The time to tune into this event today. Im so sorry we cant be together in person, although a very much hope it will be sometime soon. But in the meantime, its nice to connect this way. And stay tuned. The Manhattan Institute is putting together a ton of virtual content theyll be rolling out over the next few months so look at your in boxes for information about those events coming to you shortly. In the interim im so priced to welcome my guest, Douglas Murray to our event this afternoon. Douglas is a journalist and im sure many of you, if not all, have read his work on the pages of the wall street journal, National Review or the spectator 0 where he is an associate editor and his 2019 book the madness of crowds and is with news person at the manhattan instate, i think in early 2018, and that was just after the publication of this book the straight death of europe. Douglas is in Formidable Political critic and while he is an observer of owl things uk and u. S. , im not sure he knew the subjects both his most recent book and this one would come into play so much during this particular moment in time but they have, and its for that reason and many others that it is my pleasure to welcome you, douglas to our event this afternoon. Thank you very much. Its a great measure to be with you and your members. Host thank you. The way this will work, douglas and i will talk for 20 minutes or so at which point well turn over the q a to you, the audience. If you look at the righthand side of your screen theres a little widget and a triangle with a question. Outcome time in when were speaking and when we turn over to the q a portion of the event ill look at the list and pulling your questions for douglas at that time. With that well jump right in. Obviously we have all been through and are continuing to go through a rather serious moment in history and well all be doing a lot of selfevaluation as far as how ore our governmented have happened el this situation, and looking at other nations and were so happy to get a little checkin with our friends over in england. Now, douglas, id like to start, though, with the sort of political moment that uk finds itself. On january 31st i dont need to tell you but the uk left the European Union and started a transition period, which was only i think about 11 months, short, anyway, and a moment in time where the future relationship between the uk and the eu would be determined and my question for you is, what is going to happen now . I mean in theory your political leaders are a little distracted so the kind of negotiation that would normally happen got to be complicated in this moment. Are we going to have an agreement by the 31st of december . Guest yes. We can get agreement, i dont know, but the government wants to get an agreement by then, absolutely. In fact the question came up in he house of commonned toy from a member of the liberal democratic party, questioning michael, and he was very plain once again, going to be in delay, even a minor delay in this process. I think by the way thats right, whatever attitude one takes to brexit and britains exit from the eu, its profoundly important, i think, for the british public, who did vote by majority, small majority but a majority nonetheless to leave the European Union but after three and a half years of parliamentary shep unanimous begans and shenanigans and other factors appeared to be trying to delay or reverse the decision to leave the eu. Its absolutely crucial. Particularly in a government led by this Prime Minister and this cabinet, that theyre seen not to be reneging on the promise. Even something as major as the current corona cross will not persuade them to move the timeline. Host if no agreement is reached and we enter a moment in time where theres even more uncertainty, i is that going to be good for at the bresch economy in this the british economy . Guest its no good for anyones economy the situation were in at the moment. Barely got economies at the moment in some countries. So, this is totally uncharted territory. I just repeat the point that the crucial thing is that firstly, we never are in certain times. These may be especially uncertain times, with a factor just then in that hand been expected by very american people, but the Brexit Process has to be separate from that. Its a commitment of the bresch government, and id be very prize it if it wasnt followed thank you on. Just this weekend the formal trade talks between the uk and america have started up, so theres a lot going on, although obviously the main preoccupation is the virus. Host so, coronavirus at this stage has not in your minds derailed this transition process. Has there been any other sort of fundamental changes you see coming to the uk as a result of the Coronavirus Spread aside . Guest none other than they challenges that every country is going through. Obviously none of our countries as youll know from the u. S. , all of the countries are looking around the globe for potential best practice, much more is the figures just came in an hour ago, suggesting the uk has the highest death toll in europe of deaths from over people who died with the virus so far. And there will be lots of going over why that came about, already been a lot of postmortem but my only view, the postmortem is premature. How are the british people think about issues like globalization in he u. S. Theres a quigg be out spry chain, masks and drugs. There is a stronger argument or know antigloballization happen the uk. Guest its happening in every single country. Were in the earliest stages of the crisis. We all thought things were extremely alarming. The example somebody has written an awful lot on European Affairs and traveled for a lot in europe and across europe, seeing, for instance, in the early dives the crisis when italy was suffering worse, seeing the german and french governments going protectionist on certain products, masks, oxygen, this sort of thing. The italian conclude just seen enormous spring, rather unsurprisingly, against the eu. I think was rightly enraged by the countries that have lectured people most on protectionism in recent areas actually when the crisis hit, doing something that was completely against everything they had said before. And so i think theres lot of looking around and a lot of lessons already being taken but sometime before we see the effects of that in polls or anything in the Voting System or anything else. Host well, lets talk for a second about general public sentiment in the uk right now. Here in the u. S. Theres a pretty strong divide of people who believe this moment in time is further evidence of massive government incompetence, and then there are those that are taking this as an opportunity say, government required more control and more intervention to be able to happen this situation better. Either doesnt matter which camp youre in trust is at an alltime low here in the u. S. , which is created a number of problems for us. Is that the same thing over in england . Are you experiencing the same sort of divide . Guest no, not especially. I think thats particularly american thing going on, thats fairly unique america sadly at the moment. In the uk, we have seen a rise in trust of almost every institution. That includes parliament, the government, the monarchy, the nhs, scientists, scientific experts, academics and so on. As member who has spend my time in the press when im not writing books, doesnt exactly please me to say but im not surprised to say the institution that has fallen in the publics esteem the most has been the press, the media, which has collapsed in public trust and a lot of interesting reasons for that. That aside, one of the most interesting things about the uk example has been that although we have been said to have been a divided doesnt triin recent years much like america has been in fact when the scientists got together and the chief scientific adviseyears were brought in frond of the nation and advice was given and the lockdown was instituted, that as acted upon and there was not a not this ongoing divide that is certainly going on in america, where even Global Pandemic is inevitably seen through the pro or anti trump primp and that is a particular challenge for your country. If Something Like this cannot bring a sort of common cause or can show people the common wellsprings to draw upon, then it is one wonders what it would take. Everywhere else theres not as extreme as the u. S. , that divide. Host its amazing to see walking your streets, how nicely all of your neighbors have participated in trying to keep everyone safe. So from a human to human interaction, theres been a very quick changeover into whats best for everyone, but when it comes to the political divide, everything is continues to see right through the anti or pro trump lens. Your Prime Minister was a certain part of the country controversial, too. I hear your point on unity. Wonder if right now people are really standing behind him, not only because of his leadership in this moment but also because he is one of the few Global Leaders who had personal interaction with the virus. How is everybody thinking but him these days. Guest the most serious. I think we the country doesnt know quite how serious it was until it was announced he had gone into intensive care. Im told over the few days there were moments when they expected to lose him, which would have been catastrophic for the uk, not lowest because Boris Johnson is important, not just at this point but in this period of british life. So, it was very close and it was i think that when he came out of hospital and he had a very moving message but the nhs doctors who saved his life, as he said, that was something which the public could relate to. Of course, theres a followon which is politically, this means its exceptionally hard for the labor party, the left, to claim in future that the conservatives do not care but the nhs. Every election in my lifetime the labor party has one on three weeks to save the nhs. 48 hours. He nhs is still there since it was created in the wake of the Second World War but very striking that the idea that you could pretend after this that the nhs is something that everybody does not support, would seem preposterous but undoubtedly something that will be a certain weight on the conservatives with the debt that boris joynson himself has said he owes to the nhs. Either good years for the health service. Host he names his new baby after his doctor. Guest thats right very moving. Host yes, for sure. Well, lets talk for just a second about the monarchy because here in the u. S. , the American Public follows very closely the relationship of the royals. I think theres whole generation of americans who have forgotten the monarchy has a leadership role to play and a big role in public unity and seems like this is a real moment most people i know watched the queens address here in the u. S. , and felt comforted by it. Is that the same reaction youre having . Guest very much so. It was interesting that, again in recent years we have had every institution has been claimed to be losing public trust and so on. It was profoundly moving that at the worst period of this in the uk, the one person we really wanted to hear from was her majesty the queen, and her address was remarkable. Not least because she is one of the only people i think probably the best person of earth to draw on the historical aspectthis and to say we have been through bad times before. We have been through worse times before. And we have come through them. And somebody who gave her first broadcast to the nation as a young girl in 1940, when her late sister, princess margaret, the young princess addressed the children of Great Britain and the empire, it was a very moving thing to see her able to draw on this historical memory, and to give this rear assurance. The media are much more inevitably likes to see thinks in the catastrophic terms as possible. Many other people do. Theres always a risk of increasing fear in a public. But its crucial at a time like this. You have some public figures and the uk we have at least this one who can draw on our historical feelings, draw on our own historical experience, and to say as she did, we will act now in a way that makes people in the future look back at us and say they were equal to their forebearers the problem is that the corona lockdown per coasts of people sitting in their pajamas and watching netflix, not storming the beaches at normandy. The queen provides encouragement. When the think of challenges that our generation now will be facing, thats right certainly not promotely the same as the ones you just described but you did name challenges in your most recent book madness of crowds and a big part of that book was talking about the rise of the social justice and identity Politics Movement into mainstream politics, into the media, the workplace, and i dont know how things look for you folks but here it took, id say, two minutes once the coronavirus really sort of ascended, took two minutes for their varioused a crow volcano cats and political organizations that exist to use the crisis to unleash a torrent of comment tear and content that reverse engineers the pandemic through their own ideology and theyve used covid19 as evidence for the need, at least in our country, of single payer healthcare, family leave, the grown new deal and its fast and stricted sophisticated. Have you seen that same massive resurgence quickly in the uk. Guest this part of the phenomenon that relates to the globalization. This virus gets people to doubling down on what the thought. Since there have been certain figures in the eu who always want to pull sovereignty more, who have said the coronavirus is evidence for why we need to pool sovereignty more. Similarly politics, like in italy who advocates tighter bored, this is justification of tighter border policy. Everybody can do this from every angle and the identity movements and the social justice movements, and no exception to that extent. It took slightly longer here than it did there for people to Start Playing the sort of social justice identity warrior dam but the people who started it by saying, women suffer more than men from the virus, and then when the statistics show actually males are disproportionate hill likely to toy of she virus, they double down and say the men might be dying but the women are doing the suffering, and the endless debate about which ethnic minorities may or may not be suffering more from it, and the presentation of those questions instead of being questions why might that be, simply the preparation of being yet more evidence of the racism of the society we live in, so that we cant even get a virus from china without it justifying the view that america is a actually racist society or britain is and so on. All of that has been going on. My prediction of it is that what will happen is those people will doubledown as they already have pause thats the only game they know how to play. Dont know how to look at the world except through those spectacles. An intelligence person or subtle person might work out at a time like this, if something comes along you never thought but before, its possible that out your preexisting views may not be justified and vindicated by the arrival of this virus. You might need to think but something else. Those people will not because this is the one lens through which they see everything. What i would expect and would predict there is will be less wider public sympathy for the claims made because of what i wrote the other week, when an awful lot of people in the country have a declining living standard, when an awful lot of people have seen unemployment come through their family, through their own homes, when an awful lot of people have government real grievances, it is fairly unlikely to my mind that they will want to spend very much time listening to people with madeup grievances. Host you think maybe the groups are overplaying their hand right now. Guest very much so. Very much so. I cant see the celebrities who set back in their house, complaining about the awfulness of having to spend all this time cocooned in their mansion. That doesnt play well at the moment anywhere. The people who have been saying, look at me, in recent years, its interesting, the wells we draw on different. In the uk the person who has most public affection isnt somebody who has been doing the look at me, what a victim i am narrative but a now 100yearold exserviceman who raised 10s of millions of pounds for the nhs by doing sponsored walks. My impression is that the sort of the thing people well want anywheretoresilience rather than narrative of suffering and victimhood and in our lone lifetimes that narrative emerged. Wasnt the case in the 1990s that if you proved you were a vic you won the gym of life. That happened very recent live and it can change back and i wouldnt be surprised if the current the crisis which will come after this crisis, the crisis to which this may only be the prelude, would not do something to bring about the death of that movement. Host im just letting our audience know in just a minute well town your questions so feel free to type them in the little widget on the righthand side. I want to talk but one more thing and thats china. Over the weekend, the secretary of our secretary over state, mike pompeo, said there is enormous evidence indicating the pandemic began in a lab in wuhan. Both the secretary and President Trump have a accuses china of misleading the world. I saul the uk defense secretary commented over the weekend and is demanding china respond to the allegations. Tell me how do you think but china forgot this point out and will the participate with what seem the direction of the United States in Holding China accountable if these allegations turn out to be true . Guest very interesting. I would expect so. Until this crisis came along the main debates relating to china and the uk was over of course the huawei contract, over huawei providing parts of the uks i thought entirely wrongly. I thought the sole major misstep of the government so far in the uk was in granting that contract. I would hope that at least would change now, but well see. But, yes, i would anticipate being strengthening of attitudes about this everywhere. To me the most interesting thing about this is how the five eyes respond and where we stick together on it which i hope we can. One thing that is noticeable about this, i just my column in the spectator is about this in recent years there have been thing leak the eenormous how in 2012 between the uk between then Prime Minister David Camerons peteing with the dalai lama. There were very rocky relationships between the and you can china. China canceled meetings with trade envoys and much more. And the government was really over a barrel on it, and decided to bend temperatures beijings will and announce they would never again meet the dalai lama. This to my mind was a very worrying prelude. Heres what i think is an important thing for the five is the Australian Government that last week called for, quite rightly called for an independent International Inquiry into the source of the virus. And this i think is absolutely crucial. We should not expect, will not get very great cooperation from beijing but even the site of that noncooperation will be very important internationally and for our public. The point i wanted to make was this. The backlash, the war of words from the communist party of chinas main organs, the journals of papers that it runs, and indeed the comments from among others the Chinese Ambassador to australia, have been exceptionally virulent in the last few days. The description of australia as being a piece of chewing gum on the bottom of the shoe of china. That china should pick off. Its really extraordinarily language that theyre using. Now,ing here the thing. Australia is of course in a different position from the uk. Whereas we have a trade deficit with china, they have a surplus. We have 20 billion i think it is deficit and they have a 30 billion surplus. This puts australia in a much better position than us and what will be interesting in the days and weeks and months ahead is the extent to which chinas leverage is not still there, depending on a nations reliance on its economically, and i would hope that the five is in in tick stith toke on this and then have a unified response whatever we fine. Host when you think but the it at that timan you mentioned i think earlier on, the italian reaction, its anger with the eu and its seeming sort of friendly posture for china for obvious reasons, its clear this is going to be a very complicated time and everyone will sort of line up in that Balance Sheet in the way you have described and already starting to see that. Guest by the way i doubt the one that shocked me most was the president of serbia, they have been applying for eu membership and gave a speech saying the eu has never been our flown, who has come to our aid in the chinese, china is our friend. For america and Strategic Partners around the world, this is a very important game thats going on at the moment. To see a country like serbia, a small country but a significant country in europe, being plucked off like that by the chinese, never mine what theyre doing and italy, far more significant country in global terms, is something we should really be thinking about. Host im going switch to questions from the audience, this is from maxwell cohen. He asked do you think uk will be to first of many dominoes that brings the European Union to an end . Guest this is a very tricky question imshould preface it by saying although i voted for brexit and advocate tornado brexit and always believed britains role in the world what not to remain in the eu, nevertheless i think we had said everything we had to say as a country by leaving the eu and then leaving it. And that that after you left the club, it is not for you to say what you think the club should or should not do. So theres always a risk for britain at the moment talking about the eu of sort of willing it to do something wrong in order to vindicate our decision to brexit. I just say that by way of he preface because if the eu does fall apart, and its going bring an absolute havoc to the continent of europe and something wouldnt want to see. I think the country most important to look to here is italy. I referred to it twice already. One of the Founding Members. Degaulle and others wanted to keep britain out of what became the eu and italy is a Founding Member and absolutely crucial to the project. If it goes then this is just a Franco German alliance of some kind. So, its italy the one to watch and of course, i dope think im breaking a confidence, i wont say who it was bus a couple years ago i was in a another occasion, been there quite a lot, and was speaking to members of the Italian Government who said the British Government is doing a horrible job of organizing brexit under the may government and this it tallal politician see look at you withhorror and we think of you and the uk being organized and capable and if its this difficult for you to leave, he said we dont have to leave the eu, we have to leave the eurozone and we dont think of ourselves as organized or cape enable any way. If its hard for you, what it be like for us . That was a very common view in italy in recent years. The people who have a critique of the eu said look what is happening to britain. This is not as easy to do as you claim. And so eu skepticism in italy significantly declined in this period at is did partially in france but is definitely on the rise now. So, yes, it is possible, but i just dont say i will nittany way because i say just extraordinary turbulence which will come about, not lest of which the country has to return to other currencies. Host our next question, so many questions. So thank you to the audience. Trying to sift through them. This question is from timothy and the question is, will the crescendo of antimedia sentiment translate into any change to the composition of media or communication of ideas and im so glad he asked the question. You were about to Say Something more but why and how the turn in media and the uk was so swift during this moment. Can you tell us more but that it. Was quite a specific one and not dissimilar to what is happening at the White House Press briefings and questions. Essentially the media didnt know what to do at the beginning of this crisis. If i say to myself, most people who work in the media are humanities graduates. People who studied Hard Sciences and do not tend to end up in the media. And so there is would a serious knowledge gap at the very beginning of the crisis and took quite a long time to catch up to. So what happened was, particularly in uk but i think the same in the u. S. , was that everyone continued to play in the media games theyd been playing for years because the only game theyd knew how to play and those are gotcha games, you said this now, we have get this evidence to show this. The u turn game i am leasephone off, the u turn game is you the government said this on march 29th and on april 3rd you then said this. The u turn game, anyone who drives a car, the u turn is a useful little maneuver. You off need itself if youre driving into wall ask the deployment of uturn will come in handy am uturn does the media turned this into an exemmar of failure or contradiction and i think what is describing about this once again is the fact the public is more nuanced and capable of nuance than the media that purports to speak to it to the public, and indeed acts as some kind of intermediary so i think that the fact that those games went on, to a certain accident they have diminished with the many reason why that decline in trust the most, the journalists just didnt know what questions to ask. And ive had a few how rows with colleagues. If you have not written about pandemics or thought but virology in the past you of course have insights, but youre stuck if you have to present yourself as a pandemic expert in 48 hours. Host yeah. Well, now that everyone has become so accustomed to having a platform anywhere and talk about anything in that moment of excitement, not positive but excitement envelopes, excitement nevertheless, everybody just got pulled in and perhaps the upside of this is somewhat of a return to respect and interest in experts. Wouldnt be a bad thing to get back to. As long others the expertes have this right. I do as im sure i do have a worry about this, which is that as this starts to pass the peak in this country and elsewhere, there will be this growing course of people saying maybe it was never going to be as bad as that and maybe you took the worst projections and the arguments in that direction. So is in country having fame nowly had saved to have enough of experts, couldnt hear enough of them to they better have got this right. Host which is gregory mcnest asks a similar question and just wants to have a sense ill paraphrase here a little bit but whether or not the experts are socalled experts who came out very early on whether theyll come out unscathed or whether there will be something to pay at the end of all this as we start to really know what is happening. Will they adopt a more selfcritical or humble tone or will everyone just continue to double down and the environment well live in from here on out. Guest obviously were in an interesting flexion point in the public debate the movement. In britain we have done what we were told to do, and it seems to have paid off to some extent. For instance the nighting gayle hospital, very swiftly erected in east london has just been put on standby. Theres no one to go into it. Of course, that point people divide into two camp. One that says that is because we did what we were told to do and thus averted the worst, and those who will say, you see, it was exaggerated from the outset, and everything i think one can now see the origins of this concern that the governments have expressed several times and scientists have expressed, the concern about what would happen if you got a second peak and the country had to be ordered into lockdown for a second time. Do think now, those who have not been studying pandemics, now we know why that fear was there, because the origins of the counternarrative, right or wrong, are clearly brewing at the moment, and there are very serious questions to ask about this, seems to me, and then this other one which is on all of our minds, which is that the virologists cannot be the only people determining the destiny and the future of major democracies leak the u. S. Or uk, and the simple economic demands at this stage are so overwhelming that i can see why this could break and why the scientists worry but implications for that. Host were just a few minutes before our conclusion. ll take one more question from our audience and a question i have myself. You had a pretty spectacular election leading to your current Prime Minister, both in terms of what the actual result and how significant they were. Is Jeremy Corbyn in the mom around him especially given the situation were in right now and expecting to be in for some time ahead of us, has it been really defeated or will it bounce back and something we need to continue to be concerned about . The u. S. None of us are were also very concerned. Guest i think you should be. I like to think that the movement of which Jeremy Corbin and Bernie Sanders and others are part of is disappeared or will disappear into history but most of us have thought in our life it was high time that happened, and it comes back again, like some horrible zombie narrative. Every time you think you killed it, back it springs, and i jury can i wore bin himself and his jeremy my core brian himself was destroyed the ballot box and the fact that he is not just a socialist and an extraordinarily radical leftist but also profoundly antibritish, antipate route rick, never saw anyone of any group who wants to kill and blow up and maim british people who didnt support him, whether its irish republican terrorists, always on the side of people who were against us and the british people saw that and the voters didnt turn out to vote for him and in significant numbers voted conservative for the first time in their lives am different situation in the states it seems to me but i think there will be a different situation after this, and again this alls on the economic recovery from this catastrophe. And i would say that again, going to this doing the thing of everything doubling down, the set of things which those of us on the left or right said were impossible and unimaginable, have been happening in recent weeks. Its not ubi but its like a test for ubi that occur in the nuss recent weeks. It is now possible to see what a British Government who said theres no spare money, can find not just some spare money but billions and billions to bail out every company, and after this, it would seem to me when the radical leftists say we would like to do this, in the future, we can no longer say thats unimaginable because not just imagined it but done it, albeit to a small extent compared to what they would like to do. Once something has been seen to be possible and plausible, then it can be easier to vote for. Host right. Thats why at this moment seems very scary for so many reasons. Well, i want to thank you, douglas, for taking the time to be with us. Really appreciate all the work you have done. I highly recommend both of his most recent books, this one i especially like, and for all of you, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this afternoon, as i said, i hope we can all see each other in person sometime soon, if not, on the screen will have to do. Thank you, douglas, thank you, everyone. Goodbye. Guest thank you, vanessa. Goodbye. Youre watching booktv, on cspan2. Heres some programs to watch out for this holiday weekend. Best selling author James Patterson talks bows his latest book on the kennedy family, and his efforts to assist book Stores Affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Time Magazine National polly ball discusses the life and career of House Speaker nancy pelosi. Nick adams and founder and profit the foundation for american greatness offers thoughts the september alert between President Trump and Winston Churchill and tomorrow is an extra day of boost feet e feet boost featuring david ball baldosti. Heres a look at Publishing Industry news. Last week simon and shoes sir ceo died at the age of 71. She began her publishing career at random house in 1974 and moved to simon and schuster in 1992. A Group Announced a plan to assist independent book stores in wake of the covid19 pandemic. The publisher will provide greater discounts, extend the dates on invoice payments and assist with freight costs on returned books for stores working to reopen. The New York Times report also books about the coronavirus pandemic. Harper publisher says the difficulty for publishers is we know there will be a lot and we know only a few of the women a few of them will work. Book sales were up 10 for the week. Adult nonfiction sale for the week were on par with 2019 but still down almost 9 for the year. And many book festivals and conferences that were forced to cancel continue to offer attendees a virtual experience. North americas largest book industry conference will offer a series of Online Events next week. A list of programs will be hoed on their Facebook Page and free to the public. Next month the bronx book festival will take place online on june 6th and American Library Association Conference goes virtual from june 24th to 26th. Booktv will bring you new programs and publishing news and watch our archived programs anytime at booktv. Org. Hello issue everybody. Welcome to i work in events for politics and prose
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.