Richard Fairbrass - Not my Pride

Richard Fairbrass -  Not my Pride - Show notes and Transcript

We are currently in the holy month of Pride with every business and shop window sporting an obligatory rainbow or LGBTBS flag. 
Richard Fairbrass (one half of the dynamic British pop duo that is Right Said Fred) joins us to give his thoughts on Pride. 
Being a gay man, it is fascinating to have his thoughts on how pride has moved from rights to indoctrination. 
And of course we discuss the Fred's brand new album which is the good news story in this month of confusion and madness.

Richard Fairbrass is one half of legendary British pop band Right Said Fred. 
The Freds are one of the UK’s most enduring pop exports. Since forming in 1989, brothers Fred and Richard Fairbrass, have a list of achievements as songwriters and a band that include number #1 hits in 70 countries, they were also the first band to reach the number one slot in the US with a debut single since The Beatles.
As multi-platinum award winning artists and songwriters, their global sales total 30 million and over 100 million plays on Spotify.
They have writing credits on Taylor Swift and Sofi Tukker’s songs, their music has been featured in over 50 films and TV Shows and in excess of 100 commercials.
The boys have performed with Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and David Bowie plus plaudits from Madonna, Jay Z, and Prince to name but a few.
30+ years on and 10 studio albums later, The Freds have found a new legion of fans with their no-nonsense views during the Covid ‘pandemic’ regarding lockdowns, masks, vaccines, nonsensical rules and all the regurgitated hysteria that surrounds it.
They have been a staple feature at the huge anti-lockdown and freedom protests seen in London and have shown their integrity on their social media and in interviews, pointing out and challenging all the lies, scaremongering and hypocrisies that have been forced upon the population from the government and the main stream media.
Right Said Fred are living proof that two music-loving brothers with an ear for a hit, plenty of passion, self-belief and a bit of critical thinking can defy all expectations and conquer the world – long live The Freds!

Their latest album 'The Singles' available from Amazon and all good record stores...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Singles-Right-Said-Fred/dp/B0BXXZR9YK/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=right+said+fred&rnid=1642204031&s=music&sr=1-5

Follow & support Richard and Right Said Fred at....
Website https://rightsaidfred.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/TheFreds?s=20&t=T8cGz5XgcsB5VCkFi8p0dg
GETTR https://gettr.com/user/thefreds
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rightsaidfred
Instagram https://instagram.com/rightsaidfredofficial
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/15ajdFAi5bjj5pS9laBfBL?si=TRsoosqjT6Wjml--SwEinQ
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/RIGHTSAIDFREDUK

Interview recorded 14.6.23

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Transcript

(Hearts of Oak)

Hello Hearts of Oak and welcome to another interview coming up in a moment with Richard Fairbrass, of course one half of the duo that is Right Said Fred and that's just Richard with us today not Fred and I want to talk to Richard about the topic Not My Pride but before we get into that we open up looking at the music side they've just got a new album coming out reworking of all of their singles. Fantastic album, you want to get hold of it, all the details are on their website.
And of course you can get hold of all different merch and you can get hold of their autobiography which they released last year and we covered that a year ago. But today I want to talk to him about his experiences as someone who's gay with the whole month of pride, the whole LGBTQ++ BS has been forced on all of our throats and it's a fascinating, intriguing insight for me to understand where he is coming from and why he doesn't think pride is good.
Talking about the commercial aspect, massive businesses, money behind it, media behind it, everyone is pushing it and forcing it at us.
The whole LGBT agenda in schools, all of that great conversation.
And Richard giving his insights, which I know you will love.

Nice to have you back with us again? Thank you for your time today.

(Richard Fairbrass)

It's a pleasure. Nice to be here.
Thanks. Nice to see you, Peter.

Good to have you with us and lots been happening. First of all, @TheFreds on Twitter.
Everyone can find you there. Right Said Fred is the website.
And we want to go and talk about pride and your thoughts on that.
But first, there's some better news this month.
The better news is a release of a Right Said Fred album. Do you want to tell us about that?
Because it's been, what, it was, I think, five years ago?
Five years ago, so it could be longer.

Yeah, we have to be a bit abstemious sometimes, because we have to pay for it, because we're independent, so we've got to pay for the video ourselves.
Well, this idea came to us through somebody else, who suggested that we should do an album of remixes.
These are re-records.
We've re-recorded every song, and also to include songs that are less well-known because nobody would play them during the lockdown and everything else.
We wrote this stuff during lockdown, but it was just stuff that we enjoyed doing.
We didn't necessarily plan to release it.
So when we did the album, it's basically half and half. It's 50 re-recordings of established tracks, and the other half is brand new stuff, which includes a new single, Spiritual War.

What was the video clip I saw of you? What's a German band? I loved it.

The Streichfrieder. That's on the album too. Yeah, exactly. Well, they're a German umpire band, what do you call it? That's how they make their living.
And we did a radio thing down in Germany some time ago. And it was somebody else's idea, why don't they play on Too Sexy and we'll record it and do a carpool type thing.
And to be honest, I mean, I'm useless at stuff like this. I would be the most hopeless A&R man ever to walk the earth.
Because I just thought, this is going to be rubbish. And it's gone mental.
Everybody loves it. So what do I know? Yeah, and they're great.
They did a really good job. I went and did the vocal.
And we drove around, I can't remember what town we were in.
I don't know, it was in Germany somewhere, I can't remember.
But the German fan base has been really good and the support of German radio has been really good.
And it's less, it seems to be less fan-driven in Germany, but I can't be sure about that.

Of course, it was what, last year, you released your autobiography.

It was August last year,
Tell us about that. What has that been like? People can find your life warts and all.
I know that in the book.
Tell us about that.

Well, Omnibus came to us with the idea and we worked with a guy called John McIver who has done a lot of that sort of rock and pop autobiography stuff.
But I think what happened was, in my memory, we agreed all this prior to the first lockdown.
And then when Fred and I started of making the mistake of having an opinion and actually verbalizing it.
Omnibus walked away, and so did everybody else. So, yeah. So, bookshops and Waterstones was one.
And in fact, back in the early days, it was WH Smith that was the most supportive, amazingly.
But yeah, it was scuppered from day one, basically, because of who we are and what we say.
So the thing is, with the sensitive issue, it's not that you're specifically told not to say something.
You just know that if you do say something you will lose that job or that placement or whatever it happens to be, it's censorship in all but name actually.
I grew up in a country, I thought I grew up in a country where saying what you thought and being a little bit out of the box, particularly for a pop musician you're expected to be a little bit out of the box.
So I was stunned, Fred and I were both absolutely stunned when it became clear that 99% of artists, basically bought the story, and the people who didn't were ostracized.
I mean, one good example was Eric Clapton, who merely told the story of the effect of the jab on him, and I think he lost the use of his hands for I don't know how long for, but enough for him to worry.
And he merely did an interview, that's all he did. He didn't say, do this or don't do that, he just told his story.
And the flack he got for it was depressing. So there's been a bit of learning curve, this is not necessarily the country that I thought it was.
Certainly not my dad, he would have been amazed actually, I think.

Because you kind of think music industry, you kind of think it's raging against the system, it's saying what it wants, it's standing up for independence and freedom and to hell with anyone else.
And yet it seems to fold and accept whatever mandates, controls, or restrictions are put in place, which is strange.

It is, yeah. I mean, if you go back into the 60s, when people like Joan Baez and Country Joe and the Fish and Bob Dylan and all these people were talking about, one, directly or indirectly about the war in Vietnam or race riots or whatever it happens to be, pop music and pop culture was at the forefront of that.
And you didn't have to agree with their position, but they were allowed to have that position and make it known publicly.
That is not the situation that we are in now in the West. It doesn't matter what particular position, what subject you're talking about.
It's almost impossible not to offend and transgress upon somebody's sensitivities.
And it cripples everything.
It cripples speech. It cripples behaviour. And when we've been doing some radio interviews, What's interesting is, when you're on mic, the story is, the interviewer is very cagey about their position, but once the mic's off, and it's all, you know, it's not being recorded, the general consensus is, you know, I agree with what you're saying.
And we've had that from musicians, musicians who don't say a word in public, and then we get these emails, or Facebook stuff, saying, keep going, guys, you know, it's great.
And then they'll all take the jab to do a pub gig. It's just a,
frankly, I think they've all been, it's shameful. I mean, it's, yeah, I can't think of a nice thing to say about people like Pink or anybody else.

Well, the one nice thing we can is your website. And this is what people will find.
rightsaidfred.com, I'm sure I recognize that warehouse from somewhere.
I'm sure I've been there.
Tell us about, yeah, the merchandise, all of that, what people can find on the website.

Well, a few years ago, we tried to design our own T-shirts and merch, and it was such a disaster.
It was absolute, nobody thought that anything we thought was funny.
Nobody else said it was funny.
So we've been, we've got, in fact, in the storage, we've got bucket loads, boxes and boxes of T-shirts that we designed, that nobody wants.
But this stuff designed by the guys at Plastic Head through Steve Beatty have done a really, really good job. and lots of different takes on a theme.
And amazingly enough, they are t-shirts that I wouldn't be embarrassed to wear.
The one you see, the ghost behind Fred, is obviously me.
And that was the one that came out of the box first. But there are dozens and dozens of alternatives to that.

Yeah, there's the Spiritual War song.

Yeah, Bob Moran.

I mean, how did that link up with Bob? Because Bob has kind of summed up what's been happening in his imagery.
And then you bring the music to it. And it's fascinating to have those two sides of, I guess, the artistic, the creative art coming together and enforcing it.
I mean, how did that come together?

Well, we went to Bob because we've met Bob on several functions and stuff about this. And we got to know him, we got to like him.
And so we sent him, we asked if he would do graphics to the song.
And we sent him the lyrics. And we made it clear that, one, we were prepared to pay for it.
And two, that if he didn't want to do it and didn't like the song, fine, it didn't matter.
But he loved the song, his wife loved the song, and they agreed to do it for nothing.
Although the original of that artwork now is up for a bucketload of money.
And he's done a brilliant job. I think it's absolutely, absolutely brilliant.
And it makes you laugh. I mean, the picture of Sam Smith in the bottom right-hand corner, where he's just hysterical.

Its just hysterical, the thing is, the thing what I like is I like the fact that, the pop industry has become incredibly po-faced, I think. It's incredibly up its own rear end, you know.
And if we were all just, you know, working on a cure for Alzheimer's or cancer, I could understand it, but it's pop music.
And I think it's incredibly important to be passionate about what you do.
So being passionate about pop music, I'm behind that.
But be passionate about comment. Be passionate about everything other than doing what the corporates tell you.
And there's an awful lot of that corporate stuff going on right now.
And the reason I think a lot of artists are quiet is maybe it's because their label doesn't want them to speak out their management, their publishing, publishers there. I don't know. It doesn't matter who it is. I know from our experience, if we were still signed to our old label, we would have had phone calls. Can you not say that? Can you apologize for that? Can you know, and you've got to, you've got to say what you think. I just, life is too short for this nonsense. I know, I know it sounds corny, But when I'm shaving in the mirror, would I be able to look at myself happily if I had been bullshitting for the last two and a half years?
No, I wouldn't. No. So it was we were between rock and hard place.
We just had to do what we what we wanted to do. And the the fallout was the thing that surprised us more than anything else.

Well, I know that many viewers and listeners will want to go on the website and get all the merchandise.
And in doing that, supporting you as you have spoken out and being a voice, I guess, in the wilderness in the entertainment industry. So definitely.

Yes, it has been a bit of a... I was kind of torn between being really angry that nobody more famous spoke out, and thinking, well, you know, in a way, if somebody more famous spoke out, they'd get all the attention.

That's true.

I was kind of... I was split, really, you know. But yeah, it was so clear to me. I mean, If you have a memory at all, and you look back to the days of John Smith or Robin Cook or Peter Shaw, imagine any of those people crying on a TV show like Matt Hancock did.
It's not worthy of respect at all. And I think we have to, you know, the people say you get the newspapers you deserve, and maybe we're getting the politicians we deserve.

Yeah.
Perhaps I think so, yeah.
I want to discuss the whole issue on pride. It's always good to talk to people where your backgrounds are just so obvious.
I mean, I'd be very socially conservative, grew up in a very traditional church.
I want to understand your background, I guess the whole gay rights during whatever, 80s, 90s, and then before we jump into where we are at moment with pride and the alphabet soup. But I mean, set the scene. What was, for you as someone who's gay, what was that like, kind of fighting and standing up and trying to get those, I guess, freedoms and rights?

Well, it didn't really, it didn't dawn on me at all. When I was living in the countryside, there was one guy in the town who wore orange trousers, and it was always reckoned that he was probably gay. It was the orange trousers that gave it away.
So I had quite a few girlfriends back then, but it never felt like, I never felt I connected. And it's I mean, so it was a really cerebral kind of connection. It just didn't work. And then I moved to London, and I hooked up with an American guy. And then we, and then he went back to America, who now lives in Alaska, I think. And then I met Stuart. And I met Stuart in a bar in Earl's Court, it was almost empty. I made the mistake of winking at him. And then he started walking over I remember thinking oh my god he's walking over oh no no no no no no and we were together for 28 years and that was what, and I think what made me more assertive about it was Stuart, he knew he was gay when he was 12, he told me and uh and my affection for Stuart was um, was so strong that I felt it would be really disrespectful to him to deny it, now I did deny it to start with, and you know the old saying, buy now, gay later.
I don't know if you've ever heard that, but I think it's funny.
Have you not heard that? If you're saying you'll buy, then buy now, gay later.
And it's kind of true, I've got to say.
And when the band first came out, and I came out, I think to The Sun, I think, and in all fairness to The Sun, they were very, very, very sort of civilized.

When did you come out?

When the band first broke. Publicly.
Because I knew that I wouldn't be able to lie. I knew that I couldn't make bullshit. I just couldn't.
But I had this bizarre idea in my head that if I went down to the local newsagents and bought all the copies of the newspaper, nobody would know.
What? Can you honestly believe that? That's what I thought. And I told mum.
She cried for about a year.
By this time, dad had passed away.
And I didn't, I mean, Stuart and I, we lived in Fulham at the time, and we used to walk past Stanford Bridge, the football ground, hand in hand. And Stuart was 17 when we first met.
And it never crossed my mind that it was an issue. I couldn't understand for the life of me why anybody would think our, the affection we have for each other was of any concern of anybody else's.
I couldn't understand it, actually. It was really surprising to me.
Stuart worked for Stonewall, I think, for a very short amount of time.
But what was interesting to me, and we'll get on to it at some point about the idea of community, the gay community thing, when Stuart was ill, he was ill on and off for quite a long time, all the people that cared for Stuart, including me, apart from me, were all straight.
His carer was straight, his live in helper, the daily helper was straight.
We never got one call from any of the gay agencies, none of them.
I don't think Stuart got a call even from Stonewall, despite the fact he'd worked there.
So I agree with Douglas Murray on this matter. I think that there is no such thing as a gay community.
It's just a whole bunch of gay people who think they're in a community.
They're not, they're not, and also being gay is not that interesting or special.
It just is, it's like talking about the shoe size or it's like talking about your hair colour or whatever, it just simply is. And there are plenty of people out there who have tried to turn it into some kind of brave campaign. And there's no doubt about it, for some people coming out, it does require a certain bravery, it demands a certain self-confidence and a decision in your own head that regardless of the result, the reaction we're going to get, you will stick by what you are.
So I wouldn't say, but brave is a bit of a big word, I think, for coming out.
I'm not sure that it is that. But unfortunately, we now have LGBTQ blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's become something else. It's morphed into a blancmange of colours and numbers and letters.
And it doesn't speak to me, and it doesn't speak to many, many, many gay people.
And Douglas Murray talks about, he talks about when you see a low loader lorry at a pride and a bunch of gay disco bunnies all dancing to disco music, thinking that they're significant because they're gay.
They're not. They're not. They're just gay. It's really, really simple.
And it should be. In fact, I think, in a funny kind of way, the fact that the flag is so important to to some people, tells us that we haven't really moved on at all.
What would be interesting to me is that nobody cares. You don't need a flag.
You don't need to wave, do a pride march or anything else, because it is what it is.
And we accept that in the same way that you don't have an immigrant day, or a black day, or a Jewish day, or whatever. A month, actually.
So I would be much happier if the flag was unnecessary, and we just assumed that every bank, and every retail outlet, every corporation was gay friendly whatever the word is but you know tolerant and and unmoved by it you know so in a way I think this is what we're seeing now is a regressive, it's regressive rather than progressive I think back in the day as I said earlier when there was there was a political movement and Section 28 and all that stuff had to be fought.
I get that, I really do get that, but we're in a post-liberation moment now.
And I've said to Peter Tatchell a couple of times actually, some gay people, some gay men, think that liberation is to do with the amount of sex you have, as opposed to the love that you feel.
I think that's a really, for me, that's quite an interesting dichotomy, I think, that gay people measure their liberation by the sex they have, as opposed to being honest about the love they feel.

That's a conversation I've kind of had with most of the people I've known who have been gay in work, in all different areas, and that's kind of the conversation, that they seem to be someone who goes from partner to partner, there's no monogamous relationship and they're happy to, over a few drinks, which I always think is strange to regale their exploits.

This is true. But why is that? But yeah, you will you will get that anyway.
But it's it seems to be that they never settled down.
And it's always this. And is that kind of I've always kind of looked from the outside and thought, that's maybe just the thing that happens in the gay community, which we will touch a little bit.
But yeah, tell us more of that.

Well, I think it's, I mean, I'm not against gay sex clubs. I've been to them. I'm not against saunas. I'm not against any of that. But I think the focus, and as I've got older, and now Stuart died 13 years ago, and I still think about him every single day. So what I'm confronted with is, What is that?
And now I can't do casual stuff, I'm just not interested in it.
Whereas I did back in the day.
So I think some gay men are very, how can I say this? I don't want anybody to be offended by this, but I get the feeling a bit disconnected.
A bit disconnected from their true feelings and what then their true wants and needs.
And some men, in the same way that some men find it difficult, straight men to talk prostate cancer, some gay men find it difficult to talk about love and to talk about genuine affection. And I think that's something that needs addressing, but it might be one of those things that just happens organically over the years. We're actually still in quite a new period now with gayness, if you like, and homosexuality being so readily acceptable by so many people.
So it may change over time. But I do think at the moment, I think there's too much of an emphasis on, as you say, the one-night stand and the sex clubs and all that.
And I've done all that, and it was deeply unsatisfying.
One of the things I do think, I've always thought this, I'm sure straight people think that gay sex is absolutely brilliant.
And it really is not.
It can be just as crap as straight sex. So let's not get the jealous thing going on.
I do get this feeling that they think, some straight guy thought, I wish I was gay, then I could be doing this and that. No, it's not.
It can be just as rubbish as anything else. But I think the rainbow thing and the LGBT thing has changed out of all recognition to what I understood it to be when it started.
So I've never liked the expression queer. I hate that expression.
It's an ugly word. I have nothing in common with trans. I'm not against trans at all.
I think people are entirely entitled to live their life as they choose.
But it has nothing to do with my life choices and the things that I'm seeking.
So that the LGBTQ blah blah blah is a meaningless...
It's a clown car, it's nonsense, and the alphabet people doesn't really interest me at all.
In fact, I went to a march, well I didn't go to the march, I went to a watch a march back in the day, and it didn't speak to me at all, it just didn't.
I looked at these people, it could have been a celebration of ceramics, or anything.
I looked at them and thought, is this me? No, it's not, it's not me at all.
And I think there are lots of gay people out there, lots of gay guys out there like that.
And it's important to remember that lesbians and gay men want very different things, they have different demands, different wishes. And so I'm also very cynical about corporate endorsement. When I see the flag outside Barclays, or the flag outside Couts, or whatever, or the multi-coloured lighting inside a cathedral, come on, don't treat me like an idiot. This is Corporate, cynical, paper-thin support, means nothing.
And in a way, if you need to protest that loudly, you've probably got a problem.

I remember going to Heathrow the other week, Walking in through one of the walkways on terminal two, I think it was, and the whole ceiling was lit up with, I thought, why, why, I just, I'm here because I want to flight, and yet, this is, it's pervading every part and it's, you want to flight, would you like a, a gay flight, would you like a trans flight, I'd just like a, a form of transport to get me from A to B.

Exactly. It's become, I mean, there's an estate agent around the corner, and first of all, a few months ago, they had thank the NHS everywhere. Now they've got the flag. It's this kind of knee-jerk reaction to whatever is happening at the time. I think my brother made the point, and I think it's a good point. For some people, the gay flag denotes for them, particularly if they live in more remote areas, it shows a level of support for them.
So if there's a little flag in their local post office, it means they can walk in and feel relaxed about it.
I understand the importance of the flag in those circumstances.
But the corporate thing, I think we need to be very, very cynical about that.
And there was a thing the other day, my brother was telling me about Zebra Crossing, which is now painted in the rainbow colours.
And some gay activists were complaining that there were rubber marks on the thing, and they were saying, we've got to stamp out this hate.
I mean, sorry, you know, you can't get your head around the idiocy of it.
And of course, some people thrive on this, some people need a cause, they need to have something.
Just simply living their life and looking after their friends and family and getting a job and all that stuff is just not enough. They have to be shouting and screaming about something.

Why is that? Because again with this kind of groupings, identities.
And I know when, I remember coming to London 20 years ago, and you would connect with people who would be like-minded on, it could be on religion, it could be on pets, it could be on their workplace.
And kind of, for me, my first thought was not to introduce myself as a heterosexual, that that would not, and kind of, in one way you're looking for friendship and therefore you're not kind of thinking, of the sexuality in terms of it.
Why is it that kind of, so I perceive it's always pushed to be a grouping that has to be gathered around sex, and that has to be your prime identity, where surely it should just be one of many parts of you.

I agree, I absolutely agree with that. I think the people do, the people, there are some guys, that I used to know, and they would only ever watch gay movies, they'd only ever buy gay books, they'd only ever read a gay newspaper, their whole life was enveloped in the gay world, if you like. So they weren't connecting to the world beyond. And me being gay is the smallest part of me, really, actually. I mean, it's a very small... When I was with Stuart, it's a much bigger part of me, because that was part of my life. But now Stuart's gone, it's retreated in a way, and it's still... It's an important part of me, but it's not the most important part of me. And I agree with you. If I was meeting people, I would not introduce myself, hello, my name's Richard Fairbrass, I'm a gay man and I'm a singer, you know. I wouldn't do that.

So it's, the thing is, if you look at the, I mean, there's a thing in the picture of the White House with, you've seen the flags, you know, and there is something weird going on. There's definitely something weird going on. I don't know what it is. I think the gay, the LGBT flag thing has been co-opted by a whole lot of people who truly don't really give a crap about gay liberation or rights or anything, they're using it as a way of salving their conscience or polishing their halo.
Douglas Murray thinks it's because, I'm not sure he's right about this, but he says after 2008, when all the banks absolutely screwed the world economy, the cheapest thing for them to do, to polish their credentials, was to come out as pro-gay. So whether that's true or not, I don't know. I met Stuart, in fact going back to the thing about the gay support groups and stuff, when I first came to London.
The first thing I did actually was find, it was called Icebreakers, I think it was called.
And it was just a small group of gay people in London that you could go along on one evening a week and get a level of support.
Now, I'd come up to London from Sussex, and I didn't have any knowledge about this.
I knew that I was probably gay, but I didn't really know how to express that or what it meant.
So I went to this thing, and then that's when I met the American guy, and then he went back to America, and then I met Stuart. So that's how that worked out. But back in the day,
and of course, we had the whole Section 28 and the whole AIDS thing back then, which changed the flavour of it a lot. Some of the British press were absolutely horrendous. The gay plague, it became, and it didn't help at all, particularly living with somebody who was positive. Stuart was positive nearly all the time we were together and it was incredibly hurtful that you know the don't die of ignorance and the you know the gravestone falling over and sadly we didn't have any politician, Lady Di performed an extraordinary you know positive had a positive image on the whole thing but sadly politicians were horrible and they are now actually I mean the House of Commons now is exactly the same it's compliant it's overall they're one or members obviously speaking out but overall it's compliant, it's weak, it's showing no leadership, it doesn't seem to have a moral compass and it is trashing rights and freedoms that previous generations in this country have fought for really hard and they're just paying it no heed at all.
I don't think it's changed much. I think the gay thing is just one issue amongst many that have shown some people up to be less than we hoped. And I would say also, if you imagine when that idiot Springsteen was saying, you can only come to my show if you've been jabbed. Imagine him saying that in 1982, you can only come to my gig if you're HIV negative. We wouldn't tolerate it. Nobody would tolerate it. But for some inexplicable reason, we are tolerating it now. I don't understand.

Tell me about how you see the change happening in where we are now in the whole alphabet soup from gay rights.
Was it because people thought actually now there was the same legal rights and protections for the gay community, so it's simply moving on?
I mean, surely if you're working for something and you complete it, then you shut up shop.
How did, how has that moved over into that? And why did it just not finish off and go on to, I don't know, the right for pets or something? I don't know.

Oh, I think I think a lot of it is to do with people who, as I said earlier, who absolutely need to have a crusade of one kind or another.
So in the early days, it was, you know, LGB, then it became LGBT, then it became, you know, it just moves on. And there's a whole group of people within whether it was back in the day, the pink newspaper or or whatever it happens to be, there's there's a group of people whose lives have been defined by the position they've taken. And they won't, they don't want to let it go. You can't, in a way you can't blame them. So when there's, and suddenly there's a trans issue, Oh, we'll stick that in as well. That'll keep us going.
Um, and I think that's truthfully, I think that's all it is. I mean, the trans trans rights issue. I, one of the questions I've, my brother and I ask all the time when they talk about trans rights, what rights do they not have? That's what I don't understand. They're not, you know, I wish somebody would tell me I can't do this or I can't do that. I wish somebody would would tell me what rights they don't have, but I have, but we went through a very difficult time when I was with Stuart at the time, and you tend to forget, he worked at BT and was sacked because nobody would touch his computer.
We knew people in aerobics classes who wouldn't share mats with anybody else. It was a very, very, very weird time, and I had fag scratched on my car and I was spat out in the street and all that kind of stuff, you know, and it is infinitely better now. I mean, really, the difference is huge. But where it goes,
I would hope that the movement, the LGBT blah, blah, blah, would kind of just fizzle out. And like I said earlier, I would be much happier if we just didn't need it, because people were already fully on board with the rights that other people have to lead their lives as they choose.
So in a way, the flag and our obsession with the flag and our obsession with these communities such as they are, or whatever, is a sign that we haven't moved on, and in a way you could claim that we're actually going in the wrong direction.
Is a straight person likely to be persuaded to be tolerant because they see a disco bunny on the back of a lorry?
Personally, I don't think so. I think a lot of this, and it sounds really old-fashioned, but I think it's how you lead your life.
And I think if you lead, you have to lead your life as you would other people, as you would wish other people to lead it.
And the best way to encourage people to be tolerant and to try and understand it is to be gay or to be whatever you want to be and lead your life in a constructive and tolerant manner, which is why trans movement people shouting and screaming at the top of their voices and gluing themselves to whatever, they want to stop all oil people.
That's never going to do it.
It's never, ever, ever going to do it. You're going to have to lead by example.
That's what you have to do. But sadly, we have a house of commons, which is empty of people capable of leading by example.

Tell me about, because we've seen what's happening with another lobby organization, BLM, and how the finance for that seems to be fancy-driven.
And then kind of looking into Stonewall and seeing the money that is raised from simply government departments signing up and schools signing up.
It seems to have moved away from an issue of rights to simply an ability to generate money and airtime and noise.
Is that a fair assessment?

I think it is. Also, I think it's like the SNP. I think it's symptomatic of people who fail to understand the old saying, they know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
It's that. And like I said earlier, in terms of the BLM or whatever it is.
There was bucket loads of money coming in, and you had some people in that grouping who were impressed by money.
They weren't impressed by the campaign or the efforts they were making to achieve more equitable race relations in America, say.
Suddenly there's a million pounds in the bank. It's like, oh, wow, this is the way to go.
This is brilliant. I'll buy a house.
You know, and that's, it's people just, in the same way I'd go back to it.
But but the reason so many artists were so quiet during this whole two years, three years, whatever it is, is because of money.
They were either paid to come across and flog the jab, which they knew nothing about, or they were quiet because they wanted to make a few quid and do some gigs.
That's and that's it's the same old stuff, you know, and I haven't, I don't have any time for it.
I don't have any respect for those people. So I've had to take a whole load of acts out of my iPod, sadly.
I just can't listen to that stuff.

The whole trans stuff. And I now see a backlash.
LGB Alliance, for instance, then standing up against this. And whenever the LG certainly movement was about understanding who you are, and then choosing that, where the T seems to be, well, you can decide over breakfast what you want to be, and you can bet, and that seems to take away from any rights that have been forced, if someone can pick and choose so easily at whim.
That T, which seems to be, I would even use the term cancerous, the damage that it seems to have caused, that aggression, and you see trans lobbyists just beating up gay right activists or lesbians, and I think this is bonkers.

It is, it is, I know. I think the trouble is that the original idea of LGB... LGB kind of made sense. And now, because so much stuff has been tacked on, we're being forced to look at it afresh and decide, actually, what is this grouping of people?
How real is it? And I don't think back in the day when there was a political campaign to work and to get some satisfaction on Section 28 and all that stuff, I don't think it mattered too much.
I think everybody was too busy with that campaign.
And now the campaign's over, and so much so that gay men can get married, gay men can, I mean, all those rights are all there now. But some people still need to fight for something.
They always do, and tacking the T on, and then tacking the Q on, and all that kind of stuff.
It's just a way of keeping this-

And the two spirit, don't forget about that.
That is vital.

Yeah, I know, I know. It's just, I mean, to be honest with you, the minute I see that, when I get to Q, I can't be bothered anymore.
I just can't, I don't care, I don't care who all those people are.
I don't, it doesn't interest me in the slightest. And I think, I remember with Stuart on a couple of occasions, I'm remember saying to Stuart, I said, if you're in love with somebody, being gay is as fantastic and as amazing as being straight and being in love with somebody, there is no difference.
I would have taken a bullet for Stuart, absolutely. I was never in any doubt about that.
And that is what it is. And in a way, it's trivialized by this weird kind of faux politicking.
Even the expression gay pride is nonsensical.
You can't take pride in your shoe size. You can't take pride in your hair colour or anything else.
You take pride in what you've achieved. you haven't achieved being gay, you just are.
So pride in itself is a nonsense. It's linguistic rubbish. And I don't have any time for rubbish. Life's too short.

It was said, I think Jordan Peterson put up an image of Satan falling from heaven, and it was, pride comes before a fall.
And it's weird, because as a Christian, that's how I see it. Pride being something negative, being one of the seven deadly sins, and now its celebrated. I was scratching my head, thinking, how did we get here?

Yeah, exactly. No, I've never, I mean, I understand a no shame day.
I get that. There's nothing shameful about being gay, but being proud of it, I mean, if you make a little cabinet out of wood, then you'll really, you'll be proud of it.
This is, I've made this. This is great, you know, but being proud of being me, just what I am, I just, I'm proud of the records. I'm proud of song writing, things we've achieved, but not simply stuff that I'm, that I've genetically been given.
It doesn't, that I'd had nothing to do with.
That doesn't seem to be sensible to me. It's interesting you should say that.
Andrew Lawrence was saying the other day that Pride Month is very greedy, because it's a whole month.
It's really greedy, isn't it? So you've got greed, then you've got pride, as you say, two of the deadly sins right in there.
It's, I don't know, it just never, the 2 million, I mean, on Armistice Day, what do they do, get three minutes?
And we get a month, really? You know, it's nonsense.
It's a complete and utter, it's tokenistic politicking of the most crass kind.
I just don't have anything to do with it. If anything, we should have a month of remembrance for the guys who sacrificed their lives in the First and Second World War, or whatever.
And a three-minute silence for pride. Pride three minutes or no shame three minutes, whatever you want to call it. But a month, come on, it's self-aggrandizement of the most awful kind. I just don't get it.

What are your... you mentioned Stonewall and you mentioned Stuart who worked for them back in the days and how do you,
My big issue with Stonewall and maybe similar organizations is the push to bring something which I don't think should be brought into schools. I think there's one thing having a public conversation and having that out, but when you bring something in schools, especially with little parental engagement and conversation, it seems to cross a line.
I mean, what? Yeah, because when you go into most schools, you see the rainbow up for this month, and you think, is that really part of what education is about?

No, no, it's what propaganda is about.
It's nothing to do with education.
The other thing, the two things I think, that first of all, there's a kind of a reluctance to believe in innocence, which I think children have.
And I don't think it's adults' job or business to try and corrupt that at all.
I think we should allow kids to be as innocent for as long as possible.
Adult life is absolutely hellish. Who wants to encourage them to become an adult any sooner than they have to.
And the other thing I think is that this MAPS thing, which I've seen conflated with the LGBT thing, is really, really, really disgraceful.
It certainly doesn't do the gay movement, whatever you want to call it, any favours.
It speaks to a kind of perversion and ignorance. The power relationship between children and adults is a reality.
And when adults deceive themselves into thinking that it's possible for a child to love an adult or an adult to love a child, it's complete and utter nonsense.
It's also disrespectful. And also the journey that I made from being a child, working my way through to knowing who I am was my journey.
That's my journey. I don't want anybody else to take it away from me.
I don't want some twerking idiot in my primary school when I was a kid taking away my journey.
It's mine. I think in a funny kind of way we're stealing something from people to find their own route. And once again, it's reminiscent of the fat jab that we're now looking at with the NHS. It's removing from people any sense of self-reliance, any sense of self-responsibility. Let the state do it. I'm going to have 12 burgers tonight because tomorrow I'm getting a jab. You know, it's nonsense. The whole thing is nonsense and, under a so-called conservative government it's quite bizarre. But I agree with you. I think
the school thing is very worrying. If I had kids I would probably do home-schooling or I'd find and a school set up outside of the main curriculum where there was more parental control.
Not control necessarily, but information, more understanding.
And we know a charity on the South Coast, HOPE, H-O-P-E, and their thing is about teaching in a much more holistic way and not propagandizing the whole time.
And they are snowed under with interest from parents. So there is a market for this.
And as we saw with Mulvaney, and as we saw with Target, and all these other, you know, there is a pushback against this nonsense gradually.
What I don't understand is, as somebody quite rightly pointed out, when it comes to people talking, you know, the drag queens talking to children, why don't they read stories to elderly people?

Yeah.
That's true.

I wonder why. Yeah. Yeah, it's worrying, I think.

Just to finish off on, can I, you talked about it fizzling out what we've seen with the many letters of the alphabet. That could
happen. My other concern is that it will build up a lot of anger with many people who say this isn't right and depending on how as more and more letters get added onto it, and you obviously talk about minor attracted person and that, and people will get more and more angry and it could flare up and I'm kind of
hoping that it does fizzle out but my concern is that actually it keeps ramping up and you have an overspill of anger against it.

Yes I think that's true
I think it's also very damaging, some of this is very damaging to the efforts that gay homosexual people have to live a normal life. It's politicizing what shouldn't be politicized in the first place.

I would like it, like you, I would like it to fizzle out. I don't know whether I agree with you about it getting ramped up.
I honestly don't know about that. But what I do think is that we have in this country at the moment some incredibly stupid politicians who do not understand.

Some?

Who do not understand the importance of culture and tribe and all that stuff.
And having the importance of a moral compass, the importance of understanding what's changing in this country and how to manage it, they're just letting it rip.
So I think schooling is a really big issue with the gay community.
I think gay people need to think long and hard about what they actually want.
What do we actually want? Do we want to be pantomime dames?
Do we want to be on the back of a lorry with a feather boa, shouting and screaming at people who are just taking cameras and stuff? It's all terribly funny.
Do we really want to be, I think Missouri in America with a guy with his trousers around his back, having his backside whipped by somebody, I mean, it's absurd.
It's absurd. So we need to, frankly, we need to grow up.
That's why I think it needs to happen. I think just if you want to put it in blatant sort of silly, a very sort of pithy expression. We need to grow up. We need to see that all that stuff is fine.
It's absolutely fine. But it's not what we are. It's not the whole. It's by no means the whole story. It's one tiny part of the whole story. I've got two friends married, two guys married up in the north country and they've got a B&B and they run their lives and they're just two guys.
They don't saunter down the road like Sam Smith in stilettos and sparkling knickers and all that stuff. They're just two blokes. And I think we need to grow up and stop being quite so impressed with ourselves, you know?

Richard, thanks for coming on. It's insightful, certainly from my point of view, to have your thoughts on what we're seeing.
So thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts on The Madness of Pride.

Thank you. Thanks Peter.

I'm just saying what you provided one of the most surreal moments, certainly of this year, maybe longer.
And that was with you, with Nigel Farage on GB News, Nigel beginning to take his shirt off, dancing to I'm Too Sexy.
That probably was one of the most surreal images of the year.
So thank you for providing that.

Nigel's good, he's got a good sense of humour, Nigel. I like him.

Wonderful.
So the viewers can make sure go to rightsaidfred.com, take advantage of all the merchandise that you see there.
And what Plastichead have done is phenomenal. And you'll not be short of anything.
And maybe Richard and Fred will get some of those, the B roll stuff that they have hidden away that they did. Maybe that'll come out later as special.
But thank you, Richard, for your time.

It's a pleasure, Peter.