The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Breakfast With Beau ｜ Tuesday 13th January 2026

00:00:00.000 Morning. You alright? Love your cup of tea as always. Gotta wake up with a cup of tea.

00:00:09.780 Come on, let's not be silly. It has just struck 8am. And it is Tuesday the 13th of January

00:00:18.200 in the year of our Lord, 2026. Good morning to you. You are watching the BBC.

00:00:24.920 Beau's Breakfast Club. Obviously, that's what that is. I'm joined by Harry. How are you,

00:00:28.620 Harry? You alright this morning? Yeah, I'm all good. Good, good, good, good. This is the Beau

00:00:33.740 show, Breakfast with Beau. You are part of the glorious band, The Chosen Few. Thank you for

00:00:38.280 turning up. Really appreciate it. Wouldn't be a thing without you guys, would it? I mean, really.

00:00:43.140 So thank you. Right, without any further ado, let's jump straight into the news. That's what this show

00:00:46.640 is. Looking at the news cycles every given day. So first of all, the papers, the front page of the

00:00:52.140 papers. They're saying that, overall, it's ADHD care costs sore and Vin Diesel. Is that a pun on Vin

00:01:02.900 Diesel? Anyway, looking at the papers this morning, before the show starts, there's not that many news

00:01:10.540 stories about those two things. So I don't know why the BBC has said that that's the amalgam of the

00:01:15.120 most important stories this morning. It doesn't seem to be. Big one, in Britain, of course, is about

00:01:20.400 the Chinese embassy story again. Anyone that watches the news regularly will know that this

00:01:25.340 comes up from time to time. And we're getting closer to a deadline. Apparently, the latest

00:01:30.900 deadline is the 20th of January. So in a week's time, right? This time next week, is it? They keep

00:01:38.160 putting, the government, the British government, keep putting sort of self-imposed deadlines on

00:01:42.360 themselves and then failing to meet them. They should have had a final decision on this ages

00:01:47.500 ago. And I mean, like a year or two ago. And they keep pushing it back. And when we first started

00:01:52.380 reporting this on Lotus Eaters, it was like, well, there's going to have some sort of decision in

00:01:56.560 September. And then it was November, then December. And now it's, now it's supposed to be the 20th of

00:02:01.080 January. So, all right, let's just, what's the story here so far this morning? It's in the

00:02:09.600 Telegraph. It says, China's embassy secret threat to city. Yeah, I mean, that's, that is the concern,

00:02:16.220 isn't it? That's the worry. It says, previously redacted plans, Chinese plans, building, because

00:02:21.380 the story is, the Japanese, the Chinese, sorry, the Chinese bought this big complex back in like

00:02:29.540 2017 or 2018. So there's a picture there. Bring the picture up again, Harry. You see like,

00:02:35.400 there's this sprawling complex of buildings. And they bought the whole thing. And years ago,

00:02:43.180 they actually got it for quite a steal. They got all that for like 250 odd million, 255 million,

00:02:47.540 something like that. Complete steal, just as a, just as a straight up property deal. Anyway,

00:02:53.360 part of it, or most of it used to be the Royal Mint many moons ago. But now there's all sorts of

00:02:58.360 buildings, some are apartments, even all sorts of things. And it would be the biggest embassy in

00:03:05.480 Europe. Right? So it's not just, oh, this is sort of unusually large. It's just a bit larger than

00:03:11.340 usual. No, it's completely unprecedentedly large. Why we let them buy it at all would be beyond me.

00:03:17.920 If I was, if I controlled things, I wouldn't have let them buy the real estate in the first place.

00:03:22.400 So okay, they already own the site. But they need, you know, they need the green light from

00:03:28.920 powers that be to renovate it, to sort of make it exactly what they want. And that's what's going

00:03:35.820 through now. That's the concern. Because it says, previously redacted plans reveal hidden chamber

00:03:41.700 alongside critical infrastructure. Yeah, so in amongst those buildings or nearby, very nearby,

00:03:48.380 is what used to be a telephone exchange. And even to this, to this day, sort of a critical hub for

00:03:54.840 communications, telecommunications, fiber optic cables, all sorts of things.

00:04:00.600 And the concern is, the worry is, that the Chinese will tap into that one way or another. Do espionage. 0.63

00:04:09.000 Do like signals intelligence espionage stuff. Well, I for one, don't trust the Chinese. 1.00

00:04:15.380 There you go. Happy to look straight into the camera and say that. Don't ask me to trust the

00:04:21.040 Chinese government, because I don't. Right? Call me cynical. So that's the worry. And a lot of the

00:04:29.760 plans that they've put forward, apparently loads of it's redacted. The Chinese themselves redacted,

00:04:34.020 just grayed out areas. Like, you don't need to know what we plan to do there, building-wise.

00:04:39.060 It's like, really? We kind of do. We really do.

00:04:43.860 What's the other sort of under-headline? It says,

00:04:46.360 Starmer expected to approve Beijing's plans before meeting Xi later this month.

00:04:51.620 So yeah, Sir Quir Stalin is planning to go and visit China, the first PM to go there in years,

00:04:58.000 sort of since about 2018 or something.

00:04:59.700 And the noises coming out of number 10, you know, various briefings, various leaked info,

00:05:09.800 perhaps deliberately leaked info, is that he's expected to sort of greenlight these plans

00:05:14.680 just before he goes there. So, you know, from his point of view, he can go there and

00:05:20.580 shake hands with Winnie the Pooh. Xi Jinping, Winnie the Pooh. He can go there and shake hands with him,

00:05:26.140 say, yes, I'm a good boy. I've done everything you've wanted, that thing you want. We've done

00:05:29.920 that. It's all good. And, you know, it'll be good for him personally, interpersonally,

00:05:35.640 when he goes and visits there. I mean, again, putting the interests of the nation

00:05:40.000 pretty low on his list of priorities, lower than his own position, as usual.

00:05:47.800 Yeah, so, I mean, that really is the worry. There've been, an open letter was sent from

00:05:55.040 a bunch of MPs, Labour MPs, was it seven or nine different Labour MPs, sending a letter

00:06:01.100 to their own government, their own party leadership, saying, you know, like, we've got real concerns

00:06:07.520 about this still, though. It's, and it's the obvious thing, is that China would, sort of,

00:06:15.120 can't really be trusted to not do espionage against us.

00:06:22.260 And apparently, that particular hub is, like, quite a critical one as well. It's not just,

00:06:27.220 like, tapping into normal people's telephone lines that happen to live in and around Tower

00:06:32.920 Hill or anything. No, it's like, I think it's, like, critical, critical stuff to and from the

00:06:39.060 city, the financial centres of the City of London and various other things. And the fact

00:06:44.220 the Chinese aren't being completely transparent with what they mean to do with the buildings,

00:06:50.520 with the building site. Again, if it was up to me, I'd completely, if it was up to me,

00:06:55.720 I might even consider not having a Chinese embassy at all. Well, we won't have a British embassy

00:07:00.080 in Beijing. Don't worry about that. Don't need it. Don't want it. Don't trust you. Don't

00:07:03.620 like you. You're a strategic enemy or an actual enemy. So we won't have an embassy in Beijing 0.66

00:07:09.540 and you can't have one in London. All your diplomats can go home. You're untrustworthy.

00:07:14.680 How does it benefit us in any way? In any way? I'd probably cut diplomatic ties with loads

00:07:19.520 of countries. It's probably why I'm not a diplomat, isn't it? All right, what else have

00:07:26.980 they got here? Pubs face fresh tax blow with Reeves' £400 million raid on drinkers. So once

00:07:34.140 again, the ongoing story, the ongoing saga that's been in the news pretty much every day, one way

00:07:39.140 or another this year, Rachel Thieves planning to take more taxes and more money from pubs and from

00:07:47.500 drinking itself. They always put taxes up a little bit on booze and cigarettes, don't they?

00:07:52.820 Well, nearly always. So here, the torograph is saying a £400 million raid on drinkers.

00:07:59.100 Police, quote, ignored threat to Maccabee, quote, as activists plotted against players. Again,

00:08:05.400 that's a story from yesterday, so I won't do it in any real detail, that we were told the Tel

00:08:09.860 Aviv Maccabee fans were a menace and can't be allowed to go to Villa Park for a football game.

00:08:16.900 And when it turns out it was the other way round, it was the Maccabee fans that were sort

00:08:22.340 of in danger, effectively. And the police just completely, completely lied about it, just protected

00:08:27.660 the Muslims. There you go. Steal the fallout from that. The FT, the Financial Times, what 1.00

00:08:34.640 have we got? Former Fed chief attack, emerging market style investigation of Powell. Economics

00:08:41.740 and advisors join rebuke of Trump, well, of the DOJ rather. Fears for policy independence,

00:08:49.420 Trump denies knowing of probe. Okay, so this is a story. We touched on it yesterday, didn't

00:08:53.720 we? And I said I'd read all about it. Read all about it. Which I have done now, so I'll

00:08:58.380 bring you the details of that. So, okay. One second. Quick drink of tea.

00:09:08.440 Right. So, the Department of Justice, i.e. the US Government Department, which is in charge

00:09:16.780 of bringing prosecutions against people, have bought a criminal prosecution against Jerome

00:09:22.840 Powell, okay, was the leader of the Fed. And it is sort of unprecedented. I don't remember,

00:09:31.560 I can't recall any time that's happened in the past. And on paper, there's two levels

00:09:37.440 to this. It's like what's happening on paper and then what people are saying is sort of

00:09:41.140 really going on, sort of the real motivations and things. So, first of all, on paper, it's

00:09:45.360 supposed to be a ferrari, a row all about that he lied under oath in front of a congressional

00:09:52.860 or was it senatorial committee like last year. By the way, he's a Trump pick. Trump picked

00:09:58.660 him during his first term. But nonetheless, that doesn't necessarily mean anything, you

00:10:04.180 know, like a president can pick someone then fall out with them and become a political enemy

00:10:08.360 with them later further down the road. I mean, that's not uncommon at all for something like

00:10:13.860 that's happened. But just incidentally, he was a Trump pick in the first instance. But

00:10:17.300 that doesn't really mean anything. Okay, so about a year ago, you know, when you're under

00:10:22.500 oath, you sort of, you know, you can perjure yourself if you lie, just like in a court.

00:10:26.360 If you tell a liar in court, that's a crime, isn't it? Perjury. So the same goes for a lot

00:10:33.520 of senatorial and congressional hearings. You're sort of, you're not allowed to lie. If you're

00:10:39.500 later shown to have lied, that's a problem. That's why quite often people just rely on

00:10:45.980 I do not recall because that's not a lie. They can't prove that you don't recall. So

00:10:50.560 you just, that's an out. Rather than, you've been cornered to the point where you're going

00:10:55.460 to have to lie. So instead of that, you just say, oh, I just don't remember. I just don't

00:10:59.500 recall. If you ever find anyone saying that, you know that they're dodgy. Oh, I don't recall.

00:11:06.620 Oh, remember when Rishi Sunak kept saying that repeatedly over and over and over and over

00:11:11.340 again in a COVID inquiry, even though the events were only like a few months ago or a year

00:11:16.480 ago, just like a dozen times saying, I don't recall. Okay. Anyway, on with this, the Fed

00:11:21.540 chief. It was a question all about, it's like a relatively small thing, really, in the scheme

00:11:28.060 of things, that they were renovating some buildings. The Fed, the Federal Reserve, want

00:11:33.220 to, or are renovating a couple of buildings, you know, big buildings, right? And it was

00:11:38.120 going to cost, they thought it would cost like two and a half billion dollars to do. And

00:11:43.620 he was quizzed all about it. Jerome Powell. And then a bit further down the line, it was,

00:11:52.440 it looks like the budget has spiralled a bit. It's now like over three billion. And yeah,

00:11:59.940 who knows if there's anything dodgy really going on there or not. Quite often, all building

00:12:04.540 projects run over. That's sort of part of the course, isn't it? But so the DOJ have decided

00:12:13.720 that he's actually done something criminal in those, in those, giving those testimonies.

00:12:18.840 Now, Trump claims that he doesn't, he didn't know anything about it, because his enemies

00:12:25.840 are saying, Trump's just going after the Fed. He's just, this is just a witch hunt. This

00:12:29.900 is just the president trying to take more control over the Federal Reserve. And it's Trump going

00:12:34.660 after his political enemies. Well, Trump claims, whether you believe him or not, Trump claims

00:12:39.740 he didn't know anything about it, because the DOJ can't and won't tell the president every

00:12:45.140 single thing they're doing. You know, I suppose a president could insist that his, his head

00:12:53.460 of the DOJ, it's Pan Bondi in this case, isn't it? He could insist that anything of any real

00:12:57.860 note, run it by me. I suppose the president could do that. But Trump doesn't. Usually

00:13:04.200 the president wouldn't. They've got enough on their plate as it is already. He's wearing

00:13:07.240 so many hats as the president of the United States. Anyway, Trump claims that he didn't know

00:13:11.700 anything about it. So when his, when his detractors, people like, I don't know, Elizabeth Warren,

00:13:18.540 right, or Janet Yellen, Janet the felon Yellen, when they say, this is Mr. Trump's overreach,

00:13:23.580 this is Mr. Trump going after his political enemies, well, apparently he didn't even know

00:13:28.420 anything about it. I mean, if you believe that. I'm prepared to believe Trump on that.

00:13:34.700 Um, probably, I think. So, okay, so they're saying it's about this lying about the money

00:13:42.740 it costs to renovate a couple of buildings. But the layer below that is what I've just

00:13:46.680 already touched on, that where the central banks, whether it's the Bank of England or

00:13:53.000 the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve is a bit, it's a different thing fundamentally

00:13:58.340 to the Bank of England and other central banks. The, I won't get into it because it's so complicated

00:14:03.180 and, uh, maybe it's one really for Dan and Brokonomics, um, that the nature of the Federal

00:14:09.000 Reserve, um, it is complicated. I've, I've, I'm interested in it, you know. Uh, I used to

00:14:15.640 be in banking, um, so I've read a fair bit about the history of the Federal Reserve and stuff

00:14:20.740 over the, over the years and, um, haven't got time to go into it here, but fundamentally this

00:14:25.600 is at the crux of it. Is it, who should have the power to set interest rates? Federal interest

00:14:32.780 rates. Should it be a completely independent Federal Reserve body? Hesitate really to call

00:14:39.700 them a central bank, but anyway, the Federal, the Federal Reserve. Should it be those guys,

00:14:43.340 some sort of, um, monetary policy committee there? Or should it be, you know, like the

00:14:49.660 Treasury, the actual Federal Treasury, or the President himself even? Should it be that

00:14:54.520 the President can say, I think interest rates should be cut by 0.25% this, now, this month?

00:15:02.440 Well, at the moment, and it's been the way for the long time in America, like 100 years

00:15:06.940 or whatever, that, um, the Federal Reserve get to do that. They completely make that decision

00:15:11.880 independently. The President cannot tell them to higher or lower interest rates. Now, quick

00:15:18.640 equivalents, uh, in the UK, the Bank of England, like, Gordon Brown, like, what, 20 years ago

00:15:28.880 or something, um, gave full independence to the Bank of England to do that. Before Gordon

00:15:36.520 Brown, it was, it was the government, it was the Treasury. Her Majesty's Treasury got to make

00:15:43.300 that decision. In other words, the government, like, the Prime Minister could sort of send

00:15:47.700 word down to the Treasury to change the interest rate. Gordon Brown got rid of that and let

00:15:54.640 the, a monetary policy committee at the Bank of England do it. So, different countries do

00:15:59.380 it slightly differently. It's not sort of written in stone that, like, this is the way it must

00:16:02.520 be, and anything other than this is just wrong and bad. It's, I wouldn't say that's the

00:16:06.920 case. It could be one way or the other. Is it, is a President, um, you know, is it sort

00:16:13.300 of fiscally irresponsible or, like, morally wrong or anything for a President to have that

00:16:19.540 power? I don't think so. Nonetheless, nonetheless, it's not the way the United States have done

00:16:25.420 it for a long time. And I know that there's a lot of people in the United States and in

00:16:29.220 the wider world who are deeply, deeply suspicious of the Federal Reserve. I am. But when you look

00:16:35.320 into the details of what the Federal Reserve actually is, how it works, who really runs it,

00:16:47.100 owns it, controls it, you know, it's like, really? That's how you're doing things?

00:16:56.880 Um, so, so, this is the row, um, and, and Jerome Powell has been sort of fully subpoenaed,

00:17:03.200 right, indicted. He is being charged with a criminal offence. And he came out, um, and made

00:17:13.120 a little video. Look at, I saw it this morning. It was like a, well, the bit I saw was like a

00:17:17.660 minute long. It was probably a bit longer than that, unredacted, but a bit, minute long of him

00:17:22.100 saying, this is what's going on. You know, I'm completely innocent. This is just sort of a witch

00:17:26.360 hunt. I'm paraphrasing. This is sort of a witch hunt by Donald Trump. And I've done nothing wrong.

00:17:30.560 It's absolutely outrageous that I would, you could even imagine that I might lie,

00:17:34.340 all that. And, um, that's unusual. Usually once, uh, the DOJ launches a criminal investigation

00:17:42.560 interview, most people just keep quiet at that point. It's like, it's the prudent thing to do.

00:17:48.560 Right? If anyone's out there and you're going through a court case, probably don't make a YouTube

00:17:53.440 video about it. The courts don't like that. And, and you'll probably damage yourself. You almost

00:17:59.420 certainly damage yourself in your case. But obviously Jerome Powell and his team, you will

00:18:05.540 have a team of people around him, are a bit more savvy than that. They've made a, you know, a political

00:18:09.800 calculation that it's actually is in their interest in this case to sort of make a statement about it.

00:18:14.520 All right. So, I mean, that's an ongoing thing. Um, we'll see what happens. You know, um, Trump

00:18:21.560 certainly is going after a bunch of his political enemies, rightly or wrongly. I mean, some of them,

00:18:27.420 I think, are just like James Comey or a John Bolton. Right? I think in both those cases, for example,

00:18:35.320 I think, uh, totally Trump is right to do that, in my opinion. You know, it is a slippery slope, but

00:18:41.060 nonetheless, you know, I hope Comey and Bolton end up in jail personally, particularly Bolton.

00:18:48.320 Well, actually both of them. They're both scumbags. Who almost certainly, you know, Comey almost 1.00

00:18:52.880 certainly did something wrong. Whether John Bolton did or not is much more of a gray area, but I still,

00:18:57.360 I'd still like to see him banged up in clink for the rest of his life. Economic advisors, joy and rebuke.

00:19:02.900 So loads of the other, I think I saw somewhere written, all the living ex-heads of the Federal

00:19:08.640 Reserve came out in support of Jerome Powell and rebuked Trump. But sort of, of course they would

00:19:14.460 in a way, you know, like it's their club. It really is like a bit like a club in what in Britain

00:19:22.020 we'd call an old boys network, the old boys club. Um, so they all came out in support, but you sort of,

00:19:28.160 you would expect that, I would, you know, I would think.

00:19:33.900 Um, Zahari conquers fears of Farage to join reform as highest value Tory defector. So that's the

00:19:40.120 story that, that, uh, Nedim Zahawi, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, was the Chancellor

00:19:45.520 of the Exchequer under Boris. So during the Boris wave and stuff, during the Covid stuff, he was

00:19:50.300 Chancellor. So an arch traitor of Britain and the British people, in my opinion, a couple of

00:19:56.200 times over. True scumbag, in my opinion. Like someone that should answer for crimes against 1.00

00:20:05.640 the people and the nation, in my opinion. He's joined reform. There you go, Farage opened

00:20:12.220 in with open arms. You know, Rupert Lowe is beyond the pale. They tried to put him in prison

00:20:18.340 under what later emerged to be almost certainly false allegations. Uh, Rupert Lowe is beyond the

00:20:24.240 power. But Zahawi, an Iraqi-born man, seems to be a fifth columnist, in my opinion. Like

00:20:33.960 loves mass immigration and globalisation. Gloating about Somalis sending loads of money out of 0.95

00:20:40.040 our economy back home. All that, all the stuff, all the things. Um, Niaj opens him with, with

00:20:46.360 open arms, apparently. He's the highest value Tory defector. I mean, I guess the calculation

00:20:52.740 is, or, or, um, Niaj himself said that, you know, this is a man who's extremely successful

00:20:58.800 in business. Let's put a question mark over that. Well, uh, you know, whether it was all

00:21:06.040 legit business practices, I mean. Certainly did make a lot of money, and that's a matter of

00:21:09.480 record. Um, and that he's, he's, he's climbed, successfully climbed the slippery slope of

00:21:15.160 politics, and, uh, he gets things done. Yes, does he? What things, though? Are they good

00:21:24.020 things he got done? Is it great that he climbed that, that slippery pole of politics during,

00:21:29.860 like, the Tory years under Boris? Is that great? Is that a tick in his column? Or, as a lot

00:21:37.640 of people think, certainly on the right, or probably actually also on the left, probably

00:21:41.840 think that's actually a detriment to his character and his political career. Nonetheless, Nigel

00:21:49.360 welcomes him with open arms. I guess the calculation is in Nigel's mind. It's like, just, just the

00:21:53.940 prestige, the gravitas of having an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. Just that, regardless of how

00:21:59.860 hated he is, or how terrible he was at the job. But, nonetheless, he was one of the most

00:22:04.180 senior secretaries of state, so it lends a type of gravitas to reform. I mean, that was,

00:22:12.420 I thought that was exactly what reform were against, was all those ex-Tories. I thought

00:22:19.120 that was kind of one of the main points of reform, was to offer an alternative to people

00:22:25.460 exactly like a Zohari. Well, there you go. Well, as that headline suggests, that Zohari 0.76

00:22:34.780 conquers fears of Faraj. Because, in the past, he's like, just called Nigel racist and things.

00:22:44.000 He changed his tune now. Or, another part of that story is that he was, Nadiem Zohari,

00:22:50.340 was trying to get a peerage, you know, sit in the House of Lords, and then you're set

00:22:56.020 for life. He's already set for life. He's already a very, very rich individual, as I understand

00:23:00.860 it. But, you know, once you've got a peerage, everything's kushti. And he was rejected.

00:23:07.320 It looks like he wasn't, almost certainly, well, wasn't going to get ennobled, wasn't going

00:23:11.900 to become the Lord Zohari. And so, because of that, he's, you know, he wants to try and

00:23:16.780 revive his political career then. And so, he's made a decision, a calculation, that

00:23:21.080 he can try and be back in government by joining reform.

00:23:28.660 I would have thought, I would have hoped that Nigel would make a better decision than that.

00:23:33.080 He'd be like, no. Like, it's like having Matt Hancock or something. Like, no, you're part

00:23:39.140 of the, you're the enemy. You're part of the problem. You're what we're fighting against,

00:23:43.260 if anything. I would have hoped that Nigel himself would have made that decision. Or

00:23:48.880 the people around Nigel, his team, would have said, no, wait, don't do this one, though.

00:23:54.020 I mean, Nadine Doris, all right. Someone like Lee Anderson, okay, all right. We need some

00:23:59.920 people, at least. But Nadine Zohari, really? Him? Sort of an arch-enemy, it should be.

00:24:07.720 Should be an arch-enemy of Nigel reform, but politically speaking. All right, there you

00:24:14.220 go. The Metro. Crash gangs wallop. Is that a pun on? Is that a pun? It's a poor one,

00:24:26.960 if it is. Slap bang wallop. Crash gangs walloped. Is it? I don't know. All right. Raid's key

00:24:36.000 to fooling homicides, say police. Metro joins dawn drug bust as Metro reveals its war on

00:24:43.600 Turkish mafia and country lines groups. Okay, this is the story that the Metro, one of the

00:24:50.080 worst rags in Britain, saying that the police have raided, well, they went on this one particular

00:25:00.820 raid, but the story is broader, that the police have been raiding more and more organised gang

00:25:06.920 crimes, particularly Turkish mafia. Do I need to put that in inverted commas? Turkish mafia?

00:25:13.080 Yeah, that there is loads and loads of organised crime in Britain. Loads. I mean, there was a

00:25:21.100 segment on the main afternoon podcast of the Loaf Seaters a little while ago, saying like,

00:25:26.000 if I remember rightly, maybe I'm exaggerating this slightly in my mind, maybe I'm not, but

00:25:29.760 it was something like one in every ten pounds in the economy. So a tenth of the entire economy

00:25:34.920 is sort of the black illegal economy. Yeah, and when you look at nearly every high street 1.00

00:25:41.200 up and down the length and breadth of this country, they were like fake barbers, fake Turkish barbers, 1.00

00:25:46.400 fake vape shops, fake sweet shops, which are, I mean, obviously, come on, they're obviously

00:25:52.700 fronts for crime in all sorts of ways, whether it's just money laundering, or whether they're

00:25:59.080 fronts for other things, drug smuggling, the drugs industry, people smuggling, all sorts of

00:26:05.800 things. It's massive. It's massive. And a lot of the, you know, in Parliament, they don't talk

00:26:12.160 about it very much. Every now and again, someone, I mean, actually, Richard Tice, Dicey Ticey has

00:26:17.460 actually not been too bad on it. I've seen him actually really pipe up a number of times talking

00:26:25.360 about fake sweet shops and fake barbers, because usually when a normal person notices and says,

00:26:34.480 the lefty media or the corporate mainstream media will just instantly accuse you of being

00:26:39.100 a bigot or a racist or something for sort of daring to notice, let alone say anything about it,

00:26:44.580 even though it's so obvious. It's obvious at a glance, as I say, in nearly every high street.

00:26:49.580 So, OK, the story, though, from the Metro is that the police have been doing increasing number

00:26:53.560 of raids, and among other things, that has contributed to a fall in homicides, at least

00:27:02.900 in the capital. So good, but critics, I would count myself among them, say that it doesn't

00:27:11.220 go far enough, like the police and the Home Office, ultimately, are not doing enough, not

00:27:16.460 going far enough, hard enough, on smashing these gangs, getting rid of them, clear them

00:27:25.540 out. We've got to clear them out. We really do, though. We really do. It's a blight on

00:27:30.900 our society. Like, you walk past these shops, and it's like, it's sick of it. There's never

00:27:37.220 anyone in them. All the shelves are pristine, because no one ever touches them, because no one

00:27:40.880 ever goes in them. There's someone sitting behind the counter, just playing on his phone.

00:27:46.100 Or even got a lookout outside the front. Like, there's a barbershop I walk by nearly every

00:27:50.320 morning, and there's quite literally a lookout sitting out front of it. Or like a tricked-out

00:27:57.540 murk with darkened windows parks up outside of it, all the time. It's obviously organised

00:28:03.940 crime. Ah, horrible, horrible, horrible. I would, again, if I was a Lord Protector in

00:28:11.380 Bowes, Britain, I would put unbelievable resources into smashing that to bits. All of that. There

00:28:21.840 would be a war on it, if it were up to me. I don't want a society riddled with organised

00:28:28.180 crime. Sorry, not sorry. You know, like, come on. Never used to be like that until just

00:28:34.760 a few years ago. Really, just like 10, 15 years ago. Certainly 20 years ago plus, when

00:28:40.540 I was growing up, when I was a kid or a teenager in the 90s. It just wasn't a thing. Didn't

00:28:45.020 have loads and loads and loads of fake shop frontages. Obviously, foreign-controlled organised 0.95

00:28:53.860 crime. This country. Under 16, what is this? The iPaper, is it? Yeah, the iPaper. UK under

00:29:05.860 16s could be banned from social media within months. Aussie style. So it's Liz Kendall and 0.99

00:29:13.320 the government doing more censorship. It may or may not be that bad. I've got mixed feelings

00:29:21.780 about this. We've done a segment on this before as well. If you're a kid, you know, under 16,

00:29:27.920 might be better if you don't get to see loads of gore and snuff footage and hardcore porn.

00:29:32.400 Might be better if that isn't passed around the playgrounds in primary schools.

00:29:37.160 But then there is the angle of just government censorship. Should it not be on the parents or

00:29:43.740 maybe even the schools to sort of police that stuff? Is it the job of the government to say,

00:29:48.660 I don't know, it's a difficult one. But let's see, what's the other, the under headlines,

00:29:55.040 they say. The government is open to following Australia with UK wide ban amid fears over

00:30:00.820 harm to children. Yeah, it's a legit concern, isn't it? I would be worried if I had a, like

00:30:07.220 a little kid in primary school and some other kid just shows them something horrific on a

00:30:12.040 phone in the playground. Just turns the thing to them. Okay, there you go. That's your psyche

00:30:17.060 ruined for life. That's bad. It's a worry.

00:30:24.440 The Technology Secretary, Liz Kendall, is understood to be open-minded about a possible

00:30:29.860 restriction. Department of Health researching the evidence base and implementation for the

00:30:35.340 Australian policy change after its social media ban came into force in December. New guidelines

00:30:42.060 also announced the technology use for under fives on back of recent evidence that high

00:30:49.100 screen time, high screen time levels could affect language development. Again, sorry,

00:30:55.880 this is right at the limit of my eyesight, how small the writing is. I will be driven by

00:31:00.620 evidence, says Kendall. Well, I think she'll be driven by ideology and what her boss says. 1.00

00:31:08.160 That's what I think. Liz Kendall, what a Karen. What a perfect embodiment of a pretty much 1.00

00:31:18.060 know-nothing Karen. Liz Kendall, Jesus Christ. Sorry, you shouldn't blaspheme. All right, Daily Express.

00:31:28.800 Tell truth on fantasy cost of net zero push. This is a story all about that. There's been a report

00:31:37.340 saying that Ed Miliband's net zero plans, or just net zero plans in general, actually will cost an insane

00:31:44.780 amount of money in reality. Yeah, everyone's been saying, every opponent of net zero has been saying

00:31:53.220 that since they were, I mean, that's one thing reform have been good on. Both Tice and Nige, 1.00

00:31:58.560 before Nige was leader, when it was first. They've both been good on that. It's kind of crazy. It's 0.90

00:32:04.020 kind of a nonsense. It will bankrupt the nation if you try and do it. It said, Ed Miliband's net zero

00:32:09.420 project could leave the taxpayer with a huge bill of nine trillion, that's with a T, nine trillion pounds,

00:32:17.880 a report has claimed, which is obviously an absurd amount of money. We haven't got anything

00:32:20.640 like that. That's nine trillion. What? Isn't that most of the world's money? That's a silly

00:32:28.260 number that we could never, ever, ever, ever come remotely close to even a fraction of being able

00:32:32.860 to afford that. So yeah, the Express sort of trying to dunk on net zero, or is dunking on net zero and

00:32:42.100 Ed Miliband. I mean, it's a crazy thing. Trump calls it a hoax, doesn't he? It's just straight up

00:32:46.580 like global warming and things is a hoax. Or the drive for net zero, or the idea that

00:32:52.900 the idea that carbon dioxide drives climate change in any profound sense. Man-made CO2 drives

00:33:01.980 climate change. That all of that is a hoax, Trump says. You know. I mean, isn't CO2 something like

00:33:11.500 400 or 450 parts per million, 500 parts per million, something like that. In other words,

00:33:18.700 a very, very, very small amount of the atmosphere. Very small. I mean, put that in perspective.

00:33:24.860 450 parts per million. You know how big a million is compared to 450?

00:33:29.820 450. Does CO2 drive climate change? Does it? Do we need to rework all of our economies and our entire world

00:33:44.280 because of it? Do we? Is that necessary? All right, let's move on. The Times.

00:33:53.980 Jewish MP school visits scuppered by pro-Palestine teachers.

00:34:00.840 Wouldn't be surprised. Lots and lots of teachers in the UK do wear hijabs. 1.00

00:34:10.060 UK troops set to swoop on Kremlin's shadow fleet. Special forces could target hundreds of tankers.

00:34:17.280 I mean, that is one thing we do, the Royal Marines, like 4-2 Commando. Well, there's various

00:34:23.820 Royal Marine Commando units. Oh, and the SBS, the Special Boat Service. You can call in the SAS if you need to.

00:34:32.200 We've got various military outfits that are capable of storming tankers. We've actually got,

00:34:41.140 that's one of the things we probably could do reasonably well. We haven't got a fleet of AWACS craft.

00:34:51.060 We haven't got like 10 aircraft carriers. We've got a couple, but one thing we could do,

00:34:56.200 one thing we're not too bad at, would be doing that. So there's a story there saying that we're,

00:35:01.200 we're set to sort of swoop in on Mr. Mr. Putin's ghost tankers. His zombie ships.

00:35:09.560 See that last week? Those calling them zombie ships, zombie tankers. All right. Iran seeks US 1.00

00:35:15.340 talks amid threat of airstrikes. So this is a bit of a, it's funny how capricious the news cycle is,

00:35:20.640 isn't it? Not funny, haha. Funny, interesting. How sort of changeable the news cycle is. Yesterday,

00:35:27.420 it was wall to wall Iran, wasn't it? Today, not so much. We're in the UK press. When we look at the

00:35:33.340 American papers in a bit, it's much more, but still, it was sort of front pages across the board,

00:35:39.560 almost yesterday, this morning. Not so much. The editors have decided it's not as important

00:35:45.960 as they thought it was yesterday. So here's one. Iran seeks US talks amid threats of airstrikes.

00:35:52.440 So Trump is sort of threatening. We'll get into some more detail of what he said overnight

00:35:56.340 about various tariffs and economic measures. But Iran actually wants to talk to the US to

00:36:05.600 sort of try and prevent them from launching, I imagine, Tomahawk cruise missiles at them,

00:36:12.680 or missiles in various ways. Okay, the Daily Mail. What's the Daily Mail going with?

00:36:18.800 Fury over labour payout to Herman's Guantanamo client. Backlash's government approves substantial

00:36:25.000 compensation to terror suspect once represented by Attorney General. So this is a story where

00:36:32.100 there was a guy who was captured, was it actually in Afghanistan in like 2001 or, or no, he was

00:36:41.160 captured in 2002. A guy who was captured in 2002, apparently a British person. His name's Abu Zabayyada,

00:36:53.020 Abu Zabayyada, a British national. He was captured effectively on the battlefield in 2002 by the US,

00:37:05.880 taken to Gitmo Bay, held there for a long, long, long time. He was actually represented in his legal

00:37:14.160 struggles by, by the guy that's now, Lord Herber, who's now, obviously, 20 plus years later, the

00:37:22.660 Attorney General. And it looks like he could, or has, in fact, I think, I think it's just, it's a

00:37:29.120 face of complete, it's happened, I think. He's got substantial compensation. I'm not sure the exact

00:37:35.140 number, whether it's hundreds of thousands of pounds or whether it's millions, I don't know.

00:37:38.520 Because he argued, or his team argued, that the UK were complicit in his torture. Because

00:37:46.360 people say that Guantanamo Bay, sort of, in and of itself, constitutes torture, the way you're

00:37:51.420 treated there. Whether it's actual, sort of, waterboarding and stress positions, or just,

00:37:59.240 or just the fact that you're in Guantanamo Bay at all, that the conditions are harsh, well,

00:38:04.000 relatively harsh, compared to, you know, European prisons and jails. But, you know, other people

00:38:11.460 say, well, if you're a terrorist captured on the battlefield, shouldn't, shouldn't you

00:38:14.920 suffer relatively harsh conditions? But I don't know. I actually don't know all the details.

00:38:19.120 If he was fully, you know, waterboarded or whatever, you know, sleep deprivation could

00:38:24.380 be any number of things, couldn't it? But, yeah, apparently our government has now approved

00:38:28.860 substantial compensation to this fella. It's just one more example, in my opinion, broadly

00:38:34.460 speaking, I'm talking more broadly now, beyond just this individual person and his payout.

00:38:40.060 Our government just seems to capitulate to anyone and every enemy of our country, you

00:38:46.440 know, like the Chagos Islands, for example. Anything that's not in our, almost anything that's

00:38:51.380 not in our interest, which is a detriment to us. They go for, and do, and are positive

00:38:58.240 about. So, yeah, some guy claiming we're complicit in his torture. Some Abu Zabadiah 1.00

00:39:05.440 guy says we're complicit in his torture. Yeah, sure. Have a substantial compensation. Yeah.

00:39:10.740 Don't worry about it. Why not? Yeah, definitely. It's hand-wringing, pearl-clutching. We're always

00:39:15.320 in the wrong. We're the baddies. That stuff. That's our government. That's who they are.

00:39:22.140 All right. The Guardian.

00:39:30.900 The Guardian.

00:39:34.320 They go with, ADHD care costs soar as NHS turns to private sector. So that's finally a story

00:39:40.060 about ADHD. Got to say, just a bit of sort of personal preference here. Don't really

00:39:47.900 care about ADHD. I don't have ADHD. You know, like the Michael J. Fox thing of like, Michael

00:39:55.220 J. Fox cares about Parkinson's because he's got Parkinson's. If you haven't got Parkinson's

00:39:59.940 or no one you know in your family have got Parkinson's, you probably don't care that much

00:40:02.960 about Parkinson's. It's just the way it is, you know. It's just the way it is. Yeah.

00:40:07.040 I don't have ADHD. I don't know anyone who has. So I also think a lot of people are diagnosed

00:40:12.740 with ADHD or something equivalent. Loads of people are diagnosed with like really mild

00:40:18.860 autism or Asperger's. And it's just, no, they're just a little bit weird. I think there's an

00:40:25.420 over-diagnosis of these things. But I'm no doctor. I'm no MD. I'm no medical doctor.

00:40:31.040 So take that with a pinch of salt. It's probably not worth anything, that opinion. Maybe. Possibly.

00:40:36.940 But ADHD costs sore. All right, do they? Next thing. Iran downplays protests as anti-US crowds

00:40:45.600 rally. So this is part of the thing that I mentioned yesterday. There is an element,

00:40:50.680 there is an argument to be made that a lot of the protests in Iran weren't necessarily quite as severe

00:40:57.080 as they were being made out to be. I read it again. I don't know, because I'm not on the ground.

00:41:05.260 But it could be that the regime is sort of nowhere close to toppling. Even if all those protests were

00:41:13.340 as severe as they looked and the death toll is as high as some say it is, all that still might add up

00:41:19.940 to the net result of the regime isn't close to toppling still. I mean, I said my prediction,

00:41:26.660 wasn't it, that they would still be there this time next week? Yeah, I mean, probably. You know,

00:41:32.700 as I say, we could wake up the next morning, wake up tomorrow and the ayatollahs are gone. 0.99

00:41:39.380 But I'll believe it when I see it. That's all I can say. So many false storms. How many false

00:41:45.100 storms do we need in like an Iran regime thing before you realise? Just wait and see till it 0.54

00:41:51.860 actually happens. Otherwise, it's probably not going to happen. So Hari moves to reform amid peerage

00:41:57.420 bid claims. Yeah, that's the angle that he wanted to try and become a lord and has failed. The sun.

00:42:04.860 What have we got in the sun? Fuel pumps to start vanishing within four years. Bin Diesel.

00:42:10.540 That's surely a pun on Vin Diesel, isn't it? Bin Diesel. Yeah, that's the story that like,

00:42:14.940 because you know, at most petrol stations, you can get petrol or diesel and that they're trying to

00:42:19.580 phase out diesel. Because it's a bit of a dirtier petrol. There's some people that, there's some

00:42:28.820 petrol heads that like diesel, think diesel's good. Okay, that's the world we live in, isn't it?

00:42:37.500 Further, further push towards electric cars and, you know, phasing out diesel. So the sun thinks

00:42:44.360 that's front page news today. Rush to lecky cars. So move towards electric cars and move away from

00:42:53.620 diesel all at the same time. Fuel pumps to start vanishing within four years. All right. The star.

00:43:00.780 The star. I was about to say before I scroll down, I wonder what slop they've gone with today. Well,

00:43:05.960 it's something about Greg Wallace. If anyone's foreign or American or Australian or something,

00:43:12.700 this guy, Greg Wallace, just used to be on TV loads. It was just like a staple of various presenting

00:43:21.120 roles. And he was kind of cancelled for allegedly sort of being rude towards women, if you put it that

00:43:30.200 way. You know, I don't think there was, I don't think there was allegations. I'm pretty sure he's not

00:43:34.100 certainly not being convicted of any like actual full-blown sex crime or anything like that. I think

00:43:38.880 he was just like made like kind of lewd jokes and things. But even that was enough. You know, some

00:43:44.800 me too women came out and said, Greg Wallace is a disgrace and he's all that sort of thing. But I don't

00:43:49.840 think it amounted to much. Well, the headline is here. Greg, sorry, not sorry. Lewd gags no worse

00:43:56.400 than Bake Off. So the little thing says there, if I can just about read it. Saxe Greg Wallace

00:44:02.040 apologised for his MasterChef antics. Oh yeah, he was on MasterChef and Celebrity MasterChef among

00:44:07.320 other things. He did actually present all sorts of other shows. He apologised for his MasterChef

00:44:12.920 antics, then defended gags about spotted dick, nuts and little tarts. And then the star says, 0.99

00:44:23.680 Greg mate, that's not really being sorry. So yeah, I don't actually know the extent

00:44:32.560 of Greg Wallace's misdemeanours. Let's call them misdemeanours. I mean, maybe that's even a bit

00:44:38.200 too strong. I don't know if he like pinched some women's bums or slapped them on the bum or was just 0.98

00:44:43.660 sort of lewd, sort of made a comment about their boobs or something. I think it was that sort of level, 0.99

00:44:49.100 right? Not real sex crime, but just, just a little bit like lewd or something. Oh yeah,

00:44:55.440 making jokes about spotted dick and little tarts, stuff like that. So, I mean, in my opinion, 0.99

00:45:03.960 I don't think there's, there's, if that was all he ever did, just make sort of lewd comments about

00:45:09.440 things. It's not that bad, is it? Come on, let's have a sense of humour. How prudish are we going to

00:45:15.600 make our society? Like really, really sort of sharia level prudishness? Is that where we're going 1.00

00:45:22.660 with it? Like you can't say anything risque ever? Is that, is that where we're going with it? You

00:45:29.940 can't make a joke about, you can't make a pun about nuts. Really? That's where we're going with

00:45:34.620 things, is it? All right, let's have a quick look at the, the actual websites, BBC. Trump briefed on

00:45:44.440 military and covert options for Iran, sources say. Yeah, I did see him come out and say that any

00:45:49.600 country that does any business with Iran will get immediate 25% tariffs slapped on them.

00:45:56.160 So, there you go. He's basically just trying to isolate Iran as much as possible, economically 0.84

00:46:04.540 speaking. ITV News. Iran's supreme leader warns US as death toll from protests rises. So they're

00:46:13.540 continuing yesterday's news cycle of just that there's more and more deaths. Channel 4 News,

00:46:20.560 real slop. This blood will come back to haunt you, family of Iranian students shot dead, say.

00:46:26.160 Channel 4 News, worst of the worst. Sky News. BBC to file motion to dismiss Trump defamation

00:46:35.780 lawsuit over Panorama edit. Yes, a quick word on that. Panorama, if anyone doesn't know, very

00:46:41.440 quickly. Panorama did a documentary, if you want to call it that. Not a propaganda piece.

00:46:48.880 They created a quote unquote documentary just before the last US presidential election and

00:46:55.240 they re-edited Trump's January 6th speech to make it look like he had directly and explicitly called

00:47:02.900 for people to march on Capitol Hill, which he didn't. They took bits from like almost an hour

00:47:08.680 apart in the speech and put them together and it looked like he was basically saying, let's all go

00:47:12.860 down to the Capitol and storm it, when he never said any such thing. And Trump's taken them to court.

00:47:20.300 I think in Florida, he's brought a defamation lawsuit against the BBC and trying to claim

00:47:28.860 billions of pounds or is it dollars, like five billion pounds or dollars, which the BBC could

00:47:35.720 not afford. And so the BBC now filed a motion to dismiss that before it fully goes to court.

00:47:41.600 I think one of their main arguments was that, oh, but Trump won the election anyway, so how was it

00:47:46.960 even defamation? It's a very shaky argument that, isn't it? You know, it's like, I tried to shoot

00:47:56.020 someone in the head, but I missed. How, what's wrong with that? I didn't, you know, BBC, filth, filth.

00:48:05.660 The Daily Mail. Shocking footage shows Seat Leon racing through suburban roads at 122 miles

00:48:12.280 per hour, uploaded by Teen, who was killed in a horrific head-on smash just hours later,

00:48:18.180 clipped now part of police probe into crash that left four dead. Dicing with death.

00:48:25.860 Sad? Bad? Not good? Is it like the top story today in the world? I don't think so, but, um.

00:48:35.660 I mean, yeah, young people driving extremely fast, uh, it's probably almost certainly not

00:48:43.200 going to end well. I mean, Seat Leon, I was about to say, I was about to say, people that

00:48:50.740 own extremely powerful cars, because quite often that is, a younger person who's not that

00:48:55.940 experienced behind the wheel somehow gets in something extremely powerful, you know, like

00:49:01.140 a souped-up Merc or Beamer or something, and crash and kill themselves and or others. Um,

00:49:07.880 I was going to say, there should be special driving, uh, requirements for people that have

00:49:14.380 extremely powerful cars. And sometimes you get a young, someone who's young and somehow get

00:49:18.480 their hands on a Porsche or Ferrari and total it, completely total it within days or whatever,

00:49:24.440 because they can't handle it. Because it's difficult to drive an extremely powerful car.

00:49:28.300 You need to know what you're doing. You need to be able to feel the grip, right? Anyway,

00:49:33.460 but it was a Seat Leon. So, it's not even a case of that. It's not even a case of someone...

00:49:41.280 It's sad. It's sad, isn't it? I mean, but, is that really front-page news?

00:49:45.720 The Express. Horror conscription warning for two groups of Brits, with UK army weakest for 200 years.

00:49:54.920 Yes, this is a story that keeps coming around more and more, that the, um, the powers that be

00:49:59.540 want to be able to have a much, much stronger, bigger, sort of, standing army. And, uh, in order

00:50:04.720 to do that, because a lot of people have lost faith in their own government, don't want to fight for

00:50:10.600 the government. The conscription is down. Sorry, the, the, the, the voluntary joining of the armed

00:50:18.100 forces is way, way down. And the government are saying that the only way to sort of deal with

00:50:22.440 that is conscription. Well, good luck with that. I don't know anyone, really. I don't really know

00:50:29.320 anyone, IRL, who's sort of up for that or interested in that, you know. Talk to quite a lot of Zoomers 0.99

00:50:36.200 in the office, even. There's a fair few 20-year-olds, 20-somethings in, in the load-seater's office.

00:50:41.860 None of them would dream of, of being interested. I mean, Harry. Harry, you're, you're, you're 20,

00:50:48.920 right? I am, yeah. What were your thoughts and feelings if you got a letter in the post

00:50:53.960 that said, you have to join the army now and do a year or two in the army? I, I just wouldn't.

00:51:00.480 It's not, it's not. I mean, these, these, this isn't the government I'd want to fight for.

00:51:08.060 There you go. That's the voice of the, of the Zoomer there. The real, a real opinion from an

00:51:14.580 actual real-life Zoomer. Are you even the generation younger than Zoomer? What's the

00:51:20.100 generation they call that's younger than Zoomers? Alpha. Are you that? Does that count? I don't know. 0.56

00:51:24.720 I'm Zoomer. Okay, you're Zoomer. Okay. I don't know where the alpha starts. I don't know all these

00:51:28.300 things. All right. Um, let's have a quick look. The sun, not appy. This is a story that, um,

00:51:38.460 well, it says, Fury, as pathetic PM's laughable brainwave to stop channel migrant dinghies is 0.98

00:51:44.480 revealed to be a new TikTok account, an app, not appy. Very funny. Very, very, very witty and funny 0.97

00:51:52.080 from the sun there. Oh, so droll. I've only got so many ribs. Well, that's a real rib tickler, that

00:51:59.480 one. It's a real groin wrecker, not appy. Okay. The New York Slimes. US used aircraft that looked

00:52:09.220 like civilian plane in September boat attack. This is a story that, yeah, when the, the, uh, US military

00:52:15.720 blew up some Venezuelan boats in the Gulf of Mexico, would it be, or just off the coast of Venezuela in

00:52:20.100 the, in the Atlantic? Um, they used a plane that wasn't clearly marked as a US military plane. It

00:52:25.080 was made to look just like a civilian one. And that, that may be a war crime, according to some,

00:52:30.760 according to, well, according to Hegseth's enemies, according to Trump's enemies, according to,

00:52:36.200 you know, fifth columnists within the US. Um, all right, let's move on. The Washington Post,

00:52:44.300 US plane, the same story, US plane used in boat strike was made to look like civilian aircraft.

00:52:48.020 All righty. Los Angeles time. It's, uh, let's, let's skip that one. The Aussie news,

00:52:55.000 Adelaide Writers Festival cancelled after backlash to uninviting academic who celebrated

00:52:59.820 October the 7th. So this is a story that seems to be all over the Australian news the last

00:53:04.880 fair few days, really, is that they had, they've got the Writers Festival and, um, the Australian

00:53:11.140 government tried to interfere with who or who couldn't attend it. And then loads of the,

00:53:17.520 loads of the artists, writers, whatever, um, are complaining about that.

00:53:26.800 So there you go. But if she celebrated October 7th, I mean, you know, how many times do you have to say

00:53:33.700 that? I'm no Zionist. Far from it. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm not in favor. I don't like Bibby. 1.00

00:53:41.980 Right. But don't celebrate October the 7th though. That also isn't good. Surely. That would also sort

00:53:50.100 of save volumes about you if you, if you did that. Can we not celebrate massacres either way?

00:53:59.020 Is that too much to ask? Uh, Japan. Uh, Japan, you going with a lot of financial stuff, uh, or, or that

00:54:08.380 their prime minister is going to visit, uh, Korea, South Korea, and try and do all sorts of deals with

00:54:14.360 the South Koreans. Closer ties between the Koreans and the Japanese. All right, China, Zinhua, uh, loads 0.92

00:54:21.120 of stuff about Z as usual. Interestingly though, I looked here and certainly it's not at the top of

00:54:27.080 their news agenda. Anything about the Chinese embassy in London, the Chinese themselves don't 1.00

00:54:31.920 seem to be talking about it. It's not really registering in their news cycle. So it's not a

00:54:36.280 big deal for them. It seems anyway, at a cursory glance anyway. So they're certainly not leading

00:54:43.080 with it. The Russians. So Lensky, his patrons won't escape responsibility for murders of reporters, 0.98

00:54:49.420 says a diplomat, a Russian diplomat, I imagine. Okay. As you can imagine, Russian news is much

00:54:58.460 more Ukraine heavy nearly all the time. Air power missiles seen central to potential US military 0.63

00:55:03.380 action against Iran. Yep. Russia's UN envoy puts civilian death toll from Kiev's attacks in December

00:55:10.860 at 56. US ambition to claim Greenland driven by competition from Russia and China, say the White

00:55:18.820 House. The Russians report. Uh, there you go. Okay. The Germans, uh, what are our German cousins

00:55:29.820 saying? Elon Musk. Oh, is this, can you translate into English? It was in English a minute ago. Uh,

00:55:36.440 there's a story about Elon Musk trying to get, um, sole custody of one of his, one of his sons.

00:55:45.220 Okay. TikTok star in court over six rapes. Okay. Um, autonomous delivery cars in full throttle

00:55:54.880 mode. Oh yeah. There's a really bad car crash where some people burnt alive in Germany. Um,

00:56:01.440 chimney sweep dispute over 5,000 fireplaces. Okay. Okay. Let's move on. It's all a bit,

00:56:05.360 a bit sloppy. The French, uh, Marine Le Pen returns to court for appeal of a graft conviction.

00:56:14.180 So, yeah, I'll read the thing underneath because it pretty much says it all. The French far right's 0.90

00:56:18.560 leader. She's far right, didn't you know? She's far right. And she's not, of course. Pretty centrist.

00:56:26.580 Pretty damn centrist actually, in my opinion. Anyway, the French's far right leader sentenced last year 0.83

00:56:33.860 to four years in prison and a five-year ban on holding an elected office after being convicted of

00:56:39.520 embezzlement of public funds goes back to court with 11 co-defendants for a one-month trial starting

00:56:44.740 Tuesday. Um, yeah, so it's like, uh, also she's got her appeal, hasn't there? It's an appeal. Um,

00:56:51.960 hopefully she'll win her appeals. Otherwise, I guess she does go to prison and then obviously can't 1.00

00:56:58.640 stand, but someone else will. That's the thing the left don't get when they try and like demolish

00:57:03.560 people like Le Pen or the AFD in Germany or Nigel here or someone like Tommy or someone like Trump.

00:57:15.040 Or when the left try and demolish the, the, the, the leaders of the, of sort of right leaning or

00:57:20.920 right of center political groups and movements and parties. It's like someone else will step in though

00:57:25.980 because you haven't, you're not dealing with the actual grievances of nationalists and patriots and

00:57:32.460 things. You're not dealing with any of that. So, okay, you can do lawfare against someone like Le Pen.

00:57:38.800 Someone else will step into the breach because you haven't dealt with any of the problems that you,

00:57:43.680 the left have created. Right. Okay. We're getting near to, uh, getting near to the top of the hour.

00:57:49.880 All right. Let's read a few super chats on, um, Rumble Rants. Fictagious says, here's an idea for

00:57:57.220 conscription. Those that voted for Labour are the only ones that are eligible to be conscripted.

00:58:03.120 Tie the vote to consequence. Thoughts? That's not a bad idea. I mean, I don't think that's ever been

00:58:07.520 tried in the past at all that I'm aware of. Certainly not in Britain. I mean, we don't really have

00:58:10.860 conscription other than in, uh, times of world war. Um, but as a principle, I quite like it as a

00:58:18.380 general principle. That's not bad. Yeah. If you wanted a government that's going to impose this

00:58:22.520 on you, you get to go first. Yeah. Some justice to that actual justice to that. Tom wrapped 247

00:58:30.500 says, Beau's Breakfast Club, BBC mug, uh, on the LT shop. Legal, legally distinguishable colour

00:58:38.360 patterns, but similar font. Start every morning, uh, with a simultaneous slurp. Um, yeah. And I must

00:58:46.060 admit someone on Twitter said BBC, i.e. Beau's Breakfast Club. Um, so I'm sorry if you're watching

00:58:53.740 this. I can't remember who it was that said it, but I immediately replied saying, yes, I like that.

00:58:57.380 I'm stealing that. That's good. Beau's Breakfast Club, BBC. Um, so it's not actually mine. Credit

00:59:03.900 where it's due. You know, I don't want to be accused of stealing jokes. All right. Uh, YouTube,

00:59:10.420 YouTube, uh, super chats. Zajutz149 says, um, is it time that we start reusing the term rotten

00:59:19.120 borough for the safe seats that gets, uh, that gets reserved for those who buy themselves into

00:59:24.660 party positions? Yeah. I mean, not a bad thing. I'm a, I'm a big fan, funny thing to say, but a big

00:59:30.880 fan of 18th and 19th century British political history. Who isn't among us? No, I'm a history

00:59:37.400 nerd. I'm a complete history nerd. So yeah, the, the idea of a rotten borough, just a completely

00:59:43.800 corrupt constituency, essentially, just completely contrived thing so that people can sit in

00:59:50.080 parliament. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, uh, same person. Zajutz149 says, uh, why is the British

00:59:58.380 government paying compensation, uh, to perpetrators instead of the victims? Victims should be able to

01:00:04.720 sue for the funds, uh, before payout. Yeah. I mean, good, good point. Again, in principle,

01:00:10.980 absolutely in principle, perfectly valid point. Um, I don't know if we know, I really don't know

01:00:15.860 if we know, you know, who his victims were back in the, the turn of the century, back in 2002 and

01:00:22.040 before. I don't know if it's possible to ever find who the victims were, but it, but that's not really

01:00:27.160 what you're saying, is it? Yeah. The, the, the principle of that. Yeah. Um, guy from Stoke 6084,

01:00:36.720 a Stokey there says, Hey Bo, come and visit Budapest. It's like England before Blair.

01:00:42.020 Hmm. Budapest. I've never been there. I've never been there. I wouldn't mind to. Yeah. It's various

01:00:48.100 places. I'd love to visit Vienna. There's loads of places on my bucket list. I'd love to go.

01:00:51.880 I'm reasonably well traveled. I've been a fair few places in my time, but there's still a load more

01:00:56.420 on the list. I'd love to go. Yeah. I'd like to see Budapest. I'd like to see Vienna. I'd like to,

01:01:00.760 I'd like to see a number of, um, of Central and Eastern Europe. I've never been to Berlin.

01:01:05.940 Berlin. I'd love to go to Berlin. Um, and finally, uh, Field Marshal Dawn Browning,

01:01:12.180 wait, uh, shouldn't, shouldn't really salute if you're not in the military, should you? But there

01:01:16.900 you go. Field Marshal Dawn Browning doesn't say anything, but gives 10 Aussie dollars. So

01:01:20.780 thank you for that, Dawn. Appreciate it. All right. That is the hour. We are, it has just clocked

01:01:26.340 around to 9am. Um, so we'll leave it there for this morning. Um, thank you as always for joining,

01:01:33.720 uh, Breakfast with Bo, the Bo Show, Bo's Breakfast Club, the Breakfast Club. Um, without you,

01:01:39.780 it wouldn't be a thing. Try and make the best of your day. Try and make it count. Carpe diem.

01:01:43.640 You know, seize the day. Um, you'll only have this day once ever. So make the most of it. All right.

01:01:51.740 Until tomorrow. Take care.

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - January 13, 2026

Breakfast With Beau ｜ Tuesday 13th January 2026

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