The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Knives Are Out

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome back to another one of these political chats that I have with Dan.

00:00:03.100 This week the knives are out and honestly I'm glad to see it because this is our enemies taking

00:00:08.860 chunks out of each other. So that's all good for us. But before we begin we have a live event on

00:00:14.320 the 11th of April in Swindon. We're all going to be there. It's going to be a big show and it's

00:00:19.420 going to be great fun and then afterwards if you've got a VIP ticket we'll be drinking in the

00:00:22.800 bar with you afterwards. So come and join us there. Right, so we talked about the polls last

00:00:28.680 week we talked about how yougov actually are the most credible pollster in the country and after

00:00:34.960 frage went to war with them because his polling had been on the downswing uh this isn't going to

00:00:40.140 get him the effect that he thinks he's going to get out of it what it's going to get him

00:00:43.680 is a disconnect between where he actually is and what he actually thinks is happening so he's going

00:00:50.120 to say no i want you go to tell me not the truth i want the low resolution not factual information

00:00:58.040 about what's happening and that way i can say well i'm still going up in the polls one thing i have

00:01:03.880 been wondering right so so they peaked at about 32 percent in the polls and now they're down about

00:01:09.140 six months ago yeah yeah and they're down at sort of 28 percent um and and this sort of comes after

00:01:14.540 the online right were disavowed to the point where you know basically it's very clear we were not

00:01:20.960 meant to be in this tent at all and he got rid of us and then we were part we were the enemies

00:01:25.180 well yeah for us goes to the mainstream media and says look what i did to the online right

00:01:29.700 yeah yes look what i did we were we were trying to be friends but the he just he had to make his

00:01:35.580 enemies i don't know why anyway the reason i bring that up is because so he's losing about

00:01:39.340 four percent in the polls there we know that our reach is about five percent of the british

00:01:43.580 population i just i mean it would be 27 if it was cleanly mapped to our five percent but i just

00:01:48.500 wonder if there's any sort of connection there i don't know anyway as you can see via more in

00:01:54.000 here uh reform down 28 down by two conservatives up by two labor down by two greens up by two

00:02:01.340 this is about roughly where the polling has been on the averages so that's that's probably fairly

00:02:08.540 representative but again as we've talked about not really good for anyone but more in common is not

00:02:14.740 one of the most accurate pollsters in britain okay the next one is opinion which again has them down

00:02:19.340 by two at 27 the greens at 15 but again you can see it's a fairly repeatable pattern that's the

00:02:26.000 27 i'm looking for that maps cleanly yeah that yeah that's a very um average map but then you

00:02:33.280 get to the yougov poll that came out this week and uh oh it's pretty brutal right but three percent

00:02:40.980 yeah we'll get what happened to the don't they have samson why can't i see this map

00:02:47.680 this this pole rimlins have got it yeah 0.99

00:02:51.360 there we go right um give them a moment so they can cut this bit

00:02:59.240 so 23 i mean that's not just bad that's that i mean that's down nine on where they

00:03:11.100 had got to a few months back it's really bad well before they got rid of rupert lowe

00:03:16.660 they were on yeah 32 but also labor on 19 green on 18 conservative on 17

00:03:22.380 that's bad for everyone if this actually happens in a general election

00:03:26.340 what a mess that will be that that will be it's not just a hung parliament it will be either a

00:03:33.320 hung part a minority government of reform and conservatives and maybe well a few northern

00:03:38.820 island parties there's not many of them or it's going to be a mishmash of absolutely everybody 0.67

00:03:42.900 else labor green and lib dem even though there are some serious um cleavages between things uh

00:03:50.720 people like the lib dems and the greens for example like the lib dems ed davy came out um i think it

00:03:54.840 yesterday actually and said actually i really disagree with the greens defense policy because 0.95

00:04:00.020 of course the lib dems are not actually communists they're just virtue signaling upper class wankers 0.96

00:04:05.560 upper middle class wankers right they're not communists they want to make sure that their 0.77

00:04:10.880 nice four-bedroom house with its wide garden is kept secure and so they want the nuclear deterrent 0.97

00:04:15.440 they want the military they want border control frankly as well well and the other thing is if

00:04:20.700 If you look at what Keir Starmer did in his tenure as Labour,

00:04:24.200 especially before he hit office,

00:04:27.120 a lot of his energies went into taming, brutally, his left wing.

00:04:31.420 Oh, expelling it from the party.

00:04:32.760 Yes.

00:04:33.340 In fact, we'll come to that in a bit, actually.

00:04:35.120 Well, the point I was going to make is,

00:04:36.700 if it's that difficult with Labour,

00:04:39.440 how the hell is he going to manage a coalition with Greens

00:04:41.840 if that's the way we end up?

00:04:43.060 How reasonable is Zach Polanski going to be when he's the deputy PM?

00:04:46.120 he purged his own left but but the entire green party is just the loony left and they've come

00:04:52.720 back to haunt him yes and that's that's something that's happening pretty much all over the place

00:04:57.300 so anyway other than reform that's really terrible but reform at 23 well farage would say well this

00:05:02.580 is because of your um fudged numbers but actually if you look at the question no if there was a

00:05:09.760 general election held tomorrow which party would you vote for i don't know if this is the regressed

00:05:15.420 information because they said they were going to start putting out just all of the numbers

00:05:19.520 well that's that's not if there was a general election held tomorrow which party would you

00:05:24.580 vote for in your constituency which is the secondary question they ask for and then wait

00:05:28.900 the data and whatnot all the you know arcane magic that they do this is just the basic question so i

00:05:34.100 actually and i i had to dig around on this i couldn't figure out if this was um the done in

00:05:40.240 the way that farage doesn't like or done in the least accurate way well i think the way that he

00:05:44.120 doesn't like is when it produces a result that makes them look bad yeah but the point is um

00:05:48.740 this has been very consistent from you gov uh they have had reform on about 22 to 24

00:05:55.380 from about a month now yeah and you gov were the most accurate pollster in the 2024 election

00:06:03.220 they most accurately predicted that reform would get five seats so you can complain all you like

00:06:09.040 yes this seems to be what is actually happening and to be fair one of the founders of you gov is

00:06:14.680 he left a few years ago but right so there's there but i met the other two guys as well and

00:06:21.420 they're i mean they're all ideologically aligned the three of them yeah of course but the but the

00:06:25.840 point is there's no particular reason to think that you gov would have it out for farage as you

00:06:30.140 said with nazim's are we and also they have actually the best track record of posters in

00:06:36.100 britain so again you can complain about this but i'm sorry mr farage this is what the numbers show

00:06:42.700 and when that's mapped out i mean that is 270 seats for reform 49 for the conservative what

00:06:49.880 there's no coalition there's no coalition there but even then it's probably not a coalition i

00:06:55.740 mean they probably have to go into a coalition with the snp to form a company 325 they've got

00:07:01.220 270 so they're um what is it 55 short so the tories don't get you there and i don't even know

00:07:09.320 if the northern ireland parties get you there either i mean if they do it will be razor thin

00:07:13.660 yeah i mean he's he's gonna need jeremy corbyn's or something i mean maybe your party joins the

00:07:22.160 reform coalition i don't know you know i'm on the premise of diverse but it would have to be

00:07:26.780 No, actually, it would have to be Lib Dems.

00:07:28.640 Wait, but even then, like, is that...

00:07:31.160 How is the former Brexit party going to go into a coalition with the Lib Dems,

00:07:37.060 whose entire thing is rejoin the EU,

00:07:39.540 so that people with big houses can also go and visit their other big house in Tuscany?

00:07:44.600 Yes, yes.

00:07:46.400 There's no coalition here.

00:07:48.380 No.

00:07:48.760 This is just oblivion for British politics.

00:07:53.400 The closest thing he's got to a right-wing party to work with there was Labour.

00:07:56.780 yeah to be fair yeah he'd have to go to a coalition basically the labor party yeah i mean

00:08:03.320 obviously um um what's her name we get home secretary uh i'm blanking on it what the current

00:08:11.260 one yes i think most reformers could live with mabana shabud as the home secretary because

00:08:17.700 she's well to the right of nigel farage she appears to have the same opinions on immigration 0.88

00:08:22.760 that zia yusuf does there's the very very very similar on that actually immigration has to be

00:08:29.260 massively reduced and legally controlled as keir starmer has repeatedly said smash the gangs which

00:08:35.160 is a slogan that nigel farage could agree with it's a slogan that ed davy could agree with

00:08:39.080 uh but not zank polanski of course anyway so you can see from the current state of british politics

00:08:45.600 nobody is winning no nobody is winning well nobody's offering what people want so it doesn't

00:08:52.320 surprised me massively well exactly right this actually i'm not terribly surprised by this either

00:08:57.180 um it's just remarkable how everything like with the economy like with you know the wages of the

00:09:04.160 country everything is kind of equalizing into this mediocre sludge right everything in the world

00:09:10.580 everything in the world in britain seems to be equalizing it around nobody getting any of what

00:09:15.340 they want i mean i mean that's quite explicit in say for example pay yeah doesn't matter how much

00:09:20.160 you earn they will tax you down to a disposable income about 40 grand and no matter how little

00:09:24.160 you pay they will benefit you up to a disposable income of about 40 grand yeah so the no matter

00:09:29.300 what party you're in you're having about a fifth of the vote yes no matter what you do it's just

00:09:34.820 really really interesting how the the homogenization of the country has arrived at the worst of all 0.60

00:09:40.240 possible worlds like nobody wins nobody's benefiting nobody is going to get out of this

00:09:45.280 And I watched a Spectator podcast talking about this.

00:09:49.020 Inside Reform's plan to run Britain.

00:09:51.260 I mean, that seems very optimistic, doesn't it?

00:09:53.760 A bit premature at this point.

00:09:56.180 Judging by the fact that we're purportedly three years out from the election,

00:10:00.800 it's been, what, two and a half years?

00:10:02.260 And they've managed to equalise with all of the other parties.

00:10:06.260 Is the first five minutes of this, of Reform's plan to run Britain,

00:10:10.480 is the first five minutes,

00:10:11.940 figure out if you're going to do a coalition with the lib dems the labor party or the greens no but

00:10:17.700 the thing about the thing about the old media is they always are struggling to catch up right yes

00:10:24.560 there's this there's this constant treadmill of things happening and for some reason they're

00:10:29.360 always very reluctant to project into the future and that's fine because i mean don't be wrong

00:10:34.080 predictions are very often wrong i try not to make predictions as well but just looking at the

00:10:39.780 information we have would you sit there and go right what's your plan for government mr france

00:10:43.980 you'd be like guys why are you yeah in this position you've got a lot of work to do to get

00:10:48.580 to that point but my question would be what's your plan for getting speaking engagements

00:10:53.340 so what i found really funny about this podcast is they went over the sort of um the sort of

00:11:00.420 damp ground of politics where it's like yeah there's fresh rain and they're just like

00:11:03.860 churning up the same old same old but it did come to a bit of a funny end and i think that's a

00:11:09.100 balancing act that he and he would struggle to pull off so there we go just another quiet week

00:11:13.380 in british politics we have um a party that barely existed two years ago heading for victory in the

00:11:19.080 local elections we have potentially a leadership contest coming in the labor party and the total

00:11:25.260 collapse of the world economy so do have a very good weekend and james and i will see you next

00:11:29.960 week now that was actually a really interesting statement right a party that barely existed two

00:11:37.800 years ago is currently looking to form government and therefore you'll notice that there's an

00:11:45.920 attitude of restore can never get anywhere it's got three years yeah nigel farage is ahead in the

00:11:52.680 polls well you don't you can do it in half that um what was it um macrons on march yep won the

00:11:58.260 presidency within 18 months the forming as a party what was the one um in italy as well yeah

00:12:04.580 and the farmers party in i mean it happens all the time it happens all the time yes all you need

00:12:09.840 is essentially the viral meme of it right but there's a kind of attitude at the moment that

00:12:16.460 oh well nigel france did this in two years and therefore this is now fixed can't be challenged 0.57

00:12:22.620 and it's like well that is reform's argument anyway but it's not just reform's argument it's

00:12:27.000 the the general mainstream view because i mean when oh yeah but yeah but mainstream don't know

00:12:32.640 what the hell they're talking about that's why people watch us instead that's true um but this

00:12:36.260 this is a general mainstream view that they they are they're always looking backwards right it's

00:12:42.080 like africans moving through time right you're always looking backwards you're never looking 1.00

00:12:46.120 forwards according to african philosophers um but that's what the mainstream political pundits

00:12:51.920 are like the zimbabwe or whatever it is they call their time i can't remember it's fascinating

00:12:56.460 anyway the strange sort of dream time that everything blends into but that's what mainstream

00:13:01.560 political pundits are like they don't seem to understand that actually the insurgent party

00:13:08.140 losing this much i mean literally like you know a third of their vote three years out from the

00:13:14.320 election means that this is not a done deal right there isn't there are no safe seats for anyone

00:13:20.300 there's no guarantee that people are going to be like oh yeah Nigel Farage in three years time

00:13:25.120 um and notice how farage got to where he is right he got there by essentially challenging

00:13:31.340 the mainstream consensus from the right and upping them right and he'd always take that step

00:13:37.700 well i guess this is the right for me but like people watching this will be there right um and

00:13:42.540 always he they would say okay we're going to do this and nigel farage take that one step to the

00:13:46.840 right and one up them and say i'm going to do it so okay that's true but what happens when someone

00:13:51.700 does that to nigel well yeah because because nigel got to the top of the stairs and the next step 0.94

00:13:57.280 was start deporting the rape gang communities and he was like no way am i doing that yes so he got

00:14:04.740 to the top of the stairs exactly and now he has to stand there claiming that he is the hardest

00:14:11.840 line thing for the next three years well we know that that's actually not a very secure place to

00:14:16.660 Because, I mean, as we've seen, Shabana Mahmood is actually pretty much exactly spot on where Nigel is.

00:14:23.120 But also, Nigel has made a series of mistakes that we discussed last week that have really soured people on what reform is constitutionally and what the party is made of.

00:14:36.000 And so actually, he did to the conservatives what someone is very easily able to now do to him.

00:14:43.180 he said no i'm you know with a with a brexit party with the furthest right party and nigel 0.67

00:14:48.440 just came along and ate their lunch well actually someone else could just come along and eat nigel's 0.89

00:14:53.480 lunch on exactly that same premise because he left this big space to his right he didn't bring

00:14:59.320 the big tent over the entire thing and say no you're all coming with me and i will just select

00:15:03.980 who gets to the top and also as you allude the the mainstream politics the tories and the labor

00:15:09.440 they've just moved with this as well so so when nigel demonstrated that things he's advocating 0.58

00:15:14.520 for is popular up pop shabana mahmoud and says yeah okay i'm good with all of that and and now

00:15:20.880 you've basically got what three parties in a line which is reform labor and tories all basically

00:15:27.820 advocating the same thing you've got the lib dems who don't advocate anything because that would

00:15:32.080 ruin their brand they just go to water parks and stuff you've got the greens who are genuinely

00:15:36.040 anti-establishment they're absolutely mad but they are they are yeah you've got to give them

00:15:42.380 credit they're anti-establishment because they literally want the destruction of everything

00:15:45.500 yes so it's okay well that that is and drugs and yeah drugs infinite migrants infinite gifts so i

00:15:51.820 can i can understand why young people are persuaded but all this stuff about you know young people

00:15:55.800 are persuading this i mean harry gave us an anecdote today on the podcast of a guy he bumped

00:16:00.100 into from university i mean as far as harry is still young and i suppose he's still in his 20s

00:16:05.760 that that sort of counts and this guy was saying oh yeah i'm gonna vote for greens and the next

00:16:10.080 thing he said is oh i found your twitter account and i agree with all of it right so that there's

00:16:16.660 not a strong overlap between the green platform and the harry robinson platform it's hard to think

00:16:20.980 of anything that is more divergent actually no like that's my point i'm pretty sure what this

00:16:27.220 young man was thinking is okay that is anti-system i want that but then he looked at harry's stuff

00:16:33.280 which is also clearly anti-system but in a way that benefits me and he was like oh yeah i also

00:16:37.940 want that as soon as he finds out there's another anti-system that has all the harry stuff in it

00:16:43.660 he's going to be like yeah i'll go to that well that's that's what i think the um the problem

00:16:47.580 that they have is and we've we've said that uh farage has been rather um fragile recently well

00:16:54.640 i mean this this poll came out that uh net favorability of party leaders and i mean obviously

00:16:59.700 every party leader has a negative favorability in britain uh but as you can see keir starmer

00:17:04.700 jeremy corbyn nigel farage they're well known and widely disliked by i'm surprised corbyn is

00:17:10.940 as disliked as that oh yeah i don't even particularly dislike him i mean i wouldn't

00:17:14.580 trust him to run a sandwich stall but well that's the thing you might not remember in uh in 2019 i

00:17:21.100 think it was um that corbyn was always the problem on the doorstep because corbyn is well known in

00:17:28.440 mainstream british politics for essentially being a terrorist sympathizer well there's that yeah

00:17:32.760 our friends in hamas and hezbollah bringing yeah you know the ira into parliament after they tried

00:17:38.580 to assassinate margaret thatcher things like this his his political career has been one that has

00:17:44.380 been punctuated by over and over and over him saying but maybe the terrorists have a point

00:17:50.580 right and and actually people aren't big fans of that when you put it like that yeah i might have

00:17:56.060 revise my view i just kind of see him as as sort of a harmless old man who's a bit funny sure but

00:18:01.220 in 2019 he was in charge of the labor party well and he got more votes than keir starmer did he

00:18:05.840 absolutely did yes so it you know there's there's a reason that a large percentage of the public

00:18:10.740 don't like him and it's the same with farage um janice varifakis was on bbc news night yesterday

00:18:16.320 saying that keir starmer needs to act like uh the prime minister in love actually

00:18:20.680 isn't that who needs to behave like that keir starmer needs to behave like the prime minister

00:18:25.780 in love actually and all i'm saying is it just reinforces my love actually men behaving badly

00:18:30.600 paradigm of politics right where this you know uh you know greek former finance minister marxist

00:18:37.120 philosopher comes out and be like yeah but don't we want the good guys in love actually it's like

00:18:41.160 no you're getting men behaving badly right that's the alternative for you guys by the way the only

00:18:46.740 thing i remember from that film is the the prime minister in that said no to agree to joining an

00:18:52.360 american war wasn't it that's exactly why he was being cited right because keir starmer has said

00:18:58.160 or had up until very recently said no to join the iran war but apparently we are sending ships over

00:19:03.400 there now so whatever i don't yeah we're so we're not getting involved we're just sending our tiny

00:19:08.420 handful of ships into the most dangerous waterway in the world while the americans sit back and say

00:19:13.840 good luck lads yeah i don't anyway yeah that's beside the point the the point being nigel farage

00:19:20.220 represents the kind of um uh bizarro version of keir starmer so you've got the love actually

00:19:25.960 man behaving badly and the public hate them both yes i mean keir starmer most hated politician

00:19:31.940 kemi badenock people aren't that bothered about her uh i'm surprised anyone has an opinion she's 0.98

00:19:37.580 irrelevant that's the that's the thing and that's the same thing with the ed davy and zach polanski

00:19:42.420 so most people don't really think about them very much i think when zach polanski has more of a

00:19:46.760 profile people just hate him more frankly but Rupert Lowe again probably in the Zach Polanski

00:19:51.980 camp there but he's the least hated um and that's that's not nothing anyway so Nigel Farage was on

00:19:59.700 Talk TV talking to Julie Harlow Brewer about this and you can see him basically tone policing

00:20:07.160 Rupert Lowe not responsible language you don't think that there's an appeal there because it's

00:20:14.220 online people are applauding and very much supporting it a lot of those are very new

00:20:20.180 accounts which is really interesting so so you know this this has been taken online as an

00:20:25.120 opportunity by some to try and disrupt as much as they possibly can and there is an online community

00:20:30.520 that literally want to fight a war against every islamic person in this country i want to fight a 1.00

00:20:35.940 war against islamism and the dangers that that brings so policy differences have got wider in

00:20:42.860 the last two weeks not narrower okay so i mean there's so many things to address in that but i

00:20:50.480 mean i'm just going to pick on one particular bugbear of mine on that they want to fight a war

00:20:55.880 on every um islamic person in this country no not really we just want to stop subsidizing them and 1.00

00:21:01.360 shipping them in and and paying for them to have free houses you wanted to bomb them 0.76

00:21:06.840 yeah that's that's a good point actually because it was rupert lowe who was the first out of the

00:21:12.540 gate say no war with iran and that was it that was at first a very unpopular opinion all of the

00:21:19.460 sort of you know julian hartley brewer types of the world like how could how could you say this

00:21:23.740 you you know what you're supposed to say yeah in that situation and rupert lowe was the only one

00:21:29.080 who was like yeah i'm not doing that and and and nigel said what he was supposed to say 0.86

00:21:33.420 and then realized how unpopular it was and like all the other restore policies just immediately

00:21:39.960 nicked it and yeah exactly complete u-turn and the u-turn itself was even quite weak because he

00:21:45.000 was like well we just don't have a navy that's capable of doing it's like so if we did have a

00:21:48.420 navy that was capable of doing it you'd still want to do it you'd still be on for the zionist war 1.00

00:21:52.640 basically is what you're saying but but notice the the the tone policing there which i think is

00:21:58.020 really interesting when you say well that's a responsible language and i think he's just going

00:22:03.820 too far i would like to moderate and be mature and responsible what you're saying is i concede

00:22:10.040 the moral argument yes i concede that rupert lowe is secretly and actually in the right here

00:22:16.600 however i have extraneous things to bring in oh standards morals and all these sort of okay that's

00:22:23.960 that's that's great if you're in oh i don't know the year 2000 the country's doing great the

00:22:29.440 economy's brilliant we're still 90 or 87 white british then all of these things you can say well

00:22:35.940 i mean you know i've got standards uh even though if i do concede that that's a morally correct

00:22:41.060 argument but we don't live in that world the problem with faraj is he doesn't know what time

00:22:46.260 it is he doesn't i mean his world view seems to have got frozen in time when he had the airplane

00:22:51.580 crash um you know he hasn't really updated his mental model back then if he said to people you

00:22:57.520 know we're gonna have to do remigrations we're gonna we're gonna have to readdress this we're

00:23:01.840 gonna have to turn off benefits who aren't british citizens i can believe him that a number of people

00:23:06.200 would have been like oh that's a bit harsh isn't it you know we're doing well we can afford this

00:23:10.560 you know post post the you know financial crisis especially lately after the boris wave

00:23:15.980 just just speak to people and i do i do this all the time and i and i don't tell them who i am what

00:23:22.320 i do like if i'm in a taxi or or meet people at some function i don't i don't lead it at all i

00:23:27.900 just let them speak you just want to hear them i get this all the time from people people are

00:23:31.680 radical yep and in fact so this this is this is the point that i wanted to make here i i was i

00:23:38.160 was watching matt goodwin on peter mcormack's podcast and he was saying on the doorstep all

00:23:43.360 he would get is people saying oh we need to get control of our country we need to get control of

00:23:46.320 our country so okay and they didn't elect you because they didn't think you were the guys to

00:23:53.080 do it and as this uh commentator that i put that clip out says look nigel is clearly frightened 0.92

00:23:58.700 saw britain will overtake reform i think he's acutely aware of this and that's why he's tone

00:24:04.180 policing he's trying to put the brakes on he's trying to say no no no no you're not allowed to

00:24:07.540 do this like but why not and this is this is the same problem so his number one and two targets

00:24:14.440 of the online right and restore Britain.

00:24:17.300 He had both of them.

00:24:18.700 Yes.

00:24:19.080 We had him on our bloody video wall until not so long ago.

00:24:22.700 He had Rupert Lowe in the party.

00:24:23.640 You were his candidate.

00:24:24.680 Yeah, I was his candidate.

00:24:25.340 Until you got deselected.

00:24:27.080 Yeah, for saying that we need to do some re-migration. 0.99

00:24:30.560 Yes.

00:24:30.920 But I got there before he did.

00:24:32.460 Yes, and that's exactly the thing.

00:24:34.560 Nigel has created this problem for himself

00:24:36.620 in the same way that the Labour Party

00:24:38.240 have created the Green problem for themselves. 0.89

00:24:39.760 Yes, yes.

00:24:40.660 No, no, come in.

00:24:41.320 Yeah, no, we're radical social justice warriors. 0.99

00:24:43.760 we love all this left-wing thing that's right some women have penises says keir starmer 1.00

00:24:48.340 until they're like okay but we're not going to do any of that oh yeah and then they will go to 0.99

00:24:52.600 the greens and now the greens are overtaking labor in the in the polls and it's just like

00:24:57.680 sorry like what yeah what what do you you made your own bed well it's on the cusp isn't it

00:25:02.500 one point away oh it depends what poll you're looking at but yeah they're very very very close

00:25:08.400 right very close because again viral memes actually go viral very very quickly

00:25:13.120 and the one thing i have learned after my many years talking politics and philosophy on the

00:25:22.960 internet is that what nigel farage has got into here is what we could call internet blood sports

00:25:29.080 this is who is essentially going to out bravado the next person and so now this isn't really

00:25:38.220 even about a discussion on policy this is a discussion about essentially moral rectitude

00:25:43.160 right who can beat their chest and say i am the most moral and it doesn't look like farage has

00:25:48.680 got it you're saying he's doing the meme of of that guy at the computer and he's like when you're

00:25:52.520 coming to bed darling i can't somebody's wrong on the internet he's in this is he no no no it's

00:25:56.940 worse than that is it yeah so in internet blood sports was a phenomena of about sort of 2017 2018

00:26:02.520 where the liberals and i was among the liberals uh lost the argument to the alt-right uh and

00:26:11.860 it was it blew up into a big thing but it was is also quite mean because it was all about character

00:26:18.880 attacks and being able to level character attacks at your enemy now nigel frange is wide open for 0.90

00:26:24.140 character attacks not just on himself personally but on his party as well as being weak source and

00:26:30.780 and i'm not yeah weak source full of tories but also full of muslims i'm not i'm not the one 0.94

00:26:37.460 saying you can't have muslims in your party but there is a sizable number of his own base

00:26:42.460 that really don't like islam and they and they love tommy robinson and they thought he was going

00:26:48.120 to be essentially the pro-british candidate and that's why they're with him or were with him

00:26:53.040 and so nigel for us coming out and saying no no no i'm not against islam because islamism it's 0.99

00:26:58.340 like okay how are you drawing a distinction there nigel like like yeah what is the difference there 0.71

00:27:03.920 and his own base will make him demand that he answers this well i mean he can't even ask what

00:27:08.160 what is an english person well exactly a welsh person is someone who's just lived in wales for

00:27:11.640 five or ten years he he's not he's not going to start tackling the theology questions no no

00:27:15.960 absolutely not i mean as far as farage's definition is concerned axel rudy cabana actually is a welsh

00:27:20.660 choir boy right yes that's as far as nigel farage because he's got the piece of paper he was there

00:27:25.960 for five or ten years so there we go um and so what what this means is that farage is entering

00:27:33.220 into a mode now where he's struck at the online right and restore britain right they are the fact

00:27:39.020 they exist outside of his big tent is his own fault yeah and he's telling them no you're bad

00:27:45.260 people i'm with the libtards right i'm actually i'm i'm for standards i'm for decency and i'm 0.70

00:27:52.800 I'm competing with the Tories, the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Lib Dem, the SNP, for those votes, as opposed to having this wide open space that was mine to inherit.

00:28:04.780 That would have venerated me like a god.

00:28:07.740 Yes.

00:28:08.320 No, Farage, yeah, it did.

00:28:10.680 And so Farage has entered into this internet blood sports where he's decided, no, I'm just going to attack them.

00:28:16.880 And I assume I'm higher and mightier than them and they won't be able to bring me down.

00:28:21.580 It's like, no, that's not going to happen.

00:28:22.560 right what's going to happen is that i mean i've even started seeing like richard tice and a few

00:28:27.900 others just turning off the comments on their tweets matt goodwin because they're just it's

00:28:34.160 constant attacks because you've got a swarm of angry people with small accounts but they're all

00:28:38.760 there right thousands and thousands of them and they hate you and want you like a drone swarm

00:28:44.140 yes it's very effective in large numbers exactly and this will be essentially a grinding down of

00:28:50.740 the morale oh the people who are on the other side yes because these guys will just feel well

00:28:56.480 we've got nothing to lose and we have vulnerabilities in you that we can exploit maybe that's why they

00:29:02.200 keep doing these bingo halls with these sort of 62 year old ladies with their with their blue hair 1.00

00:29:07.420 because they're the only people who like them anymore well yes that's basically what i think

00:29:12.320 this is boiled down to if you've lost the sort of stormtroopers on the ground you know the young

00:29:16.620 guys who are angry about the thing and they you know if they're attacking you rather than the

00:29:20.620 system and the establishment you've messed up and that's where or you are the system or you're

00:29:25.840 becoming the establishment exactly you you seem and you seem exactly the same to them so and this 0.98

00:29:31.600 is a mistake that i made when i was a liberal because i was an idiot back then as well right 0.93

00:29:36.420 but faraj has not been through this he's not learned this lesson and weirdly enough and this 0.62

00:29:40.700 is here's some deep law for any internet old heads right i had a conversation with a guy called coach

00:29:46.040 red pill now is he the guy who got assassinated he's the guy who got assassinated in ukraine yeah

00:29:50.840 okay right um but this is long before all that and he was basically chewing me out and saying

00:29:55.480 what are you doing fighting with these guys these should be your storm troopers you should be just

00:29:59.220 launching these at the establishment and why aren't you and at the time because i was a liberal i was

00:30:04.160 just like yeah but they're bad and it's just like yeah but they're just anonymous people who are

00:30:08.500 angry at how things are right the ideological constructs that i'm putting oh no they're who

00:30:14.000 cares you know none of that matters what matters is that's actually a large body of people who are

00:30:18.540 furious and actually can do something even if it's just demoralized the other side why aren't

00:30:24.020 we launching them at the people who need to be demoralized right and so and i don't get me wrong

00:30:28.580 i was stung by this i learned my lesson i'm not a liberal anymore but that wasn't that wasn't

00:30:32.900 because of that that was something else but the point is he was actually right about this he was

00:30:37.020 like look these are your guys whether you like them or not and you need to be properly directing

00:30:42.720 them at the targets and farage is doing exactly what i did during this era of internet blood

00:30:50.200 sports which is trying to maintain a moderate position in a in a time of immoderation and

00:30:56.660 trying to fight the radical fringe yourself rather than just pointing them at the enemy

00:31:04.560 and so what this means yeah that's good for farage has stepped on a rake here he's put his

00:31:12.720 foot into a beehive and it is going to sting him to death right this is this is not going to go

00:31:18.880 he's not adapting you can you can see it over the last few months since since the polls started to

00:31:22.880 turn there has been no i mean for a start i i've i mean tony blair could do this all the time tony

00:31:30.180 blair would face a hostile mob and he would at least partially diffuse it by accurately describing

00:31:36.500 what they're concerned about at least as well as they could so that he you could understand that

00:31:41.560 it was within his thinking farage never talks about demographics no he can't he can't do this

00:31:46.480 at all all he can do is just well basically call it amateurish and a whole series of cheap insults

00:31:53.120 yeah absolutely and so farage is farage is on on the hook here and it's not good so not only uh

00:32:00.280 reform declining in the polls not only as the spectator tells us well it took them two years

00:32:06.460 to get to the top of the polls well that means it can be done in two years right we have a precedent

00:32:09.780 right we've got three years to the election takes two years to get to the top of the polls

00:32:12.900 thanks for being clear on that and also we have the actual radical insurgency that you'll notice

00:32:19.780 when restore britain came out right rupert is not nearly as radical as most of a large section of

00:32:26.320 the online right would like him to be because he's credible though he's credible that's the point

00:32:30.480 does he ever attack them does he ever disavow them are that no the enemies are that way the

00:32:35.220 enemies are in government the enemies are the media the enemies are over these guys are just 0.90

00:32:39.680 angry people mouthing off on the internet rupert is not stupid he knows don't go after them well 0.88

00:32:44.880 i mean i've been meaning to find some good media that you know a version of us but for the green

00:32:51.100 party and the reason i want to do that is because look that's navara media okay all right fine okay

00:32:56.900 i'll watch some of that then yeah i mean i'm gonna have to look at sarkar's face maybe okay i'll put

00:33:00.620 up i'll do the audio version but my point is is that these people are genuinely upset about

00:33:07.840 something their concerns are probably not that they're real oh the the the the concerns for the

00:33:15.480 greens are economics mostly right their main argument is the one percent are screwing you 0.98

00:33:21.260 and that's not wrong i agree with him like i would do a bunch of things about that too i wouldn't do

00:33:26.420 communism but there there are lots of exploitative practices i mean mass immigration is one of those 1.00

00:33:33.480 exploitative practices to get cheap labour

00:33:35.580 and to literally steal money

00:33:37.520 from your plate. I mean Boris Johnson said that

00:33:39.440 I did the Boris wave

00:33:40.960 in order to stop wages going up

00:33:43.200 to make the financial times like me

00:33:44.940 it's like yeah that is you know 1.00

00:33:47.260 they're just useful idiots though 1.00

00:33:48.620 so anyway just to end on this bit 1.00

00:33:51.540 so you can see that

00:33:52.620 reform aren't

00:33:55.480 doing great and they have a large

00:33:57.780 number of enemies to their right

00:33:59.600 and the left

00:34:01.100 it's one thing you know you've got your front lines there

00:34:03.460 and you're constantly bombarding

00:34:04.680 and being bombarded by the Labour Party.

00:34:06.520 That's fine.

00:34:07.160 That's what you're here to do, right?

00:34:08.700 That's completely...

00:34:09.460 But when you have enemies behind you as well,

00:34:12.240 because you made those enemies behind you

00:34:14.900 rather than having them on your front lines too,

00:34:17.560 well, then you're in a squeeze, right?

00:34:19.520 You've got a real problem,

00:34:21.180 especially when you're in this kind of internet blood sports

00:34:24.700 where you're taking pot shots at them

00:34:26.360 and they are just constantly na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na at you.

00:34:29.960 This is going to go badly for him, right?

00:34:33.460 so things are going badly for reform on the outside and things are also going badly for

00:34:39.800 reform on the inside oh goody gum drops tell me more yeah now when when a party starts dropping

00:34:45.600 the poles when they are surrounded by enemies uh in the um farage bunker the knives have come out

00:34:54.940 right someone is responsible for this and so they've started taking chunks out of each other

00:35:00.300 now as well okay and so there's not even unity within the party and that is just this is so

00:35:06.660 you're saying there's gonna be a full guy there are probably gonna be a few full guys okay um

00:35:11.620 the first would be matt wouldn't it well yeah let's let's go on to matt matt goodwin um so matt

00:35:16.260 goodwin lost the winnable gorton and denton by-election because as he said people on the

00:35:21.800 doorstep were saying we need to take back control of our country and he said well best i can do is

00:35:26.680 more of the same but a slower speed yeah and so that didn't get the 54 of gordon and denton who 0.87

00:35:34.300 didn't vote out to vote for him 54 didn't vote it's 46 turnout damn and that would have been 0.95

00:35:40.780 mostly the white british as well so his message was basically i'll give you suicide of a nation 0.98

00:35:45.720 at the speed limit yeah that was exactly it and that's what his book's called incidentally

00:35:50.380 um not the speed limit bit no you left that bit off this this has been a really really

00:35:57.700 brutal education uh in the past couple of days and i don't know why matt seems to why matt's done

00:36:05.940 this and why like what i don't really understand what he's doing because it seems to be he's

00:36:11.680 self-immolating actually um so okay you lose on gorton and denton not good the left are calling

00:36:17.840 you map bad loss not great um but then you release a book that is very swiftly brought out it seems

00:36:24.540 and as you can see by the 2.4 star rating has not been very well received uh the reviews have been

00:36:32.300 brutal absolutely brutal right we get down to the reviews down here

00:36:37.640 we've got 62 one star and 34 five star now 34 five star is your audience lying your book and

00:36:47.600 saying i support this guy i doubt they've necessarily even bought the book you can leave

00:36:51.500 a review on amazon they may not have well it does tell you uh if it's a verified purchase there we

00:36:56.740 go yeah right so you you can see that these these are people who can't have boy but the fact there's

00:37:02.360 no in between no there's actually no in between here shows you that this is a very polarizing

00:37:09.840 subject but the the main critique that has been brought out on this is that it's lazy didactic

00:37:18.260 and frankly seems to have been written by chat gpt so harry read some of it on the podcast today

00:37:23.380 he did a segment on this and yeah the writing is i mean i'm a bad writer i could not write that bad

00:37:30.500 and he's supposed to be a career academic yes uh and this is uh so they've they've they've switched

00:37:37.780 i mean so again just you know you've got his supporters but then you've got this brutal if

00:37:44.500 i can guess something can you go up to the images because there was an image with the

00:37:49.840 with bits highlighted in red that very first ah yeah the chat gpt yeah source yeah i can't quite

00:37:56.360 read it from here but is is that the red bit is chat gpt it is yeah it is so all of his so all of

00:38:02.760 citations and they're only about a dozen apparently uh he left the chat gpt bit in when it when it

00:38:09.460 generated a link for him and a lot of the text looks like it's chat gpt generated so another

00:38:14.340 thing i did on the podcast with harry is i i put into chat gpt um rightly the first page of a book

00:38:20.620 called a suicide of a nation and then the bylines and the formatting was so similar i mean it was

00:38:27.280 the same cadence and everything i'm not saying that he did just get chan gpt's he probably did

00:38:33.180 but we don't know definitively yes but the but the point is this has been very poorly received

00:38:40.340 right um as you can see here i mean this new statesman is just like well this is matt goodwin's

00:38:46.320 intellectual suicide yeah and this this is just one example of a all of the mainstream uh media

00:38:55.280 publications just absolutely denouncing it and he hasn't got a vanguard because he's gone after

00:39:00.140 them as well exactly he's he hasn't got a vanguard uh he's got his small core of hard

00:39:05.380 hardcore supporters but essentially he's been torching his credibility in real time

00:39:10.540 this quickly after his loss in gorton and denton i mean if you were going to bring out a book after

00:39:17.060 that it would have to be a very good book well he he expected to win i think it was expecting to

00:39:23.300 copies of the book after having his name in the press on the back of that yeah and so yes very

00:39:29.600 very strange now matt has responded to his critics um but his critics pointed out that these are not

00:39:36.540 substantive uh responses uh for example there are multiple quotes that are made up because

00:39:43.460 chat gpt like all ai that it does something called hallucinations yeah as in uh for anyone

00:39:49.840 doesn't know ai uh apps are probability generators so it's like what is the most likely thing to come

00:39:58.040 next and with all probability there's a percentage chance it'll get something wrong well so if you

00:40:04.640 do 300 pages of a book or something if it gets something wrong it won't check that it will just

00:40:10.340 continue saying okay what's the next likely thing what's what is it likely that cicero said well he

00:40:14.340 said it's likely he said this and if that's not accurate well now you're on this trail where it's

00:40:18.880 making up a fake cicero quote well and that and that thing when you said the cicero quotes in

00:40:22.840 particular they do sound more or less like the thing that cicero might have yes written but he

00:40:29.000 didn't yes because it's generating what cicero might have said yes and so there are a lot as

00:40:35.580 as you can see is lots of substantive criticisms and people are not impressed with it i haven't

00:40:40.820 read his book so i can't comment um you can just generate it i i could uh and so this um

00:40:48.080 uh yeah there we go so then then you have uh tim montgomery coming up publicly to attack matt

00:40:56.700 now tim montgomery i thought tim montgomery flipped hard for reform he did he is the founder

00:41:03.460 of conservative home uh you're right sir heard uh or he's the founder of unheard actually now

00:41:08.820 freelance broadcaster podcaster and reform party supporter and he came out and said the controversy

00:41:15.060 over matt goodwin's book reminds me of the early warning sign that rachel reeves's dodgy footnotes 1.00

00:41:18.560 provided about her reform party should now fully investigate mr goodwin's book and if there are

00:41:23.360 repeated examples of the factual error that he he should be removed from the candidates list

00:41:27.480 we need our future mps to be trustworthy incredible deselect matt goodwin i wonder

00:41:33.440 did tim montgomery do this purely of his own behest because he's quite close with these guys

00:41:39.420 did somebody say to them it wouldn't really hurt if there was somebody who wasn't directly us but

00:41:44.520 somebody still with a bit of the limelight who could well could give i don't push while he stood

00:41:50.360 next to this big cliff a lot of there was there was a clip uh an old tweet of his that someone

00:41:57.260 had posted uh i assumed it'd be in the uh in the replies but the tim montgomery has been going

00:42:04.400 after matt goodwin for a long time actually before matt uh joined reform uh he described him as

00:42:10.880 sulfurous yeah uh and that he he finds him untrustworthy and he doesn't like him so this

00:42:17.140 was i i don't think this is that someone is inside saying go after him i think tim has always had an

00:42:23.040 to grind with matt goodwin uh and so it seems that actually it's now okay we've failed on multiple

00:42:30.800 fronts yeah you've just failed again and you're discrediting reform because remember matt goodwin

00:42:36.000 is reform's sort of court academic right yeah this is you know matt goodwin's the political

00:42:42.160 academic in reform uh and so the fact that he failed in the gordon and denton by-election that's

00:42:46.560 a blow but it's not unrecoverable but now to be like okay well i'm going to stand on my core

00:42:51.040 strength which is my academic credentials and produce what looks to be an ai generated book

00:42:56.740 with those and frankly if it isn't ai generated that's actually worse because it's so badly

00:43:01.200 written well i don't think it's necessarily worse uh i think actually it's worse to have

00:43:05.740 been so lazy about it um possibly but it's it's it's really bad and so now the knives are coming

00:43:12.640 out in reform but right okay that's a lot of knives at this point it is a lot of knives

00:43:17.340 anyway matt responded to this with what reform should do is stop taking tory wets like you

00:43:23.740 i've responded i just watched it i just watched the pete mccormack podcast we spent an hour

00:43:27.880 defending taking tory wets all you do is criticize reform in our campaigns no idea why you're even

00:43:34.340 in reform unless it is to try and weaken it is matt the guy to be making that claim i'm just

00:43:43.300 saying uh it's like the two monkeys and the simpsons where everyone's cheering like okay i

00:43:51.220 mean guys like you're all terrible yeah and then of course uh tim goes back play the ball not the

00:43:59.320 man matt it's like but you were playing the man not the ball you began i'm seeing your whole point

00:44:04.600 about the blood sports thing here right there are a few analogies and that and that's the thing

00:44:09.280 this is essentially trying to win over a crowd in some way by saying that he's the problem and

00:44:14.780 that gives him a person to strike back at and all while this is happening reform is still doing the

00:44:21.980 same old ridiculous weakening things that it always has done you remember dr chris parry

00:44:27.540 uh he's gonna be a mayoral candidate no i said i remember the name he's the guy in the

00:44:35.860 falklands war had dumped death charges and that famous tweet uh one of the absolutely classic

00:44:41.880 tweet where uh someone's like oh my grandfather died in the falklands war because someone dumped

00:44:46.120 charges on him and chris barry's like that was me oh my god i think i think i've got that right

00:44:52.320 but um i mean that that is twitter brutality to a different level but yeah okay well he was

00:44:57.520 going to be the hampshire mayoral candidate uh he's been expelled from the party um okay why

00:45:03.540 why was that because you you remember the um the jewish ambulances that were recently set on fire

00:45:09.440 i i when you say remember i learned about them for the first time a few days ago i didn't know

00:45:14.760 they had their own ambulances yes i know about that apparently the the number isn't even public

00:45:19.240 so they say oh we service at all communities okay but the number's not public how do we contact you

00:45:24.560 but do you remember the um islamists on horseback there was also yeah right he compared the two 0.82

00:45:30.620 saying look this is an example of communities not integrating okay and reform like you're gone

00:45:36.160 so he's a sensible and credible voice dr chris parry former military veteran yeah you want to

00:45:44.500 get rid of him you're keeping matt goodwin you're keeping tim montgomery you're keeping all the

00:45:49.600 tories yeah and you're getting rid of this guy so it's like right okay no you are i mean you have

00:45:54.400 said something that is trivial at best right the the number of people the number of votes reform

00:46:01.760 would have lost from any of these communities is trivial right there are 270 000 jews in the entire

00:46:07.960 country and matt goodwin got five percent of the minority vote right neither of these groups are

00:46:15.360 your core constituency chris parry represents your core constituency he is your core constituency

00:46:22.660 you've lost however many votes from people who are like i want someone credible and serious like

00:46:31.520 dr chris parry the conqueror of the argentines in our government no you're like no i i'm gonna

00:46:39.020 court two very small minority groups you have to remember this this is just a consistent pattern

00:46:44.980 with haraj he drops people stabs people in the back eliminates people all the time the second

00:46:50.480 they become even slightly inconvenient yes we we really noticed it with rupert lowe but it's just

00:46:58.060 a thing he does on a regular drumbeat basis and throughout his career he always has yeah

00:47:02.860 anything that looks inconvenient to me no gone i don't need it so okay okay well you're continually

00:47:08.540 salami slicing your own support base yes and this is another um thing i've noticed a lot of people

00:47:16.060 uh saying is what farage has been making a big deal about finding candidates at his reform rallies

00:47:22.320 because he's campaigning as if the election's tomorrow right he's constantly going around

00:47:26.080 doing these rallies uh because apparently he really likes the campaigning because he gets to

00:47:30.420 you know he gets driven everywhere he has wine he has nice dinners and stuff and then he just goes

00:47:35.120 up and you know performs to a large crowd who's just like yeah and i've noticed i i was watching

00:47:41.720 um one the other day i think it was the isle of white one where he's like there's a stand at the

00:47:46.560 back please go sign up if you want to be a candidate to this sea of silver hairs and gray

00:47:51.260 beards and okay why is reform having trouble finding candidates right you would think reform

00:47:59.840 top of the polls for 250 polls would be flooded with candidates you'd be like oh no actually we

00:48:05.480 need to find a way of sieving through these to find the the the wheat from the chaff but no

00:48:11.160 apparently they're having problems actually getting candidates for various locations so right that's

00:48:16.760 interesting and now you've what you need another mayoral candidate for hampshire i guess because

00:48:23.020 you keep doing this you keep thinking that any amount of deviation from whatever sky news would

00:48:30.380 consider acceptable means they have to be out of the party i mean i suspect it's because

00:48:35.300 okay there was a time you go back 30 plus years the people in parliament were retired generals

00:48:42.940 and you know surgeons and businessmen people who people who'd really done something like dr chris

00:48:47.980 parry yes and and yes great example yes right he he is what we should have populating the parliament

00:48:55.400 exactly exactly and parliament would have been a place where ideas were discussed

00:49:00.040 and it was it was the cutting edge of political thought within the country

00:49:04.980 all of that takes place online these days and if you are in parliament you are basically

00:49:11.800 lobby fodder you get you get a pager and it says uh division i or nay and that's what you do you

00:49:21.760 turn up you walk into a room you're checked off through the the doors yeah the lobby doors and

00:49:26.240 that i mean that and that's it and then you but i mean you're basically just your job is to queue

00:49:31.280 up but also no no nigel farage has never lost this fragility of i'm afraid of what the media

00:49:37.300 will say about us yes well they already call you a far-right nazi like they already call you

00:49:41.800 every now and of the sun it's like yeah but now i again this this reflexive fear oh someone said

00:49:47.740 something and it's um we we had uh what was his name german austrian professor on um

00:49:58.140 i might have missed that one oh oh sorry i've forgotten your name in the heat at the moment

00:50:04.540 um but he he he's like look the left is that they're dominating credo is basically what would

00:50:11.060 hitler do and they say what would hitler do oh we have to do the exact opposite right yeah but

00:50:17.120 quite often they get that wrong and do the exact same sure but it doesn't matter right the the

00:50:20.980 point is their their standard for their own behavior is hitler right yes as in they're like

00:50:25.940 oh no hitler would make sure we don't have illegal immigrants in the country therefore we have to be 0.99

00:50:30.780 supportive of illegal immigrants so we're not hitler i mean that does actually make sense and

00:50:34.780 explain left-wing behavior but that's a really bad model to operate on yes it is but nigel 0.95

00:50:39.420 seems to operate on the sort of what would the guardian do right but we need to do whatever the

00:50:44.400 guardian will now write an article complaining about this well then you better get ahead of

00:50:49.520 that nigel and kick him out so it doesn't matter what the guardian does how can you not know this 1.00

00:50:54.760 yet but but how can a politician still think this after watching the first trump term because if the

00:51:01.900 first trump term taught you anything it's that you can actually say no to media you can just say 0.67

00:51:07.740 yeah that's a load of rubbish not accepting that you don't have to constantly pander

00:51:11.540 yeah but he he hasn't worked this out so the knives are fully out in reform uh not only are 0.90

00:51:17.000 they tanking their own quality candidates uh but the the the bright stars in reform aren't

00:51:23.660 currently stabbing each other in the back and literally having little knife fights on twitter

00:51:28.520 uh in addition to all of the other things that are going wrong for the party so i it's a party

00:51:33.960 no harmony within it it's losing ground it's losing purchase and it looks like i don't i mean

00:51:41.520 i personally don't think they're going to last out this three years right yeah so let's let's

00:51:45.580 quickly uh let's move on to the labor party now jacob reese mogg put this video up saying look

00:51:51.720 as you can see if you think starmer is bad rainer will be worse uh and probably true right probably

00:51:58.880 true that rainer would be it'll be funnier though uh and mogg comes to the conclusion that he thinks

00:52:04.140 that there's essentially um reyner's attack on starmer saying immigration reform is un-british

00:52:11.520 as in shabana mood remove reducing the number of migrants coming into the country is somehow

00:52:17.580 un-british which you think okay imagine how bonkers you have to be to think this

00:52:22.500 as in immigration was never something that ever happened to britain up until about 1956

00:52:28.500 and then it was very very small and very very hated until around 1997 where people still hated

00:52:35.880 it it just got much much more in line every one of those general elections the party that won

00:52:41.700 had promised to cut immigration did the opposite exactly right so the idea that immigration reform

00:52:46.800 is un-british is a very american perspective where it's like we're a land of immigrants

00:52:51.080 um but mogg thinks this is groundwork for a leadership election that they're going to force

00:52:56.700 is in an uprising of the soft left so the sort of Andy Burnham types the Ed Miliband types those

00:53:01.560 sorts are looking at Shabana Mahmood and like the and the Keir Starmer faction and saying well these

00:53:08.000 are a bit hard and it's like okay but the only reason why Labour is getting any plaudit at all

00:53:15.200 is because of because of that yeah Starmer managed essentially to be like I'm not getting into a war

00:53:20.920 and we've got immigration down yeah i mean that's genuinely the two solid things that starmer has

00:53:28.060 actually done give him credit and bear in mind this this is this is a party that was created in

00:53:34.080 the first place to represent the british working class that ship sailed yeah um anyway so mog mog

00:53:42.360 thinks that reyna is a dangerous proposition actually uh because he thinks uh that she is

00:53:48.480 charismatic in touch and gregarious now i don't share that opinion she's got personality you 0.68

00:53:56.460 could believe that she dreams for example yeah no i believe that she has a favorite book or music

00:54:00.860 yeah she's got a favorite episode of eastenders yes absolutely i agree you know she's she loves

00:54:05.980 to watch coronation she probably has a soul whereas keir stoner does i totally agree yeah

00:54:10.080 she's a human being yes wonderful that's i mean what a low bar setting up you know she she's she's 1.00

00:54:17.560 she's a human being made of meat yeah she's uh that's a surprisingly good picture of hers by

00:54:23.620 the way that is isn't it it's not a bad picture of starmer to be as well that's true um but the

00:54:28.820 point is there's a lot more to being a politician than that right oh yeah but we you know this is

00:54:35.060 this is england we we need we need to get to step one before we can worry about uh i don't i don't

00:54:43.100 think that angela rainer actually wins over most of the country right i actually i actually no well

00:54:48.300 no but she would get the labor roots back perhaps maybe maybe perhaps but it depends what she's 1.00

00:54:54.660 offering doesn't know you know but anyway fine okay let's let's assume that somehow she could

00:55:01.560 do that uh jacob rees mogg thinks that she's left-wing fed up with the blob and that people 0.70

00:55:06.680 like her she is trumpian in this aspect so he's saying he's she's got a sort of trump-like

00:55:12.140 um bombast or something yeah but i mean i don't i don't i'm not sure i completely agree with this

00:55:18.580 analysis um what do you think then i think that dominic cummings is right that about the michael

00:55:28.620 gove position where michael gove was like could i be promising he's like yeah in this environment

00:55:34.260 you know i think it's something similar that was a devastating response it was and i think it's

00:55:40.840 something very similar with angela rayner i don't know i i think if i was nigel farage

00:55:45.240 or kemi badenok angela rayner is the one that i would want to see the least

00:55:51.520 the thing is if i were nigel fries and kemi badenok i feel that i'd be able to bamboozle her 0.58

00:55:57.620 and outwin outwit her yeah but nobody watches pmqs so not just the pmqs strategically right

00:56:03.680 at the various different levels you know she'll come out and do something like surely our team 0.83

00:56:08.220 is smarter than her team surely i'm a more charismatic speaker than she is says yeah

00:56:12.460 right it's not like i mean don't get me wrong it would be a step up probably from kirstama

00:56:16.800 but she's always carrying kirstama's baggage anyway she was the deputy prime minister and 1.00

00:56:22.980 she got fired for a tax scandal so typical labor whilst the housing minister or something yeah

00:56:28.160 having a second house whatever while as the housing minister typical labor corruption

00:56:32.100 typical carrying kirstama's baggage of i hate kirstama but you were his deputy pm and three

00:56:38.220 i think you can probably out fox her right so it's just one of those things where it's like i

00:56:42.720 don't think she's that strong frankly and i think it's to be honest exactly it's just speaking of

00:56:47.080 the really low mediocre level we're looking to the bottom of the barrel here when we're trying

00:56:52.020 to determine the water level yes yes it is exactly right um but um molt does make a good point that

00:56:58.760 politics now has become a lot more personality based right it used to be very party based well

00:57:05.160 because there's nothing there's nothing else there there's nothing substantive in the party

00:57:08.480 in fact we got down to nothing but personality and then we had kia starmer who doesn't even have 1.00

00:57:13.680 one of those that's right because nigel farage attacked the conservative party and so there's 0.94

00:57:20.100 the expectation she's going to bring out a memoir now this is doubtless going to contain a series

00:57:26.400 of attacks on kia starmer and so she's going to write this memoir she's going to launch her attack

00:57:34.900 of the coup of the soft left against keir starmer and the question is can keir starmer resist it now

00:57:42.000 he's resisted pretty much everything actually because i mean you obviously completely excised

00:57:48.220 the corbyn faction that's coming back to bite him with the greens but at least from a control point

00:57:53.700 of view he has control of the labor party and so now it's is it the sort of soft left that will

00:57:59.960 come after the managerial elites the radical left have been kicked out that's the managerial elites

00:58:05.540 versus the soft left and honestly i don't know they can do it so i was watching this politics

00:58:11.000 joe podcast and this is a chap called paul holden uh talking to ava santana and paul holden is a

00:58:19.060 south african investigative journalist and the author of the book called the fraud keir starman

00:58:25.260 morgan mcsweeney and the crisis of british democracy now they don't frame it in these

00:58:29.160 ways that i'm about to frame him but i think my framing is more accurate and honestly i'm going

00:58:33.220 to give aa his props for this this is really his framing that i've adopted but i think he's correct

00:58:38.520 now um paul holden has been in the british labor party for a long time he's been a labor activist

00:58:43.440 um who's been working you've never heard of him because he's one of the internal party people

00:58:48.660 right um but he found himself locked out of this because he was trying to expose starmer for

00:58:55.500 basically being a liar who believes in nothing so i already does that take a lot of exposing

00:59:02.760 well no but the thing is prior to summer being pm oh i see this wasn't well known right uh but he

00:59:09.080 was working on the innards of the labor party i see and he clocked him very quickly he's oh right

00:59:14.000 he lost the ensuing power battle yes right because remember that um keir starmer was a strong backer

00:59:20.520 of jeremy corbyn when the wind was in jeremy corbyn's sails in the labor party actually nobody

00:59:25.900 else was in labor would do it but he held the line and was therefore in the senior position

00:59:32.660 when the leadership rotated yep and the second the leadership rotated out of the party yes

00:59:39.440 merciless bloodbath yes corbyn easters in the labor party and so uh paul here has come to the

00:59:46.320 conclusion that where where boris is like a liar when he's caught doing something yes he is at

00:59:54.280 least not someone who is premeditated right whereas keir starmer clearly thought this out in advance

01:00:02.060 i'm gonna i'm gonna support germany support germany and the second i get the power he's out

01:00:06.140 right and so he starmer is not only himself not a man of personality in an era where politics is 0.86

01:00:14.400 based on personalities um but he's also a calculating and premeditated liar who in

01:00:20.720 machiavellian fashion has kind of actually kind of acting like uh joseph starlin using but isn't

01:00:27.880 he a fabian star marriage yeah well i mean that's my point is what they do of course but like he's

01:00:35.560 very stalin-esque in that he uses bureaucratic machinations to arrange and load the the dice set

01:00:43.580 the board in his favor right so the the people who have problems are just locked out through process

01:00:49.380 yes because remember starman the arch proceduralist yes has used these procedures to his benefit yes

01:00:55.520 and this is what he thinks the crisis of democracy not really a crisis of democracy per se it's more

01:01:01.380 a crisis in the labor party which they think is democratic um and so what he has concluded

01:01:08.540 is that the managerial elites and that is keir starmer morgan mcsweeney and peter mandelson

01:01:14.060 that faction are completely in control of the labor party is absolutely locked down right to

01:01:22.020 the point where it is impossible for them to get anywhere so like let's say 40 minutes 47 minutes

01:01:29.660 in he points out that starmer has just destroyed all of his internal internal enemies in the labor

01:01:34.740 party right and that's why rayner and burnham are on the outside remember it was starmer who got

01:01:39.600 rayner to stand down in this uh thing she didn't have to stomp could have just come out and said 1.00

01:01:44.620 well it was a slight oversight but she's repaid the money now i'm going to carry on as no yeah

01:01:49.100 waffle about rules and procedure like you always do exactly yeah it's just a mistake this this

01:01:53.080 just goes to show how complicated and byzantine the housing regulations and taxation system is

01:01:57.880 we're going to overhaul it so no one is going to fall afoul at this point you could have easily

01:02:01.580 command defended it right andy burnham oh you want standing gorton and denton do you not on my watch

01:02:06.940 saved his career though saved his career right that's the point stalinist a stalin-esque bureaucratic

01:02:12.840 proceduralism starmer has built a fortress inside the labor party controlling the apparatus of it

01:02:19.120 right right despite the fact that he himself seems to believe in nothing other than the system

01:02:23.540 right and so how are the soft left going to even invoke a coup how are they going to do who knows

01:02:30.680 well they're going to go and join the green party and win all their seats no idea um but basically

01:02:36.160 rain at the rain and burnham fact rain and burnham faction are basically on the outside of this

01:02:40.380 starmer mcsweeney and mandelson are on the inside of this despite the fact that mcsweeney and

01:02:45.460 mandelson have been disgraced and theoretically kicked out right oh so he's not using them as

01:02:50.140 descriptors oh no he literally thinks mandelson and sweeney are still key figures yes okay well

01:02:58.500 that yes and the thing is in this day and age there's no reason to think they aren't because

01:03:04.300 there's doubtless a whatsapp group they're still saying kia you need to do this you need to do that

01:03:08.140 okay i can't come to 10 downing street and advise you but i can still message yes right and so for

01:03:14.180 example they have a google doc a spreadsheet in which they control who can and can't stand as an

01:03:22.940 mp and morgan mcsweeney and mandelson he has witnessed them both updating this spreadsheet

01:03:30.080 so not only did mandelson we knew in 2024 he was uh it was publicly reported that he was um

01:03:36.260 overseeing the selection process uh and morgan mcsweeney obviously being uh the chief of staff

01:03:41.840 and the sort of you know the vizier of kirsten but mandelson has hands on the ability to update

01:03:50.100 and change the spreadsheet and so the spreadsheet is name what they've done and why they should or

01:03:54.380 should not be allowed to stand basically and so this is complete executive control of the top of

01:04:00.180 the party but also the nec and the actual sort of inner structure that's all keir starmer's guys too

01:04:05.400 so frankly you know wheedling out keir starmer from the labor party it's gonna be a very very

01:04:12.880 difficult job right soft left yeah i mean even if you get him out all of his um his lice are still

01:04:18.540 in there all of his lackeys are still in there right and it's because they are the managerial

01:04:22.600 elite that tony blair really brought into the labour party and took it over with and the soft

01:04:27.660 left and the far left people who deserve the the traditional constituencies of the labour party

01:04:33.800 which is why it like he came so close to kicking out diane abbott it's like yes i remember that

01:04:38.540 diane abbott is just older than the hills as a labour mp like you know there's surely a tradition 0.74

01:04:44.420 of having diane she's the mother of the house yes the oldest woman in the house yes like she's been

01:04:48.980 a labor mp basically her entire life and you're going to kick her out it's like there's some 0.97

01:04:55.320 there's some brutal things going on behind the scenes in labor at the moment and so the soft

01:05:01.480 left basically are going to try and instigate a coup i think via angela rayner's uh memoirs

01:05:10.300 but the thing is essentially what it requires is for them to be able to persuade enough of the

01:05:17.740 backbenchers to join them to overthrow Starmer but Starmer has control of who gets to be a

01:05:23.120 backbencher Starmer has control over all the sort of he's got the power of patronage in the Labour

01:05:30.660 Party yeah but as you approach for the next election and that power of patronage is going

01:05:36.520 to go away well who knows yeah right but the point is the knives are out in the labor party too

01:05:42.900 right there are factions forming and they are clearly going to be gunning for another and the

01:05:47.200 thing is the starmer mcsweeney mandelson angle i mean mandelson didn't go to jail he was arrested

01:05:53.000 very briefly and then let go it's like sorry he's sending market market critical secrets to yes some

01:06:00.000 foreign network it is the very definition of insider trading and it's it's treason yes and

01:06:05.780 that it is treason yes and and yet mandelson is still in his home in wiltshire somewhere right

01:06:11.100 and so it's like right okay so he's obviously too powerful to arrest yeah because of his

01:06:15.660 connection to these networks morgan mcsweeney and keir starmer are in these networks and you know

01:06:20.660 angela rainer and andy burnham do we think they have got the hard edge required to defeat these

01:06:27.140 guys so to summarize not just this episode but the whole series the center is collapsing people

01:06:34.780 are flocking to the anti-establishment options and what's left in the center is tearing itself

01:06:42.480 apart yes that's quite good good news isn't it so anyway uh i guess we'll leave that there

01:06:50.360 um remember folks we have live event 11th of april um do come and see us it's going to be

01:06:56.100 great fun and i guess we'll see you in the next episode

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 26, 2026

The Knives Are Out

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