The Lotus Eaters Episode 1318 for the 16th of December, 2019. In this episode, we talk about the Ukraine crisis, the South American crisis, and why conscription is a bad idea. We're joined by Josh and Lucie to discuss it all.
00:00:00.000Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1318 for Tuesday the 16th of
00:00:06.640December 2025. I'm your host Luca joined today by Josh. Hello there. And a somewhat ill Dan so
00:00:13.360be kind to him give him feelings of warmth and comments. I'm doing the Hillary Clinton
00:00:17.820powering through. Yes he is he is an absolute trooper and today we're going to be talking all
00:00:23.440about how the European elites seem to be have some big plans coming our way. We're then
00:00:29.980going to be talking about how actually young men don't really deserve those plans and we don't
00:00:35.940really deserve to be put in the meat grinder of war for their interests and then we're going to
00:00:41.420respond to some quite strange news which is that apparently South America seems to be getting
00:00:46.960sensible. It is yes. All of a sudden. I missed the memo about talking about war and I'm just like yeah
00:00:52.720Latin America. Yeah so we're going to talk about pure chaos on our continent and then the most
00:00:59.560unexpected continent basically cleaning its room and getting its act together. I'm quite surprised
00:01:05.500that Peruvian politics in particular is basically like free helicopter rides or communism. Nothing
00:01:11.220in between. That's all there is. Well we'll look forward to that. All right so as we all know the
00:01:18.480war between Ukraine and Russia continues and we're now a very very long way away from the Donald Trump
00:01:27.040oh when I become president again we're going to end the war on day one territory. There's been many
00:01:34.260many times now countless times really where you know peace negotiations have come and gone and broken
00:01:40.020down and oh will they won't they. But it seems that the interests on both sides to prolong the war
00:01:46.720and keep it going are very very strong and it seems that they seem to be winning out every single
00:01:52.980time. So there was a recent conference in Berlin that Trump and the Americans attended along with
00:02:00.700European allies and I suppose we ought to just listen to what Trump had to say about this particular
00:02:05.880meeting quickly. I had a long talk with President Zelensky. Also I spoke with the heads of Germany,
00:02:13.520Italy, NATO, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands. We had
00:02:22.340very long and very good talks and again I think things are going along pretty well and I think we're
00:02:32.520closer now and they they will tell you that they're closer now. We had numerous conversations with President
00:02:39.300Putin of Russia and I think we're closer now than we have been ever. What incentive is it? So as you can
00:02:46.460see very convincing stuff. Now the thing about this all is that of course as well as Trump and Washington
00:02:54.760and also our European wonderful European leaders all basically saying that obviously the pursuit of
00:03:02.620peace is the highest ideal and everyone's working towards it. That's presumably why they scupper every
00:03:08.780peace plan that comes along. With the utmost effort it does seem to be the case that whilst this goes
00:03:14.020on the actual war talk, the rhetoric around war seems to escalate with every passing week. There is also
00:03:21.540an incentive here for America in particular to drag its feet along the peace process. Not only is it
00:03:28.080obviously not as much of a security issue because it's not close to their borders, at least the sort of
00:03:35.020Ukrainian front. Obviously Russia is not that far away. But also their mineral deal that they did I
00:03:41.320think is very significant and the fact that lots of the minerals, the most sought after ones, are in the
00:03:48.020territory now controlled by Russia sort of suggests that well if we just fund them enough and give them
00:03:54.880a little push we can push them out of the area where we can get all of our minerals, do a peace deal,
00:04:00.440you know solidify those borders and ensure maybe our minerals will be close to the border. But that also
00:04:06.740is good because then we can have boots on the ground supervising the mineral extraction for the United States
00:04:12.440without formally you know garrisoning the border and so it will look like Putin's being unreasonable when he objects.
00:04:18.740So there's there's there's a situation here whereby the United States can benefit financially
00:04:25.040whilst also helping antagonize future conflict if they want to.
00:04:29.040What you're talking about there is Schrodinger's Ukraine and we hear both narratives equally.
00:04:36.040The first one is the one that you've just said. We just need a little push and the Ukrainians will win.
00:04:40.040Just a little push, a little nudge, the Ukrainians are going to win. And the other narrative that we hear simultaneously is that Russian troop transports will be turning up on the borders of Britain
00:04:50.340two weeks from now if we don't you know commit every possible resource to their defence. So which is it?
00:04:57.340Well it can't be both and I would contest that it's neither to be honest.
00:05:01.340Right. But as far as the European leaders are going obviously we saw very recently that France is going to bring back a voluntary conscription
00:05:11.640which I think is a bit of a contradiction in terms.
00:05:14.640It's impossible to have those two things.
00:05:16.640What? Is that like a consensual rape or something? How does this work?
00:05:20.840Voluntary slavery is another potential way of looking at it.
00:05:25.140Well despite the fact that France is the second best armed military currently in Europe behind Poland it has about 200,000 troops with about 45,000 in reserve.
00:08:26.040So the Russian army that has not been able to even advance through the entirety of Ukraine over the past four years is going to go city to city, nation to nation across Europe.
00:08:52.040But apart from that, I agree with him.
00:08:54.040It's a very strange irony, isn't it, that the European Union that seems to claim that unity in Europe is the greatest possible ideal is that actually through their policies, they have managed to unite Europe against them.
00:09:11.040And everyone actually despises their technocracy, their total seeming hatred and disgust for the actual heritage of Europe itself.
00:09:20.040It's just the standard thing that the elites do is every 80 years, they want to engineer a situation where white boys kill other white boys.
00:09:30.040And then, of course, we had it not only from the EU, but our own country as well, which sort of straddles that territory still.
00:09:37.040But from our very own MI, newly appointed MI6 director.
00:09:42.040We all continue to face the menace of an aggressive expansionist and revisionist Russia seeking to subjugate Ukraine and harass NATO.
00:09:53.040I find it harrowing that hundreds of thousands have died with the toll mounting every day because of Putin's historical distortions and his compromised desire for respect.
00:10:05.040He is dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population.
00:10:12.040But Putin should be in no doubt. Our support is enduring alongside the...
00:10:20.040So, really, the long and short of it is that we have our propaganda here in Europe, the Russians have their propaganda over in Russia, and ultimately no one's really willing to concede.
00:10:31.040When she talks about him scuppering peace talks, it's as if one of our very own Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson, just didn't exist in the most open bit of knowledge about the war that we possibly have.
00:10:43.040There's a lot of open line going on in that the actual real situation is that Western powers, particularly Western Europe and the United States, have been pushing to scupper peace talks from early on in the conflict onwards, pretty much,
00:10:59.040because they want an ongoing proxy war with Russia, because not only are there financial incentives there, but also the institutions are still geared up to deal with Russia as an antagonistic enemy, all the way back from the Cold War, particularly the intelligence agencies, which she represents.
00:11:16.040Sorry, before you move on to the next link, excuse me if I could do just a little bit of noticing.
00:14:58.040systematically all of these things don't work anymore.
00:15:01.040The universities have become ideological training camps for progressives
00:15:06.040who don't really understand the first thing about reality
00:15:09.040or war or strength or power or politics for that matter.
00:15:14.040Energy infrastructure has been totally crippled by green levies
00:15:18.040and basically having the highest energy costs in Europe.
00:15:22.040Our manufacturing industry doesn't exist from my own town of Scunthorpe,
00:15:27.040which is now just a steel works as a museum piece
00:15:30.040and the harkening back to the industry that we once used to have.
00:15:34.040We can't even create our own steel from scratch anymore without importing the raw materials from abroad.
00:15:41.040So when we're caught in that, I don't entirely see how we're going to be able to build all of the munitions and things that we'll need for that war.
00:15:49.040And what's more as well, do I even really need to talk about the NHS and how well that does to look after our sick and wounded and the fakers as well?
00:15:58.040Plus, of course, if the Russian army wanted into Britain, all they'd have to do is turn up at Calais and affect an Algerian accent.
00:16:04.040Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that our leaders happen to be the most gullible, dribbling people that we could ever wish for.
00:16:19.040I know that we like to criticize how much we mothball our military and how it's not really prepared for war.
00:16:27.040But I do think that this notion of, you know, the Russians will sweep through Europe and there's nothing we can do about it is a bit ridiculous
00:16:35.040because even with the current state of European standing armies, there's enough people there that could put up a considerable fight and enough political will.
00:16:46.040And also, were the Russians to all of a sudden decide to invade Europe for some insane reason,
00:16:52.040the United States would at least be sending equipment over at the very least, which they're already doing for Ukraine,
00:16:59.040to help other European countries and carry on the proxy war.
00:17:03.040And so this notion that, you know, we're not prepared and they could, the Russians could take over,
00:17:09.040I think is a scare tactic to get people involved in the military as well as support greater military spending
00:17:15.040and potentially higher taxes and things like that.
00:17:18.040But even if Russia do walk away with all of this new territory and whatever peace deal eventually ends up happening,
00:17:24.040it's not going to be that a peace deal is signed and then it's the immediate fresh campaign into the rest of Europe again.
00:17:32.040It will be years and years of consolidating on the gains that they've actually made.
00:17:38.040Also, Putin, you know, he's spent a lot of political capital on this conflict.
00:17:43.040And we've got to remember that the Russian people are actually human beings.
00:17:47.040They don't want their sons and daughters, well, mainly sons, dying in a conflict.
00:17:51.040And if he starts another one, they're going to be pretty upset about it.
00:17:55.040I'll just read from this bit as well, where it says, it's about our defence and resilience being a higher national priority for us all.
00:18:02.040An all in mentality, which to me is just really quite tone deaf.
00:18:08.040But for the sake of time, I'll push on with this.
00:18:11.040So to come to what you were saying, Dan, about the freezing of Russian assets as well.
00:18:15.040So the EU have recently just decided via an emergency clause, Article 122 of the EU treaty,
00:18:24.040which is specifically so that basically countries in the East, such as the Orban government, couldn't veto this.
00:21:06.040So because obviously you have Belarus on the Polish border, which is allied with Russia.
00:21:11.040And so from next April, soldiers will focus on defensive pioneering activities,
00:21:16.040such as establishing positions, constructing trench systems, laying barbed wire or erecting tank barriers.
00:21:24.040And it also goes on to point out that Mr. Mears said that Europe had to prepare for the growing threat from Russia without United States support.
00:21:36.040He added the decades of the Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe and Germany.
00:22:31.040For the rules based order that they so just psychopathically believe in.
00:22:37.040And then we get to, of course, just the United States is national security strategy.
00:22:44.040Now, this was published recently, and there are just two particular paragraphs that I want to read from it, which is that it is the core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious
00:22:54.040secession of hostilities in Ukraine in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war and reestablish strategic ability stability with Russia,
00:23:06.040as well as to enable the post hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state.
00:23:13.040The Ukraine war has had the perverse effect of increasing Europe's, especially Germany's external dependencies.
00:23:21.040Today, German chemical companies are building some of the world's largest processing plants in China using Russian gas that they cannot obtain at home.
00:23:30.040And the Trump administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war.
00:23:40.040Perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition,
00:23:47.040a large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy in large measure because of those government subversion of democratic processes.
00:23:58.040This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis.
00:24:13.040And I think it brings about the point that are all of these escalating, this escalating rhetoric from the European leaders,
00:24:22.040is it simply them realizing the hour of day and that the United States is basically positioning their replacements, the next generation of European politicians?
00:24:35.040And so they're simply trying to get away as fast as they possibly can with escalating things.
00:24:41.040Now, I respect the fact that when I say all this out loud, it sounds very, very cynical.
00:24:46.040However, as we get into your segment, Dan...
00:25:42.040Regardless of the cost of human life or, you know, the cost of it to the economy.
00:25:47.040So, I mean, that's my personal feelings on the matter.
00:25:51.040And as we have here as well, again, just a sentence that typifies the entire thing.
00:25:56.040President of Finland, Stubb, says Russia is the number one threat for Europe and actually the Western world.
00:26:03.040And as we'll point out, though I'm not going to pretend that I think that Russia has warm feelings or a good disposition towards us in any way,
00:26:12.040I would suggest that actually the number one threat to Europe is most certainly from within.
00:26:18.040I'll just read through the rumble rants.
00:26:23.040As you said, with Sigil Stone's comment, Luke, Saint 91 says, no offense.
00:26:29.040I feel like if the Russians invaded Britain, it'd be like when the Aztec war, sorry, Spanish war with the Aztecs and the vessel tribes joined the Spanish.
00:26:37.040I get the feeling most natives would side with them.
00:27:11.040Luke says, I feel like Europe doesn't want Trump to succeed at this peace deal because it will make him right and they are wrong, which I think will destroy their entire liberal order.
00:27:24.040If you ever get a chance, I'd love to have you guys review Senator Pauline Hanson's parody movie, a super progressive movie coming out on Australia Day.
00:27:54.040And for 141, Paladin says, Enoch Powell surprised Margaret Thatcher when he said that he would fight for a communist government in Britain if it invaded.
00:28:03.040Yes, but obviously that was based on the principle that the population of that homogenous British country would be full of Englishmen.
00:30:36.040It's what he's saying is, I imagine the daughters will become very traditional all of a sudden.
00:30:41.040Well, he's just outright saying we have to be prepared to sacrifice a million of our sons.
00:30:46.040And now when I say it's going to be overwhelmingly white British sons who are dying, let me play you a few clips that kind of illustrate my point.
00:30:55.040And there's loads of these you'll find on on social media.
00:30:59.040Samson, do you want to play this for this video for us?
00:31:03.040If a war was to break out, would you fight for this country?
00:36:06.040All the casualties in Ukraine are from drones.
00:36:09.040So this is what you're telling me, the British elite.
00:36:12.040You're telling me that we have spent the last 30 years furiously outsourcing every job that we can find, every manufacturing job that we can find, we've outsourced to China.
00:36:23.040Their manufacturing capability is an order of magnitude greater than our ability to manufacture things.
00:36:30.040All of those drones being deployed in Ukraine are coming out of China.
00:36:34.040And we've just spent the last 30 years building them up.
00:36:40.040We want to send our boys into a bloody Russian winter backed by China who can churn out drones at least 20 to 30 to 1 at the rate that we can so that they can face this.
00:36:52.040That's what this talk actually leads to.
00:36:54.040It's our boys coming back looking like that if they come back at all.
00:36:58.040So they can face that after spending the first few decades of their life being made second class citizens in their own home, disinherited from every birthright that should have been theirs.
00:37:08.040I think this is a good moment to point out that there's no way in hell that I would ever fight for the country as it is.
00:37:18.040Our enemies are in Westminster, they're not abroad.
00:37:21.040There's no way that people would do this with the way the country is at the minute.
00:37:28.040I'm just saying to the audience, if you know any of these idiots who are getting gun-ho, and I bet you these idiots, they're like Julie Hartley Brewer, they know they're not going to go themselves.
00:37:36.040That's what's going to happen to our young boys if we send them into this situation.
00:38:12.040They know which of us got jabbed or not.
00:38:15.040Is it really a stretch to think that they have identified which of us are the most problematic and they'll be sticking us in the bits that they want to get rid of?
00:38:30.040As Morgoth dryly notes here, this issue is surely to boost those recruitment numbers.
00:38:36.040Foreign criminals, the Telegraph reports, and illegal immigrants to receive gold star NHS dental services.
00:38:43.040Despite three quarters of UK adults not having access to similar treatment.
00:38:47.040And as Morgoth points out, every young English lad can't wait to face the Russians to defend an immigrant gold star dental plan that he can't get himself.
00:38:58.040And every day, just every day, there's another story like that.
00:39:57.040I could have picked another story, but I picked this one.
00:39:59.040You know, this German guy, he describes how an Arab man grabbed his 12 year old little sister at a gas station and tried to run off with her.
00:40:10.040And he, and luckily he was there and he, he was able to get her back.
00:40:15.040But of course, if this all goes through, because this conscription narrative, it isn't just coming to the UK.
00:40:21.040It's coming to basically every, everywhere in Europe simultaneously.
00:40:26.040They all went out, the Germans, the, I mean, all of them, they all went out to their population and said, yeah, we're going to be doing this conscription.
00:40:34.040And that 12 year old girl would have been dragged away if, you know, if, if this chap here had been deployed to the front line.
00:41:13.040When all the, when all the white British boys are sent abroad.
00:41:16.040The thing is as well, right, for the longest time, I thought about just what the elites are doing to us.
00:41:21.040And, you know, you just think back to, to like Rome and the Roman Republic.
00:41:25.040And it's like, okay, well, you know, back then, how did the majority, how did the ordinary everyday people, how were they able to manipulate their elites into doing what the plebs wanted to, you know?
00:41:36.040And in the early, you know, decades of Rome that you'd have the secession of the plebs where they just leave and be like, no, you know,
00:41:43.040they need us in order for just everything to function.
00:41:46.040And they just go and sit on the hill and wait for the elites to go, all right, we'll, we'll give you some concessions.
00:41:51.040And I thought, well, why don't we just do all that in this country?
00:41:56.040Because actually, there was nothing, you know, manufacturing, just everything, you know, nursing, dental care, all of it, just the bus drivers.
00:43:35.040I don't think it'll work, but you know, just find, just find everybody who's put a Ukraine flag up in their garden, who, who nods along to Julie Hartley Brewer on the radio, or has a Ukraine flag in their bio, pick them, send them off.
00:43:50.040Cause I can tell you I'm, I'm only 46 and I, and I, and I watched this thing on, um, Netflix the other day about Marine bootcamp turned out to be a queer coming of age story because it was on Netflix.
00:44:00.040I don't know why, but anyway, um, so I was, I was watching this thing and, um, you know, they do a thing where it's 3am.
00:44:06.040The drill sergeant comes in, he shouts and all the guys, he leap out of bed.
00:44:12.040Can you imagine if they did that with a bunch of 46 year olds?
00:44:14.040I mean, the drill sergeant would be there for a while before people woke up and then they'd be clambering out of bed and stretching their backs.
00:44:22.040I mean, and then he would get angry and demand.
00:44:35.040Let's not forget as well that, uh, the army have just recently just gotten rid of most of red tape restricting, uh, people with AIDS and HIV, uh, from the military as well.
00:44:45.040Again, because of the absolutely shambolic recruitment numbers.
00:44:49.040And so they are just poking them from absolutely.
00:44:52.040The police abolish the requirement, um, that you don't have a criminal record and the security services MI6 and MI5 have abolished the requirement that you have at least one British parent.
00:45:26.040What difference does it make to me that I walked down Regent Street and instead of seeing pride flags the whole way down, I see Russian flags.
00:45:49.040At worst, because in Britain we are treated like slaves.
00:45:53.040We're, we're, we're tax cattle that exist only to prop up the, you know, the managerial class.
00:46:00.040The only difference is, is, is the reason I'd probably prefer being Putin's slave than gay race communist slave is because Putin's is a masculine regime.
00:46:08.040And that means, you know, where the lines are, you know, if you criticize Putin, you're going to get a knock on the door.
00:46:13.040I don't know what's going to trigger my knock at the door.
00:46:16.040We're going to have a couple of female police officers turn up.
00:46:19.040And, and, and actually we had this from, uh, was it Northern variant?
00:46:21.040The guy who came in a little while ago, he had a, he had a 3am visit from the police or something you tweeted.
00:46:27.040They wouldn't tell him what you've tweeted something.
01:08:26.040And it makes things a little bit difficult when you're antagonistic to the incumbent government.
01:08:32.040And so if Brazil is smart, it will try and cozy up to the United States.
01:08:38.040Hopefully, this guy doesn't have weird opinions about Middle Eastern conflicts that have nothing to do with him and does a good job if he does get in.
01:08:47.040But it seems like if Brazil goes as well in 26, then the vast share of Latin America has all of a sudden become quite sensible is going to be quite well governed.
01:08:59.040And a lot of the problems will slowly disappear.
01:09:02.040And we might actually see Latin America have a sort of golden age if things continue on the trajectory.
01:09:08.040But of course, that's assuming everything carries on the same as it is at the minute.
01:09:12.040And of course, that is always quite a naive prediction.
01:09:15.040But things seem to be trending that way.
01:09:17.040The days of socialism plaguing the continent seem to be over.
01:16:42.040Well, the thing to remember about the Great War as well is up against the whole total myth and propaganda of, you know, lions led by donkeys.
01:16:52.040You know, the proportion of aristocrats and just, you know, upper class men who died in World War One was also absolutely vast.
01:17:02.040The sheer numbers, it was more than I think had been killed since the 15th century.
01:18:49.040So, so in, in, in 40k law, the Imperial legions are getting ready to rebel against the Empire.
01:18:55.040And within their own ranks, they have loyalists that aren't going to go along with the rebellion.
01:19:00.040So they dispatch them all on this basically suicide battle and then sort of airstrike them as well, just to make sure they basically kill off their own troops.
01:19:07.040And that's the thing I'm thinking is like, I don't want to say it too overtly because people might think, oh, you're stretching there, Dan.
01:19:15.040They know which of us got vaxxed and they know which of us, you know, what we say online.
01:19:19.040Is it really a stretch to think that they take all the base lads and they put them in the, in the drone corridor or whatever it is to take them out?
01:19:28.040Like minority report, they know before they even do anything.
01:19:32.040Well, there, there are lots of examples throughout history of problem units being put on in the sort of meat grinder sections of combat.
01:19:39.040So it would make strategic sense for them to do that sort of thing.
01:19:43.040Like if they're not necessarily ineffective, but if, if you're good at fighting, but also a problem, then it's the perfect situation for them.
01:19:55.040Sophie Liff says, there were people who didn't want to fight for their own countries.
01:19:59.040What delusion made people think they would fight for ours?
01:20:02.040Yeah. And I mean, yeah, she's talking about the, the new Britons who, who clearly don't want to fight.
01:20:07.040To be clear, I would fight for my country, but that's not an offer.
01:21:04.040I mean, there was another reading of what's going on at the moment is that the defense budgets have been cut so to the bone that they can't fund their existing resources.
01:21:14.040So they drum up talk like this every now and again to try and get a little bit more budget squeezed out.
01:21:18.040And it's actually just regime talking to regime.
01:21:20.040But I think you have to take them at their word when they're trying to say they're trying to kill a million of us.
01:21:25.040Well, when it's European wide, I think that is a sort of point against that because normally that is the case that they're trying to drum up more funding.
01:21:35.040But the entirety of Europe doing it at the same time, they're not all just, you know, coincidentally, spontaneously doing this.
01:21:44.040There's going to be some degree of coordination.
01:24:18.040It's not even necessarily all of American culture, an aspect of it that seems very alien to me as a Brit.
01:24:24.040The sort of Pixar Disney-isation of, it doesn't take itself too seriously.
01:24:30.040It's got silly, child-friendly jokes in it everywhere.
01:24:34.040And it's, you know, Animal Farm's meant to be a lesson about Stalinism.
01:24:39.040And if you cheapen it to the point where you've got Seth Rogen making jokes about having a fat pig arse, it sort of undermines the tone of the entire novel, doesn't it?
01:24:51.040Because it's meant to be scary and totalitarian.
01:24:55.040And also in the trailer, the pigs are like working with the humans, which I don't think they're taking a secretly based arc there.
01:25:03.040They're trying to basically say this is evil capitalism, humans bad, animals good, you know, be vegetarian and hate capitalism.
01:25:28.040Well, as far as I was concerned, it just didn't need a remake because that original 19 was a 54 film, the the animated 2D one is just definitive.
01:25:39.040I remember having that on VHS as a kid.
01:25:41.040And, you know, I mean, very young, too young to understand the Russian Revolution or communism or anything, but just being absolutely engrossed in it, you know, for the emotional weight of the story and everything.
01:25:54.040And so maybe that was the beginning of my based arc watching Animal Farm at the age of five.
01:26:01.040So apparently the Confederados, after the American Civil War, a whole bunch of Confederates escaped to South America and they set up, just like the Germans did, little Confederate towns.
01:27:06.040The thing is as well, obviously, you know, you can see so far, you can see all of the pieces being put in place and the path that they're trying to lay out before us.
01:27:17.040But when it does get into total, a state of actual war, so much of that just becomes, you don't know what's going to happen one day or the next or what can change a week to a month.
01:27:27.040You know, all of these known quantities become totally unknown variables.
01:27:32.040You know, what if there is some sort of Napoleon, like, you know, adventure where all of a sudden some, you know, dashing brigand in the British army actually ends up being a bit of a leader and then marches the army back to Britain, Napoleon style.
01:27:49.040I mean, yeah, I'm just fantasizing at this point, but they it's they've no idea what's going to happen.
01:27:55.040And what's more as well, they've proved time and time again that they're of a far lesser caliber of statesmen that we even had.
01:28:04.040I mean, I was going to go say World War Two, but even the Bully thought that the Falklands war.
01:28:09.040I mean, they're lower quality than the 1970s Labour government, let alone, let alone them.
01:28:15.040Well, even by the 70s, you know, 60s and 70s, a lot of those, you know, like Harold McMillan in the late 50s, early 60s, he was a World War One veteran.
01:28:24.040You know, he's prime minister, but he'd actually seen conflict.
01:28:27.040He'd bled out in on the battlefields of World War One.
01:28:31.040You know, we just don't have that anymore.
01:28:33.040I'm not saying you have to be a soldier to be a politician.
01:28:37.040But what I am saying is that they are entirely detached from what it will mean.
01:28:42.040One thing people don't necessarily realize is that being a politician in this day and age is actually lower status than it used to be.
01:28:49.040And there are lots of other things in the economy that are higher status that are upstream of politics.
01:28:55.040You know, the people that actually earn the money that elect the politicians.
01:28:59.040If you're an elite that actually wants influence, it's better to be one of them than one of the lackeys that do your bidding.
01:29:05.040So most of the people who are very highly competent don't go into politics because why would they?
01:29:11.040It was someone else's bitch, basically.
01:29:14.040Yeah, start a business and then get taxed to death on that business by the politicians.
01:29:19.040You do some creative accounting and base it in other countries and operate transnationally.