The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1378

00:00:00.000 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for Thursday,

00:00:03.460 the 19th of March, 2026. I'm Jabai Farris and Dr. Charles Cornish Dale, otherwise known

00:00:09.020 as Roar Egg Nationalist. And today we are going to be talking about the massive scam that is

00:00:14.240 foreign student loans. Then we are going to be talking about Iran because things keep happening

00:00:21.000 up to literally the minutes of us preparing the podcast. And then we're going to be talking about

00:00:26.020 the fall of Banksy, which is going to be a fun segment because I hate Banksy. Why? He's got all

00:00:33.260 the right morals. Well, it's exactly because of that, actually. It's exactly because of that.

00:00:43.260 But anyway, right. A man with the most conventional opinions pretending to be controversial.

00:00:47.660 I hate it so much. We'll get into it later. Anyway, right. So foreign student loans are

00:00:55.840 a very real problem in Britain because apparently, I didn't know this was the way it worked. If you're

00:01:00.980 a foreigner, you can come to Britain, get accepted to a university, and then get a student loan at our

00:01:07.100 expense to go through that university. You have a passport to another country. Yes. I know, right?

00:01:14.160 Like, is that how it works? And you're just like, well, hang on a second. Don't, like, Romanians

00:01:19.840 have access to this system? Like, not to call out Romania, but we are going to be calling out Romania.

00:01:28.300 Doesn't this leave itself massively open to abuse? How do you go and retrieve the money that you've

00:01:34.180 loaned to these people when they leave the country? And isn't that a good question that was apparently

00:01:38.760 never asked up until literally right now? Anyway, before we begin, on the 11th of April, we have a live

00:01:45.020 event here in Swindon. So go and get your tickets now. Link will be in the description. It's going to

00:01:48.820 be amazing. It'll be three hours for debates, podcasts, and all this sort of stuff. And then

00:01:52.720 afterwards, if you have a premium ticket, you can come out and hang out at the bar with us and get

00:01:57.360 drunk. And it's going to be great fun. Anyway, so this is the number of student visitor visas they give

00:02:05.200 every year. According to the latest data, we have 429,000. Now, this is a fairly consistent number.

00:02:11.840 Normally, it's a bit higher, but it's always over 400,000 students who are allowed to come and live

00:02:17.480 and study in Britain. And that means live, study, and claim student loans. And this has caused a few

00:02:24.900 problems, especially as our student loan system is a bit out of control as things are. Now, you've

00:02:32.380 probably seen that recently, and it really is recently, that student loan debts and interests have

00:02:38.440 got really out of control. Like, this is wild, because when, I don't know about yourself, but when

00:02:43.680 I went to university, I had a student loan, but it wasn't that much. And I think I ended up about

00:02:48.160 16,000 pounds in debt after going to university, which, okay, that's not great, but that's not that

00:02:54.220 bad. As you can see, though, the interest on these debts has gone absolutely through the roof. And so

00:03:00.980 the amount of money, we've got another chart down here, the amount of money that is now owed by

00:03:07.260 students is a quarter of a trillion plus. 266 billion by the end of 2024.

00:03:15.800 The whole portfolio was sold, wasn't it, at some point?

00:03:19.060 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:03:19.940 Yeah, I think it was.

00:03:20.820 Was it?

00:03:21.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:22.460 Right, okay, I didn't know that.

00:03:23.940 We're a large part of the portfolio.

00:03:25.520 Yeah.

00:03:25.900 It changed hands.

00:03:27.640 Right, so, I mean, in 2011, student debt in England was about 40 billion, and graduates left

00:03:33.120 education with an average debt of about 16,500, so very similar to when I went in 1999 or something

00:03:38.940 like that. And a year later, David Cameron's coalition government made dramatic changes to

00:03:43.460 the system, tripling the fees that universities could charge, and introducing a new system of

00:03:48.160 loans to cover the costs. And as you can see, this has just made a massive impact on the students

00:03:54.160 themselves. And also, this is not just on the students themselves. This is going to be on the rest

00:03:59.880 of the country, who will then have to shoulder the burden of the debt that gets wiped out.

00:04:03.820 Yep.

00:04:04.700 So, thank you, David Cameron. That was brilliant. And in 2025, the Times did an investigation into

00:04:13.580 fraud applications to the student loans company. And I'm just going to read out just the data on

00:04:19.260 this, the details on this, because it's actually quite mad. As you can see from the tagline,

00:04:23.960 applicants are suspected of scamming taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of pounds for courses

00:04:28.700 they don't intend to take. Who could have imagined this would be the case? Who could have predicted

00:04:33.400 this in advance? So, in 2022-23, the student loans company identified 3,500 suspicious loan

00:04:39.800 applications, which themselves totaled £60 million. But a recent investigation by the Times

00:04:45.040 finds that it could run into hundreds of millions of pounds. The problem is franchised colleges,

00:04:51.440 which are colleges that are a franchise of an established university. And they are essentially

00:04:59.940 an expansion to allow the ability to be able to have such a large number of foreign students.

00:05:07.000 Because of course, 400,000 foreign students a year added on top of the number of British students

00:05:12.280 is a massive burden, actually, to the system. And that has to be paid for in some way. And if

00:05:17.060 you're allowed to triple the amount that you can charge them, which you can, and if they

00:05:23.960 also get student loans, and they have to spend loads of money on various things, books and

00:05:27.780 whatnot at the university, well, that's an industry that you've created there. That's a big foreign

00:05:32.280 industry. And if you give them access to ready credit, well, a lot of that doesn't get paid

00:05:39.060 back, basically. At some universities...

00:05:42.340 Surprised by this, like, who...

00:05:43.520 Yeah.

00:05:45.260 Yeah, you... And if you didn't have taxpayer backing, you wouldn't set this up as a business.

00:05:50.060 Obviously not.

00:05:51.960 Like, yeah, let me lend money to that Nigerian guy.

00:05:54.820 It's not the Nigerians who are the most problem. Like, I'm sorry, I'm...

00:05:58.380 I'm talking about the Nigerian prince guy, as opposed to, you know...

00:06:01.460 It's the Romanian guy.

00:06:02.880 But, you know, I mean, I remember when I started graduate study in 2010 at Cambridge, and I did

00:06:11.080 social anthropology, and I remember, you know, like a large proportion of the anthropology

00:06:17.120 students and all of the graduate students were foreign. It was very obvious that there

00:06:22.420 was actually a significantly increased proportion of foreigners among the graduate rather than

00:06:27.320 the undergraduate intake. And yet they had to pay triple the fees. Everybody knew that.

00:06:32.640 And so, of course, these master's degrees are cash cows. PhDs are cash cows. But, I mean,

00:06:38.740 I had absolutely no idea that there were loans available. But, I mean, does it matter whether...

00:06:43.700 At least if you're talking about the universities themselves, I mean, they have no reason to

00:06:47.940 care whether the money is taxpayer money or whether it's money from China or India or anywhere

00:06:52.720 else.

00:06:53.180 Exactly. It doesn't come out of their wallets.

00:06:54.760 No.

00:06:54.880 And so this has been an insane escalation of a system that otherwise was quite a decent

00:07:02.760 one, actually. Again, I don't really want to give Tony Blair any props. But actually,

00:07:07.540 when the new Labour government set up the degree, the loans to go to university, that's actually

00:07:13.260 not a bad idea.

00:07:14.100 I thought it was in 92 that it began.

00:07:16.660 No. I was the last generation that got... I was the first generation to get loans. Before

00:07:22.020 that was grants. Right. And so there were much higher standards to get the grants. But what

00:07:28.460 this at least did is say, well, I'm going to shoulder the burden of my own responsibility

00:07:32.540 for my own education. So if you're going to go into higher education, at least you're

00:07:36.700 the one carrying the debt. So you're incentivized to stay in the system and actually get the degree,

00:07:41.120 blah, blah, blah. Right. So it's not on the face of it, actually a terrible system.

00:07:45.540 And I mean, Labour wanted 50% of school leavers to go to university. And I mean, that's not

00:07:50.920 sustainable, probably without a... or wouldn't have been sustainable without a change to the

00:07:56.480 system. And so 2006...

00:07:58.160 I think that itself is a bad idea.

00:07:59.740 Oh, yeah. No, I don't think that's a good idea at all. But I mean, like 2006, when I first

00:08:05.820 went to university, that was the first year of the £3,000 a year tuition fees.

00:08:09.580 Yeah. But yeah, I mean, if you're sending 50% of school leavers, you've got to have some

00:08:14.600 kind of like system to fund that, because it's going to be an increased burden on the

00:08:20.620 system.

00:08:21.760 Well, yes. And so the student loans company has identified a number of franchise providers

00:08:26.860 where basically the students are consistently sending and giving fake documents for their

00:08:33.420 applications. And this has just been increasing over the years. So I mean, they've noted that

00:08:38.540 there are loads of these colleges that are enrolling students who just can't speak English.

00:08:43.320 So you can't possibly learn the course if you can't understand the language given it.

00:08:49.460 But honestly, that's what it was like at Cambridge in 2010. Like doing social anthropology, you know,

00:08:55.000 like you think, you know, a decent degree. And you've got Chinese people there, they'd turn

00:09:00.120 up, they wouldn't... they'd sit in the seminars playing with their like iPads, wouldn't say anything,

00:09:04.940 wouldn't contribute anything. And then they just walked away with a degree at the end

00:09:09.200 for contributing nothing and kind of doing nothing.

00:09:12.720 When I did my philosophy degree in 2020 and graduated in 2023, I think it was, I went to

00:09:20.340 the graduation ceremony and there were about half a dozen white English people there. And

00:09:24.860 there were hundreds and hundreds of foreign students, hundreds. Like the hall was packed

00:09:30.400 out. And I was basically, it was like one of those great replacement meme photos where

00:09:36.660 I was like, okay.

00:09:37.920 But I mean, I think you have to realise that it's not just, it's not just lesser institutions.

00:09:44.720 I mean, it is Oxford and Cambridge. It's the big universities. They have overseas campuses

00:09:50.220 as well so that they can rake in money. And I mean, public schools now have overseas campuses

00:09:54.800 as well in the Gulf and wherever. So it's not limited to these kind of like Potemkin universities

00:10:03.260 and colleges that are being put up.

00:10:04.900 You're absolutely correct. Anyway, so they discovered that between 35 and 55% of the

00:10:09.800 applicants at some of these universities were Romanian. And it's like, right. Okay. Okay.

00:10:16.020 Well known Romanian.

00:10:17.860 They know a scam when they see one, don't they?

00:10:19.640 I hate to point fingers, but yeah. And what this will be done is via TikTok. This will

00:10:26.160 be TikToks of people saying, you know, if you just apply in this, this, this, this, then

00:10:30.680 you, they will give you 4,000 pounds. And I'm not even joking. Some students who, this is

00:10:37.380 from the article, some students who enroll on franchise courses drop out after receiving

00:10:41.020 their first 4,000 pounds of maintenance loan, and then enroll again the following year to claim

00:10:46.320 the money again, according to one of the university employees. Right. And one franchise college

00:10:50.640 made 234 million pounds in revenue last year, which increased its profits by 1,266% in three

00:10:57.780 years. It's a scam.

00:11:01.520 And the universities know.

00:11:03.100 And the universities know. And, but they're making a huge amount of money out of this.

00:11:06.360 So they have no incentive to say anything.

00:11:07.620 The money comes from the student loan company, which is backed by the government. Right.

00:11:10.120 So it, it's, it's not anything other than that.

00:11:14.900 It's like every time you use the taxpayer as a backstop, you know that this is going to

00:11:18.600 become a recipe for scams.

00:11:19.880 Correct. It's just on every, it's like propping up the financial system, you know?

00:11:24.420 Exactly.

00:11:24.980 It's the, it's the same principle.

00:11:26.980 We've got some more information from BBC here.

00:11:30.400 They point out that students, including overseas students with settled status, can take out government

00:11:35.940 subsidized loans to help towards their maintenance costs and to cover the cost of tuition fees.

00:11:39.720 So not only is it the 4,000 that are given for the term, so that's three months to live

00:11:45.100 on, but also whatever the tuition fees are, which are of course tripled if you're an overseas

00:11:50.520 student. And okay, that's, that's quite mad, isn't it? Why are we funding these students

00:11:57.980 with our money? The tuition fees are of course paid directly to the university, which is why

00:12:03.300 they're in favor of it, because they just get free money from the government. And then the

00:12:07.600 maintenance loan is paid directly into their bank account. Uh, they do need to repay the

00:12:11.540 loan, uh, but not until they earn somewhere between 25 and 31,000 pounds. Uh, and after

00:12:18.000 40 years, the loans are written off. It's like, well, okay then that's, I mean, that's, that's

00:12:22.540 still above board, isn't it? What percentage of these students do you think leave the UK

00:12:27.020 after five years? Yeah. What percentage? It's 80% of them. Yeah. 80% of these students are

00:12:34.560 not in the UK after five years. How are you getting that money back?

00:12:38.880 But it's, but it's such a strange thing, isn't it? Uh, to have so many people coming and to

00:12:42.840 tie it to remaining in this country for five years. It's like, do you actually want these

00:12:47.220 people to be here for five years? Do you want them to be here for longer than five years?

00:12:50.760 I mean, it's like another backdoor route to massive, massive migration. It absolutely

00:12:56.060 is. And it could be for the tune of around 450,000 of them a year. Uh, but there's, I

00:13:01.240 mean, there's obviously the problem of people just going missing, but the point is you're

00:13:06.260 not getting that money back, right? If, if you were just someone from any other place in

00:13:10.320 the country, like if I, if I'd gone and lived in America for five years, taken out a bunch

00:13:14.200 of loans and they were like, hi, could you pay that loan back please? I'm like, no, why

00:13:18.080 would I come and get it? Yeah, exactly. Come and get it. You've got no

00:13:20.660 jurisdiction here. You can't get me. I'm obviously not just going to volunteer that.

00:13:24.760 And that's, I guess what the Romanians have figured out, frankly. Uh, and so this is just

00:13:29.140 ridiculous. And, but it's interesting, you know, because the, the usual argument that

00:13:33.020 you hear about international students, let's say like, uh, elite, elite universities, Harvard,

00:13:38.320 Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, they'll say, you know, like talking about Trump, for example, they'll

00:13:42.100 say, you know, we need the best international talent here. We need the best scientists, the best

00:13:48.020 geneticists, you know, duh, duh, duh, the best economist, duh, duh, duh. And you're imperiling

00:13:52.020 that. But it's not like this is even about talent. This is purely, purely about the farming

00:13:58.660 of money from the British taxpayer.

00:14:00.540 See, before I'd done this segment, I assumed that all of those young people who are from

00:14:06.460 other countries were the children of the elites in those countries. I assumed that they

00:14:12.180 were being paid by mummy and daddy with the oil wealth, whatever it was their parents did.

00:14:15.480 And yeah, okay. Fair enough. Right. I actually wasn't really very adverse to it because it's

00:14:20.740 like, well, I mean, if they're just taking foreign money, putting it into our university,

00:14:24.320 that's fine. Who cares? But I didn't realize they can take student loans from the British

00:14:29.860 government and then piss off back to wherever they've come from.

00:14:33.920 Because I know some PhDs from top universities can't write a sentence in English. I have no idea

00:14:42.700 how they have a PhD. But...

00:14:45.280 Well, there was that very famous case of Gaddafi's son, wasn't there, at the LSE, where

00:14:48.740 his PhD was ghostwritten by someone else.

00:14:51.500 Well, there we go.

00:14:54.360 So anyway, this is basically shown to be basically a total scam. There are now currently 370,000

00:15:01.700 missing graduates, owing 13 billion pounds to Britain at this point.

00:15:08.860 That's a drop in a bucket in the total.

00:15:11.000 It is.

00:15:12.080 250 billion.

00:15:13.400 It is.

00:15:13.780 And the idea of saddling your youth with so much debt so early in their lives...

00:15:18.880 Is ridiculous.

00:15:20.100 It just completely cripples them because all they're working for is repaying that debt.

00:15:24.400 And they don't marry, they don't build families, they don't buy homes.

00:15:29.140 Yeah.

00:15:29.560 You're destroying their lives with this.

00:15:31.420 Yeah.

00:15:31.580 And you would imagine that actually what's going to happen, or maybe what has been happening,

00:15:36.200 is that actually, you know, the student loans company is leaning harder on the people who

00:15:40.700 stay here, i.e. British people...

00:15:42.480 That's precisely.

00:15:43.060 ...who are actually going to pay back their loans.

00:15:45.800 That is precisely the problem.

00:15:48.040 And remember, this is just those that they've identified they don't know where they are.

00:15:51.600 So, for example, if someone's given a fake address, you don't know until you go and try

00:15:56.320 and clean it up back, and then you realise, oh, wait, actually, we don't know where this

00:16:00.660 chap is, and we can never find him.

00:16:03.400 So, the actual number of people who they can't get money back from is, of course, going to

00:16:07.900 be far, far higher.

00:16:09.680 This is just what they've identified.

00:16:10.820 But you are exactly correct.

00:16:13.700 The British students are the ones who are going to be left holding the burden on this,

00:16:19.080 and ultimately, you'll be the taxpayer when these are written off by the government.

00:16:23.660 So, we are just funding foreign students to rip us off.

00:16:29.080 That is literally what is happening.

00:16:31.800 And they know that many of them have just returned home, or the people, Brits who have

00:16:36.320 moved abroad are included in this.

00:16:38.340 And so, we're never getting this money back.

00:16:41.080 We're never getting this back.

00:16:42.580 So, pretty sure we shouldn't be funding foreign students.

00:16:46.380 Anyway, Romanians are massively overrepresented in this.

00:16:51.260 They are the second highest student loans claimants after British people claiming student

00:16:56.440 loans.

00:16:57.560 So, you know, don't say that they're not entrepreneurial or enterprising.

00:17:01.920 You know, they saw an avenue and took it.

00:17:05.160 But the number of Romanians taking out loans of up to £13,000 is nearly four times higher

00:17:10.700 than the other closest nationality, and second only to the 1.1 million British students

00:17:15.000 who do.

00:17:17.720 They're doing this via the franchised colleges.

00:17:21.600 And there's something somewhere between 5% and 10% of the entire higher education population

00:17:27.300 are fraudsters.

00:17:29.780 Is there a breakdown of the type of degrees that these people are taking?

00:17:34.200 No, there's not.

00:17:35.560 They don't give an actual breakdown of the type of degrees.

00:17:39.040 Sure, it's the kind of thing that can be FIA'd.

00:17:42.120 It would be interesting to see.

00:17:43.820 Well, well, in fact, you say that.

00:17:46.800 So, just on the franchise colleges, quickly, this is the problem with these franchise colleges

00:17:52.080 because they are expressly a money-making endeavor, right?

00:17:55.860 And so, they offer these courses on behalf of the established universities, and they require

00:18:00.780 lower grades, and therefore, it's a lot easier to apply.

00:18:04.580 They get the loan, turn up briefly, and then leave, right?

00:18:08.440 And these are a huge amount.

00:18:11.840 And they are also twice as likely to drop out of the universities, which you'd expect a

00:18:18.320 much higher attrition rate if you're not paying back the loans.

00:18:21.100 And they're, of course, far less likely to progress into work or further study than students

00:18:26.240 on national degree courses.

00:18:27.640 But who found all of this out?

00:18:29.660 Well, it was Rupert Lowe MP, who managed to get the Romanian student data from the Department

00:18:35.540 of Education using an FOI request and has demanded a full-scale investigation into the fraud.

00:18:42.240 No other MP cared.

00:18:43.880 Not one.

00:18:44.780 It was Rupert Lowe that did this.

00:18:46.620 And they have a quote from him.

00:18:47.680 It is abundantly clear that there is widespread fraud occurring, yet no one seems to care.

00:18:51.700 As an odd surprise, I'm calling on the government to investigate, to instigate a comprehensive

00:18:55.180 review into where the money has gone and how we can get it back.

00:18:58.900 Not likely that we're getting it back, I'm afraid, because we just don't have the reach

00:19:03.200 anymore.

00:19:04.100 Well, I mean, I think a government with some muscle and some will could maybe crack down

00:19:09.640 on the foreign aid bill.

00:19:12.180 You know, there are ways that you could actually claw the money back indirectly.

00:19:15.480 You could.

00:19:16.620 You're absolutely right.

00:19:17.740 You would have to put significant international pressure on these governments.

00:19:21.800 But it would be a lot of time, a lot of work.

00:19:24.080 And I suspect that the government will just write it off.

00:19:26.440 Sure.

00:19:27.100 Yeah.

00:19:27.320 Yeah.

00:19:27.880 It will carry on.

00:19:28.860 And we know how they're doing it as well.

00:19:30.620 There are loads of, I mean, this was in 2001, but 85 fake university websites were taken

00:19:35.220 down since 2016 to 2021.

00:19:38.300 85.

00:19:39.640 That is crazy.

00:19:41.260 And of course, we've got lots of foreigners with their TikTok videos and YouTube videos

00:19:47.140 just explaining to each other how this is done.

00:19:50.400 Like with the Channel Crossing migrants.

00:19:52.420 Yes.

00:19:52.580 They put up their TikTok videos and say, look, these are the shibboleths that you use.

00:19:56.080 This is the magical words.

00:19:57.940 You say you're a gay man.

00:20:00.500 Exactly.

00:20:01.160 Yeah.

00:20:01.300 You come from Libya.

00:20:02.260 You say you're gay.

00:20:03.040 And they give you all of this.

00:20:05.140 Yep.

00:20:05.360 And it's literally that simple.

00:20:07.380 And this is the current state of migration and education in Britain.

00:20:12.560 And so...

00:20:13.660 It would be interesting to know as well, actually, how hard is it to set up a university?

00:20:18.480 It would be quite like you could get, you know, be quite funny, actually, to set up a

00:20:22.320 fake university and just see how easy it is to do and how easy it is to get people to

00:20:27.260 as a form of investigative journey.

00:20:28.640 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:29.080 Not a cash cow.

00:20:30.240 Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, definitely not as a cash cow.

00:20:35.060 But no, you're absolutely right.

00:20:36.160 How difficult is it?

00:20:37.280 I bet it's not.

00:20:38.100 I bet it's not that hard.

00:20:39.940 And anyway, so you can see why we get 429,000 people coming here every year.

00:20:44.940 We're paying for the privilege, just like almost all of the other people who are not

00:20:48.240 directly work visas, as if they're net contributors anyway.

00:20:52.520 But this is just the dilapidated state of this country.

00:20:55.160 We are just in a tremendously ridiculous position where we are being exploited.

00:21:00.240 From every angle, everything conceivable, and moreover, everything that's considered in

00:21:04.940 some way sort of sacred to the regime, right?

00:21:07.000 So, for example, the foreign, we've covered before how many of the foreign doctors and

00:21:13.160 nurses have fake degrees.

00:21:15.000 Yeah.

00:21:15.220 And they have literally one person will do it and then just essentially rubber stamp it

00:21:19.220 for all of their friends and family.

00:21:20.860 Well, it's the same with the students.

00:21:22.280 Like, we assume a kind of consistency in the institutions that doesn't exist overseas.

00:21:28.940 And we assume a kind of consistency in good intent that doesn't exist overseas.

00:21:33.440 And it is allowing lots of people to take advantage of us and steal money from us.

00:21:37.880 And we wonder why the country is poor and going to hell.

00:21:41.920 Anyway, Ochedule says, I didn't know there were leering centres in Britain as well.

00:21:45.260 Oh, yes, we have high-class leering centres.

00:21:49.300 And Baystate says, rare white pill for you.

00:21:50.900 Scotland voted no on the government-assisted suicide bill.

00:21:53.620 The government isn't allowed to kill my mum yet.

00:21:56.340 Yeah, well, it's allowed to...

00:21:58.520 Offer us all mercies.

00:21:59.940 Anyway, let's move on.

00:22:02.120 All right.

00:22:02.560 So, before we start, I wanted to remind you of the live event on the 11th.

00:22:07.580 There will be drinks, talks, podcasts, apparently debates about Star Wars.

00:22:14.300 Okay.

00:22:15.160 But it's going to be a lot of fun.

00:22:17.260 And the drinks afterwards will be a lot of fun.

00:22:19.620 So, please do come and join us on the 11th here in Swindon.

00:22:23.780 The link is in the description.

00:22:26.740 How do you think the Middle East war is going, guys?

00:22:29.340 Any thoughts on that?

00:22:30.460 Do you think it's going well?

00:22:31.720 Do you think it's going badly?

00:22:32.680 I've seen some statements from Trump that make me question the plan.

00:22:36.780 You don't think it's been won yet?

00:22:39.360 Well, I mean, I've heard that it's been won multiple times.

00:22:42.540 Well, let me show you what winning looks like.

00:22:44.560 Okay.

00:22:45.280 Let me show you what winning looks like.

00:22:47.420 So, yesterday, the Israelis killed the Iranian intelligence minister, in all fairness.

00:22:53.280 Probably deserved it.

00:22:56.220 But they also bombed Iran's main gas field, the South Pars gas field.

00:23:01.160 They attacked one of the processing facilities in that field.

00:23:05.160 And that's the one that provides most of the gas that goes to Iran and a big chunk of the gas that goes to Turkey, actually.

00:23:11.720 And it's a field that is shared between Iran and Qatar.

00:23:16.940 And so, the Iranians reacted as expected.

00:23:21.280 They attacked the Qatari counterpoint opposite gas field.

00:23:27.560 They blew that up.

00:23:28.660 They attacked two refineries in Kuwait.

00:23:31.020 You had, apparently, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon attacking a gas processing facility in Ashkelon, in Israel.

00:23:44.320 And you had them attack a group of facilities in places like the UAE, in Saudi Arabia.

00:23:54.440 And most importantly, they attacked the Yanbar oil refinery on the Red Sea, on the opposite side of Saudi Arabia.

00:24:03.160 So, I'm not someone who's been monitoring the situation, because that's your job.

00:24:09.660 But what I'm seeing here is, and correct me if I'm wrong, the United States, which Donald Trump said was following Israel's lead and helping Israel and doing what Israel wanted on this,

00:24:22.000 to start a war with Iran, killed the leadership, and has been bombing them and whatnot, expecting Iran to capitulate very quickly,

00:24:30.460 this has now escalated into a very destructive, destructive of key critical resources that underpin the global economy.

00:24:40.000 Absolutely.

00:24:40.760 Right.

00:24:41.540 Absolutely.

00:24:43.360 And Trump denied that he knew anything about this and said that it was the Israelis acting out of anger,

00:24:50.240 and that there are going to be no more attacks on this facility, and he'll destroy it if the Iranians attack more energy facilities.

00:24:59.480 And the Iranians obviously did continue their attacks on more energy facilities.

00:25:03.960 He said this, what was it, six months ago or whatever, when he had to bomb Iran the first time.

00:25:08.380 Yes.

00:25:08.860 And the Israelis kept provoking.

00:25:11.120 Exactly.

00:25:11.780 And what they've done now is provoked even further, to further escalate the conflict.

00:25:15.840 Exactly.

00:25:16.240 Well, I mean, Trump did say, I think when he was getting off Air Force One, he did say something like,

00:25:21.680 I think we have slightly different objectives, us and the Israelis.

00:25:25.900 You don't say.

00:25:26.620 Yeah, but it's becoming, I think, much clearer that that is the case, and that also it's impossible actually maybe to work with the Israelis in good faith.

00:25:37.840 You know, like, you can give them everything they want, and they still want more.

00:25:42.380 Pretty much.

00:25:43.580 Well, if they're going to keep provoking and inflaming the situation after you've said, don't do this,

00:25:49.120 and they've dragged you into, like, a very pseudo war a while back with Iran,

00:25:53.980 and now they're doing it again and actually causing far greater destruction and escalation,

00:26:00.140 I think it's hard to argue that case.

00:26:02.240 Well, I think as well what's interesting, actually, is if you look at the strike that took place against Karg Island,

00:26:09.420 the Americans were very careful not to hit any oil infrastructure on the island.

00:26:15.500 They took out the military, the missile launchers and the staging posts, whatever, the barracks, military equipment.

00:26:22.320 They didn't hit the oil refinery.

00:26:24.720 Exactly.

00:26:24.940 They didn't hit the storage or anything like that.

00:26:27.000 He said, we reserve the right to do that, but they didn't do it.

00:26:30.380 And then you have this.

00:26:32.280 I think it is.

00:26:33.740 Now, to be completely fair, the Iranians had started with some attacks on energy,

00:26:37.860 but my argument has always been that they've been quite restrained about this

00:26:41.700 and haven't actually initiated an all-out energy war.

00:26:46.140 They've been signaling that they could do this if their own energy infrastructure was attacked.

00:26:51.940 And so the Israelis took that signal and decided, right, the thing to do is to attack Iranian energy.

00:26:59.780 And their retaliation has been absolutely devastating to the region because all of these facilities,

00:27:05.360 the ones that are labeled in red, they're all on fire right now.

00:27:08.440 And the most important one is the one here on the Red Sea in Yanbar in Saudi Arabia,

00:27:13.920 because this is where the loading is happening of Saudi oil that is bypassing Hormuz.

00:27:19.900 Right.

00:27:20.600 And so the Saudis have figured out they've always had this east-west pipeline going from the oil,

00:27:26.440 which is in this area here in the east, to the opposite side of the country so they can ship it out.

00:27:32.020 They've been increasing shipments through that.

00:27:35.100 And the Iranians there essentially saying, we will shut down everything, all of the oil exports from the Gulf.

00:27:42.000 And this is before the Houthi in Yemen even activate.

00:27:46.640 They haven't activated yet.

00:27:48.800 And if Yemen is activated, well, they've struck these facilities here in the past,

00:27:53.480 and they can do a hell of a lot more damage.

00:27:56.320 And in fact, the reason the Saudis had to compromise with the Houthi and agree a ceasefire

00:28:01.980 was because the Houthi had blown up an oil storage tank in precisely this area.

00:28:08.280 And then the Saudis were like, okay, now we need a ceasefire with them.

00:28:11.520 This is getting out of hand.

00:28:13.440 As, again, someone who's not closely monitoring the situation,

00:28:16.580 the Houthi are essentially kind of like a Taliban-like rebel group, right?

00:28:21.380 They represent the traditionals, the monarchy.

00:28:24.480 But what I mean is that they're not based in cities, they're based in the mountains or whatever.

00:28:28.720 Yeah, so they're based in Sada here.

00:28:31.000 They're impossible to root out.

00:28:32.480 Like the Fremen in Dune, they can actually come out and strike.

00:28:36.040 From anywhere.

00:28:36.480 From anywhere.

00:28:37.400 And they're just a massive pain in the Harkandum rear.

00:28:40.340 So the Saudis bombed them from 2006 to 2023.

00:28:46.800 Yeah.

00:28:47.160 And they're still not.

00:28:47.780 More or less.

00:28:48.900 With very intensive bombing from 2015 to 2023.

00:28:52.820 And the Americans bombed them for 45 days, and neither of them got anywhere.

00:28:58.200 Right.

00:28:58.420 And the lesson should have been that you're not going to get anywhere by bombing Iran because it's a much larger country with an open supply line to China and to Russia.

00:29:09.380 But, no, the Americans decided that they're going to follow the Israelis into this war.

00:29:15.020 I think you have to remember as well, actually, you know, that the Israelis have been killing all of Donald Trump's alternative candidates to lead Iran.

00:29:24.280 Yes.

00:29:24.820 That's the other thing, right?

00:29:26.140 And he's said this on a number of occasions, kind of jokingly, and it's seemed funny.

00:29:30.780 But actually, it seems much less funny in light of this as well.

00:29:34.340 It's like, actually, what seems to be happening is you are backing the Iranians into a corner and giving them absolutely no possible way out.

00:29:44.020 Well, what, you know.

00:29:45.280 And you're backing the Americans into a corner.

00:29:47.420 Yeah.

00:29:47.920 And Trump, Trump, I don't, Trump can't back down at this point.

00:29:51.920 And it's not immediately clear what he can actually do to restrain Israel.

00:29:57.680 He can't attack, I mean.

00:30:00.140 I don't think he's going to attack.

00:30:01.660 I don't think he's going to attack.

00:30:03.580 And I don't know what you could, yeah, I mean, what can he say to the Israeli military?

00:30:08.020 Well, he can say that I'm going to stop giving you money and stop giving you weapons, but that'll cause a political crisis in the United States.

00:30:13.880 Yes.

00:30:14.220 I mean, it's...

00:30:14.880 Which is, at this stage, looks like the only way out.

00:30:18.700 Because they are talking about sending ground troops into the Strait of Hormuz to try to secure it, which is absolutely impossible.

00:30:27.720 Well, why is it impossible?

00:30:28.940 Because if you look at, maybe Harry can pull up Google Maps.

00:30:33.820 Sorry, I'll just take your word for it.

00:30:35.020 And basically, these islands here, they are the size of Okinawa and Iwo Jima.

00:30:42.500 Oh, right, okay.

00:30:43.040 And these required tens of thousands of soldiers each to clear.

00:30:47.280 You could argue you need less than that in modern war, but the Iranians can fire from anywhere around the Strait.

00:30:53.520 Plus, if you look at, I think I have a map of where the Iranians have attacked by sea, and no, I do not.

00:31:05.040 I dragged you off onto this tangent.

00:31:06.260 Yes, but what it shows is that they can attack any ship here.

00:31:10.640 Right.

00:31:11.040 Meaning that this entire area of Iran needs to be secured, not just this.

00:31:15.580 Yeah.

00:31:15.740 Because all along the coast, it's a shooting gallery.

00:31:20.400 Yeah.

00:31:20.820 And anywhere in Iranian territory, they can just fire missiles at ships.

00:31:26.000 So, essentially, it would require the U.S. to commit to a large ground invasion.

00:31:31.980 And in much bigger than Iraq.

00:31:33.560 In the numbers of hundreds of thousands.

00:31:35.420 Exactly.

00:31:35.760 Which would be essentially the opposite of what Donald Trump campaigned on.

00:31:40.860 Precisely.

00:31:41.480 For the Israeli government, which has provoked this against Donald Trump's personal wishes.

00:31:48.720 Yes.

00:31:49.280 Right.

00:31:49.720 Exactly.

00:31:51.260 And then speaking about winning, I mean, when you see the Iranians pull off this kind of thing, there are several things that become obvious.

00:31:56.740 Firstly, the fact that they attacked with such speed and such ferocity means that they've been holding back and precision means that they've been holding back and not attacking these targets, which is something that people don't want to understand.

00:32:13.160 The Iranians have other escalation options and they've just demonstrated that they have escalation dominance.

00:32:19.320 And they had a lot more missiles than everyone expected, didn't they?

00:32:21.780 Well, speaking of that, they are attacking with an increasing frequency, not with a decreasing frequency.

00:32:31.780 Sorry, this is the oil exports.

00:32:33.760 I had another graph there.

00:32:35.040 But anyway, they're actually attacking with an increasing frequency these days, having had a lull.

00:32:40.700 And the reason there was a lull was because they didn't need to attack.

00:32:44.220 They shut down energy exports.

00:32:46.460 They shut down gas exports.

00:32:48.660 They shut down shipping.

00:32:49.800 They shut down aviation.

00:32:51.120 So they were just continuing with the minimal level required of attacks to keep the shutdown in place.

00:32:58.280 Now that they needed to escalate, they were instantly able to escalate.

00:33:02.000 Meaning that the talk about having destroyed all of Iran's missiles and 70% of their launch capability and so on and so forth, it's just not true.

00:33:10.540 But also there's a question of coordination here.

00:33:12.940 So I remember them saying, and we talked about this very briefly before the podcast, well, their strategic command and control had been destroyed.

00:33:19.560 If they're still ordering Hezbollah to attack energy assets in the south of Israel, that means that it hasn't been destroyed.

00:33:26.580 Yes.

00:33:27.320 But that means that there is still centralised functional command and control.

00:33:31.260 And if they can strike...

00:33:32.240 Or that they just have a pre-existing plan that they're sticking to without centralised control.

00:33:36.980 Either way, functionally it's the same thing.

00:33:39.820 Exactly.

00:33:40.060 Maybe, but the organised, like the coordinated strikes on these from Iran's heartland itself would imply that the military structure is still functioning perfectly capably.

00:33:49.760 Yes.

00:33:50.460 These are strategic targeted strikes.

00:33:53.640 Exactly.

00:33:53.980 On specific targets.

00:33:56.540 Exactly.

00:33:57.540 This is still functioning as they intended to function.

00:34:00.680 This is still functioning exactly according to commander's intent.

00:34:03.620 And so it also means that the air defence systems aren't able to protect these key assets, but these are the assets that would be prioritised in any defence.

00:34:15.680 These are second only to the air defence systems themselves.

00:34:21.060 And so if you had a choice between intercepting a missile going into a civilian area and intercepting a missile that's going to your key energy facilities, you'd probably defend the energy facilities, not the civilian area.

00:34:31.380 Well, it's not just that.

00:34:33.380 I mean, that makes it sound callous, but losing the energy facilities is further civilian deaths down the line.

00:34:39.320 Exactly.

00:34:39.820 So they are mission critical.

00:34:41.860 Maybe even more.

00:34:42.680 Exactly.

00:34:43.540 Yeah, but by odds of magnitude larger, possibly.

00:34:47.280 So it's actually not such a callous calculation as it sounds.

00:34:51.160 Exactly.

00:34:52.180 Exactly.

00:34:53.240 And in terms of opening the Strait of Hormuz, this is some data on Iran's own oil shipments.

00:35:00.860 They're hitting record levels.

00:35:03.240 Right.

00:35:03.500 Iran is still exporting oil out of Hormuz.

00:35:06.040 Everybody else isn't.

00:35:08.000 And Iran is getting double the price that it used to be getting.

00:35:11.260 But they've also bypassed Hormuz.

00:35:12.880 So they signed an agreement with the Chinese, I think, in 2021 to build a pipeline to, I forget the name of the port.

00:35:20.760 It hasn't been implemented yet.

00:35:22.720 Has it not?

00:35:23.260 It hasn't.

00:35:23.520 But they are using a port that's outside the...

00:35:26.760 So they have a port outside Bandar Abbas, like further to the south, to the direction of Shabahar, which they have been exporting some things out of.

00:35:36.240 But the majority of exports still go through Hormuz.

00:35:39.240 And they're still exporting through Hormuz.

00:35:42.420 And they are allowing ships to route via Iranian territory between these Iranian islands to bypass the bits of the Strait that they have mined.

00:35:52.720 Right.

00:35:53.380 So they're able to get their own oil out.

00:35:56.220 Yeah.

00:35:56.360 So now, just before we started the segment, Scott Besant was saying that they might remove sanctions on Iranian oil that is already on the water to relieve the pressure on global markets.

00:36:09.220 That's how well this war is going.

00:36:12.260 And obviously, the reason he says that is because of these oil prices.

00:36:15.960 And the crude coming out of the Middle East is at $128 to $135, in some cases $150, versus American crude, which is trading around $100, the WTI to indices, versus Brent, which is $113.

00:36:35.760 So the price...

00:36:36.440 These numbers don't mean anything to me.

00:36:37.620 So the price before the war was actually heading in like a couple of months before the buildup to the war.

00:36:45.960 The price was heading towards $60.

00:36:48.740 Oh, right, okay.

00:36:50.600 Right, okay.

00:36:51.060 And there was serious talk that it was going to stabilize around $55.

00:36:54.820 Right.

00:36:55.280 By people who genuinely know their stuff.

00:36:57.980 So it's essentially doubled.

00:36:59.300 So it's essentially doubled.

00:37:00.140 And they're saying that it could go up as high as $250 in a kind of doomsday scenario.

00:37:04.860 If the Iranians follow through with their threats and blow up the oil processing facilities, as opposed to just the gas processing facilities that they've already blown up,

00:37:14.600 then it could easily get there.

00:37:18.820 You see, I wonder in a kind of doomsday scenario, if the Iranians actually do that, whether it wouldn't...

00:37:23.520 Whether the US would then have anything to lose, and Israel would have anything to lose, from destroying all Iranian oil infrastructure.

00:37:32.000 Which is why they're holding back.

00:37:34.700 Which is why they retaliated very heavily to an attack on their own stuff.

00:37:39.420 It's like, don't go there, don't go there.

00:37:41.880 Which, I mean...

00:37:43.020 And they've proven that they have escalation dominance because they are willing to go after this stuff.

00:37:48.320 Because for them, this is a war for survival.

00:37:50.320 And they are no longer in rational mode, they are in martyrdom mode.

00:37:55.600 And so they will escalate it as much as they want to, to the extent that, now they're saying they're going to start collecting tolls for any ship that wants to go through the Strait of Hurubus.

00:38:06.680 The aspect of martyrdom is something that we haven't touched on before, I think.

00:38:11.060 Right.

00:38:11.220 But I think Westerners don't fully understand.

00:38:14.160 Because how old was the Ayatollah Khomeini when he was killed?

00:38:17.360 86.

00:38:18.180 He was going to be 87 on the 19th of April, I think.

00:38:21.320 Yeah.

00:38:21.640 And we did know that the US fleet was heading towards this region.

00:38:26.700 So the Iranians doubtless already knew that...

00:38:29.380 The war was starting.

00:38:30.240 The war was coming.

00:38:31.220 And he decided to stay above ground in his compound.

00:38:34.240 Yes.

00:38:34.700 And the location of this compound is public knowledge.

00:38:37.120 Of course.

00:38:37.380 And so the Americans doubtless were like, well, we can just go and shoot the Ayatollah and the regime will collapse.

00:38:44.140 There'll be an uprising from the bottom and somehow we win.

00:38:48.900 But in fact, he trumped them by making himself into a martyr.

00:38:53.560 Because the entirety of Shia ideology is built on the slogan, the victory of blood over the sword.

00:39:00.240 Right.

00:39:00.540 Which goes back to the days of Hussein, the grandson of Muhammad, who went into an incredibly uneven battle with maybe 40, maybe 200 men, maybe whatever, versus an army of thousands.

00:39:13.120 Yeah.

00:39:13.540 They all got slaughtered, fighting heroically.

00:39:17.440 And that is the foundation myth of Shia Islam, not the arrival of Muhammad.

00:39:22.840 And so what this does is it takes on aspects of sort of Iran war invasion of Afghanistan, where the Americans in their, and not just the Americans, but the Westerners in their naivety thought, well, we'll bring them liberal democracy.

00:39:36.800 Because surely, fundamentally, they're universal men just like us, and they will be happy with the liberal democracy.

00:39:42.540 Exactly.

00:39:42.800 And now we have started a war with a culture that just don't think like us when it comes to death.

00:39:50.300 I mean, we don't have a concept of martyrdom, for example.

00:39:52.480 Not anymore, no.

00:39:53.880 Yeah, not anymore, especially not in battle.

00:39:56.260 But moreover, the Iranian regime has been there since 1979, and they've known that at some point it's very possible they're going to have a hot conflict with the West.

00:40:05.580 In the same way that the Russians had clearly prepared for a long time, so we were not able to judo-flip Vladimir Putin's economy.

00:40:12.180 Exactly.

00:40:12.800 They have been preparing for this, whereas I can't help but feel the Israelis, maybe they've been preparing for it, but the Americans who have been dragged into this with the Israelis have not prepared for it at all.

00:40:24.300 Not in any way.

00:40:24.940 And so you have a very deeply entrenched and well-planned-out scenario on one side versus a kind of cavalier, well, we have the strength to pop the leader.

00:40:34.320 Why don't we just do it like we did with Maduro?

00:40:36.960 And it's like, OK, that's great.

00:40:39.860 But as Machiavelli pointed out, wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.

00:40:43.820 And you have not thought about this enough.

00:40:46.340 But also, I mean, with Maduro, all they did was they kidnapped him.

00:40:49.720 And they killed his presidential guard.

00:40:51.700 And they made a big show of it.

00:40:53.240 But actually, the regime is still in place.

00:40:55.700 They've just got someone who's more pliant, who's willing to get the oil shipments going and all that kind of stuff.

00:41:02.460 With Iran, what they've done is that they've built underground missile cities that are layered and layered.

00:41:11.820 The Iranians say that some of the depths there are 500 meters underground, meaning that you can blow up all the shafts that you want.

00:41:20.960 But in reality, you can't destroy it because it's designed in a way to absorb these explosions and keep them insulated.

00:41:27.840 Now, they're not all very well designed, obviously, but there are dozens of them.

00:41:35.200 And what we've seen is that when there is an order to sort of escalate the launches, they can very easily escalate the launches.

00:41:43.720 And because Khamenei died in this way, what he did was solidify the position of everybody in the IRGC,

00:41:50.920 from the newest recruit to the most grizzled general, and say, well, I will follow in the footsteps of my leader

00:41:57.800 and fight until one of the two victories, as they present them, military victory or martyrdom.

00:42:05.060 And also, I mean, they've been calling America the great Satan for a long time.

00:42:09.280 Yes.

00:42:09.600 They know the great Satan is coming.

00:42:11.540 Oh, that day has finally arrived.

00:42:13.120 Well, we know what we're supposed to do then.

00:42:14.820 Exactly.

00:42:15.520 This is, you know, they've been inculcated into this for 46 years.

00:42:19.320 And now they're firing even more advanced missiles with multiple warheads, with maneuverability, with all kinds of,

00:42:27.440 like, some of them have flares to distract air defense systems, and they are scoring hits.

00:42:35.260 And it's pretty obvious that when they actually want to hit something, it's air defense that's failing,

00:42:41.780 not Iranian missile launch capabilities.

00:42:43.600 And so if you're reading this as a signal, what Trump has in front of him now is a situation where

00:42:50.420 if he continues this war, he's guaranteed to destroy the global economy.

00:42:57.500 And he's guaranteed to end up taking the kind of damage and casualties that the electorate won't accept.

00:43:04.800 He doesn't have a ground option because no one wants to send hundreds of thousands of Americans to secure the Iranian coast.

00:43:13.340 Securing Hormuz itself physically, even if they sent a ground force and took the islands and took Hormuz.

00:43:19.960 The rest of the Persian Gulf is still a barrel in which ships can be shot from anywhere along that thousand mile Iranian coastline.

00:43:31.700 And it is not solvable with the means that are available to Trump, unless he wants to nuke Iran.

00:43:39.280 Which obviously he's not going to do.

00:43:40.520 Which he's not going to do.

00:43:41.980 But also, so it looks like essentially Trump's only option here is to either engage in a massive national war.

00:43:50.500 As in, because I mean, one of the things that modern states, they get away with our wars because we're fighting weak opponents a long way away

00:43:58.680 that doesn't have any particular impact on your life.

00:44:00.840 Exactly.

00:44:01.660 But when you, to engage in a national full-scale war that would require the mobilization of hundreds of thousands

00:44:08.400 and it would cost unbelievable amounts of money to presumably conquer and capture and pacify a country.

00:44:16.380 I mean, Iran is a much more difficult country to occupy than Iraq, for example, famously.

00:44:21.380 It's more difficult than Afghanistan.

00:44:22.840 Of course.

00:44:23.200 Yes. And it would be, it would cost political capital that Trump just doesn't have.

00:44:29.120 No.

00:44:29.600 So the other, the only other alternative seems to be a humiliating climb down and essentially

00:44:34.680 an apology and a treaty that is favorable to Iran.

00:44:36.980 And if this war continues, you can easily see a situation in which countries like Kuwait and Bahrain

00:44:43.260 and even Qatar actually become part of Iran.

00:44:46.260 Yes. Or at least the Iranian sphere of influence.

00:44:48.640 Or fully under the Iranian sphere of influence.

00:44:50.960 Yeah.

00:44:51.140 Because if you're Iran now, your minimum terms are, you know, you're not allowed to have the American bases on your territory.

00:44:57.700 Yes.

00:44:58.320 In the same way that Russia's minimum terms to Ukraine are, you are never allowed to have NATO bases on your territory.

00:45:04.800 Or any NATO country.

00:45:06.060 And the problem that Trump has here is that there's, there's just no good casus belli for this.

00:45:11.460 None.

00:45:11.780 The, the, the Israelis started this.

00:45:13.860 Yes.

00:45:13.960 He allowed himself to get dragged into it.

00:45:15.840 So the moral fault, when, if, if he would say, okay, well, can we have a ceasefire?

00:45:20.560 The moral fault would be with the Americans on this.

00:45:23.760 Now, this would be a war of choice that is completely unnecessary.

00:45:29.020 That doesn't fit any definition of just war theory because there was not in fact an imminent threat.

00:45:34.200 The Omanis and the British have both come out and said that there was an agreement that the Iranians had conceded everything.

00:45:42.920 So Jonathan Powell, the former chief of staff of Tony Blair and the current national security advisor, attended the talks with Kushner and Witkoff and the Iranians.

00:45:55.340 He brought the technical team because the Americans hadn't even brought the technical team to negotiations over the nuclear issue.

00:46:03.020 You can't negotiate something as complex as a nuclear treaty without a fully equipped, very experienced expert team.

00:46:13.380 Yes.

00:46:14.780 Sitting there.

00:46:16.060 The Americans didn't even bring one.

00:46:18.860 Meaning that now as things stand, the whole talk about trying to reach an agreement was completely false.

00:46:26.660 And Kushner's job and Witkoff's job was to make sure that there wasn't an agreement.

00:46:34.000 Well, so, I mean, what really matters, I think, then is, you know, who authorized that?

00:46:40.040 Who is responsible for that?

00:46:41.600 Is that Witkoff and Kushner acting, you know, on the orders of Donald Trump, you know, just to give the appearance of negotiation?

00:46:51.980 Or is it something else?

00:46:53.120 Is it something more sinister?

00:46:56.160 Well, Benjamin Netanyahu used to sleep in Jared Kushner's bed when he would visit their home.

00:47:02.440 We all did that.

00:47:04.940 Okay.

00:47:06.200 Who hasn't done that?

00:47:08.280 You know, Kushner is a major donor to Chabad.

00:47:12.140 He gave them $2 million and Chabad are an insane supremacist, quasi-messianic cult.

00:47:21.380 And they are the ones who were making the decisions on this because the entire structure of the professional state department was bypassed in these negotiations.

00:47:30.600 And so this war has broken out and you ask yourself, why?

00:47:37.460 And if you're...

00:47:38.980 It seems like Israel wants it.

00:47:40.660 And that's the only explanation.

00:47:42.000 It's the only explanation.

00:47:43.200 There is nothing else there.

00:47:44.400 It goes against what Trump campaigned for.

00:47:46.800 It goes against everything that was promised to the MAGA movement.

00:47:51.140 It destroys the coalition of independents, Democrats like Kennedy and Gabbard that joined the Trump team and the Republicans.

00:48:01.800 Before we wrap this up, so doesn't Israel feel any kind of existential threat from this scale of war?

00:48:08.720 Why is the Israeli government so cavalier?

00:48:12.000 With this.

00:48:12.480 Because they keep, firstly, in their minds, this is the only way to do anything.

00:48:17.900 Right.

00:48:18.720 Well, I mean, Israeli strategic planning, I mean, has focused on maintaining chaos throughout the region.

00:48:24.200 Small regional wars, you know, local wars.

00:48:27.400 It's in the benefit of Israel, obviously, for its main opponents to be looking elsewhere, to be disorganized.

00:48:34.380 Well, they're hammering Israel pretty hard.

00:48:37.140 So every hour there are missiles landing in Israel, meaning that the Iranians are maintaining a decent rate of fire.

00:48:43.000 The Israelis thought that they could do this by air, but they couldn't do this kind of war by air against Hezbollah.

00:48:49.440 Right.

00:48:49.700 And even in the last war, now we're seeing Hezbollah activating again, and they're doing bloody impressive things.

00:48:55.860 They're hitting Ashkelon, 200 kilometers away.

00:48:58.740 They're hitting bases 160 kilometers away from the border.

00:49:02.180 Because, I mean, is the Israeli thought that, oh, whatever happens, America will bail us out?

00:49:06.220 That's essentially it.

00:49:07.880 It's the sort of we're backed by the taxpayer mindset that allows the student loan fraud, that allows the global financial crisis fraud, that sort of relies on Western taxpayers one way or the other to, in the end, shoulder the burden.

00:49:22.660 But the assumption that, what, American power is essentially unbounded is obviously not true.

00:49:29.280 Exactly.

00:49:29.960 You know, there's a reason that the Russia-Ukraine war is still going.

00:49:33.360 Yes.

00:49:33.560 And that's a massive hole in the American pocket there.

00:49:36.220 And then the Americans have got strategic concerns around Taiwan, which China has been moving against and making noises about.

00:49:43.200 And so you've got, essentially, the limits of American power are being stretched here.

00:49:48.180 To breaking point.

00:49:48.860 To breaking point.

00:49:49.940 And the Americans are basically going to have to go into a total war national machine mode to get this done, or not do it at all, and essentially retreat from the area.

00:50:02.320 And retreat from the Middle East completely.

00:50:03.780 Yes, but this is the point, that was the thing, because the idea of chaos is kind of predicated on the fact that there is someone on the other side to be in conflict with.

00:50:13.120 However, this wouldn't exactly be an unusual thing that the Persians take over all of the Middle East.

00:50:18.820 This has happened many times before, actually.

00:50:21.300 Exactly.

00:50:21.560 And it actually could be that Persian armies just end up absorbing everything in the region.

00:50:29.980 And this would actually be a historical norm.

00:50:33.400 Yes.

00:50:33.940 That would be a very classic return moment.

00:50:36.620 Yes.

00:50:36.840 And Bahrain is already in chaos, because it's obvious that the Americans can't protect them, and it's 70% Shia.

00:50:43.740 Yeah.

00:50:44.260 Kuwait is arresting pro-Hezbollah cells every other day now.

00:50:48.500 And these are mainly Kuwaiti Shia citizens.

00:50:51.240 They're 30-40% of the population.

00:50:54.060 Iraq is right next door to Kuwait, meaning that they could overwhelm it just sort of by walking in, if they wanted to.

00:51:02.360 Which is what they did the first time, in 1990.

00:51:05.240 Oh, I was thinking the first time in about 586 BC.

00:51:08.200 But yes, it's what they did then.

00:51:09.560 Fine. Fine.

00:51:10.740 But they've done that every single time, because Iraq is just an alluvial floodplain.

00:51:14.020 Exactly.

00:51:14.460 It's very easy to move across.

00:51:15.960 Exactly.

00:51:17.040 And so, now that this war has begun, nobody has any idea how it's going to end.

00:51:23.100 And everything Trump said that he was going to achieve with this war is not being achieved.

00:51:27.120 But also, there's a remarkable thing that's being revealed here, which is the American underestimation of their enemies.

00:51:34.900 Yes.

00:51:35.280 This has been a repeated pattern now.

00:51:38.780 Surely Putin's military machine will just get ground down in Ukraine, and the Russian economy will collapse.

00:51:44.200 No, actually.

00:51:45.400 Russian economy is booming.

00:51:46.660 Exactly.

00:51:47.160 And we're actually the ones with this shrinking economy.

00:51:49.720 And now it's like, okay, well, Iran can't possibly defend itself.

00:51:52.360 There'll be some sort of uprising from the bottom.

00:51:54.180 If we just take out the leadership.

00:51:54.960 It's like, no, take out the leadership is actually a key strategical manoeuvre on their part.

00:52:00.040 Because they think differently to you.

00:52:01.740 Exactly.

00:52:02.340 And they've revealed themselves not to be a paper tiger in the way that you thought that they were.

00:52:07.260 And so, now they're activating a series of long-held plans, and things are actually going badly for the West in the Middle East.

00:52:13.980 It seems that the perspective that the American administration had, and I don't mean Trump himself personally, I mean the deep state, the military doctrine in there, seems to have been flawed.

00:52:26.320 They think that they've destroyed Iran's ability to launch missiles.

00:52:29.340 This completely disproves it.

00:52:31.000 They think that their air defense is still working.

00:52:33.320 This completely disproves it.

00:52:34.480 They think that they can protect the strategic assets in the region.

00:52:38.100 No, they cannot.

00:52:39.100 Apparently not.

00:52:39.560 And the Houthi haven't activated yet, which means that all of the Saudi ports on the Red Sea can be destroyed in one large salvo if these guys decided to go all out.

00:52:51.980 As in Iran still has sort of strategic reserves of things that it can do.

00:52:55.740 And the Houthi have been recruited, they've recruited half a million men to march in Jerusalem.

00:53:02.660 Which means that they have to march through Saudi Arabia.

00:53:05.440 Yeah.

00:53:06.620 Right.

00:53:07.260 So, has anybody thought this through?

00:53:12.240 Clearly not.

00:53:14.120 Here we are.

00:53:15.420 Anyway, we'll leave that there.

00:53:18.200 The Habsification says,

00:53:19.300 Trump is hoping the Iranian population will overthrow the regime so he doesn't have sent troops.

00:53:23.120 It looks like he's screwed in the midterms and the Democrats are going to win the presidency in 28.

00:53:26.760 Yeah, this seems to have been a mistake that was just completely unnecessary.

00:53:31.220 And really just essentially saying, you know, doing something about...

00:53:35.100 They put their own propaganda about the regime.

00:53:37.500 Whereas in reality, if you look historically, every Iranian election has had a 60 to 70% participation rate.

00:53:43.280 Right.

00:53:44.160 Meaning that this regime is accepted as somewhat legitimate by 60 to 70% of people who are actually going out and voting.

00:53:51.280 Yeah.

00:53:51.560 And also, it should have been raining in Israel.

00:53:56.380 Frankly, the tail is wagging the dog.

00:53:58.440 Yep.

00:53:59.200 Anyway, let's move on to something a bit more jolly.

00:54:02.160 Some good news to end the podcast.

00:54:04.240 I like end of the podcast on good news.

00:54:06.560 Yeah, good news.

00:54:07.620 Banksy has been unveiled.

00:54:09.260 The mystique has fallen.

00:54:10.740 And it turns out that he's actually a fat 50-something-year-old multi-millionaire public school boy from Bristol.

00:54:16.440 And not some edgy dissident against the regime.

00:54:21.060 Imagine my shark.

00:54:22.640 Exactly.

00:54:23.140 Try and contain your surprise, please.

00:54:25.120 Before we go on, though, and give you all the lurid details of the lurid, we've got a live event on the 11th of April in Swindon.

00:54:31.340 Link in the description.

00:54:32.180 It's going to be amazing.

00:54:33.260 Come and join us.

00:54:34.080 We're going to have a great time.

00:54:35.360 We're going to get drunk as well.

00:54:36.300 So it'll be more loose than normal, I imagine, which means we will record it for people who have been asking.

00:54:42.700 We'll probably put it behind the paywall, though, to be sure.

00:54:45.600 Anyway, so we've got the mystery of Banksy.

00:54:48.880 Now, this in artistic circles was actually fairly well known, who he was.

00:54:53.740 But, of course, everyone was being polite about it.

00:54:56.000 But he went and did some art in the Ukraine.

00:54:58.840 And this meant that his identity had to be revealed.

00:55:03.840 He went to Ukraine?

00:55:04.700 He did.

00:55:05.080 Art there?

00:55:05.980 Yeah, to put up some anti-war art, which is very novel.

00:55:09.780 Stunning and brave.

00:55:10.660 Stunning and brave.

00:55:11.860 And so this is one.

00:55:13.540 Robert Gunningham is his name.

00:55:15.660 This is the actual picture of him.

00:55:17.760 There is a picture of a chap.

00:55:19.200 In fact, it might even be in this article.

00:55:23.300 Where is it?

00:55:24.380 I think it's this chap.

00:55:25.560 This is not the chap, right?

00:55:27.060 This is not Banksy.

00:55:28.280 This is a picture of a random builder.

00:55:30.940 His name is George.

00:55:32.520 George Giorgio.

00:55:33.520 That was falsely identified as Banksy.

00:55:35.960 This is not Banksy.

00:55:37.680 Right.

00:55:38.220 So the poor bloke...

00:55:38.960 He's also Romanian.

00:55:40.300 I don't know, actually.

00:55:41.380 I mean, maybe he is, actually.

00:55:42.380 Maybe he's Greek.

00:55:43.300 Yeah, he might be Greek as well.

00:55:44.900 But this poor chap went viral because everyone thought...

00:55:48.740 You know, I thought so as well because, I mean, this was the picture everyone was saying.

00:55:51.820 But no, this was not him.

00:55:53.480 It was, in fact, this chap at the top.

00:55:56.060 Not that guy.

00:55:57.100 This chap.

00:55:57.860 So, really normal-looking guy.

00:56:01.020 Not exactly a rock star.

00:56:02.500 But he was initially unmasked in 2008 as a former public schoolboy from Bristol.

00:56:06.800 This photograph was taken in Jamaica in 2004.

00:56:10.400 And it's him.

00:56:12.240 But what's undisputed, as they tell us, is that he emerged from Bristol in 1974.

00:56:17.320 So he's about 52 years old and was involved in the street art movement that exploded during the 1980s.

00:56:22.220 And his estimated wealth currently sits at...

00:56:24.560 Does anyone want to take a guess?

00:56:26.040 100 million?

00:56:27.220 Not quite that much.

00:56:29.540 39 million.

00:56:30.620 Well...

00:56:31.060 I mean, that's still more than enough, isn't it?

00:56:33.520 Not bad.

00:56:34.300 Yeah, not bad.

00:56:35.880 Not bad.

00:56:37.080 You know, a little Bristol lad done good for himself.

00:56:42.220 But the reason this is important is because Banksy...

00:56:47.080 And this is the problem with Led by Donkeys, actually.

00:56:50.620 Actually revealing themselves.

00:56:52.820 It completely ruins the mystique.

00:56:55.020 When it's an unknown person, and these provocative artworks turn up,

00:57:00.680 you think, oh, God, that could be anything.

00:57:03.520 It could be someone who truly is outside of the system.

00:57:06.200 Genuine revolutionary.

00:57:07.420 Exactly.

00:57:08.620 But no, Banksy is just the same as the rest.

00:57:11.460 And in fact, I mean, those of us on the right of politics,

00:57:14.800 the actual dissident side of politics,

00:57:17.220 have long known that, of course, Banksy is just a tool of the regime.

00:57:19.940 Which is why he went unmasked for so very long.

00:57:22.920 Imagine if Banksy's artworks were,

00:57:25.580 England belongs to the English.

00:57:27.400 I mean, how long would the government allow that man to go unmasked?

00:57:31.420 It would be Sam Meliard in a day.

00:57:33.980 Yes.

00:57:34.580 And it's only because Banksy has been swimming with the tide,

00:57:37.880 swimming with the flow,

00:57:39.320 that he has been allowed to gain such reputation and remain at large.

00:57:45.080 Did he do pro-lockdown art?

00:57:48.340 Oh, you know, I didn't check about pro-lockdown art.

00:57:50.240 Because that's one of the, like, it would be interesting to know, actually, you know,

00:57:53.400 I bet this guy actually does consult with the government in some form,

00:57:58.620 if that's the case.

00:57:59.780 You know what?

00:58:00.540 That wouldn't surprise me at all.

00:58:02.200 I seem to remember images of people wearing masks

00:58:06.560 and hero nurses and doctors and all that sort of stuff.

00:58:09.940 Yeah.

00:58:10.780 You know, there are, yes, there are, in fact,

00:58:13.100 Banksy makes, like the BBC have got Banksy Art Lockdown,

00:58:18.100 so people being shackled by the coronavirus.

00:58:22.220 So, literally, it's a coronavirus, a green coronavirus with a ball and chain.

00:58:27.900 But that's, that's, Sweden showed us.

00:58:30.120 That's not what happened.

00:58:30.860 100%.

00:58:31.260 Yeah, but no, no, no, that's exactly it.

00:58:33.520 That's saying the government has to do this because of the evil coronavirus.

00:58:38.000 But Sweden has shown us that they didn't have to do this.

00:58:39.840 There was entirely a choice that was governed by state policy,

00:58:42.700 and it was insanely destructive.

00:58:45.180 So, no, you're absolutely right.

00:58:46.120 He did essentially create lockdown propaganda and apologia.

00:58:51.880 So, yes, he did.

00:58:52.940 But, yeah, we'll go through some of his artworks just to show people

00:58:55.660 just how much he is the renegade artist of the regime.

00:59:00.860 Because it's just remarkable, just absolutely remarkable.

00:59:03.860 Now, I mean, you can go to, like, these sorts of ones.

00:59:07.200 Now, you might think, well, what's, this doesn't seem important to political.

00:59:10.780 No, it's not.

00:59:11.900 This is the James Felton.

00:59:14.200 This is the cockwomble section of the 2000s-era shit-lib consensus, right?

00:59:21.280 This is the, ha-ha, sub-Monty Python.

00:59:24.440 Isn't this novel and funny for funny's sake?

00:59:26.760 It's like, not really, no.

00:59:28.380 But there are other ones.

00:59:29.040 Mighty Boosh, kind of.

00:59:29.940 Yes, yes, yes, exactly.

00:59:32.280 Where it's like, it's irreverent, frivolous, and totally unfunny.

00:59:36.120 That's exactly correct.

00:59:38.160 But there are, of course, these more iconic ones.

00:59:40.760 Now, this is one from 2004, I think it was.

00:59:44.360 This was the most famous one, and this was the one that made him the most money, I think.

00:59:47.440 Which, in itself, is not wrong or bad.

00:59:52.440 This is perfectly fine.

00:59:54.520 It's a young girl with a heart bloom that's floating away.

00:59:57.000 There's nothing wrong with that one, right?

00:59:58.660 That's actually pretty normal.

01:00:00.400 Now, he shredded that in a stump, but that's not such an important thing.

01:00:04.100 Of course, he has the pro-Princess Diana art propaganda,

01:00:09.480 and calling politicians just all monkeys, of course.

01:00:13.100 Then he has the flower thrower.

01:00:17.440 Is that a defense of Antifa?

01:00:19.160 This was on the wall, the West Bank wall, that separated Israel from Palestine.

01:00:24.020 If only you'd throw flowers.

01:00:26.820 They were throwing suicide bombers.

01:00:29.220 Yes.

01:00:29.720 They were literally, the reason the wall was built

01:00:32.380 is because they were sending suicide bombers,

01:00:35.140 blowing up people in buses and in pizza parlors and in cafes,

01:00:39.840 and killing random civilians.

01:00:41.540 Yes.

01:00:41.860 This is complete nonsense.

01:00:44.360 This is the theme that underpins his anti-war activism,

01:00:48.020 is shouldn't we all just get along and love one another?

01:00:50.780 It's like, no.

01:00:52.620 I mean, don't go wrong.

01:00:53.920 That would be lovely, Banksy.

01:00:55.660 But actually, reality is...

01:00:56.860 That's not how it works.

01:00:57.200 Yeah, it's a lot more complicated than that.

01:00:58.900 And actually, there are deep fissures between groups of people

01:01:03.120 that they find irreconcilable.

01:01:05.440 And often, the person you're picturing throwing the flowers here

01:01:08.640 is the one throwing the bombs.

01:01:10.380 I bet he took a lot of ecstasy in the 1990s

01:01:12.780 and probably thought that the secret is ecstasy and, like, rave music.

01:01:17.120 I don't doubt.

01:01:18.460 So, anyway, this...

01:01:20.220 But the point of Banksy's anti-war art

01:01:25.460 is to make the incredibly trite point that war is bad.

01:01:29.860 Yes.

01:01:30.100 Let's all be nice to each other.

01:01:31.180 Yes, exactly.

01:01:32.100 Can't we all just be nice to each other?

01:01:33.200 Just be kind.

01:01:34.120 It's the kind of art that Ed Davey would appreciate, right?

01:01:37.800 It's the...

01:01:38.580 And I'm not joking.

01:01:39.780 Yes, exactly.

01:01:40.960 Now you're spot on.

01:01:42.360 I know.

01:01:42.780 That's exactly right.

01:01:44.080 I know these people inside out

01:01:45.740 because this is the culture I grew up in, right?

01:01:47.820 And I hated it at the time, and I hate it even more now.

01:01:51.320 It's, as I said, utterly trite, right?

01:01:53.500 It doesn't resolve any of the issues.

01:01:55.500 It never addresses any of the actual problems.

01:01:57.480 And actually, if you think about it,

01:01:58.920 no justice is ever provided here.

01:02:01.040 Well, let's all assume,

01:02:01.980 oh, well, we can all just get along and, you know,

01:02:03.940 say, kumbaya, imagine all the people holding hand in hand.

01:02:07.280 Okay, but there are loads of terrible people

01:02:09.080 who've done terrible things,

01:02:10.920 who will not face justice.

01:02:12.300 And you are going to cover all that up and say,

01:02:14.200 no, no, no, it's fine.

01:02:15.200 It's fine.

01:02:15.500 It doesn't matter what terrible things they do.

01:02:17.160 We're not going to strike back.

01:02:18.420 We're not going to do anything in return.

01:02:19.360 It's like, okay.

01:02:19.940 So there's an assumption.

01:02:21.060 Assured.

01:02:21.540 There's an assumption that underpins this

01:02:22.900 of the fundamental moral rectitude of inaction.

01:02:27.780 That's the assumption that underpins

01:02:29.920 Banksy's moral framework.

01:02:32.000 The person who acts least is the most moral.

01:02:35.600 It's like, no, sorry, Banksy.

01:02:36.840 That's not how life works, actually.

01:02:38.720 You have to set an order.

01:02:40.200 You have to set something.

01:02:41.380 You have to be affirmative,

01:02:42.880 and it is in the goodness or badness

01:02:44.700 of your affirmative actions

01:02:45.960 that morality is found.

01:02:47.560 Non-action is amorality.

01:02:49.800 If you do not act, you are not moral.

01:02:52.680 And therefore, Banksy wants to essentially say,

01:02:55.320 well, we can just abandon morality.

01:02:57.240 It's like, well, let's assume we could.

01:02:59.320 We have abandoned morality.

01:03:00.740 We have abandoned action.

01:03:02.740 Do the people throwing the flowers abandon action?

01:03:06.120 Ah, right.

01:03:06.640 So this is Christianity without natural law,

01:03:10.100 without philosophy.

01:03:11.240 Yes.

01:03:11.520 This is sentimentalism as opposed to actual Christianity.

01:03:14.580 This is post-Christianity.

01:03:15.800 Peak shit livery.

01:03:17.080 Yes.

01:03:17.560 Peak John Lennon.

01:03:19.320 It's exactly that.

01:03:20.360 John Lennon is imagined.

01:03:21.720 It's like, well, we'll just,

01:03:22.620 if we're just sufficiently vulnerable

01:03:24.900 and peaceful and loving,

01:03:26.720 then our enemies will just say,

01:03:28.220 you know what, look at them.

01:03:28.900 They're too good for us.

01:03:30.100 We can't possibly kill them in cold blood,

01:03:32.500 which is not how the world works.

01:03:33.780 So you've got this childlike morality

01:03:36.740 that underpins everything that Banksy does.

01:03:39.100 And this is, of course, him pushing the open door.

01:03:44.500 You know what we don't like?

01:03:45.880 It's British culture.

01:03:47.800 You know what we're here to debauch?

01:03:49.340 It's British culture.

01:03:50.040 Why not?

01:03:50.760 But also like, oh, it's,

01:03:52.540 lesbianism is really transgressive.

01:03:54.660 I mean, it's like, sorry, no, like.

01:03:57.620 No, that's exactly the right point to arrive on there.

01:04:00.560 Not only is this about debauching the memory

01:04:02.880 of Queen Victoria,

01:04:03.780 because she famously didn't think

01:04:05.500 that women could be lesbians, actually.

01:04:07.560 And so this is Banksy saying,

01:04:08.940 no, look, I can draw you.

01:04:10.400 I've drawn you as the lesbian.

01:04:12.280 Therefore, you are wrong.

01:04:13.740 Yeah, exactly.

01:04:14.840 But as you say, it's in no way transgressive.

01:04:18.640 Because from 1997 onwards,

01:04:21.320 every government has believed in and sanctioned

01:04:23.680 and completely endorsed

01:04:24.640 absolutely everything Banksy believes.

01:04:26.740 So he is in no way against the regime.

01:04:28.700 He's not a renegade in any way, shape or form.

01:04:30.240 What he is, is trying to demoralize us

01:04:33.300 about our own history

01:04:34.320 in the typical shit-lipped fashion.

01:04:37.360 Yes.

01:04:38.040 And so here we are.

01:04:39.100 This is wonderful.

01:04:41.100 I'm so glad.

01:04:41.560 You can see why he became

01:04:42.640 the sort of token artist of the regime.

01:04:45.900 He is moralizing them

01:04:47.500 to destroy what we had inherited.

01:04:50.080 Here's another one about the devolved parliament.

01:04:52.120 This is a parliament of chimps.

01:04:53.380 I don't know whether you can see it.

01:04:54.120 It's a bit small.

01:04:54.520 But this was in the wake of the Brexit vote.

01:04:57.780 Of course, he did this.

01:04:59.680 How could parliament take us out of the European Union?

01:05:02.040 The holy, sacred European Union?

01:05:04.560 Because I, as a dissident,

01:05:06.780 I'm against Brexit.

01:05:09.780 Which makes me incredibly edgy,

01:05:12.440 don't you think?

01:05:13.440 Of course, yeah.

01:05:14.220 I mean...

01:05:14.960 If there was one thing the establishment didn't want,

01:05:17.960 it's to remain.

01:05:19.620 This is deeply apist.

01:05:20.860 I resent the discrimination inherent in the...

01:05:24.860 Yes.

01:05:25.480 But there's like,

01:05:26.260 there's a secret kind of,

01:05:27.620 or not so secret,

01:05:28.860 kind of based reading of a lot of these,

01:05:30.480 actually, like the...

01:05:32.080 You know, I mean, like,

01:05:33.560 MPs are direct representatives of the people.

01:05:36.100 I mean, the people are apes too.

01:05:37.780 I mean, you know,

01:05:38.480 you could make a...

01:05:39.240 You could make a kind of anti-democratic case here,

01:05:41.840 like with the one day we'll be in charge thing, right?

01:05:44.100 I like where you're going.

01:05:45.280 Like, no, no, no, no.

01:05:46.340 Chimps, you know, like...

01:05:47.820 You know, if ordinary people...

01:05:49.060 Keep chimping out.

01:05:49.860 Yeah, keep chimping out.

01:05:50.680 But also just like, you know,

01:05:52.080 I mean, we get the leaders we deserve.

01:05:55.040 Let's put it this way.

01:05:55.920 If this was a parliament of Gammonzilla...

01:05:58.200 Yeah, we'd have a very different country, yeah.

01:06:00.980 Their reaction would be slightly different.

01:06:02.920 Yeah, and it would be far less flattering, actually.

01:06:06.440 But again, this shows you the ontology of Banksy as well.

01:06:12.220 He thinks that these people

01:06:14.660 are not representative of the country, right?

01:06:16.600 So he's not actually trying to say

01:06:17.820 that I, as a Bristolian,

01:06:19.660 am a chimp being represented

01:06:21.460 by an Edmund Burkean chimp.

01:06:23.840 Yeah, by a slightly more intelligent chimp, maybe.

01:06:26.280 Exactly.

01:06:27.080 No, what he's saying is

01:06:27.840 these are a different species to us,

01:06:29.640 and I have nothing to do with them.

01:06:31.300 It just so happens

01:06:32.140 they do everything that I want them to do.

01:06:33.880 They don't want to leave the EU.

01:06:35.380 They are for gay rights.

01:06:36.720 They're for immigration, blah, blah, blah.

01:06:38.600 But no,

01:06:39.280 and so it's the veneer of

01:06:41.700 oh, I'm against the establishment

01:06:42.940 whilst supporting everything

01:06:45.200 the establishment does.

01:06:46.280 I hate it.

01:06:47.180 I hate them a lot.

01:06:47.720 Do you notice the sprinkling of diversity

01:06:50.320 where some of the apes are red?

01:06:52.720 Oh, yeah.

01:06:53.840 I mean...

01:06:54.560 A couple of orangs in there.

01:06:55.900 Yeah, yeah, so...

01:06:56.900 This was from 2019 as well.

01:06:58.680 But this sold for 12 million pounds, this.

01:07:01.620 What?

01:07:02.040 12 million pounds.

01:07:04.160 I'm of the view

01:07:05.100 that all modern art is money laundering.

01:07:07.080 I'm of the view...

01:07:07.940 A lot of it, yeah.

01:07:08.540 I'm in the wrong job

01:07:09.440 just like with the universities.

01:07:11.160 I'm not making 12 million pounds per artwork.

01:07:13.700 Anyway, then you have

01:07:14.420 the two police officers kissing

01:07:15.960 which of course was deeply controversial

01:07:18.060 and against the regime.

01:07:20.080 Wasn't it David Cameron

01:07:21.320 that legalized gay marriage?

01:07:23.040 Yes.

01:07:23.480 Yeah, so you know, you can see...

01:07:24.880 Billy Blair allowed civil unions

01:07:26.720 and David Cameron decided

01:07:28.160 that's not liberal enough.

01:07:30.400 The Conservative Party is truly liberal.

01:07:32.240 And so in 2014

01:07:33.320 this sold for more than half a million pounds

01:07:35.940 or half a million dollars, sorry.

01:07:37.740 But in 2014

01:07:38.840 was this a controversial issue?

01:07:40.780 Was this pushing the boundaries?

01:07:43.180 Sorry, what were we doing here, Banksy?

01:07:46.740 Well, you know what it reminds me of actually

01:07:49.200 is it reminds me of Andres Serrano.

01:07:52.380 I'm not familiar with that.

01:07:53.020 Andres Serrano did the cover

01:07:55.260 of two Metallica albums.

01:07:56.920 Oh, right.

01:07:57.440 Load and Reload.

01:07:58.800 Right.

01:07:59.220 And one was Blood and Piss

01:08:01.040 and one was Blood and Semen.

01:08:02.820 But he also did a very famous,

01:08:04.920 maybe his most famous artwork in the 1990s

01:08:07.440 was called Piss Christ.

01:08:08.920 Do you know about this?

01:08:09.560 I've heard of it.

01:08:10.320 A vat of, it's a crucifix suspended

01:08:12.440 in a vat of his own urine, right?

01:08:14.920 And supposed to be, you know,

01:08:17.480 incredibly transgressive, you know.

01:08:20.260 That's how it's taken.

01:08:21.340 But of course, you know,

01:08:22.040 like the question is, well,

01:08:23.420 like why not piss Koran?

01:08:25.740 Well, why not piss Talmud?

01:08:28.900 Why not any other religious symbol

01:08:31.100 other than the main religious symbol

01:08:34.200 that has been like desecrated

01:08:36.240 for the last 150, 200 years

01:08:39.020 since the French Revolution, at least.

01:08:41.400 You know, it's like you really,

01:08:43.140 you are pushing on an open door.

01:08:44.880 You think you're edgy,

01:08:46.580 but actually you're not taking any risk at all.

01:08:50.020 Exactly.

01:08:50.580 Why not continue to flay the native religion

01:08:52.920 that has been flayed

01:08:54.740 to the point of skinlessness anyway?

01:08:56.760 Well, it's like Madonna dressing up as a nun.

01:08:59.340 Exactly.

01:08:59.860 None of this is new.

01:09:00.900 All of this has been done before.

01:09:01.880 And this is all Banksy's

01:09:03.400 entire artistic career has been.

01:09:06.000 There are a few others on this,

01:09:08.900 but we'll go to some more specific political ones

01:09:11.580 if I can get rid of that.

01:09:14.660 Obviously, obviously Banksy's

01:09:17.120 on the side of migrants.

01:09:18.380 I mean, you didn't doubt, right?

01:09:19.800 You didn't for a second,

01:09:21.400 didn't for a second think

01:09:23.800 that Banksy was like,

01:09:25.120 maybe bringing in

01:09:27.180 tens of thousands of Afghan rapists

01:09:29.660 or Romanian scammers

01:09:31.300 or like African knife murderers.

01:09:34.880 So you're telling me that Banksy and Jenrick

01:09:36.420 are on the same team?

01:09:37.680 Yes.

01:09:38.320 Yes, I am exactly telling you that.

01:09:40.880 I'm telling you that Banksy

01:09:41.880 is on precisely the team

01:09:43.220 that has done all of this to us.

01:09:45.160 How truly rebellious.

01:09:46.640 And this is why he was allowed

01:09:48.260 to be the court artist of dissidents.

01:09:51.600 It's not that you're not going too far.

01:09:54.500 You're not going too far enough.

01:09:56.220 I need more.

01:09:57.020 I want more.

01:09:57.760 And then you may remember Dismal Man.

01:10:00.500 Now, this was set up

01:10:01.160 in Western Supermare in 2015,

01:10:03.400 where Banksy basically parodied

01:10:06.440 the dilapidated state of Britain

01:10:08.640 and moreover the...

01:10:11.320 Because it's set up as a parody of Disneyland.

01:10:14.140 I don't know if we know.

01:10:14.840 We haven't got any more images here.

01:10:16.460 But it's set up as a parody of Disneyland.

01:10:17.980 Again, a dilapidated, run-down,

01:10:20.740 sort of post-apocalyptic Disneyland, actually.

01:10:24.300 Children of Men, really.

01:10:25.800 Very, very much.

01:10:26.620 Yeah, very much, actually.

01:10:27.900 And that's a great...

01:10:28.740 I didn't even think to call it that.

01:10:31.900 But what are we doing here?

01:10:33.700 What are we doing

01:10:34.180 when we denigrate Disney World, right?

01:10:36.480 Now, I've taken my kids to Disneyland,

01:10:38.940 and it's magical for them.

01:10:40.900 They see the castle,

01:10:42.020 they see all the stuff,

01:10:43.120 and they're just like,

01:10:43.720 wow, this is incredible.

01:10:44.400 What is Banksy in his cynical Gen X materialist mindset doing?

01:10:51.420 He is disenchanting the world.

01:10:53.480 He is actively in the process of disenchanting the world.

01:10:56.900 An anti-artist, if you will.

01:10:58.260 An anti-artist.

01:10:59.620 Do we have...

01:11:01.080 I was hoping there'd be...

01:11:02.100 I should have got the image

01:11:03.440 of the actual front castle,

01:11:06.040 because it's literally the Disney castle,

01:11:07.460 but it's all collapsed and decayed

01:11:09.260 and covered in grime, right?

01:11:10.660 It's like, yeah,

01:11:11.060 that's the world that Banksy

01:11:13.040 is actually in the process of creating.

01:11:15.060 That's literally what he made

01:11:16.660 in contradistinction to what actually exists.

01:11:19.780 Reminds me of John Cleese, really.

01:11:21.600 At least John Cleese has had his come-to-Jesus moment.

01:11:24.400 Yep.

01:11:24.940 And I used to go from just literally

01:11:26.700 ragging on John Cleese in his replies

01:11:28.120 to retweeting him,

01:11:29.120 because suddenly,

01:11:30.480 like, Rupert Lowe put his video out,

01:11:31.800 and John Cleese's like,

01:11:32.460 oh, yeah, I have to work.

01:11:33.960 You know, and it's just like,

01:11:34.620 great, great, get on it, John.

01:11:35.780 But as you can see,

01:11:38.220 it's...

01:11:38.820 In one game, you get to...

01:11:40.920 Look at the refugee boat.

01:11:42.600 Look at it.

01:11:43.320 Is that what the refugee boat looks like?

01:11:44.920 Hordes of children coming across the channel?

01:11:47.460 No.

01:11:48.460 There are virtually no children

01:11:50.060 coming across the channel.

01:11:51.000 What there are are adult men.

01:11:52.980 And your job is to chase around

01:11:55.060 the refugee children

01:11:56.060 with the little police boat,

01:11:57.780 as if they do.

01:11:59.020 As if that's what they do.

01:12:00.480 If only.

01:12:00.920 Yeah, if only they did this.

01:12:02.680 They escort them over.

01:12:03.420 So, complete bullshit.

01:12:06.160 Right?

01:12:06.380 This is the problem with bankruptcy.

01:12:07.540 Complete bullshit.

01:12:09.200 Lies.

01:12:10.000 It's one of Steve Jobs,

01:12:11.000 of course, migrant child.

01:12:12.620 Anti-immigration.

01:12:13.200 Oh, look at this.

01:12:13.960 The ugly grey pigeons

01:12:15.300 to the beautiful foreign bird.

01:12:18.020 Keep out.

01:12:18.860 Migrants not welcome.

01:12:19.800 Go back to Africa.

01:12:20.780 Keep off our worms.

01:12:22.280 So, those ugly grey pigeons.

01:12:24.420 But also, again,

01:12:25.100 based interpretation.

01:12:27.080 Come on, I'm for a pigeon.

01:12:29.700 Parochial altruism

01:12:30.740 is rooted in deep biology

01:12:33.040 and, you know,

01:12:36.140 Well, that's the point

01:12:37.800 that he can't admit, though,

01:12:38.880 isn't it?

01:12:39.440 Of course.

01:12:40.000 Yeah.

01:12:40.760 And this is the problem

01:12:41.700 with all the shitload propaganda.

01:12:43.220 Boris Johnson says

01:12:44.040 he's going to send back

01:12:44.760 the letterboxes.

01:12:46.040 Oh, great.

01:12:48.180 He didn't,

01:12:48.980 but, you know,

01:12:49.460 good propaganda.

01:12:51.140 But anyway,

01:12:51.780 so you've got all of this

01:12:52.840 pro-immigrant propaganda,

01:12:55.120 obviously.

01:12:56.080 There was an anti-immigration

01:12:57.720 one in Clacton in 2014.

01:12:59.000 That was this one.

01:13:00.160 Because, of course,

01:13:00.760 the people of Clacton

01:13:01.480 were far too based

01:13:02.740 and working class

01:13:03.480 for public school

01:13:04.680 by Banksy.

01:13:05.960 And so he had to go

01:13:06.540 and explain to them,

01:13:07.160 no, you're bad people

01:13:07.960 for not allowing

01:13:09.500 infinite migration

01:13:10.820 to Clacton.

01:13:12.280 And honestly,

01:13:13.300 good on the people of Clacton

01:13:14.380 for standing up for themselves.

01:13:15.920 Then you have his Brexit stuff.

01:13:17.940 Vote to love,

01:13:18.820 not to leave.

01:13:20.140 Oh, the European Union

01:13:20.960 is love, guys.

01:13:22.120 It's just love.

01:13:23.360 It's infinite,

01:13:24.160 unaccountable bureaucracy.

01:13:25.120 It's just love.

01:13:26.340 Paying billions a year

01:13:27.360 to this infinite,

01:13:27.980 unaccountable bureaucracy

01:13:28.800 and having no control

01:13:29.580 of your own country.

01:13:30.340 That's what love is.

01:13:31.360 Don't you understand?

01:13:32.640 Banksy is here

01:13:33.360 to morally educate you

01:13:34.960 on what love is.

01:13:36.240 Just unbelievable.

01:13:38.480 I just,

01:13:39.460 honestly,

01:13:40.180 literally the led

01:13:43.260 by donkey's worldview.

01:13:45.520 And I hate it so much.

01:13:47.140 I hate it.

01:13:48.480 Anyway,

01:13:48.980 then you had his Brexit one.

01:13:50.020 Oh, look at that.

01:13:50.640 The European Union

01:13:51.640 is losing a star.

01:13:53.320 It's being chipped out.

01:13:54.700 Yeah, don't care.

01:13:55.680 I don't care.

01:13:56.800 No sympathy for me

01:13:57.840 whatsoever on that.

01:14:01.160 And anyway,

01:14:02.240 right,

01:14:02.500 so we've had

01:14:03.760 the demystification

01:14:04.560 of Banksy

01:14:05.120 as just the icon

01:14:06.680 of the regime.

01:14:07.760 And that's all he does.

01:14:08.680 That's all he provides.

01:14:09.560 And there's literally

01:14:10.320 nothing else

01:14:10.900 that he can do.

01:14:12.780 And they're coping

01:14:13.720 and seething about it.

01:14:15.160 Oh, this changes nothing.

01:14:16.560 Changes absolutely nothing.

01:14:17.820 Changes everything.

01:14:19.540 Absolutely everything.

01:14:21.180 Exactly.

01:14:22.240 Actually,

01:14:22.960 there is no mystique,

01:14:24.920 which was,

01:14:25.280 and the reason

01:14:25.680 that Banksy

01:14:26.100 kept his identity secret

01:14:27.240 for such a long time

01:14:28.160 is because the power

01:14:29.340 was within the mystique.

01:14:30.740 Banksy is not a proper name.

01:14:33.400 It's just a handle

01:14:35.840 that he uses.

01:14:37.820 And it could be anyone

01:14:39.020 who knows.

01:14:39.620 It's like anonymous.

01:14:40.840 It's like the V for Vendetta.

01:14:42.920 It could be anyone,

01:14:43.820 anywhere.

01:14:44.440 So these things

01:14:45.400 look like

01:14:46.400 an organic expression

01:14:47.720 of the society

01:14:48.540 when it's under this anonymity.

01:14:50.580 Well,

01:14:50.680 anyone could be doing that.

01:14:51.640 It doesn't have to be

01:14:52.260 one Banksy.

01:14:53.580 It could be anyone

01:14:54.440 putting up.

01:14:54.880 And so what these,

01:14:56.100 you know,

01:14:56.720 expressions of the regime are,

01:14:58.700 a moral legitimation

01:14:59.920 that the society itself

01:15:01.340 is producing organically

01:15:03.160 these works of art

01:15:04.740 to support everything

01:15:05.540 the government does,

01:15:06.620 when actually,

01:15:07.280 when you personalize it

01:15:08.320 and narrow it down to,

01:15:09.320 oh,

01:15:09.380 it's this one rich

01:15:10.560 public schoolboy shitlib

01:15:11.780 in Bristol,

01:15:12.840 it changes absolutely

01:15:14.560 everything about it.

01:15:16.000 I mean,

01:15:16.400 Banksy's lawyers have said,

01:15:17.540 well, look,

01:15:18.360 he was working anonymously

01:15:19.440 or pseudonymously

01:15:20.420 to serve vital

01:15:21.540 societal interests.

01:15:23.980 That's their position.

01:15:24.880 I mean,

01:15:25.060 the status quo.

01:15:26.100 Exactly.

01:15:27.200 I represent an organic

01:15:28.740 upswell of shitlib opinion

01:15:30.240 in the society.

01:15:32.320 And this is particularly

01:15:33.920 important when addressing

01:15:34.820 sensitive issues

01:15:35.720 such as politics,

01:15:36.940 religion,

01:15:37.360 or social justice.

01:15:38.900 It's like,

01:15:39.140 why?

01:15:39.440 You agree with the government

01:15:40.420 on everything?

01:15:41.160 I mean,

01:15:41.340 the minute you say

01:15:41.940 social justice,

01:15:42.680 you sort of reveal your hand,

01:15:43.760 don't you?

01:15:44.280 Yes.

01:15:47.280 Yes.

01:15:48.360 And the author

01:15:49.940 of this article says,

01:15:51.180 I can only imagine

01:15:51.860 this new unmasking

01:15:52.840 will change very little.

01:15:54.420 It's hard to see him

01:15:55.340 embracing the celebrity

01:15:56.140 lifestyle.

01:15:56.620 It's like,

01:15:56.760 you don't need to.

01:15:57.980 We've got the picture

01:15:59.120 of the dork

01:16:00.700 who's like,

01:16:01.400 I've never had an original

01:16:02.340 thought in my entire life.

01:16:03.860 And I'm just here

01:16:04.860 to support anything

01:16:05.680 that the progressive

01:16:06.740 establishment says.

01:16:07.880 Yes.

01:16:08.360 I am the led by donkeys

01:16:09.920 of this street art movement.

01:16:12.060 And now,

01:16:14.740 who cares?

01:16:16.460 This isn't an organic

01:16:17.460 expression of the society.

01:16:19.400 This is an organic expression

01:16:20.620 of a multi-millionaire

01:16:21.980 public school boy.

01:16:23.100 Remember when he was

01:16:23.680 defending the Palestine

01:16:24.720 action guys?

01:16:25.600 Oh, yeah.

01:16:26.080 Yeah, yeah.

01:16:26.780 With the sort of

01:16:27.940 judge's mural?

01:16:29.640 This one actually

01:16:30.560 worked out,

01:16:31.920 but he would have

01:16:32.540 completely disagreed

01:16:34.200 with everything.

01:16:35.680 Because he was foolish enough

01:16:36.900 to put the guy

01:16:37.560 with the placard

01:16:38.200 as a white placard

01:16:39.260 so people could spray

01:16:40.480 the St. George's cross

01:16:41.300 on it.

01:16:42.760 That's obviously

01:16:43.420 not the people

01:16:44.180 he's defending.

01:16:45.860 And so, yeah,

01:16:46.520 as you say,

01:16:46.900 it didn't work out.

01:16:48.280 But anyway,

01:16:49.200 I'm just glad to see it

01:16:50.840 and I'm glad to see

01:16:51.480 the mythos of Banksy

01:16:52.520 dying out.

01:16:54.140 Because the problem

01:16:55.220 that they have

01:16:55.640 is they've been relying

01:16:56.680 on the idea

01:16:57.080 of the death of the author.

01:16:58.300 Because as soon as you

01:16:59.020 don't know who the author is,

01:16:59.840 it could be anyone

01:17:00.400 and therefore it could be

01:17:01.320 everyone.

01:17:02.060 It could come from

01:17:02.800 any section of society.

01:17:04.160 But now we know

01:17:05.100 exactly what section

01:17:05.880 of society it comes from.

01:17:06.800 We know exactly

01:17:07.200 the kind of political

01:17:07.780 opinions he carries

01:17:08.540 and we know

01:17:09.140 that it's not organic.

01:17:10.640 This isn't a reflection

01:17:11.720 of what people

01:17:12.260 truly believe.

01:17:13.220 And that's how he was

01:17:13.800 able to stay anonymous.

01:17:14.980 I mean,

01:17:15.700 that was the only reason

01:17:16.520 they allowed him

01:17:17.080 to stay anonymous.

01:17:18.260 Exactly.

01:17:18.960 Is that he served

01:17:19.680 that class

01:17:20.660 against the other classes.

01:17:24.940 J.M. Denton says,

01:17:26.120 I feel like there was

01:17:26.720 a boom in mentality

01:17:27.480 in promoting inaction

01:17:28.420 that permeated

01:17:28.980 every institution

01:17:29.920 like Fukuyama's

01:17:31.160 End of History,

01:17:32.220 programming people

01:17:32.840 to feel as if

01:17:33.620 action is

01:17:34.080 pointless.

01:17:35.400 Yeah,

01:17:35.800 I think that's

01:17:36.160 a great point

01:17:36.520 because the point

01:17:38.380 of like the sort

01:17:39.040 of John Lennon

01:17:39.580 liberal end of history

01:17:40.900 morality

01:17:41.540 is to say,

01:17:43.560 is to essentially

01:17:44.380 locate inaction

01:17:45.460 the locus of immorality.

01:17:48.780 And in a way

01:17:49.260 they're right.

01:17:50.040 In a way they are right.

01:17:52.020 By taking action

01:17:53.220 you run the risk

01:17:54.000 of doing something wrong

01:17:54.980 and therefore creating

01:17:56.320 an immoral circumstance

01:17:57.220 and therefore

01:17:58.500 it would have been better

01:17:59.600 if you'd not

01:17:59.920 taken that action.

01:18:00.580 Which is the correct

01:18:01.540 interpretation of

01:18:02.520 do not resist evil

01:18:03.580 in the gospel.

01:18:05.480 Yes,

01:18:05.820 but also

01:18:06.520 the counter is

01:18:08.960 the only necessary

01:18:10.560 thing for the triumph

01:18:11.360 of evil

01:18:11.700 is for good men

01:18:12.740 to do nothing.

01:18:13.540 Precisely.

01:18:13.900 Because morality

01:18:14.500 is found in

01:18:15.160 affirmative actions.

01:18:16.100 Exactly.

01:18:16.540 This is actually

01:18:17.280 one of the things

01:18:17.980 that I really appreciate

01:18:19.640 in Nietzsche

01:18:20.120 actually weirdly enough.

01:18:21.220 It really resonated

01:18:22.520 with me.

01:18:22.800 It's like,

01:18:23.340 no, you have to move.

01:18:24.660 You can't just be passive.

01:18:26.460 You have to move.

01:18:27.200 And these people

01:18:28.000 I mean you can tell

01:18:28.640 by looking at them

01:18:29.300 would be very happy

01:18:30.380 being passive.

01:18:31.660 And so,

01:18:32.580 yeah,

01:18:32.800 the whole end of history

01:18:34.260 moral paradigm

01:18:35.360 is just wrong

01:18:36.060 obviously.

01:18:37.140 But sort of the

01:18:37.620 commodification

01:18:38.360 as well

01:18:39.900 of morality

01:18:40.620 as a series

01:18:41.720 of correct beliefs.

01:18:43.100 Yes.

01:18:43.940 That's it.

01:18:44.620 I mean these are

01:18:45.320 symbols of correct belief

01:18:47.120 and it's like

01:18:47.900 you consume these

01:18:48.840 symbols of correct belief

01:18:49.820 you are moral yourself.

01:18:51.500 Yes.

01:18:52.440 And if you're a

01:18:53.000 multi-millionaire

01:18:53.560 you can make him

01:18:54.100 very, very rich

01:18:54.700 by buying one.

01:18:55.440 I mean the amount

01:18:57.360 of money he's made

01:18:58.040 of this

01:18:58.420 you know

01:18:59.180 can't deny

01:18:59.900 the grift

01:19:01.320 I mean Jesus man

01:19:02.060 you've done a good job.

01:19:03.800 Again,

01:19:04.420 Bristol boy makes good.

01:19:07.100 I read that

01:19:08.200 some of the prints

01:19:08.940 of his art

01:19:09.800 are being sold

01:19:10.680 for 250,000 pounds.

01:19:12.340 Jesus Christ.

01:19:13.140 Just prints?

01:19:15.160 I mean

01:19:15.640 come on.

01:19:17.040 Yeah.

01:19:17.600 This is an original

01:19:18.420 Banksy print.

01:19:19.420 It's either original

01:19:20.040 or it's a print.

01:19:21.060 Mandine points out

01:19:21.780 well his crowd

01:19:22.380 are the eat the rich people.

01:19:24.360 He is the rich.

01:19:25.740 That's correct

01:19:26.400 and he's been

01:19:26.800 selling his artworks

01:19:27.560 to the rich

01:19:28.160 telling them

01:19:28.960 everything they want

01:19:29.600 to hear.

01:19:30.040 Again,

01:19:30.540 nothing transgressive

01:19:32.080 or controversial

01:19:32.740 about him at all.

01:19:34.300 And he's definitely

01:19:34.800 been eating too.

01:19:36.520 Definitely.

01:19:37.080 Yeah,

01:19:37.280 he's definitely

01:19:37.980 been doing all right

01:19:38.560 for himself.

01:19:39.000 But you know,

01:19:39.360 good for him.

01:19:40.700 I'm all in favour

01:19:42.120 of entrepreneurs.

01:19:45.360 Anyway,

01:19:45.840 we'll go to some

01:19:46.260 of the website comments

01:19:47.100 on the bit

01:19:48.920 about the student loans.

01:19:50.840 Jimbo says

01:19:51.300 we are literally

01:19:51.860 paying for a pyramid scheme

01:19:52.920 designed to help

01:19:53.460 foreigners fill their boots

01:19:54.440 while the natives

01:19:55.220 are coming out

01:19:55.620 impoverished

01:19:56.060 and brainwashed

01:19:56.600 after doing

01:19:57.060 a worthless degree.

01:19:58.920 Yeah.

01:20:00.220 I honestly think

01:20:01.660 if you were to

01:20:03.080 have a serious

01:20:04.420 conversation

01:20:05.100 with the people

01:20:06.140 who set up

01:20:06.860 systems like this

01:20:07.840 and you drill down

01:20:09.140 through the practicalities

01:20:10.120 of it,

01:20:10.600 I think eventually

01:20:11.420 they would arrive

01:20:12.280 on the point

01:20:12.840 of social justice

01:20:13.680 and reparations

01:20:14.560 as the point

01:20:15.440 of these things.

01:20:16.660 But the rest of the world

01:20:17.500 is poor

01:20:18.040 and we're not poor.

01:20:19.080 And we have an obligation

01:20:20.740 to give them money.

01:20:21.820 I think that's honestly

01:20:22.640 where they'd arrive at.

01:20:24.680 Sophie says

01:20:25.440 Nick Shirley,

01:20:26.220 the Somalian guy,

01:20:27.300 daycare guy,

01:20:28.540 also made another video

01:20:29.420 about hospices.

01:20:30.740 And it was the exact

01:20:31.240 same thing again.

01:20:32.420 No one would take

01:20:32.960 his granny Jolene

01:20:33.800 and they'd just

01:20:34.300 open the hospice,

01:20:35.640 take state funds

01:20:36.360 and make up numbers.

01:20:37.160 Done.

01:20:37.860 Yeah.

01:20:38.380 And that's what

01:20:39.720 government large S

01:20:40.900 is for.

01:20:42.560 It's really hard

01:20:43.480 to see it in any other way.

01:20:45.360 Henry says

01:20:46.100 I believe the stat

01:20:46.900 being bandied around

01:20:47.620 of the student loan interest

01:20:48.520 that you have to earn

01:20:49.200 over £60,000

01:20:50.100 before the amount

01:20:51.440 actually owed

01:20:52.320 starts going down.

01:20:53.840 Before that

01:20:54.440 you're just paying off

01:20:55.000 the interest

01:20:55.580 on the thing.

01:20:56.460 Wow.

01:20:56.960 Which is just bonkers

01:20:58.520 and deeply exploitative.

01:21:00.280 Just by the way,

01:21:00.780 if you're a student

01:21:01.380 this is the system

01:21:02.920 exploiting you.

01:21:04.040 The system Banksy supports

01:21:05.420 exploiting you.

01:21:06.580 Yes.

01:21:06.780 This is their system

01:21:07.740 giving your money,

01:21:09.200 your labour

01:21:09.700 to foreign peoples

01:21:11.080 and rampant

01:21:12.740 capitalist companies.

01:21:14.160 Well I mean like

01:21:14.600 Nick,

01:21:15.240 sorry,

01:21:15.840 on the £60,000 thing

01:21:16.920 the median wage

01:21:18.280 in Britain

01:21:18.680 is what?

01:21:19.820 £27,000?

01:21:20.460 £38,000 for a household.

01:21:22.200 £38,000 for a household.

01:21:24.160 So it's £60,000

01:21:25.080 before you start

01:21:25.700 paying off the loan

01:21:26.380 but it's £38,000

01:21:27.000 for a household.

01:21:28.180 That's insane.

01:21:29.220 Yeah.

01:21:29.940 Sorry,

01:21:30.180 what were you going to say?

01:21:30.660 No,

01:21:30.840 I was just going to say

01:21:31.320 you know,

01:21:31.660 you come out of university

01:21:32.840 as a young person

01:21:33.600 with a £90,000 debt.

01:21:35.240 I mean that's a mortgage.

01:21:36.760 It's crazy.

01:21:38.580 I mean yeah,

01:21:39.540 exactly.

01:21:39.840 And then you're going to get

01:21:40.400 a mortgage on top of that

01:21:41.540 and if you have any problem

01:21:43.340 repaying then your credit score

01:21:44.980 is going to be ruined

01:21:45.880 and it's just a nightmare.

01:21:47.960 So even if you haven't

01:21:48.880 sold your soul to users

01:21:50.000 you've sold your body

01:21:50.940 to users.

01:21:52.200 Whether you like it or not.

01:21:53.400 Exactly.

01:21:54.980 S. Robert says,

01:21:55.860 I got a free education

01:21:56.780 and a grant

01:21:57.220 with a place on high grades.

01:21:59.200 Was it uni when Blair

01:22:00.080 brought in loans instead

01:22:01.140 and people were not happy?

01:22:02.160 Well,

01:22:02.340 I wasn't happy.

01:22:03.720 I mean I probably

01:22:04.780 wouldn't have got a grant

01:22:05.460 to be honest

01:22:05.740 because I was lazy at school

01:22:06.620 but you know,

01:22:08.200 what are you going to do?

01:22:09.700 In hindsight,

01:22:10.620 the main reason for loans

01:22:11.460 and fees

01:22:11.780 was because they decided

01:22:12.460 to offer the same perks

01:22:13.420 to EU students

01:22:14.100 as British students.

01:22:15.280 So we lost our free university

01:22:16.400 because otherwise

01:22:17.020 we'd have been flooded

01:22:17.660 by euros looking for freebies

01:22:18.820 under the EU.

01:22:20.020 Even then the unis

01:22:21.280 were gaming it for money.

01:22:22.580 My course started

01:22:23.140 with 250 people,

01:22:24.560 had 30 in the second year

01:22:25.820 and by the third year

01:22:26.940 it had 15 left.

01:22:28.640 Government should have

01:22:29.300 stipulated minimum grades

01:22:30.480 for courses

01:22:30.940 when they let polytechnics

01:22:32.140 convert to avoid this.

01:22:33.400 Yes.

01:22:33.920 Yes.

01:22:34.540 Again,

01:22:35.220 remember the incentive

01:22:36.080 was just people

01:22:37.260 in universities.

01:22:38.220 They wanted 50% of people

01:22:39.400 to go to university.

01:22:41.100 And in a sense,

01:22:42.540 I mean I think

01:22:43.100 that whole kind of drive

01:22:46.020 to get 50% of school leavers

01:22:48.640 into university

01:22:49.340 was a way actually

01:22:50.160 maybe to massage

01:22:50.860 employment figures as well.

01:22:53.400 I do genuinely think that.

01:22:54.820 It's like,

01:22:55.200 okay,

01:22:55.820 that's at least three years

01:22:57.360 where you don't have to say

01:22:58.160 these people are unemployed.

01:22:59.600 Great point.

01:23:00.160 But it was also a bribe

01:23:01.060 for the youth vote

01:23:01.800 and it was also a bribe

01:23:02.900 for the establishment vote.

01:23:05.060 You captured the

01:23:06.320 academic institutions

01:23:08.560 meaning that they don't

01:23:10.400 dissent away

01:23:11.780 from your stupid plans

01:23:12.840 and you've captured

01:23:13.980 the next generation

01:23:14.840 and sort of channeled

01:23:16.760 their votes to you.

01:23:17.580 Three years of great fun

01:23:18.760 at university

01:23:19.340 three times fresh as a week.

01:23:21.800 Exactly.

01:23:22.960 And also as well,

01:23:24.080 essentially it's a kind

01:23:25.700 of capitulation

01:23:26.420 to the idea

01:23:26.940 that we are a post-industrial

01:23:28.040 economy as well.

01:23:29.160 Yes.

01:23:29.440 No, no, no.

01:23:30.120 Everything's gone.

01:23:30.720 It's not coming back.

01:23:31.320 You're going to be working

01:23:31.860 with paperwork and offices.

01:23:33.280 Exactly.

01:23:33.660 You're going to be,

01:23:33.960 you know.

01:23:34.480 And now with the Iran war

01:23:35.560 you're seeing that actually

01:23:36.720 you need a chemicals industry

01:23:38.360 at home.

01:23:38.820 Look at the consequence of it.

01:23:39.900 You need an automotive industry

01:23:41.580 at home.

01:23:42.300 You need an energy industry

01:23:43.180 at home.

01:23:44.160 Otherwise,

01:23:45.060 insane lunatics

01:23:45.780 at the middle of the least

01:23:46.280 will sort of destroy

01:23:46.980 your livelihood.

01:23:49.080 Blimey.

01:23:49.580 That's a random name says,

01:23:50.740 I think you guys should do

01:23:51.680 a segment on police

01:23:52.280 corruption and brutality.

01:23:53.720 CrimeBodge just put out

01:23:54.500 a video exposing

01:23:55.140 Suffolk police

01:23:55.800 trying to cover up

01:23:56.440 how a 15-year-old

01:23:57.280 almost died

01:23:58.020 because his head

01:23:58.920 was impaled on metal

01:23:59.880 railings because of them.

01:24:02.000 Very graphic.

01:24:02.660 I haven't seen that.

01:24:03.720 I've got to look into that.

01:24:04.440 That sounds horrible.

01:24:05.880 Speaking of the Iran war,

01:24:07.420 Michael says,

01:24:08.180 martyrdom.

01:24:08.860 Exactly.

01:24:09.840 Westerners have a hard time

01:24:10.840 comprehending this.

01:24:11.700 It's easy for a ground soldier

01:24:12.880 to understand this,

01:24:13.960 especially one that is studied

01:24:14.920 in the Middle East.

01:24:16.220 Feras has an advantage

01:24:17.040 in this analysis

01:24:17.740 as he is a native son

01:24:18.760 of Lebanon.

01:24:19.880 Yes.

01:24:20.600 And actually,

01:24:21.180 you know,

01:24:22.000 but I think I'm pretty good

01:24:24.820 on this sort of stuff too

01:24:25.780 because of my fascination

01:24:27.740 with the historical Middle East.

01:24:29.200 Yes.

01:24:29.400 You know,

01:24:30.000 I'm actually,

01:24:30.720 and my sheer hatred

01:24:32.300 of the shitlib,

01:24:33.580 the middle class

01:24:35.020 Bristolian shitlib.

01:24:36.020 I hate these people

01:24:37.380 for the fundamental dishonesty

01:24:39.080 of their worldview

01:24:39.720 and the ignorance

01:24:40.900 they show

01:24:41.460 in being completely

01:24:43.020 uncurious

01:24:43.680 about the true beliefs

01:24:44.900 of other peoples as well.

01:24:45.840 Yes.

01:24:46.300 And insulated

01:24:47.140 from the effects

01:24:48.040 of their voting preferences

01:24:49.600 and beliefs

01:24:50.720 until now,

01:24:51.940 maybe.

01:24:52.520 I mean,

01:24:53.060 they still largely are,

01:24:54.260 but...

01:24:54.760 But you are right.

01:24:55.320 The creep is coming,

01:24:56.180 but as you say,

01:24:57.140 the fact that they don't

01:24:58.080 have to pay a price

01:24:58.820 for their beliefs

01:24:59.460 as well is what really

01:25:00.840 annoys me.

01:25:01.220 I hate the entire thing

01:25:02.420 and I'll be glad

01:25:03.740 when it's gone.

01:25:05.340 Mermudon says,

01:25:06.720 Feras mentioned

01:25:07.260 that if Trump,

01:25:07.860 America continues

01:25:08.740 it will destroy

01:25:09.160 the global economy.

01:25:09.960 What if that is

01:25:10.640 what America wants to do?

01:25:12.220 Well,

01:25:12.400 why would America

01:25:12.900 want to destroy

01:25:13.640 the thing it sits

01:25:14.620 at the top of?

01:25:15.620 I mean,

01:25:15.880 Trump's obviously

01:25:16.620 reconfiguring

01:25:18.340 the global economy,

01:25:19.320 the tariffs.

01:25:20.280 I mean,

01:25:20.460 that was the kind

01:25:21.520 of big play

01:25:22.260 to reset

01:25:25.680 the balance of trade

01:25:26.660 and move manufacturing

01:25:28.420 back to the US

01:25:29.320 or closer to the US

01:25:30.600 and secure vital minerals

01:25:32.120 and all this kind of stuff.

01:25:33.260 But yeah,

01:25:33.560 I mean,

01:25:34.400 I don't think

01:25:35.420 that Trump

01:25:35.860 is an accelerationist

01:25:37.440 who thinks...

01:25:38.540 No,

01:25:38.780 not just that.

01:25:39.920 If you're China,

01:25:41.180 what you do

01:25:41.720 is that you invade

01:25:42.520 Central Asia.

01:25:43.520 The total population

01:25:44.520 of all of Central Asia

01:25:45.440 is maybe 50 million people.

01:25:46.960 Yeah.

01:25:47.920 And they have

01:25:49.300 all of the resources.

01:25:50.940 They have uranium,

01:25:51.600 they have coal,

01:25:52.500 they have gas,

01:25:53.140 they have oil,

01:25:54.300 plus the Chinese

01:25:55.680 have Russia

01:25:56.180 and Russia

01:25:56.740 is going to prioritise

01:25:57.560 China over everyone else.

01:25:58.760 And also,

01:25:59.100 America can't really

01:25:59.840 strike at you.

01:26:01.440 Exactly.

01:26:02.160 You could hit

01:26:02.560 the Three Gorges Dam,

01:26:03.560 of course.

01:26:04.160 Sure.

01:26:04.640 Which we're all hoping.

01:26:05.540 Which would be tragic,

01:26:06.240 yeah.

01:26:07.080 But the point is,

01:26:08.060 America,

01:26:08.540 you know,

01:26:08.900 you're just going

01:26:09.860 to get away with it.

01:26:11.580 But Michael also says,

01:26:13.340 enjoy Firas's

01:26:14.160 clear-headed analysis.

01:26:15.240 Iran has been overdue

01:26:16.000 for a pasting

01:26:16.660 for almost 50 years,

01:26:17.740 but a ground war

01:26:18.280 in mountainous territory

01:26:19.120 is, well,

01:26:19.700 messy,

01:26:20.500 especially against

01:26:21.360 the people

01:26:21.640 who have lived

01:26:21.940 and trained there.

01:26:22.620 Yeah,

01:26:22.740 I mean,

01:26:23.000 I just don't think

01:26:23.820 Trump has the political

01:26:24.500 capital for it at all.

01:26:26.220 How's he going to,

01:26:26.900 and again,

01:26:28.480 there was no effort

01:26:30.120 to make a coalition,

01:26:31.660 to prepare the allies

01:26:32.840 for this.

01:26:33.960 It shows that this was,

01:26:35.400 they clearly thought

01:26:36.080 we can go and strike,

01:26:37.000 kill the leader,

01:26:37.960 and then things

01:26:38.740 will just clear up

01:26:39.360 on their own.

01:26:39.880 It's like,

01:26:40.120 no,

01:26:40.240 you just don't understand.

01:26:41.140 It was the South Park

01:26:41.760 underwear plan.

01:26:43.160 Just,

01:26:43.760 I mean,

01:26:43.960 it's literally

01:26:44.240 the Iraq war

01:26:44.780 all over again.

01:26:45.740 Yes.

01:26:45.960 They don't understand

01:26:46.560 these people.

01:26:47.040 Sorry,

01:26:47.120 I mean,

01:26:47.480 there's an America

01:26:48.020 first case,

01:26:48.740 I think,

01:26:49.220 for preventing Iran

01:26:50.220 from having nuclear

01:26:50.940 weapons.

01:26:51.680 Like,

01:26:51.840 I don't think

01:26:53.340 it's a good idea

01:26:53.900 for Iran

01:26:54.320 to have nuclear

01:26:54.860 weapons,

01:26:55.340 because then they

01:26:56.260 can hold the

01:26:56.720 Strait of Hormuz

01:26:57.260 hostage in a

01:26:58.720 different way,

01:26:59.320 and,

01:26:59.720 you know,

01:26:59.920 the region and

01:27:00.500 whatever.

01:27:01.140 Like,

01:27:01.560 you could make

01:27:02.980 that case,

01:27:03.580 and Trump

01:27:03.860 could have made

01:27:04.440 that case,

01:27:05.060 but the way

01:27:05.920 the war has

01:27:06.500 unfolded,

01:27:07.100 I mean,

01:27:07.280 it's obviously

01:27:07.720 not about that.

01:27:08.740 Yes.

01:27:08.940 And this is

01:27:11.540 the difference

01:27:11.960 with them

01:27:13.040 and black-bagging

01:27:13.720 Maduro.

01:27:14.520 Black-bagging

01:27:15.020 Maduro is

01:27:15.520 directly in

01:27:16.360 America's

01:27:17.020 interests.

01:27:17.900 You can see

01:27:18.420 that there's just,

01:27:19.700 I mean,

01:27:20.160 obviously,

01:27:20.500 oil started

01:27:20.880 going to

01:27:21.160 Israel as

01:27:21.560 well,

01:27:21.960 blah,

01:27:22.500 but you can

01:27:23.520 see how

01:27:23.880 America's

01:27:24.300 like,

01:27:24.480 no,

01:27:24.640 we want

01:27:24.940 essentially

01:27:25.400 capitalist

01:27:25.900 domination

01:27:26.360 of our

01:27:26.760 hemisphere.

01:27:27.400 Yeah,

01:27:27.560 the reassertion

01:27:28.320 of the Monroe

01:27:28.700 Doctrine is

01:27:29.280 the Donro

01:27:30.080 Doctrine,

01:27:30.620 I mean.

01:27:31.320 And it was

01:27:32.100 done very

01:27:32.420 cleanly and

01:27:32.960 very quickly,

01:27:33.440 and it was

01:27:33.680 effective,

01:27:34.220 because they

01:27:35.300 probably knew

01:27:35.760 a lot more

01:27:36.300 about Venezuela

01:27:37.020 than they did

01:27:37.540 about Iran.

01:27:38.260 Because they

01:27:38.620 negotiated with

01:27:39.380 the actual

01:27:39.720 leadership

01:27:40.080 underneath

01:27:40.520 Maduro.

01:27:41.120 Yeah.

01:27:41.620 Like,

01:27:41.960 what's her

01:27:42.360 name?

01:27:43.240 Those readers

01:27:43.920 was in

01:27:45.140 Qatar and

01:27:46.500 the UAE

01:27:47.020 meeting with

01:27:47.520 the Americans

01:27:47.920 and negotiating

01:27:48.480 with them,

01:27:49.040 and that,

01:27:49.620 it seems,

01:27:50.120 where a deal

01:27:50.500 was hatched.

01:27:51.040 Okay,

01:27:51.780 we're going

01:27:52.040 to get rid

01:27:52.340 of Maduro,

01:27:52.880 and then

01:27:53.260 you're going

01:27:53.500 to do

01:27:53.680 what we

01:27:54.260 tell you

01:27:54.580 to,

01:27:54.780 which is

01:27:55.020 exactly

01:27:55.320 what happened.

01:27:56.180 But there's

01:27:56.640 also a

01:27:57.340 kind of

01:27:57.740 fundamental

01:27:58.400 sort of

01:27:58.720 metaphysical

01:27:59.140 agreement

01:27:59.540 between

01:27:59.880 capitalism

01:28:00.260 and

01:28:00.500 socialism,

01:28:01.020 right?

01:28:01.220 Yes.

01:28:01.640 As in,

01:28:02.160 no,

01:28:02.320 we are

01:28:02.500 materialist

01:28:07.540 not thinking

01:28:08.220 like this.

01:28:09.000 The Iranian

01:28:09.560 regime doesn't

01:28:10.180 care about

01:28:10.620 that.

01:28:11.040 It cares

01:28:11.420 about

01:28:11.660 paradise

01:28:12.320 and religious

01:28:13.020 orthodoxy

01:28:13.680 and something

01:28:14.100 you have

01:28:14.420 no concept

01:28:15.020 of.

01:28:16.000 So,

01:28:16.400 yeah,

01:28:16.680 something

01:28:17.760 totally

01:28:18.080 different.

01:28:19.140 George says,

01:28:19.900 maybe a part

01:28:20.360 of this plan

01:28:20.760 the US has

01:28:21.240 secured already

01:28:22.040 the Venezuelan

01:28:22.800 oil,

01:28:23.220 and now

01:28:23.440 they're trying

01:28:23.780 to screw

01:28:24.040 everyone else

01:28:24.460 with chaos

01:28:25.040 in the Middle

01:28:25.300 East.

01:28:25.800 I just

01:28:26.180 don't think

01:28:26.580 it's 4D

01:28:27.280 chess.

01:28:27.900 I think

01:28:28.320 they've just

01:28:28.700 made a mistake

01:28:29.220 here.

01:28:30.680 And they

01:28:31.460 had a series

01:28:32.480 of assumptions

01:28:33.100 that were

01:28:33.860 borne out

01:28:34.180 not to be

01:28:34.520 true.

01:28:36.560 Zesty

01:28:36.960 King,

01:28:37.300 the way

01:28:37.660 you describe

01:28:38.060 Banks as

01:28:38.480 a man

01:28:38.720 without

01:28:38.880 morality

01:28:39.280 or

01:28:39.480 philosophy

01:28:39.800 perfectly

01:28:40.500 describes

01:28:40.960 the men

01:28:41.300 of

01:28:41.420 new

01:28:41.580 labour.

01:28:42.320 Those

01:28:42.720 who

01:28:42.960 see

01:28:43.120 themselves

01:28:43.500 as

01:28:43.800 without

01:28:44.000 ancestral

01:28:44.460 baggage,

01:28:45.020 standards,

01:28:45.360 or responsibilities

01:28:45.880 to anyone

01:28:46.300 but themselves

01:28:46.820 as a form

01:28:47.520 of selfish

01:28:47.960 idiocy.

01:28:48.620 Well,

01:28:48.820 these are

01:28:49.080 the self-made

01:28:49.920 men of

01:28:50.560 year zero

01:28:51.140 in the

01:28:51.560 liberal

01:28:51.760 revolution,

01:28:52.700 as you

01:28:53.220 talk about

01:28:53.720 in your

01:28:53.860 book.

01:28:54.220 Well,

01:28:54.720 it's kind

01:28:54.960 of like

01:28:55.720 the new

01:28:56.120 atheism

01:28:56.680 as well,

01:28:57.120 isn't it?

01:28:57.500 It's like

01:28:57.980 you have

01:29:00.080 a morality

01:29:01.180 that is

01:29:01.820 obviously

01:29:02.340 derived from

01:29:03.480 Christianity,

01:29:04.720 but you

01:29:04.940 deny that

01:29:05.500 it's

01:29:05.820 derived from

01:29:06.420 Christianity

01:29:06.800 and you

01:29:07.220 say it's

01:29:07.600 just

01:29:07.900 the right

01:29:10.560 thing to

01:29:10.940 do.

01:29:11.440 We're good

01:29:12.060 people,

01:29:12.400 we know

01:29:12.780 it's just

01:29:13.160 the right

01:29:13.500 thing to

01:29:13.820 do.

01:29:14.080 Dawkins

01:29:14.560 and Stephen

01:29:15.240 Fry and

01:29:15.720 people like

01:29:16.140 that,

01:29:16.420 it's exactly

01:29:16.900 the same.

01:29:17.920 We sprang

01:29:18.600 fully formed

01:29:19.460 out of

01:29:19.840 nothing and

01:29:20.740 just happened

01:29:21.180 to land on

01:29:21.680 exactly the

01:29:22.200 correct morality

01:29:22.860 with no

01:29:23.740 prior work

01:29:24.540 being done.

01:29:25.460 How useful

01:29:26.040 is that?

01:29:27.240 Weirdly,

01:29:27.760 we've been

01:29:28.560 having talks

01:29:29.000 and there

01:29:29.380 are weird

01:29:29.700 Homer Simpson,

01:29:31.020 like Simpson's

01:29:31.740 clips,

01:29:32.180 you know the

01:29:32.500 one where he

01:29:32.800 gets dragged

01:29:33.180 up the

01:29:33.400 mountain by

01:29:33.780 the Sherpa

01:29:34.220 and he

01:29:35.080 wakes up

01:29:35.500 because look

01:29:35.680 how far

01:29:35.960 I've

01:29:36.120 climbed.

01:29:36.700 That's

01:29:36.960 literally

01:29:37.340 the new

01:29:37.660 atheists.

01:29:39.300 So anyway,

01:29:40.520 Zester King,

01:29:41.760 you're exactly

01:29:42.160 right,

01:29:42.460 that's exactly

01:29:43.020 how they

01:29:43.400 see themselves

01:29:43.940 and I

01:29:44.860 can't stand

01:29:46.240 the deception

01:29:47.140 that underpins

01:29:47.960 it all.

01:29:48.480 It's so

01:29:49.000 midwit as

01:29:49.720 well,

01:29:49.980 it's such

01:29:50.540 a midwit

01:29:51.100 thing where

01:29:51.940 it's like,

01:29:52.240 oh yeah,

01:29:52.620 I've figured

01:29:53.500 it out.

01:29:53.860 Oh,

01:29:54.040 you have,

01:29:54.540 have you?

01:29:55.200 Oh,

01:29:55.380 that's great,

01:29:56.040 I'm glad

01:29:56.320 you've figured

01:29:56.880 it out,

01:29:57.260 Banksy,

01:29:57.580 you fucking

01:29:58.060 twat.

01:29:58.640 Yep.

01:30:00.400 Kalein

01:30:00.800 says,

01:30:01.220 the Iranians

01:30:01.660 might have

01:30:01.940 said they

01:30:02.460 conceded

01:30:03.060 the nuclear

01:30:03.400 aspect but

01:30:04.120 they were

01:30:04.320 immediately in

01:30:04.860 flagrant

01:30:05.160 violation of

01:30:05.780 it.

01:30:06.000 Well,

01:30:06.320 this is a

01:30:06.840 point that

01:30:07.120 you make,

01:30:07.640 they're bad

01:30:08.260 people and

01:30:08.640 you can't

01:30:08.900 trust them,

01:30:09.480 right?

01:30:10.080 Like,

01:30:10.720 I agree the

01:30:11.680 Iranians probably

01:30:12.160 have killed

01:30:12.560 tens of

01:30:12.860 thousands of

01:30:13.240 protesters.

01:30:13.880 I don't think

01:30:14.200 that's overstated,

01:30:15.260 I don't think

01:30:15.560 it's overblood.

01:30:16.520 I think they've

01:30:17.080 killed thousands

01:30:17.600 this round.

01:30:18.820 I mean,

01:30:19.200 overall.

01:30:20.240 Oh,

01:30:20.500 overall,

01:30:20.940 yeah,

01:30:21.100 tens of

01:30:21.500 thousands of

01:30:21.880 people.

01:30:22.580 No doubt,

01:30:23.800 they're not

01:30:24.280 liberals,

01:30:25.160 you know,

01:30:25.320 they don't

01:30:25.600 care,

01:30:26.200 they're not

01:30:26.440 allowed to

01:30:26.720 protest.

01:30:28.040 You know,

01:30:28.380 I don't doubt

01:30:29.020 that at all.

01:30:30.980 Michael says,

01:30:31.620 this is why

01:30:31.980 Vietnam ended

01:30:32.760 up as it did,

01:30:33.860 why Afghanistan

01:30:34.320 ended up as it

01:30:35.200 did.

01:30:35.440 Most Westerners

01:30:36.000 are ill-equipped

01:30:36.600 to understand

01:30:37.060 the difference

01:30:37.440 in thought.

01:30:38.220 The East

01:30:38.580 will fight

01:30:38.940 to annihilation.

01:30:39.760 Yeah,

01:30:39.920 and in

01:30:40.480 previous eras,

01:30:41.900 like,

01:30:42.160 if America

01:30:43.420 was in the

01:30:44.200 time of Rome

01:30:45.180 and just

01:30:45.560 happened to

01:30:45.840 be exactly

01:30:46.300 as it is

01:30:46.620 now,

01:30:47.420 they would

01:30:47.920 just wipe

01:30:48.280 them out.

01:30:49.460 It would be

01:30:50.080 just like

01:30:50.300 Caesar and

01:30:50.840 Gaul.

01:30:51.500 They'd be

01:30:51.700 wiped out.

01:30:52.440 They'd kill

01:30:53.180 a third of

01:30:53.560 the population.

01:30:54.000 Exactly.

01:30:54.680 Slave the

01:30:55.040 third.

01:30:55.640 Yeah,

01:30:55.800 exactly,

01:30:56.100 and then

01:30:56.440 rule over

01:30:56.880 the Remainers.

01:30:58.340 But America

01:30:59.120 doesn't have

01:30:59.960 the moral

01:31:00.680 compass or

01:31:02.100 moral thought

01:31:03.160 in its mind

01:31:03.900 to do

01:31:04.200 something like

01:31:04.580 that,

01:31:05.080 and so it

01:31:05.840 can't really

01:31:06.500 win these

01:31:07.040 wars.

01:31:08.380 And so I'm

01:31:08.680 not advocating

01:31:09.180 that it should

01:31:09.600 do that,

01:31:09.960 by the way,

01:31:10.320 just FYI,

01:31:11.580 it's just this

01:31:12.240 is the position

01:31:13.060 it finds

01:31:13.440 itself in.

01:31:14.560 And I guess

01:31:15.260 we'll end on

01:31:15.940 this one.

01:31:16.780 That's where

01:31:17.140 Anna Mayne says,

01:31:17.980 with allies

01:31:18.460 like Israel,

01:31:19.140 we don't need

01:31:19.680 enemies.

01:31:20.940 Well,

01:31:21.520 what I'm saying

01:31:23.280 is Israel

01:31:23.760 doesn't seem

01:31:24.180 to be helping

01:31:24.680 America very

01:31:25.300 much,

01:31:25.540 does it?

01:31:26.820 Anyway,

01:31:27.400 on that note,

01:31:28.420 Charles,

01:31:28.760 where can people

01:31:29.160 find more from you?

01:31:30.080 You can find me

01:31:30.740 on Twitter

01:31:31.140 at BabyGravy9.

01:31:32.680 I hate that.

01:31:33.380 Yeah,

01:31:33.840 me too.

01:31:35.640 But it's here

01:31:36.520 to stay.

01:31:38.240 Raw Egg Stack

01:31:39.100 is my sub stack.

01:31:40.440 I've got a new

01:31:41.060 book out,

01:31:41.500 The Last Men,

01:31:42.160 Liberalism,

01:31:42.760 and the Death

01:31:43.200 of Masculinity,

01:31:43.940 which you can buy

01:31:44.460 from Amazon,

01:31:45.440 hardcover,

01:31:46.880 Kindle,

01:31:47.340 and audiobook formats.

01:31:48.480 Great.

01:31:48.620 Well,

01:31:48.840 thanks so much

01:31:49.300 for joining us

01:31:49.680 and we'll see

01:31:50.400 you tomorrow,

01:31:50.880 folks.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 19, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1378

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