The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Last Clown in the Circus

00:00:00.000 Hi folks, welcome back to another one of our political chats and today I thought I would

00:00:03.920 have a discussion with Dan about the least relevant political party in Britain, the Liberal

00:00:09.620 Democrats. Yeah, this is where I got concerned when I came in this morning and I found out we're

00:00:13.280 going to be talking about the Liberal Democrats because, I mean, presumably the reason I'm on

00:00:17.040 this show is because I can say something useful at some point and I just never think about the

00:00:21.740 Liberal Democrats ever. They occupy almost zero mind space for me. Almost nobody does.

00:00:27.000 and that's why they're worth talking about um because logic no it genuinely is because the

00:00:33.860 liberal democrats we've we've discussed them briefly before they're they're the the party of

00:00:38.080 essentially the southwest of england yeah the people have big gardens yes and four bedroom

00:00:43.020 houses and they are an intrinsically english party and they express intrinsically english

00:00:50.020 prejudices in this case the kind of bourgeois prejudice to be well thought of by the neighbors

00:00:55.060 right this is literally all lib dem ism is and so you might think well why is that an interesting

00:01:02.780 subject and it's like well because i think they're currently suffering an extinction level event

00:01:07.480 and they are aware of it and they have no answers to it well i mean to be a lib dem is to believe

00:01:14.540 the propaganda version of what britain is yeah very much so and the extinction level event

00:01:19.680 is that reality is just becoming too much evident

00:01:25.040 to maintain that delusion much longer,

00:01:28.120 even if you're a Lib Dem voter with a nice garden

00:01:30.520 in a nice little village,

00:01:32.240 because you might get Piddington.

00:01:34.680 You might actually be in Piddington.

00:01:36.220 Well, we'll talk about it.

00:01:37.200 Because, and as I've said previously,

00:01:39.320 the second the machetes are running down their streets,

00:01:42.100 they're voting BNP.

00:01:43.320 The second the diversity arrives

00:01:46.220 in the Lib Dem constituencies,

00:01:47.840 they are flipping to the bmp or like the the closest right-wing approximation right yes if

00:01:53.300 you've done a-level economics you get taught this maslow's hierarchy of needs and basically virtue 0.97

00:01:58.360 signaling about what we should do in the world is up here and not being chopped apart by somalians 1.00

00:02:04.040 running down your little village high street is quite low near the base yeah i mean do you know

00:02:08.080 that a somalian attack happened today in swindon by the way i i did not know that i've been recording

00:02:12.820 all day so in in in in the whatsapp groups for restore britain um they sent uh from one of the

00:02:18.220 local facebook pages um this bangladeshi woman and her kids were walking through shore and some

00:02:25.300 somali leapt out of the bush with a giant carving knife at them but thankfully the kids saw them

00:02:28.960 they screeched and ran away so no one was injured but even here you know even it ensures the nice 0.51

00:02:34.540 area of swindon you know it's like that's the lib dem area of swindon instantly oh right okay 0.95

00:02:39.100 it's the house with the biggest gardens all right somalians leaping out with uh carving knives 0.96

00:02:45.820 yeah even down the road from here and so what's interesting about this is they'll never go to

00:02:52.420 reform right i think a lot of them will always say no nigel farage is a con man in the grifter

00:02:56.000 but i think the rupert lowe these are brexit brain people they very much are but i think

00:03:01.820 the rupert lowe actually has that kind of um credibility of character which nigel farage

00:03:08.100 doesn't which actually i think allows him to make inroads in these areas that farage would never be

00:03:14.100 able to yes i mean the reason that i like low is not because of the vibes but nevertheless it's true

00:03:20.720 his his vibe is respectable grandpa statesman type chat he just codes differently for them

00:03:28.040 shy of patriarch yes he's a grandfather farmer you know married for 40 years got a bunch of

00:03:34.460 grown-up children like he is and i i i've said this before but like we we went for a dinner

00:03:40.260 a while back and he was a couple of glass of wine in and he was just laughing saying they've got

00:03:44.480 nothing on me you know i've never i've never had enough i've never you know there's no allegations

00:03:50.480 that they've got nothing on me they'll never have anything on me and people like that normally get

00:03:54.260 filtered out quite early on people that rarely become politicians you can't have people without

00:03:59.160 dirt on them getting getting anywhere near the top that won't work that's exactly what the party

00:04:03.280 whip is for that's literally it's institutionalized in our politics that the whip gets the dirty

00:04:09.380 tales about whatever the person is they get to keep them in line they get a file on everyone

00:04:13.080 i remember kathleen uh blakelock uh a while ago talking about um and not even reform i think this

00:04:19.060 was ukip oh yeah but how she was speaking to one of farage's top guys and he was kind of bragging

00:04:24.160 to her yo i've got a file on everybody i know everybody's dirty secrets it is just how politics

00:04:28.860 works so when they get a guy who doesn't have dirty secrets well that's an issue that is an

00:04:34.220 issue but it's the how are you how are you going to get rupert lowe to hand over the tragos islands

00:04:37.820 well exactly yeah exactly what are you going to have on him you know weirdly no ukrainian

00:04:42.780 young men burning down his front door yeah um but the the point is i think there's a question

00:04:48.500 of character there that rupert lowe actually meets for the liberal democrats so actually

00:04:54.420 he might well be a palatable alternative 0.95

00:04:59.060 to allowing him billions of Bermalians to run around. 1.00

00:05:04.200 Luke has said something similar recently. 0.98

00:05:05.980 That's interesting.

00:05:07.260 Anyway, right, so let's begin.

00:05:08.940 Here's the polls as they stand on the 18th of September,

00:05:12.900 so nearly a week out of date, actually.

00:05:15.020 Oh, look, there the Lib Dems are, just below the Greens.

00:05:17.480 Yeah, yeah, and, I mean, we'll go back two years, Rex.

00:05:20.440 The Lib Dems have actually passed their peak,

00:05:23.020 As you can see, back in July last year, they were at 15%.

00:05:26.760 And then again, they were not quite 15% there.

00:05:30.960 And now they've had this long, slow decline down to 11%.

00:05:35.360 As you can see, Labour has mainly been eating the greens,

00:05:38.280 but they've been eating a little of the Lib Dems lunch as well.

00:05:41.740 Interestingly, the Labour bounce seems to have sustained itself above reform.

00:05:46.660 Reform have not been able to claw that back.

00:05:49.360 i mean if it was just a temporary bounce you'd be expecting it to turn off by now but

00:05:54.220 yeah but as i mean as we've said previously uh he's been avoiding doing anything difficult

00:05:59.380 so he hasn't he hasn't had the budget yet exactly yeah he hasn't had the budget and

00:06:04.320 the rumors of war going around

00:06:06.620 this one is getting me animated yeah i can tell and it's unlikely that

00:06:14.520 that Andy Burnham is going to be the Churchill of the era to properly infuse the country with

00:06:21.320 the spirit of patriotism. Yeah, they're not taking our Zoomer, lads. That is just a hard no.

00:06:26.420 They're not doing it. Yeah, I'm not having it. But anyway, right, so let's get back to the Lib Dems.

00:06:31.360 The Lib Dems are on a bit of a downswing, and this doesn't seem to have penetrated into Ed Davey.

00:06:36.920 But before we go on, so this is the Lib Dem vote share, as you can see. Now, I can't explain

00:06:43.080 lib dem ism in scotland i have no idea what the scots are thinking like or can you imagine how

00:06:49.300 big the gardens must be up there

00:06:51.260 i don't know why the highlands of the org there's like eight people living in that top yellow bit

00:06:59.280 i know i i i assume that and feel free if you're in the highlands of scotland or the orkney and

00:07:05.740 shetland islands to explain to me why you guys vote lib dem i think someone has tried to do this

00:07:10.260 to me before but i can't remember but i'm assuming what it is is that edinburgh and the lowland scots

00:07:15.280 are all very snp because they hate those dastardly english but so the guys in the highlands and the

00:07:20.180 orkneys the english probably seem fairly far away but the snp lunatics are a lot closer and actually 0.97

00:07:26.920 i'd rather vote for something that wasn't them than and something that was essentially a kind

00:07:31.460 of neutral third option yeah it's one of those foreign conflicts i don't involve myself in but

00:07:36.180 there is this highlander versus lowlander thing and north yeah yeah i'm not an expert someone from

00:07:42.300 scotland can explain what i would say on this is you have to remember that the lib dems are a

00:07:46.220 remarkably efficient electoral machine incredible astonishingly efficient so you mentioned on the

00:07:53.760 previous thing that they got 14 of the vote um at the last election i mean that translated into 72

00:07:59.260 seats yep now you compare that with something like reform reform got um now actually sorry

00:08:05.580 is reform who got 14 the lib dem's got 12 that's right sorry yes you're right yeah so so um the

00:08:10.740 lib dem's only got 12 of the vote 72 seats reform got 14 of the vote and they got five seats so

00:08:18.040 basically you're looking at 49 000 votes per lib dem mp but you're looking at 80 sorry 824 000

00:08:28.360 votes for every reform mp so basically a vote um a liberal democrat mp is 17 times more efficient

00:08:38.100 yes in in their vote collection so they don't actually need to get a lot of votes

00:08:43.440 because they get a lot of seats well the the reason is quite evident for yeah it's concentrated

00:08:48.580 exactly it's concentrated specifically in the southwest of england and a little bit in the

00:08:53.540 southeast right this is the lib dem heartland because this is the area of england that is the

00:08:57.620 most affluent, and most free of immigration.

00:09:00.860 Well, I mean, I live in one of them.

00:09:02.780 Yeah, me too.

00:09:03.160 Down there, right?

00:09:04.260 And where I live, I mean, it's idyllic.

00:09:07.760 Take the dog for a walk by a river,

00:09:09.720 and there's rolling fields and stuff like that. 1.00

00:09:12.020 I have never seen a Somalian jump out of the bush

00:09:14.940 with a carving knife trying to attack a Pakistani woman and a child. 1.00

00:09:18.220 Well, this is why I bring it up,

00:09:19.380 because until today, it had never happened

00:09:21.820 in the area of Swindon that I live in either.

00:09:24.200 Yes.

00:09:24.740 Right?

00:09:24.980 You know, I live in the nice area of Swindon, obviously.

00:09:27.620 It will happen in Winchester soon or later.

00:09:30.300 Absolutely.

00:09:31.780 On the few occasions I speak to my neighbours about politics,

00:09:35.060 it's like, but they don't get it.

00:09:37.260 They will get it.

00:09:38.020 That's the point, right?

00:09:39.440 And this is genuinely the kind of like Arcadia

00:09:44.680 that the Liberal Democrats have been living in.

00:09:46.860 It's like, well, it's a land of milk and honey

00:09:48.400 where everything is ancient, settled, belongs, and is peaceful.

00:09:53.960 And everyone has their plots of land.

00:09:55.880 everyone has their nice house with their nice garden and two cars and they've got you know

00:09:59.160 they know all the neighbors they go to the sunday church they go to the local fate and everything

00:10:04.100 is homogenous yeah if you're lucky enough to live in a lib dem constituency you basically live in

00:10:10.180 the shire oh yeah yeah first first 20 minutes of the hobbit yeah that's a lib dem constituency

00:10:16.880 and remember like the shires aren't um sort of like russian peasantry or something the shires

00:10:23.540 are filled with affluence the shires are filled with educated men think about

00:10:28.220 like Bilbo and Frodo yes they're scholars they they write in the the

00:10:32.420 premise of Lord of the Rings is that it's Bilbo and Frodo writing their

00:10:35.780 adventure down for future generations because they are noblemen on their

00:10:39.820 estates yes that's why Samwise is saying master Frodo yes time he is his

00:10:44.000 literal feudal master and so the the shires are a place of affluence and

00:10:49.320 peace where everyone belongs and that's what the lib dems live in and so but it's now minute 21 of

00:10:56.440 the hobbit of lord of the rings and the fade has turned up asking for directions to the shire

00:11:01.020 exactly this is not going to last and the fact that it isn't lasting puts the lib dems on this 0.99

00:11:08.120 terminal clock so eventually it will just be okay well how many somalians are you going to tolerate

00:11:14.160 and still vote Lib Dem? 0.55

00:11:16.040 And eventually the answer will be not many.

00:11:19.240 I mean, how many is it in Piddington?

00:11:21.260 Is it 3,000?

00:11:22.860 No, Piddington is a town of 360 people

00:11:25.820 in a Liberal Democrat constituency,

00:11:27.260 and they're going to put 1,250.

00:11:30.680 African, Middle Eastern, Third World. 0.53

00:11:32.940 So we know the number of Bermalians 1.00

00:11:35.480 that a Lib Dem constituency will tolerate

00:11:37.920 is somewhere lower than 1,250,

00:11:40.800 but we don't know exactly what the number is yet.

00:11:42.500 it but like tolerating it and then declaring independence well yeah i did kingdom like we

00:11:48.140 clearly went way past their threshold we need more data points to know how many bemalians

00:11:53.580 trigger an independence anyway ed davey thinks that uh i could be prime minister one day uh he

00:12:01.000 thinks he'll be pm if things keep going the way they're going which is um totally delusional

00:12:05.980 yeah i i don't think so either i can't back that up with anything no i no idea why but he's got no

00:12:11.520 ceiling on his ambitions as he says now there are a lot of people are angry at davy because he

00:12:16.040 happened to be the um minister for the postal system the post office yeah in 2010 during the

00:12:24.420 labor uh the lib dem and tory coalition under the post office scandal um that i haven't spent a lot

00:12:32.400 of time looking into i can give a very very quick summary for in in summary basically in between

00:12:38.340 1999 and 2015, hundreds

00:12:40.360 of sub-postmasters were blamed and prosecuted

00:12:42.460 for losses caused by bugs

00:12:44.140 in Fujitsu's IT Horizon

00:12:46.520 system. So basically this software

00:12:48.260 every so often it would have a glitch

00:12:50.160 and it would say this postmaster

00:12:52.040 is stealing money because the accounts

00:12:53.960 don't add up. And they prosecuted

00:12:56.040 a thousand people, 700 through the courts

00:12:57.860 and 300 through other regulators. Something like 13

00:13:00.180 of them committed suicide. Yes.

00:13:02.320 Oh, they lost businesses,

00:13:04.200 homes, the lot. Yeah, I mean it

00:13:05.540 is the largest

00:13:06.760 wrongful prosecution episode in in british history yeah it's actually horrific and ed davey said well

00:13:14.620 i mean in fact they've got a quote from him there he was just like well they they were they lied to

00:13:19.260 me because the post office didn't tell me the truth and i would have acted differently had

00:13:22.520 they done so it's like you didn't feel any need to investigate this a little one particularly

00:13:26.900 egregious bit is is somebody reached out to him and some somebody that you should listen to as

00:13:31.500 well i can't remember the name of the chat but somebody reached out to him to have a meeting

00:13:34.880 and his answer was i don't see how that could be productive yeah he didn't want to yeah that's

00:13:40.600 the issue um anyway just for anyone wondering the royal mail was privatized in 2013 so after this

00:13:46.940 um debacle had happened and it was ed davie who initiated the legislation i think it was michael

00:13:52.360 fallon who actually saw it through for the last five minutes but that that was ed davie as well

00:13:56.500 yeah so um brilliant i guess anyway so people are probably most familiar with ed davie campaigning

00:14:02.980 in 2024 because this is where he came kind of famous for having what we consider to be the

00:14:09.740 sort of first truly post-modern political campaign and you have to remember how incongruous this was

00:14:15.260 i mean every election is one of those oh this is the most existential election of all time

00:14:20.700 um labor and the tories were slugging it out uh reform were trying to break in everybody was

00:14:26.680 taking this deadly seriously and so and so you you'd be watching the news about you know um you

00:14:32.000 know great things that the people have said on either side and how hectic it's getting and the 0.82

00:14:36.320 next thing you cut to this bozo on a bloody water slide or it's not just this i mean he did it was 0.56

00:14:42.340 a pogo sticks he did a bungee jump it was it was a daily campaign clownery yeah yeah it was i think 0.56

00:14:49.320 he was in a hot air balloon at one point but that's exactly right a daily campaign of clownery 0.98

00:14:53.760 but remarkably successful election so we might look at this and think what the hell is this clown 0.82

00:15:02.320 doing what he's doing is is is creating the most efficient per vote mp machine that british

00:15:10.600 politics has seen for for decades i mean it is it is remarkable how efficient like i say that a vote

00:15:17.060 for the lib dems is yes that's completely true so so this was this was a success yeah bizarrely

00:15:22.680 Yeah, the Lib Dems managed to get, what was it, 3.8 million votes and Reform got something like 4 million.

00:15:27.640 Yeah, 4.5.

00:15:28.460 Was it 4.5? I think it was about 4 million.

00:15:31.460 But the point is, Reform got more, but as you say, you know, remarkable machine.

00:15:35.740 Yes.

00:15:36.140 And the Lib Dem ground game is, of course, superb and everyone knows it.

00:15:39.740 Yes.

00:15:40.800 Because the people who are Lib Dem activists have the time.

00:15:45.200 Yes.

00:15:45.580 Because they're all retired and they've got a massive house and they're bored.

00:15:49.020 And also, it's not just that.

00:15:51.060 remember these people have like flexi time in their jobs and things like that so they're like

00:15:55.640 oh artists take you know four hours off on a wednesday morning and i'll go canvassing and

00:15:59.600 i'll just make that up an hour a day on the other days because i have a nice flexi time job working

00:16:03.580 for the government with my lanyard right now this so the these are the sorts of people who are

00:16:08.560 genuinely they're living in arcadia like i said they absolutely having the the time of their lives

00:16:13.700 living as if the country was in about 1989 yes right the berlin war's just fallen the

00:16:20.740 economy's roaring everything's going great and that's where the Lib Dems live in their minds

00:16:24.880 right and so what's Ed Davey signaling to people here he's saying whoa whoa whoa this isn't really

00:16:30.340 about politics this is about a way of life this is about kind of person that I am yeah is what

00:16:36.200 you're voting for here so we we perceived it as essentially a depoliticized political campaign

00:16:40.980 but not if you're the middle-aged dad living in Lib Dem heaven who wants to take his kids to

00:16:47.960 center parks or something like that what you're what you're seeing there is oh no i'm just like

00:16:52.480 you well i'm just like i i called this at the time if you buy a mcdonald's burger and take out just

00:16:57.760 the meat it is tasteless it doesn't taste of anything because they make the meat bit as

00:17:02.420 non-offensive as possible and then you can change the topping you can you can change whether you

00:17:06.280 want gherkin or mustard or whatever it is you can project onto that meat whatever flavor you want

00:17:11.540 and that's what he did he depoliticized politics so that when you vote for lib dem you you can vote

00:17:16.980 for whatever hair brained yogurt weaving lentilist sandal wearing nonsense that you like you can

00:17:22.800 project it onto that and no matter what you think you know ed davie isn't going to come out and say

00:17:27.340 something offensive he's not going to say something radical that attacks the foundations the

00:17:32.200 infrastructure of your way of life no he is claiming to sit at the top of that and saying

00:17:37.240 that's what i'm going to represent if you vote for me we can't say anything because he's not

00:17:41.100 miked up on a water slide well true but anyway that's the message that's going across and it

00:17:45.280 was as you say very effective now he's he's been uh getting a bit high on his own supply

00:17:51.440 um i'm gonna mute this because it's a copyright song but he's

00:17:56.180 they they had a rally back in march where he decided he was gonna um go out to their

00:18:02.880 the conference or wherever it was um to the tune of daddy cool

00:18:10.100 again now you are thinking wow that's that's so completely cringe right i i i truly aspire

00:18:21.400 to one day walk out of my kid's school and embarrass them as effectively as he is there

00:18:26.640 exactly exactly right that's exactly what this is this is the cringe dad coming out and embarrassing

00:18:34.280 his kids at school and all of those parents felt exactly how you felt they're like yeah okay that's

00:18:39.560 funny that's funny you know because it's it's all a big inside joke between a bunch of mums and dads

00:18:43.820 in liberal england yes who know exactly how their kids are going to take this right yes and so again

00:18:49.240 this worked for him anyway so moving forward from 2024 uh and this must have been 2025 uh to now

00:18:58.280 right so the liberal democrats are now campaigning with patrick stillman in holborn and st pancras

00:19:03.380 what do you notice about their campaigners

00:19:06.120 hang on this is holborn and saint pancreas yes i mean by rights only those four on the on over

00:19:16.280 there should be white yes that's correct they are not demographically representative of holborn

00:19:22.320 and saint pancreas no they are not in 2020 when the census was done that was 30 percent english

00:19:27.440 doubtless it's going to be fewer now so let's let's just roughly guess 20 percent so yeah about

00:19:33.800 five or six of those people at most should be english if they were going to be representative

00:19:38.800 of the constituency and of course the candidate there i mean looks pretty pretty average englishman

00:19:46.180 really if you were going to get i mean he's not wearing a towel around his head i mean for a start

00:19:49.420 that's unusual in british politics these days he's not but he looks like the google search result of

00:19:53.720 you know what what does an english person look like generic white guy go exactly you know and

00:19:59.160 don't go wrong good for him but the point is is that going to resonate with the uh i mean we saw

00:20:05.320 that um zach polanski was doing all the campaign videos in erdo in in french and he did actually

00:20:13.160 end up doing one in bengali as well right after we put out our video so i can only assume that

00:20:17.720 he saw him oh my god we messed up oh they all watch this show of course they do yeah um but

00:20:23.080 so the point is i mean i don't know i just don't fancy their chances and didn't go so

00:20:29.160 if we start nobody in to open and say pancreas has a garden well exactly right i mean you can

00:20:33.800 see didn't go great in 2024 right so uh in 2024 where are they all the way down the right so it's

00:20:40.520 charlie clinton who got 5.8 but he'd lost six and a half percent in that time and this was of course

00:20:48.120 Keir Starmer, but of course Keir Starmer is losing as well to various other people. So the point

00:20:54.280 being is as the demography changes, the votes change with them, and the Liberal Democrats

00:21:00.760 didn't make much purchase. So what are some important Liberal Democrat policies? Well,

00:21:07.640 let's look at their asylum policy. We need to build a fair asylum system. It's from the

00:21:12.360 the liberal democrats.org.uk and essentially what they want to do is have more asylum seekers now

00:21:19.380 i was going to ask what i mean how could you make it more favorable than you turn up in a dinghy and

00:21:26.300 then immediately get benefits indefinite leave to remain right to work and um probably a house

00:21:33.080 i mean i i mean that's literally it right they're not going to use how asylum hotels which means

00:21:37.660 they would have to use

00:21:39.260 the HMOs, so they're

00:21:41.820 going to be giving them, they would have to give them

00:21:43.640 houses. The speed up application

00:21:45.740 decisions allow people with valid claims to work,

00:21:47.600 integrate and contribute while swiftly returning those who do not

00:21:49.680 have a right to remain. But how many is

00:21:51.640 that going to be? The lifting the ban on

00:21:53.520 employment for asylum seekers, restoring

00:21:55.340 family reunion pathways

00:21:57.320 so refugees can bring their 1.00

00:21:59.660 families over, tackle dangerous 1.00

00:22:01.760 crossings, presumably by bringing them straight

00:22:03.760 over, and of course reaffirming our

00:22:05.780 commitment to the european convention on human rights so i mean really what that boils down to

00:22:09.680 is every time you see one of those men turn up on a boat he then gets to bring his three wives

00:22:14.800 his 17 children all his aunts and uncles they're 17 children so actually they what they want to do

00:22:20.880 is apply a multiplier to the existing immigration yes and tackling the dangerous crossings you say

00:22:26.360 you know they're looking at it and thinking yeah why does why does rnli only go take them halfway

00:22:31.640 why can't we do the whole trip why not pick them up from the beaches of france yes exactly

00:22:35.700 Well, I mean, if you're going to do that logic,

00:22:36.840 I mean, why not just send a P&O ferry down to Somalia?

00:22:40.260 That's a great question.

00:22:41.400 And maybe you shouldn't have said that

00:22:42.980 because that's probably going to be their next manifesto.

00:22:44.740 Hopefully they don't watch this.

00:22:45.820 The point being is that they want to increase chain migration, right?

00:22:49.380 So more faster, as you said,

00:22:52.040 apply multiplier to migration into Britain,

00:22:54.920 which is not really in line with what the country at large thinks.

00:23:00.300 Can you just scroll up?

00:23:01.400 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:03.320 That image?

00:23:04.640 Not the average refugee. 1.00

00:23:05.900 A blue-eyed, white-skinned baby doesn't fit with everything they've said below it. 1.00

00:23:09.360 Not really, no. 0.85

00:23:10.680 Not many of those coming across on the small boats.

00:23:12.920 No.

00:23:13.480 Anyway, the Lib Dems are also offering asylum seekers free gym and swimming sessions.

00:23:18.120 I went to the gym today.

00:23:19.020 I had to pay for it.

00:23:20.300 Free swimming sessions and exercise classes that would cost you 50 quid a month.

00:23:24.820 So, no, they're going to get everything for free.

00:23:27.020 Tummy rubs, head pats.

00:23:28.800 And this is even causing Lib Dem members and voters to have doubts.

00:23:33.100 I mean, I found this on the Lib Dems subreddit from a year ago, where they're like, I mean, I agree with a lot of what the Lib Dems think. 0.55

00:23:41.640 But I realize that this is a bit sensationalized, but I am concerned around immigration, illegal immigration, and linking stories of migrants to crime and strain on public services. 0.53

00:23:53.340 I live in the southeast near London, where immigration is high, and I've genuinely noticed how some areas have changed.

00:23:58.100 i don't mind multiculturalism in fact i value it but i notice there seems to be limited immigration

00:24:03.720 integration for example streets full of shops with only arabic romanian etc signage and no

00:24:09.260 english at all or english ethnic enclaves where they don't even attempt to integrate at all as 0.66

00:24:13.960 well as language barriers i dislike british expats who can't be bothered to learn the local language

00:24:18.680 and i apply that logic to the people who move here as well blah blah blah blah basically i can't help

00:24:23.580 But notice, because I live in the southeast, around London, and again, we go back to our map, wherever that was.

00:24:31.940 Yeah, you live down here, where there's lots of immigration.

00:24:35.800 You don't live down here, where there's very little immigration.

00:24:38.700 And so these people are like, well, I'm not sure I can continue voting for the Lib Dems.

00:24:43.320 It sees Lib Dems votes in their force bubble of unreality.

00:24:46.720 Yes.

00:24:47.200 And reality is hammering at the side of that force field, and it's...

00:24:53.560 Right. Because for most of the Lib Dems, like in 2024, these people, as far as they were concerned, it was all just far right propaganda. And then, of course, Piddington happened. Yes. Now, Piddington, for anyone who doesn't know, is a, like I said earlier, a very small village of 360 people in a constituency that has recently voted Liberal Democrat because the Conservatives had their legs cut out from under them by reform at the 2024 election.

00:25:19.500 It is not that the people of Piddington overwhelmingly voted for the Lib Dems.

00:25:23.560 In fact, the people of Piddington, even if every single one of them had voted for the BNP,

00:25:26.940 would have made no difference whatsoever because it's just too small a town to affect things.

00:25:32.420 However, it is still in a Lib Dem constituency, and there will be Lib Dems in that constituency. 0.87

00:25:40.060 And the town of Piddington, because they were like, right, okay, we're going to put 1,250 Global South men in your back garden,

00:25:48.640 voted 92 percent i think it was to secede from the united kingdom yes symbolically over this issue

00:25:57.900 yes so and this is what i was referring to earlier so luca was there yes he was and of course the

00:26:04.280 i mean this guy who represents the the parish council or whatever it is he spoke on camera

00:26:09.180 the vast majority of people that luca spoke to did not want to go on camera a substantial of them

00:26:15.480 number of them were well up for the store absolutely rupert low went down there yes it's

00:26:20.520 very popular especially with the ladies there who are like oh brilliant someone he was the first

00:26:25.500 party leader to actually go there and he got a very very welcome um i mean it's extraordinary

00:26:30.820 that would work as a political pitch when you've got the mainstream party saying we will put rapists

00:26:34.840 in your back garden you go down and say i'm gonna get them out of the country he goes down with a

00:26:38.920 radical policy i will take the rapists out of your garden and somehow that's a winning pitch

00:26:44.920 yeah i mean there were there were lots of videos of the people of pittington and i mean i saw one

00:26:49.300 where victoria derbyshire was trying to get this guy to condemn danny tomo for going down to dover

00:26:54.480 and yeah why and he was like i'm not going to condemn him for trying to defend his country

00:26:58.280 and it's like oh right so the people of pittington are actually not like insane lib dem

00:27:03.160 acolytes there is that one there is that rachel marsh yes she's an immigrant from new zealand by

00:27:09.260 the way uh yeah i know you didn't know that right didn't bring that up uh she's an immigrant from

00:27:13.660 new zealand who uh is insanely woke but the rest of them and including the paris counselor uh paris

00:27:19.800 leader um seem to be very sensible and it's like look we just don't want this so to afford a house

00:27:26.520 in pittington you need to have done something it's probably fairly expensive yeah um the point

00:27:33.280 being though pittington isn't like yes we're definitely voting lib dem in the next election

00:27:38.180 no i i can imagine they won't be no especially not now yeah and i mean they won't be voting at

00:27:45.400 all i mean they're a separate principality at this point well yeah exactly and isn't that

00:27:49.040 interesting they didn't go for a republic yes based exactly i don't know they've appointed

00:27:54.340 a princeling yet i don't know but um maybe they can just adopt the prince of wales or something

00:27:59.160 as their their personal prince or whatever i don't know how it works which one is the prince

00:28:03.280 of wales is that william yeah it must be william yeah is he the oldest oh i don't know i'm sure

00:28:08.620 he's the prince of wales um yeah i'm sure he's the prince of wales um because charles was because

00:28:14.120 he was the oldest son i think no normally the prince of wales goes to the husband of the queen

00:28:20.240 no charles was no hang no hang on it's the eldest son no duke of edinburgh normally gets

00:28:25.760 is what the son gets but the but the queen's husband got duke of edinburgh instead normally

00:28:31.840 the duke of edinburgh is higher than prince of wales is it i'm gonna look this up standby

00:28:37.940 audience as we do a little bit of constitutional fact checking here but well britain's constitutional

00:28:42.780 uh yeah it's prince william it was it yeah i was right he should have got duke of edinburgh

00:28:48.280 well i can't explain it he's higher it is maybe charles isn't prepared to give it up

00:28:53.220 he's king now i mean he's got other things to do you would well you would think anyway the point

00:28:58.700 being isn't it interesting how they went for principality as in traditional english uh feudal

00:29:04.180 aristocracy yes rather than people's republic of piddington i'm i'm going to be knocking on my

00:29:09.960 neighbor's door in my little village on the outskirts of winchester saying principality

00:29:13.580 that's what we need exactly and so that that i thought was um very indicative of the kind of

00:29:19.540 people that we're dealing with we're not dealing with radical left-wing activists people who have

00:29:23.420 been radicalized into communism or something like that we're dealing with traditional english people

00:29:27.060 who are like Jesus Christ why are you doing this to us

00:29:29.320 and I think a lot of the Lib Dem

00:29:31.380 constituencies are like that, they like their heritage

00:29:33.600 they like their local

00:29:35.400 heritage as well, because I mean

00:29:37.020 in the south west of England

00:29:38.720 there are all over the place

00:29:41.220 like local fates

00:29:42.920 and medieval reenactments

00:29:45.620 and all this sort of stuff

00:29:46.680 like we do these things all the time

00:29:48.180 that celebrate the

00:29:50.780 local heritage of England in these areas

00:29:53.600 oh yeah, I will say this for them

00:29:55.660 libden voters like england yes i mean you you've described them as the english party i mean that's

00:30:00.300 basically what they are i mean i know they've got like a couple of seats in scotland but they are

00:30:03.520 basically the english the party for the english gentry yes exactly that's exactly what they are

00:30:08.880 and they do love their country so it and the the issue is that they are very bourgeois and they

00:30:14.420 need to make sure the neighbors think well of them they're very much like was it what's the woman in

00:30:19.040 the curtain twitcher woman

00:30:21.040 Hermione is it or no 0.94

00:30:22.760 oh grain no

00:30:24.960 I can't remember that you know what I mean

00:30:26.520 Hyacinth Bucket

00:30:27.620 that's the party of the Liberal Democrats right

00:30:30.740 so I can Hyacinth Bucket

00:30:32.880 knows that I'm a good person

00:30:35.240 really and she's not going to

00:30:36.980 castigate me for being an evil far writer

00:30:39.160 who wants to protect the borders 0.99

00:30:40.520 and the big joke with Hyacinth Bucket is every time her 1.00

00:30:43.160 like sister-in-law turned up with 1.00

00:30:45.120 their slob family 1.00

00:30:46.160 yeah she was mortified by yes right imagine it's not a slob family that's you know sister-in-law 1.00

00:30:51.320 imagine it's now 30 somalian rapists are sitting in your garden i mean hyacinth hyacinth bucket 1.00

00:30:56.840 has a bigger problem with that i would imagine absolutely and she's not going to be above voting

00:31:00.800 for nigel farage or rupert lowe or whoever it is right so anyway people were like or no no sorry

00:31:07.400 people weren't like i was like ed can we get some commentary on this from you i mean you are the

00:31:15.320 leader of the party that controls this constituency you are their representative yes you have anything

00:31:22.360 to say about this it's like no does he threats we face here in the uk from populism from trump

00:31:27.600 from putin are shared by our friends around the world it was great to join fellow leaders at

00:31:32.700 liberal international security conference to see how we defend liberal values so ed what the hell 0.96

00:31:38.680 are you doing so i was just like look your constituents are under threat of being raped 0.87

00:31:41.620 by third world as ed they're declaring independence over it any thoughts no answer i'll take it none

00:31:48.440 none at all for another five days i mean i wonder what he says in private about this i mean i don't

00:31:56.380 know like it took five no six days in total for him to be forced by gb news to make a comment on

00:32:04.920 what is happening in his constituencies oh the headline i understand why women are scared yet

00:32:08.860 yes because they have an a literal army of rapists in their back garden and just for anyone who's

00:32:14.260 thinking were you being a bit uncharitable to these uh asylum seekers no the government have

00:32:18.500 printed off a bunch of leaflets saying please do not rape people and have handed them out to each

00:32:22.200 one of them the government are thinking as if these people are all rapists so it's like okay

00:32:26.640 well then why don't the rest of us think that way but that's that's the government's official

00:32:30.580 position is these are probable rapists yes i mean i've never been given a leaflet that says please

00:32:35.080 don't rape because nobody thinks nobody thinks it's worth the effort to give me one i have been

00:32:39.080 given leaflet saying please part more considerably and there is a reason for that it's because because

00:32:44.220 my behavior generates the response yes it's not abstract but anyway so he said well you know

00:32:53.680 actually on this point quote uh i'm sorry on most things i'm the complete polar opposite to mr

00:32:59.640 farage but on this point they agree he said it's not right for local community and facility at mod

00:33:04.900 which is what they're proposing is just inappropriate, right?

00:33:09.500 So it's not that the people of Piddington are in danger,

00:33:12.240 it's that it's inappropriate because presumably he could flip that into 1.00

00:33:16.240 there aren't enough facilities for these poor asylum seekers

00:33:19.040 and therefore, because of course there's nothing in Piddington. 1.00

00:33:21.760 Right. I mean, I read it as the Bermalians themselves are not the problem.

00:33:28.360 It's that they can't go here. 1.00

00:33:29.780 So as long as they're raping working class children, that's fine. 0.99

00:33:33.900 that wouldn't be an ed davy's constituency would it well yes in the next day ed davy has come out 0.98

00:33:40.520 and clarify i'm not on the same side as nigel farage obviously i'm not it's like ed is that

00:33:45.200 really the most important thing here making no no no i don't agree with nudge farage distance

00:33:49.440 between me and him i mean we both agree we don't want the women of piddington to get raped by

00:33:53.680 the marlians but i'm not with him on that it's like ed it's okay for you to both agree with

00:33:59.340 on this but but ed is he's creating the distance because he doesn't want his constituents to think

00:34:05.280 he has any respect for nigel farage it's not about the the policies it's about oh no farage

00:34:11.580 is a boisterous man behaving badly i am a man from love actually and i've made this decision

00:34:17.560 i saw i saw um james o'brien literally tweet out uh was it this morning or say on his radio show

00:34:25.120 this morning um that he wanted andy burnham to go full love actually on trump and i was like i knew

00:34:31.680 it we knew it's in their minds that's exactly what they think anyway so but it is bizarre the thing

00:34:37.280 that bothers him is that people might think he shares an opinion with nigel farage and it's the

00:34:43.320 most universal opinion actually the ladies of peddington should not be sexually harassed or

00:34:48.500 i think this guy's a clown but i'm sure there are certain opinions that him and i both hold

00:34:53.740 well you know i don't i don't know what i can tell you what okay he wants to lower taxes 0.94

00:34:59.220 okay yeah i like that then we all yeah he wants to lower your taxes that is in fact

00:35:05.540 maybe i think it's the last link i've got here there we go ed davie would announce the lib

00:35:10.760 dams would raise the 40 percent income tax threshold from 50 000 to 56 000 so more people

00:35:17.480 earning less would keep more of their own money okay great that's perfectly sensible yep it's

00:35:24.480 perfectly in line with the english prejudices that ed davie holds yes i don't want to pay

00:35:29.740 loads of tax to the government that's a normal english thing cut any spending it sounds like

00:35:35.400 he's looking to significantly increase it but through chain migration so that all of the

00:35:40.340 migrants that we have at the moment could be multiplied by somewhere in the order of 17 to

00:35:44.340 45 yes but that no it doesn't matter but the natural the natural feeling of the englishman 0.89

00:35:50.120 in the shires is well of course i don't want to pay more taxes why would i want that and of course

00:35:54.180 i agree with ed davy on that i want my taxes to go down too i don't have to distance myself from 0.94

00:35:59.220 ed davy like you know no he's an icky no he's just a retard um anyway so like i was saying a second 0.88

00:36:09.060 village is now considering independence referendum uh over the migrant camp plans this is actually 0.97

00:36:14.140 in a labour constituency in the southeast um but the same principle applies and good on the people

00:36:20.340 of pittington for again creating this most english of revolts it's like no we're going to declare

00:36:26.820 independence from you now actually we're going to vote and we're just going to say no we're not

00:36:29.960 having this this is like when you get a bit a bit you know you you take your eye off the ball when

00:36:35.240 you're playing crusader kings and you start getting a rebellion pop-up and then another one

00:36:38.980 and another one and before you know it you've lost the bloody country yes and again like from

00:36:44.080 the time of uh well the english civil war to the american revolution like this is the sort of thing

00:36:50.020 we do when we're not happy with the way we're governed anyway so liberal democrat conference

00:36:55.060 2026 oh how exciting yeah it's currently going on in fact it's yeah it is today is the last

00:37:01.520 today is the last oh damn i missed it i know you didn't even know it was happening i haven't even

00:37:05.820 been watching the live stream on youtube you know i didn't even check to see if they had a live 0.72

00:37:10.400 stream on youtube i i assume they do if they do i bet it's got like eight views or something i mean

00:37:16.280 you carry on i'm gonna look it up it's gonna have a fairly low uh attendance on it i'm sure

00:37:21.900 but um but anyway so you know they're gonna have live q a's with mps and party figures

00:37:26.800 live debates on the big issues fringe sessions with expert guest speakers on a huge range of

00:37:32.380 topics you're gonna be gone 432 watching how many did did bo's breakfast get this morning

00:37:42.580 two and a half thousand right so well and bo's breakfast doesn't have any mps let alone 67

00:37:48.920 anyway so uh yeah they held it in bryton which is nice right and uh so that's currently going on

00:37:58.500 And a few things have come out from it.

00:38:00.400 Now, you had people from Sky News here being like,

00:38:04.300 well, this isn't exactly heaving on morning one in Brighton.

00:38:07.940 It's like, well, I mean...

00:38:09.280 I'm just doing your ethnicity checker test from earlier.

00:38:12.380 Yeah.

00:38:13.500 Middle class, middle-aged, English people.

00:38:15.740 I'm not seeing a lot of Afghans or Bermalians in the audience.

00:38:19.380 You're also not seeing a lot of pensioners in the audience. 1.00

00:38:21.700 That's right. 0.99

00:38:22.260 They've all got hair colour.

00:38:23.300 They do, right?

00:38:24.700 Isn't that interesting?

00:38:25.880 whereas obviously at the conservative and reform conferences it's a sea of graybeards

00:38:32.220 you know silver hair no in yes lib dem conference it is middle class middle age mums and dads who

00:38:39.560 have a nice big house and a nice big garden in the shires one of them is actually wearing the

00:38:44.000 center dad centrist dad little vest thing as well he is indeed i think there's vince cable on stage

00:38:49.160 as well sir vince cable who um still wheeling him out yeah and apparently he can't command that

00:38:55.540 much of a crowd but i mean it's the morning it's like 10 51 a.m on the morning one of the conference

00:39:02.520 so maybe people are taking time to arrive or something the lib dem uh view track is now up

00:39:07.700 to 443 so somebody has come on somebody's joined

00:39:10.740 so it's not exactly heaving and the lib dems don't really understand why the messaging isn't

00:39:18.420 cutting right this is this is what the uh the the mainstream media reporting on it has been like

00:39:24.760 And what about a Davey leader?

00:39:26.360 Are you happy with how he's doing?

00:39:28.800 Yeah.

00:39:30.080 Two years ago, the Lib Dems were buzzing.

00:39:32.040 They just won more than 70 MPs

00:39:34.240 and were officially back on the political map.

00:39:36.720 Now, some are asking if they're even making a splash.

00:39:39.960 We're doing the right things,

00:39:41.200 but we need to get it out there to people

00:39:43.480 to show them that we're doing the right things.

00:39:45.680 We may not be saying as many radical things,

00:39:47.880 but we are definitely putting across our message quite well.

00:39:51.600 The way we put our message across is massively important.

00:39:54.560 I do also think there is some sort of shifts that need to happen in terms of like getting some of our more radical sort of policies and agenda items across.

00:40:01.880 I don't think it's a case of sort of trying to fight with the other parties.

00:40:04.560 I think it's making sure that what we've got to offer and what we stand for is getting heard.

00:40:08.880 I'm at the party's conference in Brighton and actually on the one hand you can argue things are still going quite well for them.

00:40:14.460 They've got more than 70 MPs, more councillors now than any year since 2010.

00:40:20.500 But then you look at the polls and they're stagnant.

00:40:22.940 people out there are restless for change and some of the Lib Dems MPs are telling their party

00:40:29.240 to meet the moment. One of the things that I really appreciate about Ed as a leader is that

00:40:34.520 he has listened to feedback. The problems are serious and that politicians need to be serious

00:40:40.020 and Ed always has been serious although sometimes it hasn't always quite looked that way so I think

00:40:44.700 now there's a better match between the optics and the substance. Just to be clear she's my MP

00:40:50.720 that's my mp for the south cotswolds right i i would have guessed hr director yeah

00:40:57.860 somewhere i i absolutely love the bit at the beginning where it's like what do you think

00:41:02.720 of ed davie and she's like yeah is it i mean you should dub that with what do you think of

00:41:07.580 your husband's warhammer collection or something exactly that sort of reaction yeah but um but you

00:41:14.540 can i mean like all of these people are the kind of people you meet when you go to an english

00:41:18.120 heritage site yes they're the sort of people who are you know on the on the door and giving the

00:41:22.860 ticket they're the people the next table over at a nice country pub yes and so and they're all

00:41:28.240 good people they pay their taxes they they live good lives they're all good people and they're 0.99

00:41:34.020 wondering why this isn't cutting through to a diverse country yes why isn't our unreality bubble

00:41:41.020 working on more people what what decade is this representing to us i mean it looks like when i

00:41:47.400 was a kid it looks like the 1930s you know oh yeah don't get me wrong seaside fish and chips

00:41:52.120 in brighton before the invention of air travel superb i love the idea wonderful ed

00:41:59.820 you know like yeah this this isn't cutting through for some reason and it's like well

00:42:06.340 it's because the country has some really substantive problems demographically since

00:42:12.860 that particular uh you know that particular fish and chip van yeah was created these are

00:42:19.820 isolated bubbles of reality that have not been eroded away yet and and these are kind of like

00:42:25.040 museum pieces in a way you know it's like yeah in the 1930s we had little fish and chip seaside

00:42:30.940 resorts and now they're all voting for reform by the way or restore you know like great yard

00:42:36.020 like it's it very much so so it's it's a kind of they they are without thinking about it

00:42:43.040 a classic english party for a world that has disappeared for decades out of date but they

00:42:49.800 haven't noticed but they haven't noticed they're deeply anachronistic because in the bucolic nature

00:42:54.900 of the southwest of england actually it kind of does feel that time stands still and actually if

00:43:00.420 you know your great-grandfather from like 1900 popped into existence in in your neck of the

00:43:06.260 woods and winchester probably recognized a bunch of the buildings he'd probably know the street

00:43:09.540 layout you know things have he'd probably know personally some of the neighbors they're quite old

00:43:13.800 exactly right so it's things have not substantively changed and don't get me wrong that's the great

00:43:20.420 bit about england that's what i love about england and and these people um they they've got their

00:43:25.020 you know oik employees saying to them that there won't be a shire anymore uh master frodo

00:43:30.840 be racist yeah don't be racist sound wise yes let the orcs in

00:43:35.280 so this is don't put them in our constituency though put put them in the in the cities yeah

00:43:41.460 yeah of course yeah put them in gondor so this is this slogan or one of the slogans they had on the

00:43:47.620 stage and again who is this aimed at the slogan for anyone listening says no one shall be enslaved

00:43:55.620 by poverty ignorance or conformity um okay well i used to be poor back when i left university

00:44:02.420 i didn't have any money i didn't have any particular prospects to be honest and i worked

00:44:08.300 in fairly low-end jobs to make ends meet until i you know eventually did okay for myself the zoom

00:44:14.840 going to hear that and be like you were allowed to have a job i was and and the swindon was a

00:44:20.260 boom town at the time yes the early 2000s so i can see all the empty buildings around i know this

00:44:26.100 place must have been something at one point it was it was really great um but i didn't feel

00:44:30.520 enslaved right before i managed to get a job and you know get myself on my feet i didn't feel

00:44:35.140 enslaved i was just annoyed that i didn't have a job right i didn't used to be educated like it's

00:44:42.760 I left university halfway through my degree in computer science when I was 21 because I was just like, I don't care about this at all.

00:44:51.220 I didn't feel enslaved.

00:44:52.500 I just made the choice.

00:44:53.580 And now I have my degree in philosophy.

00:44:56.120 I don't feel any more liberated.

00:44:58.300 I'm still the same person, believe it or not.

00:45:00.260 And the idea that the Lib Dems are not a conformist party of bourgeois liberal values, go down to a Lib Dem conference and tell people I'm feeling a bit more skeptical about immigration, to be honest. 0.90

00:45:13.100 They were worried about these asylum seekers like the people of Piddington.

00:45:15.380 And they were like, oh, no, you can't say that.

00:45:17.240 Come on, you can't say that.

00:45:18.360 I mean, if you delete the word poverty,

00:45:20.260 because we certainly cannot accuse Lib Dem voters of being poor.

00:45:23.120 No. 0.80

00:45:24.800 They are the ones enslaved by ignorance and conformity. 0.72

00:45:27.740 That is entirely what they are.

00:45:30.320 As we keep saying, they're living in an unreality bubble.

00:45:32.800 And in fact, this is what Rousseau's argument against

00:45:35.700 the social bonds of the bourgeoisie in his time was.

00:45:39.620 he was like look man is every man is born free but everywhere is in chains well the chains were

00:45:44.440 social expectation right the chains were the he's got a great line he says look the the bourgeoisie

00:45:49.480 live in the opinions of other people yes right and that's highest yes it's lib dems exactly

00:45:54.980 they live in the opinion when was this guy writing he was writing the 18th century

00:45:58.500 so so basically the whole country used to be lib dem in france uh well large portions of it did

00:46:04.360 right um but uh so they are still living in that kind of conformity only under the rubric of being

00:46:12.340 liberal now and it's like okay well that's very interesting it must be really nice to be a lib

00:46:17.180 dem voter because not only do you get a big house but you don't you don't have to think about

00:46:21.120 problems you don't have to worry about all of this stuff because in your mind everything is fine

00:46:26.620 yeah the worst problem you've got is there's a leak in the local church roof yes right oh we

00:46:30.640 just do a fundraiser and have a bake sale exactly yes oh ethel needs a new wheelchair or something

00:46:35.620 so okay well we'll have a whip round you know like that yeah these are the i'll put it up on

00:46:40.500 the agenda of the rotary club new wheelchair for ethel problem solved we've done our bit we'll have

00:46:45.900 a little vote on the local parish council have a whip round everything's done right and so the

00:46:51.820 lib dems basically as we've covered they're they're a party of conformist bourgeois liberal

00:46:57.160 values and it's fine right the problem yeah exactly good for them yeah you know that's lovely

00:47:03.260 the problem with this it doesn't meet the moment that the nation is in well no that's true yes

00:47:07.580 that is the problem like our problems are actually not a lack of liberty right we are we are actually 0.88

00:47:14.780 more free to indulge our vices than we have ever been oh yeah i mean i can feel my butt and put it 0.98

00:47:20.800 on only fans and you can do whatever you have a phone in your pocket where you could watch porn 0.72

00:47:25.480 24 7 you can go and get an alcohol basically from anywhere there's literally no yes the licensing

00:47:31.100 laws are incredibly lax at this point you the the shops are open even on sundays right remember

00:47:36.280 150 years ago you couldn't go and buy a beer on a sunday because no would be open

00:47:41.060 right nothing would be open so okay great you you can go and get anything you want almost anywhere

00:47:46.320 you want nobody's arrested for taking drugs anymore like the cops i was walking through

00:47:51.680 swindon just early and it stank of weed and i'm like you know this is gross we've never had more

00:47:57.920 liberty so what are you talking about being enslaved for like we're not enslaved by anything

00:48:03.540 that's the that's actually a bit of a problem right our problems are not a lack of education

00:48:08.360 50 of people in this country go to university and get a degree the problem is the education

00:48:12.860 is terrible the quality of the education is terrible well the grades keep going up well

00:48:17.960 yeah yeah yeah they do the grades are great have never been better yes but but the maybe maybe the

00:48:24.340 markers are in that in that bubble of unreality as well exactly and our problems are of course

00:48:29.220 not an excess of conformity but a lack of conformity we have no overriding shared culture

00:48:35.100 anymore the internet has destroyed the unified culture that these people think they still exist

00:48:40.600 in well they still watch tv i bet i bet they do i bet they still watch the bbc and read the bbc

00:48:46.080 they read you know three or four papers they've got the the main channels that everyone watches

00:48:51.520 and that's fine but that's again a very small bubble of people that is shrinking this is a

00:48:59.920 shrinking demographic and so we aren't actually in a position where any of these things have

00:49:07.860 resonance these are the sorts of things that resonate in the 19th century right these are

00:49:14.040 the sort of things i mean they sound like something that john stuart mill has said i actually did

00:49:18.340 google it i don't think john mill john stuart mill actually did say this but it captures the

00:49:22.980 essence of his liberal utilitarianism and it's the sort of thing you know like charles dickens

00:49:27.740 would be arguing right it's the sort of thing in like victorian workhouse is like yeah no this is

00:49:33.780 we don't want you know okay yeah go back to like a victorian workhouse you could probably argue

00:49:38.220 they're being enslaved by poverty ignorance and conformity right you probably could make that

00:49:42.140 compelling argument when liberalism was basically invented in britain yes yes you can argue this

00:49:48.200 but that doesn't make sense in 21st century britain where literally no one has a a proper

00:49:55.200 responsibility to their own nation and they can indulge any vice and the government will give you 0.69

00:50:00.380 i mean we have so many people on pip claims these days it's actually ridiculous we spend like you

00:50:05.660 were saying a while ago the entire economic system of this country is making sure that everyone lives

00:50:09.860 in this band of 30 to 50 000 pounds a year yeah right nobody is enslaved by poverty those days

00:50:15.780 have gone nobody's enslaved by ignorance everyone's got the internet everyone's got a degree and

00:50:21.040 nobody's enslaved by conformity because everyone has a different shared experience of the world

00:50:25.240 through the internet now the the social networks that people once relied on have disappeared that's

00:50:31.040 what enforces conformity well your your great insight that liberalism is the universal solvent

00:50:35.620 that dissolves all bonds and we've we're living in the post-liberal condition now so it's okay

00:50:40.480 who is this for like this doesn't make sense this is anachronistic or people who still think that

00:50:47.200 they're in that environment you just described and because they think they're in that environment

00:50:52.640 they have to speak as if they're in that environment but everyone knows that they're 0.99

00:50:57.220 not in that environment they know it we know it the people the immigrants probably know it 1.00

00:51:02.980 So everything they say sounds hollow. 1.00

00:51:07.360 It sounds insincere.

00:51:09.000 And this was what everyone noticed when Ed Davey took the stage

00:51:11.820 and gave the Liberal Democrats' new rallying cry.

00:51:15.460 Will they hear?

00:51:17.600 We care, we fight!

00:51:20.860 We care, we fight!

00:51:23.640 We care, we fight!

00:51:26.100 That's right!

00:51:27.500 I mean, he sounds like Mr Tumble.

00:51:32.080 Doesn't he?

00:51:32.980 look at me he looks like a children's entertainer at butland's holiday party

00:51:37.500 that is the cbbs uh version of the conscription video that is yeah it is i mean not only is we

00:51:44.540 care we fight the most awful phrase i wonder what he thinks he's fighting well i assume he

00:51:52.180 thinks he's fighting ignorance poverty and conformity oh okay right but but again the

00:51:59.600 the emptiness of what he's saying there's no fire in his belly where he can't properly you know he

00:52:05.240 can't properly identify a real injustice that he's arguing for because every injustice that is

00:52:10.760 actually happening is ideologically blinkered for lib devs you know and this is what piddington is 0.51

00:52:16.980 really throwing into sharp relief it's like look right you can pretend that these third world men 0.79

00:52:23.580 who the government is really worried are going to rape you aren't that much of a problem but 1.00

00:52:27.480 pittington recognize them as a problem because these luxury beliefs only exist while the danger 0.87

00:52:32.720 is far away i mean i suspect even ed davy might change his tune if one of these asylum centers

00:52:37.740 opened 300 yards from his house yeah from where his kids go to school yes i bet he bloody would

00:52:42.620 yeah right but this so this is the point the lip dems don't meet the moment at all right they only

00:52:49.640 care about their own material conditions all the virtue signaling is just bourgeois status signaling

00:52:55.680 so they can live in the opinions of others

00:52:57.480 and they're certainly not going to fight anyone.

00:53:00.420 Do you think Ed Davey has ever been punched in the face?

00:53:03.960 Not once in his life.

00:53:05.620 No, I doubt it.

00:53:07.140 I mean, possibly by his wife, but...

00:53:09.280 No way!

00:53:10.160 There's no way she'll have ever struck him.

00:53:12.480 There's absolutely no way.

00:53:14.580 Anyway, so they put out a compilation of their own speeches.

00:53:17.380 I don't know whether the music on this is copyrighted,

00:53:20.660 but we'll take it out afterwards if it is.

00:53:23.460 So if you're watching this and you don't get to see this clip,

00:53:25.680 because we've edited it out, well, it was copyrighted.

00:53:27.880 When we see injustice, when we see human dignity under attack,

00:53:32.920 we do not look away.

00:53:35.120 We stand up, we care, and we fight.

00:53:39.880 We need to rise to today's challenge.

00:53:41.900 Tell our story to the nation, because the prize is nothing

00:53:45.260 short of saving liberal democracy itself.

00:53:49.860 Politics isn't just a fight to Westminster,

00:53:52.460 Holyrood, council chambers or conference halls.

00:53:55.580 Politics is all around us.

00:53:58.340 It's in our homes, it's in our workplaces.

00:54:00.900 It's about what we do when somebody has nothing left.

00:54:04.900 Do we turn our backs or do we reach out?

00:54:07.980 Our answer to division cannot be more division.

00:54:11.380 Our answer must be liberalism.

00:54:14.300 As so many in this auditorium do tonight

00:54:17.100 in our roles as councillors,

00:54:18.980 means we get to make lives better

00:54:21.460 for people in our communities.

00:54:24.100 The populism of Trump, Le Pen, the AFD, and the rest.

00:54:29.780 The fight to stop the world's richest man who learned racism

00:54:33.420 in apartheid South Africa, who bundled racism around the world.

00:54:45.420 The force to defend human dignity against those who 0.62

00:54:49.100 would destroy it the fight against reform and their 72 million pound article of hate and lies

00:54:56.900 like i'm being lectured at the assembly by the principal there is a sort of childish vibe about

00:55:04.200 it so one of the debates i'm having in my house at the moment is my youngest daughter she's got

00:55:07.380 all this big collection of fairy tale books and kiddies books and and i'm saying look you you've

00:55:14.200 got to get rid of those now you're a big girl now you've got to start reading bigger books

00:55:17.260 and this strikes me as a bunch of people

00:55:19.120 who never graduated off the fairy tales

00:55:21.280 they're still reading them to this day

00:55:23.100 they're still trapped in this

00:55:24.720 you know

00:55:25.340 well fairy tale view of the world

00:55:28.940 this unreality because their material

00:55:31.180 conditions allow for it

00:55:32.540 but as soon as the material conditions

00:55:35.440 do not allow for it

00:55:36.900 then you will find these people

00:55:39.080 very much unable to

00:55:41.320 answer any of the serious questions

00:55:42.860 listen to the way they're talking

00:55:45.060 none of these people have any rhetorical flair

00:55:47.100 right none of them like ed davies a terrible speaker these people all terrible speakers 0.96

00:55:51.260 right they've got flat bland libtard politics we just want to make lives better for people 0.99

00:55:55.420 yeah because that's what you do at the local church you just go down oh yeah no i'll go and 0.98

00:56:00.220 help you know old mabel take her bins out or something yeah aspire to live in somewhere where

00:56:05.540 politics can be that boring yeah exactly yeah good for them and them saying well politics is

00:56:10.200 everywhere like okay you can see how like leftism has dripped into the lib dem mindset because of 1.00

00:56:15.140 course they're too stupid to understand what they are and what they're dealing with and saying okay 0.99

00:56:20.600 politics is everywhere i said okay yes i mean i agree with you everything about this is political 1.00

00:56:25.460 but it's a kind of politics of the innocent it's a politics of the ignorant it's a politics of

00:56:31.320 people who literally have no idea what the people who are going to be put in pittington will do to

00:56:37.280 the people of piddington right you have no idea you've never encountered any third world violence

00:56:45.560 in your life well and they and they probably create their social media so they've never seen

00:56:49.960 so for example i'm thinking right now of that clip where that guy from eastenders went out to 0.70

00:56:55.040 south africa interviewing these guys and they were saying how funny it was when they raped a woman

00:57:00.100 and set on fire afterwards and and he was saying to them well how do you think she felt and they

00:57:04.800 just and they just couldn't understand the question i don't think that any of these people

00:57:08.140 have ever watched that clip no or any of the millions of other clips that give you an insight

00:57:12.740 into what the phone or they've never walked down swindon high street as i have to see what this

00:57:17.120 actually looks like up close yeah that that it's i i'm just sticking to my view but these people

00:57:22.560 just uh bubbled off from reality yeah i think i think there is a profound innocence in them um

00:57:28.480 And this is why they can be this weird, living, anachronistic museum piece of a political party.

00:57:37.080 How do they get to exist?

00:57:38.300 Well, because luckily for them, they're still living in the England everyone lived in 50 years ago.

00:57:44.300 Now, that has changed all across the South East and the Midlands and the North. 0.83

00:57:49.640 The scar of immigration across the country, those people used to live in Lib Dem heaven too.

00:57:55.180 I mean, although it does create a bit of a paradox for people like you and I, 0.95

00:57:58.300 because if look if we became overlords of this country what we would do is basically turn

00:58:04.640 everyone into lib dem voters because we would create the create the society that they think

00:58:09.120 they're living in yes and that's really what it all comes down to because they it is the

00:58:15.180 demographic infrastructure of the southwest of england that allows the lib dems to exist

00:58:19.480 yeah it's because it is overwhelmingly white middle class english people and lucky for them 0.94

00:58:24.860 we produce amazing societies and yes one day when we've won the country will mostly be white

00:58:31.420 middle class english people and working class english people material prosperity big houses

00:58:35.960 and good people yes right that's that's that's the england that we want and so in a way we're

00:58:42.200 not actually against the lib dems in their um unspoken assumptions it's just that we are much

00:58:49.940 more aware of the nature of reality in the world than these people are yeah right it's we are just

00:58:55.460 more prepared to accept because we don't have the mysticism of liberal universalism in front of our

00:59:01.200 eyes that no there are qualities that differ between types of people these are your qualities

00:59:07.880 and i like them they're good qualities the qualities i would choose for you to have and

00:59:11.920 everyone in the country to have but the people who you think are just like you are nothing like you

00:59:17.160 yeah and you want to bring them here and i mean lib dem voters are welcome to try and prove me

00:59:22.280 wrong go and go and get one of these guys out of the um out of the camp in piddington um you know

00:59:28.080 remove his uh machete uh take him back to your house put him up in your spare bedroom dress him

00:59:33.860 in tweed take him to the church fate and just watch what happens and and if he turns into a

00:59:39.280 perfect english gentleman within a few hours then i'll start correcting you yeah yeah yeah anyway so

00:59:44.840 This is what I mean about the Lib Dems.

00:59:46.180 They're a deeply anachronistic party 0.96

00:59:47.740 because their material conditions allow them to be, 1.00

00:59:50.320 which is why they're still banging the drum about transgenderism. 1.00

00:59:54.560 As Chris points out, you'd mistake this for a comedy sketch. 1.00

00:59:58.720 Zoe Hollywood not only misgendered two people here on the stage, 1.00

01:00:05.840 which is against the code of conduct.

01:00:08.500 Those two nurses you referred to as men are not men. 0.99

01:00:13.080 she lied that trans people haven't lost any rights

01:00:17.440 this is a core issue at the lib dem conference they um they've been talking about restoring

01:00:24.800 trans rights because remember the transgender battle is over in britain the supreme court ruled 0.84

01:00:30.620 no men have penises ladies have foo foos yes and never the twain shall meet conceptually 0.97

01:00:37.700 dastardly reality impinging again yep and the lib dems are like well that's not very liberal 0.98

01:00:44.420 democrat right and so they have been attempting to restore trans rights ah upon entering this

01:00:51.680 conference building i was inspired to write on the wall at the entrance bearing the theme

01:00:57.920 why I care and why I fight I wrote two lines because I'm autistic and so many cared and

01:01:08.120 fought for me and the second line because I am transgender although I thought this fight

01:01:16.160 was over 20 years later I find it is not this is the Liberal Democrats in 2026 Andy Burnham's

01:01:26.760 Labour isn't doing this.

01:01:28.360 Kemi Badenow's Conservatives aren't doing this.

01:01:30.640 Yeah.

01:01:31.240 I don't know about Nigel Farage's Reform Party.

01:01:33.160 Maybe they are doing this.

01:01:34.420 But Restore certainly aren't.

01:01:35.560 Yes.

01:01:36.460 Even the Greens aren't doing this.

01:01:39.820 I mean, I would have said something after this clip,

01:01:42.500 but I was mentally reviewing YouTube's Terms of Service in my head instead.

01:01:45.920 And good.

01:01:47.060 Well done for such restraint.

01:01:48.680 But they passed a motion to reject the discriminatory and unworkable EHRC guidance on transgender people.

01:01:55.700 we we are not we don't accept that women have a biological aspect to them

01:02:01.920 it's it's it's it's the monty python sketch about the womb all over again yes yeah i'm fighting for 0.65

01:02:09.220 his right to have a womb even if he doesn't have a womb um again john cleese was the sensible one

01:02:15.960 in that sketch as well yeah yeah yeah long time restore supporter yeah yeah yeah who knew uh maybe

01:02:23.200 maybe the signs are always there but this is you see what i mean like this this is totally divorced 0.74

01:02:27.820 from there's a war coming ed the zoomers can't get jobs ed yeah like the the people are feeling 0.88

01:02:35.020 like they're being demographically displaced from their own country absolutely can't get houses 0.77

01:02:39.020 people of piddington uh insurrecting against the state ed and you're like yeah but maybe some women 0.97

01:02:46.040 do have penises so this is not where the country's at me yes he's missed the moment somewhat i mean 0.97

01:02:54.260 people are mocking him calling the lib thems because they're the only ones left holding this 0.99

01:03:00.920 ball oh at least that's a parody okay well yeah actually yeah i should have made it clear yes you

01:03:06.300 didn't and i had to i had to process that is that an actual lib dem i don't i mean i presume it is

01:03:12.720 i mean it's not that far from something exactly ed davy has done a lot of things um but the point

01:03:18.380 is they're left holding the ball on the woke stuff because everyone else is post-woke now

01:03:22.560 everyone's like yeah no that we don't even want to talk about that even owen jones is taking the

01:03:26.640 pronouns out of his uh exactly you know it's ash sarkar's like yeah yeah no we were never woke

01:03:31.380 but the lib dems because they are not really the masters of their own thoughts are left holding 1.00

01:03:37.320 this bag and the the hot potato that everyone now looks at and goes oh that's cringe and stupid 0.99

01:03:43.520 but this is the problem they've they're still fighting every they're like that japanese soldier 0.98

01:03:48.920 in the mountains fighting the last war 30 years on here's that david complaining about brexit oh

01:03:55.520 brexit's to blame for the small migrant migrant small boat crossings it's like ed no one wants

01:04:00.580 to relitigate brexit no one no one is interested politically in going down that road again and

01:04:06.280 of course we've got to stand up to trump oh we've got to be like mark carney and stand up to him

01:04:11.240 not like keir starmer and be nice to him it's like ed he's the president of america which is

01:04:17.960 one of our closest allies we're quite reliant on them for a few things i don't know why you can't

01:04:23.940 understand that actually virtue signaling to the local parish is less important than proper

01:04:29.660 diplomatic relationships with america i mean i mean they literally have more military force in

01:04:33.700 our country than we do i mean they've got army bases they've got they've got airfields i mean

01:04:42.380 base level here is diplomatic contact yes i mean not i think that anything would happen obviously

01:04:50.020 but like yes you know just it's it's not like we don't want to be on good terms america even if

01:04:56.500 they voted for evil stinky donald trump i mean i i was in favor of maintaining diplomatic relations

01:05:01.940 of america even when biden was in office yeah even when obama's in office uh anyway so the 0.92

01:05:08.660 lib dems have noticed are we struggling for relevance are we failing to paint a coherent

01:05:13.980 picture of the country we're trying to create and what i hope that we've done in this podcast is say

01:05:18.000 well in a way no you have painted a very coherent picture of the country that you think should be

01:05:25.360 oh i think the world should look like the way that they think it should be i agree it should

01:05:30.100 It looked like Brighton Beach in the 1930s

01:05:32.120 with fish and chips and ice cream

01:05:33.400 and 99% white English people wander around.

01:05:36.980 So basically, we have the same vision as the Lib Dems.

01:05:39.520 We absolutely do.

01:05:40.320 We just have a slightly different vision of where we are now.

01:05:43.360 And also, nothing the Lib Dems would do

01:05:45.980 would ever get us closer to that vision.

01:05:48.020 Oh, no, no, no.

01:05:48.580 It would go in radically the opposite direction.

01:05:50.560 Exactly.

01:05:51.040 They are arguing for more recession

01:05:53.180 away from where they actually think they are.

01:05:54.860 Well, I mean, they would push us to more wokery nonsense 1.00

01:05:58.180 until Sharia took place. 1.00

01:05:59.700 More immigration, more woke. 0.99

01:06:01.260 Exactly, exactly.

01:06:03.380 More secularism.

01:06:05.200 It will be exactly that

01:06:07.540 until there is no one left in England

01:06:09.760 who would even consider voting Lib Dem

01:06:12.820 because their material conditions

01:06:14.500 don't allow for it, right?

01:06:15.840 So they are actually painting

01:06:17.800 a coherent picture.

01:06:19.000 It's just, it's so far away 1.00

01:06:20.840 from where the Zoomers are, right? 1.00

01:06:24.360 It's just so far away 1.00

01:06:25.420 from where the young people are 1.00

01:06:26.460 that they can't imagine

01:06:28.240 how they could get it.

01:06:29.700 i mean i mean they would love it at least we're old enough to remember when most of the country 0.93

01:06:34.300 actually was like a livedem constituency yeah yeah what the zoomers must be thinking watching 0.90

01:06:39.440 this i didn't meet a muslim until i was about 19 20 and i went to coventry to university and it's 0.89

01:06:45.400 because i went to coventry yes that i met a muslim yes if i'd gone to basically almost any

01:06:51.540 other university outside of like the midlands i wouldn't have met one yes right and i was just 0.77

01:06:58.220 i remember meeting this guy and he was perfectly nice he's a drug dealer um but he was perfectly

01:07:03.880 nice to me he was like i'm i'm yeah i can't remember his name now but he was like oh hi

01:07:08.120 nice to meet you and i was just completely you know you know wide-eyed 19 staring no no i was

01:07:13.700 just very nice i was you know i was you know very polite because i mean yes why wouldn't you be even

01:07:18.340 though he's obviously not english it didn't matter because england at the time was you know 90

01:07:22.020 something percent white english yes there's no demographic threat that you didn't think about

01:07:25.920 at all so he was just like and he was you know he told me his name which was a foreign name

01:07:28.560 sorry i'm a muslim i was like i don't know what that is that's totally innocent

01:07:34.460 if only he'd stopped you and said you will carl yeah yeah but i mean like i said i actually i

01:07:41.480 actually quite like the guy you know you know i got on well with him and stuff but yeah yeah but

01:07:46.060 anyway the point being they are painting a coherent picture of the country they're trying

01:07:50.580 to yes i like it i like it a lot i like it a lot but they can never get to their end goal

01:07:53.880 and you get uh lib dem politicians who are having some sharp words about ed davey these days because

01:08:01.700 they've realized hang on a second i don't think this guy can get us to where we want to actually

01:08:05.000 be either i just wanted to start by asking you how conference is going because you're in the

01:08:09.960 middle of it right now the lib dem conference but these comments from a man of your parish julian

01:08:15.420 brazil the lib dem politician pretty extraordinary comments very scathing towards you sir ed you've

01:08:22.340 allowed other parties to go steaming past us we're lacking ambition we're lacking courage we're not

01:08:29.440 saying things that people can relate to what's your response to a Lib Dem politician at conference

01:08:37.120 who thinks you are sleepwalking into irrelevance now that's exactly correct as we've been laying

01:08:44.060 out here there are Lib Dems in the party who are like how does this relate to a modern person's

01:08:51.840 experience outside of the southwest of england and the answer is it just doesn't even lib dem

01:08:56.780 mps are getting their reality bubble fractured at this point because they can see themselves going

01:09:02.080 down in the polls yeah they can see what's happening in pittington their constituents

01:09:05.680 are revolting against the modern order and ed davie's like yeah i don't think they should be 0.64

01:09:11.540 raped it's okay great ed what are the policies more asylum seekers well okay i mean if you 0.88

01:09:17.320 have to ask the question you know how are your 2024 general election gains holding up well one

01:09:23.640 of them flipped into a independent principality apart from that oh sorry two two of them have

01:09:33.800 flipped into a independent principality the second one's just considering it oh okay yeah but yeah

01:09:39.060 exactly you know how often can you say that really yes um so the point is everyone can say it right

01:09:45.900 Ed Davey is a man of a different time.

01:09:49.820 The Lib Dems are a party of a different era, frankly, of the 19th century.

01:09:53.600 They don't have any answers to modern problems.

01:09:57.160 And they are desperately, they are just an English conservative party

01:10:00.640 who are trying to hold on to the wonderful culture

01:10:05.000 that the southwest of England had cultivated,

01:10:07.440 but that is being eroded by immigration and by change.

01:10:11.740 And they can't hold it back.

01:10:12.900 They don't have the ideology to hold it back because it's their ideology

01:10:15.480 that brought about these changes in the first place they just believe harder well until they

01:10:21.140 can't do it anymore and then they drop out but even if they did all they can believe in is

01:10:24.480 liberalism which is the thing that brought all of these people here to ruin their idea to ruin

01:10:29.260 their their you know nice solid garden parties in the first place yes right so the lib dems believe

01:10:35.260 in the thing that is destroying them and they can never escape that because then they wouldn't be

01:10:38.580 the lib dems i've put my object in in the bath and i've poured universal solvent all over it and

01:10:44.420 the thing is dissolving what can i do more solvent more solvent that's literally the only answer they

01:10:50.840 have for any of the yes um however because if the only tool you've got as a hammer everything looks

01:10:57.860 like a nail the lib dems are indeed sticking with their leader ed davie is the right leader for us

01:11:03.580 and you know what i think you're right i think in a way ed davie is a kind of platonic form of a

01:11:08.240 liberal democrat and so he is the right representation of the liberal democrats but

01:11:13.500 you're not going to get like a right-wing liberal democrat who's going to be like no what we're

01:11:17.920 going to do is advance the cause of the culture we are trying to communicate across the country

01:11:23.200 because that would look like rupert low yeah that person would be very far right and that person

01:11:29.420 would be very uncompromising and there's no way they could do this yeah i mean rupert low i mean

01:11:34.900 he he kind of is a a liberal democrat that has had the unreality bubble swap for a reality bubble

01:11:40.800 yes i mean that otherwise he's the same exactly he's a he's a he's an englishman from the shires

01:11:46.960 yeah who has accepted that reality exists and that liberalism can't protect you from it and so there

01:11:52.740 are certain hard things that must be done and this is why i think actually luca as you were saying

01:11:57.040 right rupert lowe is much more well positioned to persuade these people over to our side than

01:12:03.980 someone like nigel farage would be because remember it's all bourgeois status signaling

01:12:08.020 leaving the opinions of others well rupelo's got a pretty unblemished personal record of character

01:12:12.740 whereas nigel farage absolutely does not but the point is liberal democrats are going to find

01:12:17.400 themselves uh in this perpetual decline i don't see what they could possibly say or do that would

01:12:23.560 um give any opportunity to escape this death spiral at this point and i think they realize

01:12:30.180 themselves wait a minute what are we doing how are we fixing any what are we going to do it's

01:12:34.180 like you're not going to do anything i mean there's always going to be a percentage of people

01:12:38.000 who live in imagination land and given how it's going to shrink yeah but given how effective

01:12:43.860 their vote machine is i mean next general election down from 67 seats or whatever it was down to

01:12:49.780 43 maybe the election after that i mean there was it wasn't that long ago in my lifetime they had

01:12:55.960 like 12 mps so if they have to go back to 12 mps they have to go back to 12 mps i mean which i

01:13:00.520 think they will but isn't it interesting how like all politics is identity politics right this they

01:13:06.480 were an expression of an englishness that felt threatened and ed davy came out with his no i'm

01:13:13.420 actually you know we're at butlins again as teenagers guys i'm your dad going down the

01:13:19.620 water slide and making a prat of myself and everything's fine everyone's like you know what

01:13:23.500 yeah i do want to believe that but again yes reality i want i want to believe that i want to

01:13:28.320 believe that to it but i'd want to exactly but reality is eating away and it's not going to stop

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - September 23, 2026

The Last Clown in the Circus

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