Graces talks about her career journey from studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University through to becoming a renowned author and political commentator. The challenges she faces when writing her books. And why she wishes she took up surfing earlier on in life. All that plus more.

Grace's recommendations:

Stolen: How to Save the World From Financialisation - Grace Blakeley

The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism - Grace Blakeley

It's Not That Radical - Michala Loach

Novara Media Podcasts

Tribune Magazine

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Hello and welcome to BWB Extra, where we continue our conversation

with author, journalist, and political commentator, Grace Blakely.

All right, let's get, let's go back to the start.

Let's, let's, let's wind the clock back.

Right, let's wind the clock back.

I was gonna, not gonna use it, but you get upset when I don't say it.

No, no, it's fine.

You know what, and people have that, anyway, uh, how did you end up doing what you're doing?

So I am, um, I'm an author.

That's my main source of income and what I spend most of my time doing, uh, is writing books.

So I've written two books already.

I've got a new book coming out next year, which I've kind of just finished writing.

It's being edited and copyedited So I do that.

I write books about capitalism, basically.

I also do a lot of, kind of, media appearances.

So, you know, I'll go on Question Time and Politics Live and all that sort of stuff.

Top podcasts.

Yeah, and top podcasts, of course.

Talk about the day's affairs and that sort of more, like, directly political stuff.

And, yeah, so I'm kind of, you know, mixed between writing and media.

Your last book was How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism.

Yeah, that was just a short one I wrote during the pandemic.

What are you working on right now?

So this one, um, is called, we actually came up with the title really

late because there were big disagreements on what the title should be.

Anyway.

We, your team.

Me and my publisher, because they've bought the book, so they basically get to tell me what it's going to be called.

And I was like, I want it to be this, and they were like, no, that's

boring, no one's going to pick it up, we want it sexy, or whatever.

So it's going to be called Vulture Capitalism, which is, you know.

And it's going to have a naked woman on the cover.

It might.

It might do, yes.

It's attacking already.

That would be incredibly anti feminist.

There should be a naked man on the cover.

No, I'm just saying, if somebody's gonna pick it up.

Yeah, yeah, true.

Anyway, we've really lost the plot.

But we have some top tips of printing ideas there for your book.

We were going down the route of how did you end up doing it.

Oh, how did I end up doing what I was doing?

So I started, I did my degree at Oxford, did politics, philosophy, economics,

along with all of the kind of worst people in our political system.

Yes, exactly.

And then I started working for a think tank.

I was in an intern at Think Tank for a bit.

Um, and that was actually doing stuff around like local economics and local politics.

Then I went to work for K P M G actually for like less than a year, uh, doing consulting.

Yeah, for their government and healthcare practice, which I was not particularly good at.

I'm not, again, you know, A D H D, not very good in big organizations.

Big picture.

It's too detailed.

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's say I I'm Same page.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So didn't do that for very long.

I then went to work for I P R, which was a think tank.

I really enjoyed working there.

Actually.

I stayed there for three years, I think, doing lots of reports, and that's where I started doing media.

It's where I started doing interviews and, like, doing more journalistic writing.

Eventually got the offer to write a book.

Took some time off, wrote the book.

The book did well.

Started doing lots more media.

So, you know, things just basically took off.

And it was during the kind of, you know, 2017 to 2019 period where socialism was suddenly fun again.

So lots of people wanted my opinion.

Suddenly fun again.

Yeah.

Uh, have you got a long term goal?

My long term goal?

I like to think about what I do, really, as trying to change the way that people think about capitalism.

I'm trying to change the way that people think about the economy.

So for me, the goal is get the ideas that I'm trying to push out in as many hands as possible.

And at the moment that looks like writing books, but it also looks like longer term, you know, potentially taking

that onto different forms of media, like trying to get young people particularly engaged with some of these ideas.

And yeah, you know, just to kind of expanding my reach really.

What's the most misunderstood thing about what you do?

I think people underestimate how hard it is to write a book and overestimate how hard it is to go on TV.

We all think we could write a book if we just had enough time to do it.

It's very challenging to write a good book.

What's the hardest thing about writing a book?

Keeping everything together in your head.

So it's, you know, you know, you can write a whiteboard, I guess.

Yeah, exactly.

You can write an article that everyone thinks, Oh, if I can

write an article, I can write ten articles so I can write a book.

But actually having, like, the argument and the structure and being able to keep those

ideas together in your head, coming back to them all the time in every, every section,

every paragraph, making sure you're really driving home that key point, it's hard.

I always found, like, writing a dissertation, I kind of thought,

I've got this great argument, and it's, it's gonna fall to pieces.

And then it sort of falls to, exactly, it falls to pieces and there's nothing really there when you get right into it.

And when you push yourself, it's so true, yeah.

Actually, there's only a few times I've heard authors, I think it's Agatha Christie was one of the people

who could do it, that she didn't know what the end of the story was, and she'd sit down and she'd write.

And three days later she'd, or a week later she'd finish her book.

Are they, are they shit?

I've never read one, but I mean, you know.

I mean, characterization is not really non existent in them.

Yeah, yeah.

And also they're just stories, aren't they?

And I sit down to tell my kid a story at night and sometimes I get really into it.

And then as you say, I forget where I am in it and all the details and I just have to finish it.

I'm like, and then the farmer just said, Oh, I can't be doing this anymore.

What are you most excited about?

What am I most excited about?

For your career.

God.

Um, I suppose I'm pretty excited about my next book coming out.

Yeah, I mean that, like, the process of writing a book is a nightmare.

Having it come out is really fun because for about a year you're doing

events everywhere, you know, I've got book deals in dozens of countries.

You're the toast of the town.

Yeah, so you're going all around the world, you're meeting loads of people, talking about ideas, doing interviews.

You're just talking about this thing that you've created.

After a while it gets a bit boring, but initially it's really fun.

That's better than music.

I find by the time you release, and Diem would agree with this, and

you're a musician too, but by the time you release an album, then...

Yeah, you hate all the songs.

You're just so bored with it, and then people are like, oh, I really like that album, and you're like...

Yeah, whatever.

Yeah.

And I guess if you were a big artist you might then tour and talk about your album, but

in a way you don't talk about your album that much, you just go play music sort of thing.

So by the end of a book you're not sick of it, you're glad it's over, you're quite happy to chat about it.

Well, you may be.

I think, I would say it's about a year after the book's actually come out, you're sick of it by then.

Maybe six months, depending on how much you like it.

Um, I'm not sick about, of, of this book yet, and I've nearly finished it.

Maybe I will be by the time it comes out, but no, I'm, I'm still really excited about it, actually.

What's your biggest fuck up?

So, probably, actually, and this comes down to the big picture versus detail thing.

In my first book, I had a couple of little...

You know, like factual errors and like stuff that was wrong and that wasn't double checked.

And because I was, you know, this, I didn't have a lot of resources behind the book, but I

was growing on social media, so a lot of people were looking really hard at what I was doing.

This is how to save the world from finalization.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they like took me apart online for, you know, like some...

On page 63?

Literally, literally that.

you've missed, you know.

Yeah, so that was...

It's quite annoying.

Luckily, you know, they all came out very quickly and we managed to do a reprint within

a few months that had all the errors corrected, so it wasn't too much of a big deal.

But it was like, you know, awkward and embarrassing.

It's horrible to be wrong, isn't it?

Yeah.

I hate being wrong.

It's a good lesson.

Because you're always going to be wrong about something.

It's your own, like, your own creation.

Yeah.

I thought you, I guess it was the start of your career, so you don't

get to just hand it to someone to do the really, really boring work.

No, yeah.

I was like twenty...

three when I started writing that, yeah.

And the publisher says, you've checked all of this, yeah?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, exactly.

Yeah.

I'm surprised there wasn't more wrong with it, to be honest.

What's your passion outside of work?

Again, the same as my vice.

Surfing.

Okay, yeah.

It's such a cool thing to be passionate about.

Like, let's just, let's just, you know, get that

clip.

I love it.

It's great.

Whenever anybody says something to me, I immediately think of...

Sharks, that's what I think of that film with...

Point Break.

Point Break.

I love that film.

It's so fun.

That's what I think about.

Look, my problem is, because I watch George, I can't do the paddling with my legs dangling with my head above the water.

I don't care what country I'm in, even England, my limbs are going to disappear.

Something's going to be a little tug from the neck.

I see.

I have to get out of the water so I can never surf.

And also, you're a huge attraction, you know, if you're in the right part of the world.

Great whites love those seal looking things.

California, Australia, South Africa.

You are, you're in a bit of danger.

Oh my God.

I haven't surfed in any of those places.

But yeah, there's a guy who studies sharks.

He gets a surfboard and he puts a hole in it, and he puts a camera in the

thing looking downwards, and he reels it out on a massive, uh, fishing line.

And this is in South Africa?

Yeah.

And he's all guy studies.

So you get this footage of great wes hitting this thing.

Wow.

So it's dark.

It's like a really good camera, but it's dark.

And then you just see this, oh my, you see this thing and it comes so fast.

Yeah.

And the mountain.

And you're like, because they think it's a sea.

Oh my god.

I have never.

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com What's the worst advice you've ever been given?

Oh god, yeah.

So when I was at school, everyone used to say, oh, you're really good at arguing, so you should become a lawyer.

I would have been a terrible lawyer, because again, the attention to detail thing.

And actually, a lot of lawyers don't, you know, don't actually argue, yeah.

I don't do a lot of arguing.

Yeah, exactly.

You're, especially now, when you're doing solicitoring and barristering

and it's, you know, and you know what I do because I'm a corporate lawyer.

So even when I'm like, if I'm selling or buying a company for somebody, everybody wants to get to the same place.

They all want slightly different things because they want to buy it for as cheaply as possible.

And these people want to sell it for as much as possible.

But you're all actually trying to do the same thing.

So it's not really.

There's nothing really to argue.

Yeah, I mean, so that was not a very good piece of advice for me.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

The best piece of advice I've ever been given, I think the one that I come back to most when

I'm trying to make a decision is just, my mum always used to say to me, just trust your gut.

And I think that's like, Just the most important thing, you know, in any decision making process, because you can

write lists and analyze any problem for God knows how long, but if you're actually in touch with what you want,

and you really, you know, can ground yourself in that, like, intuition, I think that's the most important thing.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

What advice would I give my younger self?

I think...

Get a hobby.

I would have liked it if I'd started doing the surfing earlier, because,

to be honest, for most of my You did music, that was your hobby.

But I wasn't I worked so hard.

I was just obsessed from about the age of 22 to, I think, like, 28.

I was just like I didn't listen to my parents advice when they were like, just be happy.

I was like, no, I need to succeed, I need to prove myself, I need to prove everyone wrong.

I'm going to listen to all the things that everyone's saying about me,

and I'm going to take them to heart, and I'm going to, you know, do.

And

it's good, because I achieved a lot, but I've gotten to this point in my life now, and I'm like.

I didn't focus on my relationships.

I didn't focus on myself.

I didn't have anything else going on.

It was just work, work, work, work, work, right, right, right, go

in the media, put myself in such stressful situations all the time.

I feel like I was constantly on edge for a lot of that time.

Um, and it wasn't good for me and it just made me like.

you know, a shell of a person, really, when I think about when it was the worst.

Feels like you're having a midlife crisis I am 100 percent having I could imagine,

this is the chat, I can almost imagine it out on the waves, on the circle,

can't you, with the lad saying, you know, I just, I just, I just work too much.

And they were like, yeah, man, yeah, man, people work too much.

It's like, the only California in Britain, I always think it's Cornwall, because when

you do get down to Cornwall, it has that vibe of like, man, chill out, man, you know.

Recommendations on what to read, what to watch, what to listen to.

I mean, obviously, my own books.

Absolutely.

You can get them on, in all good bookstores, there's an audio book which I read myself.

Oh, nice.

Hilariously.

Um, the next one's coming out next year, obviously.

Oh, you do it in a hilarious manner, or you just do it?

No, just like, it's funny to listen to do.

It was.

Bizarre.

It's actually so difficult to just sit there and read something.

It is, you've got ADHD.

Yeah, you just trip over your words all the time and you go too fast, you go to, oh, it's just a nightmare.

But anyway, it's there, it's available.

But no, okay, so other stuff.

My, a friend of mine, we're talking about, we've talked about climate change.

Um, Michaela Loach has just released this great book called It's Not That Radical About Climate Breakdown.

And she's this amazing activist.

Who has done loads of work on, you know, campaigning and all this sort of stuff in the UK.

And she's, she's got this book out which I think everyone should read.

And it's really, you know, simple and easy to connect with.

Podcasts?

Podcasts.

Oh yeah, everyone should check out.

If you want a kind of easy to listen to summary of, you know, socialist stuff going on in the UK, Novara Media is great.

They do a lot of kind of podcasts and audio and visual content and stuff.

Um, and they get loads of interesting guests on and whatever.

That's kind of a socialism 101.

Obviously, also, I write for Tribune magazine, um, so Tribune in the UK, definitely check us out.

Uh, this is like, Tribune was like an old magazine that was for the, the socialists back in, you know,

the 1930s and kind of, you know, stopped really being released for a while and it was then bought up again

recently and we kind of relaunched it and grew it and it's now, you know, got this kind of community around it.

And it's about news from the labor movement, news from the left opinion, like all this sort of stuff.

So definitely worth checking that out.

And if you want to subscribing, I find the bipartisan thing just, I think it's almost, we talk about the structural

problems of democracy or economics, but I don't think we talk about, you know, this basic problem that of having red or

blue or left or right or anything, you know, the reason I'm left, I mean, I'm, I'm, I want to be in the middle because.

You know, I think we all need to be a bit like if you start any conversation with the point of view is I hate rich

I'm just gonna be crass, but I hate rich people or I hate poor people or I think this or I think that you know We'll

never solve this world because we need to be humans We need to basically we you know climate change I hope brings

us eventually all together because I think eventually it will people would die and die and die Until we all sit down

at the fucking table and say right Let's sort this shit out, you know, and no red or red left or right shit, you

know I don't think either side would describe themselves in that way No, but I just think I just think don't take a

side The best way you get to the middle is by having people articulate opinions on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Otherwise you get this kind of faux centrism, right, which is

what, you know, people like Keir Starmer say they're gonna do.

It's like, oh, I'm just gonna go and design this policy based on what a couple of people in a focus group told me.

No, but can't we just take one question at a time and stop worrying about whether it's left or right and

try and come up with the right answer and you would end up with something that isn't necessarily either.

By the way, do you know where the whole idea of left and right comes from?

Yes.

Oh, yeah, that's a re go on, tell us.

Uh, well, I think it's from the, well, not really parliament, but the assembly in, during the French Revolution.

And the, the various different factions in the French Revolution stood on different sides of the chamber.

So it's all the French.

It's all the fault of the French, again.

So that was this week's episode of BWB Extra.

And we'll be back tomorrow with our finale for the week, the Business or Bullshit Quiz.

Stay tuned.