of heterosexual married there's some those millions of people and millions of children and it used to be more acceptable to be publicly prejudiced about gay people about women about people who aren't white isn't it a good thing that it's now less acceptable equivocally a good thing yeah but isn't that often what because you talk about political correctness isn't that illegal greatness and I and I am bill and about Bolivia press I always make the points say the reason why has been such an effective weapon is that it's based most fundamentally on getting people to behave with good manners towards other people and if it weren't from that it wouldn't have had any impact at all it's it's other implications where it moves into making certain things unstable and therefore certain thoughts unthinkable where it becomes a milliner field but of course it's God because it's got it's got positive and benevolent aspects or it would never have got as far as in half and this is flitting I just remembered though and you've called for the breakup of the Conservative Party before she's done I hope I hope that it would break up I simply underestimated the enormous power of lies and money which enable the Conservative Party to to obtain a victory in in the elections I wouldn't say they won because I think what was done is an immensely clever and expensive targeted campaign and certain constituents as an entity I don't live in one of those constituencies I live in Oxford which is one of the tiny red islands in southern English and there was never any possibility on the on the list of Tory target seats that it would it would go their way so they ignored it and during the last election Andrew Smith the MP actually increases majority so there was no there was no national trend what the Wars was a fantastic clever well targeted very costly campaign by the Conservatives in targeted constituent system which won them a technical victory on points which there wasn't a moral victory nobody really won that election morally but it was it was quite sufficient for the four majority government and it was more effective that they thought it would be you think what I'll get out about that at all he seemed quite angry about the way to can in the plan I move out because it because it was it was the last chance and I thought the 2010 election was was it was a bad moment I thought that I appealed to my readers in 2010 very much not to vote conservative because I thought the last thing we need to do is to save the conservative part of the state and I thought and I still think that in 2010 if the Conservative Party had lost the election badly enough for everyone to realize that he'd lost instead of losing it as it did not badly enough for everyone to realize something lost then that would have been it it wouldn't be a for election defeats in succession no political party couldn't survive that practically it wouldn't be able to raise funds we wouldn't members people would have sought something else 2015 was the sort of political parties in this country grow out of the death of other political parties the Labour Party grew out of the death of the Liberal Party the Tory party has to die first he can't give us a means but no no new keep isn't a case and say it's exile Thatcherism it's not it's not actually a socially or morally conservative party its leader believes in drug determined as I ceaselessly play that date and how would you sum up David Cameron in what he stands for it stands for anything I think stands for obtaining office for the sons of gentlemen jolly good at it it's quite likeable eyes not no one okay I feel any passion against there is impossible innocence I've been crafting against to build a perfectly nice chap I'm sure but his he has absolutely no interest in changing anything he has a great deal interest in maintaining things as they are and in being in office while they're maintained and the Tory politician knocked perrilyn in the 60s he had a very apocalyptic vision of what immigration would do to Britain but if we look at written today we've got some of their highest levels of mixed-race relationships on earth mixed-race children and on the planet in communities where there's higher levels of immigration that tends to be where a party like you Kip does worse tale from the veteran areas with very little immigration to seek immigrations being a good thing you know Powell's disaster for the for the whole discussion of the social integration because that speech was a disgrace and nobody exceeds from no personal conscience can look at that speech to think that it should have been made all that a decent person could have made it I'm very much of the unit was wrong persuasion and I regret an awesome speech because it did have the pickaninnies and the astronaut through the letterbox it did have elements in it which were demagogue and also which somebody if some offered made it then you could say well that's an oath but a man of the intellect OVR power could not make such a speech without being completely aware of what he was doing and that's what makes it even more disgraceful so it made it very very difficult ever afterwards for anybody to argue that case without being accused of following the same essentially in my view careerist path trying to gain office on the basis of whipping up a I won't say hysteria but a feeling so as for the rest of it I don't I think that although there are undoubted and there are solitudes facing each other in the inter marriage is great but the if you go to places like Bradford what you will find is not integration when you find two solitudes with their backs more or less turned upon each other not in a hostile way but in having online as much as the French Canadians and the Anglo Canadians don't really talk to each other they don't know each other they they will cross each other's paths at work on public transport and in the center of the city and then they'll go back to their separate words it's not an argument partly for polishing face calls so instead of segregating tamanna idly enough a lot of the thing you're finally in these Pennine towns is that a lot of the schools which are now thoroughly Muslim are judging this close so no I I mean you could have it arguing about about faith schools but that I don't think would play much part in it and you used to be a non-believer yes now you're Christian yeah so what the sin I mean that kind of your your religious convictions do you see that as very much the underlying kind of basis of your political it has to be the basis of any position I'm troubled by anybody who doesn't have a religious opinion of any kind because if they don't how can they have any other thing it has to be the foundation they a set of opinions without a religious underpinning would be like a house without foundations and I think would be like to fall down and certainly very easily blown over in the way we were one of the most irreligious countries on earth now why do you think that is maybe the first world war how can it be the church churches in this country made the grave mistake most of all they started of supporting the First World War they they called it a great war for civilization they urge people to go and fight an area it was one of the most deeply immoral things this country has ever asked its people to take part in and it was catastrophe and they cannot conceivably survive and the stake on that scale and they haven't I think it's true over most of formerly Christian Europe where Christianity the end of Christianity has a serious dominant believed faith dates from between 1914 and 1918 again that's the one sometime as things do to reach its full extent but I think that's that is why Europe is now largely religious and why North America and more or less the same tradition is not you see that surprised that will surprise people to your your political convictions because people like myself on the Left will look at World War one is one of the greatest avoidable well the greatest of all your tragedy in human history which laid the basis for a whole host of other tragedies which define the 20th century and people might expect you to say you know to wrap yourself in the flag and well they might but they'd be as so often mistaken so how do you feel you know the way it's being portrayed now and obviously essentially since World War one began how do you feel in the way it's been commemorated in early quickly I think an awful lot of the particularly the history books which were which were published at the time worms and I'm going across here because I can't remem the name of one of them but a lot of the issues which were published on the centenary were the rehash of the same other thing as if the center of the war was Flanders the central stroll was that between Britain and Germany with France maybe playing a part and a load battles and then we end up with Wilfred Owen and that's it then you have the tremendous work via Adam twos to tell you which is what it was really about where the central it was actually in moral more or less in Ukraine where the struggle was fundamentally between Germany and and Russia where we're we played a more or less walking on part and and and me not in my view of God in and were in at the end of it effectively defeated and the great the great paradox is a lot of people believe wrongly as it happens that we went to war because of a German naval threat because our naval supremacy was threatened by Germany at the end of the First World War we conceded to the United States which was supposed to be our ally the very naval supremacy we'd supposedly gone to war to protect that was the end of it and we lost the war to the United States who were our ally for the last quarter of it the twos is just fantastic its proper history it's it's pure mounds and our history it as you read you'll you'll learn hundreds of things you never knew or never fully understood about the First World War if people read that that they wouldn't look back on it quite so sentimentality with quite such so much sentimentality the other book and I'm trying to remember the name of it but I can't and I should have come prepared for this is a very good brief book about the real argument in the cabinet about whether we should join them or demonstrating the the more or less totally irrelevant some bit of the Belgian neutrality treaty which was not actually a proper pretext for war and the absolute correctness people such as John Burns and John Morley in the cabinet who argued against it and the way in which Churchill and grey more or less made the war effort hike on plea before it is possible for the cabinet to stop it and the shocking treatment of parliament by grey on the night of his speech which I when you read the debate I went back to the old hand side which thanks to those wonderful people who've archive you now read the debate but there's no vote it was it was basically a railroading opponent by shockingly unscrupulous and most comparable to the to the to the way in which we were railroaded into you're right now rushed and hurried into a war in which we had no real party and really really shocking and and why Apache it should be in favor of a war which which bankrupted this country which destroyed its neighbors who privacy image turned it forever afterwards into a debtor entire nation I can't see I laid the foundations of course for their calamity will be what World War two was simply the second half but that that also there are so many ways in which it is not a conservative and Wars and never conservative any wars are always a wonderful moment for revolution provided the the the circumstances for the Russian revolutions so Engel said inane a handmaiden of heaven it's not just a revolution but also that they have made a nationalization of control this this country at the beginning of First World War the famous AJP Taylor point the hotend ard on it anyone ever met the state except in the form of the person or the policeman and after the first world war everything in life was regulated and dominate by state control in the way that people would have thought on thinkable thought I think I'm driving try four days for another reason final references pork on born the French ambassador to Britain in 1914 wrote in 1918 that he believed the country had been through a revolution as great as the one the France had gone through in 1789 by a and I think he's right it was it was a different country at the end you mentioned Churchill I was worse one what sure overall view of Winston Churchill um skirt school again you see this is interesting again you people might expect you to venerate one good thing okay one unquestionably good thing at the time in 1940 that he became prime minister when the war had already begun and it reached the stage that came he was probably the only person you could have refused to make terms of Italy and that was utterly and completely the right thing to do to sort terms would have been a catastrophe but what don't you like about him I don't like his enthusiasm for war I don't like his blithe willingness to rewrite history to suit his own case I particularly dislike his role in getting a sense of war in that he votes you is what you just mentioned there and manga factories well another great iconic course of conservatism but again you're very skeptical of yes I know there's a you cannot but admire her as a person and fighting their way with absolute determination are pro not particularly auspicious beginning not being put off becoming Primus well you can say that that is better than minor achievements but in terms of the political economic and social legacy it's a wholly different story and certainly not a very conservative one I don't doubt her personal instincts were conservative but very little of what she did in government laws well it's interesting you talk about a moral and social conservatism because arguably one of the legacies of Thatcherism was to accelerate for example you know it says if you look what happened at appearances of marriage breakups the rise of yeah back compete but you know when she wasn't she was oh there's a continuum and again I've made this point in my great unread book the evolution Britain that Harold Wilson and Roy Jenkins began II she finished it and I will happily concede to any left-wing person maryam faction did a lot of social damage to this country if they will concede that how loose and Roy Jenkins did some too I have had no takers oh okay fair enough I'll size that that one because I fortunately I'm not going to Moby I've asked either question so I can get away with what you're losing no it would think oh yeah I mean in terms of you know the main threats you mentioned the abolition a bit in your book what are the main threats you see it as you see it threatening this country course of threats and it's finished it's not really nice your papers is coming again it my summary you can see Morphin it why for a start we're bankrupt we're not arresting bankrupt we are bankrupt we are we we are 1.5 trillion pounds been dead it's not saying that's us that's the state or country as individuals yes they do even though I don't get my journey went black it wasn't technically bankrupt though was it as a go know about technically I don't care about tech had a lots of that was it we had a lot was it was money died okay and and the consequences of that the middle class were destroyed and the consequences of that seemed to me to be fairly obviously bad we've had hired a we also we don't have yes but as a result of war this is not a result of war this is a result of peacetime there's no there's no excuse for it by the way you could add to that debt it's mathematically meaningless now you could add to that that the colossal amount of money we still owes in the United States which we defaulted on over the first world war most people actually have arguments of people they refuse to believe this but it is the case we defaulted on our debt to the US for the first world war that's why they wouldn't lend us anything in 1939 we had actually defaulted we have still not paid it people think we have but we haven't we are so in debt and we're now we're now in debt both as a as a country and also in debt isn't as individuals to an extent which is completely unrepairable it cannot be done well one of the nice person anyway the only way you could ever repay that debt would be to have hyperinflation that's interests as a which is of course not to be ruled out but if the so does that and it has no power either over over anybody else or over himself to rescue himself we have abandoned our own national sovereignty so we don't actually govern us on any way to Europe Union so we again we have no power in that in that sense we've also made another in my view equally serious sacrificing we have abandoned our national history so most people no longer know what it actually means to be British or English it's gone they have absolutely no idea of how this became but we actually have a prime minister who can't translate Magna Carta you've never heard of the Bill of Rights doesn't example I know if I talk to people about the Civil War I've talked to quite bright people that in schools and years they know nothing i I had a conversation I won't say who this was with with with somebody who had I believe they had studied GCSE history didn't know which side crumber was on in the Civil War we don't know anything about okay we are a museum and an amnesiac as real if you woke up in the hospital not knowing who you were you'd be everybody's victim but do you think I mean there's nobody you couldn't be fooled by I mean we see what we are we could before we can be fooled by politicians so easily and they come along and they fool it's over Iraq and a few years later they try and do the same to us over over Ukraine there was a serious attempt to get us into a kind of war footing with Russia over Ukraine exactly the same methods used and everybody fell for it everybody almost same evil the same no okay but the same people who fell for Iraq yeah fell for that and they very nearly fell for Syria as well I most people still believe that we should a lot of people I should put us in the British media in the media so I believe that we were wrong to stay out of Syria yeah and then there's a Mary's memo that the the the Libyan catastrophe remains unexamined you're on about Chilcott okay I'd love to have the Chilcott report published but I'd really like to see somebody compiling a report on the the catastrophic intervention in Libya it's rarely spoken isin my consulate and it was it was just as disastrous it is the principal cause of what is now happening in the Mediterranean and just like that point about history I mean that includes venerate you know remembering certainly our great history of people struggling against Authority the robots at huge suffragettes huge part of the history that and it's one of the reasons why the government very nearly got away with identity cards very nearly got away with with immensely long periods of creep of pretrial detention and has got rid of of the Lord of the rule against double jeopardy and has got rid of the right of silence unbelievable in a country with such a history these things have happened in my case has been done by supposedly conservative person a couple of in robes of once you've robbed yourself of or been robbed of your history that's the kind of thing happens to also people can constantly reach into your well as your handbag and take everything else you've got he take made a great addition and what matters if you're like you're like so I'm wandering the streets of Peking asking asking people is is this note worth anything is this enough for a cup of coffee there might be nice and probably advice on the other hand a good to attain hey go go take limited even more dude if you don't know anything you are you know you are a child and we are nationally where a child so with all those things bankrupt non-sovereign a robbed of our of our culture in our past we have no power to save ourselves the next proper history this country will be written in Chinese a couple of other things and Jeremy Corbyn a surrogate obviously standing to be the Labour Party's unexpectedly gone phone tuned it 2-1 to being the front-runner this is very funny Anu what happened in your opinion what's this phenomenon I mean sting these meetings all over the country thousands of people all very enthused form all sorts of different backgrounds think it's I mean it could have all kinds of other little consequences because partly because of the extreme vulnerability of our economic I suppose recovery but the leaving that out of it I think it's an awful lot of people sick of being told what to do who and I also think it's because of the observable fact that the Blair I project originated in the kitchens and pantries of euro communism has now been taken over by the conservative Authority and therefore has has no needle that I would like continue it Labour Party has been freed of its of its need to be Blair right anymore since left I'm so it's always it's a sort of spasm of okay alright then we're free free at last we can do this and then as the as all the Blair I media and the and they're sorry the David Miliband's and the Pete and Peter Mandelson's count crowding in as they don't do this the impulse to say well if he says don't do it that's absolutely what I must do just grow strong and stronger doesn't it then he con the company very good demonstration we still have a strong national sense of humor do you think he could do unexpectedly well if he does become who knows it would be unexpected if he did that's the whole thing I don't I don't know most conventional wisdom about everything is wrong so don't rule it out and for all we know he has tremendously hidden dads I don't see any sign of it so far but you know he's a 4-time of course hidden debts by the nature are good I think he's a he's he's probably one of the genuinely one of the nicest people I've met not a mess we don't like I don't imagine he'd be keen to meet me I don't know I don't think you know I mean I think he dwells in that in that in that left-wing world way it's where virtue is actually established by opinions and I would be a non-virtual change that make sure but I would be unsurprised some people on the left are like yeah some people definitely are and they don't want to you know have these sorts of discussions or conversations I don't think he's like that some are there purists and they you know they like to think of people at you is it evil bad you know I just I think it's possible anyway we haven't met it's probably a bit late now funny do you have any optimism whatsoever about the future Britain what we can become there why why should I only ridiculous if if I if I turn out to be wrong it'll be a pleasant surprise if I turn out to be right I'll be prepared for it it's not unpatriotic in a weird way yeah it is why I mean I don't think I think lying to yourself with other big battery audio but surely throughout history regardless we don't obviously we want very different outcomes in terms of what society would look like but people for our history surely the lesson of this country is people for what seemed like insurmountable odds and overcame them the lesson of history is that civilizations which don't defend themselves disappear II think we're gonna go the way the Roman Empire I got about the Roman Empire I don't know what where we're going to go I mean the you look for instance at least in the Central Europe all kinds of places which used to be major now forgotten I think we've had a good long rushes but the past century you've made a very big pig's ear of it and I think pretty much bad play the prize but what would that price pink I don't know exactly profit but I don't think I said I think that the all the all the tendencies particularly the underlying ignite and the moral ones and the and the ability to control our own destiny they're all they all points in it's a pretty link but as it as it happens so there we've been in between the crisis in the catastrophe as well have a glass of champagne but okay it is not I can't legally call the champagne socialist be feel I don't suppose that's really much window sort anymore I thought it's the Tories who weren't allowed to drink champagne maybe not I don't know I've got I've had one of George Osborne's rule like SB it's been absolute pleasure you a Gentile is over there great see Peter you see pretty

Channel: The Guardian

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Id: wrwuk6NoMv8

Length: 49min 43sec (2983 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2015