Alastair Campbell vs. TRIGGERnometry: Grooming Gangs, Immigration and Iraq
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
They call you woke if you sort of campaign for gay rights.
Not at all.
Yes, they do. There's loads of gay people who use this phrase woke.
OK, they may do. Come back to the police. You've got your definition. Come back to the police.
I'll come back to the police. Right.
The instructions police officers get, they're explicitly told not to treat people equally. Explicitly.
Honestly, this stuff, it's just, it's demented. It's absolutely demented.
That's the quotes from the police's own instructions.
No, okay, and it may be, and it may be because you found one document where some guy is writing some guidance for police. The idea... College of Police and Guidance. Okay, okay, wait a minute.
This is how police officers are trained. Okay. Have you looked into this? Not as deeply as you. Well, I think you should. Well, maybe I should. There's a double standard is what I'm getting at.
See, what if I make a good point? You've just got to go, you know.
I haven't read the guidance.
What the weaponizers have done is... Oh, come on.
But this is what they do. You talk to the real issue and you just go, this is a terrible problem. And the reason it's a terrible problem is it gives Nigel Farage an excuse to weaponize it. Alistair Campbell, long time coming. Welcome to Trigonometry. Nice to be here. It's great to have you. Thank you.
So Alison, let's kick it off. You have always been fiercely critical of populism. Why is that? Because we're living in the populist age now. What's the problem with it?
Well, it depends what you define populism as. I define populism as a form of politics that seeks to exploit rather than solve. That's my view of populism. I know that the traditional view of populism is, well, it's the people against the elite. I think that's a post-facto rationalisation to make the populists feel better about the way they do politics. But at heart, populism means to me a form of politics that is not about solving problems, it's exploiting them, and that's not about meeting challenges together, it's about driving people apart. That's my take on populism, that's why I don't like it.
And why do you think we've got to this place where we're living in the age of populism?
There's so many reasons. I think, look, I think people, there are some very effective political operators who have worked out that their route to power with the views that they hold and the characters that they have is this form of populism that I've defined, okay? Trump, most obviously, Nigel Farage here, you know, we know who they are and they're all over the world. I think they're much better organised than the centre-left. I mean, one of the things I find is comical about the populist right, where nationalism is so much what they're for, is actually they fight it on a global level. They're a globalist organisation fighting against globalism. But I think you've got to go back Probably as far as definitely the crash.
I think the crash was, you know, 2008, et cetera, was a massive driver of populism. And I'll come back to that. But I think you probably even go back further than that. And I can remember me thinking, do you remember the Seattle protests when China came into the World Trade Organization? Massive, massive protests. And it was the trade unions. It was ordinary people. It was workers. and they were massively protesting against the Americans letting China into the WTO. And I remember we were thinking, because we thought at the time, globalisation was going to be part of our economic success story as well. But I think that was a big driver within the American populism, because that was what then opened the door to Trump to say, these people have given your jobs away to China.
So I think that, followed by the crash, Followed by, I think, a sense in politics, democratic politics, that it wasn't producing the kind of leaders that made people feel, that's my leader.
How does Alastair Campbell define and critique populism?
I can follow that person. I think Tony probably was the last one in the UK context. Cameron a bit, but not really, not really. So I think Tony was probably the last one here.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:04–4:19
2
How does Alastair Campbell define and critique populism?
4:19–9:10
3
What economic events does Campbell say fueled the rise of populism?
9:10–14:43
4
How did globalization and trade with China shape political resentment?
14:43–1:03:44
5
Why does immigration (legal and illegal) drive political anger today?
1:03:44–1:26:14
6
How did the grooming gangs controversy change public debate and censorship?
1:26:14–1:40:57
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from TRIGGERnometry
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It's a Slopulist World and We're All Just Living in It - Konstantin Kisin