What The F*** Is Going On?! | Mark Steel

0:00Politics right now, if it wasn't so serious, feels kind of farcical. So who better to have in this episode than a comedian? Mark Steele is a comedian. He's also an activist and author. He's been around a long time doing lots of good things. I went on his podcast recently, so now we're doing swapses. Please welcome to Bold Politics, Mark Steele.

0:23Zach, I'm so excited about this year. EcoTalk has new land coming for rewilding and habitat restoration, and we're bringing back beavers. Any week now, yes, I'm also going to start live streaming the garden birds from my home. And all of this happens because EcoTalk has customers. That's people who pay their mobile phone bills to us. They make a call, they send a text, or they just surf the net and British wildlife gets a boost. That's it. No shouting. Just go to ecotalk.co.uk slash boldpolitics to find out. more.

1:09So I'm seeing this as a revenge mark because you have a podcast called What the Fuck is Going On? Yes. I went on there and you have the temerity to ask me what the fuck is going on. And like everyone else, I have no idea what's going on. Well, since then, you've become leader of a mainstream political party. That doesn't happen to all the people that come on. Could you imagine if it did? Oh, right. Who would be the best one that we had on that might become mainstream? I feel like I'm encouraging you to be rude about your guests. Well, that's Jeremy Corbyn on, who's already been a leader of a mainstream political party.

1:39But I guess the question is, what do you think is going on? Well, what I think is going on at the moment is personified around the character of Mr. Peter Mandelson. And I think that in the world of news and punditry and so on, many people, I don't share the sort of hatred that people have for all the pundits and news people necessarily. But I think because they're in their little closed-in world, they see it as a story about characters and personalities. It partly is that, but it isn't mostly about that. The main story is that it's not just about, should Keir Starmer have had better judgment, should be a better judge of character or so on.

2:23It isn't about that. Peter Mandelson isn't someone who was just put in charge of something like you might put someone in charge of something and then go, what did I do? No, it's that Peter Mandelson represents the embodiment of everything that the Labour Party hierarchy or that wing of the Labour Party, which you would say has been about for the last 30 or 35 years. Obviously, there was a period where Corbyn and before they had Miliband were leader. That wasn't the case. But that wing of the Labour Party have tried to rule the Labour Party with the philosophy that wealth and power must be sucked up to in the most egregious fashion, in the most supine, grovelling way from the time that Tony Blair went to visit Murdoch on his island and so on.

3:18And Mandelson at that time said very, very proudly, I am intensely relaxed about people being filthy rich. And that has been the project of those people. And indeed, Mandelson was pretty much in charge of making sure that Starmer and his people destroyed Corbyn. And he said, every day I, what was the exact quote? Every day I pledged, how can I undermine Jeremy Corbyn today? So this isn't about one individual. And that's what makes it worse for Labour than if it was just about one individual or about the individuals who put him in positions of power, such as ambassadors to America. And if it was just about that, then it would just be, oh, my God, you know what idiots we were.

4:00It's worse than that for them because their whole project, their whole philosophy is embodied in this filthy, disgusting individual who is so, so committed to sucking up to wealth and power that he sucks up to the wealthiest and most powerful person. not quite of all but not far from of all so wealthy and powerful that he invites the world's billionaires to be on his filthy island to have sex with people he's trafficked and that because he's wealthy and powerful makes him more attractive to the people who run the Labour Party than the people that they despise at the bottom so I think that's what's going on is that Labour is hitting a crisis that is much, much greater than it realises.

4:51It's interesting, you went straight in with a system analysis and it's quite unusual. Why do you think people get so obsessed with the characters? Because obviously when we look at the media, it's always about who's in, who's out. Yeah, because it's the soap opera of it, isn't it? And also it's easier to get, you can get away with it more, can't you? Oh, it was just that one person. You know, like when people would talk about, I don't know, what was his name, that horrible bloke who murdered the woman during lockdown, the copper. So you can look at that horrible individual or you can say, what happens in a system that allows continually people in the police to behave in the most appalling fashion and get away with it?

5:34If that was any other profession, you'd go, hang on, why does this keep happening? You know, there'd be if there was green grocers that were all behaving like that. Someone to go, what has gone wrong with the fruit and veg industry? But instead, it's no, it's just this particular person. And and of course, of course, it is. I mean, I wonder, you know, I sort of I I don't know if you can ask about this, but my sort of political background, part of my political background helps to sort of look at things like that. And part of it doesn't. Yeah, well, let's go there, because I imagine almost most viewers will know who you are.

6:11But if they didn't, a comedian is the obvious place to start. But actually, you have a really interesting political history as well, right? Well, my yeah, when I was about 16, 17, it occurred to me that the world was unfair. And when I look back on it now, I think someone this was in the sort of late 70s. When I look back on that, I think, oh, right, because we all think that we all think that we are masters of our own ideology. We think that we have just worked out for ourselves what is the right way to be and then we follow that. But we're not. We're all conditioned and restrained by the world in which we live.

6:44You know, if you were brought up in the 14th century, you would not believe what most people believe now, that you get to where you are in life through your own efforts because that was not the dominant ideology. You got to where you were in life because you were born into a you were either a peasant or you were a noble. and if you were a noble, you'd say, well, I'd like to help you out, but the trouble is you've been born a peasant, you see. It's a good job the princes have cleaned up their accents then, isn't it? Yes, exactly. Well, yeah, exactly. But we're constrained by the times we live in.

7:22And when I was thinking about, I thought, oh, the socialism seems like a good idea. that means that you give everybody equal opportunities. I was brought up in a little... I wasn't particularly poor, but brought up in a world where it was clear you didn't really have much chance. And ever since then, and I'm not bitter about this personally at all, but I meet people who are from wealthy backgrounds, and I think, you have no idea what it's... Even in entertainment, and it's got worse now than it was then, I think, if you're from a certain background, you will just be able to network and you'll have the confidence as well from going to certain schools.

8:03That means that you'll be able to, you'll have access to the finances and so on. That means you can have two or three years where you can have your own studio or things like that, that most people just don't have access to. That's probably not the most clear an example of inequality, because on the other end, you know, there are people who are billionaires. But the two ways in which you might become a socialist in the late 70s, One was through the Labour Party. And that just didn't seem to, that just would never have occurred to me because by then the Labour Party had been in government and it wasn't so much what they were doing, but they just looked like the very embodiment of the sort of old man world that you were against.

8:50You know, I was like inspired by the music of the time, the punk and so on. And then there's like Roy Jenkins and Dennis Healy. And I mean, I'll probably look back now and think, oh, it's probably quite a lot to be said for Dennis Healy. But these were people who were, they just looked like the people who ran your dad's bowls club. They weren't people that were going to inspire you as a young activist. And the other pole of attraction for people around the world who wanted to change society was the Communist Party. But just right from the start, I thought the Soviet Union does not in any way look to me like something that is proud to look.

9:31Look, everybody, if we all go communist, it can be like this. And you can all be shot for opposing the president who looks even more like the bloke who runs the bowls club than your dad. And then they've just got their big day is when they all have to march up and down and celebrate their tanks. And then if a country that they've got control over doesn't do what they say, they get invaded. And that's horrible. That's even worse than here. And so those two sort of routes towards becoming an activist seem to be not at all desirable. So I'd become part of the sort of what was a new young far left really at the time.

10:17And I was in the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Workers Party were instrumentally found in the Anti-Nazi League. And just seemed young and fun and exciting. And we didn't like Russia. Yeah, so you can't get us with that. You all go and live in Russia because we don't like Russia. And then over the next 20 years or so, it came to my realisation that it was a bit mad. There was a very selection of a word at the end of that with the madness. And you're quite unusual in terms of being a left wing comedian who has been given access to mainstream TV. Like you've been on the TV a lot. How did you slip through?

11:04I don't know, really. I suppose it's... I don't think you have to be overtly political to be political. I think, you know, there are comics like Nish Kumar and so on who are very, very overtly political and talk about it, and I think he's great. But that's not really ever been my way particularly. So I do this show about towns in Britain. Yeah. And so every year I go to six towns and I just find as much out about it, about that town, and then I do a show about that town to people in the town. That sounds pretty unpolitical, I suppose. But then sometimes I listen back to them and I think, oh, no, that is political without it being about formal politics.

11:54I mean, I like, Zach, just one little example. So in the series before last, we did East Grinstead, which we chose East Grinstead because it is the centre for European Scientology. In fact, so much is the centre for European Scientology that Tom Cruise and John Travolta regularly go there. And it was reported in the front page of the East Grinstead local paper that when John Travolta was there, he tried to book a table for four in the local Kentucky Fried Chicken place. so I thought that looks funny but when I was there I learnt about a chap called Archibald Mackindo who was a plastic surgeon in the 1930s and the plastic surgery wasn't really of much use at the time because most people who the cosmetic side of it hadn't developed and it was for burns victims but people were burned badly There just wasn't the technology to keep them alive.

12:56So the plastic surgery was redundant. But then all these new techniques came in in the late 1930s that meant you could keep burns victims alive. And he became a pioneer of plastic surgery in East Grinstead, where there was a hospital that had a plastic surgery unit. And at the start of the Second World War, pilots that had been shot down would come to the hospital with terrible burns, terribly disfigured. and Archibald McIndoe pioneered a lot of the techniques that meant that they could stay alive. But his main contribution was he had a philosophy that the mind and the body were sort of together and they couldn't be cured physically unless they had the wherewithal to just be positive throughout their treatment because they would know that even if they survive, they're going to come out of the hospital with terrible disfigurement.

13:48it's going to be a difficult life for them. So Archibald McIndoe insisted that in the hospital there was a bar with free beer that the wounded could take at any time. Cigarettes were completely available at all times. And then marvellously, he insisted that they should be allowed to go out into East Grinstead, into the cafes and pubs. He called meetings of all the people in the town telling them that this was going to happen. and saying that you must just treat all of these patients who are going to be really disfigured, just normally don't look at them at all, just give them, buy them a pint, that sort of thing.

14:30And so much did this take effect that East Grinstead throughout the Second World War became known as the town that does not stare. And thousands of these, mostly airmen, went there and survived. Not a single one of them came out with any sort of notions of depression or there was no suicides or any of the things that you might expect. And it helped to transform the sort of attitudes in health towards the connection between the mental health being so important to physical health. I think that's... When I was reading that, I just found that so moving that all the component parts of that, him himself, the people in the town, all of the people that had to come together and act with kindness and compassion that just made huge numbers of people's lives immeasurably better.

15:29So that goes on the radio. I don't think anyone will go, what are you doing with this awful political diatribe about the town that does not stare? But to me, that's a very political story. That's amazing. And I wanted to ask you about the In Town series, because it strikes me you're doing what politicians say they do a lot, and I know for a fact that lots of them don't, which is they go, oh, I go all up and down the country and I knock on doors and speak to people, and often they've just turned up for a photo. Oh, I love that thing. Don't ever do that, Zach. Don't ever do that when they go, people up and down the country.

16:02Oh, what a stupid phrase. You should have to resign for that. Up and down the country. People up the country, down not so much, but up the country have been saying to me, oh, dear, that's so awful. How do you pick the places you're going to go? And it strikes me when I listen to those that you're often quite not self-deprecating. Is it deprecating about the place, but you do it with such a wit and a charm that you get away with it? Oh, well, thank you. We just pick them, I'm sort of doing it now for the next series, and you think, well, there's a place that might be interesting, but also a sort of area we haven't been to, like South Shields thinking about that South Shields amazing I went there recently it was interesting quite amazing I'm told there's a Roman fort in a council estate oh I didn't know that but yeah no I went and we were expecting kind of quite a small group we didn't think the kind of South Shields would be like the beginning of the Green Revolution but actually it was an absolute packed room wow and people were so determined and then the night before we went to Darlington which was very close I think they booked a room for 100 people sold out instantly.

17:11So they upgraded the venue. And I think about 400, 500 people ended up coming out. But I think a lot of these places where reform are breaking through for people who are thinking about voting green, it's not like an abstract idea of one day we might get reform. So we might get involved with this Green Party. It feels quite existential for people when I speak to them and they say, if we don't create the alternative right now, Labour have failed. Reform are going to be a council. Reform are going to be our MP. and actually I find that often mobilises and powers people sometimes in unexpected places.

17:40Yes, I'm sure. Well, that must be... I mean, I have to think about this because some people will say, oh, the Green Party is going to attain a popularity in a certain sort of place and you can imagine what most people when they think, oh, obviously Brighton or Heriford or that sort of place. But let's say conservatively that the Green Party is on 13 % in the polls. and some of them are higher than that, obviously. But that can't mean that it's not in Walsall and Sunderland. It can't do. I mean, statistically, that just wouldn't add up, would it? Because if none of those old working-class areas had any support of the Green Pie, then it would have to be 30 % in...

18:2540 % in other places. So there must be a lot of... Well, you must know members and stuff in places like that, in Stoke or whatever. It's quite confusing, too. I don't want to turn this into a Green Party political broadcast. It doesn't take much, but I'm off. But lots of polling shows that if just 18 to 49-year-olds could vote, the Green Party would be well out in front and almost across the whole country. But every time I talk about this, without a doubt, someone in their 50s, 60s, 70s gets in touch within seconds and goes, me and all my friends are supporting the Green Party, so please don't forget that it's not just a young movement, it's an older movement too.

19:01And I totally accept that, and I think it's the same geographically. I think there's support all over the place. I think what is different in your Brightons, your Bristol, your North Heroporture and your Waveney Valley is people have got organised there. So when you go, it's very obvious where the support is and there's a very easy access point. I think in some of the quote unquote red wall seats in the past, there hasn't been that same level of organisation, which is why this Manchester by-election matters so much. both for the people who live there but actually demonstrating a Green win in a northern seat is ultimately saying to lots of other seats too that actually the Green Party are the alternative to reform.

19:36It's a huge thing this. You're very calm. Very calm. You are, yeah. I'd be sort of quite like... I think this is a massive moment, this by-election. I think I can stay calm about it but I think nothing will matter more in this parliamentary term. I think if reform win it, I'm really worried about the future of this country. I'm already worried. But the route starts to close down in terms of how we're going to stop reform. If we win it, then a whole host of opportunities open to themselves, not just to the next general election, but in this moment where Keir Starmer is so vulnerable, I think that instantly has to change the Labour government in the direction that they go.

20:16And so I think there's a huge amount rolling on it, but I tend to stay calm about these things and just do what you can. Yeah, well, you can. You have to be stoic and do what you can, obviously. If you're listening to this, though, you don't just have to stay stoic. I mean, you can absolutely get out there and get door knocking. Well, I think that is being stoic. It is to sort of change the things. I've read about the stoic. When I was ill, when I'd had cancer for a bit, and I met interest in this, actually. This is something, as you get older, one of the few things that's a benefit of it. I became really good friends with a general whose radiotherapy treatment started the same day as me.

20:57And he said, I'd rather take into reading the Stoics. This was within the first week. And I did go and read the Stoics. And it was fascinating because really, basically, all it is, it's just a sort of it's a fleshing out of the idea that you try and change what you can and then accept what you can't. Now, of course, the debate comes in what can you accept? What do you have to accept and what don't you? But I don't think being stoic means just going, oh, well, there's going to be fascism again. Just get on with let's just get on with making my making my dinner. It doesn't mean that. It means, right, this is really bad.

21:42We've got to work out the most effective way that we can prevent this from happening. And I think the bit that's most telling to come back to how we started this conversation is Labour have been on record saying if reform win this, that's really bad. If the Green Party win it, that's existential for the Labour Party. And I think it comes back to what you were saying about the system, that I think Labour have been so bought and controlled by corporate money. And they've always banked on people going, well, there's no alternative. We've got pretty awful proposition there in reform and Nigel Farage and there's no difference there.

22:15I think that would be a pretty awful proposition. but I don't think holding people hostage and saying you have to vote Labour to stop reform and not offering any difference to people's lives can hold out for much longer because I think that's exactly why reform exists I think it's why they're getting worse It's clearly not working and no it's extraordinary the collapse in it isn't it and extraordinary given that the whole Starmer project was built on the ruins of what Jeremy Corbyn has done and taken us down to this whatever what did he get in the election? 20, 30%, whatever it was. We've got that clearly.

22:51Clearly, when they were so angry with the number of votes that Corbyn got, they were furious it was that many. We can get it down to half of that. And I don't think the people who still vote Labour, and I'm sure I would imagine you would say this as well, I don't feel any sort of tension with them particularly. I think most people that vote Labour do so for the most sort of heartwarming of reasons, really, that they've just been brought up in a world where the Labour Party represents the health service and all the things that are to do with community and so on against the Conservatives that represent the very opposite of that and individualism and looking after yourself.

23:35Although I think even lots of people who vote conservative in actual fact are not anywhere near as unkind as the ideology that they're representing. I push that even to reform as controversial as that is. I meet people who vote reform all the time who are doing it because they're sick and tired of politics and of the establishment. And we get that, I think. I can understand why you'd be driven to voting reform if you didn't think there was an alternative to the establishment. There's an immense majority for the coalition of kindness, I think. Nice. I'm sure you're right, Zach. I'm sure that's absolutely right.

24:12There's many, many people. I got, there was someone, the economist Gary Stevenson, done a brilliant job, actually. I think he's great. And he said something along the lines of, we must not write off reform voters. and that to me seemed like not a very controversial statement of course you don't write off reform voters especially not that we're on 30 % you write off 30 % of the country that's mad of course we've got to find ways of talking to people of course not all reform voters are Nigel Farage are they? of course not and then there was various people that went wild and said oh so I'm supposed to I'm supposed to be friendly with a racist am I?

24:59and that's what makes me despair about some of the what I think is a sort of old way of thinking on the left that the only way to campaign is to shout and bang and see who's most vocal and see who's loudest when they bang I will not be told it is a bit rich coming from you and I've been in so many of those meetings and I think who are you trying to win over here? I'm not going to take any lectures from I'm not going to take any lectures from, yes, that's what they say. We'll have that debate. I'm like, well, we're literally having that debate right now. Oh, no. So, I mean, yeah, we could sit here and I'll just say this.

25:40This was my favourite one. The militant were in the Labour Party and the group I was in, the Socialist Worker, were not in the Labour Party. And there was a ferocious row between the SWP and the militant, as there was most days. and this guy from the million, bless him, we were talking about whether socialism is inevitable and he said, it is inevitable, there is an inevitability. And one of us said, well, what if there's a nuclear war? And he went, well, that would be a setback.

26:19I really admire him for that. But there was, I remember once going on, they organised an anti-unemployment march around London. And it came through Croydon where my group was. And so we went out to meet them. And I think there was, let's see if I can get the numbers right. I think there was four of us went out with our little socialist worker placards to join in their march against unemployment. And there was eight of them. So there was 12 of us just walking along the pavement with placards. So anyone, even across the road, you'd have thought, is that a march or is that just some people who've found some debris and they're taking it down the council tip?

26:56It just was so, so portry. And I remember thinking, not only does it not even look like a demonstration, but the people who are looking have got no idea that eight of us were thinking this was all right until the other four came along and ruined it. because they were just all that sort of scrimmage. What are you doing? And you're lying on the Falkland Islands. Oh, I'm so, so relieved not to be part of that.

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28:37I don't know if you discussed this on this in a way I think it's irrelevant and that's sort of a good thing but all of a sad thing I think I know where this is going yeah I mean well when you came on the podcast what was that six months ago I remember asking you about if your party was to was to flourish in some way what would be your attitude to it and I think very wisely you said, well, if it... I think once it exists, I'd be really happy to keep conversations. I don't know why the left are always fighting each other. We're always looking for traitors as opposed to going, what are the things we can agree on?

29:14And we don't need to agree on everything, that's fine. Let's focus on the things we can agree on and let's get those done. And then later on when we're all in power, we can then decide on the small things we disagree on, have a democratic process to sort that out. but it feels very often the reverse happens. You try and find the most niche thing you can disagree on and then you have the most public fight possible on that. And I've been quite pleased that the Green Party we've largely stayed out of that. No, I think it's absolutely to the credit of the Green Party that it's stayed out of that. And those of us who have sort of seen the way that the far left operates probably were quite sceptical about whether it could work, the your party thing, And will it not sort of eventually descend into an anarchic sort of factionalising and so on?

30:02But I don't know anyone who could have predicted the magnificent infighting that erupted before it even started. I mean, that was that is tremendous. I mean, awful. And so before it's even started, they're threatening each other with legal action. I'm smiling because you're a comedian, so you're naturally funny, but it's also really depressing. I still really like Jeremy, I still really like Zara, and I think there's huge talent. And I just feel like it's not for me to comment because it's my job to just run a party and make it work. But it's sad to see what's happening in terms of it doesn't feel like there's much productive going on.

30:44Not really, no. I think people in that section of the left can't help it. I think it's that they feel comfortable, you know, like people who have been brought up in sort of family situations that are really dysfunctional and they end up sort of going, choosing partners that are like that. You know, I'm told, you know, that that's what happens. And it seems to me like that, that I think a lot of people from that wing of the left, they just wouldn't be comfortable unless they were in a situation where there was just constant manoeuvring and factionalising and squabbling about Cuba or about what should we say about, I don't know, about Nicaragua or something.

31:31and to the complete detriment, not just to the detriment, but to the extent that everything else collapses and the part is split in all sorts of different ways over things that just don't seem to matter. I think a lot of people who are on the left are from a sort of trade union left background or maybe they've been in the Labour Party or that section of the old left. I don't mean to say the old left there in a negative way necessarily. But I think that lots of people, lots of people I've spoken to, they're like, yeah, I like what the Green Party stand for. But I couldn't ever imagine myself being in a party like that because it's not got the same organic link to the trade union movement that the parties that they've been in.

32:24They're used to that world. they go to trades council meetings they meet at the Labour Club there's a certain world that lots of people are used to and even if the Green Party stands for a series of things every one of which they agree with on redistribution of wealth and so on they still go yeah but it's not the thing I'm used to I really felt that when you spoke to John McDonnell who I have a huge amount of time for on your own podcast and it felt like he was very positive about the Green Party and indeed about me but there was still such a connection to the Labour Party and I really say this with respect I go, but what is it you're holding on to at this point?

33:06It's a brand and it's a label but its values are so clearly different from anything that it ever stood for or you might have thought it stood for whether that's Morgan McSweeney whether that's Labour Together whether that's Keir Starmer even if they did a total clear out by the time this podcast is out I can't see who within that Labour Party is about to take over, who will take the Labour Party towards anything that will actually be helpful or beneficial, particularly to working class communities or particularly to those workers. And so I think the challenge comes to me, you know, what am I doing to work more with trade unions, which I'm certainly doing.

33:41In fact, it was great to have last week Daniel Kebady, who's the General Secretary of the National Education Union, came on the podcast. and there's a further relationship to be built up there and there's various other trade unions I'm talking to at the moment. And it feels like we're already going down that route, so I don't quite know why people who have been in the Labour Party for so long who clearly care about the same things are still so attached to the name. Well, it's a huge thing, Zach. I mean, you know, in Croydon, for example, the Labour Club there, there are many people who've got married in that building.

34:12Right. And when they got married, it would have just seen, well, we do it there. It's there's people who have all their their 18th birthday parties there. Now, I can think of all the meetings and so on that have taken place at the Labour Club. And it's all the pictures of all the old Croydon Labour people there and so on. And it's part of their world. And it's a huge, huge thing. It's almost a sort of huge change in your football club. You know, it's it's a massive thing for people to. you know I know when I if you sort of meet the people who go out canvassing for Labour then they'll have done that for 30 40 years and there were people I met who went out canvassing when Tony Blair was leader and when Jeremy Corbyn was leader and that was almost irrelevant to them this is what we do oh god the leaders come and they go but we're here every election knocking on the doors so I think for those people it is a massive task to win them round I think partly for that and also because you know for MPs it has to look like it's a it's a viable project doesn't it which is now the four MPs if it goes to five then that's just bit by bit becomes to look like a project that well you've been pretty forthright about it you're not here to What is it?

35:39You're not here to challenge Labour? You're not here to be disappointed, but here to replace them. Which I think, again, this Manchester by-election is a kind of a real demonstration of that that's happening already. I think that's why Labour are saying that this election feels existential to them. Because I agree with everything you say about people have got married in those buildings. But we also look at the Labour membership, and you can't get the official figures because they're not actually releasing them. But even on the unofficial figures, they've dropped so, so, so quickly. I even suspect if you combine England and Wales Green Party with the Scottish Green Party and compare that to the Labour UK wide the Green Party have probably overtaken the Labour Party members Wow, that's quite a thing, isn't it?

36:18Yeah And when you think under Jeremy Corbyn they were a mass movement of members but clearly that's so far different now so I just still wonder when that kind of generation and I imagine it mostly is a generational thing go actually what we're still holding on to just doesn't exist anymore and I can totally hear you I can hear why that's traumatic and that really feels like a grievance process of what you're going through. But I just think about some of the people who have joined the Green Party, who have been in the Labour Party for decades and decades. I mean them all the time. And they go, well, if they can do it, surely someone who's been in for a much shorter time can do it too.

36:52But everyone's different. I think the football team analogy is well made. As in, people don't change football teams. Yes. Political parties are a football team, right? Yeah, well, no, it's not a football team. But it feels like it and people get very betrayed and so on and all that nonsense. I suppose from a football analogy, it's a bit like if your own football team started to score own goals or started to attack the ref, you might go, OK, maybe now it's time to change football team. This is such an alarming time for the world at the moment. But also, I think there is a great slogan, make hope normal again.

37:29But it is both of those things are very real at the moment. I think, you know, a world of the Trump is terrifying. And then there's the little trumpets, the Le Pen and Maloney and Farage and every country's got one are really, really scary in a way that other people we may not have liked in the past. They were within a certain sort of confide, within a certain set of rules, not in every country, but in some countries. And so many people I know in this country have been really depressed the last two or three years. I can't look at the news. It's all too awful. And I think that this Green Project has become something that does fill that for a lot of people and has made hope normally again for a lot of people.

38:24And can I ask you a final question, actually? So you clearly have a huge background in the kind of the red, the kind of old trade union movement, the workers' movement. But I know you also speak passionately about the environment, about the planet. And I think there's a moment where the press can't seem to get their head around that those two things are interlinked. They think you can either talk about workers' rights or you can protect the planet, but you can't possibly do both. Yeah, how would you respond to that? Well, the most obvious thing is there's not... Well, we've got... Imagine a world where you go, well, at last we've redistributed the wealth.

38:55Unfortunately, there's only 300 people left alive in the world. Still, at least those 300 people are equal. That's no use to us. I did a thing on Instagram. You never know which one of these things is going to take off. I did a thing because I saw two articles in a week that were so angry about the Green Party and in particular with reference to your teeth. and I thought, I was quite encouraged by that. I thought if that's, I can't remember exactly what I put on it, but they would end up going, well, I'd rather that the world just died out with every human gasping for breath in a carbon emission-fuelled asphyxiation, but at least we had a leader with straight teeth because we used to have standards in this country.

39:50Anyway, I did that, screamed that into the phone in the local park. And it's got like, I don't know, I don't know the last time I looked at it, quite a lot of people, half a million people that saw it. I very much enjoyed it. So yeah, thank you for the support. But that's great though, isn't it, that they're attacking you on those grounds. Every time they talk about teeth or breast hypnosis or won't the rich just leave, I just think they've got literally nothing. Because they know that actually the platform, the majority of people in this country actually agree with if they hear it in a fair way.

40:24Admittedly, there's lots to do in terms of the detail of it, in terms of assuring people that they're safe, that they'll still have a home, that bills aren't going to go up. But actually, our platform largely will lower people's bills, defend the National Health Service, rebuild public services, protect the planet. And weirdly, I think that's what most people want. Yeah, I think it is. It's convincing people that there's very few people who really, really are selfish, isn't there? There's very few people who go, I don't want to pay tax because why should I fund a health service when I'm not ill?

40:57I think it is pretty rare, and I think we're told all the time that everyone's self-interested or everyone's just in it for themselves. But it's just Thatcher and Reagan and neoliberalism kind of instilled within our media, just pushing those stories. Absolutely. But actually, when I go up and down the country, I'm not going to take any lectures. I meet people all the time who are kind and compassionate and worried. I meet people who are worried all the time, who have legitimate questions about, you know, what will it be like to invest in wooden turbines or solar panels? How will that affect their bills?

41:24And that's not because they're selfish. It's just because they've been fed propaganda, literally billions of pounds spent on propaganda, telling them they're going to be poorer, colder, less safe, as opposed to the complete opposite. And, you know, we've talked about a lot of grim things, but that's what gives me a lot of hope, that actually we have both truth and, conveniently, things that are good for people and good for the planet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be anything we need to get rid of the vested interest. Yeah. Well, it's extraordinary, isn't it? The health system in America, how they managed to convince people, these sort of private health companies, that a health service would be bad for you.

42:02They'll take away your choice. In Britain, they haven't got a choice. If you have a heart attack on the street, the ambulance comes and takes you away to a hospital. No choice about it. It's so mad. Just want a nicer ambulance. And it's similar with the climate, I think. I think the number of people who are hostile to the view that carbon emissions are fuelled, climate change and so on, I think that that is now, you know, it's a bit like people who go, well, women shouldn't be playing football. There'll always be some people like that, but they're very much just on the margins now. They're the ones that you're not going to change now, I think.

42:39So I think that that's been one. Thanks so much, Mark. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you.

42:49Zach, final words for me? If you're paying a phone bill anyway, like nearly all of us are, of course, why not pay a phone bill that funds rewilding, reintroducing and replanting? The three R's. You can even watch it happening on your phone. That's bloom scrolling, not doom scrolling. To find out more and to join the thousands of people helping British wildlife, go to ecotalk.co.uk slash bold politics. Join the Bloom Scholars and the Blooming Nature Revolution.