Facebook messages. Watch in depth with yuval levin on booktv on cspan2. Hi, everyone. My name is vanessa mendoza. Im an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and your host for the young leaders. I thank all of you for taking the time to tune into this event today, both are real members and angela membership. So sorry that we cant all be together in person, although i 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 that there would be rolling out over the next few months, so look in your in boxes for some information about those events coming to you shortly. In the interim im so pleased 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 work in thes of the wall street journal, the National Review or of course the spectator or hes an associate editor where he is ao an author and most recently 2019 book the madness of crowds, and he was with us in person at the Man Institute i think it only 2018, and that and i was r the publication of this book, the strange death of europe. Douglas is a Formidable Political critic and an observer of all things uk and individua, im not sure that he knew that the subjects about the most recent book and this one will come into play so much during this particular moment in time that they have. Its for that reason and many others that it is my pleasure to welcome you, douglas, 2010 this afternoon. Thank you very much. Its great pleasure to be with you and with all your members. Thank you. The way this will work, douglas and i will talk for the next 20 minutes or so at which point we will turn over the q a to you, the audience to keep a look at the right hand side of your screen theres a little widget and a little triangle with the word question. You can type in any question time you like, while were speaking. Well return over the q a portion of the event i would be look at that list and pulling your questions posing questions douglas at that time. Were going to jump right in. Obviously weve all been through and are continuing to go through a rather serious moment in history and we are also doing a lot of selfevaluation on how our governments have handled this moment. We will be looking comparatively across nations to see if theres something we can learn to handle the moment better than we are, and its in part that reason were so happy to get a little check in with our friends over in england. Douglas, id like to start the with this sort of political moment that uk find it so. January 31th, i dont need to tell you, but the uk Left European Union and started a transition period mac, which is only a think about 11 months, so short anyway and a moment in time with the future relationship between uk and eu was being determined that my question for you is whats going to happen now . I mean, in theory your political leaders are a little distracted so the crimmigration that would normally happen got to be so the kind of negotiation. Im going to have an agreement by the 31st of december. Was yes. Whether we can get an agreement i dont know but the government wants to get an agreement by then absolutely. The question came up in a in te house of commons earlier today from a member of the liberal Democrat Party questioning michael and he was very plain once again, there is going to no delay even a minor delay in this process. I think by the way thats right whatever attitude one takes the brexit and britains exit from the eu, its profoundly important i think for the British Public who of course did but by majority a majority of majority nonetheless to leave European Union. But after three and half years of parliamentary shenanigans and other factors that are going on there appeared to be trying to delay or indeed reversed the decision to leave the eu, its absolutely crucial. Particularly and the government led by this Prime Minister with this capped it that they seem not to be reneging on that promise. Even something as major as the current coronavirus isnt going to make them persuaded that they should in any way move that timeline. But if no agreement is reached and we enter a moment in time where theres even more uncertainty, is that going to be good for the british economy in this particular its not good for anyones economy, the situation were in at the moment. We barely have economy at the moment in some countries. This is totally uncharted territory. I just repeat this point that the crucial thing is firstly, we never are in certain time. These may be especially Uncertain Times with a fact just on in hasnt been expected by very many people, but the Brexit Process has to be separate from that. Its a bit, commitment of the British Government and id be very surprised if it wasnt followed through on. Just this week in the form of trade talks between the uk and america have started up, so theres a lot actually going on, although obviously the main preoccupation is the virus. So the coronavirus at this stage has not in your mind derailed this transition process. Has there been any other sort of fundamental changes that you see coming to the uk as a result of the Coronavirus Spread aside . None, other than the challenges that every country is going through. Obviously all of our country as you will know from the u. S. , all of our countries are sort of looking around the globe for potential best practice and much more, the figures just came in about an hour ago, suggesting that the uk has the highest death toll in europe of deaths of people who died with the virus so far. There would be lots of going over why they came about. Theres only been a lot of postmortem the postmortem were bit premature. Well, how are the british people thinking about issues like globalization . I know in the u. S. Theres a big question about supply chains, where were getting our masks, drugs, all of those type of things. Is there a stronger argument now antiglobalization happening in the uk . I think that ari is happening everywhere, isnt it . Its happening every single country. Look, in the early stages of this crisis, we all thought of things that were extremely alarming. The example someone has written an awful lot on European Affairs in recent years and have a lot of luck, in europe and across europe, seeing in the early days of the crisis where italy was suffering worse, seeing the german and french governments going to take your best on certain products, masks, oxygen, the sort of thing. The italian public has just seen an enormous swing in recent weeks against the eu. I think it was rightly enraged by the countries that election people most of protectionism in recent years actually when the crisis hit doing something that was completely against everything fits it before. And so i think a lot of looking around and a lot of lessons already being taken. But it will be sometime before we see the effects of that in polls in the voting before we see anything else. 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 that this moment in time is further evidence of massive government incompetence, and then there are those who are taking this as an opportunity to say, government required more control and more intervention to be able to handle the situation better. Doesnt matter which camp youre in, trust is at an alltime l. In the u. S. , which has created a number of problems for us. Is that the same thing over in england . Are you experiencing that same sort of divide. Was no, not especially. In the United States i think its particularly an american thing going on thats fairly unique to 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, scientific experts, academics and so on. As someone who spends quite a lot of my time in the press when im not writing books, it doesnt exactly pleased me to say but are not surprised to say that the institution that us all in the publics fisting the most has been the press, media, which has collapsed in public trust and theres lots of interesting reasons for that. That aside one of those interesting things about the uk example has been that although weve been said to been a divided country, in fact, when the scientists got together and the chief scientific advisors were brought in front of the nation and device given in the like there was instituted, that was acted upon and it was not there was not this ongoing divide that is certainly going on in america, where even Global Pandemic is inevitably seen through the proor antitrump prism, and that is a particular challenge for your country because if Something Like this collapsed bring a sort of common cause or can show people the commonwealth springs to drop on then wonder one wonders what it would take. Whatever else i think not as extreme as a u. S. , that divide. Its amazing to see walking in the streets how nice it all of your neighbors participate in trying to keep everyone safe. From a human to human interaction, theres been a very quick change over into whats best for everyone. But when it comes to the political divide everything continues to be seen right to the antior protrump lynns pick your Prime Minister was with certain parts of the country controversial. I i share your point and unity. Im wondering though if right now people are really standing behind him, but because of leadership in the small but also because he is one of the Global Leaders to present interaction with the virus. How is anybody thinking about him these days . And the most serious. I think a lot of country did know quite how serious it was until is announced he had gone into intensive care but im told over those two days it were certainly moments when they expected to lose him, which wouldve been catastrophic i think the uk, not least because Boris Johnson is important not just at this point but in this period of british life. So it was very close and i think the way came out of hospital, he gave a very, very moving message and he said doctors who saved his life, as he said, that was something which the public could relate to. Theres a follow one thing which politically this means its exceptionally hard for the labour party, the labour party, the left, to claim in future that the conservatives do not care about the nhs. Every election in my lifetime the labour party has run on three weeks to say the nhs, 48 hours. The nhs is still there as it has been since was created in the wake of the Second World War but its very striking that the idea that you could pretend after this the nhs is something that everybody does not support, it would seem preposterous but it is undoubtedly something that would be a certain weight on the conservatives with the debt that Boris Johnson himself aspirationally said he owes to the nhs. This will be good years for the health service. He named his new baby right, after his doctor who gave him thats right. Very moving, very moving. For sure. Lets talk for just a second about the monarchy, because here in the u. S. The American Public policy closely relationship of the royals. I think though theres a whole generation of americans have forgotten the monarchy has a leadership role to play, and a big role in public unity. It 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 at the same reaction you are having . Very much so. It was interesting that, again, in recent years with it every institution being kind to be losing public trust and so on. It was profoundly moving, but at the worst period of this in the uk. The one person we really want to hear from was her majesty, the queen. Her address was remarkable, not least because she is one of the only people, i think probably the best person on earth to draw on the historical aspects of this. And to say we had been through bad times before. We had been through worse times before and we have come through them. Somebody who gave her first rod cast to the nation as a young girl in 1940 when her late system the 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 the historical memory, and to give this reassurance. As i say, the media are much more inevitably likes to see things in the catastrophic terms as possible. Many other people do. Theres always a risk of increasing fear and the public, but its crucial at a time like this you have some public figure, and the uk we have at least this one who control on our historical feelings, draw on our, her 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 this and say they were equal to the forebears. Of course the problem about this is the corona light can consist of most people sitting right into pajamas watching netflix and is not quite storming the beaches of normandy. But if this generation challenge is to set this knock outcome ti suppose alleys they would need encouragement to do so him and the queen would certainly provide that. When we think about some of the challenges that our generation now will be facing, there is certainly not remotely the same as the ones you just described, but you did name some of those talent in your most recent book the madness of crowds and a big part of that book was talk about the rights of the social justice and identity Politics Movement into mainstream politics come into the media, the workplace. I dont know how things look are you folks, but here it took i would say about two minutes once the coronavirus had really sort of ascended, took about two minutes for all of the and political organizations that exist to use the crisis to unleash a torrent of commentary and content that reverse engineers the pandemic through their own ideology. They accuse covid19 as evidence for the need, at least in our country, of singlepayer health care, family leave, the green new deal. They happen fast and sophisticated, and its goingo be, its problematic for us in so many ways. Are you seeing that same massive resurgence very quickly in the uk . I mean, i think part of the phenomena that relates to the question is only about the globalization critique. My only specification with this virus is that makes people double down on what already thought. That doesnt mean it will get much reach with it. But just as, for instance, there been certain figures in the eu who always want to full sovereignty more, who it said the coronavirus is evidence for why we need to full sovereignty more, similarly politicians like in italy advocated tighter orders, this is justification tighter border polesitter everyone can do this from every angle and away, and identity, just the identity movements of the social justice moment and others, 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 game. But they started inevitably, the people who started it by saying women suffer more than men from the virus and then when that the cystic show actually males are just a portion likely to die of the virus. They doubled that if the admin might be doing the dying it is it is the women who are doing the suffering. The endless debates about which ethnic minorities may or may not be stopping more from it, and the presentation of those questions instead of being questions about why might that be quite simply the presentation of it 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 racist society or that 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 double down as they only have suffered because thats the only game they know how to play. They dont know how to look at the world. An intelligent person, a more subtle person might work out at a time like this come if something comes along that you never thought about before, its possible that all your preexisting views and not be justified and vindicated by the arrival of this virus. You might think you might need to talk something else. But those people will not because this is the one lands to which they see everything. What i i would expect and predt is there would be less wider public sympathy for the claims that are being made because as a rookie of the week in the spectator, when an awful lot of people in the country have declining living standard, when an awful lot of people have seen unemployment, through their families, their own homes, when an awful lot of people have got real grievances its fairly unlikely to my mind that they want to spend very much time listening to people with made up grievances. So you think maybe those groups are overplaying their hand right now . Very much so. I cant see, you know, the celebrities who sit back in the house complaining about the awfulness of having to spend all this time cocooned in their mansion, that stuff doesnt play well at the moment anyway. People have been saying look at me, in recent years. Its interesting, but the wells we draw on our different from that. In the uk the person who is got most of the public affection to is not heard of racing is a summary who has been doing the look at me, look at what a victim i am narrative, but for now 100yearold exservicemen who raise tens of millions of pounds for the nhs by doing these sponsored walks. My impression is that people will want narratives of resilience rather than narratives of suffering and victimhood. In our own lifetimes that narrative emerge. It wasnt the case even in the 1990s that if you prove you were a victim, you sort of won the game of life. Thats happened very recently, and so he can change back. I wouldnt be at all surprised if the crisis which will come after this crisis, the crisis to which this may only be the prelude, wouldnt do something to bring about the death of that movement. Im just letting our audience know, just a minute were going to turn to your questions feel free to type them in a little widget on the righthand side. I want to cover one more thing before return to those questions, and thats china. Over the weekend the secretary, our secretary of state mike pompeo said that there is enormous evidence indicating that the pandemic began in in b in wuhan. Both the secretary and President Trump have accused china of misleading the world about the virus. I saw uk defence secretary commented on over the weekend and is demanding time to respond to these allegations. Tell me, how do you think about china forgot this book with you can participate at least with the direction of the United States in Holding China accountable if these allegations turn out to be true . Very interesting. I would expect so. Until this crisis came along, the main debates related to china and uk was over of course the huawei contract, over huawei providing parts of the uks 5g in the years ahead. And i thought and tyler wrongly. I thought the sole major misstep of discovered so far and uk was in granting that contract. I would hope that at the very least we change now, but well see. But, yes, i would anticipate being strengthening of attitudes about this february. To me the most interesting thing about this is how the five eyes respond and whether we Stay Together on this which i hope we can. By the way, one thing that is noticeable about this, im just inviting mike colin in the spectator is about this, if remember in recent years there have been inside the enormous grew up in 20 oh between uk and china over then Prime MinisterDavid Cameron meeting with the dalai lama. Her body youre there were relations between uk and china. China canceled meetings with trade envoys and much more, and the government was really over a barrel on it and decided to bend towards asians will announce they would never again meet the dalai lama. This to my mind was a very boring prelude. Now, heres what i think is being an important thing for the five eyes. The Australian Government that last week called for, quite rightly, call for an independent International Inquiry into the source of the virus. This i think is absolutely crucial. We should not expect when that get very great cooperation from beijing, by deep in the sight of that will be very Important International and for public. The point i want to make was this. The backlash, the war of words apart from anything else 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. I mean, the description of australia being a piece of chewing gum on the bottom of the shoe of china, that china should just pick off. Its really extraordinarily language that theyre using. Heres the thing. Australia is of course in a different position from the uk. And whereas we have trade deficit with china, they have a surplus. We have 20 billion i think it is deficit and they have about 30 billion surplus. This puts australia and a much better position that as. What will be interesting if the dates in weeks and months ahead is the extent to which chinas leverage is not still there, depending on the nations reliance on it economically. I would hope that the five eyes in particular we stick together on this, it may have china, and then have unified response, whatever we find. When you think about the italian mq community i think ey on, when you think about the italian reaction, its anger with the eu, and it seems sort of friendly posture to china for so many of the obvious reason for its clear this is to be a very complicated time and everyone will sort of line up in that Balance Sheet just the way you describe and we are already starting to see that. And by the way, one other thing, the when the shock me most was a present of serbia, theyve been applying for eu membership but gave a speech saying the eu was never a friend editor the havent come to her aid. Who has come to her aid . 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 country like serbia, a small country but but a signift country in europe, being plucked off like that by the chinese. Nevermind what youre doing in italy, a former significant country in global terms, something we should really be thinking about. Im going to switch over now to questions from our audience. This is from maximal cohen. He asks, do you think the uk will be the first of many dominoes that eventually brings the European Union to an end . This is a very tricky question. I should preface it by saying although i voted for brexit and advocate for brexit to always leave the britons involved in the world was not remain in the eu, nevertheless, i do think we had said everything went to sit as a country by leaving the eu, by voting to leave it and then leaving it. And that after youve left the club, its not for you to say what you think the club should or should not do. Theres always a risk particularly from britain at the moment, i talk about the eu, this sort of willing it to do something wrong in order to vindicate our decision to brexit. I just say that by way of preface, because if the eu does fall apart and is going to bring absolute havoc to the continent of europe and the havoc like something we would want to see, i do think the country that will support to look to hear is italy. I prefer to it twice already but its one of the founder members. Founding members to the gall and doesnt want to keep britain out what became the eu, rest italy is a founding member, absolutely crucial to the project. If it goes, then this is just a Franco German alliance of some kind. So it is usually the one to watch and, of course, i dont think im breaking a a confere, i wont say what was but a couple of years ago i was in italy, another occasion. Ive been there quite a lot in recent years, and was speaking to members of the Italian Company said to me that British Government is doing a horrible job of brexit under theresa may, and this italian politicians that would look at you with horror. We think of you uk is being organized and capable, and if it is this difficult for you to leave, he said, we dont have to leave the eu. We have to leave the eurozone. We dont think of ourselves as organized or more capable in any way. If its hard for you, what would it be like for us . That was a very common view in italy in recent years. The people who have a critique of the you said look, look whats happening to britain. This is not as easy to do as you claim. So eu skepticism in italy significantly declined as it did partially in france. But established on the rise now. And so yes, its possible but i just dont say i will anyway because as i say, extraordinary turbulence which will come about, not least if countries have to return to other currencies. Im going to go to our next question. We its only questions, so thanks to the audience. Im trying to sift through them the best i can. This question is from timothy, and the question is, will the question of antimedia sentiment translate into any change in the composition of media or communication of ideas . Im so glad he asked because you were just earlier on about to Say Something more about why and how to turn in immediate in the uk was so swift during this moment. Can you tell us a little more about that . It was quite a specific what a not dissimilar to whats been happening to the white house is briefings and questions. Essentially what it is, the media didnt know what to do at the beginning of this crisis. As i say so myself, most of the people who work in the media are humanities graduates. People who studied Hard Sciences and did not tend to end up in the media. So there was a serious knowledge gap at the very beginning of this crisis, which i think it took quite a long time to catch up to. So what happened was, taken in the uk but seen in the u. S. , was everyone continue to play in the media, games and playing for years because they were the only games the not play, and those included gotcha games. You said this now, weve got this evidence to show this. The uturn game which is one of the ones i am least fond of myself, the uturn game is to the government said this on march 29 come on on april 3 yon set this. Of course the uturn game, anyone who drives a car knows this, a useful maneuver. If you tried over wall will come in handy. The uturn is a morally neutral thing in itself. Debbie has turned to this exemplar failure or contradiction is another part of acting. I think what strike about this once again is the fact the public is more nuanced and capable than the media that reports to speak to it, to the public and the deed ask for some kind of intermediary. I think the fact that those games went on to a certain extent they are diminished, was the main reason why that decline in trust the most, the journalists just didnt know what questions to ask. Ive had a few rounds with colleagues about this. If you havent written about pandemics or thought about virology or anything in the past, you of course have insights, but you are stuck if youre going to have to present yourself as a pandemic expert in 48 hours. Now that everyone has become so accustomed to having a platform anywhere where they can talk about anything in that sort of moment of excitement not positive but excitement nevertheless, it seems like 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 as the experts have got this right. I do as im sure most of you, i do have a worry about this, which is that as starts to pass the peak in this country and elsewhere, there will be this growing course the people say maybe he was never going to be as bad as that, and maybe you took the worst projections and there are quite strong argument in that direction. In this country having famously being said to have heard enough of experts, we could hear enough of them. About have got this right. Which is gregory asks a similar question and just wants to have a sense, im going paraphrase here a little bit, but whether or not the experts or socalled experts who came out very early on whether they will come out of this unscathed or whether there would be something to paint at the end of all this as we start to really know whats happening. They adopt a more selfcritical or humble tone, or do you think of you and will continue to double down and this is the environment we will live in for a out . Obviously were in an interesting flexion point it seems he and the public debate at the moment because so far countries like britain, we have done what we were told to do. It seems to have paid off to some extent. For instance, the Nightingale Hospital very swiftly erected and 92 taken thousands of patients has just been put on standby so theres no one to go into it. That point people divided into two camps, the one that says thats 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. I think one can now see the origins of this concern that governments have expressed so at times, the scientists have expressed, the concern about what would happen if you got a second peak in the country had to be ordered into lockdown for second time . I do think now for those of us who have not been studying pandemics, now we know why that there was there, because the origins of the counter narrative, right or wrong, clearly bring at the moment. There are very serious questions to ask about this, it seems to me. Then this other one which is all of our minds, which is the virologists cannot be the only people determining the destiny in the future a major democracies like the u. S. Or uk, and the simple economic demands at this stage are so overwhelming that i can see why this could break but i but i cd also see why the scientists are worried about the implications for that. We are just a few minutes before our conclusion. Ill 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 results but how significant they were. Is Jeremy Corbyn and the movement around in especially given the situation were in right now and expected to be in for some time ahead of us, has it been really defeated or will it bounce back something we all need to be concerned about . I can tell for sure in the u. S. None of us, we are also very concerned. I think you should be. And investor not least a socialist, extraordinary radical leftist but happy, patriotic, never saw anyone who wanted to kill british people who didnt support in some way whether irish republican terrorists or women terrorists, people who knew that, they saw that, labor party voters didnt turn out to vote in significant numbers, voting conservative for the first time in their lives, different situation in the state it seems to me that it seems a different situation depends on economic recovery from this catastrophe and i would say with everything doubling down, things which broadly speaking on the political right they said were impossible and had been happening in recent weeks, it is not ubi but a test that has occurred in recent weeks. It is possible to see what a British Government that said there is no spare money can find not just some spare money but 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 it is unimaginable because we cannot only imagine it but done it to no small extent compared to what they would like to do but when something seemed possible and plausible it can be easier to vote for. That is why this moment is curious for so many reasons. I want to thank you for being with us, appreciate the work you have done. I recognize douglass recent books, this one i especially like. Thank you for taking time to be with us this afternoon. I hope we can see each other in person sometime soon. If not this meeting will have to do. Thank you, everyone, goodbye. Tonight on booktv, a look at bestsellers and awardwinning books. Beginning at 8 00 eastern, author eric larson discusses the splendid in the vial, that looks at primus to Winston Churchills leadership during the london blitz. James patterson and his latest book on the politics of the kennedy family. The announcement of the 2020 j anthony lupus prize, the winner announced during his Virtual Event including terry greenich and black radical, and an american summer. Watch booktv tonight and over the weekend on cspan2. The president s from Public Affairs available in paperback and ebook. Presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst and features perspectives into the lives of the nations chief executive and leadership style. Visit our website, cspan. Org thepresident s, to learn about each president and historian featured and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Hi, everybody, thanks for ng