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Mother's Day. Welcome

2:00

to the new Books Network. From

2:07

1945 to 1995, we thought the ultimate

2:09

way to engage people and build

2:11

brands was sex. What the

2:13

algorithms figured out when Google came along was

2:15

that the ultimate branding tool was rage. We

2:19

stayed indoors during Covid, we didn't go to

2:21

school, we didn't go to university because we

2:23

were protecting older generations and our loved ones

2:25

and what have we got back for at

2:28

political parties who don't care about us. Constantly

2:31

men are being told you're the

2:33

problem, you're part of this system which

2:36

is benefiting men and putting women

2:38

and other people down. Yet at

2:40

the same time they're not seeing any

2:42

of the benefits of that. Hello

2:48

everybody and a very warm welcome to control

2:50

the CETA podcast designed to dive deep into

2:52

the threats facing our democracies and to ask

2:54

just how much danger are they in these

2:57

days? I'm Lina Dos Santos,

2:59

former CNN anchor and international broadcaster.

3:01

And I'm Owen Bennett -Janes, former

3:03

PBC foreign correspondent now teaching here

3:05

at New York University. You

3:07

can probably tell from the name of the

3:10

podcast what we're trying to do is figure

3:12

out who's controlling the narrative, having a look

3:14

at which alternative facts they're using to do

3:16

that and also figuring out where all this

3:18

deception is likely to lead. And on

3:20

this week's podcast we are

3:22

delving into the gender gap that's

3:24

emerging in politics. Why is

3:26

there a tendency for young women

3:29

to be moving left in their

3:31

political affiliations and young men

3:33

to be moving right. So that's

3:35

coming up in this week's

3:37

edition of Control, Alt, Deceit. Well,

3:42

we've had a lot about

3:44

how Western societies are

3:46

becoming increasingly polarised alongside more

3:48

traditional political fault lines,

3:50

but increasingly those types of

3:52

splits are manifesting themselves

3:54

beyond traditional gender divides. We're

3:56

also talking about younger people

3:59

as well splitting further towards the

4:01

political scene. So let's just have a

4:03

look at some of the figures just

4:05

to lay this landscape out for you.

4:07

As you can see here, young women

4:09

are twice as likely to vote green.

4:11

They're more likely obviously to vote in

4:13

the left of the political spectrum in

4:16

many cases, especially in the UK. And

4:18

now this is crucial. We're going to

4:20

get into this throughout the course of

4:22

this hour. More university graduates who are

4:25

women earning more than young men for

4:27

the first time. We've seen that. about

4:29

60 % of college graduates in the

4:31

United States are now women and

4:33

as you can see in Germany

4:35

we've seen in the last election

4:37

on February the 27th that the

4:39

left party was very much supported

4:41

by women over there. And for

4:43

men if we can see that slide

4:45

the converse obviously is true twice as

4:47

likely to vote reform here in the

4:49

UK the party that would be roughly

4:51

aligned with the Trump -Trump -Magger movement in

4:53

the US. strong

4:56

support amongst young men for AFD

4:58

in Germany, for the successor

5:00

to the Front National, the

5:02

RN in France, and

5:04

of course 60 % of graduates

5:07

are women, only 40 % are

5:09

men. Yeah, and I

5:11

had a chance to speak to

5:13

another member of the NYU professorial

5:15

team and the faculty over in

5:17

New York, his name is Scott

5:19

Galloway. We spoke at the Mobile

5:21

World Congress in Barcelona recently and

5:23

he's been a voice who's specifically

5:25

focusing on this disaffectation of young

5:27

men and the separation between women

5:30

and men at the fringes of

5:32

the political spectrum. He claims that

5:34

this may prompt an age of

5:36

revolution. I

5:40

think it can all be all reverse engineered back

5:42

to one basic statistic. And that is a 30 -year

5:44

-old man or woman isn't doing as well as

5:46

his or her parents were at 30. And

5:49

that's economic. But you layer on top

5:51

of that what I think is the

5:53

biggest crisis in the United States that is

5:55

creating a generation of anxious, obese, and

5:57

depressed youth that is really dissatisfied with

5:59

the current world order and so just

6:01

wants disruption and change. And

6:03

that is I think the biggest threat of AI

6:06

is loneliness. And that

6:08

is the deepest -pocketed, most

6:10

intelligent companies in the

6:12

world that have aggregated more

6:14

human capital than

6:16

NASA or Google

6:19

have one mission. And that

6:21

mission is to, unfortunately, produce

6:23

an asexual, asocial species of people

6:26

who do nothing but stare at

6:28

their phone. Because if they

6:30

just stare at their phone all day, they

6:32

can monetize them. There was a

6:34

recent survey that showed that more young women

6:36

are being paid more than young men

6:38

entering the workforce. And that was the first

6:40

time that we'd really seen that balance

6:42

flip. Where do you think this

6:44

is going to lead in the immediate

6:46

term? We should take a

6:49

collective victory lap and recognize that

6:51

no group has ascended faster

6:53

globally than women. We

6:55

should do nothing to get in

6:57

the way of the progress of

6:59

women. Full stop. What

7:02

I do think is happening, though, is

7:04

people are starting to realize that the

7:06

data is overwhelming and that

7:08

the group that has fallen further

7:10

fastest in the West is young

7:12

men. If you

7:14

go into a morgue and you find five

7:16

people who have died by suicide, four

7:18

men, we don't have a homeless problem. We

7:20

have a male homeless problem. Three quarters of homeless are men. 70

7:23

% of addicts are men. Men

7:26

are 12 times as likely to be on court,

7:28

incarcerated, three times as likely to be addicted. I

7:30

coach young men. I think

7:33

the term toxic masculinity has been

7:35

very unproductive. There's no such thing

7:37

as toxic masculinity. There's violence.

7:39

There's cruelty. There's arrogance.

7:42

There's bullying. I don't think

7:44

there's any such thing as toxic femininity. And I

7:46

think that young men need to rely on masculinity

7:48

as a bit of a code. The

7:51

men who we see on the

7:53

world stage representing the United States,

7:55

in particular the so -called brologarchy of

7:57

technologies. of the antithesis

7:59

of exactly what you're advocating. You,

8:02

because you've been an investor, a big

8:04

voice in this space, you

8:06

can probably look these people in the eye

8:08

as a successful tech investor. What

8:11

do you see? What do you think their agenda really

8:13

is in the end of the day? As

8:15

a nation gets wealthier, its reliance on

8:17

a superbing and church attendance goes down.

8:20

But into that void of wanting answers,

8:22

steps, technology, and this idolatry of

8:24

money and idolatry, of tech innovators, because

8:26

the closest thing we have to

8:28

religion is technology. It's literally God -like.

8:31

I don't understand how my phone works.

8:34

And we have told these people that the

8:36

rules don't apply to them. There's sort

8:38

of this philosophy of being part of the

8:40

in -group, and the in -group in America right

8:42

now are engineers who have made a lot

8:44

of money in technology. And

8:46

then there's the out -group, and that's kind of

8:48

everybody else. And the in -group believes that

8:50

the law protects them, but doesn't bound them. Whereas

8:53

everybody else, the out -group, They're

8:55

bound by the law, but they're not protected by

8:57

it. It started with Steve

9:00

Jobs. We had someone who was

9:02

kind of the capitalist Jesus Christ, and this

9:04

was a guy, and we still idolize

9:06

him and talk about him in hushed tones.

9:08

This was a guy who denied his

9:10

own blood under oath when he was worth

9:12

to avoid child support payments, when

9:14

he was worth a court of a billion dollars. And

9:17

the new Jesus Christ is

9:19

Elon Musk amongst young men in a

9:21

Western society. And this is a

9:23

guy who says his daughter

9:25

after transition is dead to him. This

9:28

is a guy who has two women

9:30

currently suing him for sole custody of their

9:32

children because he's had no involvement with them.

9:35

That's what it means to be a man? I

9:38

mean, the role models we are

9:41

putting forward across tech, this

9:43

idolatry of technology and the dollar,

9:45

is producing just some of

9:47

the shittiest men with this

9:49

extraordinary amount of power. And

9:53

it's not their fault. If

9:55

you tell a 35 or 40 year old

9:57

man who's Jesus Christ, he's inclined to believe

9:59

you. It's our fault.

10:02

We don't hold these people to the same

10:04

standards. It appears as though

10:06

the constituency and for politicians around

10:08

the world complained about this,

10:10

the constituency is increasingly a digital

10:12

constituency that's hyper manipulatable as

10:15

well. Do you think that's going to

10:17

be part of what could prompt

10:19

this age of revolution? If

10:23

you think about, so again,

10:25

I'm a professor of brand strategy. From 1945

10:27

to 1995, we thought the ultimate way

10:29

to engage people and build brands was

10:31

sex. I drink this beer and you're

10:33

gonna be hot. Buy an $11 ,000

10:35

watch that you don't want and you'll be

10:37

more likely to have a random sexual encounter,

10:39

right? And it works really well. It

10:42

show me anything that's high margin on

10:44

my body or probably on yours and it's

10:46

because we still have this instinct we

10:48

wanna be more attractive to mates, potential mates.

10:51

We thought that was the ultimate branding

10:53

and kind of tool. What the

10:56

algorithms figured out when Google came along was

10:58

that the ultimate branding tool was rage. That

11:00

if you can enrage someone, if you can

11:03

put out false content that mRNA vaccines all

11:05

to your DNA, people

11:07

get enraged. Some people weigh in and say, that's

11:09

right, they've been lying to us. And then other

11:11

people weigh in and say, no, that's misinformation, that's

11:14

stupid. And every additional comment

11:16

is another Nissan ad and

11:18

more shareholder value. And you're

11:20

seeing this just, our

11:22

discourses become so coarse, right?

11:25

Depression is skyrocketing, incumbent

11:27

governments are being kicked out one

11:29

after the other because it's not

11:32

sex itself anymore, it's rage. I

11:35

should say some of the students from New York

11:37

University and the audience here, and I don't

11:39

know whether I'm encouraged or dismayed that some of

11:41

them are nodding when they hear about rage

11:43

of being a key factor in what's going on.

11:45

And we've got a great panel here to

11:47

discuss. what's happening and to help

11:49

us understand what's going on. We'll hear in

11:51

a moment from Oliver Dean, who's with the

11:53

Conservative Party here in the UK, which I

11:55

guess is now called something like a centre -right

11:57

party, but all those, you can tell us,

11:59

and all those definitions have sort of

12:01

rather gone by the way

12:03

now. And we've also got Sophie

12:05

Stowers, Research Associate at UK

12:07

in a Changing Europe, writes on

12:09

British and European politics and

12:11

your parliamentary assistant. until

12:14

recently? Until about four years ago

12:16

on the other side of the spectrum,

12:18

I work for a Labour MP. You work

12:21

for a Labour MP. And

12:23

you have been thinking about

12:25

why women are moving left. And

12:27

you've written on that and sort of

12:29

suggesting it's been rather ignored as compared

12:31

to the trend of young men moving

12:33

right. So let's just focus in on

12:35

that. Why do you think young women

12:38

tend to be moving left in

12:40

not just Britain, but all over the world? Well,

12:43

we know, you know, my research focuses

12:45

primarily on the UK and we know that

12:47

in the UK for a long time

12:49

actually the trend was the other way around.

12:51

Women were more traditionally likely to vote

12:53

for the Conservative Party and men for the

12:55

Labour Party for kind of primarily because

12:57

men tended to be more exposed to trade

12:59

unions, to kind of weight

13:01

movements, involved in manual weight, women

13:04

tended to be more religious as well

13:06

on top of that and so those

13:08

kind of, you know, socioeconomic factors tended

13:10

to drive men and women in those

13:12

directions. We saw gradually that gap

13:14

erode and over time until in

13:16

around 2005 it flipped for the

13:18

first time so women became more

13:20

likely to vote Labour and that

13:22

gap across kinds of age groups

13:24

has maintained itself ever since then

13:27

but what we've seen particularly in

13:29

the last kind of you know since

13:31

2016 I'd probably say in the

13:33

UK is this emergence of you

13:35

know the gap itself has widened so

13:37

women are continuing continuously more likely

13:39

to vote for parties on the left

13:42

than men are but particularly amongst

13:44

young generations so we're talking about voters

13:46

who are aged between 18 and

13:48

29 and as you said we've talked

13:50

quite a lot I think post

13:52

US election post UK election about what

13:55

is driving you know the youngest

13:57

male voters to the right and

13:59

we tend to look at you know

14:01

these socio -cultural issues of, you

14:03

know, the manosphere, is that

14:05

having an effect? Do men not have

14:07

a sense of identity? Why are men

14:09

more concerned about migration and these social

14:11

-cultural issues than women tend to be? And

14:14

we talk a lot about that, but actually,

14:16

I think, as you kind of referred to, what

14:18

I think gets ignored quite a lot is

14:20

that women are moving to the left, maybe not

14:22

quite at the same pace, but it is

14:25

occurring. And when we look at

14:27

what the differentiating factor is there, it

14:29

tends to be because they have these

14:31

kind of more left -wing economic preferences

14:33

and they also tend to put a

14:35

lot more emphasis on their economic

14:37

priorities, their financial security than the socio

14:39

-cultural issues that seem to be driving

14:41

male voters. It's very interesting you say that

14:44

because I was reading an article, you

14:46

know, academic article on what's happening in Germany

14:48

and they were saying that women We're

14:50

moving left since the 1970s. It's a consistent

14:52

trend. So it completely predates all the

14:54

social media stuff, because it's very tempting now

14:56

to whatever happens to social media. But

14:58

it's not social media. That may be part

15:00

of the story, but the origins of

15:02

this go pre -social media. Yeah definitely

15:05

and I think you know this might

15:07

have been something that was a slow

15:09

burn for a long time and maybe

15:11

social media has been the catalyst that

15:13

has sped it up so that you

15:15

know this youngest generation seems to be

15:17

more polarized than any that have come

15:19

before it but as you said it's

15:21

been happening for quite a long time

15:23

but I think you know the widening

15:25

of it. is something quite recent if

15:27

you look at work by people like

15:29

Rosie Campbell who's a professor at King's

15:31

College as recently as 2022 she found

15:33

no kind of real statistically significant difference

15:35

in the economic preferences or the social

15:37

preferences of men and women whereas now

15:39

we're seeing that on these really fundamental

15:41

issues of you know environment migration and

15:44

redistributive policy tax policy men and women

15:46

are moving in quite different directions so

15:48

what is it that has happened in

15:50

that relatively short space of time and yet

15:52

one of the interesting things about this

15:54

is that both men and women

15:56

think they're disadvantaged women for historical

15:58

reasons which they think are still

16:01

relevant and men feeling

16:03

they're newly disadvantaged so I mean

16:05

it's grievance all around right yeah 100

16:07

% I think you know for if you

16:09

look at kind of what is at

16:11

the heart of both that concern of

16:13

men and women is that feeling of

16:16

security, I think, but it manifests in

16:18

quite different ways. I think for a

16:20

lot of young women, it's financial security.

16:23

It's feeling vulnerable. Maybe you've gone to university,

16:25

you've done everything you meant to do,

16:27

but you still can't get a good job.

16:29

They're experiencing a lack of housing, a

16:31

lack of job opportunities, and that manifests that

16:33

way. Now, young men obviously also have

16:35

that concern too, but I think that might

16:37

also then be compounded by the fact

16:39

that we're seeing there's a generation of younger...

16:41

who may not have attended university, who

16:43

feel a bit lost, a bit isolated. And

16:46

then the world also changed, you know, quite

16:48

drastically around them, and that they don't have

16:50

this place to be like a breadwinner and

16:52

a household anymore. They may not

16:55

have that traditional kind of masculine path to

16:57

follow that they've seen their previous generations of

16:59

their father or their grandfather follow. And so

17:01

that kind of just, I think, compounds that

17:03

lack security. We'll get onto some of that with

17:05

Oliver just now. But just before we do that, in

17:08

the literature, it seems to be saying

17:10

men feel more socially isolated. And

17:12

I had trouble understanding that. Why would

17:14

men feel more socially isolated than

17:16

women? I think... on research that

17:18

other people have done, and this is

17:20

where focus groups I think is really

17:22

fundamental because actually talking out these issues

17:24

can help to unpack these kinds of

17:26

phenomenons that feel quite difficult to understand

17:28

how can someone feel isolated in a

17:30

world where it's easier to reach out

17:32

and talk to people. But actually

17:34

what we're seeing is people

17:36

retreating into small localised bubbles where

17:39

people agree with them, these

17:41

echo chambers. And I don't

17:43

think that's necessarily a constructive thing for

17:45

people who are already maybe feeling political. isolated

17:47

they then isolate themselves socially too

17:49

in a compound. Yeah but do you think men

17:51

are more affected by that than women? I think

17:53

they might be yeah and

17:55

I think that's partially because I

17:57

think women I think there

17:59

tends to be a lot more kind

18:02

of sense of shared space and shared

18:04

experience I think between women the

18:06

men tend to have and that is

18:08

just based on my own. my

18:10

own experience. So we just

18:12

heard there from Scott Galloway, more young men

18:14

are spending more time online, they're

18:16

more isolated as a result and

18:18

as such their political views are more

18:20

likely to go towards the extreme

18:23

and in particular the extreme right whereas

18:25

as you're saying Sophie, women are

18:27

gravitating towards the left but not always

18:29

the extreme left. That's the issue,

18:31

isn't it? Let me bring in

18:33

Oliver, because obviously, as I was just

18:35

pointing out, your party is not

18:37

far right, your center right. What do

18:39

you make of this debate? Because

18:41

your side of the political spectrum has

18:43

actually delivered three female prime ministers

18:45

in this country, the leaders of

18:47

the AFD, and what used to be

18:49

the Front National, and is now the

18:51

National Rally in France, Mahin Le Pen

18:53

up until recently. Why do you think

18:55

that men... gravitating towards the right if

18:58

there are so many powerful female figures

19:00

running the right. There was this

19:02

fantastic report published by the Centre

19:04

for Social Justice in March 2025

19:06

titled Lost Boys and it details

19:08

this wave, this generation of young

19:10

men who feel as though they're

19:12

lost not only in society but

19:15

in terms of their relationships with

19:17

their parents, in terms of their

19:19

views towards women, in terms of

19:21

their space at university and so

19:23

forth. I

19:25

think a lot of it comes down

19:28

to this idea that a lot

19:30

of men feel as though, young men

19:32

particularly, feel as though they are

19:34

the problem within society. And

19:36

that's partly fueled by things like

19:38

social media and traditional media. But they're

19:40

constantly being told, you know, they

19:42

are the problem. They've helped prop up

19:45

this system that has put down

19:47

other groups of people in society. Constantly

19:49

men are being told, you're the

19:51

problem, you're... of this system, which is

19:53

benefiting men and putting women and

19:55

other people down. Yet at the

19:57

same time, they're not seeing any of

20:00

the benefits of that. And so as

20:02

a result of that, I think young

20:04

men are turning around and basically saying,

20:06

well, why would I want to continue

20:08

propping up this establishment, propping up this

20:10

system that hasn't worked for me, and

20:12

it's telling me that I am basically

20:14

the bad person in all of this. And

20:17

I offered a piece

20:20

for Citi, on why so

20:22

many young men are voting for

20:24

reform. And I think one

20:26

of the key things that reform

20:28

and other right -wing challenger parties across

20:30

Europe, and perhaps even the United States

20:32

are doing particularly well with men,

20:34

is they're tapping into this sense of

20:36

disenfranchisement and this sense that they're

20:38

being lost, and they're basically giving these

20:40

young men a voice. And they're

20:42

saying, look, you the

20:44

problem in society, you aren't being put

20:47

down. That's appealing to

20:49

young men who feel like they've got nothing

20:51

and so they're turning to these more extreme

20:53

parties. They're giving them an identity.

20:55

Yeah. And as you were pointing

20:57

out before, that's sometimes quite a

20:59

negative identity. How does a centre

21:01

-right party like yours capture that

21:04

energy if it's negative and turn it into

21:06

something positive? Yeah. And this is... significant

21:08

problem and there are many, and I'm

21:10

not talking on behalf of the Conservative Party,

21:12

I'm a member, I'm not aligned with

21:14

them in terms of their staff, but there

21:16

are some in the party who, when

21:18

you raise this issue about how are we

21:20

going to win back these younger voters

21:23

from the more extreme sides of the right,

21:25

what are our long -term solutions? Time

21:29

and again, they say it's just

21:31

a phase, it's going to trail off,

21:33

and this is all going to

21:35

return to normal. We've had this political system

21:37

for hundreds of years. We've had the two

21:39

-party system for hundreds of years. Everything is

21:41

going to return to normal in 2029 or

21:43

2034 or whatever. I cannot

21:45

emphasise this enough. That is

21:47

categorically incorrect. What we're seeing is

21:49

not normal. The rise

21:52

of right -wing extremist parties and

21:54

populist parties, not just in the

21:56

UK but across the world, is

21:58

not normal. It is in retaliation. I

22:00

think the solution is we need

22:02

to be looking to put forward

22:04

policies that actually put young people,

22:07

not just young men, but young

22:09

people first. And one of the

22:11

things I bring about in the Citi

22:13

AM article is young people really don't

22:15

feel as though there's anything much to

22:17

conserve. We're called the Conservative

22:19

Party. I

22:21

can safely say, I mean, we're all young people here.

22:23

If I asked you if there's anything worth conserving

22:26

in the UK, and I asked you to put your

22:28

hand up, I would guarantee most of you wouldn't

22:30

even bother putting your hand up. Are they probably with

22:32

their Americans? Well, they're Americans, think. Then you're

22:34

not young. Neither am I. If you

22:36

take a group of

22:38

British young people and you say, is

22:40

there anything worth conserving? I doubt more

22:42

than 10 would put their hand up in a room

22:44

of about 100. And you

22:46

have to look at it, and the

22:48

housing crisis means that young people can't help

22:50

that. So there needs to be

22:52

this systemic, I don't want to

22:55

say overhaul, but this change to actually

22:57

put young people at the centre

22:59

of policies and ideas and make sure

23:01

that they feel as though they're

23:03

actually being listened to. So if

23:05

you look at, for instance, the 2022

23:07

election in South Korea, there were some

23:09

people who said that that was a

23:11

classic example of, you know, disaffected young

23:13

men actually skewing the result of a

23:15

major election in a country. Do

23:18

you think that that could happen in

23:20

Europe? I

23:22

think, yes. Where? Well, I think in the

23:24

UK, for example, and I think we're

23:26

seeing that, you know, with,

23:28

for example, 17 -year -olds who aren't yet able

23:30

to vote when they were asked, there was

23:32

a survey conducted by YouGov, when they were

23:34

asked if they could vote, who would they

23:36

vote for? 12 % of 17 -year -olds said that

23:38

they would vote reform. And 12 % of

23:41

women, sorry. 35 % of men said that they

23:43

were going to vote reform. So that's almost

23:45

three times as high. And...

23:47

this sense of disillusionment continues,

23:49

if this sense of, you know,

23:52

we're not being listened to continues, and

23:54

it runs through generations that are

23:56

coming up to be eligible for vote, then

23:58

I think we're going to see in 2029 it's going

24:00

to be a stark difference. Can

24:03

I just ask you to come in

24:05

on this? Sophie, you're hearing this comment that,

24:07

you know, within the Conservative Party, here's a young man

24:09

saying, listen to us, you know, and they're all saying,

24:11

no, it's just a phase. It'll all

24:13

pass. Do you agree it's not just a phase? Yeah,

24:15

absolutely. I think Generation ZZ,

24:18

however we want to say it,

24:20

are the most polarised. based on gender

24:23

lines and the most likely to support

24:25

the far right right out of the

24:27

gate as soon as they're at voting

24:29

age and that tendency is only reinforcing

24:31

itself over time and it's actually becoming

24:33

more kind of baked in and hardened

24:35

over time so they're less likely to

24:37

look for parties on kind of the

24:39

moderate centre and more likely to stick

24:41

to extremes over their voting history so

24:43

you know if you think that your

24:45

forms of political years are you know

24:47

that 18 to 24 period this is

24:49

a whole political generation that is

24:51

being socialized into politics at the extreme.

24:54

Sophie, how do you think AI, I'll ask

24:56

you both this question, how do you think

24:58

AI is going to inflame this trend? Presumably

25:00

it's going to put rockets on the back

25:02

of it, right? I mean, I

25:04

would imagine that if... and

25:06

this is someone who's speaking with

25:08

a very weak understanding of how

25:10

AI works. But as far as

25:12

I understand it, AI is trained

25:14

on existing literature, existing responses to

25:16

things that are out there, and

25:18

it can learn how to elicit

25:20

a response that, as in that

25:22

video, that said, that rage bait,

25:24

what gets the most engagement. I

25:27

think if that's how we're training this

25:29

technology to interact with us then it's almost

25:31

a self -fulfilling prophecy that you know the

25:33

content that it produces if it's you

25:35

know farming engagement and clicks and attention

25:37

then it is catering to those extremes

25:39

and I do worry that that

25:41

eliminates kind of the basis for consensus

25:43

in the middle ground. I mean I'm

25:45

hesitant to say it's going to put rockets on the

25:48

back but I think it's definitely going to speed

25:50

it up I don't think it's going to be as

25:52

fast as you suggest it will be but the

25:54

impact of AI in the workforce and again if we're

25:56

seeing unemployment statistics with

25:58

young men higher than with young

26:00

women and we're seeing more AI being used

26:02

in the workplace which is going to

26:04

mean that many jobs are going to be

26:06

made redundant or be phased out. That's

26:08

going to do little to help the situation.

26:14

OK, well look, the format we're hoping

26:16

to follow, having heard basically where you're

26:18

both coming from and that incredibly articulate

26:20

description of the problem, is to

26:22

throw this open to the audience here.

26:24

I should explain that we've got students from

26:26

New York University who are studying in

26:29

London. They're here for a semester. I've done

26:31

a rough count trying to screen out

26:33

adults who may not be students. And I

26:35

think we've got about twice as many

26:37

female students as male students, which tells the

26:39

story in itself probably. Raise your

26:41

hand if you'd like to contribute to

26:43

this debate. yep. I'm Kieran. My

26:45

question is, putting policy to one side,

26:47

how much do you think personality plays

26:50

a part in this in terms of

26:52

if you're a young man you're feeling

26:54

powerless and you see someone like, I

26:56

don't know, Donald Trump who seems to

26:58

be able to bend the world to

27:00

his will almost. How much of that

27:02

is driving young men to... Masculine role

27:04

models. Yes, and this feeling of being

27:06

powerless and yet seeing this quote unquote

27:08

great man of history sort of bending

27:10

the world to his will. I think

27:12

it definitely does play a part. I mean

27:14

I can just cite. you know the

27:16

most recent general election that if you look

27:18

at young men and young women you

27:20

know they have different issue priorities but in

27:22

a lot of ways you know if

27:24

you ask them about what they want from

27:26

their lives what they think is most

27:29

important their economic priorities the social views in

27:31

a lot of ways they're pretty similar

27:33

but actually something that is a really clear

27:35

distinct kind of distinguishing factor between them

27:37

is that young women really don't like Nigel

27:39

Farage so about I think it's about

27:41

over 70 % of young women said they

27:43

strongly dislike Nigel Farage. And so

27:45

I do think if he wasn't such

27:48

a repellent figure to young women,

27:50

would they be much more likely to

27:52

vote for reform than they actually

27:54

are already? Can I just break in to explain,

27:56

just for the people that are listening abroad, Nigel Farage, the

27:58

leader of the reform party in the UK, the insurgent party

28:00

in the UK, roughly aligned with the Trump

28:02

-Magga movement, and the one we're all talking

28:04

about is being on the far right and

28:06

attracting a lot of male support. Who's finally got

28:08

into Parliament? Yeah, exactly.

28:10

So just I think, you know, and young men

28:12

really like him. So is that attracting? Is

28:15

he such an important figure in attracting those

28:17

young men and repelling the young women? And if

28:19

you change the dynamics of the leadership of

28:21

that party or the Green Party or whatever party

28:23

is, you know, how does that shift things?

28:25

So I do think personality is a really important

28:27

factor. So it was

28:29

Kiran, right? Okay. So there

28:31

was a poll done a few months ago

28:34

that asked Gen Z whether they would

28:36

support. Strongman populist governments

28:38

like dictatorships. And I think the

28:40

statistic was 54 % of Gen

28:42

Z would support a non -democratic means

28:44

of government. I think

28:46

that says basically everything

28:49

about the situation. And I

28:51

think a lot of that is to do

28:53

with the strongman leaders who are coming through

28:55

who are showing that there's a different way

28:57

to achieve goals in politics and it isn't

28:59

going through the same bureaucratic, democratic means as

29:01

everybody else. But I think

29:03

part of it as well

29:05

is... almost a sense of complacence

29:08

with the younger generation, with

29:10

this idea of liberal democracy. Gen

29:12

Z from 1997 through to

29:14

2012. We've never

29:16

really seen the impact of how

29:18

non -democratic states operate. We never

29:20

saw the impact of the

29:22

Soviet Union. We never saw other

29:24

forms of autocratic states throughout

29:26

the 70s and the 80s. As

29:29

a result of that, we don't really

29:31

know how different it is from liberal democracy.

29:34

And so when we see liberal democracy

29:36

failing, we're not saying, OK,

29:38

well, how do we change the systems within

29:40

liberal democracy to make it better for ourselves

29:42

and to make the system work for us?

29:44

We're thinking, how do we change the system

29:46

itself away from liberal democratic means to achieve

29:48

what we want to achieve? And

29:51

I think it's that complacency and

29:53

that lack of recognition for the

29:55

true difference in. democratic systems and

29:57

non -democratic systems that young people

29:59

don't necessarily realize and they don't see

30:01

how dangerous it is and they're willing

30:03

to look to different systems as a

30:05

result of that and I think that's

30:07

very dangerous. My name's Fiona,

30:10

I hope this isn't too long -winded

30:12

but I'm just wondering what you

30:14

think the implications are of, I

30:16

mean something that we've talked about.

30:18

in class is the differences in

30:20

free speech in America and the

30:22

UK. And specifically

30:24

in Britain, I think we're seeing

30:26

a lot of push for wider

30:28

free speech laws. I

30:30

know, obviously, in America, we covet

30:33

our free speech. It's like the one

30:35

thing, like our First Amendment, right?

30:37

Whatever. I'm wondering what you think the

30:39

implications are in the UK, specifically,

30:41

especially because of what you mentioned. rise

30:45

of manospheres specifically in cell

30:47

forums that Netflix special that

30:49

came out adolescence I think

30:51

touches heavily on the rise of

30:53

manospheres specifically in young men

30:56

and I do think that

30:58

there are real world implications

31:00

specifically in America with the

31:02

Santa Monica attacks in 2014.

31:05

So I don't think it's something... Remind us what

31:07

happened there. There was basically this guy

31:09

who was posting videos on YouTube

31:11

about how he couldn't get a girlfriend

31:14

or he felt like women were

31:16

the reason for everything that was going

31:18

wrong in his life. He had

31:20

a whole manifesto and he, I

31:22

think he shot or maybe stabbed two

31:24

people or three people in Santa Monica.

31:27

Okay, so before we ask for answers

31:29

to that from our guests, can I

31:31

just say we're also interested in comments

31:33

from you. You don't have to... you

31:35

know, ask things in question form. If you've got

31:37

a remark you want to make that will add to

31:39

the debate. We're delighted to hear from you. We

31:41

want to hear your voices as students. So

31:43

there's a question or comment at the back.

31:45

Yeah. Hi, I'm an introvert to school. I study

31:47

LSE. And my question is, do you really

31:49

think it's important for both the Labour Party and

31:51

also the Conservative Party to almost like pander

31:53

to young voters? Because a lot of times young

31:56

people say that they might support reform, but

31:58

do they have a high propensity to actually go

32:00

vote once they get of age? So is

32:02

it really worth these? two major parties focusing

32:04

on these young voters, well, they could maybe

32:06

focus on like middle -aged or older voters

32:08

who have a high propensity to vote in

32:10

elections. I see young voters don't matter. But

32:12

an excellent point. Come on over and

32:14

let's be honest. Because they never turn up. Yeah.

32:17

And there's one more here. Hello, my name

32:19

is Mabinam from LSE. So

32:21

regarding the consequences of the autocratic

32:23

regimes, and sometimes I think when we

32:25

think about autocracy regimes, we think

32:27

only about bad examples. But what about

32:30

UAE, for example? What about Singapore? I

32:33

think too much also

32:35

of too many voices can

32:37

lead to tyranny of majority.

32:39

Like in a sense that

32:41

sometimes masses who are not

32:43

educated enough as referring to

32:45

Mill can be dangerous in

32:47

their ideas. So what do you think about

32:49

that? Only NYU graduates

32:52

and LSE graduates should

32:54

have the decision -making power. You're an

32:56

LSE graduate and you teach at NYU.

32:58

Goodness. So

33:01

let's circle back on some of those comments.

33:03

Yeah, we'll start with the free speech one. I

33:05

think, especially for Kirsten Arma and the

33:07

government, it's an incredibly difficult situation to

33:09

be in, in terms of how they

33:11

regulate online platforms, how they can bring

33:13

in tech providers to actually work for

33:15

that. Again, I'll put

33:17

some polling figures up. So Amnesty

33:20

International did a poll. 73 %

33:22

of GenZ report seeing some

33:24

form of misogynistic content online on

33:26

their figure page. Whether that

33:28

be TikTok, Instagram, whatever.

33:30

And UCL actually did a study. So

33:32

they set up a TikTok account. recorded

33:35

the levels of misogynistic content that were

33:37

there on the page to begin

33:39

with and then left the page alone

33:41

didn't do anything with it for

33:43

five days and then re -recorded the

33:45

amounts of content visible on the page

33:47

and the amount of misogynistic content

33:49

increased by 400 % and that's without

33:51

doing anything to alter the page. So

33:54

there is this significant

33:56

issue in terms of

33:58

policing it and again as

34:00

someone who is very pro -free

34:02

speech and very hesitant to

34:05

lay down particular regulations to

34:07

impede on free speech. I'm

34:09

cautious to see what the government does,

34:11

whether it's like a blanket ban on

34:13

particular things, or whether it's like, say,

34:15

working in partnership and hand -in -hand with

34:18

tech providers, but I think that's a

34:20

very tight balancing act to achieve. And

34:22

then the point here at the end, I

34:25

mean, you seem rather supportive of

34:27

autocratic regimes, so I guess you're

34:29

in the 54 % of Gen Zers

34:31

who are supportive of that. But all

34:33

I would say to that, I suppose, would

34:35

you want Nigel Farage as a dictator? Because

34:38

I certainly wouldn't. Would he

34:40

be a dictator? Pardon? Would he be

34:42

a dictator? Well, I

34:44

would rather not delve into that. The

34:46

idea of him being a leader in

34:48

any capacity scares me a lot. He's an

34:50

elected MP now. He is, and that's

34:52

incredibly worrying. And I don't particularly want to

34:54

see him at the doors of number

34:56

10. But I think...

35:00

agree that there are cases of

35:02

benevolent dictatorships and benevolent autocratic systems.

35:04

But I think we need to

35:06

be incredibly cautious about supporting those

35:08

types of systems, especially when you've

35:10

got individuals like Nigel Farage waiting

35:12

in the wings. Sophie, can I

35:15

just pick up on one of the

35:17

questions? You know, the Conservative Party in

35:19

the UK has been accused in the

35:21

past of, you know, catering its policies

35:23

towards the demographic that it knows traditionally

35:25

votes for them, which is older people

35:27

who actually turn up to the ballot

35:30

box, whereas we saw with the youth

35:32

quake of Jeremy Corbyn, it faltered because

35:34

people didn't roll out a bed to

35:36

actually vote. but now Labour appears to

35:38

be skewing its policies towards not just

35:40

this generation but future generations. Is that

35:43

about trying to not just get into power

35:45

but stay into power for longer? I

35:48

think firstly as another LSE graduate I

35:50

agree that we should have decision -making

35:52

powers but only government department graduates and

35:54

no one else. I don't want

35:56

the finance department making my decisions for me, thank

35:58

you very much. I think the

36:01

thing with Labour is they've got

36:03

this really broad electoral coalition that

36:05

was really important to how they

36:07

won this election right and a

36:09

lot of that is not their

36:11

traditional voter base which does tend

36:13

to skew younger and so I

36:15

think they're now having to kind

36:17

of balance these not just kind

36:19

of cross political but cross generational

36:21

pressures on them in government of

36:23

making these decisions of well how

36:25

do we appeal to our you

36:27

know traditionally younger maybe more socially

36:29

liberal left -wing base but also trying

36:31

to appeal to people who maybe have

36:33

voted conservative in the past gave us

36:35

a go this time we want to

36:37

keep their vote that's really difficult because

36:39

those generations do tend to have different

36:41

priorities you know People aged 18 to

36:43

24 want houses, they want rent protections,

36:45

they don't really care about the triple

36:48

lock. So how do you balance those

36:50

conflicting priorities and pressures? And so I

36:52

think that is difficult. And I actually

36:54

do think that something that Labour is

36:56

maybe not necessarily paying attention to at

36:58

the minute, maybe post -local elections, they

37:00

will, which are happening here in a few weeks' time, is

37:03

the threat posed, and we talk a lot

37:05

about reform, the threat posed to

37:07

them on the left by the Greens

37:09

in some circumstances, the Liberal Democrats may

37:11

be independent candidates. We saw that

37:13

those parties were really successful at monopolising

37:15

the votes of young people who maybe

37:17

felt a little bit abandoned by Labour's

37:20

shift to the centre. at

37:22

this general election, you know, the who

37:24

may have voted for Jeremy Corbyn in

37:26

2017 and 2019. And I think

37:28

we see the fallout of that already in

37:30

places like Bristol, where you've got a

37:32

large student population, large university education population,

37:34

who are moving to the left. And

37:36

I think there is a real risk

37:38

that Labour is no longer the party

37:40

of younger generations. So it

37:42

seems to me that in this debate,

37:45

we've started off about gender differences and

37:47

the gender gap, and we're

37:49

getting into basically... generational gap more

37:51

than the gender gap. But

37:54

yes, you've got a question. Hi, my name

37:56

is Yanelle. We touched on social media

37:58

a bit earlier and I wanted to ask

38:00

how you guys think the rise

38:02

of right -wing influencers with young

38:04

people is also affecting this gender

38:06

divide and how it will continue

38:08

to affect the gender divide. You

38:11

see influencers like Andrew Tate and

38:13

Eden Ross and like Logan Paul,

38:15

really, who are appealing to very

38:17

young people. Many of them

38:19

aren't even of voting age. So

38:21

how do you think that this

38:23

is affecting this divide and how

38:25

will it continue to affect it

38:28

in the future? And let's ask

38:30

you, do you see equivalent figures? Let's say

38:32

Andrutate is the archetypal case on the right,

38:34

appealing to a lot of young men, as

38:36

you say, many of them not even voting

38:38

yet. Are there any equivalent

38:40

figures that you're looking at on the

38:42

left? I can't think

38:44

of a specific example. The left wing

38:46

doesn't really have a lot of... They're

38:48

not as active in that. Another

38:50

question and comment, yeah. This

38:52

might be a polarizing question. You've both said

38:54

that you feel that young men have

38:56

been moving to the right because they feel

38:58

disenfranchised. Why do you

39:00

think that... to this feeling

39:02

of disenfranchisement is to move to

39:05

these hateful groups.

39:07

I mean, I feel like

39:09

there's a lot of organizations or

39:11

groups of people who've responded

39:13

to disenfranchisement through other means other

39:15

than finding... Which other means

39:17

do you mean? I think like

39:19

the civil rights movement is

39:21

the thing that comes up to

39:23

my mind first. I didn't

39:25

see a lot of response to

39:27

white supremacy with this idea

39:29

that... like black supremacy or something,

39:31

I don't know. But like

39:33

there's not this, I don't think

39:35

that other disenfranchised groups in the

39:37

same way have found a

39:39

space in hating the alternative. So

39:41

why, if the reason men

39:43

are moving right is because they're

39:45

disenfranchised is that they find

39:48

us. Just as we come

39:50

to put that to our panel, I

39:52

mean, in reading ahead of this, one

39:54

thing that struck me was a comment

39:56

that someone made about this desire for

39:58

nostalgia. and make

40:00

America great again, take back

40:02

control in the UK. And

40:04

this sort slightly backward -looking

40:06

aspect of some of these far -right

40:09

movements, which is the opposite of what you're

40:11

describing in the 60s with the civil

40:13

rights movement, where people reacted to a difficult

40:15

social situation looking forward and with this

40:17

sort of new attempt to create something new.

40:21

What's going on with that? I mean, to go

40:23

to the point there, I think, and we've

40:25

seen this especially post -general election because when Labour

40:27

came in, they said that they were going to

40:29

change the system, everything was going to be

40:31

better. And for many people, and

40:33

this is at least the case in the UK, many

40:35

people haven't seen that change take effect.

40:38

And so when you've got this

40:40

system, as I talked about in the

40:42

beginning, The establishment simply

40:44

just doesn't work for these young men, and

40:46

so the solution isn't to work within

40:49

the system and vote for other parties, you

40:51

know, holding this centre ground, but that'd

40:53

be laboratory, Lib Dem Green. The solution is

40:55

to change the system in its entirety. And

40:57

in the UK, that comes

40:59

from voting reform, I feel.

41:02

Or just from more radical

41:04

politicians. Or Tommy Robinson, for

41:06

instance, in the future. Whatever

41:08

is... know different than the current

41:10

establishment view and I think that's partly

41:12

why Brexit was so successful and

41:14

I don't mean Brexit is in like

41:16

the idea but it's in the

41:18

campaign was successful because people saw the

41:21

system as not working in their favor

41:23

and anything that was different from

41:25

the current system no matter you know

41:27

they just won't change yeah just

41:29

one change anything that's not the current

41:31

system it's works and to quickly

41:33

go to the point about you know

41:35

why the left seemed so you know,

41:37

poor at capitalising on this compared to

41:39

the right. I think a lot

41:42

of it comes to the ideas and

41:44

embed themselves in left wing politics and

41:46

right wing politics. One of the key

41:48

points about right wing politics, whether you're,

41:50

you know, Conservative Party or Reform Party,

41:52

there's a sense of pragmatism. And the

41:54

Daft focuses, I think, a lot on

41:56

idealism and ideology. And the right,

41:58

whilst they have that, a much greater

42:00

sense of pragmatism, and they're willing to do what

42:02

they need to do to win and to

42:04

get into power, whereas the left are much more

42:06

concerned with values, ideas, et cetera. Nobody

42:08

has yet mentioned trad

42:11

wives, OK? We

42:13

have talked about influences on

42:15

the right of the political

42:18

spectrum, but... is, is there's

42:20

a lot of women who

42:22

are influencing women and

42:24

men as well into,

42:26

let's say, not

42:28

even 1950s types of

42:30

situations, but even, you

42:32

know, more draconian female rights, like from the

42:34

1800s. I mean, where on earth has

42:36

this come from? Yeah, I mean, God, God

42:39

help my boyfriend's wife's a tradwife. I

42:41

mean, I've been not eating for

42:43

weeks. I think it's really, I

42:45

think it's really, I mean, I, my Instinct

42:48

is that it is

42:50

more of an American phenomenon

42:52

than a British one is

42:54

my instinct. And why?

42:56

I mean, I think partly that

42:58

nostalgia thing. I mean, I think

43:00

if you look at the state

43:02

of, you know, if you're a

43:04

young person in the US and

43:06

the UK today, you know, you've

43:09

got a completely unstable, terrifying global

43:11

political situation that you're living in

43:13

where you don't know if there's

43:15

about to be a... new technological

43:17

conflict or trade war any second.

43:20

You probably can't afford a house. You've

43:22

got kind of underwhelming, paying

43:24

job. You probably have loads

43:26

of student loan debt. Things aren't

43:28

great now, so why would you not be a

43:30

bit nostalgic for a time when things seem

43:32

to be much more stable? and

43:34

secure than they were now and I don't

43:36

know if that's partly what is feeding. There

43:39

was that question about why are men who

43:41

have disenfranchised going to the right and not

43:43

the left. I mean I think it's partly

43:45

that in that I think the right has

43:47

a message about going back to the old

43:49

days and an old kind of infrastructure that

43:51

used to work, a style of living that

43:53

seemed to work for men. women

43:56

want change and that's what the left

43:58

is pushing and so they're being attracted to

44:00

that side and so I do think

44:02

that idea of either going backwards or

44:04

forwards is very powerful but for two different

44:06

reasons to do different demographic. If

44:08

you've got such a volatile world,

44:10

if you've got such a chaotic world

44:12

and everything seems to be going

44:15

badly, your economic situation is going

44:17

badly, employment, whatever, the global

44:19

political scene. a lot

44:21

of these people want to feel that return to

44:23

safe where they felt better off and I

44:25

think just before we go to the students again,

44:27

let's push back a bit on this. I

44:29

mean, there is a bit of a lack of

44:31

perspective here, isn't it? We are not on

44:33

the verge of a war in which, know, you've

44:35

been talking a lot about the UK. We're

44:38

not going to war in the foreseeable future. We

44:40

have had 70 years of peace

44:42

and prosperity. People are richer than

44:44

they've been. I realise they're a generational

44:46

divide and all the rest of it,

44:48

but, you know, There really is plenty

44:51

in the UK. We have plenty. And

44:53

I'm not saying it's evenly distributed. I'm

44:55

not saying, of course, we are one of the richest societies on

44:58

earth. But if you've got more time to think about

45:00

it, you've got sense. So, I

45:02

mean, isn't there, why

45:04

are people so aggrieved when we've had

45:07

peace and prosperity for decades? Well, again,

45:09

I think it comes to this point

45:11

about the generational divide. I mean, I

45:13

don't want to insult you, but you're

45:15

significantly older than I am. You

45:17

don't necessarily understand that young people are

45:19

going out into this world and they're

45:22

faced with hurdle after hurdle. I think

45:24

generations previously, 1980s, 1990s,

45:26

now we hear this mantra all

45:28

the time about how the next

45:30

generation is going to have it

45:32

better than the previous generation. They're going

45:34

to have more opportunities. They're going to

45:36

have better access to all of these things.

45:38

And I think for the first time

45:40

in history, our generation is the one generation

45:42

that doesn't necessarily see that. We talked

45:45

earlier about the housing crisis. jobs

45:47

market crisis. We're seeing global instability

45:49

on a level we've never seen

45:51

before. You know, it's

45:53

not really that good of a situation to

45:56

be in. Right, let's take a couple

45:58

more questions from the audience. Is there anybody who

46:00

is not a student, is

46:02

not Jen said? There is somebody? I

46:05

know

46:07

Oliver. You touched on

46:09

earlier, I

46:12

would say Gen Z's complacency

46:14

and the desire to move

46:17

to a whole new system rather than fixing what they

46:19

already have and I think that in the US particularly

46:21

that kind of comes from like

46:23

you guys said seeing that things

46:25

are kind of not working in our favor

46:27

need to feel comfortable and to want to

46:29

go back to when times were more comfortable but

46:31

also not acknowledging the fact that you know these

46:33

systems that we had in the past were not beneficial

46:36

for everyone and also just

46:38

dangerous for others who didn't benefit

46:40

from them. And I

46:42

think that the reason that

46:44

the divide is so large

46:46

where men are more right -leaning

46:48

now and women might be

46:51

leaning more leftward is because

46:53

certain people do not want

46:55

to be adjacent to marginalized

46:57

groups and also be

46:59

a part of these change makers when you see in the

47:01

past that the people who are Changemakers

47:03

they are the ones who suffer the

47:06

most like in the civil rights movement.

47:08

I will say I'm kind of biased

47:10

because I'm black, but you see Well,

47:12

I would see in a lot of movies I watched when

47:14

I was younger black people are getting beat by

47:16

the police During black lives matter people are getting

47:18

hit by the police. They're getting tear gas

47:20

You're getting you're getting a hit. You're just getting

47:22

people are getting killed by police It's just

47:25

you don't want to be amongst the people who

47:27

are getting brutalized for the sake of change

47:29

when you could go back to times where

47:31

things were simpler for your group, in particular, white

47:35

males. So I think that that

47:37

may be a bigger reason why the

47:39

divide is so large. We would like to

47:41

speak. I just wonder if you

47:43

guys agree that there's some value

47:45

in acknowledging that we can try to

47:47

imagine a future where it's better

47:49

for everyone rather than having this odd

47:51

idea about nostalgia in the past. was

47:53

only nostalgic for a very specific group

47:55

of people. So I don't understand why

47:57

you would want to leave one broken

47:59

system just to go back to another broken system. Thank you

48:01

very much. Yep. Just

48:03

going off of what you said, Oliver, my

48:06

question is that, like you said, if

48:09

this kind of gender -based political polarization

48:11

continues, right, do you see, like,

48:13

what do you think are its implications

48:15

on democracy and policymaking in the

48:17

next 20 years? Like, should we be

48:19

like foreseeing a gender war in

48:21

politics as well now? Thank

48:23

you. And if Sophie and Oliver could be just sort

48:25

of thinking about how to respond to some of

48:27

these points, yes. Hi, my name is Robin. My

48:30

question is in regards to this idea you're

48:32

talking about like. the gender aspect

48:34

but I think like class is a really

48:36

huge discussion I think with regards to

48:38

the wives where it's like I think it's

48:40

from a place of class that you're

48:42

able to even desire that there's a woman

48:44

who couldn't even fathom doing that because

48:46

they have to work three jobs and I

48:48

think that's a huge difference between the

48:50

UK and the US where I think we're

48:52

honestly more racially divided whereas here it's

48:54

more of a class division so I want

48:56

to know what you've experienced through compared

48:58

to like the left and right how class

49:00

plays a huge role in like that

49:02

It sounds like someone's been listening to my

49:04

lectures. Go

49:06

to the back

49:08

here. Being paying attention. Hi,

49:12

I'm Charlie. I'm the non -student you asked

49:14

for before on the cusp between Millennial

49:16

and Gen Z. Speaking of

49:18

the gender differences, I

49:20

was recalling the 2016

49:22

primary in that Bernie Sanders

49:24

supporters were like all

49:26

white men sexist against the Hillary

49:29

Clinton supporters for more. Women

49:31

voted Hillary Clinton. Yeah, was just interested

49:33

in how we saw that reversal. It's amazing

49:35

to think that that was nearly 10 years

49:37

ago. Makes some of us feel old in

49:39

this room actually, having covered it first time.

49:42

So there's lots to talk about and in

49:44

particular what I noticed from some of

49:46

your questions is that there are intersectional questions

49:48

that are coming up time and time

49:51

again. So I would ask our panel framing

49:53

it in a US context. around

49:56

what Peter Thiel has been saying

49:58

about these issues because he famously

50:00

wrote back in 2009 that perhaps

50:02

the United States should consider

50:04

repealing the 22nd Amendment which

50:06

enshrines the right for women

50:08

and also later on other

50:10

minority groups including the black

50:12

community to vote in America

50:14

because he said essentially that

50:16

skewed things against the right

50:18

in America. So I mean

50:20

Oliver When you see people like Peter

50:22

Thiel, who are now funding, you know,

50:24

JD Vance, the vice president, they

50:26

could have a huge hand in

50:29

future Republican administrations after Donald Trump

50:31

can't run for another term. Does

50:33

it terrify you when you start to read

50:35

back on what he said about repealing the

50:37

22nd Amendment? Yeah, absolutely. And I

50:39

don't think it's surprising that when we talk

50:41

about nostalgia, the only people that are

50:43

talking about nostalgia are indeed white men. We're

50:45

not here. We're not seeing black men,

50:47

black women, Hispanic men, Hispanic women talking about,

50:50

oh, going back to the old days,

50:52

it's only white men that are talking about

50:54

this sense of nostalgia. And I don't

50:56

think that's just the case in the US,

50:58

but also in the UK. I mean,

51:00

again, with reforms, popularity is almost entirely constant.

51:02

concentrated in the white population and white

51:05

men. But the gentleman in the middle there

51:07

talked about long -term implications. I

51:10

don't think there's going to be, as you

51:12

put it, like a gender war in

51:14

terms of politics. But I think the only

51:16

way that we can avoid this type

51:19

of conflict from escalating even further is if

51:21

the parties really recognize that there needs

51:23

to be proper policies, and when I say

51:25

parties, I mean the establishment parties. So

51:27

here in the UK, the Labour and the

51:29

Conservative Party, I think they need to

51:31

recognise that there needs to be policies that

51:33

address these long -term systemic issues and that

51:35

they get to the heart of the

51:38

matter. And unless people

51:40

actually see the change happen, they can talk

51:42

about change all they want, but unless

51:44

people feel the real long -term implications of

51:46

change, if they see, for example, more money

51:48

in their pockets or when they go

51:50

down to the shops or to the park,

51:52

they see those policies in action, unless

51:54

they see them. change will not occur and

51:56

these long -term issues will just continue to

51:58

grow. Thank you very much

52:00

and Sophie let's just get your final

52:02

comments on what you've heard here this evening.

52:05

I mean I think that point

52:07

about intersectionality and the kind of

52:09

class element in the UK is

52:11

definitely a really important distinction not

52:13

that race and ethnicity is not

52:15

also part of the conversation here

52:18

particularly after the most recent general

52:20

election we've had but I've got some

52:22

family who are from the US

52:24

half my dad's side, they're in

52:26

Austin and Texas. And

52:28

so half Tex and half Skals, quite a

52:30

weird combination. Things that they are very

52:32

aware of is how much class is part

52:34

of every single conversation you have when

52:36

you meet someone straight away. It's like they're

52:38

at pains to say what school they

52:40

went to, where they went to university, what

52:42

they do for work, and it's like

52:44

all these identifiers of... are you are you

52:46

like me or are you not and

52:48

I think that's really something that for all

52:50

the change in politics we've seen in the

52:52

UK over the years that is something

52:54

that has remained consistent under the surface

52:56

and so I think that does feed

52:58

into the fact of why are women

53:01

seemingly particularly young women find it so

53:03

much easier to transcend these class barriers

53:05

and young men are finding it so

53:07

much more difficult and a question that

53:09

to be honest I can't completely you

53:12

know, I don't have the answer to, I think,

53:14

but I think it's certainly a conversation we've got

53:16

to have. And I think just the other thing

53:18

I would pick up on is when I speak

53:20

to, you know, young people, I think

53:22

I'm, I'm, I was born in 98,

53:24

so I think I'm still technically a young

53:26

person, almost. And I think, you know,

53:28

when I talk to people my age and

53:31

younger, one of the things that comes

53:33

up is that they just feel like this

53:35

social contract has been. broken almost and

53:37

I think a really good example of that

53:39

is people will say you know well

53:41

we stayed indoors during Covid, we didn't go

53:43

to school, we didn't go to university

53:45

because we were protecting older generations and our

53:47

loved ones and what have we got?

53:50

back for political parties who don't care about

53:52

us, who won't make it easier for us to

53:54

get a good job or a good house.

53:56

Why do I owe anything to anyone else in

53:58

society when no one seems to be paying me

54:00

back for what I've done? And I think

54:02

that really resonates with a lot of young people

54:04

and it just manifests in very different ways.

54:06

I think it really gets to that point that

54:08

was made of why would anyone want to

54:10

be a change maker or engage. There's just what's

54:12

the value in it, what you fight for

54:14

because it doesn't feel like anyone is listening to

54:17

you anyway. And

54:19

I think that's kind of a really fundamental

54:21

point that at this heart of this conversation

54:23

of why is there such a gender divide

54:25

between young men and women in this country,

54:27

I think it all actually comes back to

54:29

that one point, but it just manifests

54:31

in very different direction. I can't

54:33

believe we've come to the end

54:35

of this hour in such a

54:37

polite and gender balanced fashion, with

54:39

each one of us having enough

54:41

time to not hog the microphone

54:43

on gender balanced audience and age

54:45

balanced and so on and so

54:47

forth. I think it's about time

54:49

for me to bring this episode of control

54:51

or deceit to a close. And Control

54:53

Aught to Seat. Thank you very much, I

54:55

should say, to Ola and Sophie for helping us

54:57

through this. And Control Aught to Seat is

55:00

produced and edited by Piers Lynch in association with

55:02

Democratists. This is Owen Bennett Jones. And I'm

55:04

Nina Dos Santos. And if you want to

55:06

stay up to date with updates for our

55:08

next episodes and, you know, have a listen to

55:10

some of the snippets of these conversations that

55:12

we've had here at NYU London, you're

55:14

very welcome to on our very social

55:16

media channels. We're on X at CTRL

55:18

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and much more. We'll see you again

55:24

soon for another episode of

55:27

Control -Decisive.