Who Is Titania McGrath? | Andrew Doyle

Chris Williamson 0:00 Twitter cracks and crumbles at our feet as the man behind Titania McGrath, Andrew Doyle, joins me on Modern Wisdom. Let's say that someone hasn't seen the Titania account, how would you describe it?

Andrew Doyle 0:09 I would describe it as a kind of social justice activist who is very humorless, is desperate to be offended, desperate to promote her own victimhood, and is not necessarily stupid, but has, has swallowed this ideology to the extent that they stop being able to think for themselves.

Chris Williamson 0:23 Questions for Titania, how would she answer? Let's see how we get on.

Andrew Doyle 0:27 All right.

Chris Williamson 0:27 Number one, are all cats feminists? Which is the most oppressive vegetable?

Andrew Doyle 0:33 It's like when Little Mix tweeted about the bombing of Syria.

Chris Williamson 0:35 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 0:35 They sent an apology saying that, "Oh, we're so sorry to the people of Syria." Bet the people of Syria were thinking, "Great, at least Little Mix have got our back." Look, I'm not saying these people shouldn't have a, the right to have an opinion. Of course they do, but I don't give a shit what Little Mix think about Syria. We are living in a culture where people are self-censoring out of fear of either what your peers will say, what the people on social media are gonna do to you. You know, in the UK, we have a horrible situation where we have hate speech laws that have led to people being imprisoned for jokes they've written on Facebook.

Chris Williamson 1:04 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Twitter cracks and crumbles at our feet as the man behind Titania McGrath, Andrew Doyle, joins me on Modern Wisdom. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew Doyle 1:13 Such a dramatic opening.

Chris Williamson 1:14 I know.

Andrew Doyle 1:15 Yeah, it's almost apocalyptic. I like it.

Chris Williamson 1:16 It's kind of appropriate though, right?

Andrew Doyle 1:18 Uh, well, I don't know. Like a deus ex machina who've sort of descended from the heavens.

Chris Williamson 1:22 That's exactly why you're here.

Andrew Doyle 1:23 Yeah, I just got the train.

Chris Williamson 1:25 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:25 It's not, it's not as, it's not as exciting.

Chris Williamson 1:27 Yeah, like a phoenix from the ashes.

Andrew Doyle 1:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:30 So how have you been the last few weeks?

Andrew Doyle 1:32 I'm all right. I'm just a bit knackered 'cause I was out with a friend late last night, really late.

Chris Williamson 1:35 Yeah, but-

Andrew Doyle 1:36 Um-

Chris Williamson 1:36 ... fully functioning?

Andrew Doyle 1:37 I'm all right. He gi- he was over from Sweden, so I didn't have a choice, I had to stay.

Chris Williamson 1:40 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:40 Um, but, yeah, I'm, uh, yeah, I'm good, but I've been all over the place. I've been back and forth various places. I'm not a good traveler, I get really tired, so-

Chris Williamson 1:46 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 1:46 ... I, I'm just, yeah. So if I'm a bit frazzled, that's why.

Chris Williamson 1:50 Totally fine.

Andrew Doyle 1:51 And that's good because that means anything I say that's inappropriate, I can blame on my condition.

Chris Williamson 1:55 Fatigue.

Andrew Doyle 1:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:56 100%.

Andrew Doyle 1:56 Yeah. That's good.

Chris Williamson 1:56 100%. Um, so you're Fringing, plus Londoning, and Musing, and tweeting, and doing all this sort of stuff at the moment?

Andrew Doyle 2:03 Yeah, so I've got, the Titania McGrath Show is on, uh, during the Fringe at the moment, but I'm not there most of the time, um, but I've got my own stand-up show which starts on Monday.

Chris Williamson 2:12 Right.

Andrew Doyle 2:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:12 And you've got to look after yourself and look after her, and then somehow look after your online personas as well.

Andrew Doyle 2:18 Yeah. I'm sort of juggling a few things, you know.

Chris Williamson 2:20 Yeah. Spinning plates.

Andrew Doyle 2:21 Um, we're all busy. Everyone's busy. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:22 Not-

Andrew Doyle 2:23 You know?

Chris Williamson 2:23 Not everyone's quite as busy as you, but yeah.

Andrew Doyle 2:25 Well, you know, it's never that.

Chris Williamson 2:26 I know. Um, so can you explain why we're sat here talking about a fictional female character and you juggling Twitter accounts?

Andrew Doyle 2:34 Um, because you invited me, which is very nice.

Chris Williamson 2:38 (laughs) Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 2:39 Um, but also because, well, I- in other words, how have I ended up doing this as a job?

Chris Williamson 2:42 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 2:43 I, I am (laughs) I do ask myself that question. Um, I started the character last year, last April, so sort of about 15 months ago or something. And, um, more just for my own, uh, entertainment, uh, and I wanted to sort of annoy some people on Twitter basically, and, um, it-

Chris Williamson 3:02 Without it being you?

Andrew Doyle 3:03 Without it being me, yeah. I- I was interested... I love, I love the idea of inhabiting a persona. I always like being behind someone else.

Chris Williamson 3:09 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 3:10 Uh, I don't like... Uh, I mean, I don't mind. My, even with the stand-up I do, it's a character really, it's not-

Chris Williamson 3:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 3:15 ... really me, so I l- I like the idea of that distance that you get. Um, but I also thought... I was a big fan of, like, the satirical accounts on Twitter, the, the, the personas, you know, people like the Godfrey Elphick account, um, and, uh, things like that, and I was really into the idea so I thought I'd do it myself. And I spoke to Lisa Graves who co-wrote the Godfrey Elphick account about it.

Chris Williamson 3:34 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 3:34 She's based quite near here, she's based in Hull, actually.

Chris Williamson 3:36 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 3:36 And I spoke to her about, um, about her work with the Godfrey Elphick thing, and I said, "Oh, you know, I've always wanted to do this." And she said, "You should just do it." And encouraged me to do it. She even em- created the, uh, picture for me.

Chris Williamson 3:49 Did she?

Andrew Doyle 3:49 Yeah. And, um-

Chris Williamson 3:50 Nice.

Andrew Doyle 3:50 ... and then, uh, so I just, I just went with it.

Chris Williamson 3:53 When did you start the account?

Andrew Doyle 3:54 April. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:55 April this year?

Andrew Doyle 3:56 Last, April last year.

Chris Williamson 3:57 Oh, 2018?

Andrew Doyle 3:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:58 So is that '18, just now?

Andrew Doyle 3:59 Yeah, and th- and then sh- and then she got banned so often early on, like, my whole point of it was that I was just ge- like, first I decided she was gonna be a slam poet, she was gonna be intersectional feminist, all of that stuff.

Chris Williamson 4:10 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 4:11 She was gonna be massively contradictory, but just completely offended by absolutely everything, um, really privileged, really obviously privileged, but not recognizing her own privilege 'cause she wanted to be a victim, so all the kind of stuff that we recognize. And then, um, I also made that decision early on I wasn't gonna self-censor at all. I think one of the real problems with comedy at the moment is people are, are hedging their bets, they're worried about what they're saying-

Chris Williamson 4:31 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 4:32 ... uh, because they want to be successful. That makes complete sense. Um, I thought, "Well, I'm not. No one knows

Andrew Doyle 4:37 this is me. I can say anything." Some of the early tweets were really vile, actually.

Chris Williamson 4:41 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 4:41 And, um, were really, um, just, just sometimes just provocative for its own sake.

Chris Williamson 4:47 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 4:48 Um, and you won't see them anymore because I had to de- delete them all, um...

Chris Williamson 4:53 Oh, no.

Andrew Doyle 4:53 But what would happen is I'd get a s- I got a couple of one-day bans, then I got a seven-day ban, then I got another seven-day ban, um, and I thought, "Well, you know, the..." And then at one point, it must have been around September, something like that, I don't know, she got k- permanent banned.

Chris Williamson 5:08 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 5:08 So Twitter said, they emailed saying, "You are permanently suspended. You can't come back."

Chris Williamson 5:13 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 5:14 And then there was a big uproar on Twitter, all these sort of prominent people complaining to Twitter.

Chris Williamson 5:18 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 5:18 And then Twitter brought her back again.

Chris Williamson 5:20 'Cause there's a provision on Twitter for satirical accounts, right?

Andrew Doyle 5:25 Yeah, of course, yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:25 Like a protection kind of thing if, as long as you, as long as it's apparent that it is-

Andrew Doyle 5:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:30 ... you can kind of get away with more.

Andrew Doyle 5:31 Right. So their rule is if you, if you've got a parody account, which is a specific mocking of another person, you have to put parody in your bio.

Chris Williamson 5:38 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 5:38 This isn't a parody account, it's a satire account. I'm not, I'm not parodying a particular person.

Chris Williamson 5:42 Oh, okay. Yeah, that's interesting.

Andrew Doyle 5:43 So, um, I'm, uh, and people often don't understand that difference between satire-

Chris Williamson 5:47 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 5:47 ... and parody, so it's a different thing. Um, but there is provision that Twitter ostensibly in their rules say that's okay, you should be allowed to do that.

Chris Williamson 5:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 5:55 Um, but they found some of the language and some of the imagery, I suppose, a bit unpleasant.... and then completely banned her, uh, or they took it literally.

Andrew Doyle 6:03 I don't know.

Chris Williamson 6:03 Can, can you remember what the tweet was that was the full ban? What-

Andrew Doyle 6:06 The full ban was I'd been, uh, she was saying that she was going to a UKIP march to punch people in the name of tolerance.

Chris Williamson 6:12 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 6:12 And that was all it was. And I imagine that was probably just incitement to violence, maybe? I don't know.

Chris Williamson 6:19 I guess so, yeah. Didn't you incite violence against yourself last night?

Andrew Doyle 6:22 Yeah, I did!

Chris Williamson 6:23 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 6:23 Are you following me on Twitter?

Chris Williamson 6:24 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 6:25 Wow. Yeah, I did, 'cause I, I can't remember what I did now. I was drunk. What was it?

Chris Williamson 6:30 So... (laughs) I'll tell you.

Andrew Doyle 6:32 Okay.

Chris Williamson 6:32 The Titania account retweeted your show flyer-

Andrew Doyle 6:36 That's it.

Chris Williamson 6:36 ... and said, um, "This imposter is doing a show in the same, uh, place as me, immediately after me-"

Andrew Doyle 6:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:44 "... at Edinburgh. Um, go see it. Bring milkshakes."

Andrew Doyle 6:48 Ah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I did.

Chris Williamson 6:50 And then you tweeted that saying, "Can I incite violence against myself?"

Andrew Doyle 6:53 Yeah, and then she replied to that.

Chris Williamson 6:55 I didn't see that one.

Andrew Doyle 6:56 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:56 I was a- I was asleep by then.

Andrew Doyle 6:57 I th- I start-

Chris Williamson 6:57 I think you probably should've been asleep.

Andrew Doyle 6:58 I started having a conversation with myself. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 7:01 We all do that, Andrew. It's fine.

Andrew Doyle 7:02 I know. I did that at the time before people knew it was me. I had like-

Chris Williamson 7:06 Would you call her out about-

Andrew Doyle 7:08 No, she called me out on some things. So I, I wa- I-

Chris Williamson 7:10 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 7:10 I was on Sky News, and I, I put out a tweet, a clip of it, and she quote tweeted it saying, "Look at this disgusting straight white male-"

Chris Williamson 7:16 (laughs) .

Andrew Doyle 7:17 "... um, doing this thing." And then I argued back, and I pretended that I didn't realize it was satire.

Chris Williamson 7:24 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 7:24 So I-

Chris Williamson 7:24 So as if it was a real person.

Andrew Doyle 7:26 I argued back saying, "Oh, look, this is really out, out of order." And then loads of people started going to me saying, "This is satire, mate. I can't believe you fell for it."

Chris Williamson 7:32 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 7:32 "You idiot. You utter dickhead." It was really funny, and I kept saying, "Well, it wasn't obviously a joke." And I, so I argued back at them. (sighs) I'm just having a-

Chris Williamson 7:41 There's so many layers-

Andrew Doyle 7:42 It's just fun.

Chris Williamson 7:42 ... that are being built in here. So, when it was very, very first new-

Andrew Doyle 7:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:46 ... did you find it quite cathartic-

Andrew Doyle 7:47 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 7:48 ... having that outlet?

Andrew Doyle 7:49 Exactly. You could just, I just said whatever I want. I still do, but this is the problem is that I, I haven't learned my lesson really.

Chris Williamson 7:55 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 7:56 I, I, I just say whatever I want now. The difference is now if I offend people, they come at me.

Chris Williamson 8:01 Deal with the consequences.

Andrew Doyle 8:02 Yeah, so they all come at me, and I get, I get the sort of dogpiling on Twitter, which I didn't have before because people didn't know who it was.

Chris Williamson 8:08 Lovely anonymity previously.

Andrew Doyle 8:09 Yeah. Uh, so I would've preferred to still be anonymous, to be honest.

Chris Williamson 8:13 So, how did we get from you being this woke social justice warrior alter ego-

Andrew Doyle 8:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:19 ... person to you now being both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and everyone knowing the, the, the truth?

Andrew Doyle 8:25 That was... Okay, so it's a bit of a complicated one. The book was, um, the book came out in March.

Chris Williamson 8:30 Woke, link will be in the show notes below.

Andrew Doyle 8:32 Yeah, please buy that. It's the only reason I'm here.

Chris Williamson 8:35 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 8:35 And, um, the, the book came out in March, and then Rosamund Ehrman from the Sunday Times-

Chris Williamson 8:42 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 8:42 ... wrote an article in the Sunday Times, and what she did, it was actually a really impressive piece of investigative journalism. What she'd done is she'd read my book. She'd read, um, my articles for Spiked Online. She'd worked out that there were some quotations that were similar, and some thematic similarities, and then she decided, she, so she said, "I'm 50% certain it's Andrew Doyle, or it could be Lisa Graves," who ran the Godfrey Elphic account. And there was a picture of me, and there was a picture of Lisa. So she pretty much sum- ba- um, narrowed it down to two.

Chris Williamson 9:09 Uh-huh.

Andrew Doyle 9:09 Lisa had also painted the portrait of Titania that appears on the book inside cover.

Chris Williamson 9:13 Uh-huh.

Andrew Doyle 9:14 But she's credited. So Rosamund Ehrman was saying, "This seems a bit obvious if she's named."

Chris Williamson 9:19 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 9:19 So it was a really good, uh, piece of journalism. Um, she'd phoned friends of mine. She'd, uh... (laughs) Yeah, I found out about this afterwards. She'd g- she'd, uh-

Chris Williamson 9:27 Motherfucker.

Andrew Doyle 9:28 I know, I know. It's proper journalism, isn't it? Um-

Chris Williamson 9:31 That's like, that's like forensic literary-

Andrew Doyle 9:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:34 ... assessment.

Andrew Doyle 9:35 Of a Twitter account. It's quite funny. Um, and then, um-

Chris Williamson 9:37 Unbelievable.

Andrew Doyle 9:38 Good for her, honestly. And then, but the smoking gun came because Chortle found, Steve Bennett at Chortle. I don't know how he did it. There was a, uh, a catalog at a book fair in Frankfurt which had been issued by the publishers, and someone in the publishing house hadn't realized that I was to remain anonymous-

Chris Williamson 9:53 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 9:53 ... and put my name next to the, next to the book, but this was dating months before the book was released. So I don't know, I don't know to this day how he got it. I don't, but I, I must ask him one day. I think it's really interesting.

Chris Williamson 10:04 It's really impressive.

Andrew Doyle 10:05 Uh, it's impressive, yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:06 What was it... So there w- must have been a day or a moment when you woke up and went, "Fuck, the game's up."

Andrew Doyle 10:13 Well, (sighs) yeah. Well, when I read the Sunday Times thing, I thought it'd be quite funny. I interviewed Lisa Graves-

Chris Williamson 10:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 10:20 ... accusing her of being Titania McGrath-

Chris Williamson 10:22 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 10:23 ... as myself.

Chris Williamson 10:23 You sold them a dummy.

Andrew Doyle 10:24 So then I published that interview.

Chris Williamson 10:27 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 10:28 Um, but I never denied it was me. I was very careful with my wording. I've never denied it.

Chris Williamson 10:33 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 10:33 I didn't even deny it to Rosamund Ehm- Ehrman from the Times.

Chris Williamson 10:35 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 10:36 I, I, I, you know... (sighs) There was something about the phrasing when she emailed me and I emailed back. I just, I made sure-

Chris Williamson 10:43 Very particular.

Andrew Doyle 10:43 ... that I wasn't lying.

Chris Williamson 10:44 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 10:45 Um, and then, um, but then when the Chortle thing came out, I thought, "Well..." 'Cause I'd already turned down, I'd been offered interviews and things. They'd gone to the PR person at the, at the publisher saying, "Could we interview whoever is behind Titania-"

Chris Williamson 10:56 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 10:56 "... as him or her?"

Chris Williamson 10:58 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 10:58 And I refused those.

Chris Williamson 10:59 Mm.

Andrew Doyle 10:59 And then so when this came out, I thought, "I might as well do all these interviews now."

Chris Williamson 11:02 Just doubled down on it.

Andrew Doyle 11:03 And that's when I did the Piers Morgan stuff and other interviews and things, because actually, it happened the week the book was out.

Chris Williamson 11:08 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 11:08 It really boosted it.

Chris Williamson 11:09 Oh, did it?

Andrew Doyle 11:09 It was, it was hugely helpful, to the extent that it looks like I calculated the whole thing.

Chris Williamson 11:13 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 11:13 But I'm not that Machiavellian.

Chris Williamson 11:14 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 11:15 I didn't... Like, things just happen like that.

Chris Williamson 11:16 Yeah, they do.

Andrew Doyle 11:17 You know?

Chris Williamson 11:17 Serendipity works weirdly like that, I guess.

Andrew Doyle 11:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:19 So, let's say that someone hasn't seen the Titania account.

Andrew Doyle 11:22 Okay.

Chris Williamson 11:22 How would you describe it?

Andrew Doyle 11:23 I would describe it as, uh, the kind of social justice activist who, uh, is very humorless, uh, is desperate to be offended, desperate to promote her own victimhood, um, and is not necessarily stupid, but is, uh, uh, but has, uh, swallowed this ideology wholesale to the extent that they, they, they've stopped being able to think for themselves.

Chris Williamson 11:44 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 11:45 And it's like any ideology, isn't it? If you just follow a h- an ideology without, without questioning any of its tenets-

Chris Williamson 11:50 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 11:51 ... you end up basically mindless. You end up just like a zombie, like a kind of religious zealot.

Chris Williamson 11:57 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 11:57 And that's what I wanted to... So I'm not saying... A lot of the p- a lot of the smartest people I know have bought into this cult of identity politics, and they end up saying really, really stupid things.

Chris Williamson 12:08 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 12:09 ... it's, I saw it the other day, actually. I was reading The New Yorker review of the new Quentin Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and there's a guy in The New Yorker who is obviously extremely bright, obviously. Uh, but the review, in the review, he says genuinely stupid things because he's, he's seeing it through the prism of identity politics. He actually says at one point, "It's a ridiculously white film," which is not a serious criticism you can level at a film.

Chris Williamson 12:31 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 12:31 You know, it's, it's, it's really dumb. They did it with Dunkirk, when Dunkirk came out, the Christopher Nolan film, and more than one critic, three, three or four, made the point that, uh, oh, the, the representation of people of color, there's not sufficient representation. It's like, if that's all you can do, if you watch that film and that's all you come out with, uh, how many boxes is it ticking?

Chris Williamson 12:49 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 12:50 You know, if that's all you can come up with, then to be honest, you're not really a critic at all.

Chris Williamson 12:53 No.

Andrew Doyle 12:54 You're, you're just an ideologue.

Chris Williamson 12:55 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 12:56 Um, uh, you know, ar- artists don't make choices on the basis of representation and what they feel they're feeding out to society in that way. M- real artists don't.

Chris Williamson 13:04 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 13:04 They care about the work and the integrity of the work. Um, and the, and also, this latest film by Tarantino, so much of the coverage has been his treatment of women, you know, the fact that Sharon Tate, in the film, doesn't speak very often.

Chris Williamson 13:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 13:15 This is the man who produced Death Proof, which is an overtly feminist film, as far as I can see.

Chris Williamson 13:18 Kill Bill.

Andrew Doyle 13:19 Kill Bill, both parts, Jackie Brown, which is his best film, uh, which is, uh, an incredible, um, um, characterization of this, of this, uh, l- you know, older, middle-aged Black woman-

Chris Williamson 13:31 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 13:31 ... in a, in America. Pam Grier is fantastic in that film, and he, you know, sh- he sort of brought her back to the publish- public consciousness. The idea that he's, he's not, he's not great at the representation of women is, is, is absurd actually. I think part of it is, it, it started with The Hateful Eight, didn't it? Because there was... The treatment of the Daisy Domergue character was so violent, that she'd been continually punched, um, but he hates all his characters. Mark Kermode pointed this out. He has complete contempt for all of his characters.

Chris Williamson 13:56 He does.

Andrew Doyle 13:56 He doesn't care about them.

Chris Williamson 13:57 No one ca- no one else cares for him, no.

Andrew Doyle 13:58 No.

Chris Williamson 13:58 You're totally right.

Andrew Doyle 13:59 So, like, why are we, why are we seeing artworks through w- it, it just means you, you can't, you can't... You're not judging things on their own merits anymore.

Chris Williamson 14:07 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 14:09 Uh, and it's a real shame

Andrew Doyle 14:10 actually.

Chris Williamson 14:10 Yeah. I agree. One of the things that's interesting, so for me, I'm not massively political. I'm a red-blooded capitalist, and have worked for myself as a sovereign individual since I was, like, 18.

Andrew Doyle 14:20 Okay.

Chris Williamson 14:21 So my, um, exposure to the world of politics is very, very, uh, focused on myself.

Andrew Doyle 14:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:30 Uh, my vote, if I was to vote, which I haven't in any of... I've never voted once.

Andrew Doyle 14:35 Really?

Chris Williamson 14:35 N- no. Never once, as an educated guy. I've always been away on holiday-

Andrew Doyle 14:39 Outrageous.

Chris Williamson 14:39 ... or I'm busy with work or doing whatever it is. But if I was to vote, one of the first things that would come up would be, how does this affect my interests?

Andrew Doyle 14:46 Okay. Okay.

Chris Williamson 14:47 And there was a-

Andrew Doyle 14:48 You're a capitalist. Fine. So you are political.

Chris Williamson 14:50 Okay. Fair enough.

Andrew Doyle 14:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:51 Yeah.

Narrator 14:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:52 Perfect. Um, you tweeted an article, which I read earlier on, which has really broken down a lot of the things I wish that I could understand (laughs) . Uh, Bridget Phetasy?

Andrew Doyle 15:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:00 Um, and it's called The Battle Cry of the Politically Homeless, and what she says is that people who don't have extremist views on either sides of the spectrum-

Andrew Doyle 15:10 Yes.

Chris Williamson 15:10 ... or people who just aren't bothered about politics kind of get lambasted as being these wasteful vote... What is it? A cook-servative.

Andrew Doyle 15:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:19 Um, uh, and a, a waste of a vote, and then on top of that, anyone who is but is moderate-

Andrew Doyle 15:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:24 ... anyone who has a slightly nuanced view-

Andrew Doyle 15:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:26 ... just gets sort of thrown to the wayside. And I think that with Titania, what you're identifying is that the people who are the absolute extremes-

Andrew Doyle 15:34 Yeah. Exactly.

Chris Williamson 15:35 ... that's, it is funny for that reason, that people can identify, well, most people, the vast majority of people-

Andrew Doyle 15:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:40 ... can't identify with them at all.

Andrew Doyle 15:42 Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the, um... I only read that article this morning, but I think it's a great article.

Chris Williamson 15:45 Amazing.

Andrew Doyle 15:46 She's brilliant. She's an American comic, uh, who has had a lot of flack for just being honest about her opinions. Uh, and her opinions, as far as I can see, are not particularly controversial, you know. Um, nevertheless, um, yeah, she's talking about that idea that there's an expectation now that you should be politicized. Taylor Swift got one. Do you remember she got so much flack for not condemning Trump, you know?

Chris Williamson 16:04 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 16:04 And it's like, "Taylor Swift's silence is deafening," it's like, I don't need to know Taylor Swift's opinion-

Chris Williamson 16:09 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 16:09 ... on politics frankly.

Chris Williamson 16:10 I'm not turning to s- to Taylor Swift for political advice.

Andrew Doyle 16:12 It's like when Little Mix tweeted about the bombing of Syria.

Chris Williamson 16:15 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 16:16 They sent an apology saying to, "Oh, we're so sorry to the people of Syria." I, I bet the people of Syria were thinking, "Great. Thank God, at least Little Mix have got our back."

Chris Williamson 16:25 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 16:25 Well, I don't give a... Look, I'm not saying these people shouldn't have a, the right to have an opinion. Of course they do, but I don't give a shit what Sy- what Little Mix think about Syria.

Chris Williamson 16:31 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 16:32 That's not their, like, that's not their expertise, is it? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 16:35 No. Not at all.

Andrew Doyle 16:36 Um, (laughs) so anyway, uh, yeah. So this is expectation, but also what, what Bridget's talking about in that article is the way in which, um, actually, because if you express an honest opinion and then you get this kind of barrage of hatred off the back of it, it means that people are becoming nervous about just being honest. So you, the, the, the, the discourse is dominated by the extremes. So you have the, the woke left who, who are really myopic and just,

Andrew Doyle 17:00 uh, cannot see beyond their own very narrow, sort of, parameters. And if you step outside that, particularly if you come from the left, like I do, and you step outside it just a little bit, you are the most, you're the persona non grata. You're the, you're the one they attack.

Chris Williamson 17:13 Pushed straight down the hill.

Andrew Doyle 17:14 Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, and, and so s- people who have moderate views, people who just want to have a discussion about some of these difficult issues, they want to address the nuance of, say, the trans debate.

Chris Williamson 17:26 (clears throat)

Andrew Doyle 17:26 Um, they will just be, uh, lambasted as bigots. But the big irony with this is, these people don't know what the word bigot means. I mean, the definition of bigot is someone who is incapable or, or completely intolerant of anyone else's opinion, someone who has a different opinion.

Chris Williamson 17:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 17:41 But they, the people... So nine times out of 10, anyone who calls you a bigot is normally the bigot.

Chris Williamson 17:45 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 17:45 Because what they're saying is, "Your opinion shouldn't be allowed."

Chris Williamson 17:48 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 17:49 Uh, it shouldn't, you know, we shouldn't have to, it shouldn't be tolerated. So yeah, it's a real problem. Bridget's been on the receiving end of it. Um, a, a lot of us have now, and of course, what happens as well is, if you express an opinion that isn't within that Overton window of acceptable thought, um, people just say, "Well, you're being dishonest. You're being a provocateur. You're being a shock jock." Because it's a kind of narcissistic world view that, "I can't believe that someone else would have a different view than me, therefore this must be a lie."

Chris Williamson 18:16 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 18:16 Right? So, I mean, my, my, my...... I suppose my guiding principle, uh, is just to tell the truth, say what I think-

Chris Williamson 18:25 Yes.

Andrew Doyle 18:25 ... uh, and see what happens, right?

Chris Williamson 18:28 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 18:28 And I, if everyone did that, can you imagine? We'd be in a-

Chris Williamson 18:30 It would be cool.

Andrew Doyle 18:31 ... we'd be in a much better position, wouldn't we?

Chris Williamson 18:32 Yeah. Well, th- th- you know, Jordan Peterson, who is a, a fan favorite of the show, um, he, his first rule, tell the truth, or at least do not lie.

Andrew Doyle 18:42 He makes a point in his book a- about this actually, that it's actually very self-destructive to be dishonest.

Chris Williamson 18:47 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 18:47 Uh, and when I read that, it really chimed with me. I think that's absolutely right. The, the, you're hurting yourself-

Chris Williamson 18:52 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 18:52 ... if you're, if you're dishonest. Um, and he also makes the point that absolutely there are times when lying is actually the compassionate thing to do, right?

Chris Williamson 18:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 18:59 Fine. Um, but actually there's a way to do just evading the truth, as in you don't have to-

Chris Williamson 19:03 Lies of omission, not lies of commission.

Andrew Doyle 19:06 Yeah, yeah. If, if it's for a compassionate reason-

Chris Williamson 19:08 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 19:08 ... that make, that makes sense to me. Um, but I think when it comes to just expressing your opinions and views, it's all about respecting people enough to tell them the truth. As in I, I, I can respect you, I can say something that I think you might disagree with, because I respect you enough as a human being not to, that I assume you're not gonna start throwing things and call me a Nazi, right?

Chris Williamson 19:27 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 19:27 You're gonna have a debate and you're gonna have a discussion.

Chris Williamson 19:29 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 19:29 It's actually really disrespectful to say what you think the popular viewpoint is, uh, just for the sake of other people's, uh, um, sensibilities.

Chris Williamson 19:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 19:38 That's actually very disrespectful to them because you're patronizing them.

Chris Williamson 19:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 19:41 You're infantilizing them. You're saying that you wouldn't be able to cope with dissent.

Chris Williamson 19:44 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 19:44 You know, it's a bit like being at school. You know, when you're at school, like, it's a particular thing with boys at school is that you won't say an opinion unless you're sure everyone else agrees, right?

Chris Williamson 19:52 Holds it. Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 19:52 Right? Uh, and sometimes you're, you're, you, this happens to me all the time. You must have happened to you, like when you were a kid and someone said something and everyone was like, "Oh no, we don't think that, do we?"

Chris Williamson 20:00 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 20:01 And then it's like, "Oh, no, I didn't mean that."

Chris Williamson 20:02 Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, yeah.

Andrew Doyle 20:04 I actually saw a stand-up doing a bit about this this year, where he's talking about he, when, when a, a, a situation arises in the news and he, he offers an opinion a bit too early when it's not formed, and then he's like, "Oh no, can I take that back?" Right?

Chris Williamson 20:16 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 20:16 And which is what teenagers do. This isn't a teenage act, by the way, but it, but that's what teenagers do, and it's that thing of, well, actually, we'd all be better off being honest. It'd be, it, it... We'd know who we were voting for. We'd know what people think and we'd know where we stand.

Chris Williamson 20:29 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 20:29 We'd have our views challenged. There's all sorts of reasons, uh, why honesty is a good thing. But no matter how many times I say that, it doesn't matter. People just say, "Yeah, you're lying. You're just lying because you want to cause trouble or whatever." And, and that's really sad.

Chris Williamson 20:40 I know. Anyone who wants to read a very good short book on lying, Sam Harris's Lying, one hour, one-hour read.

Andrew Doyle 20:47 Okay, I haven't read that.

Chris Williamson 20:48 And it is a one-hour justification for why you should never lie.

Andrew Doyle 20:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:51 Um, and it's absolutely great. Highly, highly recommended. Will be linked in the show notes below.

Andrew Doyle 20:55 But I get it. I keep getting messages from people saying, "I really like what you're doing. I can't tweet about it." Honestly, I, I had one the other day from quite a prominent actor saying, "I really, really like..." He, he saw the show actually. He said, "I really like the Titania show. I can't tweet about it 'cause I can't be bothered with the backlash. I don't want to face the backlash."

Chris Williamson 21:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 21:14 So I sympathize with that. Why should there... But, you know, why should there be a backlash for expressing an opinion?

Chris Williamson 21:19 Well, she... Bridget mentions in the article, which is the, the best way I've seen to put it, that, um, people aren't voting out of habit or for their own interests. It's now a comment on your personal identity-

Andrew Doyle 21:30 Right.

Chris Williamson 21:30 ... and worth.

Andrew Doyle 21:31 Quite so. Let's take the Brexit vote, where the, the media reduced it to Leave equals bad, uh, Remain equals good. Not just the media, but sort of the people in the sort of very middle class circles. That, that's how they reduced it. Leave equals racist, Remain equals...

Chris Williamson 21:48 Compassionate.

Andrew Doyle 21:49 Yeah, and non-racist. Okay?

Chris Williamson 21:51 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 21:51 It's a lie that everyone bought into. It's pathetic. Um, and it's the, it's that-

Chris Williamson 21:56 Have we still left?

Andrew Doyle 21:58 Well, we haven't left.

Chris Williamson 21:58 Well, okay.

Andrew Doyle 21:59 It's that, it's that, it's that reductive thing-

Chris Williamson 22:01 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 22:01 ... of reducing actually a very complicated, nuanced political question to an easy, uh, shortcut, you know?

Chris Williamson 22:08 Why do you think that people are doing that at the moment? Why are people reducing down difficult discussions to these real tweet length?

Andrew Doyle 22:15 There's a good psychological reason. There's a thing called the cognitive miser model, which means that you, you instinctively, uh, try and find the easiest train of thought. Your mind, that, you'll, you'll always go for the easiest. It actually takes a bit of effort, uh, to think about things. Um, if, if you've got this situation, for instance, with the Brexit vote, and you can just say, "Well, that side's good and that side's evil," well, it's easy, it's an easy choice to make. Otherwise you have to start understanding the issues.

Chris Williamson 22:38 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 22:38 It's a whole lot harder.

Chris Williamson 22:39 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 22:40 I get that. Um, and, uh, yeah, it's started, it's happened a lot. It happened with Trump, uh, it's happening now with, with, uh, with Boris Johnson. So there's gonna be... It's the same thing again. It's are you a good person? And this is why the polls never work anymore. This is why no one predicted Trump, no one predicted Brexit. It never works, because people have their opinions. They have, they have two sets of opinions. They've got the opinions that they actually feel-

Chris Williamson 23:03 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 23:03 ... and they've got the opinions that they know they can express in public.

Chris Williamson 23:05 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 23:06 Right? And those two are no longer the same.

Chris Williamson 23:08 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 23:08 It used to be the case that they were the same. I remember talking to an old trade unionist about this. He was saying that, "You know, we used to be able to talk to, like, some of the miners and everything, uh, about..." And they would be really homophobic. They'd say like, uh, you know, they hate fags and all this sort of... They wouldn't use fags. They'd say queers back then when they were faggots.

Chris Williamson 23:22 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 23:23 Um, but, you know, but they were right on all these other issues. And rather than baulk at that and say, "Oh, well, you're obviously a fascist. I won't talk to you about anything."

Chris Williamson 23:30 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 23:31 Uh, this guy was saying, "Well, what I'd say to them is, 'Well, okay, you're right about these social issues and these economic issues, so can we now talk about your issues about sexuality?'" And, and, and then it became a discussion, and then people changed their minds.

Chris Williamson 23:42 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 23:42 And that was the, that was a great thing to happen, right?

Chris Williamson 23:45 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 23:45 But now if, say for instance, you've got one opinion that is not acceptable. Say you are, uh, anti-abortion, right? So that, for, for many leftists, is, like, one of the, the sins.

Chris Williamson 23:57 Cardinal sin.

Andrew Doyle 23:58 Right? So if you're in that, then, then suddenly we, we write off you, we write you off completely.

Chris Williamson 24:02 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 24:03 So even if we agree on other things, it doesn't matter anymore. You're now the bad person. You're now an evil person. Um, it's really unsophisticated.

Chris Williamson 24:10 Yeah, it is.

Andrew Doyle 24:10 And, and it's, and it's perfectly... This is why I end up agreeing with people who on the whole I can't, I don't agree with on anything.

Chris Williamson 24:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 24:16 Um, and for instance, um...... let's take the free speech question, you know. So I am not a nationalist. I would never vote UKIP on the basis that it's a nationalist party and I'm not a nationalist. So fundamentally, I, I don't have anything in common with them.

Chris Williamson 24:32 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 24:32 Um, but they're right about free speech, right? So they, they, they recognize that there's a problem with free speech. The Labour Party and the Tory Party are both against free speech. Both of them are for hate speech laws, for instance. Uh, the Labour Party want to push, uh, more press regulation if at all possible. Uh, Theresa May is one of the worst when it comes to free speech. I mean, she, uh, she sent... Uh, she denied Tyler, The Creator en- entrance to the UK on the basis of a rap he'd done, right? Which was great, 'cause then he did an anti-Theresa May rap, which sounds really surreal. People forget about that, but that did, that did actually happen.

Chris Williamson 25:03 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 25:03 I didn't dream that. Um, so when you've got the two major parties who are anti-free speech, you, you've got to be able to say, "This other party that I have nothing in common with, that actually I can't really stand-"

Chris Williamson 25:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 25:14 "... um, I, I am... They are right about that." But you say that and then all of a sudden, "Oh, you're a UKIP supporter, uh." No, I'm not. I haven't voted for them,

Andrew Doyle 25:22 never would.

Chris Williamson 25:22 Like this tiny little sliver-

Andrew Doyle 25:23 They're correct about that.

Chris Williamson 25:24 ... of what they're saying.

Andrew Doyle 25:25 No one gets their own principles, right? So a principle is either right or it's wrong.

Chris Williamson 25:29 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 25:29 Okay? So you, you should be able to say, "I, I don't approve of anything that person says or does, but on that they're right."

Chris Williamson 25:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 25:39 Because they don't own the principle.

Chris Williamson 25:40 There's no more room for nuance or-

Andrew Doyle 25:42 No, not at all.

Chris Williamson 25:43 ... certainty in discussions, no. So (clears throat) the thing that keeps coming back to me... And again, I'm probably a good avatar for the layperson when it comes to seeing these things, right?

Andrew Doyle 25:50 Yes.

Chris Williamson 25:50 Because I'm not embroiled in them and it's, it's not-

Andrew Doyle 25:53 Good for you.

Chris Williamson 25:53 I know (laughs) . It must feel like it would be heaven for you, right? Um, looking from the outside in-

Andrew Doyle 25:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:59 ... people who are getting upset at the fact-

Andrew Doyle 26:02 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 26:02 ... that you're making comedy at these situations, to me-

Andrew Doyle 26:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:04 ... that is potentially the most shocking thing of all, because Armando Iannucci must be itching his scripts to have a go at Brexit and Boris Johnson with another season of The Thick Of It. And there must be... You know, there must... It is the-

Andrew Doyle 26:17 I think he said he could never do The Thick Of It again. There was an article a couple years ago, because of, because he says things have got too surreal.

Chris Williamson 26:23 Well, yeah, there we go. But do you... You know what I mean? Like, to me it looks like the perfect breeding ground. The current political climate is the perfect breeding ground for some comedy and some satire.

Andrew Doyle 26:32 Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. It's, it's ideal. Um, p- people often say that to me, it's like, "Isn't it hard to satirize?" Like people like Trump who, who is self-satirizing. The funniest things said about Trump are by himself, right?

Chris Williamson 26:44 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 26:44 They're on his Twitter feed.

Chris Williamson 26:45 (laughs) Yeah, you're right.

Andrew Doyle 26:46 You know, I mean, um, two days ago with, uh, Tlaib, you know, the, the thing about Rashida Tlaib, who'd, um, who writes... Sorry, I'm talking politics again, but she-

Chris Williamson 26:53 It's fine, fair enough.

Andrew Doyle 26:54 ... she'd asked, um, to go to Israel to visit her 90-year-old grandmother on humanitarian grounds. And Israel had denied her entry un-... Because she was likely to criticize the Israeli government.

Chris Williamson 27:05 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 27:05 Um, and she said, she said in a letter, "I won't mention poli- I won't criticize you, I just want to see my grandmother." They came back saying, "Okay." And then she was like, "Oh, this is disgusting. I'm not going there because they're demanding that I say certain things." It was a total political move. But then Trump tweeted about it saying, "Well, the only winner in this situation is her grandmother who won't have to see it."

Chris Williamson 27:24 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 27:24 Let's be honest, that's a funny tweet. Now, look, I don't support Trump and I'm also kind of... I'm old-fashioned about politici-... I don't want my politician to be funny.

Chris Williamson 27:33 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 27:34 I want them to be serious 'cause it's a serious job.

Chris Williamson 27:36 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 27:36 But I can look at that and say that's funny. I can look at that and say, "That's a funny tweet. He has a point, even though I don't like most of what he stands for."

Chris Williamson 27:43 Wish I'd written it.

Andrew Doyle 27:44 Yeah, there we go. That's not that good.

Chris Williamson 27:46 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 27:46 It's... But, but it's-

Chris Williamson 27:47 Very good, yeah.

Andrew Doyle 27:47 It's funnier because it's the President.

Chris Williamson 27:49 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 27:49 There is something funny about the idea of the President of the United States calling Kim Jong Un fat. That's funny (laughs) because it should never happen.

Chris Williamson 27:57 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 27:57 It's also scary-

Chris Williamson 27:58 Terrifying.

Andrew Doyle 27:58 ... because they're both nuclear powers.

Chris Williamson 28:00 Terrible.

Andrew Doyle 28:00 (laughs) You know, so the, the stakes are pretty high.

Chris Williamson 28:02 They have a button. Both of them have got a button.

Andrew Doyle 28:03 Yeah, stake... Well, yeah, stakes are pretty high there. Um, so again, I should reiterate, I'm not supportive of it. I wish he didn't do it-

Chris Williamson 28:09 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 28:10 ... but I also look at it and laugh. What are you gonna do?

Chris Williamson 28:14 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 28:14 Laughter is an involuntary response, isn't it? I don't calculate like, like the woke set seem to be able to do.

Chris Williamson 28:18 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 28:18 I mean, the w- the woke idea is that you, you look... You hear a joke, you think about it, you assess who are the marginalized groups? Is it punching up? Is it punching down? Uh, can I laugh at that? Yes. Good. Emit laughter.

Chris Williamson 28:30 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 28:30 They see it as this kind of transaction, right? That's not how it works. Sometimes I laugh at the most horrible, inappropriate things because they are horrible and inappropriate.

Chris Williamson 28:37 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 28:37 'Cause that sort of stuff reminds us why we don't talk about those things. You can see a Jerry Sadoway show, you know, and, and good luck watching a Jerry Sadoway show and not being offended at some point.

Chris Williamson 28:45 Yeah. Everyone's gonna get offended.

Andrew Doyle 28:46 He's gonna offend you at some point. There's gonna be a moment where you think-

Chris Williamson 28:50 (sniffs)

Andrew Doyle 28:50 ... "That's, that's too much."

Chris Williamson 28:51 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 28:51 "You shouldn't do that." Um, and that's part... There's something quite exhilarating about that.

Chris Williamson 28:55 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 28:56 You know? You can be offended and laugh at it. Happens to me all the time. I'm quite sensitive, I get offended really easily. But it's my problem.

Chris Williamson 29:03 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 29:03 It's basically.

Chris Williamson 29:04 Yeah. That's funny.

Chris Williamson 29:06 Um, one of the things that I've been thinking about when seeing the way that... We recently had Zuby on the show.

Andrew Doyle 29:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:11 Um, because of this weird game playing-

Andrew Doyle 29:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:16 ... that the left's done with, uh, language and social constructs and things like that.

Andrew Doyle 29:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:22 To me, what it appears to have allowed are very clever people to game that system-

Andrew Doyle 29:28 Right.

Chris Williamson 29:29 ... and Zuby's tweet about, um, breaking the woman's deadlift record-

Andrew Doyle 29:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:34 ... "PS I identified as a woman, don't be a bigot."

Andrew Doyle 29:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:36 That is a perfect example of re-gaming this... The, the little gaps that have been created-

Andrew Doyle 29:42 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:42 ... by the left in that.

Andrew Doyle 29:43 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:44 Is that one of the, one of the things that you think that, um, is helping us to identify where there's inconsistencies within their views and stuff like that?

Andrew Doyle 29:52 I think ridicule is what does it best of all.

Chris Williamson 29:54 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 29:54 And, and, and part of the way you do that is you take on board their language.

Chris Williamson 29:57 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 29:57 The problem with that is you find yourself tempted to play their... them by their rules. So when they talk about privilege and all of th-... I've seen this happen a lot. When there's an argument about privilege, and they often throw out this idea of white privilege, this blanket idea that if you're white, you are inherently privileged, which of course is not true. Uh, some white people are privileged, some aren't-

Chris Williamson 30:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 30:14 ... right? In all sorts of ways. There's all kinds of ways you can be privileged, right? It's not just to do with race, ethnicity and sexuality. Um, but yeah, so you end up with a situation where, um...... people buy into the victimhood thing, and they'll say, "Okay. I've been accused of being privileged, so how can I come back and say, 'Actually, you know, I, I went to a rough school. I we- grew up on an estate. I did..." Righty, righty, right? And then you're getting into this com- You're playing their rules-

Chris Williamson 30:37 Yes.

Andrew Doyle 30:38 ... back at them, and that's probably not healthy, you know?

Chris Williamson 30:40 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 30:41 You can do it. Like, you can... And when they fall foul of their own rules, which they often do, right? Did you see the, the Democrat conference in America where someone made a point of personal privilege, yeah?

Chris Williamson 30:51 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 30:51 And the point of personal privilege w- was, "Guys, can you just keep the voi- noise down? Because I'm very sensitive, I get sensory overload and I get triggered." Then someone said, "Point of personal privilege back to that point of personal privilege. Uh, don't say 'guys.' That's gendered language, I'm really offended by that. Don't do that." So you have people calling out each other's calling out. It's like this endless inception of wokeness, right?

Chris Williamson 31:12 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 31:12 So, so we could do that too. So we c- we could, we could point out where they are being triggering. I mean, let's, let's take an example. Most of the, the woke lot-

Chris Williamson 31:19 (clears throat)

Andrew Doyle 31:19 ... who are really anti-Brexit tend to be incredibly ageist. They're basically saying, "We can't wait for the old people to die. Old people have-"

Chris Williamson 31:27 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 31:27 "... fucked over the country. They're basically evil." It's like, are you kidding? You're, you know... You're the person who goes on all the time about being sensitive and, and, uh, you know... And surely what... Ageism is part of that, isn't it? Or is that just your blind spot? So then if we call them out for ageism, we become part of that game.

Chris Williamson 31:45 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 31:45 So I, sort of, refuse to play the

Andrew Doyle 31:47 game.

Chris Williamson 31:47 So that's, that's something that I've been... I've got written down here as something that I totally can't work out, but you're gonna help me do.

Andrew Doyle 31:53 Okay.

Chris Williamson 31:53 You may have been in a relationship, but a lot of listeners will have been, where your partner brings up a particular issue.

Andrew Doyle 32:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:00 You don't care about this issue.

Andrew Doyle 32:01 Okay.

Chris Williamson 32:02 That you spoke to that girl, or, um, you didn't reply in time, or you're, you were late, or something like that.

Andrew Doyle 32:10 Yes.

Chris Williamson 32:10 And that's not an issue that you usually would do, but they set a precedent by doing that.

Andrew Doyle 32:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:15 And then what you find yourself doing, next time that something happens that you find them culpable for that same thing for-

Andrew Doyle 32:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:22 ... is you go, "Hang on a second, are you talking to that guy?"

Andrew Doyle 32:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:25 "I didn't care, and I still don't care, but I'm going to use the opportunity to identify your inconsistency-"

Andrew Doyle 32:31 Okay. Yeah, that's fine.

Chris Williamson 32:31 "... straight off the bat."

Andrew Doyle 32:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:32 And that push and pull-

Andrew Doyle 32:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:34 ... that happens in relationships, I think is very similar to what's happening here.

Andrew Doyle 32:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:39 And I almost think that looking at the way that the left has, kind of, adopted this... The way that, uh, Andy Ngo was assaulted in the street-

Andrew Doyle 32:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:47 ... and they're taking bike lots around and throwing milkshakes at people. You know, that would have been a characteristic of the right previously.

Andrew Doyle 32:54 Oh, absolutely.

Chris Williamson 32:55 A very aggressive approach.

Andrew Doyle 32:56 Right.

Chris Williamson 32:56 And it's almost like they're, um, absorbing, taking on that persona, that push and pull thing. And then you think well, hang on a second. If you keep on doing that as the left and throwing bike locks around, there are some people on the right who have got very, very large guns.

Andrew Doyle 33:11 Right. Exactly. Well, there's two, there's two, sort of, points there, I think. I think one of them is, is... Well, actually, not just the left that do it. Of course, the right do it as well. We saw that with the Jo Brand case. You know, when Jo Brand made the joke about throwing battery acid at Nigel Farage-

Chris Williamson 33:22 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 33:23 ... which was obviously a joke, uh, whether you found it funny or not.

Chris Williamson 33:25 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 33:26 That's irrelevant. Um, but it was mostly people on the right saying she should be arrested for that, or she should be investigated by the police. All the same people who complain about the very authoritarian treatment of comedy on the whole, right?

Chris Williamson 33:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 33:38 And people who compl- who, who you say that free speech is under threat, and then all of a sudden they're the people saying, "Actually no, but Jo Brand should be in- investigated 'cause that's the inciting violence." No, you've got to be consistent in your principles.

Chris Williamson 33:49 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 33:50 Either left or right. That's really, really important, because it means y- your own principles will get undermined. Um, the other point about Antifa, which, uh, the, the group... The anti-fascist group. Now I, for one, mistrust anyone who identifies as anti-fascist. Let's... Let me just say that, because for a start I assume everyone is, right? My assumption of you will be that you're not a fascist, yeah?

Chris Williamson 34:09 (laughs) Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 34:09 It's a fair assumption, right?

Chris Williamson 34:10 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 34:10 Okay. Um, I will assume that of everyone until I hear extraordinary evidence to the contrary. If I find the evidence, fine.

Chris Williamson 34:18 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 34:18 But, but we have to assu-... Because

Andrew Doyle 34:20 there's hardly any fascists out there, so the assumption-

Chris Williamson 34:21 It's like being an anti-dog shagger.

Andrew Doyle 34:23 Yeah, exactly, exactly. You don't declare that, do you?

Chris Williamson 34:25 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 34:26 You don't declare that you don't have a predilection to penetrate livestock, do you?

Chris Williamson 34:30 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 34:30 Do you? I don't know.

Chris Williamson 34:31 No. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 34:31 And I wouldn't assume that you would have.

Chris Williamson 34:34 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 34:35 You know? Although now we're talking about it, my suspicions are... No, you see... But look... And I see it on Twitter all the time, "Anti-fa-..." "Proud anti-fascist." Like, you don't need to tell me that.

Chris Williamson 34:42 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 34:43 And it makes me suspicious, right? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 34:44 Mm-hmm. What you're projecting about.

Andrew Doyle 34:45 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 34:46 It's the same as the, the people who... There's a statistic somewhere that Yousef, one of the co-hosts of the show has put out.

Andrew Doyle 34:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:51 People that are very, very, sort of, vitriolic about, um, being against gays-

Andrew Doyle 34:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 34:56 ... are the ones that are most aroused when they see, like-

Andrew Doyle 34:58 Yeah, there's been studies into that.

Chris Williamson 35:00 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 35:00 There's been studies. I mean, they, they literally measured the extent of people's arousal-

Chris Williamson 35:04 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 35:04 ... you know, to... Like, how hard they got, basically.

Chris Williamson 35:06 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 35:07 On the b- And, and it tended to be when, when the, the most overtly homophobic people watched gay porn.

Chris Williamson 35:14 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 35:14 It's so... It's... But it's such a no-brainer.

Chris Williamson 35:16 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 35:16 Of course it is, because why would you care?

Chris Williamson 35:17 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 35:18 Why would you care who people have sex with?

Chris Williamson 35:19 Unless there's something lurking in the back of-

Andrew Doyle 35:22 Yeah. Yeah. It's pre- It's, it's... You know. I mean, the data's in on that one.

Chris Williamson 35:25 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 35:25 And it's not surprising. Um, but the point about Antifa... Yeah. Antifa effectively end up behaving like, uh, fascists, don't they? They end up behaving like-

Chris Williamson 35:32 That's the, that's the thing that's so funny about it.

Andrew Doyle 35:34 Yeah. Like, anyone who seeks to silence someone through violence is, is a- at the very least employing a tactic that the fascists also employed. So, you know, I'd probably stop sh- short of calling them actual fascists. I think fascists has a very specific historical meaning, but there are certainly fascistic ten- uh, tendencies or, or strategies.

Chris Williamson 35:51 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 35:52 Um, I mean, I read, uh, Br- Mark Bray, I think. Mark Bray's book about Antifa. And what's very interesting... It's very well written, actually. What's interesting about it is he does a very, uh, good job of, sort of, outlining all the history of the anti-fascist movements.

Chris Williamson 36:05 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 36:05 Things like Cable Street, you know. Um, uh, where the, the people have confronted the... Oswald Mosley's Gr- Brownshirts. So all of that... And that's very good. There's a lot of that stuff I didn't know about. It's all very interesting. But of course, those are genuine anti-fascist movements.

Chris Williamson 36:19 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 36:19 You know? These are the, you know...

Chris Williamson 36:21 Not the kiddies version.

Andrew Doyle 36:22 Right. Exactly. So what, what the book fails to do, quite spectacularly actually, is connect those movements to what is happening now-

Chris Williamson 36:29 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 36:29 ... and makes the assumption that the people we're dealing with are in fact fascists.

Chris Williamson 36:33 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 36:33 But that assumption is wrong.... okay? So some of them are fascists, some of them are white supremacists, sure. Right? Most of them aren't. You saw, you see Trump supporters getting pepper sprayed, people, anyone wearing a MAGA hat getting kicked to the ground, right?

Chris Williamson 36:45 There was someone who had a-

Andrew Doyle 36:46 Right?

Chris Williamson 36:46 ... Make Bitcoin Great Again hat that got-

Andrew Doyle 36:48 Really? Just 'cause they didn't read it properly.

Chris Williamson 36:50 Yeah. They couldn't read the word-

Andrew Doyle 36:51 Right.

Chris Williamson 36:51 ... Bitcoin instead of...

Andrew Doyle 36:52 Now, if you can't distinguish between an actual white supremacist and someone who votes Trump, and that isn't to say there- that- that white supremacists couldn't vote Trump. They could, and they might do. But just because you vote Trump, it doesn't follow that you're a white supremacist. That will still be a massive minority of the people who voted for Trump, right? So if you can't make that distinction, then you are politically and historically illiterate. And what's worse is if you can't make that distinction and you have that level of illiteracy and you've got a baseball bat and a mask.

Chris Williamson 37:18 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 37:18 That's a dangerous combination, right?

Chris Williamson 37:20 Totally right. Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 37:20 You know? I mean, we saw with Andy Ngo-

Chris Williamson 37:22 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 37:22 ... a bunch of white middle class students in masks beating up a gay Vietnamese immigrant in order to-

Chris Williamson 37:31 (laughs) In the name of tolerance.

Andrew Doyle 37:31 ... in the name of tolerance and to def- you know, to stand up against white supremacy.

Chris Williamson 37:35 It's a-

Andrew Doyle 37:35 Are you joking?

Chris Williamson 37:36 It's a Titania, it's a Titania tweet.

Andrew Doyle 37:37 So it's really funny and also horrible.

Chris Williamson 37:39 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 37:39 It's horrible because-

Chris Williamson 37:40 Sorry, Andy.

Andrew Doyle 37:41 ... he was, well, yeah, he was hurt.

Chris Williamson 37:42 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 37:42 He was injured.

Andrew Doyle 37:43 It was unjust. Um, what they should've done, now obviously all this stems from an ar- from an article he wrote, or a couple of articles he wrote for Quillette.

Chris Williamson 37:50 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 37:50 What you do in that case, if you disagree with a journalist, is you go up to them and say, "Oh, I disagree with this. Can we have a discussion about it?"

Chris Williamson 37:55 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 37:56 That's it. And as soon as you hit someone on the basis of, "Oh, they are normalising," uh, "supremacist language or discourse," you, you know, you over-theorize to justify your own violent acts.

Chris Williamson 38:07 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 38:07 And it can't be justified.

Chris Williamson 38:09 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 38:09 Um, and it's really, really sad that we've got to this point where this is happening.

Chris Williamson 38:14 Is all of this just reaction? Is it still this big hangover from Trump being elected?

Andrew Doyle 38:20 Partly. I mean, I'm sure there's a frustration, um, about it. Trump, I s- I suppose, was the start of it, wasn't it? The... And because people just decided that he was a fascist 'cause they didn't really know what fascist meant. Um, you know, he said a lot of stuff that I find contemptible, and a, a lot of stuff that I think you would be hard pushed. I think when he talked about Ilhan Omar and the squad, you know, and said, "Send them home," or they can go, they should just go home, I mean, three of the four were born in America, they were born in America, and the fourth is a US citizen anyway, right? It's difficult for me to see how that can be, uh, interpreted as anything other than a racist trope, actually.

Chris Williamson 38:56 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 38:57 Um, so, but this does not necessarily mean he's a white supremacist. That's a massive leap-

Chris Williamson 39:02 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 39:02 ... uh, to make. Um, again, I'd need the evidence on it. But yeah, I think, I think that's the problem, is that there's a sense of frustration. People were angry. Uh, understandably so. You know, it's not nice to lose, is it? Um, and it's easier if you can then paint everyone who made that thing happen as evil. If you say that everyone who voted for Trump is as deplorable, as Hillary Clinton re- so memorably did, and that worked out really well for her, didn't it? Um, then of course you, you go on the offensive and you end up guaranteeing Trump's victory in 2020. That's what you do. That's what they've done.

Chris Williamson 39:33 What would you predict?

Andrew Doyle 39:34 Well, he's definitely gonna win.

Chris Williamson 39:35 You reckon?

Andrew Doyle 39:35 Yeah, I mean, the, well, he's playing a very smart game because he's putting the s- the squad, the four Democrat, uh, politicians who play identity politics all the time, so Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, uh, Ayanna Pressley and, and, uh, Rashida Tlaib, who are never gonna play well with the electorate 'cause they're always going on about grievance and intersectionality and, and white privilege and all that sort of stuff. That doesn't win votes. Never has and never will. Um, and what Trump is doing is he constantly talks about them to make them the face of the Democrat Party. So people like Nancy Pelosi-

Chris Williamson 40:06 It's giving them enough rope.

Andrew Doyle 40:07 Yeah. N- but the people like Pelosi are hating this. Like, she, she, she wants to distance herself from, from these four.

Chris Williamson 40:12 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 40:12 But when you think Democrat, now you think uber woke, crazy identitarians, right?

Chris Williamson 40:17 (coughs)

Andrew Doyle 40:17 And that's largely because of Trump and because the way he puts them at cen- at the center. So it's a smart tactical move. Um, the Democrats need to distance themselves from this kind of politics. Identity politics never works. And what's so funny about it-

Chris Williamson 40:30 Why, why doesn't it work?

Andrew Doyle 40:31 Because it divides everyone up.

Chris Williamson 40:32 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 40:32 It says, uh, you know, "You, you stay in your lane over here. You stay in your lane. We're gonna s- we're gonna really help you. We'll help the Hispanics, we'll help the gays, we'll help the women," you know, with the... And, and everyone is like, "What about us? What about us?" You know? And then it becomes competing-

Chris Williamson 40:43 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 40:43 ... uh, com- uh, competing interests. Um, you can only win, um, an election by unity, by, by saying that we are doing what's best for absolutely everyone.

Chris Williamson 40:54 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 40:54 And because the woke movement is essentially a movement that, that rehabilitates racial thinking, it makes us think about race more, it makes us think about sexuality, and it makes us, uh, aware to the point of discrimination, and it, and it, and it separates us all out. Uh, and it, it wa- it wants to undo the work of the civil rights movements. It wants to undo the work of Martin Luther King. It wants us no longer to thi- to think about content of character but to think about color of skin. Uh, so it's a regressive backward movement. Um, it isn't helpful for human rights. It feeds the far right. It helps the far right. The far right is on the rise. They're still thankfully a very fringe group, but they are on the rise because of the woke movement, because of the woke left giving them all the ammunition they need.

Chris Williamson 41:34 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 41:34 Okay? Because if you constantly say that all these working class white people, "You're just privileged. All you boys, you're just rapists in waiting. Uh, you know, you've got toxic masculinity. You should be ashamed of yourself," all of this sort of stuff, and then you've got the alt-right, white nationalist group saying, "Well, come, come to us, then. We're not gonna treat you like that."

Chris Williamson 41:51 It becomes a, it becomes an almost moderate and attractive-

Andrew Doyle 41:54 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 41:54 ... pla- place to be.

Andrew Doyle 41:55 Exactly, and that's a really terrifying prospect for me. The main reason I attack the woke left is because I'm scared of the f- the rise of the far right. That genuinely frightens me, um, because whereas the woke left are well intentioned on the whole, I think they're well intentioned. They want, they want the world to get a place. They're just in a cult so they can't see the reality of it, right?

Chris Williamson 42:15 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 42:15 You know, it's like anyone in a cult. They c- they, they're believing, they believe it, right? It's not evil. They, they, they see the world as, uh, full of fascists. They see the world as full of injustice.

Chris Williamson 42:24 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 42:24 And they want to do something about it. That's a laudable aim. The problem is the world isn't full of fascists, and they just end up hitting people with bike locks-

Chris Williamson 42:30 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 42:31 ... because they vote the wrong way, right? So-

Chris Williamson 42:32 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 42:32 So that's, that's, that's the pro- and what all of that does is generate all of this resentment, and, and to- it's a gift, it's a boon to the genuine, like, really vile white supremacist alt-right-... just, just repugnant people-

Chris Williamson 42:46 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 42:47 ... who can thrive on this stuff. What, you know, that's ... I mean, as far as I can see, the only way to get beyond that is to, is to, is to take down the woke left, to make it okay to mock them again, to, to, to, to restore reasonable political conversation. That's what we need to do.

Chris Williamson 43:02 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 43:02 It's so important.

Chris Williamson 43:03 There must be ... So there's a, a really interesting, um, podcast, Eric Weinstein on Joe Rogan.

Andrew Doyle 43:09 Okay.

Chris Williamson 43:09 And Eric is-

Andrew Doyle 43:10 I've seen Joe Rogan's podcasts a lot, but I haven't seen that, that one.

Chris Williamson 43:12 So Eric is the, um, managing director of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel, one of the PayPal, Matthew's-

Andrew Doyle 43:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:18 ... uh, companies, and he is fairly widely regarded as one of the smartest p- people, like public intellectuals on the planet.

Andrew Doyle 43:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:25 Um, and he has this really interesting point he makes about how, um, the moderates on both the left and the right are allowing the extremists of that side to do all of the work for them-

Andrew Doyle 43:35 Yeah, exactly.

Chris Williamson 43:36 ... and that by not shouting up as someone who is moderate left and saying, "Hang on a second. That's wrong." Or by being moderate right and saying, "Hang on a second. That's also wrong." Like Charlottesville, Charlottesville is wrong-

Andrew Doyle 43:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:46 ... whatever it might be. You are ... He, he says it with much more nuance than this, but he says essentially you're supporting it by not-

Andrew Doyle 43:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:55 By saying, "Oh, well, you can, you can go out." Like, it's the vanguard of your, uh, particular political leaning.

Andrew Doyle 44:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:03 Push them forward a little bit.

Andrew Doyle 44:04 Yeah. Yeah. I, I think you ... Well, you can't shout s- shout louder than the lunatics, can you? They, they, they do-

Chris Williamson 44:09 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 44:09 ... they do dominate. They really do. Um, yeah, I mean, that's a very good ... I think it's ... I think, for instance, in the case of Charlottesville, it, it is quite important for people on that side of the debate to say, "This is wrong." So, you know, it's, it, it, you know, it's not right for Trump to, to suggest a moral equivalence, uh, between people who are opposed to fascism and people who murder in the name of white supremacy. That's not, that's not right. We're ... B- I mean, the, the, the, the anti-fascist peaceful protesters, I'm behind 100%. What I'm not behind is the ones who don the masks, commit acts of violence. That's a very different thing.

Chris Williamson 44:42 Drag an old man out of his car when they're trying to redirect

Chris Williamson 44:44 him in traffic.

Andrew Doyle 44:45 Right. That's a very different, uh, uh ... It's important 'cause I'm ... I think peaceful protest is the way all the time. Peaceful protest and ridicule. Um, but yeah, certainly. So, so, sorry, to go back to the point. Sorry, I've missed it. I've, I've gone on a different angle.

Chris Williamson 44:57 Uh, the extremes, extremes pulling in, uh, for the, for the moderate people.

Andrew Doyle 45:01 Yeah. Well, I think that goes back to what Bridget was saying, doesn't it, is that when a movement gets characterized by its worst elements, that's a problem.

Chris Williamson 45:09 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 45:10 In the way that, uh, Islam, for instance, has been mischaracterized by its most reactionary elements.

Chris Williamson 45:14 100%.

Andrew Doyle 45:15 Uh, you get the same thing here, where, uh, suddenly you think of the left ... I mean, if I say the left, what do you think of? You think of these screeching offense seekers, don't you?

Chris Williamson 45:24 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 45:25 You think of the-

Chris Williamson 45:25 Purple hair.

Andrew Doyle 45:26 Yeah. You think of the worst ... Well, actually that's not what being on the left means, you know? It's, it's, uh, and, and that's a real shame. So I think, yeah, I think we need to restore moderation. I think we need to be ... Uh, we need to stop having fealty to ideology so that we can say, "Yeah, broadly speaking, my principles are left wing, but that, that, that you've just said, this right-winger has said this interesting thing, which I might take on board and actually I might adopt as well."

Chris Williamson 45:51 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 45:52 Um, and then, and restore the nature of the individual. The individual is sovereign, as John Stuart Mill said. Like, the ... It, it matters what you think. You have to, you have to be a free thinker, not let other people do your thinking for you.

Chris Williamson 46:04 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 46:04 Um, and that's where we've got to where people don't, they don't do that anymore.

Chris Williamson 46:08 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 46:08 Like if, if, if you, if you were on the left, say, and you told me one of your principles, I could pretty much guess what all your other views are. And that should never be the case.

Chris Williamson 46:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 46:17 You should surprise me now and then with what you think.

Chris Williamson 46:19 Did you see Jordan Peterson on GQ?

Andrew Doyle 46:21 Nope.

Chris Williamson 46:22 This interview is fantastic. I'll send you it for you, for you to ...

Andrew Doyle 46:25 Oh, wait. With Helen Lewis?

Chris Williamson 46:27 Maybe.

Andrew Doyle 46:28 It was a, it was a, uh, one-to-one interview two hours long?

Chris Williamson 46:30 Yes. They-

Andrew Doyle 46:30 I did. Sorry.

Chris Williamson 46:31 They tried to take me down. There was lots of options to take you down.

Andrew Doyle 46:32 Yeah, sorry.

Chris Williamson 46:33 It's got a really weird title.

Andrew Doyle 46:34 I totally did. Um, yeah, I totally did.

Chris Williamson 46:36 And in that, she says, uh, she starts asking him these questions and he just starts laughing at her.

Andrew Doyle 46:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:41 And he says, "Because your questions are ridiculous. From the first question that you asked me-

Andrew Doyle 46:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:46 ... I could have predicted every subsequent question that you were going to give me."

Andrew Doyle 46:49 Okay. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Chris Williamson 46:50 And that's, that's, that's it playing out in front of us.

Andrew Doyle 46:51 Yeah. Isn't that sad? Like, and no one wants to be predictable anyway, you know?

Chris Williamson 46:56 No.

Andrew Doyle 46:56 But I think-

Chris Williamson 46:56 But that's what ... I think that's what the left are trying to do here.

Andrew Doyle 46:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:59 They're trying to go like, how ... With how much fidelity can I become offended?

Andrew Doyle 47:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:05 Like, with how high a resolution can I look at discrimination? Like, and, and continue to one-up, "It's the, well, it's personal privilege. I get this."

Andrew Doyle 47:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:13 Or, "Oh, personal privilege, you've used the word ... Guys." Like, it's the one-upmanship.

Andrew Doyle 47:17 I mean, I'm always a bit wary of that just because I don't like to guess what people are thinking. I don't like to guess people's intentions, you know? So like when we talk about virtue signaling-

Chris Williamson 47:27 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 47:27 ... right, which is I think what you're referring to, um, it definitely goes on. Um, you know, I mean, everyone knows this. You know, particularly politicians do this a lot, you know, they talk about ... They want people to know how upset they are about a certain thing or, or whatever.

Chris Williamson 47:39 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 47:41 Um, but by the same token, I don't want to assume that what they ... That they're doing that for the worst motives. I don't want to assume that about them, you know? But I, I, I, I don't know.

Chris Williamson 47:49 It's the

Chris Williamson 47:50 problem of you having faith in people. It's the problem of you ... It literally is. It's the problem of you, uh, hoping for the best in people. And we do this all the time.

Andrew Doyle 47:57 Well, it's partly that, but it's also that, um, I can't ... It's a g- it's ... That goes back to the thing about not playing by their rules, right? The one, the, the thing that I get all the time is people telling me what I secretly think.

Chris Williamson 48:07 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 48:07 That's the one common factor I get it all the time. So, so people will say-

Chris Williamson 48:10 What do they say you think?

Andrew Doyle 48:11 Well, so actually virtually all the major criticisms of me on Twitter, the people who really go for me-

Chris Williamson 48:16 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 48:17 ... have decided that I have these secret racist thoughts, that I have internalized homophobia, uh, that I, that I ... They ... I, I had one the other day about how I, I ma- what my ... Uh, I don't know. Like, who knows, right? All this stuff is like, um, "You're a right wing. You're a Tory." I get that a lot, a Tory. I've never voted Tory.

Chris Williamson 48:35 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 48:36 It doesn't matter.

Chris Williamson 48:36 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 48:37 They know that secretly I have.

Chris Williamson 48:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 48:39 They know my secret thoughts, right?

Chris Williamson 48:40 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 48:40 And that's a problem. And if I turn around and say, "Yeah, but you secretly think this," then I'm just reducing myself to their level. So what I will always do is take an argument at face value. I'm never gonna assume someone's lying about their argument for, for, for whatever reason, because the argument will be demolished irrespective of the truth behind it.

Chris Williamson 48:56 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 48:57 You can, you can defeat a bad argument-... whether the person is sincere about it or not.

Chris Williamson 49:01 I understand.

Andrew Doyle 49:02 So that, I think, is a much better strategy. Um, and I'm sure there are people who are paid for extreme opinions, you know?

Chris Williamson 49:09 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 49:09 I, I, I think we all know who we're talking about, right? People, you know, p- who will put extreme opinions out there because it gets them clickbait.

Chris Williamson 49:14 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 49:14 You know? Um, but the argument either stands or falls on its own merit. It doesn't really matter whether they mean it or not.

Chris Williamson 49:20 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 49:21 Um, and also, you can't demolish the argument by assuming they don't mean it, because you've got no evidence for that.

Chris Williamson 49:26 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 49:27 That's just your speculation.

Chris Williamson 49:27 They've got to defeat you on its own terms-

Andrew Doyle 49:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:29 ... or on its merit. Um, I'm gonna bring up what I spoke to Zuby about the other day on the podcast-

Andrew Doyle 49:33 Okay.

Chris Williamson 49:33 ... which is Mario Lopez, the guy who played A.C. Slater on Saved by the Bell, which you never watched, so...

Andrew Doyle 49:39 I never watched it.

Chris Williamson 49:40 It's a shame, man. Honestly, it's a good TV show.

Andrew Doyle 49:42 Is it?

Chris Williamson 49:42 Um, so Mario Lopez says, um, this very, very over, over-pedestrian-

Andrew Doyle 49:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:51 ... um, caveat after caveat, uh, very, very mild, "I'm not sure if three-year-olds should be allowed to change their gender."

Andrew Doyle 50:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:00 That's essentially what he says. Um, and then is annihilated, and a couple of days later, comes back with the most groveling apology.

Andrew Doyle 50:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:08 "The comments I made were ignorant and insensitive, and I now have a deeper understanding of how hurtful they were. I have been and always will be an ardent supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, and I'm going to use this opportunity to better educate myself. Moving forward, I will be more informed and thoughtful."

Andrew Doyle 50:24 Right.

Andrew Doyle 50:25 Well, every time someone does that, it gives more power to the woke movement. Uh, and it gives, it gives that sort of Twitter mob the, the upper hand. Because it means they know it works.

Chris Williamson 50:36 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 50:36 It's like capitulating to terrorists. You know, once you, once you do it, they know it works and they'll do it again and again and again, and we've seen it all the time. People are forced to apologize for things they said years ago.

Chris Williamson 50:45 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 50:46 Things that probably weren't even that offensive.

Chris Williamson 50:48 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 50:48 That's not offensive. That's an opinion.

Chris Williamson 50:50 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 50:51 So, and if he r- either he believed it or he didn't, right? If he believed it, stand by it.

Chris Williamson 50:56 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 50:57 You know? I mean, sure, you can change your mind about stuff.

Chris Williamson 51:00 In three days.

Andrew Doyle 51:01 Unlikely.

Chris Williamson 51:01 (laughs) To that degree of-

Andrew Doyle 51:03 What, what you're actually having is a lot of pressure from, you know... I mean, people can say to him... But maybe someone sat him down and said, "oh, think about this, think about this," and he did change his mind. That's possible, right?

Chris Williamson 51:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 51:11 Um, even in that case, I would advise not apologizing.

Chris Williamson 51:14 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 51:15 Because it just feeds the beast.

Chris Williamson 51:16 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 51:17 You know? I don't... We saw this with Kevin Hart and the Oscars for, for jokes he tweeted eight years ago, 10 years ago, something like that.

Chris Williamson 51:23 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 51:24 And they were jokes. It doesn't matter if they're offensive. They were jokes. I, I don't care. Uh, so, uh, again, apolo- but good for him, he didn't apologize. He said, "I ap-," he said, "I apologized at the time, I'm not gonna keep apologizing for this."

Chris Williamson 51:35 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 51:36 You know? Uh, I just-

Chris Williamson 51:37 Did you s- did you see the, um, Liam Neeson thing about, was it in February time?

Andrew Doyle 51:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:42 Where he said that his, uh, close family member had been, uh, sexually assaulted-

Andrew Doyle 51:48 I did see this.

Chris Williamson 51:49 ... by a black guy.

Andrew Doyle 51:49 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:49 So he walked around his hometown with a cosh.

Andrew Doyle 51:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:53 Just going into black neighborhoods, hoping to find someone that was associated.

Andrew Doyle 51:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:57 And you're like, "Well, hang on a second, what's this guy supposed to say?"

Andrew Doyle 52:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:01 Because I found, although it's obviously quite a dark story-

Andrew Doyle 52:04 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:04 ... I found it very, very interesting.

Andrew Doyle 52:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:07 I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is, this is... How would I feel? What would, what would I do in that situation? How would I act in that situation?" You're thinking about Liam Neeson, this guy with his-

Andrew Doyle 52:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:17 ... gravelly voice, walking around the dark streets of Ireland with this cosh in his hand. And I'm like, "What an amazing story." Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 52:23 I can't believe he said it, actually. I can't believe he said that to a journalist-

Chris Williamson 52:26 Unbelievable.

Andrew Doyle 52:27 ... and didn't think about the consequences (laughs) of saying it. But there is something to be said for his honesty. Um, it's-

Chris Williamson 52:32 Definitely.

Andrew Doyle 52:33 But it's a horrible s- it's a horrible idea that someone can be so traumatized by something, they behave in such a vile way.

Chris Williamson 52:39 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 52:39 And by his own admission, it was a vile-

Chris Williamson 52:41 Yeah, but the shock-

Andrew Doyle 52:43 ... uh, you know, thing to do.

Chris Williamson 52:43 ... his own shock at himself.

Andrew Doyle 52:44 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:45 But does that not... Like, that sort of a thing educates everybody.

Andrew Doyle 52:48 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:48 That sort of a story. 'Cause I'm like... I've never heard anything like that before.

Andrew Doyle 52:51 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:52 Even in fiction, I've never heard anything like that before. And I think, "Wow, that's really interesting."

Andrew Doyle 52:56 But what also... What was weird about that is it... I don't know why the woke movement got so angry about that, because actually what he was making was a really woke point, because they believe that, that white people are essentially racist anyway. And so this was just sort of bolstering their view, so I don't know why they weren't happy about this, to be honest. But yeah, they went for him. It's an unforgiving... I mean, this is the thing about the whole, the whole woke thing, is you can never... If you make a mistake once, you are tarred for life, you can never be forgiven. Because it is a religion-

Chris Williamson 53:17 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 53:17 ... and they don't think redemption is possible. So-

Chris Williamson 53:19 Well, that's why the Mario Lopez, you've got this window of whatever, like maybe-

Andrew Doyle 53:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:23 ... seven days or something like that-

Andrew Doyle 53:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:25 ... within which he can recant.

Andrew Doyle 53:26 Right.

Chris Williamson 53:27 And as long as you do your self-flagellation over whatever particular TV s- station or-

Andrew Doyle 53:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:33 ... press release it is that you do, then maybe

Chris Williamson 53:36 you get-

Andrew Doyle 53:36 Right, but that... And the point he was raising is a, is a, is a discussion we need to have, right? The question about gender is a discussion we absolutely need to have.

Chris Williamson 53:43 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 53:43 So anyone who knows anything about gender and has read, uh, sort of theories of gender, gender is not, as the woke movement claim, a social construct. It is a, a very, very complicated, uh, combination of social and biological factors, right? And the problem is that their faith-based position about gender, uh, has be- has been adopted, particularly in Canada, for instance, by governments. Um, and actually, we need to have a much bigger discussion before these sort of policies are, are adopted. We need to actually talk about and decide whether they're right or not. It's not correct, um, that, that, uh, gender is solely something to do with culture. Largely... I mean, certainly the, the obvious example is that you dress boys in blue and girls in pink, whereas in fact, you know, go back 100, 200 years, it was the reverse, right?

Chris Williamson 54:26 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 54:27 So those things are arbitrary.

Chris Williamson 54:28 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 54:29 Um, feminism, second-wave feminism, spent years trying to break down the idea of, of, of gender norms and gender stereotyping, right? What's wrong with a boy being effeminate? Wh- wh- why do you start questioning and saying, "Well, let's, let's... Maybe he's a girl."

Chris Williamson 54:41 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 54:42 No, maybe he's an effeminate boy-

Chris Williamson 54:43 Yeah. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 54:43 ... and that's okay. What's wrong with a girl being a tomboy, being butch? What, like, what... There's some-

Chris Williamson 54:48 Do you remember, do you remember tomboys?

Andrew Doyle 54:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:50 'Cause tomboys haven't been around, as far as I can remember, for about 10 years.

Andrew Doyle 54:54 Well, well, in fact, the recent, uh, play of the, um... Was it a Enid Blyton play? Was it Malory Towers, even? And they cast a, uh, j- um, non-binary actor to play the tomboy character.

Chris Williamson 55:03 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 55:03 It was an Emma Rice production. Now that, this says, this says a lot, that it's almost like the concept of a, of a, of a butch girl is now something we don't understand anymore.

Chris Williamson 55:11 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 55:11 No, no, no, it's a boy in a girl's body.

Chris Williamson 55:13 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 55:13 This is deeply conservative.

Chris Williamson 55:15 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 55:15 Right? It's, it's hugely conservative. I saw a, um, a documentary about trans kids, where the, the parents were talking about their... They've g- they said that, "We've got this little girl now and we're so happy because we don't have to watch our little boy mincing about like a," basically-

Chris Williamson 55:29 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 55:29 ... like a little gay. Right? So we fixed him. We fixed the problem.

Chris Williamson 55:33 Oh my God. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 55:34 You know? And it-

Chris Williamson 55:35 That's so... (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 55:37 N- no, it said, i- i- a- an- and without-

Chris Williamson 55:39 Oh, wow.

Andrew Doyle 55:39 ... any sense of self-awareness or... But actually, that points to a very interesting thing about the trans debate, which we're not really addressing, is to what extent is this actually just a rehabilitated homophobia? To what extent is this just us fixing people into rigid ideas of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman? I remember seeing a debate between a performance artist called David Hoyle and Lauren Harries, who is a transgender woman, was formerly a man-

Chris Williamson 56:03 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 56:03 ... was formerly male.

Chris Williamson 56:03 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 56:04 And Lauren said, well, during the interview, she said, uh, "I always knew I was a woman because I used to buy lots of shoes." Right? Which actually just i- is endorsing the most base gross stereotype about women and commercialism-

Chris Williamson 56:18 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 56:18 ... uh, that you can imagine. Women aren't all Imel De Marcos, you know?

Chris Williamson 56:21 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 56:21 They don't have... Th- that's not what it-

Chris Williamson 56:23 Walking wardrobes.

Andrew Doyle 56:24 Yeah. It doesn't mean you're a woman just because you like to... I used to play with dolls as a kid. I'm not a woman.

Chris Williamson 56:28 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 56:29 You know? It doesn't matter. Um, and so that's my big conce- that's what I would like to have the... I'm not saying that I know all the answers or that I have a full understanding of the situation.

Chris Williamson 56:38 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 56:38 What I am saying is, I've read a lot about it and I would like to have a serious, proper public discussion about these issues without being shouted at and called a transphobe, and have someone hit me with a bike, bike lock and a, have a milkshake on my face.

Chris Williamson 56:50 Well, being (laughs) , being able to, uh, being under the age of 16 and not being allowed to have sex, but being allowed to change your sex-

Andrew Doyle 56:57 Right. It's obviously a problem.

Chris Williamson 56:59 ... because having sex will last for, probably your first time, maybe about three minutes.

Andrew Doyle 57:03 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:03 But like, changing your sex is for the rest of your life.

Andrew Doyle 57:07 Right. It's, it's a, it's a really serious... You know, but I've complete-

Chris Williamson 57:10 How is no one identifying this? Right.

Andrew Doyle 57:12 I have total sympathy with someone who g- who genuinely feels that they are in, in a, in the wrong body. Of course they do.

Chris Williamson 57:17 And, yes, 100%.

Andrew Doyle 57:18 So, so, so to, to suggest that, to have misgivings about any kind of chemical interventional puberty inhibitor of, of a, of a child is not the same thing as being anti-trans rights. It should be, actually the two are completely compatible. We need to have a serious discussion about that, right? Um, but we're not having that discussion. We're just throwing insults. It's really sad.

Chris Williamson 57:40 I know. Um, so I wanted to finish with some questions for Titania, as if how, how would she answer?

Andrew Doyle 57:48 Right.

Chris Williamson 57:49 Um, so I've got-

Andrew Doyle 57:51 That's really hard.

Chris Williamson 57:51 I know.

Andrew Doyle 57:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:52 But you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to channel your-

Andrew Doyle 57:54 Do you know what? It's, it's hard though, 'cause normally when I think of an idea for a tweet-

Chris Williamson 57:57 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 57:57 ... I go off and walk for like 15, 20 minutes and, and refine it.

Chris Williamson 58:00 Oh, do you?

Andrew Doyle 58:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:01 That's interesting.

Andrew Doyle 58:02 Except for last night when I just did drunken whatever.

Chris Williamson 58:04 Firing away.

Andrew Doyle 58:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:04 Well, anyway, let's see-

Andrew Doyle 58:05 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:05 ... let's see, let's see how we get on.

Andrew Doyle 58:06 All right.

Chris Williamson 58:07 Um, number one.

Andrew Doyle 58:09 I'm not an improviser. That's number one.

Chris Williamson 58:10 Don't worry. That's fine. Number one, are all cats feminists?

Andrew Doyle 58:14 Are all (laughs) cats feminists? She would suggest that feminism is the natural state.

Chris Williamson 58:20 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 58:21 And therefore all animals are essentially feminist.

Chris Williamson 58:23 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 58:24 She also believes that all animals are essentially vegan, but that they are socialized into believing that they should eat meat by our example. That's what, that's what she thinks.

Chris Williamson 58:33 Ame-

Andrew Doyle 58:33 But there's a line in the book where she talks about her, her vegan cat, um, and she says, "Yeah, I mean, she does chase birds around the garden, but I think she must assume they're some kind of flying vegetable or something."

Chris Williamson 58:45 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 58:45 And it's that thing about she just projects, projects her own i- i- ideas onto everyone else.

Chris Williamson 58:49 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 58:50 But yeah, yeah, cats... 'cause feminism is the natural state.

Chris Williamson 58:53 Cool.

Andrew Doyle 58:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:54 Um, speaking of vegetables, which is the most oppressive vegetable?

Andrew Doyle 59:00 I would say butternut squash.

Chris Williamson 59:02 Why?

Andrew Doyle 59:02 I don't know.

Chris Williamson 59:03 I think-

Andrew Doyle 59:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 59:04 I think courgette.

Andrew Doyle 59:06 Really?

Chris Williamson 59:06 Yeah, because of that sort of French-sounding g, which is how it's spelled in Bourjois.

Andrew Doyle 59:11 Actually, thinking about it, it's the aubergine. Because of the emoji.

Chris Williamson 59:14 Absolutely. There we go. Thank you.

Andrew Doyle 59:15 Which is used to represent the phallus.

Chris Williamson 59:17 We've, we've, we've answered it.

Andrew Doyle 59:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:19 Uh, male dogs-

Andrew Doyle 59:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:20 ... sniff the butts of males and females equally-

Andrew Doyle 59:23 Right.

Chris Williamson 59:23 ... but only have sex with females. Does this make dogs prejudiced?

Andrew Doyle 59:28 Good question. That's not altogether true though, is it? Some dogs, some-

Chris Williamson 59:32 So dogs have sex with other boys too?

Andrew Doyle 59:33 Yeah, yeah. There are, there are, there are gay dogs.

Chris Williamson 59:35 What about the ones that don't?

Andrew Doyle 59:36 They should be killed.

Chris Williamson 59:38 Fine.

Andrew Doyle 59:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:39 Fine. Well-

Andrew Doyle 59:40 Actually, most dogs are polyamorous, thinking about it. They have multi-

Chris Williamson 59:43 They are?

Andrew Doyle 59:43 They have multiple partners, so-

Chris Williamson 59:44 They're quite woke.

Andrew Doyle 59:45 They're, they're pretty damn woke, yeah. I don't know. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 59:49 So-

Andrew Doyle 59:49 Told you I can't improvise.

Chris Williamson 59:51 It's, hey, we've got it. We've nailed it.

Andrew Doyle 59:52 Okay.

Chris Williamson 59:52 We've got, we've work- worked out the vegetable and we've got cats and dogs. That's really-

Andrew Doyle 59:55 Fine.

Chris Williamson 59:55 That's the big three.

Andrew Doyle 59:56 All right.

Chris Williamson 59:56 That is the big three.

Andrew Doyle 59:57 Is it?

Chris Williamson 59:57 Um, so moving forward now, um, we are in the midst of Edinburgh Fringe.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:02 You've got the Titania live show. How's that been going?

Andrew Doyle 1:00:05 I love it. I love it. It's so much fun. Uh, we are dividing audiences, which is exactly what it should be doing.

Chris Williamson 1:00:10 How many, is, have you had many people walk out?

Andrew Doyle 1:00:12 Yeah. We're getting-

Chris Williamson 1:00:13 Uh, how, how many people?

Andrew Doyle 1:00:13 ... e- I, I, I mean, I haven't been here for a lot of the shows, but Alice tells me every now, updates me. Every now and then there's a, there's a moment where people walk out. And what's been interesting though is, well, i- people walk out of Edinburgh shows all the time, remember, right, because they've got to get to other shows and things, so you can never be sure.

Chris Williamson 1:00:26 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:27 Um, and you can't assume they're offended.

Chris Williamson 1:00:29 It's always after the same jokes though. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:00:31 Well-

Chris Williamson 1:00:31 Night after night. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:00:32 ... Alice has had a couple of examples where people have been explicit about why they're leaving. Now, that rarely happens.

Chris Williamson 1:00:36 Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:37 Um, and there was one the other night, she said, the, the person on the front row just said, "I'm sorry. I just can't, I can't do this," and walked out. And I think, like, look, I'm sympathetic with anyone who is offended by it or upset, and I would also support their right to leave.

Chris Williamson 1:00:49 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:00:50 I can be offended by stuff and my, my view is I'll just leave. Um, I'm not gonna start whinging about snowflakes and all this sort of stuff. Like, we all get offended by stuff and we all know what upsets us and, and, and sometimes it's best not to expose yourself to that, right?

Chris Williamson 1:01:03 And everyone has different tolerances, right?

Andrew Doyle 1:01:04 Yeah, yeah. I, yeah, exactly. Um-But, you know, it, the, the pur- the purpose of satire is to annoy people as well as to entertain some other ... You know, you, you, you can't, it can't be, it's not being done right if everyone loves what you're doing, or indeed if everyone hates what you're doing. You want to be splitting people. That's exactly ... We-

Chris Williamson 1:01:24 Was, was that an aim when you were writing the, the-

Andrew Doyle 1:01:26 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I knew full well who, that it would annoy people. I wanted it to.

Chris Williamson 1:01:31 They have bought tickets though.

Andrew Doyle 1:01:34 Well, yeah, but it's a lot of people in Edinburgh don't know what they're seeing.

Chris Williamson 1:01:36 Yeah. Cool.

Andrew Doyle 1:01:36 That's, that's the problem. Like-

Chris Williamson 1:01:37 You know the problem there, you've got two good street PRs. Like, the street PRs are so effective. Like-

Andrew Doyle 1:01:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:42 ... you've got these guys out and, and they're-

Andrew Doyle 1:01:44 I mean-

Chris Williamson 1:01:44 ... unbelievable at their job. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:01:46 On the other hand, I sort of want people to know what it is because I want people to enjoy it. I don't want people not to en- I don't want people to go to a show they're not going to enjoy.

Chris Williamson 1:01:52 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:01:52 I think the, the tweets are more designed to annoy the general public.

Chris Williamson 1:01:56 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:01:56 You know? Um, people who ha- happen upon them and don't know who she is.

Chris Williamson 1:01:59 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:00 That's funny to me. Um, but yeah, I think if you've invested money in a show, I'd like you to enjoy it.

Chris Williamson 1:02:04 For sure.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:05 So, um, I do s- I have said to the flyers, "Can you just be honest about what this is?" Like, you know ...

Chris Williamson 1:02:10 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:02:11 'Cause-

Chris Williamson 1:02:12 Don't sell them a lie. (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:02:12 If people are thinking they're going to see like a standup show, for instance, it's not a standup show. It's more like a play.

Chris Williamson 1:02:16 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:17 If people think that they're going to see, you know, some feminist thing. I mean, it's obviously mocking contemporary feminism.

Chris Williamson 1:02:22 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:23 You know, I'd rather people just knew and didn't-

Chris Williamson 1:02:25 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:25 ... you know?

Chris Williamson 1:02:25 Got their money's worth.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:26 Yeah, I think so.

Chris Williamson 1:02:27 Um, but were challenged for it.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:28 So, you know, you've, you've made a Twitter account.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:31 You've done all of this stuff, and now there is a living, breathing, one-hour manifestation of a Twitter account-

Andrew Doyle 1:02:38 Yes.

Chris Williamson 1:02:38 ... on stage in front of you at the Edinburgh Fringe for like, what, 20 nights, 30 nights?

Andrew Doyle 1:02:42 Yeah, 20, 25 shows. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:44 What, what, what does that ... How does that feel? Does it just feel like this is the most 21st century thing that's ever happened?

Andrew Doyle 1:02:49 It's, yeah, it's an odd one, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 1:02:52 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:02:52 And I certainly didn't expect it to happen. I certainly didn't, I didn't even know I was gonna write a book when I started this.

Chris Williamson 1:02:56 Yeah.

Andrew Doyle 1:02:57 It wa- it wasn't that at all. Um, yeah, it's an odd feeling. And also 'cause I know her so well.

Chris Williamson 1:03:03 Yes.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:03 Um, and then you see this sort of version of it in the flesh. My friend-

Chris Williamson 1:03:07 Has it ch- has it changed the way that you think about her, having seen it manifest sort of in front of you?

Andrew Doyle 1:03:12 Um, no, uh, I don't s- think it has because during the rehearsal process what we were doing is trying to get Alice's characterization as close as possible to what is in my head.

Chris Williamson 1:03:21 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:21 Of course it's not entirely possible and of course an actor will always bring their own interpretation to the role. So, um, but there's still this, this creature in my head who is a living breathing thing, who isn't quite what's on stage, isn't quite ... 'Cause, 'cause, you know, that's a combination of my writing and Alice's interpretation. It's something, I mean, my friends are a bit worried about me. Sometimes I-

Chris Williamson 1:03:40 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:03:40 ... I sort ... S- I do talk about her in the third person. I do, um-

Chris Williamson 1:03:44 As if she's in the room.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:45 I s- sort of do. Like-

Chris Williamson 1:03:46 Is she your imaginary friend?

Andrew Doyle 1:03:48 It's not quite like that 'cause I'm very self-aware about it, but what I mean is I have a separate phone for her for a start.

Chris Williamson 1:03:53 Okay.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:53 The, um, largely because Twitter will ban you if, you know, you don't want the same phone for both your accounts.

Chris Williamson 1:03:58 Yes.

Andrew Doyle 1:03:58 'Cause if she gets banned, I would get banned as well.

Chris Williamson 1:03:59 Got you.

Andrew Doyle 1:04:00 Twitter make you behave like a drug dealer basically, you know?

Chris Williamson 1:04:02 Really?

Andrew Doyle 1:04:02 And so someone said to me the other day, "Oh, can you tweet this from Titania? Or can you retweet this from Titania?" I was like, "I haven't got her phone with me." She, she, you know, it's at home. And I'd just said it and she's saying, "Oh, this is worrying. You're now talking-"

Chris Williamson 1:04:14 (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:04:14 "... about her as though she's a, she's a real thing." But it's not a psycho- I know-

Chris Williamson 1:04:18 It's not a psycho... (laughs)

Andrew Doyle 1:04:19 No, I'm, I'm, I'm fully 100% self-aware.

Chris Williamson 1:04:21 Cool.

Andrew Doyle 1:04:22 Um, but it helps to think of her as ... 'Cause I, I start to think about the way she would respond to things.

Chris Williamson 1:04:28 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Doyle 1:04:28 Which isn't obviously the way that I would respond.

Chris Williamson 1:04:30 Has it got easier over time?

Andrew Doyle 1:04:31 Mm-hmm. Yeah. I