00:00How would we know that we're beginning to imagine a different world, even within this hyper-real one?
00:05You ask what real change might look like, and I think it's a really, I mean, that is a really interesting question for liberals and radicals.
00:13Because there is a hunger for change out there among millions of people who feel sort of insecure, uncertain about the future, and do want something, do want that to change.
00:22I think that change only comes through a big imaginative idea, a sort of picture of another kind of future, which connects with that fearfulness in the back of people's minds and offers them a release from it.
00:35That's the key thing. But I think the question for liberals and radicals is that they are always suspicious of big ideas.
00:43That's what lurks underneath the liberal mindset. And the reason is, and they're quite right in a way, is look what happened last time.
00:52When millions of people got swept up in a big idea, look at the last hundred years at what happened in Russia and then in Germany.
01:00The point is, is that change, political change is frightening. It's scary. It's thrilling because it is dynamic and it's doing something to change the world.
01:10But it is scary because it can change things in ways where nothing is secure.
01:16It's like being in an earthquake. Even the solid ground underneath you begins to move and things dissolve that you think are solid and real.
01:23And I think that the question liberals and the left have to face at the moment is a really sort of difficult question, which is, do you really want change?
01:34Do you really want it? Because if you do, many of them might find themselves in a very uncertain world where they might lose all sorts of things.
01:45I mean, what we're talking about in many cases is people who are sort of at the centre of society at the moment.
01:52They're not out of the margins. They would have a lot to lose from real political change because it really would change things in the structure of power.
02:00Or, and this is the brutal question, do you just want things to change a little bit?
02:07Do you just want the banks to be a little bit nicer, say, or people to be a little more respectful of each other's identities, all of which is good.
02:16But basically, you carry on living in a nice world where you tinker with it.
02:23That's the key question. But you can't just sit there forever worrying about big ideas because there are millions of people out there who do want change.
02:35And the key thing is they feel they've got nothing to lose.
02:38You might have lots to lose, but they feel they've got absolutely nothing to lose.
02:42But at the moment, they're being led by the right.
02:47So things won't remain the same.
02:49But society may go off in ways that you really don't want.
02:52So what you, I think, I mean, in answer to your question, what you need is a powerful vision of the future.
02:59With all its dangers.
03:01But it's also quite thrilling.
03:03It would be an escape from the staticness of the world that we have today.
03:06And to do that, you've got to engage with the giant forces of power that now run the world at the moment.
03:14You might, and the key thing is, is in confronting those powers and trying to transform the world, you might lose a lot.
03:24This is a sort of forgotten idea, is that actually you surrender yourself up to a big idea.
03:29And in the process, you might lose something.
03:31But you'd actually gain in a bigger sense, because you'd change the world for the better.
03:37I know it sounds soppy, but sort of this is the forgotten thing about politics, is that you give up some of your individualism to something bigger than yourself.
03:47You surrender yourself.
03:48And it's a lost idea.
03:50And I think, really, in answer to your question, is you can spot real change happening when you see people from the liberal middle classes beginning to give themselves up to something.
04:01Surrender themselves for something bigger than themselves.
04:04And at the moment, there is nothing like that in the liberal imagination.
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