Podcast Episode 39 – Josh L Ascough: Covid News, War on Obesity, LibDems, Japan Trade Deal & New Peerages

We are joined by Josh L Ascough from the Libertarian Party, as we discuss the latest Covid news, the War on Obesity, the withdrawal of the Liberal Democrats’ London Mayoral Candidate, the potential for a post Brexit UK-Japan Trade Deal and some interesting new Peerages. We then chat with Josh about why he became a libertarian, his upcoming book on The Social Science of The Market, the free market and environmentalism, price gouging, a free market in education and the benefits of cryptocurrencies.

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Articles from Josh at https://croydonconstitutionalists.uk/category/josh-l-ascough/

Josh is on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/j.l.ascough/

We ask Josh:

  1. Firstly Josh what led you to become a Libertarian?
  2. You’re writing a book on ‘The Social Science Of The Market’.  Can you tell us a little about what this will cover and what’s made you write a book?
  3. We spoke recently about the free market and environmentalism?  How do you think we can use the market to improve the environment?
  4. You wrote for us about price gouging.  So why do you think Tesco’s, Sainsburys etc. should have been able to, and maybe should have charged us £10 for a roll of toilet paper?
  5. Schools have been closed most of this year so far, but hopefully will be back in September.  You wrote for us about a private market in Education. Briefly how would that work, and what do you see as the main benefits?
  6. Lastly all good libertarians have a problem with Central Banks, and you’re no exception.  So will Crypto save us all from fiat currency quantitative easing?

Podcast Episode 38 – Victory for Free Speech, the Russia Report, Roman Warming & Junk Food Advert Ban

We discuss a recent victory for free speech, the report into Russian interference in our democracy, some recent articles published by the Global Warming Policy Forum and the Government’s proposed banning of junk food adverts on tv before the 9pm watershed.

Some useful links referenced in the Podcast:

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Podcast Episode 37 – Mandatory Face Masks, Cancelling a Mayor & the BBC’s Corbynista Correspondent

We discuss mandatory COVID face masks in shops, the Environmental Agency Cancelling a Mayor and the BBC’s Corbynista correspondent.

Links to content mentioned in the podcast:

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Podcast Episode 36 – Mini-Budget, Council Job Cuts, Purley Skyscraper, BBC & an interview with Jayde Edwards

We discuss the reopening of pubs and gyms, the Mini-Budget, Croydon Council job cuts, the Purley Skyscraper and the BBC’s latest antics. We then have an interview with Jayde Edwards, a local Conservative Party activist who stood in the Fairfield ward by-election last November. We chat with Jayde about her campaign, issues affecting young people in Croydon, the Black Lives Matter movement and how she is inspiring more young people to get involved in politics locally.

You can read our previous interview Jayde at https://croydonconstitutionalists.uk/interview-with-jayde-edwards-the-conservative-party-candidate-for-council-by-election-in-fairfield-ward/ and follow her on Twitter.

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We ask Jayde about:

  • How do you feel the Fairfield campaign went?
  • Looking back what are your thoughts on the treatment you received from real and social media?
  • You wanted to “inspire young people, I also want to bring something new to Croydon – a new passion and a new energy”.  We saw large crowds out to campaign for you.  What’s the lasting effect of their politically engagement?
  • In your campaign you focused on “Westfield and the promise that was given to residents”, and “Knife crime and the lack of opportunities”.  What are your views on where we are now on both of these issues?
  • What are your thoughts on the General election win and the more recently the impact of the lockdown?
  • Looking at your Twitter, you hold a more nuanced view than many on the Black Lives Matter movement.  How do you think we best move forward?
  • We recently hosted a podcast with people of faith talking about how their faith impacts their politics.  How do you feel you faith impacts your political view?
  • Lockdown is lifting, what’s next for you?

Podcast Episode 35 – Dr Lee Jones: Pubs Reopening, Immigration Bill, Boris’ “New Deal” & Hong Kong

We are joined by Dr Lee Jones, Reader in International Politics at Queen Mary University of London and founder of The Full Brexit, as we discuss the reopening of pubs, the Immigration Bill passing through the House of Commons, Boris’ “New Deal” and the situation in Hong Kong. We then chat with Lee about The Full Brexit and the left-wing case for leaving the EU, his career in Academia, the woke culture in universities and the challenges facing Higher Education. We also discuss Croydon Council and the potential for an elected mayor.

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“It’s not just about hindsight, if we had been more bold and if the government had been willing to face down public opinion more,,kl not panicked into a total lockdown, then I think we could have had this calibrated policy from the beginning.”

“That was the advice they were getting from the scientific experts at the time that lockdown wouldn’t be effective, airport screening wouldn’t be effective, banning flight wouldn’t be effective.  So when the government was saying it was being guided by the science it was true, people didn’t believe them but it was true…..  then they abandoned that.”

“There will be political pressure on politicians to solve the underlying weaknesses in training and education, which there won’t be when there is a steady supply of unlimited immigration from the continent.”

“It was going to be a much more interventionist government, that was much more comfortable with state intervention in the economy and didn’t just want to leave everything to the market.”

“I also think tinkering with the planning system is not going to solve the housing crisis.  If you look between 2011 and 2016 there were 280,000 homes that weren’t built despite having planning permission.  So you have to ask why.  Instead of trying to deregulate the planning system you have to say why were we giving planning permission when the homes don’t get built.”

“We need to stop trying to squeeze tiny flats onto every brownfield site we can find, round the back of the supermarket, and start thinking about expanding into new dormer settlements.”

“Migrants whether they’re economic migrants or refugees, tend to be better off on average.  Because if you’re really dirt poor you can’t leave, you’re stuck. You don’t have any resources, you’ve got nothing to sell, you have no assets you can’t pay the people smugglers to get you out.”

Interview

“The EU is anti-democratic, not non democratic, it’s anti-democratic, it shifts policy making from spheres of domestic public political contestation like parliaments, into spaces of private interstate diplomacy and it locks in rules and laws that can’t be challenged or changed”

“Universities as institutions campaigned openly for remain, surveys suggest 90% of academics voted for Remain, and academics are a core part of the bitterest and most anti-democratic opposition to Brexit”

“Unfortunately there isn’t really very much of a principled commitment to free speech on University campuses, it’s a major problem.  I think we’re quite likely to see government intervention around this at some point, but they’ll never be taken seriously as being committed on grounds of principle as well as prosecuting a culture war, until they also wind back Prevent.”

“it’s not a majority of people, it’s a very vocal minority who cower others into submission”

“if you want to make students happy when they are coming and spending a lot of money buying a degree, then the easiest thing to do here is to make sure they get a good mark.  If you want to make sure you have a high value added score, also give them a good mark.  This is why there is rampant grade inflation”

Dr Lee Jones is on Twitter and online. The Full Brexit is online, on Twitter and on Facebook.

Podcast Episode 27 – Dan Liddicott: Easing of the Lockdown, Rory Stewart, & the Fiasco Part 2

We are joined by Dan Liddicott, the Chairman of the Libertarian Party UK, as we discuss the impending easing of the lockdown restrictions, the end of Rory Stewart’s Mayoral campaign and the latest in the fiasco that is the Electoral Commission. We then chat with Dan about his role with the Libertarian Party and their plans for the future.

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On the next election: “I’d like to get 30 odd candidates stand and I’d like to have them get more than a 1000 votes each. That’s what I’d like to see, at that point the press and the national attention starts to look at you.”

‪“We are the only ones that understand the importance of defending the smallest minority of all, which is you the individual”‬

‪On the Electoral Commission: “it’s incompetence or it is activism. Which one is it? Because it isn’t nether, and I’m very concerned, if it’s the later, if it’s activism, then we’ve got a serious problem in this country”

“We are under emergency powers, if policy is being decided by just 4 people, that’s not great is it? We need more scrutiny than that”

For more on Dan:

https://twitter.com/danliddicottlp?lang=en

https://libertarianparty.co.uk/our-people/

http://danliddicott.com/

https://www.facebook.com/DanLiddicottLibertarian/

Podcast Episode 34 – Christianity & UK Politics

We are joined by Peter Sonnex of the Brexit Party, Maureen Martin of the Christian Peoples Alliance and Hoong-Wai Cheah of UKIP to discuss Christianity & UK Politics. We ask them:

  • Why Christianity is important to them?
  • How they think religion and politics should mix?
  • How Christianity should inform policy?
  • Should we have an established church, and how they think the CofE is performing?
  • What should we be doing about Christian persecution abroad?
  • What are their predictions for the future of Christianity in the UK?
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Peter Sonnex

  • Peter was the Brexit Party Parliamentary candidate for Croydon Central in the December 2019 General Election
  • A career soldier, Peter turned his hand to bus driving before becoming a Parliamentary candidate.
  • More recently he has been a volunteer during the Covid crisis.
  • Peter has been a guest on the Podcast and written for our website.
  • Also spoke at our ‘My Tuppenceworth’ in 2019 about Decency, Democracy, Freedom and Freedoms.

Maureen Martin

  • Maureen was (until they were postponed) a Greater London Assembly candidate for the Christian People’s Alliance (CPA). 
  • Maureen has run for parliament in Lewisham East in every election since 2015, which has included a by-election. 
  • We have previously spoken with Maureen for our website about what led her to run for the CPA, her experiences running and their priorities for London.
  • Maureen has also written for us and her piece Locked Down and Locked out! Can be found on our website.

Hoong Wai Cheah

Podcast Episode 33 – Alastair Donald: COVID Lockdown Easing, Australia Trade Deal & “Rhodes Must Fall”

We are joined by Alastair Donald, the Associate Director of the Academy of Ideas, as we discuss the latest on the COVID crisis, a potential new trade deal with Australia and the news that Oriel College Oxford have decided that Rhodes Must Fall. We then chat with Alastair about his role with the Academy of Ideas, the Cancellation Culture and the future for free speech and thought in the UK.

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Some quotes from Alastair.

“There’s a kind of order to the whole situation of getting a drink, which is in some ways inimical to whole experience of actually going out and enjoying a beer”

“it’s the officious society where the busybody rules with a set of regulations and a set of licensing rules that dictate what’s permissible which I think is a real problem”

“It does seem indicative of a way that there’s more decisive leadership within society at large, from normal people and businesses who are suffering from this and have some commitment to getting us out, than there is from central government”

“You have to look at the amount of environmental regulation that swamps quite a lot of what companies do, and the constraints that puts on new innovative processes coming to the fore”

“There seems almost like a cultural war against our history, and I’m not so much protective of the statues as I am resistant to the forces of reaction that I think are driving this movement to tear them down”

From the interview

“quite often the people that are most concerned about reigning in free speech, are actually people who are concerned that they are not up to handling ideas that they disagree with”

“we’re still hoping that society will open enough that we can gather people, physically within the same space, and we’d love to have the battle of ideas festival in November”

You can follow Alastair on Twitter and follow the @instofideas and @theboi_uk.  A list of the Academy of Ideas, events are available at http://academyofideas.org.uk/events.

Podcast Episode 32 – Bill Etheridge: TPA’s City Hall Rich List, Japan Trade Deal & Cancellation Culture

We are joined by Bill Etheridge, the former UKIP, Libertarian Party & Brexit Party MEP, as we discuss the Taxpayers Alliance’s City Hall Rich List, a potential new trade deal with japan and the Cancellation Culture attacking our historic statues and even beloved TV shows & films. We then chat with Bill about his time in politics, the demise of UKIP and the future of Classical Liberalism in this country.

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Full Podcast with Bill including interview
Bill Etheridge Interview

Bill from the Podcast:

“over 10 years of supposedly Conservative government and I’m old enough to remember before they got in, they were going to sort all of this out and have bonfires of quangos…  still more than a decade on these obscene salaries are being paid out”

“we’re still an enormous economy, we’re very important in terms of diplomatic links, we are a hugely important country and of course people want to do deals with us”

“all of these things they want to erase, so they can start a new narrative, start from year zero.  This is a modern day version of a cultural revolution”

“there was a little game that the staff that worked with us as MEPs, used to sit down and do a bingo, and they would try and find the Thatcher or Reagan quotes that I slipped into my speeches”

“Nigel Farage is the most effective and inspiring politician for patriotic right of centre politics, that there has been for many years”

“partly I wanted to make a statement that Libertarianism is something people should look at.  Because it’s not discussed, people don’t talk about Libertarianism”

“it’s a tough old game being in politics, especially when you’ve got a bit of a reputation behind you, you become a target for all sorts of things, and if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it for a party I actually believe in and it’s worth making the sacrifices”

“If you believe in something, don’t just sit in the pub with a couple of mates talking about it, don’t just type something on Twitter, or whatever.  Actually actively pursue that interest and try to make a difference”

Podcast Episode 31 – Compulsory Face Masks, Post COVID Tax Reforms, Hong Kong Protests & CBI Change of Tune

We discuss the introduction of compulsory face masks on public transport and the Taxpayers Alliance’s latest tax proposals to assist with a post COVID recovery. We then consider the Hong Kong protests and the CBI’s change of tune on Brexit.

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“I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need repentance.”

CBI changes its anti Brexit stance