For some information about those events coming to you shortly. In the interim im so pleased to welcome my guests Douglas Murray to our event this afternoon. Douglas is a journalist and i am sure many of you, if not all, have read his work in the pages of the National Review or wall street journal or the associate editor for the spectator. Most recently he wrote the madness of crowds and was with us in person at the Manhattan Institute in early 2018 and that was just after the publication of this book, the strange death of europe. Douglas is a Formidable Political critic and while he is an observer of all things uk and, i think, the u. S. Im not sure he knew the subjects of his most recent book and this one would come into play so much during this particular moment in time but they have and it is for that reason and many others that it is my pleasure to welcome y you, douglas, to our event this afternoon. Thank you very much, vanessa. Its a pleasure to be with you and all your members. And you. Douglas and i will talk for the next 20 minutes or so and at which point you will turn over the q a to you, the audience. If you looked at the righthand side of your screen there is a little widget and the little triangle with the word question. You can type in questions anytime you would like into it while douglas and i are speaking and then when we turn it to the q a portion of the event i will be looking at that list and pulling your questions from douglas at that time. With that we will jump right in and obviously weve all been through and continuing to go through or rather serious moments in history and we will all be doing a lot of self evaluation how our governments have handled this moment with you looking comparatively across nations to see if there is something we can learn to handle the moment better than we are and it is in part for that reason that we are still happy to get a little checkin with our friends over in england. Douglas, i would like to start with this political moment that you could find itself on generate 31 and i dont need to tell you but the uk left the European Union and started a transition time which was only, i think, about 11 months and short anyway and this moment in time where the future relationship between the uk and the eu would be determined in my question for you is what will happen now . In theory your political leaders are distracted so the kind of negotiation that would normally happen is complicated at this moment. Will we have an agreement by the 31 of december . Yes, well whether there is an agreement, i dont know but the government wants to get an agreement by then absolutely but the question came up in the house of commons just earlier today from a member of the liberal Democratic Party and he was very plain once again that there should be no delay even a minor delay in this process and i think, by the way, the attitude one takes to brexit and britains exit from the eu is profoundly important, i think, for the British Public whether theres a small majority nonetheless to leave the European Union but after 3. 5 years of parliamentary shenanigans and other factors that were going on it appeared to be trying to delay or at least reverse the decision to leave the eu and its absolutely crucial particularly in government led by this part minister with this cabinet that there not be reneging on that promise so i think even something as major as the current chronic crisis isnt going to make them persuaded that they should in any way move that timeline. But is no agreement reached and we enter a moment in time where there is even more uncertainty and will not be good for the british economy in this particular it is not good for anyones economy in the situation so barely got in economy at the moment in some countries so this is totally uncharted territory and i repeat the point that the crucial thing is we never are in certain times and they meet be especially on certain times with factors thrown in the patterns have not been expected by many people but the brexit post has to be separate from the and its a commitment of the British Government and id be surprised if it wasnt followed through on and i gathered just this weekend a formal trade talks between the uk and america so you know, theres a lot going on although the main preoccupation is the virus. The coronavirus at this stage has not, in your mind, derailed this transition process. Has there been any other fundamental changes that you see coming to the uk as a result of the coronavirus aside . None other than the challenges in every country going through. Obviously all our countries as you well know from the u. S. All our countries are looking around the globe for potential best practice and much more as the figures just came in about an hour ago suggesting uk has no got the highest death toll in europe of deaths from people who died with the virus so far. There will be lots of going over why that came about and theres always been a lot of [inaudible] in place but its the postmortem bits is a bit premature. How are the buddhist people thinking about issues like globalization . I know here in the rest is a big question around supply chain where are we getting our masks and our drugs and all those things and is there a stronger argument now anti globalization happening in the uk . I think that argument is happening everywhere, isnt it . Its happening in every single country, not the least because in the earlier stages of this crisis we all saw things that were extremely alarming. The example that was most written on European Affairs in recent years was in europe and across europe and seen for instance in the early days was quite frankly suffering worse and seen the german and french government going protectionist on certain products, masks, oxygen in this sort of thing the italian public, by the way, which has seen an enormous swing in recent weeks against the heat you think was rightly enraged by the countries that have lectured people most on protectionism in recent years. Actually, when the crisis hit during something that was completely against everything they had said before and so i think theres a lot of looking around and a lot of lessons being taken but it will be sometime before you see the effects of that in the voting. Trust is at an alltime low which has created a number of problems for us. Are you seeing these things in england or are you seeing that some kind of divide . I think its aparticularly american thing going on. Its very unique to america sadly. In the uk weve 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 so on my time in the press it doesnt please me to say but im not surprised to say that out of these institutions the institution thats fallen the most in esteem is the media which has collapsed in public trust and theres interesting reasons for that. That aside one of the most Amazing Things about the uk example has been although we have been a divided country much like america has been in fact when scientists got together and the chief scientific advisors presented the nationwith advice and given them the lockdown , that was acted upon and there was not this ongoing divide but is certainly going on in america or even a Global Pandemic is inevitably seen through the pro and prism and that is a particular challenge for your country because if Something Like this cannot bring a sort of common cause or can show people the common wellsprings to draw upon, then if one wonders what it would take but everywhere else i think its not as extreme as the us, that divide. Its amazing to see walking your streets at home, all of your neighbors house participated in trying to keep everyone safe so from that simple Human Interaction theres been a very quick changeover into whats best i think for everyone but when it comes to the political divide everything seems to be seen rightthrough that antior protrump lens. Your Prime Minister was in certain parts of the country controversial to. I hear your points on unity but im wondering if right now people are really standing behind him not only because of his leadership in this moment but because hes one of the few Global Leaders who had a personal interaction with the virus. So how is everybodythinking about him these days . And the most serious. I think a lot of the country didnt know quite how serious it was until it was announced he had gone into intensive care but im told over the years few days there were certainly moments where expected to lose him which would have been catastrophic i think for 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 it was and i think when he came out of hospital and he had a very moving message about the nhs officer who saved his life and he said that was something which the public could relate to. Of course theres a following thing from therewhich is politically , this means that it is exceptionally hard for the labour party of the left to claim in future at the conservatives do not care about the nhs. Every election in mylifetime , the labor party has run on threeweeks to save the nhs. The nhs is still there as it has been since it was created in the Second World War but its striking that the idea that you could pretend after this the nhs is something that somebody does not support, it would seem preposterous but i think its undoubtedly something thats going to be a certain weight on the conservatives. With the death of the Boris Johnson himself personally said he owes to the nhs, its either going to be agood year for the health service. He named his baby after his doctor. It was very moving. For sure. Lets talk for just a second about the monarchy because youre hearing the us, the American Public follows closely the relationship of the royals so i think there is a whole generation of americans who have forgotten the monarchy as a leadership role to play and a big role in public unity and it seems like this is a real moment most people i know watched these addresses in the us and felt comforted by it. Is that the same reaction youre having . Very much so it was interesting again, in recent years weve had every institution has been claimed to be losing public trust and so on and it was profoundly moving but at the worst period of this in the uk. The one person we really want to hear from was the queen and 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 have been through add times before. We have been through worse times before and we come through them and as somebody who gave her first broadcast to the nation as a young girl in 1940 when with her late sister princess margaret, the young princess addressed the children of the 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 inevitably likes to see things in catastrophic terms as possible. And many other people do, theres always the risk of increasing fear in the public but its crucial at a time like this that you have some public figures in the uk we have at least this one, you can draw on our historical feelings. Draw on our ownhistorical experience and to say as she did , we ask in a way that makes people in the future look back and say theyre equal to their forebears and of course the corona lockdown consists mostly of people sitting around in their pajamas watching netflix and its not quite forming the beaches of normandy but if you know, if this generation challenges indeed to this out then i suppose it would mean encouragement to do so and the queen currentlyprovides that. When we think about some of the challenges that our generation now will be releasing theres certainly not remotely the same. The ones you best describe, but it does mean some of those challenges in your most recent book. The 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 and the media, the workplace and i dont know how things look for you folks but here it took id say about two minutes once the coronavirus and really ascended, about two minutes for all the various advocates and political organizations that exist to use the crisis to unleash a torrent of commentary and content that was reverse engineered to the pandemic through their own ideology and reviews it as an evidence for the need at least in our country of singlepayer health care, family leave, the Green New Deal and and its going to be , its problematic for us in so many ways. Have you seen that same massive resurgence very quickly. In the uk . I think this is part of a phenomenon that relates to the question about globalization critique. My only expectation with this virus is that it makes people double down on what they already thought. That doesnt mean of course they will get much reach with it but just as instance have been figures in the eu who always want to pull sovereignty more and who said the coronavirus is evident for why we need to pull sovereignty more, similarly politicians in italy who advocate tighter borders have said theres an explanation for tighter border policy and as if everyone can do this from every angle in a way the identity movements in the social justice movements, there no exception to that extent. It took slightly longer here than it did there for people to Start Playing the sort of social justiceidentity warrior game. But they started inevitably , the people who started by saying you know, women suffer more than men from the virus and then when the statistics showed males are disproportionately likely to die of the virus paid double down and said the men might be doing the dying its women who are doing the suffering and you know, 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 about why might that be, simply the presentation of being yet more evidence of the racism of the society we live in though that we cant even get a virus from china without its justifying the views that america is a racist society or that britain is or so on and all of that has been going on. My prediction of it is that what will happen is those people double down as they already have because thats the only game they know how to play red they dont know how to look at the world unless its through those spectacles. And an intelligent person, a more subtle person might work out that at a time like this ifsomething comes along you have never thought about before , its possible that all your preexisting views may not be justified and vindicated by the arrivalof this virus. You might think that you might need to talk about Something Else but those people will not because this is the one lens which they see everything. What i would expect and would predict if there will be less wider public sympathy for the claims that are being made because 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 families or and home and when an awful lot of people have gotten really real grievances. Its fairly unlikely to my mind that they will spend very much time listening to people with made up grievances. You think maybe those groups are overplaying their hand right now. Very much so. I cant see the celebrities who sit back in their house complaining about the awfulness of having to spend all this time in their mansion. That doesnt play well atthe moment anywhere. The people whove been saying look at me , in recent years, its interesting. Theres the wells we draw on our different from that. In the uk the person whos got the most public affection weve not heard of recently isnt the somebody whos been doing that look at me narrative but its now 100yearold exservicemen who raised tens of millions of pounds with the nhs by doing these sponsored walks with his frame and my impression is thats the sort of thing people will want narratives of resilience rather than narratives of suffering and victimhood and in our own lifetimes that narrative emerged. It wasnt the case even in the 1990s that if you prove you are a victim and you sort of won the game of life, thats happened very recently and so it can change back and i wouldnt be at all surprised the Current Crisis which will, after this crisis which this may be only be the prelude would do something to bring about the death of that movement. Im just letting our audience know in just a minute were going to turn to your questions so feel free to take them and a little widget on the righthand side i want to cover one more thing for we turn to those questions and thats china. Over the weekend the secretary, our secretary of state mike pompeo there is enormous evidence indicating that the pandemic began in a lab in wuhan read both the secretary and President Trump had accused china of misleading the world about the virus and i saw the uk defense secretary commented on itover the weekend and is demanding china respond to these allegations. How do you think about china from this point out and will the uk participate at least in what seems the direction of the unitedstates in Holding China accountable if these allegations turn out to be true . I would expect so and until this crisis came along the main debate between china and the uk was over the huawei contract. And i thought entirely wrongly that the soul major misstep was in granting that contract. I would hope that that appellees would change now, we will see but of course yes, i would anticipate things strengthening of attitudes about this everywhere. To me the most interesting thing about this is how the five guys respond and stick together on it which i would very much hope we can. One thing thats noticeable about this and im writing my column for this weeks spectator talking about this is if you remember in recent years there have been things like the enormous row of luck in 2012 when the uk and china over then Prime MinisterDavid Camerons meeting with the Dalai Lamaand in the wake of that for about a year there were rocky relations between the uk and china. China canceled meetings with trade on voice and much more. And the government was really over a battle on it and decided to bend towards beijings well and announced they would never and again meet with the dalai lama and this to my mind was a very worrying prelude area heres what i think has been an important thing for the pili. Its of course you see the Australian Government that actually called for quite rightly called for an independent International Inquiry into the sort of the virus. And this i think is absolutely crucial that we should not expect and will not get very great cooperation from beijing even the site of that noncooperation will be very importantinternationally and for our public but the point i wanted to make was this. Thebacklash , the war of words from the communist party of chinas main organs, he journals of cases that it runs and indeed 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 gumon the bottom of the shoe ofchina , china just should 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 a trade deficit with china, they have a surplus. We have 1 billion i think it is deficit, they have a 30 billion surplus. This puts australia in a much better position than us and what would be interesting i think in the days and weeks and months ahead is the extent to which chinas leverage is not still there depending on the nations reliance on and its economically area and i would hope that the five guys in particular stick together on this. Demand accountability ofchina and then unisonresponse , whatever we find. When you think about the italian, you mentioned earlier on when you think about the italian reaction is anger with the eu and its really sort of friendly posture to china for so many obvious reasons that its clear that this is going to be a, located time. And everyone will sort of line up in that Balance Sheet in just the way you describe and were already starting to see that. I had one other thing, the one thing that struck me the most was the president of serbia said weve been applying for new membership but gave this speech saying the eu was never our friend and it turns out they havent come to our aid. What has come to our aid . China is our friend and for america and for its Strategic Partners around the world this is an important game thats going on at the moment. To see a country like serbia, more countries are significant countries in europe being plucked off like that by the chinese, never mind what theyre doing in italy which is a far more significant country in europe in global terms is something we should be thing about area. Im going to switch to questions now from our audience. This is a question for maxwell area you think the uk would be the first of many dominoes they eventually bring theEuropean Union to an end . This is a very tricky question i should parse it by saying although i voted for briggs it and always believed britains role in the world was not running in the eu , nevertheless i think that we have said everything we had to say as a country i leaving the eu, by votingto leave and then leaving and that after youve left , its not for you to say what you think the club should or should not do. But as theres always the risk talking about the eu of sort of winning it to do something it wrong in order to vindicate our decision to brexit and i say that by way of preface because if the eu does fall apart , its going to bring an absolute half to the continent of europe and i wouldnt want to see. I do think the country thats most important to look to is italy. Ive referred to it twice already but its one of the founding members, the goal and others, wanted to keep britain hours of what became the eu and italy as a founding memberits crucial to the project. Its if it goes, then this is just a Franco German alliance of some kind. So it does seem its the one to watch and so of course, i dont think im breaking confidence, i will say who it was a couple of years ago i was in another occasion, i didnt know quite a lot in recent years and was speaking to a member of the Italian Government saying thats why the British Government has done a horrible job of navigating brexit under teresa maysgovernment and they said to meet we look at you with just horror. We think of you and the uk as being organized and capable and it is difficult for you toleave , then we have to leave the euro zone but we dont think ofourselves as organized or capable in any way. So if its hard for you what would it be like for us . That was a very common view in italy in recent years of people who have a critique of the eu said look whats happening to britain. This is not as easy to doas you claim. So eu skepticism in italy has declined as it did partially in francebut its definitely on the rise now. So yes, its possible but i dont say i will it in any way because of this 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 have so many questions so thank you to the audience and im trying to sift through them as best we can. This question is from timothy and the question is will the crescendo of antimedia sentiment translate into any change in the composition of media or communication of ideas and im so glad he asked this question goes we were early on about to Say Something more about why and how the turn of the media was so swift in this moment and can you tell us moreabout that . Its similar to whats been happening at the White House Press briefings and questions. Essentially what it is is that the media didnt know what to do at the beginning of this crisis. If i say so myself most of the people who work in the media know humanities graduates. And people whose study Hard Sciences and fastforward, did not tend to end up in the media. So there was a serious knowledge gap at the very beginning with this crisis which i think took quite a long time to catch up to. So what happened was specifically in the uk but i think its the same in the us was everyone continue to play in the media games they been playing for years because they were the only games they knew how to play and those included you said this, now weve got this evidence to show this. The uturn game which is one of the ones im least fond of, the uturn game is you the government set this on march 29 and on april 3 you then said this. Of course the uturn game is a written simply as anyone who drives a car in those days, the uturn is quite useful little maneuver. You often need it if for instance youre driving into a wall, then the deployment of the uturn will come in handy. I uturn is a morally neutral thing in itself. Its only that the media has turned into this exemplar of failure or contradiction, heres another part of that game and i think whats striking about this once again is the fact that the public is more nuanced and capable of nuanced and the media that purports to it, to the public and indeed access some kind of intermediary. So i think that the fact that those gains went on, have certainly diminished was the main reason why that decline in trust the most. They just didnt know what questions to ask you and i had a few rows with colleagues about this but im at this point where if you havent written about pandemics or thought about virology in thepast , you of course at insights but youre stuck if youre going to have to present yourself as a pandemic expertin 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. And perhaps the upside of this is somewhat of a return to respect and interest in experts. Would be that things get back to as long as the experts have got this right area i do as im sure, i do have a worry about this is that as this starts to pass the peak in this country and elsewhere , there will be this growing chorus of people saying maybe it was never going to be as bad as that and 80 you took the worst projections and theres quite strong arguments in that direction so in this country having things such as you know, it actually turns out we couldnt hear enough of them though they better have got this right. Which is Gregory Mcneil asked without these killer questions and just wants to have a sense that im going to paraphrase here a bit but whether or not the experts are socalled experts came out very early on, whether they will come out of this unscathed or whether there will be something to pay at the end of all this as we start to really know whats happening. Will they adopt and be more selfcritical or humble tone or will everyone continue to double down and its just the environment we will live in class obviously were in an interesting Inflection Point it seems to me in the public debate at the moment he calls so far its in terms of that in britain weve done what we were told to do. And it seems to have paid off to some extent read for instance the Nightingale Hospital that was swiftly erected in east london taking in thousands of patients has just been on standby so theres no one to go into it. Now, of course at that point people divide 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 yousee, it was exaggerated from the outset. And everything, i think one can now see the origins of this concern that the government is expressed several times. And scientists have expressed concern about what would happen if you got a second peak and because we had to be ordered into lockdown a second time area i do think now those of us who had not been studying that, now we sort of know why that was there because the origins of the counter narrative right or wrong are clearly growing at the moment. And there are very serious questions to ask about this it seems to me and then this other one which is on all of our minds which is that he virologys cannot be the only people to determine the destiny and the future of major democracies like the us or uk. And the simple economic demands at this stage of our so overwhelming that i can see why this dog did break but also why the scientists are worriedabout implications of all that. A few minutes before our conclusion and i will 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 and both in terms of whats the actual results but how significant they were red is there a movement around him especially given the situation were in right out and expecting to be in or sometime ahead of us. As it then really defeated or will it bounce back and its something that we all need to continue to beconcerned about. For sure in the us none of us are, we are all very concerned. I think you should be and id like to think that the movement of which Jeremy Corbin and others are part of disappeared or will disappear into history but i think most of us have thought many times in our life that it was high time that happened and it comes back again like some horrible zombie narrative and every time you think you killed it, back it springs. Jeremy corbin himself and his version, his evisceration of the labour party was completely destroyed last december and there were lots of reasons for that, not least by the way a socialist, extraordinarily radical leftist also profoundly antibritish, antipatriotic, never saw anyone of any group who wanted to name british people who didnt he support in some way. Whether its irish republican terrorists, he was always on the side of the people against us and they saw that and even the Traditional Labour Party voted, didnt turn out to vote forhim in significant numbers. Its a different situation in the states it seems to me but i also think there will be a different situation after this and it all depends on the economic recovery from this catastrophe and i would say that again , going to the thing of everything doubling down, the thing that most concerns me is the seven things which those of us are speaking on the political right have said were impossible and unimaginable have been happening in recent weeks. Im thinking of things like its not ubi but its a test for ubi that occurred in the us inrecent weeks. Its now possible to see what the British Government who said theres no fair money can find not just some of their money but billions and billions to bail out every company and you know, after this it would seem to me that when a radical leftist say we would like to do this in the future, we can no longer say that unimaginablebecause weve not just imagined it but done it. Albeit so small compared to what they would like to do but once something has been seen to be possible and plausible, then it can be easier to vote for. Thats why this moment seems very scary for so many reasons. I want to thank you for takingthe time to be with us. I really appreciate all the work youve done. I highly recommend both of douglassmost 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 see each other in person sometime soon if not, on the screen will have to do. Thank you douglas. Thank you everyone, goodbye. Weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available everyweekend on cspan2. Tonight starting at 8 pm eastern , we begin with Dinesh Desousa examines what he calls the new face of socialism. Then daisy abrams, former democratic candidate for governor of georgia is causing her blueprints to end Voter Suppression and later fox news Chris Wallace providing a history of the lead up to the bombing of hiroshima in august 1945. Enjoy book tv on cspan2. In this president ial Election Year as americans decide who should lead our country this collection offers perspectives into the lives and events that forged each president s leadership styles area will learn more about all our president s and the books featured historians visit