In 1996 Tony Blair would tell Sue Lawley, host of Desert Island Discs, how “In My Life” by the Beatles reminded him of his father. “All positions of power are lonely places, how lonely are you finding yours?” she would retort. When Margaret Thatcher was Roy Plomley’s “castaway” in 1978 she would explain that music – Verdi, Mendelssohn – was a pressure valve from the otherwise “logical life” she was always trained to lead.
Anyway, I just watched two hours of Rupert Lowe – the Norfolk MP, Reform-defector, Farage-gadfly, leader of Restore Britain (polling 4.5 per cent) – in conversation with Joe Rogan. At one point Rogan misattributed a quote – “If you’re not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by 35, you have no brain.” – to Winston Churchill. Lowe did not correct him. The conversation meandered from vaccine injury to the healing properties of horse tranquiliser, Ivermectin.
We need a British Joe Rogan! Says anyone who has spent little time with Joe Rogan. Rogan – the world’s biggest podcaster (21 million subscribers on YouTube) and something of a cognitive binge-eater – might be the most credulous man in media. He talks on air to chief conspirator Alex Jones about the famously interconnected Nazi aliens as blithely as he listens to astrophysicist Brian Cox go deep on quantum computing. And sure, if Rogan is defined by anything it is that honest-to-god belief in the idea that everything is worth a fair hearing.
And that applies to anyone, no matter how outre for polite society. Lowe has been closing in on Nigel Farage’s right flank – with his ban-the-burqa, pro-death-penalty countenance. Elon Musk thinks Farage is too weak to solve a Britain on the brink of civil war. When Farage says “if you think I am bad enough, imagine what comes after me” he could have been referring to Lowe, whose (late, executed) dog was called Cromwell.
In this spirit, Rogan spent a long time agreeing vociferously with Lowe on The Lowe Diagnosis for Great Britain – immigration, multiculturalism, too few deportations, statism, and something to do with student loans. It takes very little to convince Joe. One wonders if Andy Burnham had been the guest instead, whether Rogan would now be an arch footsoldier in the cause of Manchesterism. Ten minutes with Tony Blair and we might see the pair skipping through the central hall of Davos in January.
Rogan might be an easy interview – whose credulity is as valuable to Lowe as his reach. And it does allow him a chance to associate Restore Britain directly with Elon Musk (thank you to Elon for setting up the interview, Rogan chirps at the beginning) and indirectly with Donald Trump. As for the downsides? Well – when Rogan put a question to Lowe on the grooming gangs, Lowe responded with a long-winded, warren-y answer about Schengen, Altiero Spinelli and the EEC, pinballing via Napoleon. It was not evidence of the most lucid mind, no matter this 68 year old’s “based” online right credentials.
Nevermind, this is where power in the media is now. What use is Desert Island Discs to a politician when the people exist on a freewheeling, unguardrailed internet? There is no need for formalities like the BBC to access the establishment, or even the news anymore. No, before the US election in 2024 it was a big deal that Donald Trump appeared on Joe Rogan, but Kamala Harris did not. There you go, there’s your answer: the difference between the modern politician who finds the people where they are, and the establishment stooge who still believes in the power of “CNN”.
But Lowe – self-appointed mega-patriot – might want to be cautious, becoming so embedded with the American media-sphere. “I think America has always been a very sound, politically based structure…” he goes on. The instinct over here in the Old World, he says, is statism. Not like the US and its focus on the individual, government de minimis. Rupert Lowe likes America, he likes the American right’s diagnosis of Britain, he really likes Elon Musk – this is starting to look like the Farage trap, cosying up to a US president deeply loathed in the UK. Rupert Lowe speaks for England, no? Rupert Lowe speaks to Joe Rogan.
[Further reading: The Great Con]
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