00:35:00.440and there's the concern about being invaded.
00:35:08.600But there's no general chat about fear
00:35:14.920about the collapse of NATO in the news, no.
00:35:16.640Oh, that's interesting. I thought there might be.
00:35:20.820No, there is massive concern about Russia and concern about drones and drones getting into Finland and things like this.
00:35:33.620So, for example, a recent headline was about a drone warhead being detonated in southeast Finland because there's no major discussion about the possible collapse of NATO.
00:37:22.980Thanks for letting us know that because it's difficult to get a perspective on something like that unless someone's actually there or living there.
00:37:29.620OK, so back to the papers and what's in the news today.
00:37:31.740A lot of it is all about the economy and, like, British spending, i.e. various things, various data points to talk about, the idea that we spend so much on welfare and the NHS and relatively little on defence, and yet our establishment, the blob, whatever you want to call it, is really quite hawkish quite a lot of the time.
00:37:54.360send lots and lots of money and material and resources to Zelensky but yet don't seem to be
00:38:01.600able to want to or prepare to spend money a relatively small amount in the scheme of things
00:38:07.500on our defence. I don't know if you heard much of the show earlier but you know spending hundreds
00:38:16.040of billions on welfare in the NHS and can't muster like two and a half billion for spending despite
00:38:21.740being very very bellicose what's all your thoughts and feelings on that whole subject
00:38:26.740well we're it's just it's just this broader attitude towards life isn't it that i think that
00:38:33.040we've we've we've we've we're so used to things be everything being okay we're so used to everything
00:38:40.240being fine we're so used to to nothing bad happening that we that we we no longer plan
00:38:47.460for a future in which bad things might happen.
00:38:52.020Another thing you could argue is we're so used to living under freedom
00:38:55.620that we no longer plan for a future or a possibility
00:39:01.280where tyrants might become in charge of our country.
00:39:05.520And that's why we've lost so much freedom in the UK
00:39:07.600over the last 30 years in terms of freedom of speech
00:39:10.640and things like that, because we simply didn't,
00:42:27.100that have of course haven't been peaceful since 1945 nonetheless broadly speaking the long peace
00:42:32.660and yeah you describe it as decadent yeah or short-sighted and uh you mentioned there
00:42:38.260throughout history sort of cycles of history many historians like carlisle and spengler many have
00:42:43.440talked about the the sort of shape of history the cycles that if you think the idea that
00:42:49.100history has come to an end that there will never be wars again no no history decides when it's
00:42:55.800come to an end and it hasn't it never will it will never come to end that was like yeah that
00:43:01.340was the whole idea of Francis Fukuyama the whole idea of history liberal democracy has won out and
00:43:06.500we're going to we're going to be happy forever and it's obviously complete nonsense yeah with
00:43:11.760everything else that's ever happened I mean that's what it looked like in the what it what it looked
00:43:16.200like in the I don't know sort of circa 1900 or something like that or 1890 that was was that
00:43:21.780history had come to an end and everything was going to be okay in Britain there was never going
00:43:24.980be another war serious war obviously colonial wars but but a major war involving britain as
00:43:30.820there had been a hundred years earlier with napoleonic war and so forth um and then of
00:43:35.720course within 10 years or so there was there was a huge war so so it it doesn't work like that but
00:43:40.500it feels like that when you haven't had war and you haven't had serious natural stresses and you
00:43:45.360haven't had death and you haven't had whatever for a very very long time then it feels like that
00:43:49.720And that's when you make these decadent decisions to invest money in nonsense and in just luxuries rather than actually planning for the possibility that there won't be a luxury.
00:44:03.340It's just natural human. It's natural human psychology and it won't ever change. You're right.
00:44:10.640OK, one moment, Ed. Harry. Harry, I couldn't hear Ed for the last couple of moments there.
00:44:16.100could you uh make sure i could hear him i don't know what happened there sorry about that ed uh
00:44:21.520hopefully we can uh there's no more technical issues um okay would you would you mind saying
00:44:27.360something else for me just to check i can actually hear you um no that's not coming through my
00:44:32.920headphones harry sorry about this i don't know if it's it just cut out in the middle of what
00:44:38.640you're saying i didn't touch anything i imagine you didn't touch anything uh well
00:44:44.340okay so i'm i'm sorry i can't actually hear you at this moment we might have to
00:44:52.120yeah it's not coming through i don't know if the people out there on the actual stream can hear it
00:44:57.160but uh harry you've got a few seconds to sort it out otherwise sorry about that ed sorry about
00:45:05.820that ed um oh i suppose you can still talk i think the people on the stream can still hear you