From Trump to Corbyn: How Social Media Shapes Politics (Billy Bragg)

25:12What we need to recognise is that freedom is made up of three dimensions. Liberty the first, most important. If you can't express your opinion, you're not really free. But if you can't express your opinion without being abusive, that's not liberty. You know, that's licence. So you need accountability as a counterweight. So if you are abusive, you get chucked off Twitter and you don't get back on six months later, you're out. You can't do it as an anonymous bot. Exactly. No anonymity. And the balance between liberty and accountability has to be equality, that everybody has the right to express their opinion and you as an individual have to accept that right and listen to what they've got to say.

25:54You might not agree with it, but you've got to respond to it in a way that is not abusive. At the moment, I think our sense of the discourse is completely out of whack. And that is, I think that's bled into mainstream politics. You know, it's when Donald Trump said some of the things he said early on, when you think back of what he was talking about, you know, when he, when he, the things he said about John McCain, who was a Vietnam War veteran. In America, you would never be able to say something disrespectful for a Vietnam veteran at all. You know, there used to be a taboo. Oh, complete taboo.

26:26He said it and his likes went up. So if he'd have just said it and just got the usual criticism from the mainstream media, maybe he'd have thought, oh, maybe I shouldn't say that. But actually, social media has disinhibited us in some way. And our failure, again, to hold the companies to account that are used as platforms to get them to really throw people off, to have some sort of, I mean, you know, I'm just sort of riffing here, but I can't get in my bank account without this phony are recognising my eyes, right? Now, why shouldn't Twitter be like that? So that if you get chucked off, you can't get back on again unless you get new eyes.

27:02There's ways of doing this, to fry up our hands and say, oh, it's not possible. That's not acceptable because what comes next is AI. So you want to redefine liberty and make sure that the other pillars, which are accountability... Dimensions, mate. And the other dimensions. Because basically, I think that freedom and liberty are like... Liberty is like a fish that swims in the water and the water is freedom. Liberty in and of itself is not freedom. It's an aspect of freedom, a key aspect of it. But don't you think one of the dangers of modern politics, critics of liberalism would say, is that because of the experience of the 20th century, because of these rival totalitarianisms from fascism on the one hand and communism on the other hand, we kind of asserted freedom and liberty as the supreme goal of politics.

27:50And that meant we overlooked some of the other things that people really want from life, such as belonging. And what you're seeing now, partly maybe, is where a bit of a kind of explains a bit of what's happening with national populism is the reassertion of the idea that some things matter as much as freedom. Belonging, a sense of duty, a sense of membership. And so in a way, you know, people who support national populists would say this isn't just the unwinding of democracy. This is like a democratic correction. Yeah. We've had liberal overreach, excessive freedom. And now in a way that you might approve of, we're going to rein it back in a bit.

28:23Yeah, but that just comes back to accountability, isn't it? Accountability is non-partisan. You know, freedom is, really, liberty is individual freedom, isn't it? It's what you do. It's like a, it's a doing thing, isn't it? It's something you actually go out and do. I'm free to do this. Whereas freedom is a general situation you find yourself in that is open to everybody. And it involves not just what you want to do, but it also involves you having to respect what other people want to do, provided it doesn't tread on your toes. So that balance, I think, is important to bring to these arguments, because if you are someone who worries about too much change in your community, then you should be able to hold to account those people who are bringing that change, whether they're builders, whether it's the council, whoever it is.

29:10you should be able to have some way of being accountable. You know, for instance, perhaps we should have an indirectly elected upper chamber that represented the regions. So, you know, because I think that... Gordon Brown suggested something quite similar. Yeah, I've been batting on this for yonks. I mean, I gave evidence to the... House of Lords, didn't you? Yeah, the House of Lords Commission, basically suggesting we could just divide the seats in the second chamber in direct proportion to votes cast in the general election. So on election night, if you didn't elect a candidate, instead of your vote going in the bin, it will go to representation in the second house.

29:46And if you have a partially elected, I'm sure you discussed this for the Lords, the argument about against a partially elected second chamber is always where does that leave the comments? Well, interestingly, if you were using that system, that's a form of secondary election. It's not direct election. The problem with the primary mandate is it becomes from direct election. So when you put your mark on a piece of paper next to someone's name and they get directly elected, that's different from an abstract of all the votes cast in the country. So you'd reflect that sentiment, that abstract sentiment in the other time.

30:19It's not abstract because it's the will of the people, but it's the secondary will of the people. It's not the absolute direct. Would you advocate electoral reform to the Commons as well? Yeah, I would. I would like to see that, you know, as the House of Lords doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It's been 25 years since I got that evidence. So, yeah, I'd love to see a much more responsive. I think first-past-the-post really throws up, you know, you've got to complain. You can't just complain about the idea of reform getting to a landslide on 35 % of the vote. You've got to admit that Labour do it as well, and I've done several times this century.

30:54The first-past-the-post reflects a 20th-century politics to some extent where you had two, you know, people will know that kind of the phrase comes from the idea of who pips who to get to the winning number of votes first of all. And you can see how in a multi-party system that gets harder to justify. But the arguments against proportional representation have always been that when you have first passed the post A, you can get strong governments Oh yeah, turn it to David Cameron B, you can get, you avoid lengthy negotiations. And three, you force parties to become broader churches, broad coalitions that accommodate their extremes.

31:30Under proportional representation for instance the British National Party, which you campaigned so assiduously against might well have found representation in parliament they'll be inside the palace and all that and all they won seats from my local council and people saw them for what they were a bunch of divisive racist so-and-sos and threw them out i mean you know they lost every single seat they had and the following council elections and that was partly because of the huge campaign that went on by people like uh hope against hate uh but interestingly the guy who was their leader, his vote was cast aside because the woman who stood against him was a council lollipop lady and you're not allowed to do that if you work for the council.

32:15So they re-ran it with no one around and he still got thrown out. So I think we can trust the working class of Barking and Dagnum to tell the difference between someone who's working in their interest and someone who's only looking to divide them and their neighbours. So I've got faith in the British people to be able to tell the difference between a racist and a Democrat. Do you think that the Labour Party, which you've given intermittent support to throughout your life, is in danger of losing the working class? I do think so, yeah. I think the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, to some extent, have not, I don't really understand where politics has gone.

32:52And again, I do think this is, I hate to throw everything back to the rise of social media. But when you look at the successful political figures of the last decade, you know, I'm talking Trump, Johnson, Corbyn. Farage. Farage, of course. They're not really politicians as such. They're more persona. They're persona. You know, they stand for an idea. They don't stand for a broad, you know, what are Donald Trump's policies? What does he actually stand for? You know, America first. Or what does Johnson stand for? Get Brexit done. You know, Corbyn, his politics, complex though they were, were just, you know, portrayed as being nothing more than a kind of form of communism, you know.

33:35And likewise with Farage, you know, these aren't considered politicians with broad policies and nuance. We've lost all the nuance and people are so frustrated by the failure of politics to make a difference to their lives that they're drawn to people who are saying to them, I'm the person who's going to fix this. So the persona becomes more important than the policy. But why is Labour specifically, which of course was set up as the parliamentary representation of the unions and of the working class, of the unionised poor, if you like, why is Labour, if there's someone from Labour sat here, they say, hang on a second, we've got a majority of 165 and we won last year.

34:08But they did so on a pretty small share of the vote, right about 35%. There's something strange that's happened to a lot of centre-left parties around the world where the centre-left parties, Democrats in America, Labour here, to take two examples, used to very much represent the working poor. and although of course you know the Tories often had working class voters as well but something strange has happened where there's been a bit of a flip and often you get um uh center-left parties that are much more dominated by graduates and much more dominated by middle class folk and in large parts of the world working class people seem to be moving towards national populism i just wonder why you think that flip has happened why is it that labor who again they'd say that they represent the poor, but why is it that Labour seems to be in potential danger of losing this kind of deep, visceral connection to the poorest people in communities across the land?

34:57Because I think that politics that you described there was based on what, for want of a better word, I would describe as municipal socialism. So that the benefits that came to you as a member of the working class came via your local council in the form of housing, in the form of social services, in the form of a hospital being built, in the form of trade unionism. and the centralisation, particularly British politics, and I don't know if this is true in other countries where populism has risen, but certainly in the UK, since Margaret Thatcher, politics has been much more centralised so that now municipal, whether they're Conservative or Labour, don't have the power to exert on the ground benefits for people that are clearly connected with the vote that they cast in order to elect the council.

35:41And as a result of that, people are losing faith in the voting system. That's why I think PR is a good thing, is partly because every vote counts. You've got a reason. You go in, you vote for something, and then providing more than, let's say, there's a 5 % cutoff. There has to be somewhere. A 5 % cutoff, your vote will lead to representation. So your voice will be heard. So what's the point of going to vote for Labour anymore? You really want to support the Greens, but they're not going to get in, so I'm not going to bother. We need to turn that around and get people to engage again. And we need to devolve more power.

36:12England is one of the most least devolved countries in Europe. And we need to devolve power back to a local level so people can feel, not just see, but feel the benefit. And why do you think that reform and national populism is surging, including not just in places that are barking, but including in lots of working class communities around the country? People that you grew up with. Yeah, indeed, people I grew up with, yeah. And I wouldn't be surprised if reform get a good showing in barking. It wouldn't surprise me at all, to be perfectly honest with you. Why are they so effective at appealing to the people you grew up with?

36:45I think they are appealing to people who feel they're not listened to. They're appealing to people who feel they're left behind. They're appealing to people who have a vision of Britain that is, I would say, outdated. But nonetheless, it's the Britain that they feel that they belong or belonged to. and because mainstream political parties have to be all things to all people, reform have the luxury of just serving those that they're kind of royally pissed off. Those people have been left behind, haven't they? I don't know if you've read J.D. Vance's book, Heal Billy Elegy. It's this incredibly eloquent elegy.

37:29Who have they been left behind by? They've been left behind by capitalism. They've been left behind by... Capitalism or globalization? No, I'd say capitalism. Let's keep it old school. I would say the way capitalism, because globalism is a manifestation of a form of capitalism. And the way that people have been exploited, the way, particularly in the United States of America, where unions, trade unions have been totally undermined and the lack of accountability for ordinary working people in the workplace has allowed them to be just, as you say, left behind. They have been left behind. But is the answer to round up all the people who aren't white and chuck them out of the country, or is the answer to reform capitalism to ensure that the situation, that the profits that a rich country like the United States of America makes are evenly spread around the country, between rural areas and between cities?

38:22Well, that's the argument for capitalism, which is if it's going to be effective, it's got to spread ownership. And it doesn't do that. History shows it hasn't done that. What's happened since 2008? The rich have got, I mean, not just richer, but the gap between the rich and the poor has gone to beyond all, you know, historical records. Do you mean the gap between those at the very top and those at the very bottom? Yeah, yeah. Isn't the gap that matters that between those at the very bottom and the middle? And what you need, obviously, what matters at the top matters, but you're talking about small numbers of extremely rich people.

38:52If you're talking about the mega, mega rich, the ones we read about with the adults and all the rest of it. and the issue surely is getting people who are at the very bottom of the economic ladder who don't feel like they've got a stake in society you know who aren't part of an old proletariat but are part of something you might call the precariat often doing unstable jobs zero hours contracts and so on it's about giving them a chance to be part of a system whether you call it capitalism or democracy whatever it is but it allows them to acquire more power and control over their lives. Yeah. And you don't think capitalism can ever do that?

39:29I think it's very bad at it. It's very bad at it. And a lot of those people... Socialism any better? Well, I think democratic socialism could be better at it, yeah. I think it could be, yeah. A more fairer society. I mean, part of the problem of the people you've just described in the precariat is that many of them are people of colour. And they are... The populists are trying to divide the people of colour and the more, let's say, the indigenous population, for want of a better word, when actually it's by working together that they could get the changes that they want. And they have done, you know, failure to understand that.

40:03It makes it harder to bring about the genuine accountability that we're offered by democracy. You know, what difference did the last election offer us when we've got a Labour Chancellor who says he's going to stick with what the Tories were doing? I mean, look what they've had in Germany over the last few years. You know, the equivalent of the Labour's and the Tories have been in the coalition and just sitting there doing their thing. I mean, how does that work when you're looking for genuine change? If you're a 20-something budding pop superstar right now, how would you go about trying to change the world through music?

40:40Well, I wouldn't do it because I know it doesn't work. But, I mean, the thing to do is you've got a song now. Here's an example. I wrote Between the Wars during the Miner Strike. By the time the record company got itself in gear, the production was done, it came out, bloody strike, it ended. Whereas now, if I write, that's the way it goes, the means of production, because we didn't have control of the means of production. Exactly. Exactly. But now you do, now you do. You write a song, you see something that annoys you, you write a song about it, you film yourself, put it on TikTok, there it is.

41:11I mean, there are artists out there like Jesse Wells, who's an American, who's made a career of doing that. And, you know, he bangs out a topical song like Woody Guffery on amphetamines every other day. He's knocking them out. And he's got a huge following on the back of that. So that's how you would get your word out. You have to understand that's not going to change the world, though. You'd have to then, you know, I know even artists don't like me saying this, but I'm trying to be honest with you, Amal, because I think it's hypocrisy to suggest that what I'm doing up there is changing the bloody world.

41:47It's not how it works, all right? It's a lovely idea. It's a 1960s idea. and you can't, you have to forgive them for believing that because in the 50s, their world had been changed in a revolutionary way by Elvis Presley mixing black music and white music. That was a cultural revolution. And when they came of age, they wanted to see if they could use the same media, music, to bring about a political revolution. They didn't know that the whole might of the state would be brought down to pull them like it was in Paris in 68 and Chicago in 68 and they will be, destroyed by the state for trying to actually bring about real change so when you when you know your history and when you've experienced something like the minor strike and other struggles if you're going to carry on engaging you have to come to terms with the reality of what you're doing your advice is still very much get involved in the system rather than tear it down of course of course you know it's it you've you've got to keep your cynicism in check i mean woody guffrey had a famous slogan on his guitar uh this machine kills fascists and if the musicians union passed a a regulation saying you had to have a slogan on your guitar.

42:53Mine will be death to cynicism. That's my enemy. And wherever I find it, I do everything I can to beat it back and try to keep my own cynicism, because Christ knows it's hard to avoid, keep my own cynicism in check. And I'm very, very fortunate in that I get to go out there in the dark with all those people and hear them roar and hear them cheer for ideas that I feel passionately about. And that is what recharges my activism and keeps me going. Billy Bragg, what an honour to chat to you. Thank you so much, mate. Thank you, Amal.

43:25Well, I was extremely excited when the team said we had Billy Bragg coming on. He came in all the way from Dorset, where he lives, and I thought he was on terrific form. High energy, hugely passionate, and definitely had some serious radical credentials. It's funny, we had a little chat afterwards, and he was saying that actually the way to understand him is more as a humanist than as a socialist. But he's definitely a radical. He's been at the radical edge of politics for a long time. And yet some of the things that he was advocating, some of the things he was talking about, such as reform of the House of Lords to make it more representative of the nations and regions, make it more, if you like, representative of the vote in a general election.

44:05It's kind of not that radical. It's kind of quite close to something that Gordon Brown suggested when he was asked by Keir Starmer to do a big review not that long ago. And his idea of reinventing liberty, I mean, a big philosophical idea that he had in that conversation was that he thinks we need to reinvent the idea of liberty for the modern age, actually by emphasising the flip side of liberty and the flip side of the right to free speech, which is a sense of duty and a sense of responsibility and the obligation on people to uphold other people's freedoms and the limits to free speech, if you like.

44:38I've got to say, that sounds quite similar to some of the arguments that people who call themselves conservatives have been making for quite a long time. So I'm not sure that was entirely an idea from the left of politics, but it's always nice. It's actually quite a radical thing to get someone who's associated with the left coming up with ideas that people on the right could get on board with. I think that's what they call a consensus in politics. Look, it's always fantastic to hear from you. We've had such a terrific, terrific influx of messages, and I'm really genuinely very, very grateful for them.

45:07We want to know what you think about the subjects we've discussed, the conversations we've had, the ideas, radical and otherwise that have come up. Here is a message that we got about the last episode with Lady Hale. That's Brenda Hale, she of the Spider Brooch, the first female president of the UK's Supreme Court. Hi, Amol. I've just finished listening to your latest podcast with Brenda Hale, which I found riveting. What a woman. I particularly loved hearing her sometimes blunt, immediate reactions to some of the points you put to her, but I guess you don't get to have achieved all those firsts you listed without being secure in your thinking and your conclusions.

45:47I've found all Radical episodes so far to be absorbing and thought-provoking. They've kept me company and got me thinking on my early morning walks to and from the gym. I look forward to more challenging episodes in the future. I'm also looking forward to the next season of University Challenge and marvelling again at just how fast and clearly you can read the questions when time is running out in a close-fought contest. Happy to be in your pod squad. Moira Reid, Chester. Oh, Moira. I mean, I think do we need to institute a weekly voice note from Moira? What do we think, guys? Does Moira need to have a permanent formatted fixture in this podcast where she says how great me, that's me, Amol Rajan, in Radical with the Mulrages.

46:31Maura, thank you so much. Now, there's a few things that you've mentioned there which I have to respond to. First of all, Chester. I love Chester. I used to have relatives in Chester. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful part of the world. Hello to everyone in Chester, but particularly you on your morning walks to the gym, Maura. Second thing, Lady Hale speaks like the incredibly clever judge that she is. And I, in preparation for talking to her, read a few interviews, including in newspapers like The Times, where interviewees were somewhat taken aback by how sharp and how short some of her responses were.

47:03And I had the same experience, but I had the benefit of seeing her smile at me as she delivered some of those summary judgments, which perhaps as a listener to the podcast version of this didn't always come across. But yes, I mean, she is, how can I put this, forbiddingly, intimidatingly, wonderfully, extremely intelligent and has tremendous confidence in her sentences, which is what I think a life in the law does. And then the final thing about University Challenge. Okay, what you say then, Moira, I mean, first of all, this breaks a cardinal rule, which is I try very hard not to cross promote and abuse this platform to do so.

47:39But since you've mentioned it unprompted, let me say that one of my big concerns with University Challenge is that perhaps I did talk too quickly and not clearly enough. And I've done a few little things technically to try and iron that out and to make sure that I do speak clearly, even when speeding up at the end. And just for people who aren't aware, one of the reasons I do that is because if you do it to people in the first round of the competition, you can help teams who are losing get their score up. So say they've got 135 points. If they get to 150 or 160 points, they can come back to the second round sometimes as the highest scoring losers.

48:18That's what's called the repishage. So Moira, I am so touched that you are part of our pod squad. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that even when we sometimes have people that you don't find as impressive or as agreeable, you continue to listen. And since you mentioned it, I might as well say that the new series of University Challenge begins this coming Monday. I hope we can have your company for that. Thank you. Thank you, Moira. You've also been sending us the radical ideas that you think we should be discussing. They are always food for thought. And here's one from Alison. Hello Amol, I have found your podcast to be both interesting and very thought-provoking so far.

48:56Poverty, as you rightly say, underlies many of the issues and difficulties that we have in our society and I wondered if you might talk to Patrick Grant on your podcast, whose book Less was truly inspirational and life-changing for me. After reading his book I was shocked to discover that I only had two pieces of clothing in my wardrobe that were made in the UK. I have stopped buying clothing made elsewhere and have signed up for a sewing course to enable me to make my own wardrobe more sustainable. These are little things in the big scheme of things but I hope everyone who reads his book will feel the same and it will be the start of a revolution with individuals and people involved in the clothing industry rethinking their current way of working.

49:45All of this may help with the poverty that we have in our country. Looking forward to listening to the rest of the podcast in your series, Alison. Oh, Alison, what a magnificent voice note. I'm going to be really frank and say to you, I've heard of Patrick Grant. I haven't read that book. It sounds very much like something I ought to read. I've got to say the thing that of all the kind of merits of what you advocated there, the idea of reducing the carbon footprint of fashion and helping solve poverty. I thought one of the things that was most interesting is what you said about revitalizing particular towns.

50:19You know, as I get older, as I think more about social mobility, which is a bit of an obsession of mine and poverty, I realised that the most neglected part of it, I think, is geography and the role of geography and the way in which being from certain places, i.e. not big metropolises, not big cities, not London, really does hold back life chances. And if Patrick Grant, with his book Less, has got something that both addresses the huge climate impact or carbon impact of fashion and can help social mobility by keeping people where they actually live rather than forcing them to have to move to the big city, then I am definitely going to be interested in his ideas.

50:58And I promise you, we'll put his name, won't we guys? Yes, we will. We'll put his name in the pot of ideas to discuss for future guests. God, what fantastic voice notes we're getting. This is going really, really rather well. Thank you so much, Alison. Thank you to Moira. Thank you to everyone who has been in touch. We're going to try and make sure that your voice notes are front and centre of our thinking and our radical ideas. If you want to send us a message, you can WhatsApp us 0-3-3-0-1-2-3-9-4-8-0. 0-3-3-0-1-2-3-9-4-8-0. Or you can email radical at bbc.co.uk. and that is it for this week's episode thank you so much for listening by the time you hear next week's episode I'm ashamed to say almost well actually not that ashamed to say because I'm about to tell you I'm going to be I'm going to the cricket for two days at Lourdes and I'm also going to the Wimbledon final so if you really want to know what happened at those wonderful occasions I shall tell you all about them next week in fact I'm going to the Wimbledon final this Sunday with my son and I think that if you're a nine year old boy the idea of going Even if your dad is me, the idea of going to the Women of Final with your dad is pretty cool.

52:08And I cannot wait for that. Listen, to make sure you don't miss any future episodes, any conversations about Radical Ideas, which are going to help you in the future with these brilliant, brilliant guests that we've got lined up, please just subscribe to Radical with Amol Rajan on BBC Sounds. And also remember that this is a multi-platform thing. You can watch episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan on iPlayer 2 if you really want to see the facial expressions that attend all these radical ideas. Thank you so much for listening or watching. We'll speak to you next week. Bye.

52:45I'm David Runciman and from BBC Radio 4, this is Postwar. From the cradle to the grave, they said. 80 years on, we're telling the story of the 1945 election and the creation of post-war Britain. There must be a revolution in our way of living. This is the Britain that many of us grew up in and which still shapes an idea of who we think we are. Even Winston Churchill thrown it. All right, he may have won the war, but he's going to win the peace. Post-war with me, David Runciman. Listen on BBC Sounds. Can we have the Britain we desire?

53:49I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.