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 t