I Just Handed In My Lanyard

Hilary Jeffs Hello and welcome to Experience the Weekly podcast where we like to get underneath what makes people tick by looking at the news stories. Each week we're gonna bring you, the concept of the week, the tips to try, but equally a few headlines, which means that we can explore the human psyche. This week we've chosen Keir's resignation, Burnham's back, back in the house. it sounds like he's gonna be a dj. I think he'd quite like that actually. And our last headline that we'll look at today in honour of the Bayeux Tapestry about to be unleashed on our shores, is the fact that the French are at war again this time on Black Friday. Yes, it's that franglais war happening. Joining me on this week's adventure as ever, is the wonderful professor of psychology, the amazing Peter Kinderman. Peter, my burning question for you, from this week is, does Scrabble tell you everything you need to know about someone's hidden psyche?

Peter Kinderman No,

Hilary Jeffs Ah,

Peter Kinderman no, it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. No, no, no, no. I mean, you know, I, I, as a psychologist, I get a little bit fed up with, tricks that kind of, reveal kind of psychological truths rather than just observing. So I used to work with people who in turn worked with the FBI and polygraphs, rubbish, and, you know, we can tell when people are lying and I can spot absolute rubbish. The way to tell if somebody's lying is to compare what they say with the proven facts. It, it, that, that's how to tell if somebody's lying and sort of hidden psychological quirks that can reveal. No, I mean, okay. You can reveal people's psychology by observing their behaviour. So if somebody is ultra competitive and obviously cheats, ineptly

Hilary Jeffs Oh no, no cheating.

Peter Kinderman know, presidents who play, yeah. Presidents who play golf, for instance. If you observe people cheating, then you get an insight into

Hilary Jeffs No, when it.

Peter Kinderman is ultra competitive, yeah, maybe, but

Hilary Jeffs yeah, when it comes to Scrabble, you see, I found out that I'm not a pr, I'm not a Donald Trump. I'm not cheating, but I might be a Boris Johnson that I kind of take no prisoners. Boris Johnson on the rugby pitch, on the football pitch, he's taking kids out, left, right, and centre me, Scrabble. I am just annoying and so competitive. It takes me forever to have a go because I am determined to get the exact right answer with the best score. And if I can stitch up the board so no one else can have a go, I love that. I've also got printed the two letter Scrabble words. I am that sad. Now I'm

Peter Kinderman got them printed out.

Hilary Jeffs yeah.

Peter Kinderman I, I think that's cheating you say, I don't think, I don't think you're allowed to take, take written. I, I think you're not even

Hilary Jeffs no, God, I'm a Trump, not just a Johnson.

Peter Kinderman I, I, I think it, I think it is, it is good that you are taking things seriously. I think people who approach life trivially Yeah, you'd want people to have a bit of depth. Yeah. Get, get involved. So that's good. I, I, yeah. It's, it's language. It's good. I, I just don't think you could, so one of the things about psychologists is they, if they're doing their job right, they tend to ask straightforward questions and then have straightforward. So it's things like, are you competitive? Yes. Especially at Scrabble. What that tells me is that you are competitive at Scrabble. I mean, it's kind of, it is what it is.

Hilary Jeffs Okay, so I'm not about to just kind of mow down small children to, to hit my aspirations in life. We are fine. I'm, I'm

Peter Kinderman think that it tells you quite a lot about how you approach Scrabble and very little else. Yeah.

Hilary Jeffs Ah, good. Well, as you know, we like to be factually correct on this programme and I am wearing, again, the clearly not really t-shirt, the t-shirt of shame for when we say something that's perhaps a bit more hyperbole than fact. my children have made me wear this today because last week I said that they had better vocabularies than me. And after that game of Scrabble, I was deemed to be a big fat liar. So, I have to wear the clearly not really t-shirt, but if you spot anything that we do that is not factually accurate, then perhaps we can get Peter wearing the t-shirt of shame one time. get in touch with us. hello@experiencepodco.com. That's our email address to get in touch or indeed if you've got any suggestions of anything that you would like to cover or any comments on the show. But did you have a good week, Peter? Tell me about your week.

Peter Kinderman I had a, an excellent week punctuated by going to Alton Towers. other theme parks are available and, well it was a, it was a moment of misplaced madness and generosity to young people. and I was going around feeling sick and regretting my actions and, regarding myself as a bit of a saint by putting myself through it for the benefit of adolescence.

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, I loved a rollercoaster up until the point I had children and then all of a sudden I just was entirely sick the entire time. I can't go near a rollercoaster anyway. You can be their friend, 'cause you can be their designated drink holder and snack getter.

Peter Kinderman And boring person who keeps on getting like poked in the ribs and told to stop being grumpy and join in that. That was basically the day.

Hilary Jeffs That is your role in life. At least it made them feel all light and cheerful and that you were the old duffer. Yeah, there are benefits, definitely. so this week we've got quite a number of headlines to be making our way through. the first one we are gonna approach is Keir Starmer's resignation. obviously he had won his seat, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to be PM until after he'd won his seat. Notice Andy Burnham did actually get appointed into the House of Commons before he became the leader of only just though, I mean like it was tiny. Anyway, Keir had about 11 and a half thousand majority in 2024 when he took his seat. He's, the Labour Party is still favourites to take the seat again in a by-election, Binface has already told everyone that he's getting very busy on this bloody planet. So, it looks like he's gonna be running. And we've just heard that we're gonna have Zack Polanski running for the Greens. And actually that has made it from the bookie's point of view, more likely that the Greens will win, but still labour are out in front. there's been quite a lot of chat about this latest u-turn from the Starmer. what do you think? Do you think he's been full of revenge and vengeance?

Peter Kinderman I haven't seen any of that so far. and I would've thought that if somebody wants vengeance on somebody who's taken their job, then they'll at least stay in the arena to wreak vengeance. I would've thought that resigning as an MP, which I think is a perfectly reasonable thing to do after you've been Prime Minister, is a bit like a declaration, that you're not going to be a backseat driver. I think all of the options open to Keir Starmer, allow themselves to be honourable. So you can stay, you could stay even in the, in the cabinet. That would've been quite a good thing, really. it might have been the case that everybody considered it a good idea to have a little bit of a clean break and a new start, and a, you know, a new government, it allows you the rather slightly disreputable thing of blaming the old government for mistakes. But, you know, it, it, it avails yourself of that opportunity. he could have stayed in the House of Commons and given advice and given support and so forth, or, you know, move on. I think if you're not gonna be active in, in the cabinet, I think it's probably a wise idea on Starmer's part to, to move on. it also allows you to test the water in terms of a bi-election, so that's quite useful as well.

Hilary Jeffs Well, yes, it's just that he resigned one hour before Andy Burnham's inaugural speech, which did raise a few eyebrows. I mean, I understand Chris Mason on Newscast is of the opinion that of course it's a U-turn because when you say that you're gonna resign, the minute that there is any equivocation about whether you will or you won't, it's effectively that you have resigned. So you have to say, I am not going to resign until the minute that you do. But I do think that that timing is slightly dodgy. I mean, there's lots of reports about the man being someone who is full of pride, shall we say, does not like to feel that he's, someone's got one over on him and that that can make him quite cross. I mean, you didn't see that with his handling of Trump granted, but, and I felt it was perhaps slightly petty, the timing, or was it just that he didn't want to see Burnham do so much better than him at the dispatch box?

Peter Kinderman I, I honestly think that I, I mean, even for you, Hilary, you are, you're possibly choosing of the multiple possible interpretations of what's going on in somebody's mind, the interpretations which are at least flattering to the guy. So, for instance, those are entirely possible, or it's entirely possible that he thinks, well, you know, I'd quite like the job of Chancellor of Oxford University, or maybe leader of nato, or possibly

Hilary Jeffs [unclear] General.

Peter Kinderman yeah. And so, you know, there, there's all sorts of other potential reasons for why, people would choose to resign and move on. And this coming onto other things we'll talk about, which is, you know, what you do after you've done one job moving on to another. I think there's also just simply changing your mind. And I think I know that in, you know, in, in politics and possibly in other areas of life, changing your mind is seen as a bad thing. But of course it's not. It's, well, you know, new data has come in, including my children have said the following to me, therefore I'm going to change my mind, which I would think is quite a good thing. Responding to the environment as you see it and as it changes and as it unfolds. Being open-minded is a good thing. whereas, you know, a u-turn, well, no, maybe he just changed his mind. Maybe there is some of that negativity there. I, I, you know, when I, when I was a kid, I, I really quite wanted to be prime Minister. It was one of the regrets in life that I've not been prime Minister and I'm never gonna be by no, there is not still time. It is utterly impossible for me. and, you know, I regret that. I think that had I been prime minister and then had I been ousted in a, you know, somebody coming and tapping me on the shoulder and saying, you know, seriously, mate, you need to clear the stage for somebody else, I'd probably be a bit confused and grumpy. I, I think that's human. And if we want robots in, in, senior positions controlling our lives, then we better have a different political system than one in which human beings are prime Minister. If you've got a human being, you'll have emotions, you'll have judgements, you'll have opinions, you'll have changes of mind. And off you go. My, my gut feeling, I mean, one of the criticisms of Starmer was that he was a bit boring and out touch. My gut feeling is he is probably started to think about new roles that he could fulfil and off, you know, off

Hilary Jeffs indeed, this is what made me really laugh. It only took one summer holiday for this particular volte-face, which was, he said when he first, resigned. As pm I leave probably the most high profile job in the country to the most important, which is to be the best dad I can to my kids and best husband I can to my wife, all very worthy. One summer holiday. Later, I'm gonna focus on international affairs, including defence, security, trade, and technology in a fast changing world. I feel the same way after a summer holiday, Keir.

Peter Kinderman Well, I have to say that, you know, I, I wouldn't want to compare either me or Starmer to my father, but if my father had come home and said, I intend to spend more time with my kids, I'd have said, Hmm, would you mind applying for a job, dad? It's like, we've had enough now. So, you know, maybe, maybe we had that as a full intention. maybe his family said, thanks, dad, you've done it. Brilliant job. you know, do you wanna find something

Hilary Jeffs now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But how do you ever come to make a decent decision about moving on? Because I think lots of people stay in one place too long because the thought of change is so scary. What are the psychological processes you have to go through in order to make decent decisions about change?

Peter Kinderman well, you are absolutely right. I think that, that these sorts of decisions are very difficult. there, there's quite a lot of, I mean, I've been looking at this 'cause I've done it myself. There's quite a lot of psychological research on retirement and role changes and, and these sorts of decisions. I mean, it kind of follows on a little bit from the discussion about what you study at university at the beginning of your career and how you handle it at the end. I've read quite a lot, on it. I'm not sure that, it's not that I don't agree with it, it's that I, I'm not sure that all of it applied to me and my, situation. I think for me personally, I was quite aware of what was gonna be happening in my life. And I signed up to a very good pension a very long time ago, and I kind of had the dates in my mind for a very long time. So there was time to plan for it, and I was kind of angling in a, in a particular direction. I mean, the advice that most people are given is, you know, plan for what it is that you are going to do in the next phase of your life, whatever that happens to be. I suspect that if you're in a position of a politician where, you know, the aim is to concentrate at least 99% of your energy on staying in your current role, you have relatively little energy left to plan for the next stage and therefore probably retiring, resigning prime ministers have quite a rapid period of adjustment, I would've thought. but, but the general advice is, is, think of what it is that you, you want to be as your role in the next phase and then, you know, actively throw yourself into doing that, achieving that as a, as a role. So rather than sort of dribbling, sort of half doing it, doing it with a half-hearted sort of way, for instance retiring but not properly and accepting, retire that retirement role, but really regretting it and vacillating backwards forward. Most people say it's better to do it as a, as a conscious and clear decision.

Hilary Jeffs Well, before we started that, talk about the headlines, we should have done Concept of the Week, which I failed to introduce. But I think now's probably a really good time because it's quite relevant, isn't it, to our, topics this week. What is our concept of the week, Peter?

Peter Kinderman So this is exactly what we've been talking about really. and there's a, there's a term for it. Psychologists like to have names for things that are kind of bleedingly obvious. So the, the term for this is, is role exit. The, there are times in one's life when one exits a role and when you're in your, certainly in your forties and fifties, as, as people in, you know, our culture, you often go to parties and people say, what do you do? And you know, the answer to that is, is not Sudoku. The answer to that is you give your role title. And so when people make these sorts of career decisions, there's the exiting of a role. and it was written about in a, well, it's been written about in, in several scientific papers. the reason why I said that I didn't necessarily follow find all of the advice that follows necessarily pertinent to me is that the original paper that describes Role Exit was saying that you should have some sort of ceremony to, to mark the quite dramatic passing. I didn't, I just handed in my lanyard and went off.

Hilary Jeffs Didn't have a drinks party or anything with your colleagues.

Peter Kinderman not, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. None of that. No, no. And, and

Hilary Jeffs The whole reason we love people leaving is so we can all have a drink and chat, and it's like, a fu, you have to do this stuff. It's like a funeral. You have to all meet and convene. Do you think they had a party and didn't invite you?

Peter Kinderman Yeah, probably. And, and yeah, good luck to 'em. And, and, and if there was a party, I mean, if what happened on, on the f third floor of the psychology building, there was a massive party, with, you know, illegal alcohol and you know, party poppers going off saying, thank God that Kinderman has gone. We can now get on with brilliant, good luck to 'em, you know, that's, that, that's, that's fine by me. you know, if they're abiding memory of me is, is for me as a, as a failure and a drag on their institution and a waste of salary and they're good to get rid of me, they, that's absolutely fine by me. I, I really, really, really happy

Hilary Jeffs I can't believe anyone would ever think that, but they must have really missed having a party with you. Have you been back since? Will you go back? How will you feel going back?

Peter Kinderman Well, this is the thing I, I is, I didn't have a party and I didn't kind of celebrate, but I did know what was gonna happen. So it was, it, it was a change. So I'm, I'm, I still regard myself as a psychologist. I'm still registered with a Health and Care Professions council. I still practise as a psychologist. I'm not employed by a university now. And that role exit for me is dramatic, but I don't feel any need to go back. I don't, I'm not drawn back. I don't have particular need to do it. I'm not keen on following up with projects that I was involved in and making sure that my name is still attached to papers. I'm just assume that I've been dropped from it. I assume that people are making terrible, terrible, terrible mistakes, and if I had a role in it, then it would be much better. But I've moved on, I'm doing something else now, and, and yeah, that's what I'm doing. So I like the idea of deciding what your role is and deciding that your role is no longer that. I don't like the idea. So I didn't have an exit interview either. I didn't tell the management of the university all of the mistakes that I absolutely know that they're making because no need no point. maybe it's selfish, you know, may maybe I have wisdom that I could have imparted to them. But, but no, just, just, on that previous day I was doing that job and on this next day I'm doing a different job. I, I know what, what the situation, but I'm well aware of the role. So I, I, I, I do know what I say to people at parties and you know, it, it, it, it is a choice of two answers. One, one of which is, I say I'm a psychologist, but I, I work independently now. I'm no longer employed by a university or I say that I'm retired, that those are the two,

Hilary Jeffs And does it change with depending who you're speaking to, which one you pull out of the bag?

Peter Kinderman Yes.

Hilary Jeffs Oh, have you worked out what it is?

Peter Kinderman Yeah. And so one of my failings in life is that I tend to say things that I shouldn't say and one

Hilary Jeffs all do that. I have inappropriate Tourettes as well.

Peter Kinderman yeah, my, my.

Hilary Jeffs you see that? I shouldn't even say, should I make it into a condition just inappropriate.

Peter Kinderman So, so what tends to happen is that I, if I'm really enjoying the conversation and find it feeling a lot of kind of fellow feeling towards this person, I tend to say, you know, my job is, I'm a psychologist, but I don't work for the university anymore. I'm, I'm, I'm independent. If, if I'm finding them quite irritating, then I say I'm retired. And then what they do is they say, how are you finding that? And I say, brilliant,

Hilary Jeffs And

Peter Kinderman decent pension and I've got loads of interests and, all of these things that I wanted to do, like travel and go places and read. And then sometimes I tell the sort of, which is genuine story about kind of the, the sort of meta, the metaphysical things that really engaged me as a, as an 18-year-old. And I'm returning to them and I'm answering really big questions in my life. Like, you know, what's the purpose of life and how can one be happy in a absurd universe? And

Hilary Jeffs I hope there's a book coming.

Peter Kinderman Well, I, yeah, that actually genuinely is, and, if I'm really smug, I'm looking at these things and I think, you know, these big questions like, like, you know, what is, what's the meaning of it all and why are we here and what constitutes a good life? And I'm reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle mechanics, motorcycle maintenance, and I'm reading Marcus Aurelius and I'm reading our Albert Camus, and I'm thinking there sound. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I got it. So, so my, my point is my role has

Hilary Jeffs Aristotle, everyone.

Peter Kinderman Yeah. Yeah. So my, well for me, just for me, I, I, I, my, my, my role now is to basically die thinking. Yeah. I basically sort of got it, got it about right. Really?

Hilary Jeffs Well, there's no point in dying thinking I really messed that up. Is it, or

Peter Kinderman Yeah. Yeah,

Hilary Jeffs understand what's going on. I mean, you know, I, I'm quite happy with a bit of a self delusion That's

Peter Kinderman In incidentally, one of the things I tell people, and again, go about, just about Kinderman about retirement and mm-hmm. And I'm probably revealing too much, but when I first signed my pension plan, which was I know when it, I was about 24 when I signed up to the pension that I signed up

Hilary Jeffs I'm not surprised. In fact, the fact that you weren't four does surprise me.

Peter Kinderman Well, I got an opportunity, signed it up, and I thought, right, it would be a really nice idea to retire on my, on my 60th birthday, and I missed it by two and a half months. And I'm thinking, you know, as a glide path, I, I, I think I'm doing pretty well.

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, but not as well as those people who went to the moon. If they had the same attitude to hitting your target, we would not have made it there. It'd be more like Musks hurtling into the moon.

Peter Kinderman Yeah. If you're comparing me to, to a rocket scientist and Neil Armstrong, then I'm, I'm happy with any comparison that goes within 10%. I'm alright with that.

Hilary Jeffs Right. So role exits our concept

Peter Kinderman role exit. Yeah. So think about what you're doing. It's gonna change. Think

Hilary Jeffs we know Keir has already had some role exit from the PM job, and I wonder if actually this is just one tiny little step on from that and is possibly not really given. He had a big career before. He wasn't a career politician, so he's probably already gone through that huge identity change once when he stopped being the DPP, the director of, public prosecutions. so I, I think he's gonna be fine. I'm still not a hundred confi, a hundred percent convinced that there wasn't a slight bit of revenge, in there because, you know, really Burnham was pretty, you know, direct in him coming after Keir Starmer and coming after Starmer's job. And I've been thinking about this more and more and more, especially when you start seeing the, the faction starting to play up online about, you know, different sides of the left already starting to be a bit anti Burnham for the way Starmer was treated. But it got me thinking about the new Chancellor, John Healey and his whole resignation, from Keir Starmer's government and makes me think there was a deal done then for him to be chancellor.

Peter Kinderman I, I, I would be surprised and genuinely disappointed if there wasn't a deal. And the reason for it is, okay, so I'm not gonna entirely leave party politics to one side, if we're talking about the political leadership of the United Kingdom, and well, this is where the party politics comes in, the, what I believe to be a major threat from the populist right, and the actually serious challenges to putting right the economy. I mean, on a side note, I completely agree with Andy Burnham about the, damage that Thatcherism austerity and the Tory's response to both the 2008 crash, which I think, Gordon Brown handled reasonably well. And then the recovery was utterly devastated by the Tory's austerity response. I burnham's

Hilary Jeffs know about that? Austerity response was based on flawed figures. It was based on flawed analysis apparently, that, was basically that countries that, did employ austerity measures actually performed better. And then it turns out that actually the study was wrong and there was some basic maths errors in there. And, and that's not the most performing, best performing, countries that perform coming out of a recession.

Peter Kinderman I, I didn't, I didn't know that. But it makes perfect sense and I think that, I mean, it is obviously true that the austerity plan that was pursued by Cameron and the Tories for so long was utterly devastating to our economy. Then you got Brexit. I mean, so yeah. So if, absolutely, and you know, I, I was an author on a, a paper talking about, people dying as a result of, of the financial crash, taking their own lives. Yeah, absolutely. Devastating impact on, on, on individuals. so when I look at that, and I think, you know, these are serious people running a serious economy and making serious decisions that impacts on people's life. Oh, well, you know, let's give it a, a run. Let's see what happens. Hey, ho well, might, might not, I dunno, I haven't really thought about it. Absolutely not. I don't want 'em to do that. I want serious people to sit down and think, what are the numbers looking like? Can we get some, you know, political parties have a little bit of resources available to them. Can we run some, some polling? Can we run some focus groups with people? Let's see what happens. Let's run them the numbers. Let's plan for the future. What sort of a Prime Minister would command the authority of the Parliamentary Labour Party and get popular support in the country? And then let's work on it. So, if John Healey hadn't been talking to his colleagues about the position he might have taken, should we make a different decision for the running of our country? Then he's a lightweight, and these people aren't lightweight. Of course, they made plans and I really hope they did. And, and that would apply to the Tories as well. So, so I do not want, I mean, obviously I don't want to reform government. I don't want anybody from reform anywhere near anything, but I don't want a Tory government either. The reason being that every other Tory government has been utterly rubbish for people that I care about and for the country generally. I don't want a Tory government, but I would absolutely expect senior figures of the Tory party to be thinking and planning for the next few years and positioning their pieces on the chess board of politics. So was John Healey plotting with his friends to, to, run a, you know, to resign from Starmer's government and work in Burnham's government? I bloody well, hope he was. Yes. 'cause that's what serious politicians would do.

Hilary Jeffs Have to say the recent sort of confessions we've had from the previous labour incumbents who were talking about the fact that they weren't actually properly prepared for government just seemed to me to be utterly well unforgivable. Really. that they're saying that, and I don't really understand why they came out and said that, or indeed I don't really understand how they could not have planned effectively, but it certainly seems that Burnham knows what he wants to achieve. I've had just the best couple of days, it's been such a gift for me to see his inaugural speech and the three and a half hours it was in total with the grilling mps and then PMQs yesterday. Did you get a chance to, to watch any of it, Peter?

Peter Kinderman I, I watched some of it. I haven't watched, I, I, I didn't watch his speech, certainly. and I didn't watch the, the question all day through. And I saw some of, his, PMQs, yes. And there there's also the, the tip that I want to kind of give people is related to, to his performance of PMQs as well. because I'm gonna praise him. I thought he was excellent. yeah, I, I thought he was excellent excellently done and also excellently handled by the team that are working for him. I thought it was, yeah. Really

Hilary Jeffs I mean, this is my bread and butter. How do people effectively communicate when they're on the podium, but also how do they answer questions effectively? And actually I thought Kemi did, the best that she probably could be expected to do within parameters. I'll come onto that in a minute, Burnham, and I know that it's difficult because both of us perhaps lean more towards the left than to the right. And, but I tried to take a step back and be dispassionate about his performance and it's made me laugh about the sort of the left and the right newspapers and how they have characterised his performance. You know, on the one hand it's like a total washout that's from the right wing press and then like full of praise from the left when it came to his speech. I dunno if you noticed, and if you go back and have a look at it, when he was doing stuff that was like the PM stuff, the stuff where he is having to, give people sympathy or talk about his predecessor, he was less sure, he was slightly more nervous. You could see that there was uncertainty in the way that he delivered his content. But I tell you what, when he gets onto his bread and butter, the stuff that he knows, the meat and potatoes, he goes full on it. And he also uses, examples really nicely and that was one of the effective ways he answered the questions so well, that if someone comes at you with some big vague issue, to be able to then take it and, and reference something specific and make it tangible, it becomes so much clearer what your answer actually was. Kemi was good in so far, far as that she kept it light and smiley and decided not to be too combative and to try and be a bit patronising. I felt, you know, that she was coming at it like, oh, bless, you know, there you are, you little puppy, and I'm here like mum to tell you where you are going wrong. Although there was a lack of detail. And Alastair Campbell, [unclear] again, on The Rest Is Politics had given some free advice to Kemi about how to really tie Andy Burnham up in knots, which was to go and ask questions that he really couldn't answer something really specific that would tie him up. and she did not do that effectively. There was more broad brush things, you know, talking about, you know, what are you gonna cut? You're just trying to please everyone. But I felt, given the level of detail he went to, there was a disconnect between the level of detail that, that she went to. But I, I understand why. I just felt that she didn't have his gravitas now. I felt he did have some gravitas. What is gravitas, Peter, and how do you get it or how do you portray it? It's a big question, isn't it?

Peter Kinderman it is a big question. It's also an embarrassing question because, it is one of the things that has been, commented to, to me that, that, that my career might have been better in various walks of life if I'd had more gravitas. I tend to be, I tend to be kind of lighthearted. I tend to, use quips. I tend to be self-deprecating. So again, I mean, gravitas, it, it, it, it's,

Hilary Jeffs Those are all things that Andy Burnham did, by the way, and it didn't take away from his gravitas. But then his audience isn't necessarily other university professors where

Peter Kinderman And well, you are.

Hilary Jeffs a certain way of behaving.

Peter Kinderman and you're balancing things, aren't you? So, so, so there's gravitas, you know, having a grasp of the, the, the subject area. Having, you know, in-depth knowledge, having, I suppose confidence without arrogance, having the fact that your fingertips, how revealing to people that you've done some analysis on the situation, rather than being glib about it, taking things seriously, taking yourself seriously, engaging with the person at the level at which they want to be engaged rather than, than trying to deflect them and, and moving on. And I think that you also have to balance all of that with engaging with, with engaging with people as a human being. So, you know, if you were to say to all questions, well, that's a very serious question, and I need to go and consult with the civil servants, and we'll, we'll write you a letter, you know, and somebody else says, you know, what about potholes in Macclesfield? And you go, well, I'm gonna have to talk to some civil servants. And it's all about the interface between local government responsibility and national responsibilities. So, I'll get back to you in writing, you know, are you going to do anything about Donald Trump's threatening of the, the island? Well, it's a very serious matter, and I'm gonna talk to civil servants, especially in the foreign office, and we'll get, so you, you've gotta engage with people and give them a bit of your passion. You've got to show that you engage emotionally with the situation. You also gotta show people that you can actually enjoy and get on with life and not take things

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, and I think Barack Obama was a good example of that, wasn't it? He had gravitas but wasn't buttoned up. It wasn't stiff and stuffy. but you definitely believed that he was someone who could solve a problem, that he was someone that you could go to when you're in trouble. And I think that's part of the bedrock of gravitas as well, is just that kind of, you know, that you feel safe with someone.

Peter Kinderman Yeah. And in part gravitas is, is perhaps one of the, one of the kind of elements of gravitas in, in this situation is that if somebody tells you something and includes within their message, I find this serious, then you should probably say yes. I find that serious too. So if, if people are, say, you know, it happens in prime minister's questions quite a lot where, because of the technical nature of it, a an MP stands up and says, I have decided to use this opportunity to raise a local issue. And if you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, well shut up. ' cause I want to go on and talk about the other thing that everybody else is talking about and the reason why all of the TV cameras have turned on today. You basically dismiss that person seriousness you and it looks rude. And it is rude and it's lacking in gravitas. 'cause you're saying, I can't shift attention to something that's important. And Barack Obama did that extremely well. I think other politicians do it very well. And for some reason the image that's cropping up in my mind is of that terrible photo of Donald Trump who's standing grinning at the camera while somebody's having some medical crisis behind him. And he is just not picking up on a thing that's important to somebody else because he's an narcissist. And, I, I

Hilary Jeffs that was something that came up about, Andy Burnham when he first ran against, Jeremy Corbyn to be the leader. And he lost and apparently when he gave his big speech above him was JC is coming 'cause it was in a church. And yeah that was definitely a sign. Burnham, it wasn't to be. But, he's got his, his photo ops, I think fully curated. Now we are, we are certainly sorting that out 'cause that's really important. But when you were talking about messaging and about the importance, one of his key messages is about number 10 of the north, it's about devolution. So if he was not gonna take seriously the individual problems that were coming up from constituencies, it would entirely undermine one of the real key tenants of what he wants his premiership to be all about.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, absolutely. yes, it's interesting, I, I heard somebody talking about, the number 10 of the north, being a gimmick. and, I absolutely don't think it is. I, I think that the number 10 of the north and his, photo ops in Heron House, up here in Manchester, was interesting. I think, again, there's a, there's something rather pleasing about it. Not only because politically I very strongly support that as, as, as a, as a set of policies, but also there was a, a pleasing symmetry between number 10 of the north and then an emphasis on devolution as a policy. So it wasn't, I'm gonna have number 10, the north and continue to have centralised Westminster government, but just operating for Manchester. There was a synchrony between the actions and the, and the, the policy,

Hilary Jeffs This is what people must have felt hundreds of years ago when the king would suddenly go and live in a different castle.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, all a different country. we have, we have quite a lot of kings that the right wing are really, really popular. find really, really popular, who never spoke English and never lived in England, which is kind of, you know, it's just a bit of land that they happen to own. yeah, I, I think, absolutely true. And, you know, Burnham is from Manchester, so there's, from the north. So there's an element there. it, the, the, the apparent gimmick of, which, annoyed people that, that were talking to me was, about spending a thousand pounds on a, on, on a fake front door I'd having done stuff at universities. But for instance, if I had had a leaving due, for, by, for my retirement, it would probably cost more than a thousand pounds just for some obscure academics leaving due. So hardly a massive gimmick. I think. Good, good messaging, synchronising well with policies. Yeah. well done to the comms team, I guess.

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, and I, we're just gonna have to see how it works, isn't it, and how much money, there is to go around and how, how it might energise the country and how quickly growth might come in because there are, you know, universal issues. You know, not least the bond market moves, which wasn't just about and Burnham's policy no matter what the right wants to say, you know, there is such a thing as the global oil prices, which had a bit of a, an impact on that as well. it was interesting though, this whole thing about the role exit that you were talking about as well, but equally he's changed jobs and I do think he's still comfortable with elements of his previous job, the previous role, identity of what he could do and say as, as a mayor, that seems to be much more comfortable in those points than when you are actually then transferring it over to the premiership. And I, I, he's definitely building on that and is aware of that, but is he still too much associating himself in his own identity, do you think, with his mayoral ship?

Peter Kinderman well, I mean, he might be, and that might be a mistake. And you know, one of the things about, I suppose moving from being a mayor to, to being a prime minister, is there, you know, there are responsibilities that you don't really have to consider in terms of, you know, international relationships and, and defence and so forth. but I have to say, my immediate reaction, because we'd been talking about devolution earlier, was to think about just the capacity of humans to deal with these sorts of issues, which is, I, I personally believe that United Kingdom is quite a large country. So, you know, 65, 60 8 million people to manage effectively. It's a very large system, and large complicated systems tend to have chaos built into them. And the geography of the United Kingdom is such that what applies to the fishing industry. And so St Andrews probably doesn't apply to the tourist industry in, in Brighton. There, there are probably different economic pressures on people in different places, in different, different settings. So I think the idea of thinking, well, one of the ways in which the country might be more efficient is if we had more devolution. So people with both financial and political responsibilities at local level, were aware of the issues were, were more in tune with what is needed within their area of responsibility. Burnham thinking like a mayor of what is a major city in the world is probably not a bad idea. You know, you've got international airports, you, you've got transport issues, you've got the economy. housing that to, to, to manage the economy of conurbation like Manchester is in itself a major task. And maybe it would be a good idea if the country were, I mean, I'm not suggesting that the United Kingdom should become a federal country, but maybe if there were better devolution than what we'd have is better management. And, and that thinking like a mayor might not be a bad idea.

Hilary Jeffs It is interesting, isn't it, that the Tories are keen for there to be a clear ideological difference between the two. And it'll be interesting to see how that plays out going forward because we obviously, Keir Starmer didn't seem to be much of a political operator, but equally beyond my father was a tool maker. there didn't seem to be much kind of real want for what political change wanted to happen. And actually Boris Johnson was a bit like that as well. He, he just wanted, I mean, the difference is Boris Johnson just wanted to be here. I don't think Keir wanted to do that, but I don't think K really had a proper direction. But I do think Burnham knows nuts and bolts about what he wants to change.

Peter Kinderman absolutely. So, I mean, literally nothing but contempt for a, a string of Tory politicians. So I will not even just utter contempt for them. But, I think the, the, the business of, you know, it's time for labour to take over. My father was a tool maker. Okay. I'm sure that's not what the Labour Party wanted Starmer's message to be, but, you know, I, I, I echo, that's kind of what I remember. But starting off with, you know, since the eighties, the country has elected right wing politicians who've made disastrous choices, and we are in a very difficult position now. Here is how I intend to set out some policies that will reverse those disastrous choices. Let's get into the meat of the matter. So, also really interesting. I mean, loads of my neighbours are pretty right wing, and even they will talk about, I don't understand why a French company, a country, a French company, owns part of our country, like our electricity or our water, and, and they're going. But that's because of Thatcher, who you adore.

Hilary Jeffs And it's very interesting just how much of Thatcher's legacy is being unpicked by both the left and the right now that people are still not saying anything other than, oh, you know, she was amazing. It was Thatcher, you know, she knew what she stood for and the Falklands War. But I do think there's serious questions now being held about selling off our,

Peter Kinderman Absolutely. So.

Hilary Jeffs the way that did actually happen. And not least council houses. My father thought she should have been locked up anyway.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, absolutely. So people were saying back in the eighties, people were saying if what you do is you sell off all the council houses, at a premium, then what it will do is it will make local councils impoverished. So services will be threatened and you'll end up maybe in 20 or 30 years time with a crisis in the housing market. And that's exactly what's happened. Almost exactly at the time. If you sell off the water industry, you'll get a few years where people will be really happy. You'll get a few years where the water industry might move on from some of the problems that it had under nationalisation. Same with the rail industry. But in 20 or 30 years time, you'll have massive debts in the rail. In the rail industry, you'll have infrastructure companies that have profited and given all the profit and dividends to their shareholders, the shareholders will, will have enriched themselves and you'll be left with a defunct rail system and debt. And it's happening exactly on queue. Of course it

Hilary Jeffs yeah, and it's not easy to unpick, is it? Because of the pension funds that own lots of shares in this. So it's not something you can just undo straight away. But of course the argument was that there was so much fat in public services when it was run by local government or national government and that the competition of private companies would make them more efficient. But unfortunately, we have seen just such a big increase in the salaries of people who run these companies, but also, you know, the whole idea that shareholder is king rather than their being, as Ford who we were talking about just a couple of weeks ago about the fact that you need to not just have the shareholders at the heart of what you do. It's got to be a community, a symbiosis of people and, and parts to that ecosystem working together.

Peter Kinderman That there will be political scientists in university lecture theatres around the world where some bright young student raises their hands and says, you know, excuse me, professor Chi, but wouldn't it be a good idea to create a limited company with, with stocks and, and share and take the dividends of this nationally owned institution and give it to people in a, in, and the, the professor will swivel around and she'll go, have you not studied Britain Between 1979 and 2026? I advise you to go back and read my book on the disastrous history of the UK economy. Oh, by the way, pay special attention to the chapters Boris Johnson and Brexit. Off you go. Do some reading. Come back when you're a little bit wiser. I mean, and, and to be honest, we were saying it in the eighties as well. So for Burnham, for Burnham to, to not do my dad was a toolmaker, sorry, Keir, but to say, actually I've got a political and economic analysis of why we're in the situation that we're in and what can be done about it, including devolution 'cause I think that's quite good. Absolutely. Yeah. So when I heard that as a headline, which is, you know, since the eighties there have been a series of disastrous decisions, I thought, thank God somebody's telling the truth.

Hilary Jeffs Yeah, well, absolutely. I do think that we need to start facing up to, the problem that we've had since Brexit. And indeed, you know, my same right wing neighbours, also seem to think that Brexit was a terrible idea now, which is just an amazing about face there as well. moving on then, the last headline that we're gonna be touching on today is the war that France is having on yet again. They, it seems that Black Friday has tipped them over the edge. It tips me over the edge. If I go anywhere near it, I can't stand it. But no, they're not trying to cancel it. but they're trying to stop it being called Black Friday. they could call it Vendredi noir, but it doesn't kind of trip off the tongue. In Canada, they call it Vendredi fou as in Crazy Friday, which I think is possibly much better as an idea. now in 1994, there was a law passed, I think it was called the franglais War. Does that ring bells to you? basically it was by the culture secretary to try and stop there being the proliferation of English words throughout. Since then, of course, there are lots of English words that have been embraced, not least by Macron himself, who is, branded a Tartuffe by people who are against him, because apparently he's embracing Globish. Have you heard of Globish?

Peter Kinderman No, but I can imagine what it

Hilary Jeffs It is an actual language, 1500 words for business Globish. So it does things like, instead of saying, you know, you don't need to know the word for nephew, but it would be like the child of my sister would be how you describe it. And that's how they get the words down so much. But anyway, it's back on because apparently this franglais rule is no longer fit for purpose 'cause it doesn't actually work with the internet effectively. my first question to you though, Peter, is where do you think France stands in the world as in terms of how popular a language it actually is right now? Both in terms of first and second language speakers?.

Peter Kinderman So, so my technical and, and gravitas answer is that I, I believe that what you talk about what one should say is that English is the lingua franca. Interesting that it's lingua franca. But anyway, English, Spanish, Chinese and French is not a particularly common or popular language and not in the areas of science, technology, and, and global communication. so one of the things I,

Hilary Jeffs it's actually fifth, the fifth's most spoken language in the world, which I thought was pretty amazing. Obviously English is number one, French. there's 310 million speakers as the, and the first language is 880 million or so, and the second is 260. Just over.

Peter Kinderman yeah, my

Hilary Jeffs It's meant to be the language of culture.

Peter Kinderman well, exactly. So I was gonna talk about culture. So I, I, I, I regard it as I think that, you know, all, all languages change. We don't speak the same language as we were speaking in, in, you know, the 13 hundreds. And, it takes quite a long time for language to evolve. But, but I can't read Beowulf, I can't read anything before Victorian times. I find it very difficult to read. And, and, you know, the handwriting is such that, that I can't, I can't get into the language used by people only a, a few hundred years ago, and everything changes. I think the, i, I feel in almost instinctively dubious about the idea of the French passing laws to ban language formation in order to protect their language. But I do think that the French are wise to protect their culture. I just think that language and culture aren't necessarily the same thing. And I might have an argument with a French culture minister about this, but I think the idea of actively supporting your culture rather than banning language would be a good thing. So I, I think instead of banning Black Friday, they should, should, actively support Vendredi fou. So they need to put, you know, a few hundred million euros into publicising Vendredi fou as the go-to language choice for 11 year olds, who naturally speak English. I mean, I, I, I suspect the language is changing very, very rapidly. I, I feel very privileged and, and just simply lucky that I suspect as AI develops and as language use develops, of course the AI will be very, very, flexible and skilled at translation, but I suspect English will remain dominant, and I think I'm very lucky in that

Hilary Jeffs We are so lucky,

Peter Kinderman I'll be able to just interface.

Hilary Jeffs that that made us lazy about learning languages as a nation or whether it is, you know, which one came first. Chicken or egg. Were we lazy at learning languages or was the proliferation of English meant that we didn't have to learn languages? I'm

Peter Kinderman suspect it might have something to do with, with industrialised warfare and empire building probably,.

Hilary Jeffs I think it might have something to do with that as well, which is why France has so many more speakers as well. Yeah. Lots of people died in the ability for us to be able to keep

Peter Kinderman Exactly. Yeah.

Hilary Jeffs but yes, you're right. The AI in some ways is gonna make it easier for languages to stay and exist and to, you know, and think about Wales. They've really embraced having their language and, and teaching it. But of course, ai, you're gonna automatically have translations as well, which I think is quite

Peter Kinderman I don't, I, I suspect that for the Welsh I think that, that, that was always a cultural thing. And about Welsh identity, I'm not sure that they banned, English. What they did is they promoted Welsh and I, I guess that would be my advice to the French as well, that I'm not sure about banning, Black Friday, like I say, promote Vendredi fou. It's a, it's a, I mean, and psychologically, you know, I mean it's, it's quite a long way from behavioural psychology, but generally, if you want somebody to do something, reward them for doing it rather than ban them. If you, if you ban French people from using Black Friday, they'll just use another English word and the, the situation will still be bad. From your perspective, if you support and develop the French language, then the French language is probably gonna survive. And, you know, encourage people to, to read, I was gonna say, encourage people to read, Simone de Beauvoir in the original French, but that might not be something that would be the, at the top of the list of

Hilary Jeffs No, probably not. I don't think that's going to convince anyone one way or another. What is quite interesting is just how people get quite wedded to the language as it is and, and don't recognise how much they change. I remember when I started being known as Ms in my early twenties and one of my mum's friends who was a, you know, classicist, was absolutely horrified that I would use that and it was an abomination. And I'm like, you of all people should know that languages evolve and change and that new words come along and that should be exciting. But it's different when it comes to eroding something, you know, in its entirety, which when languages die, it is very sad. But you've raised an interesting point, which is about the difference between language and culture. And we obviously have a lot of different national identities. You know, the Germans are organised, we are uptight, the French are, you know, romantic. how much truth is there in national identities and those kind of stereotypes.

Peter Kinderman So I think that's, that's the important distinction. I don't think there's much truth in, in national stereotypes, but I think there's clear truths to cultural identities. So I think that, you know, if you step off the train in Germany, what you will see is a population whose behaviour has been shaped by the cultural expectations of Germany. You won't see a bunch of people who, who score highly on questionnaire measures of discipline and order and, and ness. They, they, they aren't as the German people, people who themselves score highly on those traits. The culture is a culture that values particular things. And so what you, I think can say is that there's a cultural identity of France that I love and the cultural identity of ti Italy that I love. And I, you know, I like Southern Mediterranean culture. I, I like, I like, you know, sort of Northern European culture. I like the, the culture of the Nordic countries, and I can recognise those cultural traits. That's very different from saying the individuals who live there are stereotypically behaving in a particular way. So again, I think that these three things of

Hilary Jeffs So is this just about semantics though? Is this just semantics then? Is it about.

Peter Kinderman no, no. I don't think it is. So, so I think culture and language are very closely related and I could see why the French would argue for their, their language not to change. But I think, you know, but I think that, the, the, the culture and the heritage of, of a nation is not only embodied in language, you know, the, the, the idea of, of Britain and especially England as a country which has got, you know, beautiful castles and rolling hills and there's a, there's a sort of bucolic nature of it. And you could

Hilary Jeffs Oh, hate that word.

Peter Kinderman you could, you could spend an entire week kind of doing a tour of mediaeval stuff. And then, you know, you, you'd watch castle, programmes with Derek Jacobi Anyway, you could get into the, but of course you wouldn't have been able to stand a, a word that those people said in their native tongue. You wouldn't, the language has completely changed, but the culture is, is there to be understood. And, and so I think that culture and language are closely related, but they're not the same thing. So I, you know, I love the idea, like I say, of going to a Nordic country and being embedded in that culture. And of course I, with Norwegian friends, we just speak English all the time, and they correct my grammar

Hilary Jeffs Absolutely

Peter Kinderman is better than mine. the idea of, national stereotypes, I think where as a psychologist, I worry about that is, yeah, like I say, I, I, if you put a bell curve of the, of the sort of tidiness of a, an average person and put a, an Italian, a, an an, a a a Welsh person and a German person, or, you know, populations of these people and measured how tidy they were, I think the bell curves would perfectly overlap with each other. I, I, I don't think that these nations are populated by people who tend to fit their stereotype.

Hilary Jeffs But it's more

Peter Kinderman from there being a cultural, you know, the, the national culture.

Hilary Jeffs Okay. I understand. I think a little bit about what's going on, but there's been quite a big shift hasn't there in psychological research in recent years where they're trying to look at research from around the world precisely because they felt that the research was too western, too white, you know? But yet doesn't that then say we are different and not the same? What, what? What's happening there? Why do people behave differently? Is it the culture that gets inside our behaviour so much?

Peter Kinderman Well, in part I suppose, I mean, yeah, there, there is an element of what exactly are we talking about when we talk about things like personality or intelligence of these traits because, often what people talk about is what you are rather than what you've learned. And a lot of this stuff, unfortunately goes back to people doing eugenics and genetic basis. So it's the idea that, you know, there is a person out there and it's usually racist. You know, there is a person out there who is, representative of their ethnic heritage and they score highly on this trait and very low on that trait. So there would be a, so yeah, very sort of late Victorian white male, you know, men are rational and free from emotions and women are emotive and caring and it's not true at all. And what they mean to it is they don't even mean men have learned to suppress their feelings. I mean, it's kind of in inherent in our genes. So when we talk about not national stereotypes, I, I don't think people in, you know, automatically think if I had grown up in Germany for many years, then I'd be more likely to put stuff in the bin. That might be true. No, what they say is Germans are naturally tidy, but it's not naturally tidy. It is come about as a result of living in a particular

Hilary Jeffs I understand.

Peter Kinderman So I really don't like the idea that, that there are cultural differences and even differences in things like intelligence, which I innate to the populations that we're talking about. so no, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I, I would be very sceptical of the idea that the individuals in particular countries are characteristically.

Hilary Jeffs But our responses may change slightly due to the fact that we've been conditioned in different ways. Is that what we are trying to reflect with the, with the, the broader scope of, of research that is more international.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, yeah, yeah. and certainly when it comes to things that matter, I think the idea that we take, so in psychology we talk about norms and normative things. The idea that the average, or the exemplar or the desired, way of responding to a particular challenge is like x and that everything else is a deviation from the norm. I think that's changing, you know, quite, quite a lot. and it, it, it also extends to things like crime. So I'm, I'm amused by the idea that, you know, following the rule is seen as a bad thing because you want people to be, you know, individualistic and you want people to have individual freedom, and yet at the same time, you've got to follow the rule and there's something bad about you if you deviate from the rule. So, so, you know, the idea of freedom and criminality and, how people are rebellious against the rules versus unable to follow the rules and natural criminals and so forth. So I think people. We have developed these cultural expectations for people and then we, we use those cultural expectations as the benchmarks for what's normal and what's abnormal, and they're just cultural expectations.

Hilary Jeffs Okay, before we go, Peter, thank you for our lovely galloping through the psychological brain. have you got a tip for us to try a little nugget of psychological wellbeing that we can use in order to have better, happier, more productive lives? You know, come on, I need your silver bullet.

Peter Kinderman Well, I'm afraid it's, I'm, I'm, I'm not actually in love with Andy Burnham, but it is another Andy Burnham. It probably comes from his, his comms team. I probably am. So there's two elements to this. So, and it also reveals something which I think is also kind of quite important and quite impressive as well, actually. So, so the tip of the week is, it is just fess up. If you've done something embarrassing, they just fess up and, and it, it like clears away the problems 99% of. So now I am aware that, you know, you, you, you could do

Hilary Jeffs don't do a Boris.

Peter Kinderman Don't do it, boss. I just fess up. so there was a thing at PMQs where Andy Burnham said about, in response to a question, you know, the, he was a former minister. He wasn't just a PPS to the Defra secretary, which is rude to parliamentary private secretaries for Defra secretary. Now, interestingly, when I saw him do it, he did actually apologise as he was doing it, I felt a, felt a sense of fellow feeling that part of his brain knew he was going to say something embarrassing and that he went and did it anyway, which I thought was quite funny. but then he put out something on social media where he greeted the person who was the PPS to the Defra secretary and said, sorry about that. He kind of just like slipped out. I'm, I'm really sorry. So he fessed up and there were quite a few people on, on Twitter, of course, saying excellent handling of it. You know, he didn't really give people the opportunity to say what a rude person you are, you just dealt with it. So he made a mistake, dealt with it, and actually made it into a bit of a positive. So that would be my tip of the week. 'cause like if you put your foot in it, then fess up, you know,

Hilary Jeffs There is nothing worse is there than when people don't fess up. And it's one of the things that we are so determined to teach our children, isn't it that they must come clean and they must fess up. And yet as adults, there's so many times when we don't like, you know, my children are like, are you eating my chocolate? Well.

Peter Kinderman the, the, the, so absolutely, and it worked, it seemed to work really well and you know, you've already been caught on camera saying it, denying it is kind of futile. The

Hilary Jeffs But also it's the opposite of Trump, isn't it? So I'm quite, I'm up for anything that's the opposite of Trump.

Peter Kinderman Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah. Opposite of, of Boris. Awful man. the other interesting thing about it is that, what it told me was that Burnham was, his response was entirely generated by him.It, it could not have been scripted by his comms team. So now admittedly, he chose a comparison and he, he chose a comparison as in former minister versus, and he just chose, but that comparison must have been plucked out of his head at that moment. And I thought, that's very interesting because what it tells me is how difficult a job it is to be at PMQs,

Hilary Jeffs Absolutely.

Peter Kinderman because it's absolutely not scripted.

Hilary Jeffs because it is one of the things that I always say to people, there is no time for original thought. When you are on that podium, you need to have thought through what your answers are gonna be. And to be honest, I thought he did really well. I mean, he definitely had the tome of answers to every question, which he'd read through, but at some point you have to discard that 'cause you can't memorise everything. And you have to then be able to go back to what are the things that you really care about, what are the things that mean to you? And you need to be able to do that deftly, which he did do. But you are right, that sneaky old brain of all of ours, when you're caught in a fix, we can often say things that we don't actually mean. You know, say the elephant in the room, isn't it? And you're like, oh my brain, why have I done that? But you know, yeah, he fessed up. That's good, right? That's our tip. Get you outta trouble. Just fess up and move on. And there's nothing like a saying, sorry. Is there.

Peter Kinderman No, no now, and it puts you in a moral high ground, and that's always a good place to be.

Hilary Jeffs Well, I wish you a rollercoaster free week. I certainly won't be going any near one anytime soon, that's for sure. And we'll be back next week to discuss more headlines and what it means for the psychology of how people think and what we do, and how we feel about things. The Experience Podcast is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Peter Kinderman, produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. You can find us on social media and you can get in touch by email at hello@experiencepodco.com with any questions or comments or topics you'd like us to cover. And don't forget to leave us a review.