Why Digital ID Is Dangerous

17:19Konstantin Kisin:Think about the people during the pandemic. The people who were like, do you know what? Why do you need rights? Yeah. Well, was it 10 % of people said that they wanted nightclubs shut down forever? Permanently.

17:30Francis Foster:Permanently. Irrespective of COVID. Irrespective of COVID. I think it was actually 18 % at one point. It went up and down. Yeah.

17:37Konstantin Kisin:So you've got this swathe of the population that are authoritarian, that really relish telling people what to do, what to say, how to think. And it's not just that. They snitched. That was the thing that I found so despicable, is that they loved snitching and they loved grabbing any little bit of power whatsoever. But back then, we were relying a lot of it on human beings. Now, you are giving all that data away to the government. To the government, this is a government, like I said before, that is economically compromised, that really needs to fill this black hole. This is a way to make money.

18:22Konstantin Kisin:This is another way to make money. I really believe that.

18:25Francis Foster:I don't agree. First of all, it's not going to make money. Implementing it is going to cost so much money that they'll never make it back. I don't think this is about money. It's worse. It's worse than that. It's about ideology.

18:37Konstantin Kisin:I know, but I think it's also a part of it is revenue generation.

18:40Francis Foster:Look, I have no problem with employers getting fined for hiring illegal immigrants. I have no problem with that. I think that should happen. Absolutely. I have no problem with the government. And if the government makes money from that, fucking brilliant. The problem is this isn't going to achieve that. This isn't going to achieve any of that. What it will do is it won't do anything about the problems they're claiming this addresses for the reasons we've covered. But what it will do is create the digital control infrastructure, which then lays the groundwork for all your activities and all of your behavior to be managed by the government and for you to be rewarded or disincentivized in relation to certain behavior.

19:18Francis Foster:That is the Chinese social credit system, where if you are a good citizen, quote unquote, you can do things that other people cannot do. And if you're a bad citizen, quote unquote, you can't even buy a train ticket to go to a different city or you can't drive into a certain town or you can't do. So this is where it's going. And look, if we lived in a country in which the government had consistently proven itself to err on the side of civil liberties, if we lived in a country where the government had consistently proven itself responsible with rights and data that people entrust to it. Some of the arguments about convenience and healthcare outcomes and all of that, they might make more sense.

20:03Francis Foster:But we do not live in that country. We live in a country, like I said, in which the government and their police authorities arrest comedians for jokes. You want to give them the ability to control your behavior. Uh-uh. No. No. No. Let me introduce you to the people I work with to protect my family against financial instability, inflation, and turmoil. For me, one of the best ways to safeguard your wealth is by investing in gold. And that's why I trust the Pure Gold Company. Here's a smart tip. If you buy UK-minted gold coins like Sovereigns, you won't pay VAT when you buy them or capital gains tax when you sell.

20:44Francis Foster:All the profit is yours to keep. And the best part? Gold is a completely private investment. It's outside the banking system, so it can't be manipulated by governments or anyone else. Unlike digital assets, it's yours in the truest sense. The Pure Gold Company is trusted by first-time investors and seasoned professionals alike. What I really appreciate about them is a knowledgeable, pressure-free approach. They explain everything clearly, so you feel confident about your decisions, and they never push you to buy. Physical gold has stood the test of time as a store of value, and it offers peace of mind that other assets can't match.

21:19Francis Foster:It's reassuring to know that even if the banking system falters, your gold and its value remain safe. Whether you're looking to diversify your investments, protect your savings, or just gain the security of owning a real physical asset, we highly recommend the Pure Gold Company. Click the link in the description or go to pure-gold.co.trigger to get your free copy of the Investor Guide. That's pure-gold.co.trigger. Take control of your financial future today.

21:48Konstantin Kisin:Look, I completely agree. And if you look, actually, we interviewed a few years ago, Dr. Carissa Vellis, who is president of president. She is professor of AI and ethics at Oxford University. And she actually made the point that China are scaling back their data collection. They're scaling back. And why are they scaling back? Because they realize it's a security risk. They realize that inevitably this kind of data will be leaked. So this idea that somehow, and you've used the word again, safety, that we're going to make a better, safer society by giving up all of this data is quite frankly ridiculous because it is going to be leaked and it will be leaked.

22:30Konstantin Kisin:And if you think about this, you're going to have all your data in one central location. What's the location going to be? It's going to be on your phone. It's going to be... I live in London, mate. My phone's getting nicked every four days. what's going to happen now? You're going to have intelligent criminals. They take the phone. They go, they're going to be able to access it. All of a sudden, they're going to wipe your data or take all of it.

22:54Francis Foster:They're going to take your data, give it to illegal immigrants who will then use your data to get a job and to rent a house. Yeah. And you're not going to solve illegal immigrants. This is another thing. During the pandemic, I know a lot of people that got a vaccine passport that were not vaccinated. Yeah. Because it was very easy to get one of those. Yeah. For a few hundred quid. So you think you're going to stop illegal immigration. What? People who've paid thousands of pounds to get across the channel, they're not going to spend an extra hundred quid to get Francis Foster's digital ID on their phone.

23:25Francis Foster:Yeah. What are you talking about? It's a fucking joke. It's a joke. This is all a complete sham. It's a pretense. And it's got nothing to do with illegal immigration. The government is literally brazenly lying to you. I don't use these words often In this instance They are simply lying That's what's happening

23:44Konstantin Kisin:And also as well We need to look at history As you know When was the last time We had ID cards? It was during the Second World War And you look You go That was fair enough We were in a war It was an existential threat We needed to know Who was here legally Who wasn't Security risk Perfectly valid When did he get rid of them? 1952 Seven years after World War II ended. And it got rid of them because, and this is a, there were people who are very cynical and go, look, what can the average person do? The campaign to get rid of ID cards started with a man who was driving down the road and he was stopped by the police.

24:25Konstantin Kisin:And he had a very humble job. He was a dry cleaner, in fact. And the police asked him to see his ID card and he refused. and he said we are not at war and from then it was a two-year court case before it was revoked and that is a very powerful reminder for people which is it's very easy to give up your rights it's very easy to say you know what we don't need this take it I want to feel safe we're in danger we've got you know we're threat from under Islamic extremists or whatever the argument is that you want to make. Here, have it. It's easy to give it up. It is desperately difficult to give it back.

25:07Konstantin Kisin:Look at things like taxation. They always bring in taxation at moments of crisis or wars. They stay.

25:14Francis Foster:Look at 9-11. You still can't take a fucking bottle of water through security. You still have to get like this. These things do not get rolled back. And they certainly, if they ever do, they don't get rolled back easily. But if you introduce a digital ID card scheme, that's never going away. It's never going to get scrapped. Once the government has plowed, you know, 30 billion pounds into it, that is never, ever going away, especially once you have made it convenient, quote unquote, for people to do certain things. People will just, that will carry on. So I see a lot of complacency about this issue, which is one of the reasons we wanted to push back on it as strongly.

25:51Francis Foster:People are saying this will never happen. There's a lot of opposition in Parliament, he'll not get through the Lords, he'll this, he'll that. You don't know that. And if this goes even some way towards completion, it's super dangerous. It's super dangerous. And all it is, it's Tony Blair and his idea. He climbs out of his fucking coffin every few years and comes up with some evil scheme. Do you know, have you heard, by the way, I don't know if you saw this over the weekend, there's talk about him being in charge of Gaza.

26:22Konstantin Kisin:Yeah. Yeah, as if Gasser hasn't suffered enough.

26:24Francis Foster:I'm all for punishing Hamas, but this is going too far. Yeah. Anyway, I just think, objectively, he left Parliament and was widely seen, certainly by our generation, as one of the most evil men in charge of Britain ever. And now he's behind the scenes pulling all the strings. And his son is set to profit from it with his business. Like, this is completely unacceptable. It's ridiculous. And it has to be opposed. And by the way, if Starmer tries to do this, this will be the end of him. We are going to make this his poll tax.

26:59Konstantin Kisin:Yeah.

27:00Francis Foster:We are going to because this is not only is it something that isn't massively popular with his own party. There's a strong debate within his own party. This is very unpopular with a lot of people across the political spectrum. Now, if you look at the polls, you know, it's half and half, blah, blah, blah. But that's because people don't know what this is about. they're being told this is a way to stop illegal immigration i guarantee you if we have a national debate about this issue those polls will change very quickly when people start to understand what this is really about which is taking control of your life by the government that's what this is about and when people see that i think it's fundamentally antithetical to the british spirit

27:39Konstantin Kisin:i really do yeah i look and we rejected it last time and this is something that has always been more popular in Europe. There's a lot of European countries that have had ID cards for a long time. Look, it's part of the reason, joking aside, while we've always been apart, we're physically removed from Europe by a channel. Thank God. Exactly. And we've always kind of had that suspicion. And you've got to remember as well, people go, oh, it's the government, and they see it as kind of benevolent. I hope, But it sadly wasn't the case. But I hope people woke up after COVID. Wasn't the case for a lot of them, but some of them did.

28:22Konstantin Kisin:You cannot trust government. Government acts within its own interests. It doesn't act within yours or the individual. And you have to think as well. You've used the example of Farage. But let's say if we get somebody in, because this country is going down a very dark path economically. economically. It's going down a very dark path socially. It's going down a very dark path culturally. We know with cultures and we know with societies that when the economics start going south, when people start really struggling, when they start really struggling to do the basics, put food on the table, light the house, keep the house warm, they become more conservative.

29:05Konstantin Kisin:And not only do they become far more conservative, they become authoritarian and they gravitate towards a strong man because a strong man will come in and they'll say you have been failed which of course I have the politicians don't care which of course they don't

29:19Francis Foster:I'm going to sort this out and in order to do that I need to suspend your desire to be free for the next XY XY

29:26Konstantin Kisin:but what what do you want and people will go for it and people will go for it because they're desperate and when you're desperate you are going to grab at anything you are I talk to ordinary people from left, right and center. I talk to academics right the way through to cab drivers, to brickies, to whatever else. Even those who are not political, they all know something is wrong. And there is this slowly rising feeling of panic in this country because we are going down a dark path. And this hastens us in that direction, in my opinion, and it's going to be used for nefarious purposes.

30:06Francis Foster:Right. Right. And that's why people need to understand this is not a trivial thing. The petition to oppose this is over two million people signed as we speak. People need to speak to their MP, write to their MP. This is not one you can sit out. Like on this one, you actually have to go and do something. Talk about it on social media, write to your MP, sign the petition, and let people know that this is not acceptable. This is not acceptable. And this isn't just a left or right issue. This is, and you know, Carissa Valise, you mentioned our episode with her, she talked about one of our super viral clips on our channel is her talking about why more Jews were killed in Holland than were in France during World War II by the Nazis.

30:54Francis Foster:And the basic reason is the Dutch had very good records of people by ethnicity and the French, because of their ideological view, didn't. when you collect information in this way you don't know who's going to be using it and you don't know what purpose they're going to be using it for and so when we we talk about this issue people have to be really cognizant of the fact this is very very important this is very important so don't just don't just think oh the government said it's about illegal immigration therefore it's not about this has got nothing to do with illegal immigration if you want illegal immigration stopped As you rightly said, you close the border and you deport people who you know are here illegally.

31:35Francis Foster:We're not doing either of those things. In fact, if you speak to insiders inside the asylum system, they are now being pressured to approve a lot of, to clear the backlog. Do you know how they clear the backlog? No. They approve all applications.

31:51Konstantin Kisin:I mean, that would clear the backlog.

31:52Francis Foster:But that's what they're doing. Yeah. That's been going on. So what you are now having is effectively they're not dealing with the actual problem and they're using that problem to introduce things that have got nothing to do with solving the problem that they've always wanted to do. This just, this can't happen. This can't happen. And politically, if Starmer pursues this, this has to be made the end of him.

32:18Konstantin Kisin:Yeah. And I think it's also because there'll be people, and look, it's a brilliant example by Carissa. She was a great guest. but people be like oh man but it's the nazis and that was really extreme and you know how many times has that happened in history the reality has happened a lot of times but let's just say but let's say let's attack the nazi point it's like but people what people need to remember about the nazis is we call them evil they thought they were doing good they thought that actually what they were doing would bring about a better healthier stronger society this is what you needed to do in order to achieve utopia.

32:54Konstantin Kisin:Utopians don't go away. That mindset, that type of person still exists. It will continue to exist right the way through humanity. People on both the left and the right have utopian mindsets. And so if you have that mindset and you think, well, these people are far right,

33:14Francis Foster:shall we just say, these Tommy Robinson supporters, they're evil Nazi fascists. Or these Palestine action supporters. Yeah. Right? If that's your perspective. This is the really important thing to point out here. This is not a left versus right issue. No. This is about your ability to do things that the government doesn't approve of that are perfectly your right to do, which is go out and protest, go out and have the opinion that people don't like, etc. That's what this is about. Exactly.

33:44Konstantin Kisin:And so what you then have is a government to go who might genuinely believe these things. They might genuinely believe that these Palestine protesters are anarchists and they want to destroy Western civilization. We have to protect Western civilization. Of course we do. The people on the right, they're Nazis and fascists. They want to beat up and kill ethnic minorities and brown people. Well, we need to protect them. so what better way of doing that than by tracking them and ensuring that by tracking them no violence

34:19Francis Foster:and no harm is caused yeah but but it's not just that i mean we've just released a great episode with katherine porter talking about the lunacy of net zero which i think increasingly people are starting to understand is is not only is it bad for us it's making us poorer and less safe it's actually increasing global carbon emissions yeah because we have to make things in other countries to a lower environmental standard and then ship them back here. So net zero is complete lunacy, but the Labour Party believe it. Ed Miliband believes it. So wouldn't it be convenient, Francis, if you could have a digital ID that allows you to start your car so you don't need to carry around keys?

34:56Francis Foster:Wouldn't that be convenient? Yeah. Okay. Well, so every time you use your car, wouldn't it be great if you could just tap your phone and then the car starts? Wouldn't that be wonderful? Yeah. That would be wonderful. And by the way, that would allow us to really encourage you to be green. and therefore we can track how much driving you're doing and encourage you not to do it. Wouldn't that be brilliant? Yeah. Wouldn't it be brilliant if you apply this to everything? You know, what if you too much meat? What if you do this? What if you do that? And before you know it, the entirety of your behavior is now being controlled by the government.

35:28Francis Foster:That's the, people need to understand that may not be the first step once this infrastructure is created, but that is what will happen if the infrastructure is there. because if the infrastructure is there, there will be an endless number of ways to make use of it to take charge of your life and to tell you what to do and what not to do. And you have to think as well,

35:50Konstantin Kisin:the elite's grip on power is weakening. We can see that through the rise of reform. We can see that right the way through Europe with the rise of dissident insurgent parties. So their grip on power is weakening. They know that it is. They can see that. So what is somebody whose grip on power is weakening? What do they want to do? They want to reinstate their power. They're going to cling on for dear life. They're going to cling on for dear life. And what better way to do that than to make sure that all our movements are tracked? Because you walk down the streets of London, infrastructure is crumbling.

36:31Konstantin Kisin:Crime is through the roof. Everything is dirty. People are angry and they're frustrated. and what is becoming more and more apparent is that governments don't have the answers to these problems. They just don't. So if you can't solve the problems, then what are you going to do? You're going to solve the people who are getting angry or frustrated or protesting about these problems.

36:55Francis Foster:You're going to pretend to solve the problems. Yeah. And also deal with the people who are upset about it. Yeah. That's your point.

37:02Konstantin Kisin:Yeah. And you're going to deal with the people who are upset about it Because it's easier to deal with people who go out wearing an England flag and arrest them, take the England flag off them, or if the Palestine protesters kettle them, throw them on the floor. It's easier to do that than to solve a 30 billion black hole deficit or to deal with any of the other myriad problems.

37:23Francis Foster:To actually deal with illegal immigration.

37:25Konstantin Kisin:Yeah, or to deal with illegal immigration. Because either you can't, you don't want to, or whatever reason it may be, or a combination of all of it.

37:34Francis Foster:Look, in some ways, I actually do hope Starmer goes for this because this is suicide politically. This is electoral suicide. If they pursue this, it will be the end of his government. That's what needs to happen here. Yeah. And we're going to keep talking about it. Like I said, people need to write to their MP. They need to sign the petition and they need to make themselves heard on this issue. This is not trivial. This is real. It's dangerous. And we cannot allow this to happen in our country.

38:03Konstantin Kisin:Absolutely. But I think you make a very good point because this could be Starmer's poll tax moment. For those who don't know the poll tax, the poll tax came in at the end of Margaret Thatcher's government. And that was a moment where there was riots. People were very angry because they felt it was very unfair. Rightly so, in my opinion. And that signaled the end of Margaret Thatcher's government. She was removed by her own ministers because they thought her position had become untenable. This is a government which is just over a year into power. there's already been a breakaway party established whatever you may think about them and we do lots of jokes about whatever we think about whatever you may say and look they don't seem particularly well run but what is undeniable is they represent a swathe of the population and a significant swathe of the population and it's more than significant swathe of the Labour Party so they're getting removed they've been removed so Starmer has gone from a huge majority what looked like anyway when he came in, but was very precarious once you started to open the proverbial bonnet of the car.

39:06But then as well, you have people who are coming out now and being openly

39:12Konstantin Kisin:critical of this government. So this is a government that is running on fumes. So what I hope and what you hope is this is the moment where everything breaks, where we go, you know what, this can't carry on like this.

39:26Francis Foster:That's one of the two options. The other option is they stop pursuing stupid policies and start doing good things. That would be another good option. I mean, you're looking at me like I'm saying something crazy, because I am. Yes. But I'm just trying to make the point. I am not desperate for Keir Starmer to end his premiership at this point. Because I actually, I don't think there is a ready-to-go strong alternative. Conservatives are in disarray. Lib Dems are not going to be elected. reform aren't ready. No. They're nowhere near ready. They're working towards the next election or whenever they think that is, but they're not ready now.

40:09Francis Foster:So I actually, I'm not particularly desperate for Starmer to remove himself in this way. But I just, I tell you, if they pursue this, this will produce a resistance force of the kind that they haven't seen that will be the end of his government.

40:26Konstantin Kisin:You, the trigonometry audience, understand how vital free speech is. That's why we're proud to reintroduce you to our longstanding partners, Give, Send, Go. We caught up with their founders at Jordan Peterson's Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference this year, and it was clear they are not just running a crowdfunding site, they're defending a principle. Take one of the most powerful examples, Daniel Penny. He stepped in during a dangerous subway incident in New York and was later charged with homicide. His Give Send Go campaign raised$3 million, allowing him to mount a strong legal defense as his case moves through the courts.

41:03Konstantin Kisin:That case made headlines. But the biggest story was this. While other platforms shut campaigns like his down, Give Send Go stood firm. So if you want to support causes that matter or raise funds yourself, whether it's for free speech, helping a friend in need or disaster relief, visit GiveSendGo.com and use the code trigger for a special 2.5 % processing rate. That's GiveSendGo.com, the platform that doesn't just talk about free speech, it protects it. Look, I actually think you make a very good point because when people go to me, what do you want Starman's government removed? And I'm... People aren't going to believe this.

41:45Konstantin Kisin:I wanted the government to succeed. So do I. I wanted that government to succeed. I do not believe the churn of prime ministers that we have seen from David Cameron. If you think about we had David Cameron, we had Theresa May. We then had, after Theresa May, we had, was it Liz Truss who came? No, no, it was Boris Johnson. Then it was Liz Truss. Then it was Rishi Sunak. Then it was Keir Starmer. That is not healthy. If you look at a company, if a company, if we were to invest in a company and you did due diligence and you found out they had eight or nine CEOs in the space of however many years, a decade, you'd be like, that is a company and real problems.

42:29Konstantin Kisin:That is a company that is fundamentally unstable. I am not going to invest in that. Why would anybody invest in the UK? When you look at the churn of prime ministers, that shows that we have got real problems.

42:44Francis Foster:Real problems. And the real problem, you keep pointing it, and that's where I really agree with you. The real problem is the economics of this. Because one of the things that, you know, you talk about wanting the Labour Party and the Labour government to succeed. Anyone who leads our country, I want them to succeed. And if they're far left, I don't give a shit if they're doing things that I agree with. But the problem is that the Labour government's one unique advantage that it had over the Tories is when they were attempting to deal with the welfare bill. And you've got to understand this in context, right?

43:23Francis Foster:Britain, this is a statistic from 2014, so this is probably much worse now. Now, Europe, including Britain, is 12 % of the world's population, 25 % of the world's GDP, and 50 % of the world's welfare spending.

43:43Francis Foster:That's why Europe is in economic trouble, because you cannot run an economy when you are spending four times what your percentage of the population is in welfare spending. You just can't. And this episode of Fraser Nelson makes that point very well. And Labour were uniquely positioned to tackle that problem because unlike the Tories, they're much harder to accuse of hating the poor and doing these things because they hate the poor. But what happened is they tried to cut welfare spending and they couldn't because their own MPs rebelled against them. And so what we've ended up with now is a government that promised not to raise taxes on working people that is at the very next budget going to raise taxes on working people.

44:27Francis Foster:And if they don't do that, which they will, but if they don't do that, we're probably heading for the fiscal crisis sooner than we anticipated. If they do do that, we're still heading for a fiscal crisis, but it'll be later. And so the fact is that they haven't solved the big economic challenge, as was obvious they weren't going to. They haven't changed productivity, which they were not going to. And this, on top of all of that, that will be the end of them.

45:00Konstantin Kisin:And look, we need to be fair as well. This isn't solely Labour's making. No, of course not. You know, this has been a long time. This has been the proverbial kicking the can down the road for a very, very, very long time. And nobody wanted to do it because what we have is a generation of politicians who are simply unwilling to take some very hard, unpleasant truths. And it's like life. You can go along in your own little delusional world, in your own whatever it may be, not making the right choices, believing the consequences aren't going to affect you. But let me tell you something. Eventually, reality hits.

45:40Konstantin Kisin:And the longer you put off reality with your delusions and not wanting to be honest with yourself or others, the harder reality is going to hit you. And we've been doing this for decades. And unfortunately, and I sometimes think that, you know, people go, oh, you enjoy. I don't enjoy doing this. I'm proud to be English. I love this country. And I love being here. And I've always had an affinity with here. but I'm terrified about what's going to happen. I'm genuinely terrified because when this economic crisis comes, I'm not an economist, I think it's going to make 2008 look like a day spent in your overdraft.

46:23Francis Foster:Well, not least because we are not going to be able to do what we did in 2008, which has helped people out. We're not going to be able to do that. No, by the way, people keep comparing it to the IMF bailout in the 70s. We're too big an economy now to be bailed out. This is the point Alistair Heath made when we interviewed him, right? So it's a bad situation. And look, I completely agree with you, but there is one group of people that you missed out in your analysis who also deserve criticism, and that's us, the British public. It's not just the politicians. The politicians are lying to us because we want to be lied to.

47:00Francis Foster:That's why they're lying. Let's be honest about that. Yes. The British public have to take responsibility and say, we have allowed ourselves to be deceived. The reality is we cannot afford what we are now doing. And we are going to have to rebalance our economy. And part of that means getting welfare down to a manageable level, which will be very, very painful. It will be very, very, very painful. as in your metaphor, you know, if you're an addict, isn't it really painful to finally admit to yourself that you're an addict and have to go through recovery and all the rest of it? It's really awful, right?

47:39Francis Foster:It's awful having to admit to yourself all sorts of things that we've all had to do at one point, admitting that, you know, you haven't been as good a husband as you should have been, or maybe you were dishonest with somebody that you should have been honest with, or maybe you were not responsible with your money and now you're in debt, or whatever it is, Those moments are always very painful. But the only way you get out of that problem is ultimately admitting that you have one. Britain has a gigantic problem with overspending. And until we deal with that, we will not recover.

48:10Konstantin Kisin:And to use the addiction metaphor, one of the things when you dry out or you go sober is for a lot of people, you suffer withdrawal symptoms. Very unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. Heroin addicts call it cold turkey. Alcoholics call it drying out. And those are horrendous physical symptoms that you suffer as a result. and unfortunately if you have a welfare bill that we have where people have been used to not working you know getting money from the government not having to get up in the morning not having to go to work all of a sudden for that warm blanket to be ripped away from you and for you to have then to be faced with the cold harsh realities of the employment market and what it's like to have a job, people aren't going to respond well to it.

49:03Francis Foster:They're going to have to learn. They're going to have to learn. Because the other thing is, you know, the reason this pretense has been maintained for so long is the British public have been told, oh, it's the bankers, the bonuses, the bankers, the bonuses, the rich need to pay their fair share, all of this stuff. You and I do reasonably well after seven years of really working hard and struggling and whatever. I just, you know, I just paid my tax bill for the last year, if you include payments on account for next year, I'm paying more than 50 % of what I earned last year in tax. How sustainable?

49:36Francis Foster:You think you can take that up to 70 and people won't leave? It's not going to happen. People who are doing well are already paying a hell of a lot of tax. There is not much more you can get out of them. And the gap is still massive. The debt is massive and there's still a deficit, which means the debt is growing all the time. So you can't fix it by, quote unquote, making the rich pay their fair share. The rich already pay a massive share of tax and you're just not physically going to get a lot more out of them. And so we just have to face reality, which is going to be very difficult for people.

50:09Francis Foster:But that is the problem. That is the central problem.

50:14Konstantin Kisin:It is. And what is very, on the one hand, it's actually, I find it perversely fascinating and highly worrying, so I was in a she-she part of North London there's posters on the bus stops for the Revolutionary Communist Party I was in Islington very nice part of them that is why you'd put posters for the Revolutionary Communist Party absolutely but you just go and then you look at Zora Mandani when these things happen and if people don't understand why they're happening. They become more and more vulnerable to extremists because they get angry and they've got every right to be angry. They feel they've been cheated.

50:58Konstantin Kisin:And of course, in many ways that they have. So they're very, very open to someone coming on, to someone coming along, offering simple solutions to complex problems. And that's another danger. That's a real danger because the young people in this country are thinking to themselves, well, hang on a minute. I'm working I don't know I work really hard I don't actually get paid a lot I mean Nah But let's say You know I work You know I work I don't get paid a lot What does I do get paid Most of it goes in rent Then there's bills Which have skyrocketed Right Then there's food Yeah And I can't buy a house I can't settle down And at the end of it all What am I going to be left with And then someone comes along And goes Well this is a fault of capitalism Right And actually what you need to do is you need to realize that the socialist project is actually, we are all going to be much fairer and it's going to be much better.

51:54Konstantin Kisin:And then there's nobody on either side putting forward the case of capitalism, by the way. So all you've got are these people, and some of them are very smart. They're very charismatic. They're very good at tapping into people's anger and resentments. And then that will start to mushroom. And for people who go, oh, it can't happen here. I've seen it happen. I've seen it happen in another country. Why can't it happen here? Why can't there be a movement with a very, very, very hard left? And then when you think about if you have a hard left government, they tend to quite like

52:29Francis Foster:these type of authoritarian things. Of course. Of course. Rob Henderson wrote, a former guest of ours, he wrote a brilliant article I think for the Free Press called The Revolt of the Rich Kids. And his thesis is that people like Mamdani, they're not actually, and this is backed by data and evidence, they're not actually being voted in by poor people. What they're voted in by is people who have done reasonably well, but they thought they would do much better. And this is a phenomenon called elite overproduction.

53:01Konstantin Kisin:If you have the target, back to Tony Blair, he had the target of sending 50 % of people to university.

53:07Francis Foster:What you then create is lots and lots of people who have both the debts and the expectation that they are going to get the best paying job in the country. And they're just not because half the country can't have the best paying jobs in the country. It's practically not possible. So what you have is a lot of people who actually are not that uncomfortable financially. But they're very, very uncomfortable because they don't have the status of success that comes with being at the top. and it's them that is driving a lot of these far left ideologies as well. So there is that dimension. But ultimately, you know, the one thing that we actually can do without hurting people is scrap net zero.

53:50Francis Foster:That was a conversation that we had with Catherine Porter. I thought it was really, really special and wonderful. And she's great. And that is one way you can actually do it without hurting lots of ordinary people. In fact, you would make it easier for them because their household energy prices would fall. Another thing, of course, is people will say, when I had that debate with Jimmy the Giant, we've taken it down because he wanted us to and he kind of apologized for his behavior. But one of the things he was throwing out there is net zero costs X amount of money. Nobody knows how much net zero costs.

54:23Francis Foster:Nobody knows because nobody can measure how many businesses either failed, left, or didn't start because they knew that they couldn't function in a country with the highest electricity prices for company, for corporate electricity prices in the developed world. Nobody knows what the cost of that was, but I guarantee you it is massive, massive. So unless we create an environment in which people actually able to start businesses, employ people, and then pay very high taxes. But the thing is, you know, I mentioned paying more than half of my income. I actually don't mind. I genuinely don't mind. I don't mind paying 50 % tax.

55:00Francis Foster:I don't. I don't mind. What I mind is that money being wasted on things. And I mind an environment in which doing business is impossible because of everything else that's going on. I've got no problem paying high taxes. If the response to that is good infrastructure, good public services for myself, citizens, a cohesive society, a properly enforced border, that's great. Who would really, look, there are some people who don't like paying tax at all. I've got no problem paying high taxes. If it is aligned with, look, I don't mind paying, you don't make, let me rephrase, you don't mind paying a lot of money for a restaurant meal.

55:41Francis Foster:Yeah. You don't. No. If the meal is good. Yeah. That's, so if you want to create a high tax economy, I'm fine with that, provided the high taxes are buying you something. Right now, what they're buying you is a lot of people on the scrap heap of unemployment who should be in employment and lots of public projects and this fucking digital ID thing.

56:05Konstantin Kisin:Again, we've spoken a lot about society works by contracts, social contracts. To go back to the case of the students, 50 % of you are going to go to university. What's a social contract? You're going to go to university, you're going to graduate, you're going to get a good job. Turned out not to be the case. We broke the contract. When it comes to high-tax society, what's the contract? You're going to pay 50 or maybe a bit more of your salary to the government, but the government are going to deliver world-class. They love that phrase, world-class, infrastructure, public health, whatever it may be.

56:38Konstantin Kisin:Sign me up. I'm down for that. Okay, right. But when people start breaking social contracts, especially government, and not just once, but twice, three times, four times, on the most basic fundamental level, and not that they just break it, This is what gets me really angry. They then gaslight you. They then gaslight you. I had a meeting with someone, and this person is a Londoner. She's a black woman growing up in Brixton. And as I was walking out of the meeting, I had my phone in my pocket, and she went, Francis, could you just put your phone back in there? She goes, London isn't as safe as it used to be.

57:19Konstantin Kisin:And I went, Melissa, can I ask you a question? Because you're a South London girl like me. You grew up, you ran about the same age. You remember this city like I did. It's far worse now, isn't it, than it used to be? She went, of course it is, Frances. Of course it is. It's dirty. It's dangerous. She goes, I worry about my kids. You go on social media, you look at skyrocketing, the stabbings, the muggings, everything. And those are the ones that get reported because people are so frustrated and angry now. They don't even report crime because what's the point? The only real reason to report crime is for insurance purposes.

57:57Konstantin Kisin:That's it. And then, yeah, I see Sadiq Khan say how great London is. You're gaslighting me. You are literally, the left love to talk about gaslighting. Oh, you could, you know, this is gaslighting, that's gaslighting. Everything's, no, mate, you're gaslighting me because I remember what my city used to be and this ain't it. And I remember what our country used to be and this really ain't it. So we're just getting gaslighted by a generation of politicians, not just Labour, by the way. We had it with, in fact, Kemi Biedenhoek. We talked right and governed left. Well, that's gaslighting, isn't it?

58:32Francis Foster:Isn't it? Yeah. And digital ID is the perfect example of that, where it's got absolutely fuck all to do with illegal immigration, but they're telling you it is. It's just a lie. They're just lying to you. That's what's happening. They're just lying. So again, sign the petition, write to your MP, speak out about this. This has to be stopped. It's the only way.

58:54Konstantin Kisin:Look, and I go back to the example of the dry cleaner who got stopped by the police in 1950 and went, you know what? No. And said something along the lines of this is not the done thing, which is very British. But it just shows because, you know, there is a cynicism amongst people. and I understand why. There's a helplessness where people go, what difference can I make? I'm telling you right now, if the more people that actually stand up and say, enough is enough, I'm not going to be gaslit. I'm not going to have these apps that are brought in to track my movements, to make everything easier and safer when we know it's patently bollocks.

59:39Konstantin Kisin:And by the word, we haven't talked about old people. We've got a geriatric aging population like my parents. How are they going to access all of this? You're going to get them to do it? It's not going to happen. And so all of these things, you've got a choice now. You have a real choice. What is it that you want to do? Because we see the trajectory. We see the way that this country is going. It's undeniable now. I don't care if you vote your party or reform or Labour. We all know the direction this is going in. So you have a choice. You either stand up and you say no more in a peaceful, appropriate manner, or you just give away even more of your rights.

1:00:22Konstantin Kisin:But like we've said before, time and time again, governments will take your rights. You're going to face one hell of a fight to get it back. It's going to take years and it's going to take legal action because once government have got power, they will do everything that they can in order not to relinquish it. It really is that simple. I don't care if you're conservative, you're Labour, you're Lib Dem, they want power.

1:00:47Francis Foster:Well, we're going to do our best to oppose it. We've invited Silky Carla from Big Brother Watch, who's a regular on our show, to talk about this very soon. And I hope people who agree with us, who hear the arguments that we're making, act in any way they can to help stop this because that is what needs to happen. And no doubt by next week, there'll be something more outrageous for us to talk about.

1:01:09Konstantin Kisin:And if not, then we'll see if we can do this from the Gulag, mate.