"We Live in the Age of Delusions" - Peter Hitchens

[00:00:02]Don't you think part of the issue with our culture and our society as it is and the politics as a result of that is we live in the age of delusion?

[00:00:10]>> Yes. And people have been encouraged to be deluded. The problem that Andrew Bernham faces [music] that he's he's trying to do things which will fail because they they're fundamentally unworkable. The most likely thing is has got to be the currency which is losing value hand over fist as we speak. the great fear that I have that the the the money which we use simply ceases to exist and I I don't know how a country in [music] our current state would cope with that and the country is obviously finished. It's just a question of of how and when this will become evident to everybody.

[00:00:43]>> I sort of laughed when you said the country is finished [music] because because of the way you said it.

[00:00:48]But actually I'm afraid both Francis and I over time come around to the idea that Peter Hitchens was right.

[00:00:56]This episode is sponsored by our friends at Hillsdale College. Right after this episode, go check out their incredible online courses which are absolutely free at hillsdale.edu/trigger.

[00:01:09]>> Peter, it's always a pleasure to have you back on the show. I always look forward to it immensely. Um, when you're looking at the UK at the moment, what is your diagnosis? Where are we? How far do we have to go till, you know, your predictions come true? Oh, I couldn't.

[00:01:26]Predictions are very easy to make, but it's not so easy to say exactly when they're going to happen. And the country is obviously finished. It's just a question of of how and when this will become evident to everybody. The most likely thing is has got to be the currency >> which is losing value hand over fist as we speak but at a sort of normal rate.

[00:01:47]But if it actually gets into a really serious inflationary spiral then that will make it evident because everything we do at the moment is based upon an overestimate of how rich we are. And if the currency shrinks to the point where you can't make that pretense anymore, then everything all the things that that people don't dare reform, particularly the the enormous amount of government spending, uh will will shrivel away and we will will be blown away in a wind of inflation. I think it's quite possible that that will be the end of it. But there might be other things. There's a great determination in our elite to get us embroiled in a European war. And some people still want us, I think, to get embroiled in a war with Iran. So these also could uh could tip us off the tracks.

[00:02:29]>> So >> there's a very there's a film a very interesting film which was made by the forer runs of the CIA, the OSSU during the the later years of the Second World War showing how to derail a train, which is something they were then interested in doing rather than stopping. And it's quite difficult.

[00:02:47]>> It's much harder than you think. I won't give you any hints but it's so as Alan Smith said a country has a lot of ruin in it so it can take quite a while but the definitely the direction is is downwards at an accelerating pace.

[00:03:02]>> What makes you say that? So there's the currency element of it there's the economic element of it.

[00:03:06]>> Oh this first first simple fact this is a current country which is where the government is borrowing money to pay the interest on its debts. Now if you knew somebody who was doing that you'd you'd expect trouble. Secondly it's a country which has very little power of recovery because we destroyed uh largely in the thatcher era at other times as well our industrial capacity. So the ability to rebuild is very very limited. Then we have trashed our education system. So the talent pool and the the the proper use of the talents of the country is almost impossible. we haven't got the people who are trained either to do things or at the elite level to think rationally. So there's an awful lot of irrationality and ignorance. Uh then we have a criminal justice system, a police force which might as well have been abducted by aliens and may well have been I don't know when did you last when did you last see one? Uh and a criminal justice system which is obviously unable to cope. The the length of time people wait for trials and the quality of the trials when they get them is atrocious.

[00:04:08]These all contribute to a general feeling that nothing works. And then on top of that, of course, a transport system which is utterly congested and falling to pieces.

[00:04:20]What more would you ask if you would if if someone had had cursed the country with a number of horrible things which would happen to it that those things would be quite near the top of your list?

[00:04:30]>> Didn't you find it quite strange that when people were blaming it seemed to me look Karma was not the best of prime ministers. I think we can all agree on that. But he did seem to be blamed for every single thing that was happening when if you look at it, you just go, if you're in any way objective, you go, "Our problems preceded Kan."

[00:04:51]>> Yes. But his claim that he'd made things better, which he made the other day in parliament is, I think, a bit a bit of a nerve.

[00:05:00]>> And I am confident that Britain is now stronger and fairer than it was two years ago. Our economy is stronger. Our public services are on the up with the biggest fall in waiting times for 17 years. Children are being lifted out of poverty every single day. Immigration is down significantly. Our defense and security are on a far stronger footing and our international reputation is greatly enhanced.

[00:05:30]So no, I I think we we sat and talked about the problems of Kestar and my problem was that he people thought that he was a sort of blank sheet on which they could project their desires when in fact he was he was and remains a a dogmatic person leading a dogmatic party which is determined to do things which will fail. That's the problem that Andrew Burnham faces that he's he's trying to do things which will fail because they they're fundamentally unworkable. You can't carry on behaving like that when there's no money. Can you flesh it out because I think it's a really important point and it would be worth somebody who's uh as thoughtful about these issues as you are to to breaking it down in a little bit more detail when you say that the Labour Party and and andrew Bernham as you call him uh are determined to do things.

[00:06:14]>> What should I call him?

[00:06:15]>> Well, Andy Bernham, he wears t-shirts for that very >> we do this. I I [laughter] don't I don't know him. I I I realized the other I had met him once but but had forgotten it, but I don't I don't claim to know. Why shouldn't I call him by his name? And >> what is what is Mr. Burnham likely to do? And why is it likely to fail?

[00:06:33]>> He's likely [clears throat] to spend an awful lot of money he hasn't got. He he has to satisfy a new set of of backers who will desire a different pattern of spending but fundamentally similar. But the real problem that besets this country is twofold. Uh the the first is it's extraordinary belief that it's much more important, much richer and much more powerful than it is, which causes us to first of all to engage in all kinds of foreign policy which is dangerous and expensive and also to spend money on defending our islands which is frankly misspent. There's this call for us to spend more. It's not the question is not how how much you spend but what you spend it on. you spend it on a cold war superpower submarine launched intercontinental ballistic missile deterrent force then you will bankrupt yourself if you're a small country off the northwest coast of Europe without many resources and it won't work so that that's problem one and most conservatives live in that delusion the other thing which governments have been trying to do really since the late 1950s and particularly since the late 1960s is to substitute the state for the family >> yeah to the two things have gone on together. I I think very few of the people involved have realized that they're even linked, but they are. The one is to enormously weaken the married family as a as an institution. So that it it this almost cease to exist in large parts of the country and the other to to concentrate more and more and more on state provision for the raising of children and indeed for for looking after the old uh which are things the state is not actually very good at doing. And it's also fantastically expensive.

[00:08:10]uh end of life care is is enormously expensive as as we see. Uh and our the schools and the the nurseries and everything which we which we provide to substitute for the mothers who've now all been conscripted into the workforce don't bring up children anything like as well as family and home used to do. So it's both expensive and bad. So those those are the the fundamental millstones grinding together which make running this country impossible. Until anybody turns around and said these things mistakes we must stop doing them. And also until there's somebody with the political courage to say to the people in this country these things that we need to do will be difficult. they will mean that there is less of a lot of things that you become used to and you will have to do >> more and the state will have to do less >> and that is a hard thing for anybody to say and doesn't tend to win elections.

[00:09:08]No. And this is why, you know, I sort of laughed when you said the country is finished because because of the way you said it. But actually, I'm afraid both Francis and I over time uh sort of regularly as we're talking about something else eventually come around to the idea that Peter Hitchens was right when he said, you know, people should leave. Uh >> most people do get it in the end, but it often, as always, I can't communicate my experience of life in the world to other people. I've had a uniquely privileged life in not in terms of being rolling in money but in in terms of being able to see things seeing how this country has run at close quarters when I used to be a political reporter and other things and seeing the country from outside when I lived abroad and so I I just happened and also having a a Marxist lous training so so I'm just simply not credulous in the face of propaganda so I I see things differently from other people it takes them a while to realize that I'm not joking >> I'm not I'm just not joking [laughter] quite um and I suppose one of the challenges you described there is I and I think it was partly cultural but partly also technologically driven. You talk about that um I I don't want to overstate the case but I think it's definitely true if you look even at the opinion polling in terms of what women say they would prefer to do given the opportunity. Even in our society now which has this sort of girl boss feminist ideology, lots and lots of women nonetheless say that they would prefer to spend lots of time with their children if they could. The challenge is as you say rightly that even if you were at an I mean at an individual level you literally have to be uh as a as a man in that situation earning way way above the average income in this country to be able to provide that for most people. I think that's true. But even if you were to find some way of doing that, you'd end up with you know your GDP would go down rapidly and all all the other problems that that do I don't I don't know whether it's even reversible. It it was the most cynical pact since the Mosov ribbonrop pact 1939 when when ultralleft feminists of the sort of Betty Friedan type and big business got together and said right let's get every woman in the country we can out of the home and into the workplace.

[00:11:18]>> Yeah. turn them into wage slaves and convince them as was successfully done by the the whole array of women's magazines and and television programs and everybody else who preached on and on and on. It's it work outside the home is the only uh is the only respectable form of work. Working inside the home is demeaning slavery tied chain to the kitchen sink. Uh and that idea has been so successful and I think a lot of women have found in practice uh that it's that it's not true. But it's too late now because the the the conscription of women and I regard it as conscription of women into the workforce is now more or less complete and it's very hard to escape from that cycle.

[00:11:57]>> Yeah, absolutely. And so I'm I was >> also it's also possible for men to discuss it immediately. You're you're accused of being wanting to oppress women. If women want to go out to work, that's fine by me. What's none of my business if people want to. But if they come under immense social and economic pressure to do so, then that's different. Well, that's exactly why I made the point that all the polling shows that when asked, women consistently say that many many women, not all of course, but I think it's something like 80% say they would prefer more time with their children. Um, and like you say, that seems to me difficult to reverse, particularly in the current economic clim.

[00:12:35]>> I wish I could think of a way of making it possible to reverse it, but at the moment I just I just look at it and think, oh heck. And uh the other point you make which is something we've talked about a lot which I think is undeniable is you know we're living way beyond our means. People want to pretend this isn't true. Uh and yet at the same time for actually the reasons you also articulated so well you have a situation because government is seen as the ultimate provider of all things. If people feel poorer or are poorer it's then automatically assumed that well that's the government >> that's the government's fault. So they don't vote for them. So >> and the government should fix that.

[00:13:13]>> So they then vote for somebody else without checking very carefully what they're going to get.

[00:13:18]>> Yes.

[00:13:19]>> When we last discussed British politics, what I was trying to explain to people was that voting reform in large numbers was voting for the Labor Party, which turned out to be true, I think, in in a fairly clear way. It wasn't very difficult to work out. And it's it was absolutely the case. And and how could anybody have thought, especially those people who voted for reform, that putting the Labour Party in office was going to solve any of the economic or political, social, educational or law and order problems which the country faces. I don't know. It's voting is so irrational.

[00:13:51]>> I mean, those people would say to would counter, "Well, hang on a second, Pete.

[00:13:56]We've had 14 years of Conservative government. They've effectively led us to where we are."

[00:14:00]>> Oh, sure.

[00:14:01]>> So, why would I vote for them again?

[00:14:02]Yeah, tell me about it. I I've been arguing against the Conservative Party since the early years of the 21st century, begging people to to dump it.

[00:14:10]But the the point came when the the alternative was so bad that it was worth going down to the seashore and hauling the thing out of the of the sea where it had been dumped because it was better than what was coming. And I couldn't explain that to anybody either. The my fundamental principle now which I put to people is if you understand what's going on, you must learn the art of voting against what you don't want, >> not try to vote for what you do want, you will never get what you want, but you might stop what you don't want or some of it by by voting cleverly.

[00:14:39]>> And speaking of avoiding things you don't want, you mentioned the currency potential currency crisis. I mean, the the the fact that there's a looming fiscal crisis is something people have talked uh a lot about on our show. Uh most recently Nigel Farage made that point in the interview we just did. We had lots of people explain the mechanics of it. Um one of the hopes I know exists within some people is and I sort of am tempted by this idea without being an expert on it is it feels to me like if there is a chance to turn some things around I know you'll say there isn't and I'll probably eventually agree with you 10 years from now but nonetheless humor me for now. um if there is a chance to turn things around, it's that moment when we are forced by the external circumstances of reality to confront the massive spending that we can't afford because we have a fiscal crisis and some and basically the people who actually own this country which is the people we borrow money from say you can't do this anymore. You've got to do this and then we're forced to confront that reality.

[00:15:38]Do you think there's any chance of that?

[00:15:39]>> Well, I suppose it's possible. uh the sun might rise in the west but I don't see any like likelihood of it and I don't see anybody in British politics know who's capable of a saying it and b winning an election on that basis that's why cataclysms happen you I I saw in the in in Moscow when I was living there in the 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union that middle class professional people standing by the roadside you remember those little uh those little fake wood veneer tables Everybody had >> only two well, Peter.

[00:16:13]>> Exactly. They were characteristics of the whole of the communist block and on them were displayed shoes, >> uh, ornaments, cutlery, all the the the stuff of of of ordinary life on sale by the roadside to pay for bread.

[00:16:27]>> Yes, >> that's what people were selling their possessions to pay for bread. And these were people who five years before thought themselves secure in their jobs, sec their children, secure in their education. They thought they were secure in their accommodation. They saw a life ahead of roughly what they previously enjoyed and it came to an end. The problem with catastrophes is that rather than them being like that amazing painter who has his pictures in the tape gallery where the sky falls in, everything turns red and the and the the huge earthquakes and floods of lava and everybody dies. The cataclysm happens.

[00:16:59]You're still alive, [laughter] >> but you're living in the ruins of your former life as a ghost of your former self.

[00:17:05]>> And that's what happens. And it and and this is generally when money dies which is the great the great fear that I have that the the the money which we use simply ceases to exist really. It's just becomes paper and and binary code and it doesn't pay for anything. And when money dies then that's what happens. But the problem is this is also accompanied uh by social disorder >> and is very hard to control. And I I don't know how a country in our current state would cope with that. It's not something I look forward to.

[00:17:37]>> No.

[00:17:38]>> But if I would if if if a modern Jeremiah was saying this is what's going to happen, we're not all going to be carried off by the Babylonians for servitude. U but we might well find ourselves in a state of severe hyperinflation and impose poverty of a sort we simply never thought we'd see.

[00:17:56]>> And also what we'll see in that kind of instance is the rise of political extremism.

[00:18:00]>> Well, it's already rising, isn't it? Are you the people are willing to listen now to people they ought never to listen to?

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[00:19:12][snorts] >> And also what we'll see in that kind of instance is the rise of political extremism.

[00:19:16]>> Well, it's already rising, isn't it? You the people are willing to listen now to people they ought never to listen to.

[00:19:22]>> Who are you talking about?

[00:19:27]>> You can guess. I mean I it's not even worth raising names. I mean there are there are people now becoming I won't say prominent but influential on the edges of politics who are very worrying indeed. I don't want to help them at all even by naming them.

[00:19:42]>> You're talking about both the far left and the far right. I'm guessing >> I don't think the far left has much to say frankly.

[00:19:48]>> What about Zack Palansky for example?

[00:19:51]>> Well he sort of imploded didn't he? I mean there's still look I mean this is a relatively small sample size but where I live which is a you know she-y burrow of north London it's covered in green green plaqueards >> well that's the green the enthusiasm for the green parties has been ever really since official communism collapsed has been the resort of the left all over Europe >> and that's what they do and you can't when you see that the the Labour party is is in government no longer able to deliver because It can't. If you still want to pretend that someday there might be a government that would do what the left want governments to do, then Green's your party, isn't it?

[00:20:32]>> Well, can I just come back to something?

[00:20:34]Um, which is, you know, we you talked about the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[00:20:39]You and I both witnessed it with our own eyes and those scenes are very memorable and it's one and Francis, you know, his family background being from Venezuela.

[00:20:46]I think it's one of the things that separates us from many people because we know that the status quo is not remotely permanent and can only be maintained by good policy and if good policy ceases to be practiced then cataclysm is what will follow.

[00:21:04]>> Most of the things which happened happened to people who 5 years beforehand would never have imagined that they could possibly >> university professors. They were university professor three days ago and now they were selling their belongings on the street. Yeah, that's what happened. That's it. That's what happened. It also happened interestingly to not so much in in Britain, but it happened in the United States during the Great Depression.

[00:21:22]>> Yes.

[00:21:22]>> A highly qualified professional people were begging from door to door.

[00:21:25]>> Yes.

[00:21:26]>> And they had they had no conception this this this lay ahead.

[00:21:31]>> But the reason I bring this up is Russia is a it's not the best example because, you know, with with Putin in charge, it pollutes people thinking about this. And you know, he's obviously, in my opinion, a terrible a terrible person.

[00:21:44]>> Well, in mine, too. So we agree on that.

[00:21:46]>> Good. But um if you take a country like Poland or indeed like you say the United States after the Great Depression, there is the possibility for recovery. There is the possibility to fundamentally change course and to let go of the terrible policies that have taken you to the place you've ended up to accept the pain and the suffering that comes and out of that to have clarity about how to move forward in >> but you don't know how. and it might turn out badly. What what I wish people would do would be see the possibility of catastrophe and act calling.

[00:22:20]>> Me too. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

[00:22:22]>> Well, that's my fear.

[00:22:23]>> We know it's not going to happen. That's my fear and it's not uh if if I had some way of of entering the the minds of people uh that you know with with speech and and thought and uh and writing uh then I would look I'm I'm in my mid70s.

[00:22:43]I have nothing particular to gain left in life. I'm not I haven't got all that much longer to live. If if it were possible for me to do anything to prevent this from happening, then I would do it. But I've tried >> and people don't listen. But they they prefer to listen to more seductive voices. And I don't offer uh I I don't offer seduction at all. I can't. It would be dishonest, but people would prefer to be seduced and to than to be told the truth.

[00:23:13]>> And it's only when after catastrophes happen that it's possible. So there there are other people I'm sure in this country who feel the same way that things are going very badly and something ought to be done to stop it.

[00:23:24]But where are they? Where are they?

[00:23:26]They're not in the civil service.

[00:23:27]They're not in senior posts in the universities. They're not leading the political parties. They're not by and large prominent in the media, particularly the broadcast media.

[00:23:35]>> Uh which is that it's to anybody who's remotely informed or with any historical knowledge listening to our broadcast media is torture.

[00:23:43]>> Yes.

[00:23:44]>> Yes, it absolutely is. I guess what I'm trying to ask you is, and look, I completely appreciate your perspective, and I think if you're looking at it at a 10-year time frame, you I don't see this country being better in 10 years. I just >> No, but I can't it could it might it might it might in 10 years still have managed to to teeter along like like um like the train in the USS film that no one will actually manage to get it off the rails. It might still survive. You can't tell.

[00:24:14]I think prediction predictions are are easy in general but they're hard >> in terms of how long it's going to take.

[00:24:20]>> What I am getting at is something else which is my hope and I I only express it as a hope not as a belief about what's likely to happen is that the inevitable cataclysm can produce the the conditions for recovery not necessarily recovery but the conditions from which recovery is possible.

[00:24:37]>> That's very Marxist.

[00:24:40]>> Tell me more. It's all my all my comrades in the in the late 60s and early '7s rather hoping for a collapse out of which might arise the um the longed for revolution with the leading role of the party and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[00:24:53]That was the theory. It was all going to go wrong. And I have to say Ted Heath in the um in the early '7s made it look very much as if we were right.

[00:25:02]>> Well, kept trying to shut the country down, pick huge fights with industrial unions and so nothing worked.

[00:25:08]>> Blackouts. fantastic. He was a great I remember the the recruits pouring in to the international socialists in um in the early '7s about that about that that time. Ted Heath was a great recruiter for Marxism.

[00:25:22]>> So, >> but in the end he let us all down >> sadly >> by losing an election. Harold Wilson.

[00:25:29]>> I I mean I am not hoping for for I I like you.

[00:25:33]>> No, no, no. I'm just telling you this is the this is the formula that I don't myself believe that catastrophe >> is justifiable. Uh I'm a or or or even or or desirable or even amable. I I think you have to say if there's if if it looks as if there's going to be a catastrophe, >> do whatever you can to prevent it and warn against it.

[00:25:57]>> But Peter, you and I have to be honest.

[00:25:58]We have all been making these arguments.

[00:26:01]We've been trying to say we're heading towards a cliff. No one wants to listen cuz they're much more comfortable spending money we don't have.

[00:26:07]>> So they're not going to listen to us.

[00:26:08]>> Okay. So we'll go go and build off build a shelter in we are going off what you're supposed to do really.

[00:26:14]>> We're going off go up and find a monastery in a high in a high mountain Shangria. I I don't know. It's uh you you if you can't if you can't influence it but I very much doubt whe the catastrophe will produce at the end of it by some kind of baptism of fire a better world than the one that was before. So >> but but the examples you gave like we said the collapse of communism it had been very beneficial to many many countries in Eastern Europe >> collapse of communism has >> uh but on the other hand the >> they've had a recovery >> the US after the great depression had a recovery >> they have had a recovery >> even world war II terrible as it was there was a recovery after that >> well that's true all these things are true but this is this is a different thing >> why >> well first of all everybody knew uh everybody knows when you start wars that the that there will be terrible destruction and everything will change as a result and there is an opportunity for reconstruction. Though I have to say that the um there were quite a lot of peoples in the world who'd been affected by World War II who didn't get all that much reconstruction afterwards. Lucky old Western Europe did quite well. A lot of other people didn't.

[00:27:21][gasps and sighs] Uh the everybody knew the um I've just been reading Robert Services's uh book about the August 1991 push. Everybody knew in the Soviet Union it could not go on. They they knew it had it had to be fixed in some way politically and economically. Gorbachov alas was not an economist or or even remotely skilled in economy. He tried to do what he could in in ignorance and he also he was faced with western leaders who continued to have a profound mistrust of him as a Soviet leader and so would not help. He would repeat it comes up very much in the service book and the number of times he goes to western leaders and says look we're on the verge of of economic catastrophe what we need is some sort of new marshall plan them saying well not until you've not until you've denationalized the sugar industry or some such and they they they kept making conditions they never did and one of the reasons for the for the piratical um rape of what was left of the Soviet economy was the was the unwillingness of the west to enter into a proper serious reform program. I think you won't find that in Poland. I think a lot of effort was made and it's been a fantastic success, I might say, to turn Poland into a modern, well-off, civilized, law governing country, which I think the world should be really pleased about.

[00:28:39]But I do often wonder why the same thing wasn't done in Russia.

[00:28:43]>> Could have been, I think.

[00:28:44]>> Well, but this is my point.

[00:28:45]>> Fantastic resources, incredibly well educated people available, but but but but thrown away and and the place turned into a into a a a declining slam and a dictatorship.

[00:28:57]>> Very good point, but a bit of a side point.

[00:29:00]>> Well, you mentioned it. I mean, it doesn't it's it it's my point is something else. So, material things have to some extent recover. They're not by any means for everybody. I don't think I think there still people living very badly in Russia.

[00:29:10]>> Yes, there are. What I'm saying is there is in cataclysm, which you and I, well, I think the three of us think is kind of inevitable. Uh there is the opportunity for recovery. The opportunity for recovery.

[00:29:22]>> Okay. Um, >> well I accept that >> you do.

[00:29:25]>> Yeah, of course. You can't you can't be you can't be certain about the future.

[00:29:29]>> There you go. Not a sunshine from Peter Hitchens. We got there.

[00:29:32]>> No, you can't be certain. I I would think it's unlikely, but it's possible.

[00:29:36]But never know. You can rule things out which are plainly impossible, but you what you can't rule out is is something which is theoretically possible. Why do that? Don't you think part of the issue with our culture and our society as it is and the politics as a result of that is we live in the world in the age of delusion?

[00:29:53]>> Yes.

[00:29:55]And people have been encouraged to be deluded. It's been going on for a very long time. This is this is part part of the point where I harp on about my my bolsheik training. I mean the fundamental thing that we were told apart from some basic Machavelianism and how many people in modern world have read Machavelis the prince >> it's very short it doesn't take long but they people don't read they don't know what it's they they think they know but they haven't read it so many books of that kind but the other thing we were told uh was was how to tell uh preext from motive and to distinguish pretext from reality and we're constantly bombarded with politicians is giving us pretexts for actions they're taking which are fundamentally unbelievable particularly in foreign policy people don't see through them. Then again we have an education system which is instead of instead of challenging the the the intelligent of of all classes to understand more and know more encourages them in a in a child- centered uh myths of unknowing. They're never actually compelled to learn things they didn't know, to find out that the books they've heard of contain things they didn't realize were in there to to and so we have a an a huge number of untrained minds among us. That's one of the reasons why it's so easy.

[00:31:15]>> It's one of the reasons why it's so easy to fool people into doing absurd things.

[00:31:19]the the the COVID panic was such a warning of of the the general level of skepticism and uh and trained minds in our society. If the government had decreed that to to reduce the spread of the disease, everybody had to wear a 5 in long pink extension on their nose, people would have done it.

[00:31:42]>> They very nearly did. I mean those those those masks that they wore uh which how shall I put it were of doubtful use uh were also the other thing about them was it to me it was um it was it was it was it was forced uh forced conformism if you instructed everybody in the country should wear a make America great again red baseball cap they said well I can't do that I I don't agree with it by wearing one of those masks you were especially under pressure you were endor forcing an attitude uh towards the the COVID panic which a lot of people didn't share. It's one of the reasons I objected objected to it so much >> was forced conformism to an opinion not just uh not just a silly action but it the level I mean there were people I mean a lot of them got in touch with me and some people still do come up to me in the street about it. There were people who resisted it, >> but an enormous majority of people were happy to accept it.

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[00:34:43]>> The thing that co and more broadly all of these hysteras that have infl, you know, inflicted our society impacted upon it.

[00:34:52]The thing that I found most shocking above all was the British public's desire for big government and to be looked after.

[00:35:01]>> Yes.

[00:35:02]>> I thought that was fundamentally unbritish.

[00:35:05]Well, it used to be, but the the um the Paul Convol who was the French ambassador in London before, during, and after the First World War, said after it was over, that he believed that between 1914 and 1918, this country had undergone a revolution as profound and significant as the one France had undergone in the 1780s and 1790s.

[00:35:30]And that was the moment at which government became big and interfered in everybody's lives in in almost every conceivable way. Your second dose 39 to45 of course the third dose of the actly government has completely changed that. The idea that the British are fundamentally independent-minded stand up on your own two feet quite like the Americans is actually not true.

[00:35:50]>> And that's a very dangerous place to be because we've seen that you big government simply doesn't work. And what we have now is we're going broke, but yet people are have been indoctrinated to believe that big government is what is needed and they need to be looked after. And ultimately, we're going to come in for a pretty rude awakening, aren't we?

[00:36:11]>> Big government isn't always wrong. I in in wartime, you need big government to be effective for a start. I mean, there's some things. And when I used to argue about nationalization, privatization with withh with with conservatives, I said, "Well, you you you say you don't want state control of anything. Do you actually think you can privatize the Royal Navy? You think that could run?

[00:36:30]>> Uh, and they, some of them, to my amazement said, "Well, yes, of course.

[00:36:34]All we need to do is hire a lot of people with privateeers." I said, "Okay, well then we're in the realm of madness here." But it they they resisted the idea that anything was better run by the state, though some things are. So, I'm not I'm not a I'm not a let the free market rip person. I mean, for instance, I I would really like it if they properly reationalized the railways rather than the ridiculous porridge they're making of it at the moment. Uh because I think it there are some things which are just better run that way. So yeah, no it but there's no point yearning for British people to be as they were before 1914 because amongst other things you have to remember the until 1916 the British army which which went to France and and was moaned down in the mud was composed of volunteers and these volunteers were people who' been persuaded that this was a a vital war for civilization in which every every man and spirit had to take part as a matter of conscience. So what did you do? You lost the best people in the country in many cases before they could get children.

[00:37:41]>> So it didn't just change the way that people behaved. It it it it actually changed the nature of the whole British population.

[00:37:49]Hundreds of thousands of men who who were the best of their generations of every class were were just moaned down by German machinery on fire and eaten by rats before they could before they could marry and have children. And this affects the country. I mean the you have similar catastrophic effects of course in the in the European countries. Uh they're not quite the same because of the volunteer nature of the British army. I'm absolutely sure that the the the the post 1917 civil war in Russia uh either drove out of the country or killed huge numbers of the best people and it made it very very difficult and then the the great purges of Stalin uh by their nature also selected the best people. So you you do make it difficult to for a country to recover when you kill so many of your bears >> and and well and that's a real concern and that was a shocking for me from co and like I said everything else is I expected more people to stand up and challenge and push back. I remember being a kid in in the classroom and being taught about Nazism and going look I understand the chronology of events.

[00:38:56]>> Yeah. I don't understand how so many people could fall for this and then you see I mean the trans hysteria was one example you know people saying you know you can change your sex when we both know that is palpably and scientifically false and I just and I saw this happen I was like oh I get it now I get it how you could deny a fundamental reality >> yeah I but propaganda can be very effective if it's well aimed and if it if it targets the right contents and a lot of German people would simply told this is this period of unemployment and chaos and fighting in the streets must come to an end and they were told this we are the people who will do it and in many cases you they didn't didn't ask too many questions about how it would be done in many cases you can easily understand how people you know could have done that I think people pretend now that they would they would all have seen it coming but I from what we know I I'm fairly sure quite a lot would not >> and it's also as well and you know there's an there's with all of these things there's always an element of self-interest. There is >> nothing wrong with self-interest. People have to be interested in themselves to some extent. It's just it's it just it can be taken too far.

[00:40:06]>> Peter, you touched on something very important about which you wrote a book actually that I think was it called the war we we should we should never fought.

[00:40:14]>> Well, there were this the war we the war we never fought is one about drugs.

[00:40:18]>> No, that's right. I meant the phony the phony victory.

[00:40:21]>> Yes. which people keep telling me is called the phony war which is absolutely is not that's a different subject but the phony victory is is I've heard it I was trying to be too clever it it does if you think about it explain what's going on we came everybody's heard of the phony war and we sat around doing nothing for the first what was it uh nine months of war and then suddenly we were engulfed in blitzkrieg and and the next thing you know we're we're the victors at pot stamp and I thought how do you get from the phony war a defeated country Dunkirk uh bankruptcy. How do you get from there to being one of the big two countries and you you don't the truth is and we and and France began the first the second we and France began the second world war by declaring war on Hitler. He you could say he began it by invading Poland but the the there was it was a positive decision on on on our side to make that the issue. Uh but we weren't prepared for the war that we declared.

[00:41:19]uh particularly France we had all relied people don't realize now just how much people believed in the strength the military strength of France in 1939 they thought that it was colossal and and unchallengeable this vast army which had been victorious in in in 1918 and was the army of a great and valerous country. They were amazed that it collapsed. It was like it was like some great cathedral being wiped off the map. People had no idea this this could conceivably happen and we certainly didn't. and we were left with a war which we were not equipped to fight.

[00:41:52]>> Mhm.

[00:41:52]>> And so we ended up handing over the war to other people. We handed over the war to the Soviet Union to the United States and we were we we were on the winning side but in my view we were not the victors.

[00:42:03]>> Uh well I was going to ask you to go broader than that and you you've you've written so much and spoken so much and thought so much about Britain and its history particularly in the 20th century. What is Peter Hitchens's sort of the Peter Hitchens take on the 20th century for this country and the trajectory of it during >> Oh, the the gravest mistake ever made by any British government was to enter the First World War in 1914. We should never have done that. There was no there was no reason why we why we why we needed to and many many reasons why we should not have done it. It cost us almost everything we had and we continue to pay the price for it.

[00:42:41]But but just flesh that out for people who may be less familiar with the argument. You you mentioned obviously losing hundreds of thousands of the best people.

[00:42:49]>> We did. Yeah.

[00:42:50]>> Uh but beyond that, how do we get from World War I to where we are today?

[00:42:54]>> Well, at the beginning of World War I, we were we were a credit country. We had huge foreign investments. Uh we we spent what we earned and we had, as it were, savings as a nation. uh we were also a a stable uh more or less contented country. I mean there were problems problems with Ireland and a number of other things but we were we were a a solid society likely to last.

[00:43:19]We were a Christian country. Uh whether you like that or not it was important to the the existence of a shared morality.

[00:43:26]We were a country which in which people were monoculturally one.

[00:43:33]>> Uh the everybody knew the same things.

[00:43:36]Uh everybody had read the same Bible and prayed the same prayers, sang the same hymns, uh read the same uh novels, the works of Charles Dickens universally known people could quote them to each other and it was we were we were a society of people holding together. uh so economically and culturally we were also a very peaceful society uh because of the huge success of Robert Peele's policing reforms of the of the 19th century and also because of the huge success of the Sunday schools which had spread morality right through society.

[00:44:13]So we we had all these enormous advantages. We were also militarily strong in the only way which was counted. That is to say, no one could attack our islands because we had the strongest navy in the world.

[00:44:23]>> And we then entered for reasons which remain baffling a RussoGerman war uh which was basically about Ukraine. Hang on a minute. Sounds familiar.

[00:44:36]>> Why did we do that? It's very difficult to find out. And there was there was a fact there was strong war faction, but it was quite a few people. people like Sir Henry Wilson uh who who who who were trying pretty much to get us into war.

[00:44:51]Uh but most politicians were unaware of the of the planning that had taken place. Most of the cabinet most of Asus's cabinet didn't know how much military planning had taken place, joint military planning between Britain and France for instance before 1914. It had been kept from them. As for parliament, it was completely ignorant. And then the thing advanced with immense speed and people say well what about Belgium? is very sad about Belgium. But the truth is that Britain when confronted with the conflict between its own interests and um morality has in the past dumped other people in the mud and most particularly we did so in 1864 when when when Prussia attacked Denmark had we promised to go to their aid and past and said oh actually sorry we're busy at the moment we're not coming and it's horrible thing to do but it was very wise decision >> because there's nothing we could have done to uh to save do most people in 1914 believe when war was declared that it would be a naval war that we would just enter it as a we would send the navy to help the French in various ways and that would be that uh it would it no one had any idea we were going to create a huge continental sized army and lose hundreds of thousands of people and have conscription and rationing. It never crossed their minds.

[00:46:02]>> Doesn't it speak to also the arrogance of the political class at the time?

[00:46:06]because the the the I can see you're going to disagree with this, but wasn't a narrative that >> I don't think we've ever said anything.

[00:46:13][laughter] >> I mean, political glasses are always arrogant. That's why they do it.

[00:46:17]>> Yeah.

[00:46:17]>> But you should know better than I one of the most arrogant people I know. So don't that that's that's not in itself necessarily a criticism. You have to be a bit arrogant if you want to do some things. I mean, politics is is one of them, I think. But I mean, but then there's a fun fundamental disconnect from reality or getting a decision so disastrously wrong that hundreds of thousands of people die because the narrative at the time was well this is all going to be done and dusted by Crimbo.

[00:46:42]>> Well, some people said that. I think I would there were three people in in in the cabinet who were worried about it.

[00:46:50]Two of them were John Burns and John Moy. John Moley, probably the most intelligent person in British politics at the time, >> who actually resigned secretly as with us and to keep it secret over over preparations for war trying to prevent it. But they and as I think has serious doubts about it himself because again he was he was a clever man.

[00:47:12]>> But he was afraid that if he didn't declare war then his government would fall and a pro-war coalition would form between the the pro-war elements of his own party and the Tories and that he was panicked into it. It wasn't a rational decision. It was it was largely a panic and made on partly on the grounds that things had got out of control >> which they did very rapidly. Barbara Sukman's The Guns of August is probably the best description of how of how this happened. It wasn't no one sleepwalked into absolutely not at all. The Germans quite deliberately uh deliberately encouraged Austria into a into a confrontation with Russia in the hope that it would lead to war. And that was the the the it was an accident is untrue. the the diplomatic diplomatic events which followed particularly between Britain and Germany uh basically matters getting increasingly out of control because we didn't realized we were we were talking to a Germany which was absolutely set on war Fritz Fischer's great book makes this quite plain there's no doubt in my mind Germany wanted a war but what they wanted war with Russia they they felt they were probably they would have to knock out France France was also frantic for war. They wanted revenge for 1870 and they and they they conducted the war in the initial months of war almost insanely sending waves of men in in bright red trousers against straight into into German gunfire. The the casualties were colossal and the military effect disastrous. It was it was crazy war and and we got involved in it. And for what what was our interest in if if if Russia and and Germany and AustriaHungary have a conflict?

[00:48:55]>> What was the conflict between those two?

[00:48:57]>> Basically Russia with the backing of Austria Hungary um sorry Germany Germany with the backing of AustriaHungary wanted to expand eastwards particularly into what is now Ukraine. M >> and you can see the the shape of the ambition in the the 1918 piece of breast task which >> Germany signed with the Bolsheviks which actually created modern Ukraine amongst other things. One of the things that it did and also it it transferred all the the the Baltic states from Russian to German control and and and shifted Poland. That's that is the crucial people think of it being Belgium and France but that's gone. The actual cockpit of war in 20th century Europe and now 21st century remains Ukraine.

[00:49:44]This is a hugely important piece of territory and that's what they were worried about. Do you know where Lenin is when do you know where Lenin was when the war broke out?

[00:49:51]>> No. Paris, wasn't it?

[00:49:53]>> No. He was in uh he was in Austrohungarian controlled Poland >> uh where he was quite valued as it turned out by the Austrahungarians because of his role in fermenting anti- Moscow sentiment in what was to become Ukraine. He was arrested by the local policeman because he was obviously Russian and an alien. He looked sinister anyway. But within a couple of days of him being arrested in this small country town, he was hoked out of prison uh by the Austrian government with the intervention I think of the of the army high command and put on a train to Zurich.

[00:50:31]>> So Peter >> from which eventually he went as you know to to um with huge tons of German gold to overthrow the Russian government. That's this is what was really going on. It's it's and this is what we bizarrely got ourselves involved in. [snorts] >> Let me say this because I know I'm not alone. At some point, your body just stops bouncing back the way it used to.

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[00:53:02]>> And you describe Britain, the British Empire in the terms that you did solid economically.

[00:53:09]>> I was talking about Britain. The empire is a different question. I how much longer the empire could have survived.

[00:53:13]The empire had weakened itself quite badly with the great folly of the particularly the second bore war >> in which we'd hugely lowered our international standing by our by by behaving extremely brutally towards a small country. I mean nobody no has any sympathy for the BS now because obviously they were the people who brought the world apartide but at the time quite a lot of people did and also we established uh the famous concentration camps in South Africa which were not I mean the the phrase is the same the the reality is not by any means identical but they were horrible >> and Emily Hob House exposed their horror and the world knew that we'd done a terrible thing we'd done enormous damage it was in some ways the second world war was Britain's Iraq war the moment at which our world power began to decline.

[00:54:00]But we empires come and go. It would have been perfectly possible for this country to quietly relinquish most of its empire, much of which was expensive to maintain and brought us no benefit and become a a a a major country in its own right. we were still a huge manufacturer and exporter with enormous enormous foreign investments especially in South America and all that went uh that we could have we could have managed the transition to being a secondary power much more readily and successfully if we'd stayed out of that stupid war and what happens this way why we started this portion of the conversation with uh Britain is as you describe it is very solid economically culturally etc you have this war that takes the lives of hundreds of thousands of the best men of the world.

[00:54:49]>> It also cost us all our money >> and it cost us all our money.

[00:54:51]>> Well, by by I think late 1915 we were we were in severe debt to the United States.

[00:54:57]>> It took very once war is in fantastically expensive. The same thing was true of 1939 40. It took no time at all for us to be in debt. And do you know we've never paid off our debt to the United States of the First World War.

[00:55:08]>> You did?

[00:55:08]>> I did not know that.

[00:55:09]>> Most people don't. And in fact, when I tell them they say no, it can't be true.

[00:55:12]We paid it off the other day. What we paid off? What we paid off the other day was actually our second World War debt.

[00:55:18]>> Yes.

[00:55:18]>> The first World War debt, we stopped payments on it in 1934 and we haven't paid a penny since or any interest.

[00:55:24]>> Uh we actually defaulted on it.

[00:55:26]>> It's one of it's it's the most one of the most undisussed scandals of modern history. The Americans absolutely remember. Uh we you can you can get the Treasury to admit it if you try. uh and there has actually been a a book about it rather good book called the long shadow of default which I recommend to anybody but we actually remain in debt United States the first world war >> andund more years later >> soon after >> good day >> fairly soon after you get into World War II which we've already talked about and what happens in your uh assessment in the post-war period that contributes to where we've arrived at today >> well it's all one road isn't it once you once you go to war in 1914 and you and you cease to be rich and you cease to be powerful and again look at there's another tremendous book I can't recommend it highly enough called the deluge by Adam Tus which describes amongst it's it's full of stuff about the first world war which most people don't write about but it describes what happened between Britain and the United States over naval power >> which was this was our power >> and it was the equivalent of nuclear power at the time and the Americans forced us to limit our naval forces. Uh they forced us to to to both limit the size of our navy and the size of our ships. They forced us to break our crucial alliance with Japan which enabled us to remain secure in the Pacific. And the the the arguments between the admirals of the US Navy and the British Navy grew so tense that point fist fights nearly broke out between them over this. And that was again an aftermath. And you see from this the the long slope lying ahead of of decline uh which was dictated to us by the by our voluntary bankruptcy of 1914.

[00:57:12]>> And I think part of the problem as well is that we still going back to the idea of delusion. We still have this idea of us being this kind of great nation which has a huge impact across the globe. And the reality is there are much bigger nations who are much more powerful, who have a far more significant impact, who don't necessarily care what we say or do.

[00:57:34]>> Oh, lots. So, one of the first things you discover if if you go and live in the United States, of course, you think you expect to find special relationship and everybody loves us. Um, but I found myself being accused of being Australian. What's that accent? Okay.

[00:57:47]>> And also I found that you you would read the American newspapers and watch the American news and our country wasn't mentioned.

[00:57:55]>> Well, no other country.

[00:57:56]>> It was it was might as well rather been the Falkland Islands. It just wasn't it just wasn't nobody cared and and I searched Washington DC for two years for any sign of the special relationship.

[00:58:07]And not many was the none. I actually watched this country being ruthlessly squashed on the Irish issue by the US government, Bill Clinton. I they they just crushed us like a beetle uh over that. And if there is a special relationship, it's it's it's especially nasty one. I' it was amazing to watch, but they don't this is this is a fantasy. So, we're we're neither important nor much liked.

[00:58:34]And it's important for people to realize this, but they won't. They want to believe it's the great compensation actually for the having made and it was the colossal sacrifice of the Second World War as a country. You know, years of rationing, privation, the the deaths of of many, the bombing of our cities.

[00:58:51]Surely we had to have something as a result of all that sacrifice and pain.

[00:58:56]>> And people really wanted to believe that it was our finest hour and that we had emerged from it as as a great and powerful nation. Well, it was our finest hour. I don't dispute that. And we fought very bravely and and and movingly against very large and dangerous forces.

[00:59:11]And we suffered a great deal and my parents went through it. But we didn't emerge from it as great power.

[00:59:18]>> But people don't it's it's it's like your own manhood. People don't like admitting that.

[00:59:24]>> And it's also like you see it with the policy on net zero where people go, well, you know, we're going to set an example to the rest of the world. Well, Britain should lead the world by blowing up all its coal fired power stations which China is building about 10 a month. Yes, I know it's it's a necessity.

[00:59:38]>> But but it is >> we do we blow them up too. We don't we don't cautiously say, "Oh, this might be a mistaken mothball." We blow them up.

[00:59:46]>> Millions of pounds worth of valuable plant blown up, dismantled. So no possibility anybody might have it was a mistake ever. Peter, when you started making some of these points initially, were you more uh optimistic than you are now?

[01:00:01]>> Yes.

[01:00:01]>> You've been ground down by the reality that no one listens to your warning.

[01:00:05]>> When I wrote my first book, The Abolition of Britain, in 1999, I did so in the belief that it was possible. I I what I began to think was writing I then wrote for the Daily Express. Writing a weekly column, frankly, in the Daily Express was not going to have much influence. What I really wanted to do was particularly was to get uh into national broadcasting more and I was advised by a friend that you can't get anywhere very much in national broadcasting if you haven't [clears throat] written a book and so I wrote the book with the purpose of extending my the reach of my ideas and in fact it was quite interesting the some of the initial reviews of it although um although uncomplentary accepted that something serious was being said uh in general it was very hard to get it published had struggle very hard to get it published most publishers refused to have anything to do with me and a major agent who I approached wouldn't wouldn't touch me let alone the book and eventually I got it published and actually by a publisher so small that my family uh had to do all the work of getting into bookshelves and it it ended up it still sells even now what is it 27 years later but it was a real struggle to get it out but some of the reviews understood that something was being said I thought wow and I did begin to get a certain amount of of um opportunity in in broadcasting. At one point I'm a channel 4, let me make documentaries and the uh I would I would get on the the big uh the big opinion programs and I thought that last some there is some point at which there might be a the sprockets of what I think and of what of of what is talked about in politics will mesh with each other and we'll get somewhere. Then it became more and more obvious that this wasn't so.

[01:01:51]And the time went by and the crucial moment for me remains when I was in the for when David Cameron took over the Conservative Party on behalf of the >> Blairites.

[01:02:03]>> I I can put this more clearly now than I could then, but I was quite clear about at the time. If people allow this to happen, if people endorse this this blarrite takeover of the only major opposition party, then it it is the end.

[01:02:16]You you mustn't do it. Uh don't just vote Tory because you want a Tory government because you won't get a Tory government. I point one of the points I can make now more clearly than was actually Gordon Brown was probably more conservative than David Cameron, >> particularly on things like the European single currency. Uh and he was it [clears throat] was and is a more conservative person. Uh, but I I was just trying to say, "No, you it's vital that this that this doesn't succeed."

[01:02:42]And I couldn't get anybody to listen to me. And I remember going around some other supposedly right-wing columnists and saying, I if I keep saying this alone, I'll get nowhere. If anybody else joins in, it might actually make some impact. And they wouldn't. And it was at that point that I despared.

[01:03:01]And once the Cameron government came into office and everybody imagined that the tourists had won the election, which they hadn't even done, and the coalition settled in, I that's it.

[01:03:12]>> That isn't that quite dementing in many ways. Oh, you must I mean, it's a hack.

[01:03:16]>> It's not that's not the word I'd choose.

[01:03:18]It's it's dispiriting. Uh but but but for me, what it is above all because I have that kind of temperance is infuriating. And there are two ways of reaction to it. if if you're furious and one is just to have total contempt ever afterwards uh for everything everybody involved in in in in what resulted from what I tried to prevent. So I do [laughter] >> but but it's also because what you're fundamentally talking about is it's a tragedy.

[01:03:49]>> I think so. I think it it might have been avoidable. It would have been worth trying as as I think I think 2010 was the last moment at which it might have might have been doable.

[01:04:00]But it it was just it just it's just got me nothing except uh except abuse.

[01:04:06]>> Well, and plenty appearances of trigonometry of course.

[01:04:09]>> Well, that of course is is a is a great compensation. [laughter] >> Your sarcasm is much appreciated.

[01:04:16]>> No, no, no, no, no. You should hear me being sarcastic. It doesn't sound like that at all. [laughter] Peter, it's uh always wonderful to talk to you. Um we're going to ask you some questions from our supporters in a second, but the last question, as you know, is always the same. It's on the mug that you were looking at earlier.

[01:04:33]What's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

[01:04:35]>> We haven't really talked about the attempts to create war. When I wrote the the phony victory, my purpose was actually to make uh to make a strong case against what seemed to me at the time a drive for war which I thought would emerge either in Iran or in Russia. And I thought the these countries were both being prepared uh to to become enemies. And I I thought if I could only spread the idea in in in some way a mature idea that this is that as a country we shouldn't be beguiled into war by this constant repetition of the idea that every single world conflict is repeat of 1938.

[01:05:19]Therefore that anybody who's who opposes it is Neville Chamberlain. Anybody who continues to oppose it after it's started is Lord Haw. that everybody who's in favor of it is Winston Churchill. This is I I thought first of all I show that what we thought about Neville Chamberlain uh was not absolutely true. Uh and also that the this the whole development of war in in late 1930s Europe had no parallels with what's going on uh in in in the Europe of today. And for all the good it did, I might as well have stayed at home. But that's it. It does alarm me. There is there's we're constantly to people are constantly coming intelligence chiefs come out and say we have to prepare for war. Russia is a great threat. Well, you can believe that if you want. Uh though I find it a struggle. Uh I always remember going to Moscow. Was it in 2008? I know it was it was the first big parade of the new Russian army. They decided they're going to restart the Red Square parades. And I'd watched the last one in in in November 1990. And so my officer said, "Why don't you go out and watch it?" And I watched it with my old friend Eagle submarine commander and who he knew his military stuff. And we we stood on the balcony of a hotel watching it as close as we could get. And I enjoyed the parade as much as the rest. And at the end of it, Eager turned to me and said, "What did you think of our great display of strategic scrap metal?" [laughter] And he was quite right. I mean, it was this the the the big new weapons. They probably had two or three of most of the stuff they were they were able to put out was was probably old. Much of it Soviet era. We knew we still know the Russian military is fantastically corrupt and and incompetent and the training of soldiers is a is a disgrace.

[01:07:17]It's a terrible army and it can't after uh four years uh they haven't managed to take Kakov 20 miles from the border. It so to to turn this into a great bogeyman which is which is about to turn up at Dunkkirk with its tanks pointed tanks pointed at the British coast just doesn't seem to me to be realistic. But the the intelligence people, retired generals, uh ex-defense ministers, NATO chiefs are constantly trying to prepare us for war. And the last thing I noticed was some uh some suggestion that we might all start hoarding uh food and medicines in case there was a war. There a real attempt to try and get the British people to become warminded, which I think can only end sadly.

[01:08:04]>> Peter, it's been an absolute pleasure.

[01:08:07]Thank you so much for coming on the show. Make sure to join us over on Substack where we carry on the conversation and you get to ask Peter your questions.

[01:08:16]I've always greatly admired Peter's [music] books, but upon finishing them, I always end up feeling rather hopeless about Britain's future. Is Britain [music] doomed to disintegrate?