The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1153
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 31 minutes
Words per Minute
197.39786
Hate Speech Sentences
102
Summary
The Lotus Eaters discuss the results of the recent Canadian election, including the surprising victory for the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau and the rise in Lib Dem turnout. Also, we talk about the impending privatisation of Serco and the impending arrival of foreigners in the UK.
Transcript
00:00:00.220
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for Tuesday the 29th of April 2025.
00:00:06.520
I'm joined by Beau and Alex Masters, and we are going to be talking about the Canadian elections,
00:00:16.020
What am I going to be talking about? Oh yeah, how we're getting enriched,
00:00:19.940
and how Serco is going to make sure that the parts of England that weren't actually completely stuffed to the gills with strangers
00:00:27.240
are now going to be stuffed to the gills by strangers, and you're going to be paying for it,
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and how the future belongs to those who show up for it politically, so you've got to go and get involved.
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Anyway, right, so, no announcements today. How do things go in Canada?
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Well, it depends which side of the aisle you're on, isn't it?
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It was a remarkable, it seems like a fairly remarkable thing, over the last hundred days or so, quite a remarkable turnaround.
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So, the headline is, is that the Liberals won. Mark Carney and it's Trudeau's old party, they won.
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And it was only not that long ago, a couple of months ago, that the Conservatives were something in the order of 25 points up.
00:01:07.940
So, it looks like a sort of a slam dunk, should be a win.
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Do we have a poll? I think we've got a poll line, right?
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There you go, that's quite a remarkable thing, isn't it?
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And so, it's basically, the Donald broke their minds.
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So, Trump said all sorts of belligerent anti-Canadian things,
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Of course, there's no, that was never, ever, ever going to happen.
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Nonetheless, it broke a lot of, at least, boomers' minds in Canada.
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And so, they decided to go, it looks like, well, there's no doubt.
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Because you can see there, the Conservative vote, you know, dropped a bit.
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But it's the rise in the Libs, Lib turnout that's, let's start with turnout.
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I mean, and you can see, like, they definitely cannibalised the NDP vote,
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But not by a sufficient amount to justify that rise.
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It has to have been people who otherwise weren't really going to vote,
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who decided, oh, no, I've got to come out and stop the Orange Fuhrer.
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because I get the thinking from a Canadian Lib.
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I get their thinking about that, just a knee-jerk reaction.
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It's the evil Republican right-wing new Hitler dude in America
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So, at the ballot box, I'm going to vote Liberal.
00:03:05.600
But my thinking would have been that you would want,
00:03:10.500
you'd probably want someone that's closer aligned to Trump
00:03:14.180
in order to get a better deal, rather than meeting foes,
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instead of locking horns, try and get someone that can make a deal
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But, no, they decided not to go with that thinking, obviously.
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The Liberals may have turned Canada one-third immigrant
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the second, sorry, no, the second Twitter link I've got there.
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So, on the very far right there, you've got managing the federal budget and deficit.
00:04:04.040
These are not the most important factors when designed to vote.
00:04:06.900
Weirdly, making Canada a better place to live for the red bar is 60 and over.
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That is literally the least important thing of any boomer on my entire thing.
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Also, of course, making housing more affordable, because I've got mine, Jack.
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That one red bar there, that speaks volumes about sort of the boomer mindset.
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So, making Canada a better place to live is literally their last priority.
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It's like, don't you have children and grandchildren?
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You like to think that the idea that you can make a better world for your progeny should be universal.
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Well, it was universal right up until about 1960.
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And the boomers all came of age in about that sort of decade.
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And for some reason, they decided, no, I'm the end of history.
00:05:02.360
But anyway, so the next one, growing the economy.
00:05:08.540
Oh, you can see the boomer self-interest coming in here.
00:05:14.180
There are too many Indians in the waiting room.
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And then, of course, reducing the cost of living is something that impacts boomers.
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So, on the far left there, that was the important thing.
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Then, the one just before the far left, dealing with Donald Trump, 50% of boomers said that this was the most important thing to think about.
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Yeah, you know, resisting Donald Trump, I assume they mean.
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And so, it seems that the boomers have come out and just said,
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well, to hell with the economy, or housing, or public services, or the debt,
00:06:14.320
Just sprinting towards the edge of the cliff as fast as possible.
00:06:24.440
Because, again, the thing where Trump was talking about all those things he was saying about
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making Canada the 51st state and stuff like that,
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when Trump came in, he came in swinging on every front.
00:06:41.320
And from their point of view, you know, like MAGA people's point of view,
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I'm not saying they're wrong, I don't think they are really,
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but they just feel like Canada's been screwing them over for a generation or more here.
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They're just taking the mickey out of them, at least financially.
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And he just came in with some sort of iron fist.
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I think that that's giving Canada way too much credit.
00:07:02.880
I don't think Canada's capable of screwing America in the way that it's been portrayed.
00:07:08.260
But, I mean, this was a definite sort of rake moment, I think, for Trump.
00:07:15.340
What he did is exactly the wrong things in exactly the wrong direction.
00:07:20.540
He decided he was going to come in aggressively and start, like, verbally punching at the purported
00:07:28.740
And then he was going to declare a trade war on China.
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What you want to do is make sure all the allies are on board, declare the trade war first,
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and point out how they're going to make out, like, bandits from it.
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And then once they're in hock to you, and you've got them on the hook,
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they're like, yep, we'll put up tariffs against China too.
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You know, and everyone's like, yeah, we're all coalition against China,
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Then he says, right, I'm going to need something, guys.
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Then you've got the conservatives in power in various other countries in your allies' areas.
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And instead, he's done it the exact wrong way, and he's absolutely destroyed the conservatives in Canada.
00:08:08.960
And it's just like, okay, you know, America first only actually now means America alone.
00:08:13.900
And I know there is a contingent of people who say, yeah, okay, that's what I want.
00:08:17.820
But we don't want to be governed by the libs forever, actually.
00:08:22.800
And it turns out we've got a lot of flighty boomers who could have been won over by a bit of diplomacy, I think.
00:08:29.580
So it's fair enough to come out swinging against, say, the Chinese.
00:08:34.700
But you're saying it would have been a better strategy for your closest, closest allies, like Canada,
00:08:39.460
to be softly, softly, catchy monkey, build a coalition from the base.
00:08:45.740
Look, everyone knew there was a very high chance leading up to this that Trump was going to win.
00:08:53.560
You know, Trump was beating her in the polls, like, you know, neck and neck with the polls.
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And Trump, you know, everyone knew that Kamala was definitely being overrepresented.
00:09:00.640
It was a very, very likely thing that Trump was going to win.
00:09:13.220
They've gotten to go, oh, no, you're not, and resurrect from their, like, torpor and actually come out and vote for the libs,
00:09:24.080
You're going into an election with this kind of polling.
00:09:29.200
We're going to get the conservative treatment in Britain.
00:09:32.960
And then Trump just like, right, I'm going to take your country.
00:09:35.680
It's like, that doesn't play well with anyone ever, you know.
00:09:48.540
Well, it's just that it's a remarkable graph to look at.
00:09:53.340
Because, I mean, if Trump had come out and said, look, I hate Trudeau, the Conservatives probably would have gone up in the polls.
00:09:59.180
Because everyone in Canada probably hates Trudeau at this point.
00:10:02.240
I mean, Trudeau's, like, kind of accepted he was stepping back because he looked like he'd poisoned the brand.
00:10:08.560
Until Trump was like, you know what, I'm going to save you, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party.
00:10:13.000
And this is just exactly the wrong thing to do.
00:10:16.620
The thing is, I mean, it was never going to be an 1812.
00:10:21.760
If anyone doesn't know, America tried to invade Canada three times in 1812.
00:10:25.240
Yeah, and we ended up burning down the White House.
00:10:29.720
All the talk of annexing Canada, making them the 51st state, was always pure bluster.
00:10:43.240
It also shows that the one constant in international politics is the Conservatives missing open goals.
00:10:48.740
Because all they had to do was match the Liberals' anti-Trump rhetoric punch for punch.
00:10:59.340
I think Polivar did try, but it was too little too late.
00:11:02.900
You know, it was like, you know, like a month later he'd come out and go, I'm against Trump too.
00:11:06.280
It's like, no, everyone thinks you're kind of for Trump, actually.
00:11:10.920
I didn't see any clips of him getting red-faced and angry.
00:11:13.860
I'm talking to you, Mr. Trump, you'll never take...
00:11:18.180
I saw one speech where he looked a bit, not angry, but he looked kind of put upon that he had to make this speech.
00:11:36.700
It's not been a particularly spectacular election.
00:11:39.460
I mean, the Libs are in a minority position here.
00:11:48.080
Because, I mean, it's unusual for party leaders, even if they lose an election, to lose their seat.
00:11:53.360
Because normally they're chosen in quite safe seats.
00:11:55.440
I mean, any other one I can think of in recent years is Joe Swinson.
00:12:11.900
And so he's no doubt putting a lot of work in his personal sort of demence.
00:12:15.560
And, you know, made sure that people know his name and like him.
00:12:18.820
And, you know, for 20 years, they've got to think something of you.
00:12:21.780
And then you're literally right up in the polls.
00:13:02.840
It could have been one phone call in that sort of back end of February just going,
00:13:06.820
Donald, can you just shut up for like six weeks?
00:13:12.260
It's because Trump, literally, it's because Trump was talking about
00:13:16.880
He should have been making it a direct line at that party rather than your country.
00:13:22.440
You know, he could have been blustering up Canada being like, Canada's got a great history.
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You know, the best maple syrup comes from Canada.
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You know, instead of, I'm going to annex your country and turn being a shit lib into the nationalist position.
00:13:40.620
That's what the problem that Donald Trump has inflicted on the Canadians.
00:13:44.880
And to be honest with you, I don't really know what the conservatives could have done all that differently.
00:13:48.500
Because Polivet and all those, like, anyone even vaguely right wing obviously has some sympathies towards Trump.
00:13:57.080
And so if Trump's like, right, I'm going to take care of your country.
00:14:01.220
Everyone's still going to be like, yeah, but you're not, you don't believe it.
00:14:04.020
Like, I know that the Trudeau-style libs believe it.
00:14:06.500
You know, they come out and go, no, we will fight you in the trenches.
00:14:09.320
And everyone's like, you know, they actually will.
00:14:11.580
Like, yeah, they're literally, they've pathologically hated Trump since 2016.
00:14:17.820
Whereas if you're the conservative, you're going to be like, well, I will be a bit of a Neville Chamberlain on it.
00:14:22.580
You know, and so they'll, I don't know what he could have done.
00:14:26.460
The other thing that Trump did, other than just the blustering about annexation, was talk big about tariffs.
00:14:33.320
So, like, Canada have been eating America's lunch just in terms of trade a bit.
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And Trump decided just to, you know, put an end to that.
00:14:43.160
And, yeah, if you're a Canadian patriot in any way, you're going to hate that.
00:14:50.800
And if you're a Canadian lib, you can definitely lean into the sort of globalist free trade argument against Trump here and say he's a reactionary.
00:15:00.900
We need to get Mark Carney in charge because otherwise we're doomed.
00:15:10.080
All Brits know him because he was governor of the Bank of England for a while.
00:15:14.480
And even, I think, during the financial, the credit crunch, I hate that expression, but during that financial crisis, like, what is it, bloody 10, well, 15 plus years ago now.
00:15:24.100
But, um, so one thing I'll say from, obviously he's an old Goldman Sachs, uh, you know, globalist chill type person.
00:15:35.000
He's exactly the worst person to have in charge, actually.
00:15:37.860
But despite that, he does give off this aura of sort of calm competence, like, um, you know, like, uh, we'll keep the boat on an even keel.
00:15:51.160
I mean, I don't agree with any of his politics, but he does.
00:15:55.880
Uh, well, again, just sort of, as, because being the governor of the Bank of England is quite different to being an actual, an actual politician.
00:16:04.060
So, much less the leader of a, of a party or a country, the whole job of being, uh, being a governor of a bank thing.
00:16:11.260
And he was governor of the Canadian Central Bank before that.
00:16:19.180
That's more important than, um, than, um, rhetorical back and forths.
00:16:29.880
He does, he does, and a lot of them do a very good job.
00:16:33.880
And I think they're trained, frankly, uh, to project that kind of adults in the room.
00:16:38.320
We're presenting stability and calm governance and, you know, security for the future.
00:16:43.180
And if you're a boomer, well, that's, that's essentially an easy way to one-shot you.
00:16:48.020
That's how we've arrived in this position, is that the boomers keep falling for this trick.
00:16:54.340
Uh, so we'll see how he actually governs, because even though he's, they've won, the Liberal Party has won the election, uh, they're still, at this moment, it may change over the years.
00:17:03.860
For the next hours or day or two, they've got 168 seats and you need 172.
00:17:10.540
In the Canadian Parliament, I believe there's 343 odd seats, something in there.
00:17:14.500
They'll be able to form a coalition with their Lib Dems, right?
00:17:16.800
Either with the, the, the Dems or with, uh, like the Quebec bloc or, or whatever, uh, just to get over the line.
00:17:24.720
But even if they do that, it's still not a big majority.
00:17:33.160
It's not like he can, um, just start doing whatever he wants.
00:17:36.560
And moreover, when Trump actually does knock off the, I'm going to annex Canada rhetoric, they're just going to collapse in the polls again.
00:17:43.080
You think it's ultimately, well, yeah, because I mean, they're going to be like, oh, we have all these problems.
00:17:47.700
And they're going to be like, oh, who, who is responsible for those?
00:17:50.600
I mean, you know, we've been in charge for the last 12 years, whatever it's been.
00:17:53.980
You literally can't point the finger at anyone else.
00:18:01.420
Um, so usually it's a trend that you, most parties in, in the West, in modern times, post-war times, you don't get much more than that usually with the best will in the world.
00:18:10.340
No, because you're the person responsible for the problems.
00:18:13.260
No one else is in charge to point the finger at.
00:18:15.820
Um, so yeah, a couple more, just the first few links.
00:18:19.180
It's just interesting that, um, I think it's quite interesting that, that Paul Polivare, however you pronounce it, uh, lost his seat.
00:18:27.300
Because that speak, again, speaks of a personal, uh, that the electorate are like, it's you personally we've got a problem with.
00:18:43.320
I haven't had time to dig into his personal constituency.
00:18:49.160
The leaders of a party or anyone who's a big beast in any given party, they put you in a safe seat.
00:19:01.320
But as safe as possible so that you don't lose your seat.
00:19:04.660
The thing is, Trump, like, no one expected Trump to start talking about annexing Canada.
00:19:08.740
This was just not on the table, you know, three months ago.
00:19:15.640
This will probably be the Libs' last government.
00:19:17.560
Because in four years' time, Trump's out, oh, Canada's still an independent nation and it's still broken.
00:19:23.860
And to be honest with you, maybe Trump has done the world a favor here, actually.
00:19:27.180
So, you know, Pierre Polivet, I liked his eating an apple while, you know, sassing the press.
00:19:33.980
I mean, I'm a very big fan of not treating the press with any respect whatsoever.
00:19:37.920
But as you pointed out, how is he different to the arrest?
00:19:42.160
He's like, oh, we want you to come here and just leave your ethnic conflicts behind.
00:19:49.000
Like, they're definitely going to bring the ethnic conflicts to Canada because you are pro-multiculturalism.
00:19:54.360
You're not like, okay, you've got to, like, with the Americans, you've got to, you know, wear a hat and wave a flag, right?
00:19:59.220
You know, if you're just going to be multicultural, they're going to bring their conflicts here.
00:20:01.740
So saying, like, we want as many immigrants as we can, just try not to be immigrants.
00:20:10.420
And that just means that you're just another globalist wef shill.
00:20:13.440
So, but obviously, on the sort of patriotic side of the ledger, and so actually maybe Trump screwing those people.
00:20:22.700
Okay, listen, you know, at the end of the day, our Tories, you are traitors, right?
00:20:26.860
And we all agree that conservatives and the worst kind of traitors,
00:20:30.040
because at least the libs are like, we hate you when we want you dead, right?
00:20:34.200
It's like, oh, okay, well, that's refreshingly honest.
00:20:36.300
Like, the conservatives are like, we hate you when we want you dead, but we're not going to tell you that.
00:20:40.380
We want you to vote for us and pretend we don't hate you when we want you dead.
00:20:43.780
So actually, like, you know, as much as this sucks for Polivare, maybe that's a good thing, as far as I can tell.
00:20:50.360
Because the only party I like in Canadian politics is, of course, the PPC, Maxime Bernier's one,
00:20:54.980
which, of course, is getting, you know, UKIP-style numbers at the moment.
00:20:57.740
But who knows where this goes in the future, right?
00:20:59.380
I mean, you know, his rhetoric is much more akin to what I would like a politician to actually say.
00:21:04.020
And he's stuck to his guns on a bunch of things.
00:21:05.980
So, yeah, that's, pardon me, that's basically the headline for today.
00:21:13.240
We'll see how Carney governs, whether he will be sort of, Trudeau level's insane,
00:21:20.540
whether his government will be able to do much at all.
00:21:23.800
As I say, they'll have a very slim, well, haven't got, at the moment, haven't got any majority.
00:21:28.060
And even if they do enter into a coalition or even some sort of pact, it will still be quite weak.
00:21:33.100
Like, the chances are they're going to have to make a pact with someone more to the left than them.
00:21:38.280
So, if you want to get anything significant done, okay, you've got to pander to the left.
00:21:42.500
Great. Well, that's what everyone hated about the Liberals before.
00:21:45.540
They'll probably throw a bit of red meat to the Quebois Coir.
00:21:47.800
Oh, you know, oh, we'll give you loads of money.
00:21:49.660
And I go, yeah, we'll be in government. That's fine.
00:21:54.920
But, you know, I do wonder if, in the long term, this won't turn out to be one of those sort of,
00:22:00.040
I'm glad Biden won in 2020 sort of events, where I'd be like, yeah,
00:22:04.660
Pierre would have been all right, but not great.
00:22:07.620
Whereas, maybe, you know, in the next one, we get someone based.
00:22:11.460
Maybe the Conservative Party in Canada will do a little bit of soul searching
00:22:26.220
There are only two things I managed to pull out the Guardian coverage of this,
00:22:29.280
which is that they describe Mark Carney's party as a traditional centre-left party,
00:22:34.600
which I just thought was extremely funny, which essentially means it's, you know, the same.
00:22:38.280
Yeah, but they've put the woke away, so that's good.
00:22:41.360
And the Chinese have already come out and said that they are open to improving ties
00:22:49.840
Globalists have won, say, the Chinese Communist Party.
00:22:52.360
Yeah, those red flags firmly being planted on Canada's lawn.
00:22:55.200
I tell you, there are a lot of red flags about this.
00:23:03.060
It has a fine history of finding Chinese spies in senior positions as well.
00:23:08.980
So it's nice to see that that tradition is one that he will be preserving.
00:23:12.580
So if they can, you know, get their resources to China rather than evil Trump,
00:23:20.820
Like, but at least we're going to have a massive Indian labour force, bro.
00:23:29.060
Again, just sprinting towards the cliff as fast as humanly possible.
00:23:36.620
I bet all of our Twitter feeds are now going to be full of MAGA types going,
00:23:39.740
no, it's 4,000, you know, dimension underwater backgammon,
00:23:52.360
but at this point it looks like things are a bit dead in the water.
00:23:55.620
It does look like it's backfired a bit from the Trump point of view
00:23:57.800
where you could have had a staunch ally and now you've got sort of an enemy.
00:24:02.920
But I feel like Trump and MAGA people are sort of in the mindset of,
00:24:09.320
I don't care, we don't need Canada, we are the United States.
00:24:23.660
I guess we will just have to make plans accordingly
00:24:25.520
because we aren't the United States and we need to figure things out.
00:24:29.780
Starmer got on the blower to Carney apparently already.
00:24:45.580
the boomers decided to screw over Canadians one last time before they died.
00:25:01.520
Making Canada a better place is just not on their list of priorities.
00:25:25.220
the Libs winning in Canada is the merging of two liberal parties.
00:25:27.600
The NDP collapsed and put everything behind the Libs.
00:25:33.520
I think that's probably where it's going to go.
00:25:38.260
you know, the sort of, the plurality of left-wing parties.
00:25:43.940
a bunch of them go from Labour to the Greens over here,
00:25:46.080
and then a bunch of them go to the Liberal Democrats,
00:25:53.540
This does open up the opportunity and space for Maxime Bernier.
00:26:03.940
I've never seen as much great rhetoric coming out of a Frenchman
00:26:10.380
He's genuinely, like, if you look at his Twitter feed,
00:26:29.300
and therefore everything here revolves around the U.S.
00:26:32.980
Being so close to America must be uncomfortable.
00:26:35.300
That psychology plays itself out all over the place
00:26:45.900
Why wouldn't you want to be the top dog, right,
00:26:55.220
If Trump had shown Canada some deference and respect,
00:27:12.500
you'd be like, right, okay, all right, well, we'll see.
00:27:15.140
You know, I will literally cut my nose off to spite my face
00:27:25.140
and it's what we've done since the dawn of time.
00:27:27.620
So, you know, like, this was a very predictable thing,
00:27:32.800
because aren't the majority of Canadians Scottish?
00:27:39.860
So, yes, they've told a bunch of jocks what to do,
00:27:49.060
furthermore, the government controls almost all the media,
00:28:01.320
were Canadian Conservatives willing to do the hard work
00:28:11.580
I mean, again, it's just all Conservatives, isn't it?
00:28:15.780
They're just the same in every time and every place,
00:28:23.820
is going to be extorting billions and billions of pounds
00:28:30.100
with the willing help of the British government
00:29:21.580
where Serco is planning to house asylum seekers
00:30:02.380
kind of offends me on a spiritual level, right?
00:30:21.100
or someone from bloody Afghanistan or something,
00:32:07.680
which is actually one of the nicest parts of England
00:32:20.660
Let's have a look at some maps a second, right?
00:32:53.140
So that's where the plantations are in England, right?
00:32:57.460
of where Serco is going to be able to put their things?
00:33:10.540
It's essentially linking up the plantations now.
00:33:34.960
That's the only reason why you'd have any issue.
00:34:17.760
Well, I don't think asylum seekers get voting rights.