The Two Matts Q&A: How did Russell Brand get away with it for so long?

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1:08I'd like to see some new inquiries into what the hell happened here. The patriarchy, the hierarchy of television has enabled a lax environment, an environment where people are encouraged to think that they're special and the rules don't apply to them. and that is super dangerous territory for a place where there's somebody with bad intent like Russell Brand. People say he's gone mad and he's dying and all that. He's been mad since the 1980s. Trump's mind is now fixated on almost purely on legacy. Hello and happy Sunday, everybody. Happy Sunday, one and all. Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend.

1:50This is the two Matt's Q &A brought to you by the wonderful subscribers of the New World magazine. And if you're not one of their number, you should join and get a free copy of Alistair Campbell's Percivillians, signed by the great man himself when you sign up. So just a quid a week, do the right thing. Go to thenewworld.co.uk forward slash two mats. Right, it's crack on. We'll be back next week. And if you do, we'll be back. If you don't, maybe not. Yeah, yeah. Okay, first question comes from Lee in Pemberton. why has it taken so long to convict Russell Brand and why has nobody resigned in the tv world that enabled him for so many years Matt uh well it's a very good question and um actually I mean just for those who haven't uh been watching um Russell Brand was convicted at Southwark Crown Court uh three three charges of sexual assault um all in the 2004 to 2009 period including one of rape and he is going to be sentenced tomorrow, Monday.

2:52And Mr Justice Benetton indicated that he faces a significant prison sentence. So we'll see what happens there. Now, to Lee's question, I mean, I absolutely understand the force of it, but actually compared, it's sad to say, in terms of rape charges, rape investigations, sexual assault investigations, the timeline is quite swift comparatively. because the police investigation only began in September, I think it was, yeah, 2023, which was immediately after the Rosamund Irwin and Charlotte Wace investigations at the Times and the Sunday Times and the Channel 4 dispatches, which really set the thing rolling.

3:36Worth bearing in mind that Rosamund and Charlotte, even true heroes of the story, had been digging into this for four years before. So they'd been going at it for 2019. So, you know, I'm hoping that they feel that their efforts have delivered justice and have been, you know, it shows that journalism can do good things. And it's very important for the survivors to. So the but the question is a really important one. And on the question of why it takes so long, there are a reason there are there are multiple reasons in this. And it's, you know, one of the points that's always made is that these investigations take longer by definition.

4:22Sometimes the police leave a little bit longer to see if other potential survivors will come forward. But there's no doubt that the primary problem is court availability. and so one of the most intelligent suggestions that has been made I think is that there should be specialist rape courts so that there is a there is a a court in every you know regional area at least that is devoted to these particular kinds of charge so that you're not just in the long taxi rank and potentially waiting you know years and years and years and years which is obviously appalling and unconscionable. There's a separate point about the fluctuations in reporting of sexual assaults and rape tests has increased.

5:15People feel more content to come forward now a bit easier. Conviction rates vary. There is still massive systemic problems, but you know, the government has said it will look into this, but it, you know, previous governments have said that before so we'll hold their feet to the fire on this that on the question of the the tv um investigations i think this is a really important point which is that now he has been convicted and there's more we think there's more uh potential charges on the way so i have to be a bit careful about what we say but there were um investigations after um the initial burst of journalism by channel 4 the bbc and banjay uk which owns endermore which is the production company he was most associated with and in fact nobody resigned i mean the only person as far as i can work out who's ever resigned in the broadcasting world because of russell brann can be completely unconnected to this which was leslie douglas who was a controller of radio 2 who resigned in way back in 2008 following all those horrible calls to the late andrew sacks with Jonathan Ross exactly but that was nothing to do with this and I think what you see when you actually look at the times of these particular assaults and rape they're all from 2004-2009 this was the absolute height of the Russell Brand phenomenon he had his own show on Radio 6 which then went to Radio 2 he had a book out appallingly entitled My Bookie Book he made his first Hollywood movie forgetting Sarah Marshall he was doing massive comedy tours and this was still in the days of big money from DVD sell-through so you know he was he was he was coining it and it looked like he might become a major Hollywood star which he didn't um all of which is to say that you know it's hard to avoid the conclusion that at that time because he was seen as a cash machine wearing a wig, people turned a blind eye.

7:17And I think that is a, you know, that was obviously a part of the 2017 Me Too revolution was really that in the entertainment industry, particularly, which was that a lot of blind eyes were turned when the money was still coming in. So I'd like to see some new inquiries into what the hell happened here, because even the initial round of inquiries established that it was common knowledge that he was at minimum behaving in a way that was incompatible with being an employee right yeah and obviously there was a we now know there was a there was a criminal dimension to it too and i do feel that accountability is a very important part of it so i i totally sympathize with the spirit and indeed the content of the question and i agree there's more to be done i i totally totally agree and i get the um i think you're by the way thank you for outlining the the the relative speed that they brought russell brend to to trial on because it is an absolute outrage and it is yeah it is that that and i think the conviction rates are so low in the low single percentiles you know so there's something something clearly wrong there with the justice system but the the broader point i thought is interesting within um lee's question is about there's something specific about the tv world and having had a kind of taste, a tiny taste of the culture of the TV world.

8:43I'll never forget. So in my early days, I used to write a technology column for The Mirror. And as a consequence of that, I got dragged into a thing with a defunct channel now doing sort of tech reviews on a cable TV thing. And I'll never forget going for a drink afterwards with the team of people. And I was this blundering idiot who didn't know what he was doing, but I was the person front of camera. and being introduced to some other people by the producer of this show as, oh, this is Matt, he's the talent. Right. Right. Right. Of course, talent is just jargon for he's the guy who's... No, but it's a status, isn't it?

9:18It's an official status. It's a status thing. And Matt, you and I and anybody who's spent time in TV land knows that the people, the presenters, the people front of camera are afforded a much higher status than the rest of the team and are treated with enormous deference. And the proof of that is that the ones who don't act like absolute twats are always noticed. And people always say, oh, totally down to it. Great team player, lovely, gets on with everybody, says hello to everybody. Well, I mean, who shouldn't and wouldn't do that? And yet TV and radio and anywhere where there's a kind of, and podcasting, I guess, increasingly, where there's a sort of star gloss to the fact that you happen to be the person in front of the team doing all the talking affords you this kind of status and the laxity to do things that other members of that team would be kicked out of the window if they even went near.

10:19And yet TV Land is full of people who behave in a way that is just really poor, piss poor. And my point is, is when you then have that environment for somebody who is, whose character is evil, like Russell Brands, categorized as evil, or Jimmy Savile, or anybody who will just take advantage of a lax environment to ply their horribleness on people, then they will do it. they will do it time and time again and it was interesting there was a really interesting uh conversation on the today program on thursday wednesday thursday thursday must have been where i think it was dorothy burn from channel four was asked you know what's the solution to to this does it still happen and she said in roundabout terms she said you know really the answer is to put more women in top jobs in tv because then they just can't get away with it The patriarchy, the hierarchy of television has enabled a lax environment, an environment where people are encouraged to think that they're special and the rules don't apply to them.

11:37And that is super dangerous territory for a place where there's somebody with bad intent like Russell Brand to play his game. Yeah, exactly. And I think that it is very, very focused and intense in the TV world. But as we've often had cause to note on the pod, you know, there is a broader culture of impunity across sectors and in institutions where, which has particularly become particularly notable now that fame has become important in everything. you know politicians are famous they're not just powerful they're the big ones are famous yeah um and some business people are famous and celebrity is something that has got its claws into everything and with fame and celebrity and money comes impunity and a sense that as you say when you cross that border from being a civilian into being the talent normal rules don't apply and obviously they they do and should apply but this is yet another you know flag being waved saying they shouldn't you know we need to do something about this and i hope i hope that it isn't just seen as a i certainly hope it isn't just seen as being about him horrible awful man that he is and i hope that it if they get there's some follow-through in the tv industry but i hope there's some broader reflection on how this happens sure sure right good okay right next question from francine and hike um i'm as pleased as anyone that trump has been humiliated in the midterms but there are still about 800 days before he leaves office wow will all this feel-good fantasia make any real world difference to the people of ukraine gaza and those countries that suffer most by the appalling destruction of usa usa usa hadin 800 days it's a long time when you're in mortal danger yeah i mean well it's the question i guess um i'm i am strangely encouraged to think that trump's mind is now fixated on almost purely on legacy now yeah and the the indicators for that are one the kind of incredible acquiescence to the to the results that seemed out of character or certainly were you know certainly it could easily or most predictably have gone the other way you know informed tantrums and denial and rage and court cases and court cases didn't get any of that um i mean that may the big caveat to all of this is who knows and it all got terribly sour very quickly but i think the indicators for me were the way that he was fixated about the work on the ballroom, the way that he's talking about the no one can change the White House to all the work I've done on it and make that a national monument.

14:36I think he is now personally fixated on how he'll be thought of post-presidency. And I think there may be a good halo effect out of that inner motivation, which will be he'd still like to be seen as the guy that solved a couple of big international things. he's still in his mad delusion thinks that there's a place waiting for him on Mount Rushmore right yeah and and he's not mad enough to think that interior decoration the White House is going to get him that so maybe in his madness there is and his quest for acceptability post office there is something positive that can come out of it and I can't see I can't see him making things any worse uh but i might be listen i i hand the bat on to you no no no i i i you're right and yet you know how he can't get any worse is sort of the thing but no i think but no you're right about that is it you know something has obviously changed in his psyche the question is whether it snapped the elastic snaps back i don't know but i'm hoping not i mean to it's a very good and interesting question and the point you make is is is very germane to it i mean just in terms of what the democrats can do irrespective of trump's psychic state it is absolutely correct that even though they have a you know very healthy majority in the senate and a thumping majority in congress um they you know they're not the executive they may be after 2028 but you know um they're not and there are limits to what they can do but they can do things that have actual impact upon foreign affairs it's true that the president is is largely in in control of foreign affairs and defense but congress can do things and they will now be in control of the foreign affairs committee for a relations committee in senate uh senate armed services committee all these big important committees what should they do with that well if i was them i would i would i personally park impeachment because i just think that impeaching trump a third time which he will get acquitted on is kind of what he wants and also a waste of time and energy i'd be getting the other people in i'd be you have the parent subpoena so you can get marco rubio vance pete hegseth steve wickhoff jared kushner people who are lesser known like eldridge colby who's been is an undersecretary defense for policy massively important in the ukraine shenanigans um jeremy Lewin who oversaw the dismantling of USAID and you can change the political weather and also what you can do and especially if you've decent majorities is you connect what you find to appropriations i.e funding for the president in general so you can say well hang on you know what are you doing and I would personally I mean I would I would the two things I particularly go after if i was them is what the hell were you doing uh trump with that and your uh your lieutenants announcing an agreement with putin which appears to go against the u.s national security strategy and the national interest with this you know diesel uh deal and what lies behind that where does your authority come from why did you only meet um on number the fifth with putin's envoy and no one from Ukraine.

18:05What's going on? And the other thing I would really press him on, because I think there's juice in this lemon and it will be good to get going on it, is the Board of Peace, because it is completely incompatible with, I mean, no mind the UN, the US national security strategy to have what amounts to a private agency overseeing a key aspect of US foreign policy. I mean, he goes to, Trump goes to Israel and then Sharm El Sheikh, in October last year, 2025. And he says, right, we're going to do all these things, but we're going to do it through this private thing, the eye chair for life. It's already raised$17 billion, none of which is audited.

18:47And that's going to be in the body that oversees Palestinian stealth government, Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction, international security force, all those things that were promised in Tel Aviv. None of them have happened. So what the hell's going on? And, you know, what I would want to know if I was a senator or a congressman in the new Congress, 120th Congress, is, well, explain, please, what happens if after January 20th, 2089, when a new president is inaugurated, potentially a Democrat, the US has a president whose policy towards Gaza, for instance, who knows how broad a remit this board will claim, that differs fundamentally from that of former president Donald Trump.

19:32And I think actually the reason I mention it is because I think digging into the board of peace is exactly the kind of thing out of which some pretty shady things will emerge. And so what I'm saying is if you want to put pressure on MAGA, on the sort of the burning hunk of MAGA, this is the way to do it. you know you can't really direct foreign policy from the senate and congress it's very you know it's almost impossible but you can put enormous political pressure on an administration that frankly is dying on its ass yeah uh and and you can embarrass trump and he hates being embarrassed yes you know it's not totally powerless i mean i suppose the the flip side to what i put forward is that maybe he's just completely lost interest now you know maybe he just can't be arsed and And I wonder what two years of abject apathy from American foreign policy would end up.

20:31Yeah, I mean, I don't know. People say he's gone mad and he's dying and all that. He's been mad since the 1980s and he's been mercurial since the 1980s. And the only reason I say the 1980s is that's when he became famous. Right. So I don't mean in the 1970s he was a model citizen. I just mean since we've known him. right um so i don't know what a week two weeks three weeks from now you see people at the moment he is understandably and rightly catatonic because i mean this is a unambiguous smash in the face from a from a public that even after january the 6th was willing mysteriously to give him quite a lot of leeway this is not that this is like go away and don't come back but people who have a vested in who are going to outlive him and have a vested interest not just in not going to jail because he'll pardon them all but um in keeping the money flowing in we'll be saying uh mr president you really need to fight back you know we really need a result in iran we nearly really need to and so look i'm hoping he's just run out of juice that the batteries have run dead but i never i never know what to expect from that man no no indeed all right well thank you for the question next question comes from sam in sunderland interest rates go up so we have to pay banks more money to borrow my mortgage just went up 87 pounds a month yesterday this was obviously mid week this question was sent in where does this 87 quid actually go please please please tell me it's not the bloody banks well sam i think i've got bad news for you um and i absolutely understand And so what happened, as most will know, on Thursday, the Bank of England raised the bank rate from 3.75 % to 4%.

22:21Why? Because of inflationary pressures. And why do interest rates do anything to inflation? Well, because borrowing becomes more expensive, people have less disposable income and saving becomes more attractive. So the theory is there's less money in the system and less inflation. That's a theory. And it's a blunt instrument, but it does work. Now, to the question. So it's almost universally accepted that when the bank does this, mortgage lenders follow suit by raising their premiums. their justification for this is that actually they have to attract savers and they need to offer higher interest rates to do so but the counter argument to that is that actually commercial banks hold reserves at the Bank of England which pays interest rate related dividends on those reserves.

23:27So on Thursday, the returns the bank earns on their reserves increased. So actually, there's no intrinsic reason for mortgage lenders to raise. They will, but there's no intrinsic reason why they shouldn't. And what is missing, I think, in all this, and I think perhaps calls for a bit more regulation, is a generally competitive market, which is it's a bit cartelized. You know, the mortgage lenders tend to follow each other in the pack. There isn't a competition that there should be, because imagine if today one of the major lenders said, you know what, we're not going to raise it. That would be an attractive thing, especially to younger people who are desperately trying to get mortgages.

24:07The money, well, where does it go? It goes to depositors to fund higher interest rate payments. It goes to the people, investors and wholesale lenders, but it also goes to the banks. You know, it just does. It goes and in the end it goes to the shareholders. So I'm afraid, you know, that the answer to your question, Sam, is, yeah, your 87 quid will almost certainly, if not all, mostly go onto the bottom line of your mortgage lender. And that's the way the system works at the moment. It does feel grossly iniquitous. I mean, obviously, this is why when a government comes in and says we're going to have a windfall tax on banks, then they haven't really got much to push against.

24:55But in fact, I think, I mean, the fact that the bank gets its margin, and you're right, the money comes out of your mortgage and it goes to pay interest on somebody's savings. And the bank takes its little skim in that process. but if you think about the redistribution of the money in this process designed to choke spending it's going from people who haven't got a lot of it and they've got a mortgage and they owe a lot of money and it's flowing into people who have got a lot of it and can't afford to save and you know so pensions pension funds all of the you know the people with the big cash reserves are the winners in this and that that it is you know when you look at it like that it's stings it absolutely stings it's a massive transfer from labour to capital because what you're doing is you're taking I mean I I simplify but you're taking from people who are earning and giving to people who own yes exactly that exactly that and I wish they would say that but they of course they never interest rates went up 25 base points yesterday the Bank of England said that more may come you know actually what they're saying is is that we want you to have less money because you're spending too much of it and we've got to have exactly what they're saying and what we're going to do is take your money put it through a bank who'll take a few percentage points off it and we'll give it to somebody who doesn't spend it they save it instead so we're redistributing any disposable income you've got to somebody whose propensity it is yes to save it instead you know all you people out there who are desperately trying to to make ends meet and a living paycheck to paycheck and hoping to make mortgage at the end of the month, right?

26:39Well, guess what? You're going to have to spend more so you can't have any money, right? That's it. Because we need to pay the people who have already paid their mortgages off for the saving. And you're going to have to spend it on the thing you've got absolutely no discretion over at all. It's the roof over your head. The roof over your head, yeah. And maybe some food. Yes, indeed. So, yeah, sorry. If you're very good. Sorry, Sam. Yeah, it's the bastards what get it, I'm afraid. Right. Let's take a quick break while we let the blood pressure subside and we'll return with more. The holidays bring brand new gadgets, bigger spending and even more on your to do list.

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29:22Happy Sunday. Hope you're having a great weekend. This is the Two Matt's Q &A brought to you by the wonderful subscribers of the New World magazine. So next question, Graham Inwood Green. Was Shabana Mahmood's partial view to an indefinite leave to remain an embarrassing climb down or a sensible example of a rethink of government policy after a promised consultation? Well, do I have to choose? Can't it be both? Can't it be both, yeah. I think it was both. I think it's an indication of a new climate in Downing Street. But I also do think that there was something nonsensical and again, hard line about the politically hard line about the proposals that if you're looking at a country whose long term view is dependent, economic growth is dependent on migrants coming into work, which ours is.

30:18Let's make no dispute about that. We need more people coming in to work here. Then making that less attractive to the right sort of immigrants, if that's what people want to call them, is nuts. And I think that's what Shibana Mahmood was proposing. And I think Shibana Mahmood is on the right side, the right wing of the Labour Party. But I think now what she's done in reversing that is to accept that we are moving closer to a closer tie with Europe. We're in a pickle in the meantime in terms of getting the right labour force in this country. We have not got economic growth, although, caveat to that, Bank of England has upgraded our forecast for next year quite dramatically, actually from I think 0.1 or 0.2 to 0.7 percent growth so that that is positive but I think really underneath it all was the the hostility with which this proposal was met within the parliamentary Labour Party there were a lot of people who kicked back and said this is just not how Labour should be and personally I found it really reassuring that she let me give her credit she had the courage to do the U-turn as embarrassing as it was.

31:34Good for her. Yes, I think you're right. I think it can be both. And I think that, look, you know, Sir Nicda Robinson gave her a really hard time on Tuesday. And I'm sure at that moment she felt like this is a climb down, right? I'm really not enjoying this. But actually, you know, everyone mocks consultative processes, right? But, you know, if they are, if we mock, we can't mock them and then object to them when they actually deliver some change, you know, choose. I think this was a very sensible change. And I think part of the things that might come out of it, but I think in the context of, as you say, about the broader rethinking of our relationship with Europe and particularly Burnham's excellent willingness to think about freedom of movement, is that there's been a tendency in the last 20 years to always end up at immigration as the answer, as the reason for everything.

32:28So immigration, for example, to an extent that people didn't really admit at the time kept inflation down because it kept wages down a bit right then it became an issue of um social cohesion blame immigration then it became a sort of um proxy for all for any form of change right then it became a proxy for any form of crime right kind of getting our hand and i think that in the case here what you see is that there's that this is really all about something which hasn't got a huge amount to do with specifically immigration it's a supply side employment problem which is that you know there are not there are still like i looked at there are 96 000 vacancies in england's adult social care sector which is a vacancy rate of about six percent way above the average um and last in the last recorded year 47 of new care workers were of international origin so you know that's obvious what's going on now we know that the prime minister has put social care at the absolute heart of his agenda and it's calculated that england alone will need 410 000 additional social care personnel minimum by for 2040 to meet growing demand i bet you it's more 9p above the national living wage right yeah they have little prospect of career progression incredibly unpredictable hours zero child care there's talk of a fair pay agreement for adult social care which is a very good idea but i'll believe it when i see it and i think that this is part of the holistic approach that i hope louis the great louise casey is looking into which is if you want to have a national care service then i think we do the the questions that issue are not only how do we, the potential beneficiaries of that service, pay during our lives, central though that is, but how do we make sure that the people providing that care are regarded as a career of worth, in which they have a career ladder, in which they're paid decently, in which their hours are reasonably well set, all these kind of things that are at minimum in most sectors of the labour market.

34:51And I think that what you saw here was a sort of the rubber hitting the road, which was there's a lot of political juice or has been in sounding tough on immigration. And, you know, Shabana Mahmood is in that. That's her wheelhouse. And that, to be honest, is why Burnham kept her there, right? Because it covers his flank a bit. However, you know, just always saying I'm going to make it harder for people to come here. sometimes has real-world consequences that have nothing to do with anyone other than, you know, the sort of nebulous idea of keeping Nigel Farage at bay. You know, what about the actual reality of the care sector?

35:29And I just feel that unpacking all those things that have got converged in immigration is something that we could all do, we could all profit from. Yeah, totally agree. And, you know, it's in the same vein for me as Yvette Cooper's Palestine Action Bank. Right, right. If you just looked ahead and thought, just move two steps ahead and said, okay, what is this actually going to end up doing? I know it's going to get me the good headline in the Daily Mail I want today. A couple of days. But then when we've got 4 ,000 pensioners getting locked up or arrested for carrying a bloody placard, what's that going to do?

36:12what kind of mess am I going to be in then you know it's not that hard we all do it in business think ahead and try and understand the consequences of our actions and I think it does tell you it's very telling when you know because they must do a degree of that but they must think fuck it I'll take the Daily Mail headline instead and that's where it's dangerous. This is where focus groups are an absolute bloody menace right is I'm sure well I mean I'm certain that those original proposals will have been focus group to death right yeah yeah and you can bet that they went down a storm right yeah why should they get you know automatic systems yeah you know make it harder yeah you know and that goes back to the home secretary's desk and she thinks oh you know yeah maybe i better actually focus group you know what focus groups are shit right well if you said to the focus group mate yeah but you can have this but you're gonna have to wipe your own ass when you're 86.

37:10Precisely, but no one ever does. You know, I'm sure you've sat in on focus groups, right? I've many, many. I've organised them. They are a really sobering experience, right? You know, I think the tyranny of the focus group in the last 30 years of politics is at least as damaging as social media to the health of the polity. It's a nightmare. Right. Next question comes from Jerry in Bromley by Bow. So, as an unapologetic 67-year-old, what would you have to be apologetic for about being 67? I don't know. Anyway, as an unapologetic 67-year-old, I report only my surprise that the Collins Dictionary Word of the Year is mogging.

37:53What's that all about? Do the Matts, like me, think that this choice is just a cunning way by Collins to get a pretend word onto the news bulletins rather than anything more significant? Matt? I endorse this message from Bromley by Bo a fine place and 67 is a fine aid i'm alarmingly close to it so i no to apologize jerry um look the word which started to creep its way around the sort of um the the internet properly rather than it's you know um kind of gaming and incel and manosphere bits in the last couple of years It goes way back to the manosphere from AMOG, A-M-O-G, alpha male of the group.

38:38And the incels and the luxemaxes and the bodybuilders took it on. And all it really means is, for those who don't know, because they have lives, it means display superior status. So, for example, I could say to Matt, as the founder and editor-in-chief of this great title, Hey, Matt, the New World mocked every other weekly magazine this week, right? Didn't we just? We mugged it, right? And he would sedate me and then send me off into a secure accommodation. This nonsense really took off in 2004, I was looking it up, when the Oxford University Press chose Chab, which wasn't actually a bad choice because Chab was entering the mainstream as a word.

39:23So that was OK. But it then turned into like a thing. and all the dictionaries had to have the latest groovy internet word to indicate that they were on top of modernity. And of course, it's true that having a new word is good because the language is always living. But that doesn't mean that you jump onto every single new internet meme or trend. And this always reminds me of that. Do you remember that wonderful Steve Buscemi moment? I think it's from 30 Rock, but it's certainly become a meme where he's, you know, middle-aged, comes around the corner in a high school wearing a backwards baseball cap and carrying a skateboard, and he says, how do you do, fellow kids?

40:05And I always feel that this is the dictionaries doing that. You know, I was looking like last year, Oxford's dictionaries chose Rage Bay. Collins chose Vibe Coding. Cambridge chose Parasocial. It was all right. Merriam-Webster chose Slop. you know they always what they're trying to do is say you know hey we go to gigs too you know it's it's pathetic right uh always to keep up with the digital idiom and online vernacular right and and and the problem is that those words by definition are ephemeral the job of a dictionary and it's hard because some of them will retain their status and and and stick in in the bloodstream of the language but most won't yeah and so they that's that the job of dictionary dictionary um custodians is to spot the ones that will stay and which is a very different matter so i'm very much in sympathy with the spirit of the question can you guess what my favorite word of this year is i don't know matt it's perseverance and i love it when he does that i love it he's secret he's the king of the segue it's by the way just before i bore everybody with a pitch to subscribe to the new world um and because it's on the topic of language thank you to all the people and there were many more than usual who wrote in uh saying how how much it wrote in very old-fashioned

41:35saying how much they enjoyed our conversation with sophia smith gala which was great yeah it was great because it was quite a deep tangential conversation about languages and how you decide this but anyway people really loved that chat so we will hopefully get more of Sophia on the show at some point in the future but anyway yeah Percivillians Alistair Campbell's new word also the title of his great book which you can get when you subscribe to the new world signed by the man himself at a brilliant brilliant offer you just go to thenewworld.co.uk forward slash two mats that's the number two m-a-t-t-s so if you've been thinking about taking the plunge and subscribing and supporting our journalism being part of the new world community we'd love to have you we'd love to be able to give you this great signed book by Alastair Campbell as an introductory gift and welcome aboard please do take us up on that offer from Marjorie this week's magazine cover proclaims the launch of a video game entitled Grand Theft Auto the 6th to be the cultural of the 6th, Georgia 6th, Grand Theft Auto the 6th, to be the cultural adventure of the year.

42:47Have you taken leave of your senses, Mr. Kelly? Have you taken leave of your senses? Just to explain to anybody under the age of about 88, Grand Theft Auto the 6th is also known as GTA 6 which is being launched in November the 19th. November the 19th, right. And it is indeed on the cover of this week's magazine. And yes, it was deliberately provocative to sort of make people think about the cultural impact of video games, which are absolutely gargantuan. And I think in terms of proportional awareness of cultural impact, video games are probably lower than any other artistic medium and yet have greater cultural impact than so many autistic mediums amongst a certain demographic of people, i.e.

43:39younger people, although these days not so young. I started writing about video games in the Daily Mirror in 1999 where they were seen as sort of odd and niche. And of course, now they are an absolute mainstream entertainment format and twice as big as Hollywood. Huge. Oh, much more. Yeah, yeah. Huge industry. Now, is it the biggest cultural event of the year? So I did think before composing that headline on the cover, well, what's it competing against? And of course, the obvious answer is the bio tapestry. And I think there is a very good case for arguing that this, as Pete Hoskin, who wrote this lengthy article for us about the effect of Grand Theft Auto and actually how its cultural impact has been almost overtaken by the real world.

44:30You know, the things that we were so shocked and awed about this video game where you can drive around very realistic cityscapes, you know, and beat up people and shoot people and steal cars and drive away from the cops at great speed. That kind of intrinsic thrill of violence and awe has been assimilated in everyday action we see in our phones all day long, you know, on social media. Yeah. But nevertheless, the game is... I think there will be... I think it's an honest thing to say that this game, which has been long delayed as they try and perfect it and get it right and drive out all the bugs in it, has been long, long delayed.

45:13I don't think there's anything culturally that is more anticipated than GTA 6 right now in the world. Oh, without question. I mean, look, as you know, better than most, I've spent much of 2026 banging on tediously about the Odyssey and the Paya Tapestry to anyone who will listen and indeed plenty who won't and no I think I think that the piece that P Hoskins written is absolutely right I mean I would readily concede that those two things I like them but you know and they are both important and they've had a big impact but they're not dwarfed by this I mean the i looked up the figures the global video games industry is now roughly six times larger than cinema box office is it six times yeah um and so it breaks down like this about 202 billion for games last year 2025 movies 33 billion streaming is doing pretty well that's on 143 billion.

46:16So that's the competitor. But, you know, so to give you an idea, now this is a forecast, so no one can be sure, but the working assumption of the markets is that once it's released, it will, GTA 6, it will generate almost immediately between three and five billion dollars, right? Immediately. I mean, who knows what the long-term sell be. compare and contrast the an opening weekend for a really good hollywood blockbuster yeah it's cost upwards of 250 million right is 100 million dollars yeah so and 200 million is awesome that means you're gonna be you know top top ranking that means you're heading for a billion so but i mean a billion dollar box office for a for a movie is vanishingly rare you know and very few movies cross that line and it looks like gta 6 will cross that three to five times in its first 24 to 48 hours i mean in a sense it it answers itself now the comeback to that is yeah but it's just you know it's just shooting and killing and and it's maybe but you know i mean there are two answers that one is that it's not just the kids because as pete says in the piece um the first teenagers who played the first version of gta and are in their 40s and they're still and they're still so you know it's and you know and there are people of our age matt you know who are who are very big gamers i mean i'm not sure you know but i mean you know it's just it's just not uh it's cross-generational and it has got into um all sorts of nooks and crannies of um of culture so i mean one obvious example is that movie grammar is now incredibly influenced by gaming you know i don't mean get movies that are based on games i mean that a movie like to take a john wick movie right that's basically a video game as a movie but then more conceptually christopher nola's inception was based on levels which was from video games and yes we we all the ideas of hero narrative the identity as an avatar non-player characters you know these are going into you know common coin in in other bits of culture and and just as a final kind of topical example hassan piker who is one of the very controversial figures of the um of the midterm season he mostly streams on twitch which is a gaming channel right now on election night when all the channels and all the podcasts and everyone else was streaming like crazy, broadcasting like crazy.

48:56On the night, he had at one point 241 ,000 plus concurrent viewers, which would be way more than, say, CNN, okay, concurrent, and overnight 1.75 million viewing hours. He was the second most watched individual election night live stream behind NBC. amazing yes i mean so so that is so in a way it's not just that it's the cultural event of the year it's like where isn't it yeah no that's amazing and so even people like me who i it's not like i have nothing against gaming um and my boys love it yeah i i think it's incredibly beautiful some of the aesthetics but oh it's amazing but even if you don't you have to know about it matt matt You know, there was a, I've been, I mean, obviously I wrote about video games and technology.

49:49You used to write a lot, didn't you? A lot. And so I like to think that I thought about it a lot, but there was a question that came up on the internet somewhere. And I think it was actually a question set by your old alma mater, All Souls, or it might have been Harvard. And it was one of those sorts of questions where they're meant to inspire, you know, deep thinking about something. Right, right, right. candidate can demonstrate real ability to think and the question was um what are what is more like a dream a movie or a video game and i thought ah this is finally it's explained to me what the real human connection with video games they are they are dreams being reenacted when you think about it because it's always from your perspective you're at the center of it it's it's oftentimes mad and nonsensical yes and randomly disjointed but in a way that doesn't interfere with the with the actual stream of process of the consciousness and it stops and starts and it's crazy and i just thought ah finally i really understand why people are so deeply connected to video games is that they are almost precisely like the real experience of dreaming, which is...

51:11Anyway, there we go. It came via All Souls where you would expect high intelligence, so there we go. They love gaming there. It'll be a big day November the 19th up at college. I tell you, they'll all be running off to queue up. Driving the Chevys through the streets of Oxford. Games are us. Bashing those... What do you call those guys with the with the Barkers? The Porters. The Porters, yeah. Right, okay. One more question. Can the Matts give me their ranking in order of their top three favourite John Lewis Christmas ads? And does this year's disappoint them as much as it did me? And this comes from Lewis in Manchester.

51:53Well, Lewis, so what can I say? I mean, I quite liked it because I like Kristen Scott Thomas. You know, she's very good in slow horses and she's very good in the cherry orchard this year and you know she's got a funny toy dog called pickles played by tv's paul white house and that was kind of where i stopped and then there's a very nice piece actually in the new world which if you haven't uh read it this is do read it by mig right about all this and the the the crazed response to it um and i i honestly every year I forget how the Christmas ads and especially the John Lewis ad starts a sort of massive culture you know just like automatically and so apparently she's too wealthy at a time when people are feeling the pinch and that John Lewis should be ashamed of themselves for having Kristen Scott Thomas not living under the embankment with a dog on a string and the children are spoiled and the ad implies that children's love can be bought with lavish presents i mean who would have thought of putting that around at christmas you know i mean what a what's an um what an un-british thing to do right you know it's hilariously po-voiced and disproportionate and this is acting as if it's a the budget or a speech by the prime minister a primary primary legislation rather than you know an advert by a bloody big shop right so just i mean i just quickly to name my three favorite ones um uh i went back and looked and the one i i mean they're all fine but i like the elton john one back i think it was 2018 where he was looking back on his life to your song i thought it was a very sweet one with the foster dad learning how to skateboard that was in 2022 and one i really liked because it was just daft and i like daft animal things like that there was the one where the dog wanted to use the trampoline having watched the wild animals overnight you know they're all they're all me you know it's all just a bit of fun but they seem to get turned into these fantastically meaningful cultural wars well i won't argue i won't argue with you could see i didn't think it was their best one but you know so a little tinge of disappointment at that but still top three um the snowman one I don't know if you remember that the snowman goes out to get his missus a present that's a good one I really loved the Andrea Bocelli one with the festa the operatic kind of Venus that goes nuts but you've mentioned it the one that and this honestly I don't know what buttons it presses in me but I can barely watch it without choking up is the skateboarding foster dad it's lovely isn't it it absolutely kills me every time So what I'm going to do this Christmas is just replay that advert every time it comes on on TV.

54:48Instead, I'll watch the skateboarding loser, which I can associate myself with. Don't you think there's something, I mean, we've talked about it a lot in terms of the sort of preamble culture war. There were a lot this year with Narnia and with The Odyssey. I mean, culture wars are a real thing and they exist on certain very specific issues. but it's now got to the point it really is just an advert right it probably isn't their best but why does this matter to me that's what I don't understand it's why it's treated as it's treated as this great symptom of something the world's gone woke or everyone's too greedy or Kristen Scott Thomas isn't tall enough or I hate her shoes or, you know, I blame the universities or, you know, it's all the fault of Yaya Sinwar or I don't know.

55:45It's just like, it seems to me that people have, this is not an observation, but they've gone completely bonkers. I mean, the other really obvious complaint is that it's the first week of November. Well, that, of course, is now you're talking. Two months of Christmas. Happy Christmas, you know. Honest to God. Now that, now you're talking, now we can get one of our gripes. We should do another round of gripes before Christmas, you know, Matt. Oh, I don't think there's any question that that will... That will feature in our festive suite of offerings. Dear listeners, I hope we've added to your lovely Sunday morning.

56:27Do join us on Thursday's podcast at the latest. If something dramatic happens, we'll be back sooner than that, but we'll certainly be back no later than Thursday for our main podcast do listen to the big one we did this week with all about Donald Trump which I thought was a really good conversation and also a fantastic chat with Sophia at the end which is well worth tuning into subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, if only I could afford Kristen Scott Thomas but I can't you don't want her, she's the disgraced actress but anyway subscribe and join the community and get a free signed copy of alastair campbell's perseverance when you do while stocks last thank you to ruby who stepped into the shoes this week to produce the show thank you so much um send in your comments your observations to two mats at tnepublishing.com that's the number two m-a-t-t-s at tnepublishing.com and subscribe at thenewworld.co.uk forward slash to Matt.

57:34Have a great week. Have a great week.

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