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November 5, 2024 96 mins

The Free Speech Union is proving its worth with a number of successful international speakers to New Zealand.

The latest is Professor Nigel Biggar, who amongst a number of contributions to the cause wrote “The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2021".

He proved to be a most interesting, informative and entertaining guest.

Patrick Basham provided exit poll numbers from his Democracy Institute and the Daily Express.

And we visit The Mailroom with Mrs Producer

File your comments and complaints at Leighton@newstalkzb.co.nz

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talks ITB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's time for all the.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Attitude, all the opinion, all the information, all the debates
of us now the lighton Smith podcast cow it by
news talks ITB.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome to podcasts two hundred and sixty three for November six,
twenty twenty four. And it is November five in the
United States of America, and today is election day. That
has promised some insight and coverage from early in the
count and Patrick Basham from Democracy Institute releases exit poll

(00:48):
numbers that of course will be replaced with some real
life numbers in the very near future, if not already.
But watching Upholster at work and seeing how accurate he
and his team are is just part of the interesting
game now. Whatever the outcome of Patrick delivers his usual
quality commentary. Over the last few weeks, even last few days,

(01:14):
I've realized something of importance. The FSU, the Free Speech Union,
has not been overstating its case, not been for a period.
I was wondering if they were in a state of overkill.
It seemed that there were any number of international commentators
visiting New Zealand with some more coming. But after interviewing
the latest and present guest, I've realized that the FSU

(01:37):
is on track. The discussion with Nigel big Ar and
reading a lot of his work nailed it for me.
Professor Bigger wrote the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Bill
twenty twenty one for Britain. But his work doesn't stop there. Well,
actually did, but there's a story behind. It's interesting and
I believe that you will greatly appreciate his analysis. But

(02:00):
in just a moment, Patrick Basham now from the Democracy Institute,
Patrick Basham. Patrick actually has been very busy, how can
I say it. He's been working his butt off. After
spending a few days in Doha at an investment conference,

(02:21):
he raced back to Washington. I spoke to him from
the airport. Actually he raced back to Washington to cover
the election. And we had the Institute's final polling numbers
twenty four hours ago, will say, and now as a
result of Patrick's association with the Daily Express in the US,
we have some exit poll figures. It is great to

(02:44):
have you back on the podcast, and this is something
that we've never done before and it's made difficult Patrick,
as you well know by the fact that the timing
of this election as opposed to this podcast, and it's
their fault, not mine, that we are up against the clock,
so to speak. But that doesn't mean that a lot

(03:04):
of people are very interested in what you have to say.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
I was very kind of you, kind of to have
me back on the program again. Or it's good to
talk to you. It's such an exciting time. I mean
when you say about timings, I can really appreciate it
because I've been had such a whirlwind trip to Middle
East and came back so sleep deprived that all of
the time zones across America are challenging me with the

(03:28):
with the polling, let alone the top there the more
transcontinental one you're dealing with, But there's already lots to
chew on, I think, so I think it should be
an interesting conversation.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
All right, let's let's have a look at the exit
figures that you came up with, because they are interesting.
You didn't do any state by state, Am I right
or wrong?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Correct? The reason for that is, I mean, partly, you know,
cost timing logistics, but also we just done a whole
series of swing state polls and we thought that now
we and the newspaper thought the national polls should be
truly that and that we could pick and you know,

(04:11):
we could instead of doing a national poll, we could
pick one or two exit swing states do exit poles,
and they might prove to be the pivotal ones. But
you know, it's a guess. It's a guestimate, and we
thought that we would be able to hoped we would
be able to pick up in a national exit pole
whatever what was that was changing or whatever it was
most meaningful. So that's that's the sort of risk we took.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, I think you've done the greatest number of people
that you've done so far, am I right?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
That is right, Yes, we've done well. It was twenty
two hundred and fifty I think it was the was
the final tally. So that's quite a bit more than
we normally do and more than we would have done
if we'd done individual states. So it's you know, we're
pretty confident that we got our arms around those who

(04:59):
had already voted, I mean the vote. The voting is
still going on in most places, so you know, because
you have to get these things done and in a
little early we hope it's not premature in terms of results,
but you know, you just try to you just try
to nail down what you can and and cover your
basis and would say your butt as well as you can.

(05:20):
But you know, I mean, as a long standing critic
of exit polls, I'd be the first one to say
that these are as much art as science.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Are you started with the voting method?

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, that's that's the interesting thing about this year's exit
pole because traditionally is I'm sure your audience is aware,
exit polls are usually what we used to call man
on the street or person in the street, person coming
out of the polling station, interviews and lots of young
people would be hired at certain locations around the country,
whether it was you know, UK, Canada, US, you name it,

(05:53):
and then there asked a series of questions and those
are fed back. One of the problems with that, of course,
is it's it's you have to you know, it's you
have to which locations do you choose? But the biggest problem,
what we thought the challenge was was the fact that
at the time time when we arranged this with the newspaper,
we were looking at about thirty five forty percent of
people had already voted for exit poles. Correct, it's now

(06:16):
more than half before election day, So that means even
if you do a fantastic job of an exit poll
on election day, you're going to miss half the voters.
So we thought it made you know, that's really the
main reason we did what we did. And so when
we started it, especially early today with the calling, it

(06:38):
was we were pleasantly surprised that the comparative willingness of
people to want the ability of people to speak because
disproportionate number of people had already voted, and so we
could start getting some serious data and numbers in results
in you know, well before you would have traditionally expected.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Are you the only one doing it this way? Do
you think? Or are some of the other big boys
following the same routine of calling than standing outside booze?

Speaker 2 (07:11):
I'm I hesitate to say, I know this definitively. I
think we are. I think we are the only one
exclusively using our regular polling method. Could be proven wrong,
but I don't think so. I think they are mostly
traditional or some sort of hybrid's that's that's my sense.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Okay, So you divided that up into voting by mail,
early in person and election day and the figures of
twenty eight, thirty one and forty one. So let's get
into the really nitty gritty the president The presidential vote
is the simplest of all. I think you take it.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Sure. Our exit poll finds Trump ahead by four points,
fifty one to forty seven. And the point of reference
here when you do an exit pole, you know don't
know I mean we as you know, we finished up
our final poll national poll late last week, and you
don't know whether the exit pole is going to be
way different in one direction or going to be most identical.

(08:14):
This one turns out, at least in terms of the
popular vote, to be very close, because our last poll
is fifty to forty seven in Trump's favor. This is
fifty one to forty seven. So that part of it
tells us, well, I guess you might say, tells us
we're going to be doubly right or doubly wrong. But
it gives us some sense of security that we weren't

(08:36):
way off. At least our methods are consistent. And of course,
as exit polls. One of the problems with the exit
polls the outcome of the outcomes in North America anyways,
they tend nearly always to be biased towards the liberal
or left wing party or candidate, and whether the results

(08:57):
turn out to be accurate or not, and often they're not.
And so we didn't know whether that might be more
an outcome of the sort of method or whether it's
just another the bias found elsewhere. But finding that Trump
is in as good a position with those who've already

(09:18):
voted as those were prospective voters is obviously tells a lot.
And what I think it does at this early juncture
when we don't means we're as we're speaking, there's just
the very first little results trickling in. It tells us
that what has been apparently happening on the ground, what

(09:38):
has been measured on the ground today in America, across America,
with those you know, those who are the forty one
percent who were voting in person, that the comparatively strong
Republican turn out, the comparatively lower Democratic turnout might actually
be the case, you know, might be the case through
that through the.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
Day, in the evening.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
So this is good news for the Trump side, But
I'm not sure, I mean, I don't know yet what
the other exit polls may or may not be showing
because to release they head to head until the polls
are closed.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Right now, you've for demographics, you've done the list of
for nineteen and it's a very interesting result. I think,
let me run through it. Men, women, white, Black, Hispanic, Asian, GOP, Democrats, Independent, Catholic,
and then age groups eighteen to twenty nine, thirty to

(10:31):
thirty four, forty five to sixty four, sixty five plus urban, suburban,
small town, rural, middle class and blue collar. That must
have been the most difficult part of part of doing it,
I would think. But what stood out to you?

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, a couple of things stand out, and then most
of the things that have actually stood out all year
because you're aware of no late and then some of
your audience. Maybe our numbers haven't changed that much over
the course of the year. So the things that stand out,
especially if you're looking at this a new are the
minority votes. That's arguably the most telling, the fact that

(11:11):
according to our exit Paul, you know, Trump's getting more
than one in five black vote and he's getting almost
one in two Hispanic votes. And that you know, when
you when you drill down a bit, what that means
you've got more Hispanic men than women choosing Trump rather

(11:32):
than the traditional Democrat vote. However, it's not there's not
a lot in it. You know, Trump is quite popular
with Hispanic women, whereas on the black side, you're looking
at over thirty percent thirty thirty five percent of Black
men voting for Trump. But the last holdout for the Democrats,
particularly with Kamala Harris as the candidate, are black women's. Basically,

(11:57):
I'm talking about middle aged and old, older black women.
And so you you put that high that high compared
to be high figure among men that can party of
low figure among black women together, and you end up
with sort of a little over one in five. So
those two numbers alone, you know, if you ask me, okay,
you know, pick pick one or two of these demographic subgroups,
and you know, and make your your wager on who wins,

(12:21):
those are the ones I'd pick because it's just historically
and arithmetically, it's just really hard borrowing on impossible for
the Democrats to win a contemporary American national election with
only in inverted commerce, seventy eight percent of the Black
vote or half of the Hispanic vote. They just can't

(12:42):
make it up with white voters. There are only so
many white liberal women to go around. You know, whether
some people might view that editorially is a good thing,
but in terms of the arithmetic, lectural arithmetic, for the Democrats,
it's unfortunate. And that's why they count on, you know,
such your uniform almost you know, universal within those electorates

(13:08):
court and so we don't when you don't get that.
The other two that jump out at me, they often
mirror each other, although they aren't. They aren't the same
people's This overlap is the independence who are we The
exit poll has Trump up eight points. Independents don't always
reflect the winner, but they usually do. And the other

(13:30):
one is the Catholic vote. And the reason we've highlighted
that is the evangelical vote is very important. It's overwhelmingly
for Trump. You have atheists is much smaller, overwhelmingly for Harris.
And then your sort of traditional Protestant, various Protestant denominations
that tend to skew Republican. But Catholics are a swing

(13:51):
are these swing maybe the only swing religious group block
in America? They tend to go with the winner. Doesn't
tend to be a big difference between the two sides,
and it's very much like the independent vote. We've got
an eight point lead for Trump, and that also again,
you know, if you're looking at this in terms of
what a history tells us, it tells us that the

(14:12):
Independents and Catholics are going for going for one candidate,
and the other candidates lost a good chunk of their
minority vote which they had count on. You know, that
suggests the wind is blowing in this particular direction.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
There are two columns that I'm interested in at this point.
One is for the Democrats. The other is for the Republicans,
the GOP. And the reason that I that I'm interested
is because I missed it in the Republican column because
it's right at the bottom. But overall, let me just

(14:49):
explain something. This is this is a this is a
row of shop what do you what would you call
them polls or what? A row of vertical.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yes, they're they're stacked columns.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
Right, That's what I wanted. Ah, And then you've got
you've got Harris at the bottom and Trump at the top.
So it's blue and red and the in the GOP column,
the Democrat sorry, the Republican column you've got ninety six
percent for Trump voted for Trump, four percent of Republicans

(15:29):
voted for Harris. And then on the other side, you've
got ninety four percent voting for Harris and six percent
voting for Trump. Now that means it's very close, but
Trump came out top in that.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's right, And let's you know, be consistent whether it
was Biden or Harris's Democratic candidate. For a year or two,
Trump has been holding on to almost everyone who considers
himself a Republican and almost everyone who voted for him
last time. On the Democratic side, it hasn't been disastrous,
but there's been a little bit of blea kitch compared

(16:08):
to Trump's voters a few, you know, it's been sort
of high single digits who voted for him last time
was saying they wouldn't versus low single digits on the
Trump side. And you know, in a close race, that
makes a difference. And of course it depends how the
volume of votes are for these these these two groups,
and it tells you how solid Trump's vote has been

(16:31):
all along, you know, and therefore that it was always
going to be there's also are going to be a
close race. I mean, he was never going to do poorly.
It's a question of did he almost get over the
line like he officially did last time, or didn't do
last time, or with new voters and enough switchers from
the Democrats, either past voters or people who maybe didn't

(16:56):
vote last time, would he would he make it? And
what's been interesting is that what they call the sort
of the flippers, those who voted one way last time
and then voted nipway this up. He's been winning those
two to one pretty consistently. And it's not doesn't change
everything those kinds of numbers because we're they're at the margin,

(17:16):
But in a in a close race nationally or in
swing states, you know, that can be everything.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Indeed, I'm just skipping a hit here at the at
the moment, I don't think that the details of early
in person voters matter too much to us, unless you
think otherwise. Well, actually, actually I'm wrong, because you're you know,
you look at the the votes for Trump early in

(17:45):
person voters, fifty seven percent for Harris and that's that's
a flip? Is that not on the on on previous ears?

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yes, this is the Yeah, this is the thing. Is
that Harris I mean the Democrats, you know, they've been
crushing previous to this election the mail vote, not just
simply in terms of volume, but in terms of the
spread between them and the republic The Republicans were actually
sort of consciously not going through the mail, and they've

(18:14):
turned it around this time and they vote through the mail,
vote through the mail, and the Republican numbers haven't actually
shifted if you should have averaged it all out across
the country, they haven't shifted that much. You say, Okay,
well that doesn't that isn't much of a help. Well,
actually it is, because you know, we had all this
male in voting because of COVID and so many people
foind it convenient to do it that way. So for

(18:36):
the Republicans to sort of maintain roughly that level is
quite good, particularly when you consider that in most states,
basically the swing states, the Democrat mail in vote has
dropped off considerably, and so there's both the difference between
the who they're voting for is condensed, and also just

(18:56):
the volume. You know, that lead like Harris has this
eight point lead upon among those who voted by mail,
but there are much fewer of them, so that eight
points doesn't count as much as it did for Biden
when the lead was far more eight points as well.
And you look at the early in person that Trump
has edged them out fifty one for those they have

(19:17):
chosen Trump fifty one over forty seven for Harris. And
again that's that's a big improvement in all these different
ways for the Republicans visa v. The Democrats. And so
when you when you put those two together, those who
mailed in their ballots and those who voted in person
but early, you put it in the in the synthesize it,
you know, number data wise, and you end up with

(19:41):
going into election day Harris with a small advantage sort
of two three points. And then it becomes election day
becomes about who gets their people, those that are remaining
roughly half to actually physically go and vote. And it's
traditionally been the day when Republicans either caught up and
overtook the Democrats or you know, failed to do so.

(20:04):
So both sides had everything riding, have everything riding on
the in person election day vote.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Tell me something, what are recalled vote?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Recalled votes are asking people who they voted for last time.
If you know I did a vote last time, and
if they did, who they voted for. The reason for asking, well,
a bunch of reasons for ask any question, but the
real true reason for asking that is to it's a
kind of an insurance policy or a safety net to

(20:36):
make sure that you're not talking to a skewed group.
That is, you know, like if I if we've done
this poll and our recalled vote was, you know, ten
points Trump ahead ten points from twenty twenty, we had
ten percent more Trump voters than were in the actual electorate,
then what we would have to do, if we didn't

(20:57):
want to chuck the whole thing out, is we would
have to then weight everything for that basis to take
away Trump votes and Republican volume throughout the poll. So
just give you one quick example. On the weekend, your
listeners might have heard about it. One or two state
poles that came out that surprised everybody with how well

(21:19):
Harris was doing. And of course it turns out in
both cases the recalled vote was massively pro Biden from
twenty twenty, way beyond just you know, double digits difference
from how that state actually voted, And so you adjust
that and suddenly Harris doesn't have this surprising lead. She's

(21:41):
actually still behind. And so when we saw our recall
vote is actually the charts, the slides don't allow for
you know, decimal points. So our recall vote was actually
forty nine point five for Biden to forty six, which

(22:01):
is a little less than the official popular vote margin
he won by, but not much. So that told hold
us whatever else might not be, you know, kosher with
this poll. Perhaps we'll find out. Then over the next
couple of days, we do have a group that does
those who voted last time are an accurate reflection of

(22:25):
twenty twenty. And then of course, you know you've talked
to all the new voters and see what they're thinking
and put that all together.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Okay, One that intrigues me that I hadn't seen anywhere else,
and that is new voter's choice. And the margin is considerable.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yes, it's sixteen points, which is you know, new voters
are about seven percent. There's about six or seven percent
who have voted before, but not that often, not that regular.
And then you've got seven percent who have never voted before.
And they're not all young people, most of them are,
but a lot of them have folks who just just

(23:01):
weren't interested in many and they're even registered to vote.
So that is what that's obviously it's a very positive
sign for Trump. But what it tells us, or reminds us,
is of Trump's appeal beyond the traditional Republican conservative voter,

(23:23):
of whom there are simply no longer a sufficient number
to win a national election. And Trump has for the
third time running, perhaps most expertly this time, will see
he has been able to his campaigns have been able

(23:43):
to identify, reach, persuade, motivate Americans who stopped voting ten
twenty years ago, who never voted, or, counterintuitively to many
this time in twenty four are only just approaching their
first opportunity to vote. And he is doing. You know,

(24:07):
his support among eighteen to twenty nine year olds, sort
of your zoomers, is in the forties now, whereas last
time that age group he was in the high teens. Right,
So that's all going very well. And of course that

(24:27):
a lot of those folks, some of them have voted before,
but a lot of them haven't. And so these those
the new voters and the occasional voters are what in
the polling business you call low propensity voters, and when
so many elections pliculing in America are about turnout rather
than persuasion, certainly in the latter stages, and with the

(24:49):
partisan divide so strong and so set so sort of
in the cement, whichever side can identify and reach and
motivate low propensity voters is almost certainly going to win.
And it was part of the secret source of a
lot of a secret source of all those unexpected mail

(25:11):
in ballots the Democrats of twenty twenty. Many of the
people whose names at least were on those ballots had
never voted before, or hadn't voted for a long time,
and even some of them, many of them didn't even
know they voted in twenty twenty. But this time the
Trump campaign recognized from the get go that this was
how they could potentially turn an absolute squeaker They might win,

(25:33):
they might not to have a coin toss election into
one that gave them a greater chance of victory likelihood
of victory. And so most of their outreach they're knocking
on doors and text messages and all that kind of thing,
has been to identify people who they think, for one
reason or another, would be inclined to support them, many

(25:57):
of them former Democrats, many of them independents, and get
enough of them out to make a difference. And whether
he wins the election or not, they've certainly made a
substantial out of progress in that direction.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
So the expected winner, yes, is based on anything else
other than the results you got in this.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
No, no, no, it's I can. I mean, if you
have the time, I can explain to you why we
asked these sort of crazy questions.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
I'll leave that to you whether you want to do it.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Give me enough rope to hang myself if I forget,
to thank you later. So that is one of the
ways that we attempt to tease out how people are
really thinking and how strong their support is for one
candidate or another. Because one of the tricks we learned,

(26:50):
you know, our first so let's say our only, but
our only claims to fame in the polling world, was
that we nailed the Brexit vote in the UK at
twenty sixteen, right. And one of the ways we were
able to do that and then identify mostly successfully the
Trump vote in America ever since is getting our arms
around the shy Brexit voter, the shy Trump voter h

(27:14):
and one of the ways we figured out you could
do that was when you had these sort of disproportionate
number of undecided voters who clearly, based on their answers
to other questions, were sympathetic to Brexit or tremble whoever,
whatever the cause or person may be, but wouldn't but
put said and maintain they were undecided if you ask,

(27:35):
It turns out if you ask them questions not about
themselves but about others, they are far more likely to
to indirectly indicate to you what they plan on doing. So, yeah,
so you ask them about their neighbor, you ask them
about their friends, their relatives, their wife, the people they
work with, or you asked them and or you ask

(27:56):
them so you know you're undecided. No one knows what's
gonna happen. Who do you think is going to win?
And it's amazing how many of these people have a
really strong opinion about it's going to win. And so
it's another part that have signed for Trump fifty three
forty six. It's a greater margin then you find in
this exit poll, or we always find there's a greater
margin a few points. You know, if we find a

(28:18):
we do a poll with most of our polls have
been recently nationally Trump up by two or three. You
ask the question about who you think's going to win,
or who your neighbors voting for, and you get Trump
up by four or six or eight. Uh, it always
goes in that direction. And what I think when we
think from our polls, we've been able to demonstrate that,

(28:42):
you know, that does tell you something. But if you
simply think about Trump's performance, this will be his third election,
whether it's primaries, caucuses, or general elections, whether he wins, loses,
whatever he does, he nearly always out votes his polling,
whether it's a point five points, you know, he just
the poll Most posters underestimate Trump. I mean, it's just

(29:05):
a fact. And obviously one of the key ess this
time is is that going to happen again? And I
have suspected it would. I didn't know, you know, you
don't know to how to what degree, But it's, uh,
that's what I've always said. And again, over the next
number of hours and days, I maybe be proven completely wrong.
But I've been saying all year to people that the
narrow lead that we've been finding consistently for Trump, we

(29:30):
obviously we could be wrong. But if we are wrong
and you ask you put a gun to my head,
I'd say we are underestimating his vote rather than overestimating
his vote, you know, to be you know, I don't
know whether I'll be proven right or not, but this
kind of a result on the exit poll suggests there
might be something to my guess.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Is there anything anything else apart from the any anything
personal that you would like to throw into this conversation
briefly checking the time? Ah, about how you think it's
kind of now, or anything that's out of order, or
any any election day surprise.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Right, Well, intellectually, my own judgments of what will happen
are based I mean, obviously I'm a greg proponent of polling,
but polling can be wrong, and polling isn't everything, And
there are all kinds of other dozens of other metrics,
some empirical, some anecdotal, which historically have are is that
proven as accurate or even more accurate than polling? So

(30:39):
my brain, you know, I try to get my intellectual
arms around all of that. And as a consequence of that,
all year my brain has told me this is Trump's
election to lose. Could he lose it? Yes? Will you
lose it. I don't think so. I think probably not. Okay,
that's where my brain has been. But for since the summer,

(31:03):
my intuition, my gut has been on a sort of
of its own. Now, therefore, I sort of when they're
the same, you know how other people are and how
you are latent, When you're braking your intuition are in sync,
you sort of feel confident whatever that is. Even if
it's bad views do you think at least you can
face it. But when when they're not quite in sync,
you start questioning both. But what my intuition has been

(31:26):
telling me for a couple of months, and I've mentioned
this to anyone you know unwise enough to ask, is
that although you can't expect it these days, I've just
had this nagging feeling that this thing could get blown
wide open and it could end up being trumped quite
by quite a big margin.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Welcome to the club.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
And yeah, and now, of course you know you have
to check yourself one because I have to sort of
people ask me to speak to the numbers. But also
you know, you want's own personal bias and all of that.
But it's not a not a sense I had a
year ago or two years ago, before the last election,
or before the one before that. This just and I'm

(32:09):
certainly not the first person to think or to say
this out loud, but the election itself has a lot
of echoes. For those of us old enough to remember,
you might be late. And I'm not sure the nineteen
eighty Carter Reagan race, where all of the kind of
basic metrics were favored Reagan, but in terms of the

(32:32):
conventional wisdom and the much faded polls of where they
were much far fewer then, they never really had him
in a great position. It was competitive, but Carter was
up a lot, and then he be up and this
kind of thing, and then it all broke for Reagan
at the end. And I think it's less that there
were specific I mean, Bragan had a great debate and

(32:54):
things like that, but I think it was less that
and more that it was always going that way, but
it was hidden, you know, it was sort of under
the radar stuff. And Reagan wins up winning by nine
points in a race that the experts said would be
one or two points either way, right, And it just
it feels like that, it has felt like that. But

(33:14):
you know, every other every day there's another media pole
saying Kamala is up by two, or this swing state
is you know, within a decimal point, and all the
rest of it, and the crazy posters like me, we
have our results that suggest, you know, it's advantage Trump,
which i've you know, maintained it is up to this,

(33:35):
up to this brain minute, and the exit pole, I think,
you know, gives me more more reason to do that.
But I'm looking at this exit pole and there's nothing
in it that screams landslide except for the question. We've
just been discussing the expected winner, which I found, you know,
one of the more useful over the years in different contexts.

(33:56):
So again, you know, if she wins big, I'll have
missed both both my brain and my intuition will have missed.
But that's my quasi personal take on the evening. And
what that means, of course, is that I wouldn't be
at all surprise surprised, will be shocked, I should say,
be pleasantly surprised, you know, if he wins these blue

(34:19):
states like Virginia and New Mexico and Minnesota and New Hampshire.
And that's why, well it is in the American context,
if it's an absolute blowout. If my intuition is right,
then we'll know quite early because the Virginia's New Hampshire's
are on these coast and Virginia's one of the for

(34:41):
actually Virginia's closing just around now. They'll start doing the
start doing the early vote counts. But you know, but
if they go as they tould, as they have gone
in recent elections, then we'll be waiting for others. But yeah,
there's just it just feels it feels that way. I mean,
there's a number of people commenting today, some famous, some

(35:05):
not famous, who've all been i mean, on the on
the not the Trump campaign, but they're on the Trump side,
Trump's side pretty much wishing to win. And they've all
made the same point, which is, whether they're thirty years
old or sixty years old, they can't quite remember the
last time that everything seemed to be lined up for
the Republican to win, except for the fact half the
pole say you might lose, you know, So it's I

(35:28):
think it's on one side of the aisle at least.
It's a fairly common theme that what one's seeing and
reading and hearing is from you know, you might say
official sources doesn't quite gel with the how how it
all smells? You know?

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, I just got a message in the top right corner,
as you do. And all I got all I got
off it before it disappeared was Trump projected to win
in Kentucky and great. A couple of others followed. I
think anyway, I can't exist it. Look, I'm going to

(36:09):
let you go because I know you have other obligations.
I have a challenge for you, if there is, if
there is a good reason, shall we reconvene tomorrow for
something that's never been done before on this podcast, and
that is to do a follow up?

Speaker 2 (36:24):
No, absolutely, if there if there is good reason, and
then we should do that.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
I will be enthusiastic if you if you don't answer
your phone, I'll know that you didn't agree with me
on the good reason.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
No, it probably means that I finally I've just involuntarily
fallen asleep. But I don't know there's much chance of
that anyway.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
As always, you're most generous. Let you go, and just
be aware that you are much valued.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
Oh, you're most kindly. Always a pleasure.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
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(37:47):
Leverrix and always read the label. Take as directed and
if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker Auckland.
Nigel Bigar CBE is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology
the University of Oxford, is Chairman of the Board of

(38:09):
the Free Speech Union, one of Prospects magazines twenty five
Top Thinkers of twenty twenty four, and author of the
best selling Colonialism, A Moral Reckoning. Out of those four lines,
I could drive this interview with multiple feed off questions. Nigel,

(38:29):
great to have you in New Zealand. I've been looking
forward to your arrival. You are an impressive man, a
very impressive thinker, and even if one doesn't agree with you,
you have very persuasive powers. Welcome to the lesiond Welcome
to the country.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Glad to be here. I've been in New Zealand for
about twelve hours and I'm joining it.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
So far terrific. I want to quote you a few
things and then ask you a question. Following the academic
freedom report by doctor James Kiersted from the New Zealand
Initiative shows many experiences of academics self censoring. He was
even closer than the initiative because he was a prefarre
lecturer at the university for a number of years. University

(39:12):
of Auckland's flawed policy on academic freedom took four years
to draft, only for academics to rightly reject it. Damning
results at the aut Law Society staff survey and a
professor's equally damning response Massi University's staff survey results more
evidence of self censorship at university and finally, for the

(39:35):
moment at least, back in May, Victoria University three speech
panel discussion was postponed due to backlash. So there's just one, two, three, four,
five things that have happened at universities in the very
recent well in the immediate past. Nigel, simple question. I

(39:55):
think you grew up in a democracy. I was born
in a democracy. We've both grown up and we know
what democracy is all about. What has happened that what
I've just quoted you is in play at the moment
in this country, Australia, Britain, America, Canada, all the Anglo
speaking world. What's happened? How did it get here?

Speaker 4 (40:18):
That's a great and important question, Lathon. Then you're quite right.
When I first fell into trouble over my views on
Colonel History in twenty seventeen, I had no idea there
was a problem. I was accustomed to speaking my mind
and I try and do so reasonably, but I wasn't

(40:38):
aware that anyone would try and shut me down. So
what's happened a number of different things. You certainly have
the emergence of, I think a minority of very zealous
progressive folk who have dogmatic views on gender, dogmatic views

(41:00):
on the extent to which we're racist, and dogmatic views
on how bad, how relentlessly colonial government was, so you
have the zealous. Then, as I've discovered, you have a
majority of people in universities, both students and professors, who
don't know much about the issues, just want to get

(41:23):
on with their careers and their lives conflict averse and
have failed, I think, have failed to understand how much
is at stake here. And then, most presently of all,
you've got university administrations run by apparently grown ups who
twenty years ago would have been quite firm in telling

(41:47):
let's say, agree to students, we feel your pain, but
I'm afraid you don't get to evade points of view
you don't like. And that's changed. And I think it's
the behavior of institutions and authorities at the top that
is most decisive and most troubling. Why have they changed
their behavior, Well, some of them have absorbed and critically

(42:11):
notions like the only virtue is compassion, the only virtue
is kindness, and we must do all we can to
avoid upsetting young people, especially members of supposedly marginalized or
victimized groups. Historically, so that's that's certain ideas have got
into the bloodstream of culture, and those who lead us

(42:35):
have absorbed those ideas. But there's also the fact that
universities are businesses and highly competitive businesses, and they are
desperate to retain market share and attract students and to
keep donors on side. And if they perceive that certain
views are going to disturb potential customers or disturb potential donors,

(43:00):
they will quickly clamp down on those ideas. So I
think it's a number of different factors that have brought
us here. So there's there are They questioned later was
a simple one, but the answer is a bit more complicated.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Well, it needs to be complicated because it seems simple,
and to get a decent answer, it has to come
out as you've described it. Now you talk, you talk
about universities and competition. Does that where does that place
universities on the free market ticket?

Speaker 4 (43:29):
You know, I'm sixty nine years old later, and so
when I was to university in the nineteen seventies in Britain,
I think about twelve percent of every generation at university.
Then it was very late, but with twelve percent of
the university of the each co op going to university,
the States could afford to fund my education. So I

(43:50):
don't think. I don't think my parents paid much at all.
But then around before the end of the twentieth century, governments,
certainly in Britain and elsewhere, decided to expand university sector enormously,
so that now in Britain it's some between forty and
fifty percent of every generation goes to university. Well, the

(44:13):
state couldn't afford to fundel that directly, so they developed
a business model which partly involves partly involved students paying fees.
It also involves New Zealand and Australia numbers very well.
It involves attracting overseas students, not least from China, to

(44:34):
come to our universities. But the unity depends on overseas
students heavily, and they certainly depend on student fees. So
in international rankings of universities, one of the categories is
now student experience. Now that didn't appear twenty thirty years ago.
And you know, I'm all for students being aware of

(44:55):
excuse me, of universities being aware of how students are
experiencing their university because frankly, during my undergraduate career fifty
years ago, I wasn't taught very well. Frankly, So universities
have good reasons as it were, You want to know
how students are fairing, what the experience is. However, the

(45:17):
danger is, and I think it's the danger that is
really has been realized. The danger is you treat students
like customers and if they're not unhappy, it doesn't matter
why they're unhappy. They're not happy. That should determine policy.
That I think is a major distortion, because students, of course,
can be happy for all sorts of bad reasons. Maybe

(45:38):
they're lazy, they don't like working. So universites can't take
that serious, but they do. They do.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
So this is a clip on question. Students think that
they run the university, so it seems why and how
did they get that idea. I mean, you've partly sorry,
you've partly you've partly answered that, but we're taking a
step further. In my mind, that they come to university
learn very quickly or be told very quickly by fellow
students or however else that they they control it or

(46:08):
control it, and so it goes to their head why
were they allowed to do that?

Speaker 4 (46:13):
So, yes, universities are businesses. I mean they have to
make ends meet. We get that, nothing wrong with that,
but those at the top of the universities. Nevertheless, should
remember that universities are not primarily there to make a profit.
They there to survive, but they're there to educate, and

(46:35):
university leaders should also remember that although not all wisdom
lies with adults, the fact of the matter is that
professors and older people usually know a lot more than
younger people, and therefore they should have the as it were,
the kind of self confidence, and they should have a

(46:58):
right conception of what their businesses, which is education, to
be able to say to students again, we feel your pain,
we understand you're aggrieved, but actually no, we think you
require this for your education. You don't get to determine things.
But I think it's a combination of what I was
saying before in terms of universities being excessively business like

(47:21):
and how they can see what they're up to, so
they are very sensitive, as it were, to market indicators
of student student dissatisfaction. But there's also I think I
wonder if there isn't also a kind of cultural change
here that we're now ruled by those who grew up
in the nineties sixties, and these are people who are
afraid of exercising authority. I do remember I held a

(47:47):
conference in twenty nineteen under the title Academic Freedom under
Threat what is to be done in Oxford, And the
observation was made that the people of my generation, who
grew up or slightly younger than me, we were told
that authority is a bad thing. So I would not
be surprised if a lot of those olimans you shoulds

(48:09):
actually are very uncomfortable about saying no.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
That actually stuns me. You'd think if you grew up
in the sixties and you had a lifetime of experience
behind you, buy now you do, you'd have grasped some reality.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
Well, you would have thought so. But that's not the
way they tend to behave. I mean, I'm just aware
how in my own universe, even in my own university,
and Oxford is relatively clear of some of the worst.
As vice Chancellor send out some circular recently exhorting everyone
to be kind. I'm all, I'm all favorite of kindness,

(48:51):
but it ain't the only virtue. And sometimes you don't
do other people. You don't do them justice, and you
don't you don't help them always by being kind. Sometimes
you have to be firm, and they won't experience that,
they will not experience that as kindness. But but you
need to serve their welfare, not just their feelings. Because sometimes,

(49:12):
as I have long said, and as I'm sure lots
of younger folks here would find incomprehensible, I often say,
sometimes feelings lie. You can't take them for you can't
take them as indicators of the truth. And so they
were grown up, grown ups for the sake of the
welfare of younger, younger people. Sometimes they say, I know,

(49:32):
I know how you feel strongly about this, but I'm
totally sorry. I'm not going to yield.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
I'm sorry. Who did you say? There was the chancellor?

Speaker 4 (49:41):
Well, I think it was that. I don't I don't
want to get Yeah, it was it was a vice
chancellor at Oxford. I think who sent out a circular.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
So I'm going to I'm going to leap leap to
the present. Oxford needs a firebrand chancellor to destroy wokery.
James Price and James Price in the in the Telegraph,
and I'll go further where he says. My vote would
go to Professor Reverend Nigel Biggas, an academic and writer who,

(50:11):
when dragged into the culture Wars did not apologize meekly,
but took his place bravely on the intellectual barricades. He
will be well known to readers of the Telegraph for
his accounts of the erosion of academic freedom and failures
to grasp it. Charged with thought crimes, he did not
commit bigger stood up to the mob, and has provided

(50:32):
an inspiration for many of us who wished to do
the same. Like I say, I'm bringing this forward, we'll
have to take a step back in a moment. You you
got into this position because of colonialism, the book.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
A nature before that.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Well, all right, so that the book magnified it. Yeah, certainly,
okay either way. You you got yourself into into trouble.
You got yourself for a few problems. What gave what
gave you the courage to take the stands you did
and survived.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Oh that's a that's a great question. I've thought about
it a lot, because people do say I've been courageous
and brave, and my heart is warmed by that, and
I'm encouraged by it, and I hope it's true. But
I've often thought I feel like decorated soldiers who've been

(51:27):
courageous on the battlefield who risk their lives to save
their mates, and I suspect they also feel kind of
something perplexed because they were just doing their duty. That's
what they did. They didn't they didn't do it to
be courageous. And so when I think about, you know,
what makes me or what makes other people courageous or

(51:50):
to take risks in doing or saying things, I think
really late is simply if you care about something enough,
if you care about enough, if you love it enough,
then there comes a point where you just can't stand
by anymore and see it crushed or damaged or defamed,

(52:12):
and you have to speak up. But I think it's
a compulsion out of love for something that makes you say,
bugger it, I don't care what people think. I'm going
to take this risk. So it's not that you aim
to be courageous. It knows you aim to be courageous.
I think it's a matter of saying to yourself, well
do I care enough to stand by and see this

(52:34):
precious thing crushed? And some people need to get up
and stand up. I think also, Frankly Lateten, it's also
partly personality. I'm Scot's I'm more inclined to be directed
and blunt than most of my nice, gentle, polite English

(52:57):
friends and colleagues. I'm more impatient. And also I'm older,
so I'm sixty nine. At the end of my career,
I was relatively safe. Other colleagues have suffered much more
grievous than I. And you know, one thing about older
age is that it's produced as two things which are
a dangerous combination. First of all, you finally think that

(53:18):
what you think, and secondly, you cease to carry what
other people think so much so you inclined to say
what you think. And I, although you know I've attracted aggression,
it wouldn't be anywhere else. So I'm very glad to
be saying, well, I think, because I think what There's
some things that are important, and there's some truth that

(53:38):
are important that I'm glad to say them.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
I can only say, excellent. Want to read you a
letter to the editor. This is This is purely coincidental.
It arrived this morning from a friend of mine. You
took a photo of it and said it to me,
not knowing that I was talking to you. It's just
so coincidental. Fears of censure, the concern by doctor Jared Gilbert,

(54:05):
sociologist at the University of Canterbury, that students don't turn
up to class but would rather choose to engage remotely
for courses that are not designed that way. This was
for an article that appeared on October twenty eighth. Don't
speak up in class and have become disengaged, claiming that
they have anxiety issues. They might have missed the boat. Sorry,

(54:28):
the letter might have missed the boat. Could it be
that the Could it be that the fault of all
this lies with the universities themselves and not entirely were
the students. Many years ago, universities were the bastions of
free thought, opened discourse and debate from professors to first
grade to first year undergraduates. However, could the reasons for

(54:48):
student disengagement outlined by Gilbert be emblematic of the decline
in our university's commitment to a willingness to protect the
viewpoints of all engaged in debate even though there is disagreement.
One example of this was the backlash over the letter
published by several University of Auckland academics in the Listener
back in twenty twenty one. You may have heard of this,

(55:10):
by the way, arguing that Matt oranger Mary is not
science in the traditional sense. There was a call for
these academics to be censured. Surely, if academics are going
to run the risk of being censured at their own university,
then what hope will ordinary students have in delivering their
own views on whatever topic they might feel passionate about,

(55:32):
not because of anxiety, but for the fear of being censured.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
Yep, those are unfortunately not rare phenomena. Later so, I
think universities have a very very serious civic duty to
create a forum where all ideas that are lawful are

(55:59):
allowed to come into play, and where students are trained
to react to ideas that challenge them more threatns no
or upset them with strict justice, not to distort them
in reporting, not to much represent them, not to lie
about them, and trained to have the courage to think

(56:20):
about them, to wonder whether actually this strange idea, the
threatening idea, might be right, or how far it's right.
But they have a universes have a duty to support
an environment where all sorts of ideas, some of them
are no doubt challenging, come into play, and with students
are trained in the virtues necessary for us to have

(56:44):
a liberal society, because if universities failed to do that,
our public life and a political life is going to
suffer in the way it now is, where people tend
to shout and scream and and appeal to emotion, and
they don't know how to deal with perfectly reasonable ideas.
And what you've just described these New Zealand academics as

(57:04):
saying about the difference between certain traditional Maori stories and
natural science, for example, that's a perfectly sensible point to make.
They should be allowed to say that, and students should
be required, frankly required to deal with these things in
a rational manner, and that does require the self for
strange of emotion. And too many universities, not all of them,

(57:28):
too many universities are completely oblivious to that duty. That
they're behaving, as it were, simply as businesses. They've forgotten
what their main purpose is. But so I agree, I
think universities have a lot to do it. Also, I mean,
I think it is said that mental health issues are
a growing problem among students, and of course what I

(57:52):
would what I would have called what I still call
distress or even mild depression is now now trauma. I
regard distress and depression as a normal, normal feature of life,
and I think it's not helping kids if they are
told that. But I'm also told that living life on
social media does create lots of anxiety in Eurosis, and

(58:14):
that may be a new phenomenon, in which case, when
presented with kids who are really distressed at ideas that
they find disturbing, universities need to treat this as a
partial therapeutic problem, not allowing students to proceed without having
different fund ideas they don't like, but helping students to

(58:35):
acquire resilience in coping with ideas they don't like. Whereas
I think the tendency is to take the easy option
of simply allowing students to shield themselves from find things
they find distressing.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
All right, So resilience is one of the most important
aspects of life, particularly when you're growing up.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
So let's just verbally draw up a short list of
things that might have might have gone wrong one way
or another that have allowed kids to grow up and
find themselves in this position, not understanding why it's happened
and what they can do about it. The collapse of
marriage is my first option, is my first offer. The

(59:23):
collapse of marriage, the lack of father's same category, pulling
the rug on kids at achievement. One of one of
my sons, for instance, was at a school where he
had he had three chances to submit answers to an exam. Yes,
after it was over, he did. They all did. So

(59:44):
there's no there was no pressure, there's no drive as
far as that's concerned. What would you what would you
add to that shortlist so far?

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Is it? Comment on that last point? Late? And yes,
I in my own university one hears of all sorts
of special measures being taken to allow students of suffering
anxiety to to take exams, to retake exam because of
course failing is distressing. I fail. I fail quite badly.

(01:00:14):
At university.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
We have something in common, Well, we both.

Speaker 4 (01:00:19):
Learned there's there's life after failure. But that's but that's
the point, isn't it That it's not doing students a service.
It's not being kind to them to pretend that the
outside world is going to forgive them all the time,
or as it will ignore their failure. The outside world
is going to be very harsh so so universities and

(01:00:41):
parents need to get kinder to their kids in explaining
to them that actually failure is a pretty normal part
of human life. One needs to learn to fail and
then to get them off the ground and try again.
That's that's called resilience. But but I fear that's not
what's happening, and students are being indulged in a way

(01:01:03):
that is actually doing them harm and the adults are
responsible for that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
Let's say the attack on masculinity.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
Yes, help help me there, well, the attack.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
On masculinity that the boys, for instance, are not allowed
to show masculine tendencies when they're at school, when they're
when they're when they're growing up. Attitudes are part of
the physical part of life is another part, yes, and
not having a not having a shall we say, a
guide through life in the form of a man in

(01:01:37):
the family contributes even more.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
Of course, masculinity and feminity are kind of ideal types
of behavior. So so to be masculin is to be strong.
It's to be willing to to to fight, to be
in conflict, to have resilience and courage. Strength, femininity the

(01:02:02):
ideal is no, it's it's not about fightings, about reconciliations,
about relationships, it's about being kind of it. My view
is that all human beings should, in different situations, be
masculine and feminine. I have heard and this is plausible,
I don't know what the empirical substantiation of it is.

(01:02:22):
Part of the problem in universities and elsewhere is the
feminization institutions often run by women. I've not plain against that,
but if it's true that women tend to focus on
reconciliation and conflict with avoidance and kindness and compassion, if
women are too feminine, not not masculine enough, then that

(01:02:45):
is certainly contributed to our problem. Because what we need,
is particularly in university, is also in schools. We need
our young people taught how to manage conflict responsibly because
when they go into life, they're not going to be
able to avoid conflict. So the question is how do
you manage it responsibly? And if you avoid it, If

(01:03:07):
you will kids to avoid it all the time and
not to grow the virtues of patients and resilience and
self restraint, then they're going to mismanaged conflict. And when
they grew up to run institutions, we're all going to.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Suffer the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Build twenty twenty one,
but that you had a big hand in. You made
a you made a submission to the Public Bills Committee. Yes,
and I've read it and I've read it and its outstanding,
and it got if I'm not mistaken, it got passed.

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
The bill was passed. Yeah, it was in active last year.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
Yes, and then it didn't. One day it was coming
into fourth and the next day it wasn't.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
What happened change your government, the new Labor government of
kas Darma I and my allies in shaping and promoting
the hid K Should Be Speech Bill, which was an
active in May last year. We wondered before the election

(01:04:14):
whether a new Labor government would try and pull it
or qualified or damage it or whatever. And there's no
sign at all, none at all, that they were interested
in changing what we put in position. But no sooner
had the government been elected at the Secretary of State
for Education Bridge At Phillipson, announced that she was going

(01:04:34):
to suspend the operation of the Act and perhaps repeal it. Now,
why did you do that? Well, someone from within government,
a reliable source, i'm told, reported that vice chancellors had
lent on the then Shadow Secretary of State because the

(01:05:00):
Act would have required universities to make transparent their dependents,
their dependent on foreign that is Chinese funding, and the
advice chancellors did not want to have to be transparent
about that, which is why they lent on the Secretary
of State. That's not why the Secretary of State stay
she wants to pause it or to repeal it. But

(01:05:25):
we're told actually that is why the buds vice chances
that have lent on her. So, yes, the Act is
currently paused because we have a Free Speech Union in
Britain now founded four years ago, now extremely healthy, twenty
thousand members, an annual income from subscriptions alone of about
a million pounds plus donations. Because we have an FSQ

(01:05:48):
with a staff and a full time legal mind working
on cases, the FSU has applied to take the government
to court by means of judicial review. So there's bad
news that Laton. Yes, the government appears to want to
who perhaps repeal the Act. The good news is we

(01:06:12):
now have an institution in Britain sufficiently powerful and well
resourced to challenge that and to embarrass the government. In
the pages of the press.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Concern about threats to free speech and research in universities
is sometimes dismissed as a manufactured distraction. Can I suggest
that that is a very purposed claim to allow them
to continue with what they want to achieve.

Speaker 4 (01:06:42):
Oh yes, later, every time I hear that, my blood
pressure starts to rise. Because it's the leaders of most
of our universities in Britain, throughout four years of press
coverage or free speech in universities, have consistently said, there

(01:07:03):
is no problem. The problem is limited to a small
handful of cancelation of events and we're all committed to
free speech. That's what they say. I will point out
that although I probably was the first the first person

(01:07:23):
to hit the pages of the press in twenty seventeen
because an attempted to be maze to constrain my academic freedom,
and it was in the pressook for weeks and so
all of my most people in Oxford and in the
university university administration who are conscious will know who I

(01:07:48):
am and what happened to me. Nobody in the administration
oxyd University has ever asked me to come in and
talk to them of what's going on. Apart from that,
you've got people like Kathleen Starkey, lesbian, a gender critical
feminist philosopher. If you ever hear her speech, she's on YouTube.

(01:08:08):
She is a model of reason, the model of reason.
She was driven out of her job in her career
at the University of Sussex a few years ago by
campaign carried out by students are betted by fellow academics,
and the university authorities allowed it to happen. She was
driven out of a job. So I get really quite

(01:08:30):
angry when I had universities an others say this is
not a problem, because it is to say that you
simply have to willfully ignore ample evidence of their being
a problem. And if anyone's in any doubt, go and
look at the website of the Free Speech Union in
the UK. There are plenty of cases of people, not
just universities but in other walks of life whose free

(01:08:52):
speech and academic and freedom of thought is being constrained,
and lawfully in many.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
Cases, I quite for the very beginning again. And in
their June submission to the Times Education Commission, Tony Blair
and Andrew o'donnis wrote that the Higher Education Freedom of
Speech Bill is now making its way through Parliament is
a reform in search of a problem. Since free speech

(01:09:19):
is hardly a key issue on university campuses, Tony Blair
lives up to his reputation or down to it? Should
I say?

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
Well? Actually, like and I used to hold a candle
for Tony Blair and didn't hold a candle for Andrew
Dunnas And the best I can say is that there
is an ignorant statement, and given the available evidence, it
is a willfully ignorant statement. And they should know better.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Well, I'm sure they do.

Speaker 4 (01:09:51):
Well that case through more vulnerable, right, because there's a
serious problem because, as I interimitted before, we need we
need a liberal society which we all thought we heard
until ten years ago, where all lawful ide years get
to be expressed. And that means where we're raining orthodoxies

(01:10:13):
whenever they are but orthodoxies with regard to gender self recognition.
Orthodoxy is about about our societies being systemically racist. Orthodox
is about that all ourcalgal history is nothing but a
literary of racism and oppression. Those orthodoxies need testing, they
need challenging. I think every one of them is actually false,

(01:10:35):
but they are. They are determining a government policy. They're
determine determining curriculating schools. And they're false, and we need
a society which is able to test them and to
expose how far they're false and how far they're true.
And universities have an enormously important civic duty to perform

(01:10:55):
in helping to shape as I said before, so they're
capable of having liberal discussions. And governments have an enormously
an enormous civic duty to make sure we have spaces
where which are probably liberal. And all sorts of institutions
and sometimes governments are failing, and the future of liberal

(01:11:17):
society among us is therefore jeopardized. And it's really really important.
So all those people who were trying to get on
with their lives and hoping there's no problem that they
had to deal with here and they can just keep
their heads under the parapet. If you want a liberal society,
you need to stand up, because otherwise we're going to
lose it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
So we've got universities. Now we've talked about them right
from the beginning, but you've got students arriving at universities
where I constantly hear it's a regular thing that they
arrive at university and they can't even construct a sentence.
They can't analyze anything, they don't know what they're doing.
So who's is that the result of the backwash from

(01:11:59):
universities or is it providing the problem for universities.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Well, it's probably listening again to do with this massive
expansion of higher education in the nineties and early noughties.
So so in Britain we you know, universities used to
be research universities then we we we I think Margaret
Thatcher actually her government decided to upgrade the status of
what were polytechnics into universities. Polytechnics traditionally were about vocational education,

(01:12:32):
which is very important, very important indeed, But that that
meant that some some polytechnics decided to stop doing vocational
education and to try and rival universities in academic research
and teaching. And it also means that there are some
of the weaker polytechnics who you know, as businesses, they

(01:12:57):
want to attract students, but their admissions criteria pretty low.
And it does mean therefore that kids are being sent
to university who twenty years ago would not have gone
to university simply because they're not prepared for it. Actually
they have no attitude for it. They're much better off

(01:13:19):
going to learn a vocational skills, so they become plumbers
and whatever, because we need you know, we will never
cease to need people with manual skills or artisanal skills,
vacational skills. And I mean I've heard talks certainly in
Britain in recent years that maybe was a mistake, particularly
under the Blair government, to take an arbitrary figure of

(01:13:42):
forty or fifty percent of the population to serve the
knowledge economy, because actually that has led to a decline
in the standards of some universities, because otherwise some kids
simply couldn't cope if they were subjected to a more
reduced standards. So there has been a decline in standards.
And then going back to an earlier point we made

(01:14:03):
about concessions made to students stuff from various kinds of
mental and health. It makes it easier for them. And
then also there is the issue of grade inflation in
earlier years. For four decades ago, the number of students
getting first class degrees was small ten percent. Maybe it's

(01:14:26):
now thirty percent, and that I think is partly because
of as a market competition, because you know, you want
to attract good students to university. Well, if you're a
university that gives first class de reason out generously, then
that's one reason why student might choose to go with you.
But of course it means that standards are being lowered

(01:14:47):
for market reasons, and so you know, if there's are
undermining their own credibility in this.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
Way, how much do you indulge in politics? Oh, publicly
or privately.

Speaker 4 (01:15:01):
I'm now out of myself as a conservative, so I
do politics at.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
This point of time. And by the time we are
released with this podcast, they'll be counting votes. What's your
thought on the American elect presidential election. I'm not even
really asking you who do you think is going to win,
because that's a question most people are trying to avoid.

(01:15:29):
I'm just I'm wondering, if you accept the complaint of
how could a country, a nation as big as three
hundred and thirty million people, produce two candidates of such inferiority.
That was before Biden resigned, and it's now applicable to

(01:15:51):
his replacement. Now I'm not saying that's what I believe,
but that's what that's the quote, and I'm wondering what
your response is.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
Well, if the complained is about the quality of front
rank politicians. Then there's not just an American problem. I
think we have a general problem in the democratic world
that the best people are not going to politics, and
the quality of politicians that appears quite mediocre generally. As

(01:16:21):
for the American situation, well, of course, although you and
I look get to vote, we and the rest of
the world, and not least the free world will have
to suffer the result in one way or another. Yeah,
I mean yes, of course. Donald Trump, in so many
ways is this mainly crude and appears quite stupid. Sometimes.

(01:16:45):
On the other hand, those who watch the effect of
his policies when he was present say that with regard
to deterring Russia and China, he was actually more robust
than Obama and Biden. There is also the feature that
whatever you think of Donald Trump himself, the fact there

(01:17:05):
is a lot of Americans want to vote for him,
and they are often Americans who feel left behind or
ignored by the progressive elite. And I've certainly seen in
my own country. I see it all the time. The
progressive elites do not want to hear certain things, certainly
not about immigration, and they just refuse to listen, and

(01:17:28):
as a consequence of which people who are concerned about
let's say illegal immigration or the rate of immigration, or
that the impact of immigration on housing or parts of
the country that are still languishing in post industrial ruin,
the refusal of the left to pay attention to other

(01:17:49):
things just means that other people who are concerned about
them become increasingly illustrated and move to the right, so
that the deafness of the left causes an absurge in
support for the right. And I think that's to some
extent to it. In so far as you find Trump
apport the fault, I think lies to a large extent

(01:18:12):
on the side of the Democrats.

Speaker 3 (01:18:14):
You just used a word that was in my mental
waiting list. You said it, You said it lies with
the with the Democrats. My belief is that there are
so many lies being told now that objecting, objecting that
they're wrong is a waste of time. The lies, the

(01:18:37):
lies are breeding like flies, and and even even when
they are discredited. And I'm thinking of three or so
quotes from Trump that got twisted and thrown thrown at
him from a from a different perspective. Obama was using
one of them yesterday in the speech, and I can't

(01:18:59):
understand why they get away with it. The only reason
that I can provide is that things have standards have
collapsed so much that nobody cares well.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
It's a dangerous supposed to be, isn't And I agree.
And social media, which is so uninhibited, allows lies to
spread in a way that they couldn't do informer generations.
I mean, I'm an academic. I try to be reasonable,
and I'm sometimes perplexed as to how on earth one

(01:19:29):
persuades people who are zealous and dogmatic. And I think
I've come an inclusion. If people want to lie, you
can't stop them. You just can't stop them. If they
want to lie, they'll carry on doing it unless they
suffer some kind of penalty. All one can do. And
I just assisted doing this. I tell the truth as

(01:19:52):
best I know it. I try and expose lies I
find around me as best I can. My experience has
been certainly through the success of my book. And I
mentioned the editor of plum Scree, who commissioned it for
blooms Free canceled it. He predicted sales up up to

(01:20:12):
twenty thousand copies. It's now soul over sixty thousand copies.
My experience in Oxford was putting on lectures to platform
more or less conservative thinking. There's a big appetite for it,
and since I've been in Australia, a lot of people
want to hear what I have to say. So I'm
encouraged that. You know, the lopul out there who don't

(01:20:34):
buy the lies, don't buy the orthodoxies about race and
gender and colonial history. They don't know very much, but
they know enough to know that doesn't make sense. But
who are eager to be told the whole truth? So
I don't want to unestimate the problem later. And you know,
most people like be talking to or not youngsters. But

(01:20:58):
there's an appetet out there for the truth and whatever
the difficult is, and however formidable task looks those of
us well, we all have a responsibility to speak the
truth as we know it, and I'm confident more people
will listen than we might we might fear.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
Okay, I just got to quite you a headline and
my question is very simple. Do you believe the following?
And if so, can you explain it? But I will
allow a brief explanation why the ruling class fears democracy.

(01:21:40):
Do you agree with that?

Speaker 4 (01:21:43):
Yes, I do. I do because the ruling class has
discovered that democratic politics will produce results they don't like.
So it produced Brexit, and it may well produce the
second Trump presidency. And so yes, Presa elites begin to

(01:22:05):
wonder about democracy because people are getting wrong. Well, you know,
I'm a democrat written and I know that democracy isn't perfect.
I mean Hitler. Hitler came to pound that I said before,
by normal democratic constitutional means. So you know, the people
can get badly wrong, that's for sure. But the alternatives

(01:22:28):
democracy are even worse. And what we have to do is,
first of all, when the people give an answer we
don't want to hear, we need to listen very carefully.
Just in the case that people are saying something we
needed to hear. What we shouldn't do, and this is
what the eleite to do is to dismiss the people
as ignorant, uncivilized, wicked. So those are voted for Brexit,

(01:22:54):
we're all stupid white xenophobes with a salader for empire
wanted to take Britain back to nineteen hundred, just as
the left too often does. Instead of engaging and engaging
with the reasons, the real reasons. The left too often

(01:23:14):
reaches for dismissal, just just wipe it off the table
and to dismiss the people. So although the people sometimes
do get it wrong, elites need to listen because if
they don't listen, they are going to be responsible for
a violent reaction. But I'm afraid too many elites just

(01:23:35):
talk to themselves and they're not honest, and they stay
in their comfort zone, and they need to come out
and and listen carefully and look carefully, and not just
dismiss some popular view views they don't like as racist
or as anaphobic or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
Just looking at the line of this is quite by accident,
because I was about the rapid a line from your
article that I'll get to in a second. That is
not how the progressive lift react. What's the progressive just quickly.

Speaker 4 (01:24:12):
Well, I define a progressive as someone who believes in
trans generous self identification, who believes that our societies are
systemic the racism, believes that clone history was nothing but wickedness.
What's more, a progressive is authoritarian, will not heed dissent,

(01:24:33):
will not listen to descent, and does their best to
repress it, repress it. So I'll talk about the repressive left,
because they all left was more liberal. You know that
they all left would have an argument with you and
give reasons this plot the repressive left, they don't want
an argument. They want to use power. They want to

(01:24:55):
use a timidation to shut things down. So it's a
combination of a certain dogmatic point of view plus authoritarian politics.

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
You might have wondered that the of my life.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
What are you thinking?

Speaker 3 (01:25:13):
Oh, I can I can describe a progressive in in
two words? All right, go ahead, and you send her
adern by her own by her own exclamation. But but
people listening to this know my thoughts on that. Soon
as soon as as soon as I as soon as

(01:25:34):
I heard her say that she was a progressive, I knew,
I knew we were in trouble. So so now I
have to get very quickly with you because I'm wearing
your sin. I want to encourage the reading of how
conservatives can win the culture Wars that you wrote and

(01:25:55):
published only what less than a week ago in in
Quadrant magazine and the current Quadrant magazine. It's the lead story.
I think from memory, how conservatives can win the culture
wardshould why should we read it?

Speaker 4 (01:26:12):
You should read it first of all, because you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
uh read it because some conservatives, sort of centrist conservatives,
pretend that the culture wars are not important, that they're manufactured,
and they're the kind of things that that nasty people
on the extreme right and extreme left fight and we

(01:26:34):
should rise above it. And I say no, the culture
was enormously important for the safety of women, for hormongious
race relations, and for the self confidence of the liberal
Western the face of threats from China and Russia. So
conservatives need to get in there and win the argument
because important truths are at stake here, and we can

(01:26:57):
win it, I think, because, as I've said, most people
in our societies don't know enough about race and gender
and colonial history. They're not entirely convinced by the progressive
story being hoisted upon them. So if we can simply
mobilize the unsure, slightly intimidated majority, I think the landscape,

(01:27:23):
the political landscape, would change quickly. But some of us
need to have the courage or the recklessness to stand
up and say things that other people object to in
the hope that we can really the troops and just
encourage more people to voice their doubts because their doubts
actually are reasonable and they ensure some of the stuff

(01:27:43):
they're being told is false, and it is false. So
we need together the troops to start exposing the falsehoods.

Speaker 3 (01:27:51):
It's a mastery as far as I'm concerned, how conservatives
can win. The culture was and it's the I think
the lead story in the November Quadrant magazine from Australia
that I encourage everyone to read.

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
Yes I should. I should add later that it was
a Quadrant that brought me for the first time to
Australia three weeks ago, and now FSU New Zealand have
brought me here to Wellington.

Speaker 3 (01:28:19):
The Free Speech Union, of course. And you're talking, you're
talking tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:28:25):
Talking to night in summer in Parliament, I believe I'm
also talking in christ Church on Wednesday and in Auckland
on on Saturdays.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
Excellent, Nigel Bigger. It's been a huge pleasure, at a
privilege to meet you sort of. And and one day
if I get to shake your hand, you can buy
me a drink. I'm sorry, I'll buy.

Speaker 4 (01:28:53):
You a drink. I will, Linton, And thanks so much
for having me on because these issues are so important
to all of us, and it's great that you give
me the maritime it's my pleasure.

Speaker 3 (01:29:02):
Thank you for now Light and swith okay mail room
for two hundred and sixty three, missus producer. We are
very close to the first the first announcements with regard
to the election, and I think we'll just play this
straight down the.

Speaker 5 (01:29:21):
Middle, absolutely latent, so let's get let's get going with it.
Aileen says, it wouldn't surprise me if Queen Kamala the
Kookabaro wins the election on November the fifth, Bring on
the skyrockets and Roman candles. She'll be laughing all the
way to the top, and so will her handlers in
the background. Political dynasties are powerful in the Democrat Party,

(01:29:44):
especially when they're lawyers, the Clinton's and the Obamas as
recent examples. But lawyers, no disrespect, aren't economists, and as wordsmiths,
they can often pull on emotions to win their case.
And Eileen says, God bless America and God defend New.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
Zealand indeed on both counts. Now, Jenny, Jenny was watching
a television interview and she was for us by what
the interviewee was saying, I don't know who it was.
Until I can find out, I'll just leave that apart.
I'm totally perplexed. She goes on, who you can believe
in this troubled world in which we live. This gets

(01:30:22):
worse and worse the more it goes on. I'm beginning
to think that whoever wins the election, there's going to
be big trouble either way. We watched January sixth, carry
on when Trump requested police protection as there was talk
of trouble. Nanci Pelosi did not grant his request the
extra for the extra protection, and the officers did not arrive.

(01:30:44):
But there was a Democrat man who was identified by
the media as being a Democrat. He was wearing a
Trump hat. He was stirring up the crowd big time.
No mention of that occurring. I can't think of his name,
but he did get he got nailed in the end.
I think he had a connection with the FBI, But
I'm not totally sure. Are you able to mention any

(01:31:05):
of this on your podcast?

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:31:08):
I can't, or is the subject much too sensitive to
even try? Never roll on the fifth, Well, here we are, Leyton.

Speaker 5 (01:31:16):
Michael says, love your show, but I won't say a
second Trump presidency is inevitable just yet. Too many gaffes
the left wing media have pounced on at the moment,
such as the Puerto Rico joke, and they don't care
if women like it or not comment and Professor Lickman,
who's been write nine out of ten past elections, is
still predicting a Harris victory. Hopefully this will be his

(01:31:39):
second incorrect prediction.

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
Yes, you need a coin, that's all toss up. Some
comments from Claire some comments regarding a letter about how
easy it is for overseas people to fraudulently vote in
the US election. As an expat who voted, I know
it's not easy. But first, Bezos doesn't need to endorse Kamara.

(01:32:01):
With almost every article favorable to her in his newspaper,
it's extremely clear he supports her. I wouldn't actually count
on that the moment. You might be right, you might
be wrong. For an expat to vote. We need an
address at our last domicide in the US. We need
a social Security number, we need to fill in a

(01:32:23):
voter registration and absentee ballot request, sign it and email
it back. Due to time zone differences, weekends, etc. This
took me about four days. Only then will they send
you your ballot with strict instructions on mailing it back.
That's right, mailing it back. Four years ago I voted online,
but maybe because of fraud, that option was not available

(01:32:46):
this year. The ballot must be placed into a plain
envelope with voted ballot written on it. This envelope is
then placed into another plane envelope, also with instructions on
that envelope as to the mailing address and where your
return address and signature goes. I wanted to track my ballot,
but New Zealand post only allows those blue places to

(01:33:08):
envelopes for tracking. My ballot would have been disallowed for
not being mailed in a plain envelope. Crazy, my state
is read my ballot wouldn't be necessarily so, but I
wanted to vote for Trump so he can take out
the garbage. Is to that, Thank you clear Layton.

Speaker 5 (01:33:29):
Vanessa says, just wanted to say how much I enjoyed
listening to the latest podcast with your son Christian talking
with you from the UK. He says he'll talk again anytime.
You'll have to hold him to that.

Speaker 3 (01:33:39):
Indeed, I will I am and as a promise. Now,
Allison writes once I was a listener to Candace Owen's
But have you heard her in the past year or so?
Her vitriol, her lies against Israel, her false and evil
accusations against the IDF. The way she words thinks her
serious slanders against all manner of persons such as Madame

(01:34:05):
Macron and others, is oppress and difficult to listen to,
so I don't online. One may look up the long
letter that Dennis Prager wrote to Candace, a one time
friend of his, trying to point out her errors in
his gracious way. But would it be too much to
say that there is no correcting Candace. When an arrogant

(01:34:28):
person knows everything, what is one to do but boycott her?
Her speech is so filled with deep rooted bitterness, anti Semitism,
false presuppositions, and lack of knowledge of the subject that
we actually have been praying that she not be accepted
in Australia. Our first prayer has been answered, and also
that New Zealand reject her application, waiting for our second

(01:34:51):
prayer to be heard. Bless you and Carolyn Layton, and
again thank you for all the hard work that you
do in bringing us a superb podcast every week. And
I appreciate that letter comment Allison.

Speaker 5 (01:35:03):
Thank you, Paul says, thanks for all that you do.
I don't know how you do it up against ignorance
so called media actors and announcers who are either too
complacent to go and find the truth or more likely
too lazy, pathetic and scared to speak the truth.

Speaker 3 (01:35:18):
I'll go for the second, do what is right.

Speaker 5 (01:35:22):
I'm not a religious man, but I am praying for
the right outcome on Tuesday, Wednesday, New Zealand Time.

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
And that's from Paul, Paul, and that's it. Thanks. Now
we wait to see in the well. By the time
you hear this, of course we all know numbers, but
at the moment we speak with bated breath. Well, I
was going to say ignorance that I thought, no, that's
the wrong word. It could be misinterpreted without information. That's right,
see you soon, see you. Now that will take us

(01:35:57):
out to a number two sixty three. I have to
say that it was put together under a little bit
of pressure, but nevertheless we got there. I think. So
if you would like to write to us Layton and
New U Talks av dot co dot nz or Carolyn
at newstalksb dot co dot nz. I would expect and
hope there'll be plenty of commentary on the on the
election outcome, part of which we have covered. I wish

(01:36:20):
there was more. So it remains to be said that
we shall be back for two seventy four in a
few days. Until then, thank you for listening and we'll
talk soon.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Thank you for more from News Talks B.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
Listen live on air or online, and keep our shows
with you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

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