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I find it really strange that people are unable to make that distinction between regimes and populations. Well, why is that? Well, if you're angry with with the Putin regime. Okay, but why would that automatically make you say that you hate Russians, but also compare 140 million of them. You can dislike Macron, and like French people. Why can't people make the. Why do you have to be at war with an entire population just because you don't like the Russians? Same. But moreover, I can like or dislike anyone I want because I'm an adult man and I'm not a slave so I can have any opinion I want. We discriminate by nature. It's in our nature to discriminate. So it's my birthright. Like I you can't tell me who I have to like and dislike, and I just I'm not going to submit to that. Last night we were talking at dinner and you expressed some views. And I thought to myself, I'm eating with a conspiracy theorist. Well, I think if you're not a conspiracy theorist by night. You're not paying attention. You are often described that way. Does it? Does it rattle you? Well, I it was probably a time when it would have done. But. I, I've gone through this, process in the last four years. Of realizing that I spent the first 50 some years of my life, believing and trusting a certain worldview. Yes. With Covid. And everything thereafter, all of that fell apart. It's like picking a thread on a on a tapestry the whole thing just fell away into. And once, once you lose all of the things that you had taken for granted and trusted, then I suppose, almost by definition, you're in territory that the others who are on the same path as you would, would call conspiracy theorist. But it's really just. You think, well, if if I think now that they were lying to me about that and that and that, where are they telling me the truth about anything at all? Yes. And you're you're aware that. Some of it must be. True, but it's a it's early yet. I've only been in this revelatory process. You know, the scales have only fallen from my eyes, my naive trust that I placed in, in the establishment and in the institutions that I placed in them without really thinking about it terribly much. Well, you were part of the establishment. You worked for BBC? Well, I worked for BBC. In as much as I was doing contract work for BBC, so. But I was never directly employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation. I was, you know, I'd be brought in to do a project, I would be a production company, would pitch a project, I would be the presenter that was associated with that project, and I would be paid by the day for the duration of the project, and then I wouldn't be working for the BBC. I'm just saying that people watched you on BBC. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure they did. I wrote a column for the Sunday Times in Scotland. I was the I had been for a while the president of the National Trust for Scotland. I was, I was at one stage I was a fellow of the, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. So I was I was certainly associated with and part of, the nfrastructure of the establishment. That's absolutely the case. But I did all of it. I quite I hold my hands up and say I did it with in a naive way, without really. Interrogating the integrity of those institutions. It was just, I'm not judging you. I've been there. I just, I just trusted I just trusted that. Well, I've never been I've always been a political atheist. Yes. Struggling to vote in general elections, but usually trying to vote for someone to to make plain that I was taking part in the democratic process. But I. I never had I've never been affiliated to any political party, any ideology. But I, I think I thought that the, the powers. That be. Had mine and my family's interests at heart, whether they were red or blue. Of course. Or whatever, I thought. Basically. They're going to keep the lights on. They're going to make sure food and supermarkets don't maintain the roads. There'll be schools open. They'll be a hospital if my family needs it regardless. But now I just don't feel like, well, I now know that the establishment doesn't have mine or my family's interests at heart, and that's hard. It's like a grieving process, I think. Yes. The analogy I would make with that, you know, the five stages of grief that were supposed to go through the shock, the the denial, the, you know, the bargaining, you know. The anger, the various stages. That you're supposed to go through. I'm still, I'm probably four years in just coming to that point where I'm making peace with the fact that I it's it's my responsibility that I didn't see the reality. Yes. That's me. So for a while I was angry with them. And I still am angry with them. But the baddies are just baddies, you know, baddies do what baddies do. My problem is that I feel that it's my fault. I should have seen that I should have. I'm with you. I should. Have said. How could I have been so stupid? So I just think it's really interesting that, you know, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence to support what you just said, that the people in charge do not have your or your family's interests at heart at all. In fact, they're working against those interests day and night for whatever reason. I don't think any honest person can deny that at this point. For years in. Why? Well, compound question. What percentage of your friends in 2020 arrived at the same conclusions you have arrived at? And what's the difference between you and those who didn't admit what was happening? I would see I've lost touch with. Everyone from. Really? Everyone? Well, you know, I'm still obviously I'm still my family. And that's the family into which I was born. And also my my married family, my, my my in-laws. We've all remained as close as we ever were. Although, you know, there were differences of opinion about whatever Covid was about the about the, the products, the jobs and so on. So there were differences of opinion, but it didn't cause. Any. Ill feeling or any, any schisms there that so those people are still fully we're still it's all very loving and close. Yes. But work colleagues, friends, you know, people that I had known in some instances from university days, people that I'd work beside broadly, broadly, I've lost touch with all of them. There's a handful of people of literally a, you know, count on the fingers of one hand, the people that, as it turns out, ended up with all of the same suspicions and have ended up every bit as conspiracist as me. But as I'm sure you would testify. Oh, well, I, I don't know. I'm not going to I'm not going to, you know, prejudge your experience. But, those people that that, that I parted company with, that void has been filled, that vacuum drew into a whole other. Cast of people, in many cases. Very unlikely and unexpected. It was very it was true. And I, my wife and I, we would laugh about, you know, hear you on the phone. Two of you just come off the phone from now, I would say. And it would, it would seem so bizarre and so. Unlikely. People that a few years ago would never have imagined I would ever have a conversation with. Not that any particular reason, but I just didn't expect to be pulled into their orbit or them into mine. So. I've been through this process of of shedding one carapace, feeling very exposed, I suppose, like something that has cast out like a crab without its shell until the shell hardens again, you know, some very raw nerves jangling. But now that it's forming again, and I would say I was to torture that analogy a little bit, I feel a little bit bigger, you know, I feel as if I have grown because I wouldn't go back if I could press a button and make the Covid debacle not have happened, I wouldn't, because the what I've learned and what I feel I know, understand or. Or at least. That which I think I know have enough. Wit to ask. The relevant questions to better understand. I wouldn't exchange where I was for where I am. No. So back to a shallow, dishonest life. I, you know, and I did. I lost all those. Affiliations that I had, you know, because of the kind of, television persona that I had when I was making soft history and archeology documentaries. You get invited to be patron of this representative of that, you know, just people want affiliation with you. So, you know, I was I was connected combat stress, which was a veterans charity, and I was connected to, you know, the the Association of Lighthouse Keepers. And is that a big. One in Scotland? You know, it's a very fringe little group that people that look up the like group. You know, the lighthouse keepers. And, and as I say, you know, I had a, had a, I had an agent and I had, I had a column in the Sunday Times. I had been the president of the National Trust. I was a fellow of the Royal Society and all of that. I'm not. Anymore. I'm not any of those things anymore. They all distanced themselves from me one by one, like dominoes, dominoes toppling. And it hearts at the time. Or the first one does like the first punch in the. Face. You know, you never get you know every punch you get thereafter is saw, but it doesn't have the shock value of the of the first one. And so once but parted company with the one guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I can see that coming. And it's just a it's just a process that I'm glad to be on for me. For us, my family. I've been this is I think of this is the great sorting. I mean, under this immense downward pressure exerted on the West over the last four years, people sort of wound up on one side or the other. And it's not a clean political divide. It's not even a political divide, as you've pointed out. It's not left, right, you know, laboratory, whatever. But I've never figured out and I've thought about it a lot. What is it in people that. Compel them to move to one side or the other, particularly to the side you're on. You said it's unlikely people do. You never thought you'd be talking to you. Like, what do they all have in common? It's a question that, you know, Trudy and I and and others in a small group of of of like minded people, that is the $64,000. Okay. So you've thought about. This as they used to say, what is the what's the common denominator? What's the unifying. Feature? I don't really know. I think it's I think in there has been a great sorting. I think this what happened in 2020, 2021. The choices that we were invited to make, you know, pick a side, are you going to be with us or not? And a large number of people decided to be with the part to remain part of the main. The liars and the other people pulled back from it. This was the great sorting of our generation. Yes. The first big sorting that that there has been for decades. And I think in some of it I think, was simply down to people's natural, you know, amygdala fight or flight response to threat. I think some, you know, people you don't know until whatever the gunfire starts. Exactly right, whether you. Can't predict it and you. Think you're brave. Yeah. And you know, and, you know, people like, you know, people at Jordan Peterson, you know, have articulated it very well that the, the culture of movies that we would all invite you to watch growing up, you're invited to think in World War Two, you'd have been with the French Resistance. Of course you would have. You would have. You would have hidden your neighbors because the black van was outside going to take them away. That's that's how people are invited to think that they would be the maverick. You would be the one that stands in the face of the of the of the tide. And and then it happened before people realized what had happened. They had been. Sort it in that way. And, and I think. The, the really. Part of what's really difficult now is that there's no going. Back. And yet we're all still living together. We're all old, all the people are broadly still there. Those that jumped one way, those that that jumped the other. And we have to find this way to go on. Because we were we were invited. To see what some, what a. Lot of people were prepared to. Do I one of the most. Difficult parts of it, it sounds silly. No, because it's really a detail. But. Quite early on, when the mask mandate was still very much everyone had to wear a face mask, and I was I was having to go up and down to London for work. I was flying home every Sunday. Morning. And it would be, I don't know, British Airways flight or whoever, and I wasn't wearing a face mask and under any circumstances, and I would go through the airport, which was difficult enough. Wait, if I can just ask you, just pause. Why weren't you wearing a face mask? Would it be easier to do what everyone else does and be obedient? Yeah. Why are you so disobedience? Well, again, I was always. I was always a rule keeper, a. Lower biter. I've always, you know, I'm not I've never I've never been a protester. I've never been an activist. Anything. I'm very much a I'm a, you know. I just was always I wasn't really paying attention as the truth of it. I just wasn't really watching what was going on. We were making archeology documentaries. You. Well, exactly. I don't think to me one. But to get back to the plane so we'd be awkward enough people watching in the airport. But then I would go up the steps of the plane, the crew, the the cabin crew would be masked and they would say, you know, wearing a face mask. And I would say, no, I'm not wearing a face mask. Are you exempt? Some of them would say, and, I would just say, yeah, I'm exempt. Because in my head I was tough as a human being. I'm definitely exempt from this nonsense. So I wasn't even lying in my own head. I thought, no, I am exempt because there's no I agree. I'm not a slave. You turn right down into the body of the plane and be 299 people with face masks on, glaring, glaring at me. And I would think. It's it's it's this. Close, you know, if if someone gave the signal to, you know, let's pin this guy down in the. Aisle. Let's meet him. Yeah. You could see suddenly you could see I'm actually at risk here. Not from the establishment, necessarily. Not from the government. In this moment. I'm just. Because I have made. Myself conspicuous. Yes, I have stood. Out from the norm, and anything could happen in the next five minutes. And I'd have to do the long walk down to my seat 27 or something, some middle seat. I have to get into it, and sometimes people either side of me would ring the service. They'll put the light on, ask to be moved to get away from me. And of course they couldn't because it was a full flight and then I would have to sit for the hour and 15 minutes or whatever of the flight back up to Edinburgh as pariah. And then go off the way and head. And then rinse and repeat. Do it next week. Do it next week. Do it next week, didn't it? And that's just I set like I see. That's a silly anecdote. It's not silly at all. It's totally real. And then. Suddenly, suddenly I saw people and it isn't conscious. You could suddenly see how things happened. Questioned you, I thought, I wonder how you got that. To happen in Germany in the 30s. I wonder how they got that to. Happen in the terror in France, in the, you know, at the. 1989. Yeah. 18th century. I wonder how they got that to happen in Russia. Well, I do ask myself that anymore. Because you think, oh. You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between Republican and Democrat or socialist and capitalist. Right left. The real battles between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth. It's between good and evil, it's between honesty and falsehood. And we hope we are on the former side. That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson Network, and we invite you to subscribe to it. Go to Tucker carlson.com/podcast, our entire archive. Is there a lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn when only an iPhone is running? Tucker carlson.com/podcast? You will not regret it. So you said that in public. You said famously something close to what you just said, which is, oh, now I understand how totalitarian movements, you know, sort of move downward into the population. And the population by and large, supports some genocidal agenda that normal people wouldn't support. But they do support it. And you said that and you were attacked as a bigot for saying that. Oh, yeah. But but you must have you must. Have been on the. Same. You must surely you were getting that. You know, you what was your experience? Don't pay any attention at all. So I'm sure I've been called every name. I don't care, you know, at all. But, I had checked out mentally, for sure, but. And what is it about? Why, you know, you've clearly been. More, sort of, I suppose, bullheaded, stubborn about things and being prepared to stand in the face of things for longer than me. So what's, you know, what's in when you would. Ask me, what did I think was the common what was it? What was the common denominator? What was uniting all of the people that were refusing to go along with it? What's it in? What do you think? Well, I. Just grew up in a different way, so I just knew that, you know, the majority opinion was not always right. I always felt that. And I knew that I didn't care what people thought of me, except the people I love, just because of the way I grew up. And. So it was it was not hard for me at all to take a position that is different from everyone else's. I only care about, you know, the people directly around. So that's just my temperament. But then the plight of, you know, a concept like, you know, democracy, we talk a lot. We were brought up in the West to talk about democracy and liberty and freedom and rights. What do you what's your take on the reality of what democracy even means? No, because for me, up, I have been forced through a process of thinking about what. Democracy even is. And wondering what it is that we had that we called democracy, and certainly wondering what it is that we have no fear, nothing of that which we know. Democracy, at least in my view. I mean, it's been redefined to mean democracy is a system of government in which the people in charge, whether the elected officials, the agency heads, the people who run well-funded NGOs when their views are represented, even though they may constitute 2% of the population's views, when those views are represented, when they're fully in charge, you can do whatever they want. That's democracy. That's not my view of democracy. My view of democracy is much more primitive, kind of the peasant view of democracy, which is it's a species of private property. It's ownership. I am a citizen of this country. I was born here. So when my parents and I therefore have a share in this, I'm a shareholder in the company in the country. Like I own part of this mine, actually, now I own 1/350,000,000 of it, but it's still ownership. It's still a share. And you can't, treat me like a slave or even your servant because I. This is my place. And that's where I think democracy is. It's almost like a temperamental. It's it's a description of a of the certain worldview that you have about your government and your relationship to that government. So, that's how I feel about it. It doesn't mean that if 51% of the population wants something, it gets it every time. We have a representative democracy, a constitutional republic, as I'm often reminded. But but basically, if you have a system where the people in charge don't care at all about what the population thinks, we know for sure that's not democracy. I mean, what did you think it was? Well, as as you just said, I. You know, in a, in a in a state of semi slumber, just imagined that I was represented in the, in the places of. Power. By, you know, by the fact that I was able to vote and I know and I now realize that voting once every 4 or 5 years is is nothing at all. It's a that's a completely meaningless. Transaction to me. No, it always was. I mean, I see no way I was. Oh, God. It's a general election. I better vote for somebody. I was always disconnected from it. Right. But no, I partly think that that may have been some kind of semi instinctive realization that it. Was meaningless anyway. But I worry now about a quite a lot of people. You know, around me talk about direct democracy as, as, as a solution to problems or and always it's always the Swiss model that's quoted referenda about this, that and everything, sort of everything about having a referendum about it. I know that having gone through the last four years, that worries me, because if there had been a referendum about face masks. Or lockdown or. Or, God forbid, mandatory jabs, we'd have got all of them. The the the majority vote would have enacted all of those things mandated jobs, longer, tighter lockdowns, your face masks and all of the rest of it would have been enacted by direct democracy. So now I think. That the problem you've got there is. The majority, the better hope that come to your conclusion. Well, because I mean, because otherwise otherwise you've just. If we, if we if we take the step of thinking that direct democracy is the way to get out of these problems, well, well, in short, I live in fear of direct democracy. So why do you think they're saying that? I mean, what people leave out. I'm very familiar with Switzerland, of ancestors from Switzerland. Spent a lot, went to school in Switzerland. A lot has been there. I was there twice this year. I'm not an expert on Switzerland, but I know well enough to say conclusively their political system works because they have a Swiss population with certain attitudes that have evolved over a thousand years. And, and it works for them. And they vote, you know, twice a year and all the stuff. And the cantons have a lot of independent power, very weak central government, etc., etc. but that works with Swiss people. They're changing the population of the West and particularly of Europe. So fast that you sort of wonder, like, what is that? I mean, the idea that, you know, there is a thing called a Briton or a Spaniard or a Frenchman or Portuguese people or Belgians or people from Liechtenstein or whatever, that there are sort of populations, indigenous populations in these countries that have a certain national character, language and shared history. All of that is being obliterated through mass by mass immigration. It's it's on purpose. It's against the will of the populations, existing populations of those countries. And it's clearly tied to political power. I mean, am I missing something? I mean, look, this is my view from 3000 miles away. No. Oh, without a shadow of a doubt. I think the same thing is. Well, you know, it's happening right here. It's obliterating the United States, but it's harder for the for Americans to fight back against it because there's no I mean, our indigenous population, you know, or the American Indians who aren't even really the indigenous population. But whatever. They were here before the Europeans arrived, they replaced another population was here before them. But whatever. The point is, we don't have kind of the we don't feel we have the moral standing that say, the Scots would have. Scotland was never or has not been in a very long time and a colonial power. Like what? Why are they doing this to Scotland? Identity is a sense of identity. Personal identity. You know, the sovereign individual. And then that coming together to be, you know, maybe a sense of community in your town. Then and it broadens out to national identity is problematic. I'm utterly convinced that there's a just a huge centralization of power going on. Right. You know that there's a there is a, you know, there's an anonymous, faceless cabal of people, whose names we don't know, whose faces we wouldn't recognize. Who are centralizing power. And for the first time, the technology is enabling that to be global. People have tried in the past, you know, whatever people have tried to be, have been totalitarian in the past, but it's not the technology and and the and the reach, has never enabled a tyrant to control the whole world. But that is there now. And I think that's what we are, what we are hurtling towards. And you know people and it Hofer in the true believer and so on. You know he he wrote so effectively about how every mass movement has sought to. Take away people's. National identity and their personal identity. So they want you to they want you to. They want each individual to turn their back on their parents and on their family as being, you know, you can do better than these people. Their ideas are outmoded. You know. They've messed you up and you'd be you'd be better off without that influence. And likewise, they want to cut people away from their national roots, their sense of belonging in a place, and their sense that they are British or that they are French. Because once you get people deracinated in that we cut away from their roots. And the process is also about making people ashamed of their history, it their own family history or their national history. I've noticed that there's nothing in the past but things to be ashamed of. So you get people to disavow the past, to disavow their parents, to disavow the family, to of the the nation as it's been understood. And then those people are just some spreadsheet. They'll just they'll just flickering dots on a screen that can be put anywhere. And you have and I know you have a global population that don't belong or feel connected to anywhere. And so you can put them anywhere because they have no roots. And that's been tried over and over again. All the great faiths have. Done something, attempted something similar. All the great. Ideologies, all the isms, fascism, communism. Whatever. They all seek to do that to. To, as Hofer explains, and true believer, they all apply the same tools to get people disconnected until you're just a a lone individual that's ready to donate uniform and do something new in the face of utopia. You know, the nowhere place that is the ideal future that's easy to sell people because it doesn't actually exist, but. It what it means is total destruction. I mean, I see mass immigration in Europe as a form of warfare against the indigenous population. They're being destroyed and degraded. Very obvious to me as a serial visitor to that continent over 50 years. And it's gets worse every time I go there. Yeah, but I notice that the people who were from there, whose parents were born there, whose ancestors are a thousand years ago, in your case, wearing like face paint and skirts with spears or whatever. It was scary. Highland tribes, like, none of those people. Feel free to stand up and say, what are you doing? Like, no, you can't flood my country with people from another place because they're not Scottish and I am. And you're wrecking my country. Why can't. That's not racism. That's just. Obvious. And it's also I mean, it's also important to remember all the time that these people are being uprooted and moved in in their turn as well. Oh, I. Agree all at all. Everyone. And so, you know, so what happens is yes, indigenous populations are being flooded by people from elsewhere. But those people have been uprooted. Yeah. By this, you know, by by the same. You know, by the same forces of chaos and disruption. You know, the West has done God awful things to one country of the Middle East and elsewhere, one after another in countries. And those people are cut up and cut away from the roots, and they are on the move as well. So everyone's victim in this everyone. And where people turn up in large numbers, where the, you know from a from an ethnic and cultural and heritage point if you don't belong. But that's also not their fault. You know, they're they're. Pawns on the board as. Well. And of course, what happens is that the people, you know, the resident, the incumbent population feel threatened by the arrival of the new and they get angry with the incomers when. Really we. Should all link our everyone should link arms and. See who did this. Like. Calm down, everyone just let's let's sort. Out exactly how this has happened. Are we being manipulated? Why are you why? Who's moved you here? You know, so it's important because that you fall. You fall so readily into the to read. But do you have that conversation in Scotland specifically? It was very difficult because of course. Everything and any kind of dissent, any kind of of raising a voice in that we, brings out the same predictable. Tools. From the toolbox. So you get you just get coal. You know. I've, I've long ago, you. Know, I've been I've been described as anti-Semitic for one reason and another, I've been described as. White. Supremacist for one reason. And another, you know. I've had all the labels. And, you know, you said at the right at the beginning, you're, you know, known as a conspiracy. Theorist, they're almost badges of honor. Like, if you hate if you're not being tarred. With those brushes, then you're not. You're not doing your bit. Because if you you can eat immediately that old. Line about, you know, that you're over the target when you're taking flak, if you're being if they've got to good, if you've got nothing better than to call you anti-Semitic, white supremacist, whatever, then you think, oh, I must be, I must be doing something right, because that's just the same old, box of clumsy, blunt tools that get brought out to shout down anyone who's actually asking important, pertinent questions. But we're not going to answer them because we're not going to give them the answer, because the answer will expose us, the baddies, even further. So let's just let's just dismiss them as. Is, does it racists. In Scotland, in the UK? Well, I think as I see, because many people. Are now finding that it's a badge of honor to be. You know, I've been a, I've been a Putin apologist stuff at that when flung at me. I've been, all sorts of things just because I've, I've said, you know what? Jumping into all of these stories at the moment in the, in the third act was actually the expression that, Jim introduced to me when I had him on my show the other week and he said, you know, everyone was invited to join the Ukraine story in the third act. But, you know, there's there's pages and pages of all of this, obviously, before you get to. The Russian tanks trundling across the Ukrainian border, you're. Coming in late. If you've. Joined the cinema in the last in the war, there. Have been a war in progress for eight years. And and I know it's, you know, now it's Israel-Gaza and everyone's invited to like that all started on October the 7th and you know it did. No no no no. So so it's all it's all obvious. It's all obvious stuff. And. Because those. Turn spotlights onto. Places. And stories and back stories that that the troublemakers, the original troublemakers do not want to be confronted with, then hence, you know, shut everything down. Censorship, labeling, you know, dismissing people as you, you know, well, whatever, whatever bad name they can think of. How long did it take you to get, to decide you didn't care what they called you again? It's again, it's that thing about, you know, the first time you get punched, it hurts. But worse than not. Peanuts. The shock. But then the next time you get punched, that. Oh, yeah, that's that's that again. And I suppose, around the time, because I came. Into all of this, I suppose, or I was seemed to come into all of this, around Covid and lockdowns and vaccines for children and all the rest of it. But then, as I say, once I picked up that thread and then everything started to then the the big tapestry all started to fray and unfurl the the next thing that came up then was Ukraine. And suddenly people who had there was this loose. Coalition, I suppose, this fragile thing of people coming together around the Covid debacle and asking the right questions and being militant enough and. Seeing no, there was a cohesion. There. But that is as though the powers. Right. We've been rumbled on, we've been rumbled and Covid got let's get a war going. Wars was a. Great. And then and so Ukraine started and a lot. Of the people that had been briefed, it was like it was like an awakenings, you know, the. Robert DeNiro movie. People had briefly come a week just. Went when the Ukraine war started. The oldest went back to where they had been before, listening to the propaganda, just taking the the official line, accepting the official narrative. And so I suppose it was when I started being accused of being an apologist for for Putin, I thought I've already been a. An aluminum, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy. Theorist. Anti-vax or, you know, granny killer. No, I'm a Putin apologist. Fair enough, I've I've seen the way this works and know that I've collected that badge like a scout. I can put that one on my sleeve as well. No, my Putin apologist and I definitely don't. I really don't care. No, because if you're not being if you're not being accused of being. Whatever label, then you're not in the debate. I just reject the whole premise, which is that some group of people who really kind of hate you or have contempt for you, at the very least, can decide who your enemies are and then require you to agree with them. I've never had really strong feelings about Russia. I certainly wasn't mad at Russia. Why would I be? They never did anything to me. But like Toria Nuland in our State Department decides, well, they're our main enemy for whatever weird reason she has for deciding that. And now I have to sign on to that. Like I'm an adult man. I can decide who I like and who I don't like. I don't the whole idea of it or get on board. Well, I don't know. Maybe I don't want to. Like what? Who would go along with that? How could any adult allow some faraway officeholder, agency head, or NGO director to decide what their opinions should be? Well, your opinions as a father of three, a married man with a job like what you have to believe. Does that seem weird to you? It does seem. Well, it does seem. Weird to me. I think people are frightened. Of what? Of? Well, you know, I've as a as just, you know, talking about that experience on the plane with, with my, with my bare faced literally and, you know, defiance of that, that diktat. It's extremely. Uncomfortable to, to. To stick out to, to put your head up, to be noticed. Yeah. Is I suppose, you know, actually, in. Answer to your earlier question about what would be a unifying, characteristic of of people that said, no. I suppose I had already had a. Long time of being recognizable to some people because of the kind of talent I have low level familiarity, celebrity, whatever. Some people would recognize me from television documentaries that I had made, and so I had grown a kind of a hard shell about being looked at and, you know, whispered about, noticed. So that sticking out in that way, I was already slightly familiar with, whereas I think. For for people. Who had had who. Had enjoyed complete anonymity and then it came to see the Covid thing and not wearing a face mask or asking questions about what was what the what their children should or shouldn't put in their bodies. It's very uncomfortable to to stand up and be noticed, to be visible. And so because I have. Had a little bit of a little bit of, I've grown a little bit of a callus. A little bit of hard skin about being noticed because I had I was a face from television, I suppose, made it that little bit less uncomfortable for me to then be spotlit about for the first time in my life, controversial issues. I'd never been controversial in my life. But at least I was slightly, you know. Slightly familiar with with. Being noticed. When you started to get attacked as a bigot, crazy person, white supremacist, whatever that is. How did the people you love, like, how did your wife react? Well. You know. We're through this here. And to. Be right there. In this room and we've been 100% together on all of it. She's never blinked, you know, from from all from all began. And, and so I've always had that absolute for, for, for so many people with a split happened between partners over some of this. I can't imagine how awful that must be, because it's hard enough. I can't imagine. Imagine. But we are. We've always been 100% together on it. And even within our wider families, you know, we're people, you know, to the to the jobs and whatever. There's never been any never been any trouble difference of, you know, differences of opinion and people thinking what was the right thing to do, what was the wrong thing to do. But no rancor. No. You know, no, no, no. Shouting, no, nothing like that. And so I've always I've mercifully, thankfully, I've never been more grateful in my life for, you know, for, for Trudy because of the way that she responded to big change. I mean, if you're, you know, if you're married to someone who's on television and she's famous for. I know his views on the Vikings and everyone kind of likes you for that. And all of a sudden he's being called, you know, a white supremacist. That's a that's a big change. Yes it is. But as I. Say, she just never blinked. You know, she didn't blink. Well, you are blessed in the game of chicken. She just didn't blink. She knew she knows me. She's known me. Since I was 19. And you know, when it comes to being called things like anti-Semitic or racist or misogynist or whatever, whatever Putin apologist, she knows me. So she doesn't have to wonder, is he. You know, because she just she just. She's smiling at me. Like, you. Know, you're just really, really for so fortunate to have. Oh, well. Well, yes, yes. Fortune. But we also, I suppose, you know, you have to kind of think, well, we. We, we probably, you know. Choose one another and then stay for reasons. And then you think, as it turns out, you know, this being, you know, this being a testing situation, this would be part of why I choose this person. Because, yes. One way or another, I think I probably knew that. She'd be like this. In a situation like. This, you know. And me for her, you know, we would just we just back each other up, which does make you very invulnerable, because this whole this whole process. Absolutely. In a way that's cliched. You do get confronted with what matters, you know, and we've. You know, when it, you know, I mean, we're. Just we're very we we've. Been thrust into this from really a very recognizable and ordinary lifestyle. You know, we've got a mortgage and we've got, you know, and we depend on a on a regular income to keep the wheels on the wagon. Like, like, like like everybody else, you know, the. Vast majority of people and, and. So we, so we. Identify and have that commonality with, you know, sort of that's why I think a lot of people, you know, write letters to me from all over the world, and they only stop me in the street to talk to me because, you know, I think they instinctively realize that I'm. Not a. You know, a credentialed academic and I'm not an expert on this, that or the other. I'm very much just a regular. Person with. With the same with all of the same concerns that. They've got kids, school, you know. All of it that people were, you know, were able to were able to identify with. But when I say that, I've been confronted with what really matters, you think all that stuff about, you know, whether you have could afford us whatever. I don't know what, you know, second home. Or. Luxury cars or all of that stuff, all that cliched stuff that that people are encouraged to think about. You think, God know what? Really what really matters is spending, 24 hours a day with somebody that backs you up. I mean. And my kids are the same. You know, the kids were they came through the whole they were under pressure at the time to to take jobs. You know, you won't be able to go to the gym or you won't be able to go to, you know, you won't be able to just socialize and be able to travel. And they were rattled by that. They were, you know, younger than, you know, they're. Teenagers when all of that up and very, you know, impressionable and vulnerable. But but we got them through that with they didn't you know, they didn't they didn't. They ended up choosing not to take the, you know, take the jobs either. And I cannot put into words how much that means to me that they didn't get polluted with that product. That's it. That's everything to me. And never mind the fact that I didn't, the fact that it didn't go into them, that there's no, there's no, there's no salary you could give me. There's no, you know, there's no there's no bonus. You could bang me. That would that would make any difference. So it's it's all it's all of that. And so it's. Been it's hard to talk. About it in many ways without, you know, without sounding almost like you're patronizing people. But, you know, the the extent. To which I've been reminded about what's important in. Life is worth. Is worth all of it. You call me any name. You want because I know who I am and you know my family, know who I am. And I can look at my kids and my wife and I and she and mine and think, no matter what, literally, no matter what happens, we we made the right calls. It does seem like, obviously you're from a different, slightly different culture, than we're from here in the United States. You it's a much smaller country. It's an island in the middle of a freezing sea. And there does seem to be a greater level of conformity in the UK than the rest of the United States. Do you think so? Is that how it strikes you. And is it does I mean, it's a more obedient culture. You know, you never had a wild West. You didn't have gunfights. You haven't, you know, since Christianity showed up, etc.. But it it does seem like and I'm judging the square media landscape. It seems like you and Russell Brand, maybe there's somebody at George Galloway. There don't seem to be many dissenters. Describe the media in the UK right now. Oh my goodness. I have to be careful with my flowery language. Go crazy. Okay, well I'm appalled. I'm just simply. Appalled. The we don't have anything that passes for in the same way that we don't have any representation in Parliament. Yeah, we don't have any we don't have any, representation in the mainstream. Media that was like at all. Right. That was another aspect of what was so unbelievable and so discombobulating and stressful about all of this, because in the early weeks and months of what was going on from 2019, 2020 onwards. There was a period of waiting. For the. The people. The silverbacks of the media world to stand up and do what was required to be done, which. Was ask some questions, don't don't propagandize, don't just give us the the. Government line and the and the pharmaceutical. Line and all of this. Yeah stop lying chat challenge. Who's so that that incredible period of weight. And, every single one of them failed the test. All of them, all the mainstream channels, all the big titles, you know, the Telegraph, the Times, the Daily Mail, the works, the all they all. Swallowed it and pumped it back. Out again. So the the media is we don't have a well. We don't have a media worth its name. And journalism in Scotland, for. Example, had a proud, proud, proud. History of journalism. Dundee were really studied to be a journalist. A DC Thomson, you know, an iconic publishing name in in Scottish journalism. German journalism was the cry from Dundee. I'm a. Proud. Proud history of being, ready to hold to the fire the feet of those in authority and. Overnight either it had either it had slipped away and we hadn't noticed. Yeah, there's one exposed by Covid. Or or it. Or it slipped away as soon as the Covid debacle started. And then. And then. Realizing you're part of that process of casting around, looking for the God, we can't be the only people that think this is bonkers and ballocks. There must be other people like this. And then that process of going online and. As you see Russell Brand, God bless him, you know, he was already a he was an established podcaster. You know, he already was. He was already there doing other things. And when all this started, he was suddenly to the fore. You know. Asking those things is an understatement. I mean, he was from a completely different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no incentive to get involved. But when it was, when it was required. He was suddenly he. Was there and we were watching. We were consuming Russell Brand as much of it as we could get. And we were watching you and we were watching George Galloway on the mother of all talk shows. And, you know, these funny things, these constellations, you. Know, all the other stars went out in the night. Sky and a few suddenly all these new constellations appeared. And you're looking at. You, thank God. Right. We can listen. Who can we listen to today? The who may have many points of view that in other subjects and other concerns I might not agree with, but. They're certainly. Asking some of the right questions about. This. And, you know, so the new. Media. Stepped into the stepped into the fray. And if anyone. And they. Are people were surprised to see me, a guy that used to make. Documentaries about. Stonehenge and the. White Cliffs of Dover and, you know, in waterfalls and Purple Mountain. Majesty and all of that, if they were surprised to see me suddenly. You know, spotlit on a on live television asking questions about and refusing to comply with this, that and the next thing, if people were surprised to see me cast in that role, well. Not half as surprised as I was or what really was, you know, looking at you on how did this happen to you? How have you. Ended up doing this? You said, well, that's a very good question. I really don't know. But it's like the bit in the it's like the bit in the airplane, you know, where the pilots. Died. Of food poisoning and the co-pilot's dead and all and some, some, you know, schmuck has to come from the back of the plane, but because. Nobody else is going to do it, you know, a lot of people were. Suddenly cast into that, unlikely into the unlikely. Role. And have taken the dog's abuse for having done so. And their only crime has been to see how. Hang it. Hang on. I've got I've got a question before we all leap into the abyss of all of this totalitarian regime, I'd quite like to ask a couple of questions just before we all go. And, you know, and some of the hardest criticism has come from people that would have thought ostensibly would have been on your side. I mean, you live in a place where there are. I really don't think the American. We often complain about our media, which is Stalinist, completely Stalinist. They serve the people in power. They'll tell any lie. It doesn't matter to them at all. But I think it's much worse in the UK. That's just my observation. I mean, I did watch some of your guys, you know, eating hamburgers and saying, you get a free one of these if you get your job. And. oh, it. Was. Totalitarian and dancing alongside, you know, you know, people dressed up as hypodermic needles. And I mean, I remember all of that, but. So. So yes. It's it's. But it doesn't seem like any dissent is allowed in your country, for example. Tell us about the Scottish hate speech law. Oh, well, that I would say. That's part and parcel of something that seems to be happening around the world in a certain kind of Western country, which is to say, either small countries with small populations or quite large land masses, but small population. So, you know, Canada, Australia, but, you know, places like New Zealand. The Anglosphere, the speaking world. But then but then something equally sinister also happened in Israel, you know, where, yes, where Netanyahu said, make, make my people the petri dish of the world experiment. On these here. Lab rats. Yes. So again, a small a small population with but with a, with a, with an authoritarian leader that just off hand just decided to do what you wanted. But that was true of all of them. So. And yes but Britain but then Scotland obviously has a devolved, administration, based in Edinburgh, in power in power to, to, to to take a certain amount of decisions separate from Westminster in London. And we've been under the, the. Thrall of of a. Of administration in Edinburgh led by the Scottish National Party for what seems like a thousand years. It's been like an SNP, right. It doesn't seem very Scottish to me at all. Well. I first got into I first put my head above the parapet and got into trouble as a, as a contrarian all the way back in 2014 actually, because that was the time of the referendum on whether or not Scotland would remain part of the United Kingdom or with striker as a, as a, as a separate entity. And God forgive me, I had. Kind of been keeping out of it. I was just. I had my opinions, but I was keeping it that relatively late in the day. Coming up to the vote, I think it was the Telegraph, but one of the big broadsheet newspapers asked me for, what do you think? Would you write, as, you know, a thousand words about what you think? And I wrote that. Well, to cut a long story short, that I would prefer to stay part of the United Kingdom. Cue the opprobrium from the nationalists, those who and because of. I had made television like the history of Scotland, and I had been seen as a certain kind of Scottish TV presenter. I think a lot of people made the broad assumption that I was probably nationalist in my politics, which I never have been. And, you know, never will be. But, but but nonetheless. So I got, I got into I got into trouble then and so I've been on the, I've been under attack from the SNP and its little wizards ever since then. So I have it's, it's, it's important probably in the context of this conversation to make plain that it actually wasn't Covid. I first got into trouble. It was it was the independence referendum. And so Scotland is run by, By low caliber people. Low caliber carcass autocracy. You know, government by the worst of people? Yes. And, you know, the the SNP start, you know, started out famously. Well, not it didn't start out, but at the time of the referendum, it was led by Alex Salmond. Who at least was a. You know, he was an able surefooted politician. And an. A good orator. You know, so he had some he. Had some game. But subsequently it's been Nicola Sturgeon and it was Nicola and then more recently Humza Yousaf. And now he's fallen on, he's fallen off his own feet and he's been replaced by another one, another, you know, another non-entity. But it was Nicola Sturgeon through the, through the Covid debacle. And they just seemed to the rally they reveled in, she reveled in the power which she reveled in, you know, appealing every day to count death tolls and insist on the continuation of lockdown and cutting the six inches off the bottoms of doors and in school classrooms to let her circulate in scene. She a pretty smart, happy, well-balanced person. I would say no, no, no. Not always. But anyway. Anyway, she's gone. But So you have. In the SNP in Scotland, people who are drunk with the idea of power, you know, they really I mean, the very idea that the people at the a majority would, would have put that bunch actually in control of an independent country makes my blood run cold. It was a close run thing for a while, but it's gone now. The threat is gone for a generation, if not forever. But so the the inept. The carcass autocratic. And when it came to the the hate crime legislation. The what the the just. Seemed to go for one offensive, irritating policy after another. The attempted a named persons. Bill. In recent history where they were trying to insinuate between every child and their parents a named person that could be a. Teacher could be any figure that. That person would have been encouraged, and the child would have been encouraged to establish a relationship with that named person. If there are things you don't want to talk about. Talk to, you could talk to this named person. And and your parents would. Never need to know that. Those conversations had. Taken place. This was the named person's bill. It was eventually. Knocked back at the. This is an attempt to destroy the family. Yeah, well, that's would certainly be. That was my. Interpretation of what. Is the other interpretation. Well, it was supposed to be. The government has more authority. It's your home. Isn't always it's the same. It's the same reason for, you know, clamping down on the internet. It's it's for the safety of children. That's what they always see this. It's about protecting children from this, that and the other one. Of course, we know it's got nothing to do with that. It's just about taking control of the internet. So the Named Persons Act was. Yes. But in line with that idea of it, if you want to lead a popular movement, you have to separate the children from the parents. You've got to you've got to put pressure on the family into the family fractures to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, to finally turn back and stop the named persons bill. But it will be. It'll be in someone's drawer somewhere. Yeah. You know, you know, it's still under consideration. The hate crime. Legislation. Which. So it's. Important, you know, not to come in on the SNP in the third act, so. To speak, the long history of this kind of behavior. And, and when it came to the, you know, the hate, the hate crime legislation, you know, that was a pet project of Humza Yousaf, who was the sometime justice minister. He always failed in every post but fell upwards, you know, so he was you know, he was justice and field and got promoted up to health and field and promoted up to whatever, you know, one inappropriate appointment after another. And the hate crime legislation was his was very much something that, that he championed. What was it? It was it was well, you see. A manifestation of it in Canada. Trudeau has brought in similar is bringing in has brought in similar legislation. I don't know if it's called. The hate crime. It's almost the same name. But you see, all over. The same thing is happening in Australia. The attempt by. These would be. These tinpot, dictatorial, politicians, to have control of the. What people say in. What people think. Humza Yousaf wanted to criminalize what people were seeing in the privacy of their own homes. So the idea. Was that if Mum and dad were having a conversation in front of the television one evening and said something, if the child inadvertently repeated it in school the. Next day, let's see. My dad said so and so the police could. Come to the house hypothetically and say to the father, what was that you were seeing in this house last night? We've got. You know, your your child's you know. That was that that was the level of it. Serious harms. I mean, that's totally North Korean. I don't even think that happens in North Korea. Actually. He's gone. No, he's. But is he considered I mean, he should be expelled from your country, for doing that in my. But what is he considered a villain? I mean, how could he? That's so evil. Yes, yes you would. You would think. That any rational person would respond to that kind of notion in the same way. But look at the way it's happening all over. It's not just happening in Scotland. It's happening all over. It's part of a it's part of a pattern of behavior of a certain kind of, controlled. Leader. In one Western country after another. You are demonstrably working from the same script. You know, it's no coincidence that all of these Western. Regimes in these countries are taking similar steps at the same time, you know, they're not they're not acting independently of one another. They're not all having these dreadful ideas independently at the same time. You know, this stuff is being is part of the same pattern that we saw during lockdown, where suddenly it was everyone was seeing Build Back Better, everyone was seeing narrow window of opportunity, you know, everyone was saying safe and effective. Clearly centralized success was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. I think we can agree. Yes, absolutely. That was that was a favorite. So but what is that what are we looking at. Who's coming up with these ideas, these talking points. What's the point of it all. Like I don't want to be a conspiracy nut, but I but the level of coordination suggests that there is, you know, some sort of body atop all of this controlling everything. I mean, what else does. It feels as though. I think it's getting harder and harder to overlook what seems like the certainty that we're on the cusp. Of change. Yeah, yeah, a paradigm change. I would say that we're being that we're being headed towards feudalism. You know, most people. For most of 5000 years of human. History, most people pretty. Much live in a self in serfdom. Yeah. In a feudal state, you can, you can you can describe it any way you like. But it's so narrow. Very, very small. Group at the top with everything, with all the castles ownership of everything and everyone else is has been so far beneath them as to be, insect level, and, and treated ingly. You know that that is. What we're going back to. Really up until the 19th century. It was it was the way. Of it for everyone. Everywhere, the we, the we, the kind of way of life that has. Been possible for some of. Us. A relative handful in the scheme of things, a blink of an eye in the in the great story of human civilization. A tiny, tiny lucky group. For a couple of hundred years. In the West were able to live lives of unbelievable. Liberty and opportunity and equality and aspiration. And, you know, if you if you wanted to, you could. You know, you know. Get whatever you were capable of achieving for yourself. Yes. And enough generations have taken that for granted that now it's it has fallen. And people think that, you know, food in the supermarkets, lights on in the dark. You know, police on the street actually care about the people rather than being enforcers for the establishment. They think there's been a misconception that somehow is just in the natural order of things, that society works like that. And just the merest glance. At the rest of the world at the moment never lies. Never mind. 5000 years of. History will show that the possibility of. Living the kind of lives that some of us have been able to live. For a very brief period of time is vanishingly it's impossibly unlikely what we've had. But but too many people have finally been. Taking it for granted, one after another. That. No, that. No, the. No. Those who would. Return us to feudalism. Have saw. The opportunity and have been and have been working towards it, and populations all over the West taking it for granted. Being tolerant, being nice, keeping. Their heads down in return for safety and convenience. Have laid themselves open or not done, not. In a fit state to. Defend themselves against a well, well motivated small group that wants to return the whole thing to some sort of new feudalism. But, I mean, that's not to say it's too late. You know, I don't want to be. I don't want to be completely negative here. I do think it's still possible. I think enough people have realized are realizing all the time. And I would say, I think. Wait a minute. Just one thing. So are you suggesting it sounds like you are, and you probably are, right. But that some kind of feudalism is the natural state of man? Radically hierarchical societies are just natural. Yes. Yes, absolutely. People enslaved. You know slavery. Is is a you know, is a is a is unnatural. State. Of course it just is. You know, it's been it's been a reality for so many, for such a large part of everyone who's ever lived or died. Of course. Through history. But I think, you know, when, when in 2016. You know, when we had Trump. Elected here. And Britain voted Brexit. It's subsequent to that. We've got Covid and goodness knows what all. Trudy said perhaps she wasn't alone, but she was the person that I had to see it. She said those two things were not supposed to happen. They were not in the script. Somebody took their eye off the ball and allowed a figure like Donald Trump to elect in America. That's right. And and for the population of Britain by a narrow margin, but nonetheless by a majority to leave the European Union, Judy said. Everything we've had since has been a sustained punishment. Beaten. Yeah. To put those populations back in their box. So everything that's happened, including the evaporation of your southern border, all of that, all of that that's happened has been. A panicky. Response by that, by a narrow. Group. That saw two things happening off script that were of great significance because it was democratic. You know, that those were popular votes. And now populism is being stamped on all over. All over the world. The tractors, the truckers revolt, a farmers protest all across Europe. All of these things are being mischaracterized by the authorities as far right as extremists as, you know, all of the same, all of the same labels, because in both cases, they. Didn't get what they voted for. I mean, Trump was not able to govern. No. A very effectively. It couldn't build the wall that he promised, was investigated and spied on from, you know, the very first day. And I don't think you guys got Brexit. You voted for Brexit, right? 52%. I think it was 52. Yeah, 52 to 48% in favor of leaving the European Union. And from the moment the ink dried on that decision, the all of the, the powers that be in the establishment, in the civil service, all across the political parties moved heaven and earth to thwart that decision. And so it's been Brexit in name only. But, you know, they've called it because it's no worse. I would say that the situation for for those people that aspired to Brexit. They've got less. Now than they had before the vote happened because they've been so comprehensively punished. And and Brexit has been so eviscerated. The very concept of it has been so hollowed out that the people that wanted that have got less than nothing from it, because it was. Because it was, it was populist. And notice also that in the last 4 or 5 years, people has become a pejorative. How can people use the word democracy to describe a country? Well, we don't that's why I have these, these fundamental problems about we certainly do not have democracy. I wonder when democracy went away, I wonder, I wonder for how long it's been. It's been stunning. Your guess? I really. Oh, gosh. I mean, in my most conspiratorial moments, I think something began to happen all across the West. After the Second World War. Really? From the middle. From the. During the war and after the war, I think the moves. I do not know if it started then, but I think it was a gear shift. Have you been to Tokyo? Have you been to Japan? I have, I have filmed in Tokyo. So then you sort of wonder when you go to Japan if you go from London to Tokyo. There's no evidence that one that the side that one actually won and the side that lost actually lost. Like, if you didn't know the history, you would think, well, obviously Japan won the war. Look at it. Obviously England lost it. Look at England. Yes. What is that? Yes. I mean, there are all sorts of things that are confusing. I'm not a historian, I love history, I'm fascinated by history. My shelves are full of history books, but, I so. How many books have you written or written? 12 or 13. Some what? I think it's fair to call you a historian. Well. But I'm not an academic. I don't write, and I know what I want to be. I never really have had that. It's not in my nature. I'm not really. Anyway. So it means that. I'm unprepared. I'm perfectly happy to. To be at home to, unorthodox ideas about history. Because I don't have any academic papers. I don't have a professorship to defend. Maybe that's why you can see the world clearly. And I. Sometimes wonder if my if I. Have a unique, a USP, you know, a. Unique selling point. I think it may be. That the things I have said over the last few years. Everyone knows they're. True. Yeah. It's just that for whatever reason, I've said them and I've had the I've had the opportunity and the platform from which to see them and, and because I, I just a regular person seeing what every other regular person knows is true. That's my. Show. But we've wandered. We've wandered off. What? I think that's a great that's. You're qualified enough. You're not an Oxford don. But. But what? You've been read about a lot of things. I've got basic questions. About the Second World War. Okay. What? What are they like? Clearly, something important changed in the West in 1935. What was. That? What's very interesting to me is that, you know. Hitler and Stalin got together at the beginning. Yeah, of course of it. And when Poland was invaded, Britain said, we will do whatever it takes to restore freedom and democracy to the people from whom it's been denied. Yeah. Stolen. And then what happened? And then Oliver and then and then, you know, you've only got to read any. Coverage of the Second World War to know that at the end of the Second World War, Poland was left swallowed whole by. Well, they handed it to Stalin. Oh, so so the stated, the stated objectives that the stated. Objective of Britain declaring war. At the time wa