'I vaccinate my kids against woke!' Martin Daubney SLAMS 'toxic masculinity' cancer | GB Dads

I'll give them the hardest time they've ever had. They brought shame to my door and that's why I was brought up. I understood the bond between me and my parents was don't bring shame to this front door. If a copper ever knocked on my front door, I don't know if I'd live to tell the tale. It took me a while to figure out why am I having some of these feelings and I do think it is. It's a difficult thing for me to go on television and admit. I think the biggest thing about becoming a parent is the surrender of ego and you have to accept that you're not the apple of your wife's eye anymore. At first you're like, is it jealousy? Am I just being cut out? No, it's biology. I'm afraid that's against the law, so we're going to have to go back to your mother. We had a great relationship when it was just the two of us, but then there is that change that happens. You add a little team member or a couple or a few in your case. I thought you've got five sides. Well, hello everybody and welcome to GB Dads. This is the show where some familiar faces to GB News, politicians, celebrities, etc. We all get together and talk about what it's like to be a dad and issues around men and boys, issues that don't get spoken about enough anywhere. So a lot of my panel don't need any introduction really. I'm going to let you introduce yourselves and say what qualifies you to be on the GB Dads sofa here. Nigel, I'll start with you. Okay, I'm Nigel Nelson. What qualifies me to be here is I've got five children. They're all grown up now, aged from their 40s or 30s, so I'm no longer responsible for them and they live their own lives. And the sense of relief coming off Nigel there is marvellous, isn't it, Jake? So I'm Jake Richards. Great to be here. I'm the Minister appointed to try and lead some cross-government work on men and boys and the challenges they face and the opportunities that they might have. But perhaps more importantly, I've got a two-year-old. She turns three next week, so a relatively new dad as well. Fantastic stuff. Martin, go on. Well, it's my second time on GB Dads. So yeah, Martin Dormley, father of two, boy is 17. He was like that big a few years ago. Now he's in bed after the Reading Festival. They grow up fast. Got a daughter who's 12. Her name is Dolly. They know her from the late, great Dolly Parton. She's beautiful and life changes a heck of a lot. Mainly you lose all your money and your life when you have kids. But anyway... I've got a son called George who is going to be one on the 5th of September. So at the time of filming, we are two days away from his first birthday. So there you go. Jake, I'm going to start with you. There's some really, really interesting stuff going on when it comes to men and boys and a bit of a plan or a strategy or some action there to try to help them out. A lot of forgotten boys, I think, and men, especially white working class boys. Go on, talk to us about some of the work that you're doing. Well, just like the reason GB News are doing this show, I think there is a renewed kind of consciousness across the country that we need to talk about and think about some of the challenges that boys, young men and men face. And they are really particular challenges. So if you think about, for example, mental health, next week, actually, is Suicide Prevention Week. We know that suicide is the biggest killer of men aged under 50 in this country. So are we doing everything we can as a government, as a society, to try and make sure that all our services are looking out for those men who are going through difficult times? If you think about early years, we know, unfortunately, that boys, when they arrive at school, were far, far more likely to just not be ready in lots of different ways, whether that is developmental, whether that is physically even. And then academically, later in school, girls do much better than boys. So what's going wrong? In the Education Department, is the relevant ministers thinking about what boys need specifically? And then also, you know, youth unemployment, a huge issue in this country, which I know that GB News has spoken about a lot. We know, again, that young men, boys are far more likely to be unemployed or not in educational training when they hit 18 to 25. So when we're making policy in government, when we're talking about this as a society, are we really understanding of those specific challenges and reasons that men are perhaps disproportionately affected by some of the challenges we face as a country? So as a parent, then, how do you feel about this plan, I suppose, to try to help boys, specifically help young boys? Well, I'm very glad that it's finally getting some traction. I was an ambassador for International Men's Day a long time ago, way before it was fashionable. I sadly lost a couple of friends to suicide. So it really was a bolt from the blue, like, you know, fathers of three, you know, totally happy party people. And we suddenly were no longer with us. Really, that was a shock. No one cared. I tried. This is before Brexit. This is like 2013. No one gave a monkey's, especially about white working class lads. And you've got to understand that, you know, we hear Andy Burnham now bang on about Margaret Thatcher and the abandonment of those areas. But every political party, really, I think has been bad at identifying. It's great to hear that it's going on now. But, you know, the Equality Act came in and suddenly white working class lads in particular were at the bottom of the pile. They were forgotten. In fact, worse than that, they were told they were privileged. I think it's terrible. They're brought up to loathe themselves. They're brought up as the bad guys. They're brought up to believe they're a problem. And no one seems to have their back or care about them. So well done you. I mean, look, I don't agree with everything you said, but I do agree that I think politicians of all different parties, colours, whatever, have not been good enough at speaking about this issue. And there's lots of reasons that we can go into. But I do think that's changing. And again, I do think this is a kind of cross party effort. We're in government at the moment. And I'm pleased that we're doing some good work, I hope. But this has to be cross party because none of this is about party politics. You know, this is about lads, mainly young lads, but men of certain age who are struggling sometimes. And we've got to do much more to help them. Yeah. Five kids. What's the gender breakdown there? It's two girls, three boys. Right. So what did you notice as a father there to the differences between boys and the girls in terms of the upbringing, maybe some of the guidance they needed, maybe your role in that? Yeah, I'm not sure it's about the guidance thing. I think that girls get on with their lives better than boys do. So that's the kind of difference between the two genders. So when it came down to guidance, it was whatever they needed. And in fact, as it turns out, they didn't need that much guidance. Now, when Jake was talking about the various things that government can do, the area where I think it's most important is in jobs, that the fact that we've got a million young people unemployed, I think is a real problem. Now, while all my kids got jobs that they're fine, we have a 17 year old at home, my wife's son, and he's been firing off applications for apprenticeships and often doesn't get replies. Employers need to know that they should do that, because it's very dispiriting not to even get a reaction. He was going to join the RAF having gone to a military school. The recruitment process for the armed forces is abysmal. It's not just him. We've got loads of other people who also went through the same thing. Uniform side is great. Too much has been outsourced to the private sector. The private sector is useless. Delays keep happening. No information is given. Now, all that is very dispiriting for a young man. And that's the kind of area where government can help to do something about it. Is there also a question here of parental responsibility? So I read an article that's on the top of, at the time of filming today's Times newspaper, 300,000 middle class kids who are in homes where their parents are basically propping them up. So they are NEETs, which is not in education and training, etc. We've also got staggering statistics about the number of kids that are growing up in homes where the parents have never worked. So for you, firstly, who were your role models growing up? And what can we do about that, about giving boys or daughters, I suppose, better role models? For me personally, I was lucky. I had a really supportive family and I had a lot of male role models in my life, both familiar ones, but great teachers as well. It doesn't have to be your biological father or your carer who's a male role model. And my granddad was a teacher all his life. He's 94 and he still teaches three evenings a week at 94. And he just loved his job, wanted to educate and did that with his life. And he's given a great decade of service. And Nigel and Patrick, you both hit the nail on the head here, because work and training actually is purpose. What young men need, like young women, but perhaps young men sometimes struggle a bit more, is that sense of purpose that work can give or a project can give them, that then when they don't have that through formal mechanisms, they sometimes go down the rabbit hole in their rooms, on their own, social isolation, and that can lead to real difficulties that we all know about. So it's a massive challenge in terms of government getting jobs. Just finally, you mentioned parental responsibility, because this is an important point, because I think a lot of your viewers will think, well, this government minister's on, what's he going to do? And they're right to a certain extent, because government can't do everything. We don't bring up everyone's kids. Government can do more and we're trying to do more. But ultimately, we need a culture and a society which values parenting and puts some responsibility on parents as well. And actually, just in something I've did as a parenting order, so when kids commit crimes, I want to see the parents as part of the process of sentencing and rehabilitation as well. That's an interesting point. So how would you approach that, Dorbny? Your child, God forbid, goes out and commits a crime. Should you be held accountable for that as a dad, do you think? I'll give them the hardest time they've ever had. They brought shame to my door. That's why I was brought up. I understood the bond between me and my parents was don't bring shame to this front door. If a copper ever knocked on my front door, I don't know if I'd live to tell the tale. I knew, I was afraid. I respected the law. Those boundaries were there. We were a working class community. You respected your family, your street, your neighbourhood, your school, and people on the whole have that social contract, and that's completely gone. Should you be supportive? I mean, when you're talking about bringing shame to your door, is it not, you turn it on its head and actually say, look, what was behind this? What happened? You know, say it's just a bit of cannabis or something like that. So it's enough to actually get you arrested. But it's hardly the greatest crime on earth. Wouldn't you then want to actually, A, be supportive to your child and B, find out what was behind it? Prevention is better than cure. Respect for law and order. Respect for the home. That's what's all missing. But we're talking about something that has actually happened. But that's interesting. I want to put this to you. So Martin said a couple of things there about fear. Now, when I was growing up, I certainly didn't physically fear my parents at all, but I had a fear of disappointing them. I had a fear of getting into trouble at school because there were certain teachers, especially some of the male teachers, that I was a bit afraid of, in a sense. So if your children, say, committed a crime, should they not fear the repercussions of that from you a bit? You sound like you might just give them a hug. I don't like the idea of the word fear. I'd rather they were able to actually come to me and talk about it. I mean, first of all, I want to find out if there's a problem, if there is actually a problem that goes beyond whatever it is that might have been committed. So that's why I use the word support. I mean, it doesn't mean you condone it. It doesn't mean you give them a pat on the back. What it does mean is actually understanding what lay behind it. Jake, on this, because I think there's a fine line, isn't there, between obviously being too hard on people and sometimes being a bit too kind. And actually, I do wonder, when we look at some of the figures now about youth unemployment and about this generation of people that might be really struggling, especially including things like with mental health, etc, whether actually we've been a bit cruel by being too kind sometimes, by mollycoddling people, by allowing them to maybe give in sometimes to all of their feelings and by trying to tell everyone that everyone's super special and all of this. What do we do about that? It's really complex. And actually, the sort of debate we've just had just shows, because of course, you know, there's carrot and stick is the old phrase, which I think I still kind of adhere to. Sometimes you have to be harsh to be kind. But equally, if you're just harsh all the time, it sort of loses its impact and you need to understand the reasons why certain behaviours are happening. I think as a society, we kind of need to get back to basics on some of this stuff. And I think, you know, I represent a constituency not dissimilar to where Martin grew up, working class, ex-pit towns. And when I speak to people, they really worry that those standards, the expectations that were set are no longer there. And we as a government have a part to play in that, absolutely. But we also need communities to come together. One of the things I'm a little bit concerned about here, not concerned, but kind of, is in amongst this men and boys strategy, you've got across various different departments here, the Department for Education, teaching healthy relationships, tackling misogyny, helping young people build resilience to harmful online influences. All of it's looking on paper good. But then I'm slightly concerned that in practice, that might feed into the idea that all boys are inherently misogynistic, a threat, a danger, you know, evil. I'm worried about who's going to be teaching. I'm worried about that as well, to be honest. So I think it's really important, you know, this government has a real strategy about violence against women and girls and online misogyny is a key part of that. So we have to clamp down on it. There's no ifs or buts around that. But at the same time, we've got to counterweight balance that with talking about all the brilliant things that boys and men bring to our society, whether it's as fathers, whether it's as sports people, whether it's in the workplace, they bring specific traits and benefits to us all. We've got to talk about that and policy has to reflect that. So part of the reason why I've been appointed is because then we have a champion in government to try and talk positively about these attributes that men and boys can bring to any situation. So yes, of course, clamp down on some of the bad things that men do and men do some terrible things, right? We all know that. But we've also got to talk up the brilliant contribution that men do every day, especially, you know, we hear dads as fathers. I mean, we play a really important and distinct role often in bringing up children. Yeah. Martin, I know that an issue that's very close to your heart is trying to combat this idea of wokery in schools towards kids. And I heard what Jake said there. I wonder what your reaction is. The idea about teaching healthy relationships, tackling misogyny, helping young people build resilience to harmful online influences. What's your response to what Jake has just said there? Successive governments have lost the plot. And that is, you know, with all due respect, you know, the script is toxic masculinity. Men are inherently bad and they have to learn how not to be bad. Otherwise they will do bad things. And it's a cancer. It's an absolute cancer. Men grow up. My children have grown up through this woke wave and they believe that to be male, to be white is to be bad. And kids who don't even understand that are being told black kids are suddenly looking at white kids going, oh, I'm oppressed by you. You know, it's a word I'm not allowed to use on TV. It's a stain on successive government and it's destroying classrooms. It's destroying life chances. And all the politicians go, oh, look at adolescents. It's just men waiting to be sexual. But what do you do as a parent about that? I talk to my kids. I honestly believe that, you know, you take your kids for vaccinations. It's my job to constantly vaccinate my children against wokery. I really believe that because they're being taught that there's no wonder that we've got a mental health epidemic. Yesterday, we covered it on the show, didn't we? Six thousand six year olds being taken to A&E with mental health conditions. Well, perhaps it's because we're telling them when they're four that the world's going to end and we're going to burn to death because climate change is terrible. We're pathologising and scaring kids. And David Lammy, when he wrote the Lammy report, I went to the launch of it. There was a great chapter on positive outcomes for boys if they have an engaged father, positive masculinity. He got airbrushed away because suddenly it wasn't very popular. He's criticising single mums too much. It's like dads are amazing. All the evidence shows us education, you know, addiction to alcohol and drugs, teenage pregnancy, life outcomes are far better with two involved parents. But the dad is the gold standard. Let's hear it for dads. Yeah, I mean, look, this is what it says on the tin. It should be dads. It has to be considered a safe space for blokes to talk about being a dad. Right. And so that's exactly what we're doing. On that then, do you think enough pressure is put on society or on dads sometimes to stick around, to actually be there, to actually be present in the home and to actually, because from what Martin said now, and I think it's fair enough, really, the kind of outcomes are better to have a good, strong male role model in the home. Yeah. And I think that we probably would agree with that, that the best way of bringing up children is with a mother and a father. That's absolutely right. But every circumstance is different. It may well be better for the children that the parents divorce. It just depends on the situation that you're in at the time. So I don't think there is a kind of generic for this sort of thing. In the same way that we've been talking about... Typically, having an active involved dad is better across society. I'm arguing it's better. I think that it's better, but it's not necessarily best. There may be situations where, in fact, not having the dad around will be better for the children. I mean, we talked a bit about punishment. I've never punished my kids. I thought punishment was absolutely wrong. In any capacity? Well, I mean, the whole thing is I can talk to them. I can talk to them about what goes wrong. But look, I'm old enough to have been caned at school for smoking and drinking. It wasn't a deterrent. I carried on smoking and drinking for the next 40 years. All it managed to do, apart from give me a very painful bottom, all it managed to do was make me respect the head teacher who did it, much less that he could inflict cruelty on a child. I want to talk about that. I was not planning on going down this route, but we'll take a little I've never done it. See, I paint myself here as a tyrant, but actually, I did karate when I was 13, 14, and I never had to use it because people knew I did it. When you're a dad, I think, who's quite a stern dad, you never need to be physical. They know not to go there. It's like I've got black mates who go, my mum gives me a look, I know, I stop. It's the vibe. Without getting too academic about it, all the evidence when it comes to criminal justice policy or parenting, in fact, I think would show what Nigel's just said, actually, that if you go beyond that line, perhaps the outcomes are not good for children. Behaviour can often get worse because you lose respect for the figure. There are a range of views. So my mum might have thanked me for saying this, but I love her dearly. She did smack me. I always deserved it. It was always after I'd done something really bad. I'm afraid that's against the law, so we're going to have to go back. We're going to have to go back. Well, it might not have been at the time she did it. I'm trying to remember vividly the exact moment where I realised I could dodge it. She used to do the big wind-up. If I didn't apologise in that intervening period of the wind-up, then there'd be a little... It was never like a battering or anything. But then I realised when I got to about 13, I was like, I can duck this. She was just swinging at thin air. It was like me quoting Muhammad Ali's phrases as I'm getting out of the way. Then it just lost all its power. I honestly cannot see a situation where I would smack my son. I think we've grown out of that. I agree with Nigel that families come in all different shapes and sizes, and it'd be wrong for anyone to judge whether a parent should split, separate, because sometimes that's right in the circumstances for them and the children. But I think then it's incumbent on us as a government, but all of us, to then have all these alternative role models, male role models. One in three primary schools in our country doesn't have a male teacher. So if you don't have a dad in your life, for good or bad reason, and you go to school and there's no male teacher there to perhaps guide you through those early years when you're discovering what it means to be a boy, who else is there? We need to get more male teachers, but we also need them in the community as well. We're investing in schemes, and we're also trying to champion the male role model in our communities because they have a vital role to play. With more male primary school teachers for you, Martin? Here's the point. My mum was a teacher in her entire career. My missus is a teacher, and it's now almost entirely dominated. It's a women's role. The funny thing is, when you go to places like Scandinavia, where they've invested billions of euros in equality, when people are allowed a free choice, women typically want to be teachers and men don't. When you give access to equality. Now, there are some great schemes, but I'm afraid teachers need to be paid a lot more to attract the blokes. I've got friends who are male teachers. I play football with them. We've ended up leaving because there are so many allegations about he touched me inappropriately. It's a dangerous place for men to work. Now, it's funny you say this, because at the moment we're looking around at nurseries for George, and it's a really difficult thing to talk about, but I think a lot of people watching and listening to this will have had very similar conversations in their home. I, personally, would prefer it if the nursery that he goes to only has female staff. And there was a big issue, one near us, that did have a big paedophile issue with the black ops. But then that's a difficult thing to say, isn't it? In a way, because you are... Well, that's part of it. There are obviously some nice blokes who would maybe want to go. There is a difference between nursery and school as well, but I get the point. Is that something that is okay to think? You know, you're looking around at nurseries... Yes, it is. I would have gone for, in fact, I actually did go for nurseries when they were tiny, with all women. I would have been uncomfortable to have found a man there. And in fact, when you just thought about it, it was a natural thing to actually go for women. I think that that's right for young children. Taking Jake's point, it clearly is not right if a child then grows up and has no male role model within their life at all. And you know, when you get to teen years, having a really strong male teacher, like a PE teacher, they're like gold dust. I mean, they are headhunter between schools in my borough, because they want a strong geezer in the playground. That's particularly what young lads without a dad look up to as a role model. So there's definitely a place for those strong models. So how do we sort that out then? I think you've got a really, really good point there about the lack of male role models in primary schools. What do we do about that, beyond throwing money at the problem, you know, just saying we're going to pay primary school teachers more? How do we get more young men, or men generally really, to want to become primary school teachers? Well, there are schemes that Martin has spoken about, and they've got different levels of success about trying to attract men into that space. But I also think it's about encouraging men to take on that role in other areas. So, you know, there's big mentorship programmes going on at the moment. Gareth Southgate is working with the Prince's Trust, trying to recruit different male role models in the community space, in the sports space, which then might translate into teaching. Because actually a lot of blokes love it. You know, how many of your friends teach their kids to do the football game on a Saturday morning? Really good at it, love it, love working with young people, like being a role model. Maybe they should become teachers, it'd be great. So I think there's a way of kind of shifting the conversation about what a man's role in society is. And once we've done that, I think you'll see more men go into teaching. But we've also got to attract them with substance, whether that is money or actually the pattern of work as well, and making sure that they have promotion opportunities. Because one of the issues of primary school is that those can be narrow sometimes. So if you've got an ambitious man or woman, but a man in this case, those can be narrow at primary school. So we've got to look at that as well. We could also try and make sure that families didn't break up quite so easy, or if they did, that the criminal justice system didn't always seem to take the mum's side. This is a whole separate conversation. But a lot of dads who really would love to be much more involved in their children's lives aren't able to be because of the way the justice system is set up. Can you explain that to me a bit? Because I am yet to get divorced. In a nutshell, there is undeniably a bias to keep a child with a mother in a criminal justice system if there's a choice. And there are many mechanisms that women can put in the playing field to keep men away. And there's a group called Families Need Fathers. I've done a great lot of work with them, and there are heartbroken dads who would love to be more involved in their children's lives and can't be. So the odds are stacked against fathers many times in the family court system. It's a problem. I was a lawyer, worked in a family law system, and I agree with quite a lot of what I've said. But it's really difficult because we all know, I'm afraid, there are cases where blokes, and it is mainly blokes, have committed really serious domestic violence, have harmed their children, and deny it. But there are absolutely no doubt, because I've represented them and worked with them, there are a lot of blokes who are kept away from their children unfairly, and it's damaging the children. So how you adjudicate that in a court system which is under a lot of pressure is difficult. I'm trying to grapple with that in my day job. It's not easy, but I accept the point that you're making. And it's very well funded charitable organisations. There's a huge violence against women and girls budget which doesn't go towards protecting men. So there are structural inequalities, in my opinion, that disfavour men, disfavour boys, and it's a problem. And we're seeing broken families that a lot of times they don't want to be broken. And we see then the bad outcomes because dads are gold dust. And also, if I may just add, I think I'm, as a politician anyway, I'm absolutely pro-family. So any policy that tries and keep families together, whether it's help with finances and the cost of living which can put pressure on, whether there are social policies to encourage families to stay together when they're happy, when it's sustainable, is a good thing. And I think sometimes, especially on the left of politics, I'm a Labour politician, we're a bit ashamed of talking about that, aren't we? Let's have a conversation about this, because one thing that really stood out to me when George was born was that, I think I spoke about this a little bit last week, but I am very, very lucky with Emily, my wife, we've got a great relationship, we had a great relationship when it was just the two of us. But then there is that change that happens, you add a little team member or a couple or a few in your case, I thought you've got five asides in! And a subs bench! And it does change that domestic situation with your partner, it does. Now I'm of the view, certainly so far for me, there's been tricky moments, but it's been overwhelmingly for the better. How do you navigate that? Because it is a tough world for blokes, you've got the initial thing where the baby really needs their mum to live at the start, you can feel a bit of a spare part, then there's a lot of pressure on the dad to go back to work, because the mum usually will have to take a little bit longer off. So then you've got to maybe have that role as a provider in a society where you've been talked down to quite a bit, I think as a bloke, that's quite a traditional role, isn't it? We've moved away a bit from that. How do you navigate the changing dynamics of your home life when you have kids? I think it happens automatically. When you're just a couple and you haven't got children, you can't imagine life with children. Then children start coming along, whether planned or unplanned, in my case a couple of them unplanned, but when children start coming along, once they're there you can't imagine life without them. So what you get is that you end up adapting to that and your relationship adapts to it too. I don't think enough gets spoken about this with blokes actually, because understandably so, the pregnancy is obviously very much about the woman and then the birth and then the immediate aftermath of that. It has a huge impact on blokes and it changes your life. I remember all my friends who had kids saying your life will never be the same and I kind of poo-pooed it to be honest. I was like, well you know, I'll still be able to play football on Wednesday, go to the pub with my mates. Of course you can't when you've got a newborn baby, you can't do any of that. And I do think, again as a society, but also in some of the formal systems in place, so when a health visitor comes and visits the baby, of course the focus should be on the mother. I'm not for a minute suggesting that we remove that focus, but is anyone checking in with the father? During the labour process, again, I'm not for a minute, my wife would kill me, suggesting that I should have got all the attention during that period, but is anyone there maybe after the baby's born, when the mum and baby hopefully settle, just to chat to the father. Are you okay? How are you feeling about this? I think there are things we can do, small things, that would try and shift that focus a bit to make sure that dads are appreciated as part of the system as well. What do you think about that? I think the biggest thing about becoming a parent is the surrender of ego, and you have to accept that you're not the apple of your wife's eye anymore, and at first you're like, is it jealousy? Am I just being cut out? No, it's biology, it's life, and then later on it's like, well, I'm going to be the idol now of my children's eye, that's what I've done, so I'm always at work, I'm just doing all I can, like my dad did, 47 years down the pit. I'd hear my dad's car come down the road in the morning, down the stairs, he's like, I want to be that dad, and so you try your best just to be an idol in a different way, but you slowly realise that the sexual tyrannosaurus side of you is dying, I'm afraid that's just life. I think you make a really good point there, I do think it's important that we do have these kind of conversations, and you see more of this on TV and YouTube, because you do have to accept that you are not your wife's number one priority. Yeah, and rightly so in that situation. If there was a situation where I'm sitting in the living room and I'm crying in one corner and the baby's crying in another, she's going to the baby. She's a very sensible woman. Yeah, but you don't want to admit it to yourself. It took me a while to figure out why am I having some of these feelings, and I do think it is a difficult thing for me to go on television and admit. I think part of it was because I didn't feel like I was getting enough attention, like a child, actually. I don't know if you... No, I mean, I didn't... It brushes off you, Nigel, you just go on. The whole thing was, I mean, because once it's happened, you get on with a new life. I mean, it was very much like moving to a different country, if you like. I never regretted leaving countries I'd lived in previously when I started a new life. The moment that kids came, that was a new life, and you then go forward and get on with that. And just for everything that you miss about life before, doesn't beat it when your daughter or son, young daughter or son, laughs at your jokes or smiles at you in the morning. That always does beat whatever came before, so it's just about worth it, I think. Yeah, and just finally, just to round us off, I wasn't planning on doing this, but I thought the way the conversation's gone, I will. I think certainly for my... So I'm 34 now, and there are so many couples that I know and that I'm friends with that I think would make tremendous parents. And for a variety of different reasons, they're not doing it. Look, we haven't got time to go into all of this. Home ownership's a big issue, all this stuff, yeah? Why should more people, if they can, be having kids? How can we sell parenthood, do we think, to them? Go on, I'll put you on the spot here. To keep the nation alive. Oh, you've gone straight down the line, patriotic duty. Otherwise, we're going to wither away. Fly the flag, Paul. I mean, we do have a demographic challenge. We need people to have more children. I think there are some, you know, child care costs, housing costs, blah, blah, blah. But actually, I agree with Martin. I think there is a kind of, whether it's patriotism or just a national mission, if people feel better about things, more positive about the future, more hopeful about where this country's going, they're more likely to have a drink and get on with it. So I think there's a role for politicians, but I also don't think politicians can make everyone have babies. That's probably, we don't do that. I'm just going to stop putting something in the water or something. But yeah, there's enough rubbish in there as it is. But go on, come on, sell it. Just simply, yeah, we've got an ageing population. You very much need people to be producing children to balance that out. I'm going to go for something a bit different. I'm going to say there are so many additional laughs and giggles in my day now than there were before. There were. And I look at, every time I look at him, I laugh, really. And, you know, you find him, he started tottering around. You just find him in the weirdest places. I heard he managed to get behind the TV yesterday, I thought we had like a rat infestation. What is going on? My son's behind there. But all these additional laughs. And I do think, no, it's not the same for everyone, but I do think, by and large, having kids and being a dad is good for your mental health. Wait till later in life when they look at you and start laughing every time. Then obviously you'll wear off. Thank you very much. We covered quite a lot there. I hope that people at home watching this thought it was as interesting as I did. But anyway, thank you so much, guys. And yeah, good luck going forward. I hope we can reunite again on the GB Dad sofas at some point soon. So there you go. Thank you very much for everybody watching and listening. We'll see you next time for another edition of GB Dad.