What is the first news event you can recall?
The 1997 general election—my mum took me to the polling station with her, and we got a gigantic watermelon on the way home.
What is the biggest problem of all?
That we’re knowingly making the planet less hospitable for human life just so that shareholders get their dividends. It’s a cliché to say that the climate catastrophe changes everything, but it does—and yet we keep pretending that it’s not there.
If you could spend a day in one city or place at one moment in history, what would that be?
In London, at the Olympic Stadium when then-chancellor George Osborne got booed. I was actually there at the time, I just want to boo him again.
What is your favourite quotation?
“It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times? You stupid monkey!” Mr Burns in The Simpsons, of course.
Which of your ancestors or relatives are you most proud of?
My grandmother. She came to the UK completely alone, with no money, at the age of 17. And not only did she survive, she thrived—as an anti-racist and a strong union woman.
What is the last piece of music, play, novel or film that brought you to tears?
My favourite thing is listening to music with my mum. It’s always quite an emotional experience, even if the songs aren’t themselves sad, because it somehow collapses the generational distance between us. The other day, I played her “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan—she cried, and then I did too.
Your book argues that there’s an elite minority stoking fears of ethnic minorities, among others, to rule over the majority. What can we do in our everyday lives to fight back in—or against—the culture wars?
The culture war is like having a thousand doors that all lead to the same place: here’s a minority group, trying to take something away from you and tell you how to think. The reason why it works is because people are having so much taken away from them—and politicians are just like, “Sorry bro, can’t do anything about it, but would you like another crackdown on asylum seekers?” We’re primed to direct our anger sideways and downwards, rather than upwards at the globe-spanning class of landlords who are the ones benefitting from the status quo.
What can we do about it? I wish I had a simple answer. Ultimately, I think that feelings of mutual hostility, competitive victimhood and suspicion are deliberately stoked in order to stop people from identifying their shared interests with each other. The antidote to that is connection.
Can change be achieved within the system—by someone like you becoming an MP, say? Or is the system irredeemably broken?
We very nearly had someone who believed in wealth redistribution and the protection of human rights become prime minister a few years ago. His name is Jeremy Corbyn, and the entire establishment colluded to take his fucking head off. What we have isn’t a broken system, it’s one that’s working as intended.
You’re on the left but no particular fan of Keir Starmer. If you were acting as a constructive friend, what’s the one thing you would advise him to do tomorrow? (Other than resign!)
Is anybody a fan of Keir Starmer? Even his closest advisers view him as nothing but a convenient vessel for their own factional ambitions. My advice would be to stop cosying up to BlackRock, embrace economic populism and redistribute wealth. But he’s as likely to do that as I am to sprout wings. It’s simply not in his nature.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
I’m really into anything set during the Napoleonic Wars—Sharpe, Hornblower, Master and Commander, all of that.
What do you most regret?
Skinny jeans.
Ash Sarkar’s first book, “Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War” (Bloomsbury, £18.99), is available now
