The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1402

00:00:00.000 afternoon you all right i hope so you're watching the podcast of the lotus eaters number 1 402

00:00:08.960 quite a remarkable number really i was saying that the other day i was on uh 1400 and i was

00:00:15.520 saying it's crazy that we've done that many yeah my first podcast i think was four or five right

00:00:21.080 yeah goes quickly goes quickly it's wednesday the 22nd of april in the year of our lord 2026

00:00:26.540 i'm joined by big josh firm and mr h off mr h reviews big in in height by the way not width

00:00:33.500 just to clear that one up debatable big josh the firminator that was actually my nickname

00:00:42.620 in school from a lot of people or el firmerino if you're not into the whole brevity thing

00:00:49.020 the reference there mr h of course also of uh the state of politics fame politics

00:00:54.620 state of politics

00:00:56.520 if you don't say it

00:00:58.440 it's bad luck

00:00:59.040 addictive

00:01:00.600 it's addictive

00:01:01.380 you say it three times fast

00:01:02.820 also

00:01:03.660 just to let you know

00:01:04.400 there's loads of other things

00:01:05.400 that the website does

00:01:07.300 least of all

00:01:07.980 the breakfast show

00:01:09.220 they've got

00:01:09.640 Breakfast with Bo

00:01:11.240 Bo's Breakfast Club

00:01:12.980 check it out

00:01:14.940 8am

00:01:15.440 British Summer Time

00:01:16.940 every weekday morning

00:01:18.000 it's the

00:01:19.000 it's the best morning show

00:01:19.980 what are you going to do

00:01:20.740 watch Mike Graham

00:01:21.460 Jeremy Kyle please

00:01:22.540 as if

00:01:23.920 as if that would be mad all right let's get straight into it so the first uh uh first

00:01:28.880 segment over to you then isn't it josh it is indeed so back in november of 2024 all that time

00:01:36.400 ago i declared a total war on slop also with lord miles and carl on the panel and i was talking all

00:01:44.660 about um basically this it's made the dictionary now um and it's actually the main definition that

00:01:51.580 comes up is number one a digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by

00:01:57.040 means of artificial intelligence but not always more broadly as I use it a product of little or

00:02:03.500 no value which is how I think most people in the political sphere use it although it has been

00:02:10.880 picked up in the mainstream but we'll get to that later but what I did want to say is in this

00:02:15.520 original video i discovered not only that bullying works but you can bully um slop um posters online

00:02:23.100 into being better so i i spent most of this segment talking about inevitable west and how

00:02:28.800 rubbish and how fake some of his posts used to be and then after i put this out he sent me a message

00:02:35.600 saying listen i've cleaned up my my profile basically is it better and then i had a look

00:02:42.100 and it was so i feel like i successfully bullied him because he was posting like fake stories

00:02:48.020 and now he doesn't seem to do that so um it turns out that not only does calling out slot posters

00:02:55.060 work but bullying as well um you did a public service there i did and i'm gonna do some more

00:03:00.640 today um did we ever find out whether he was an indian or not i don't think he is actually some

00:03:06.540 people knew who he was because he had a previous account that he converted into this one and it was

00:03:11.360 an account that's known to people but there are many Indian accounts so what I wanted to bring

00:03:19.300 up was what I call the slop siren hell and you see this quite often online on X and you might 0.98

00:03:25.640 be thinking well who really cares about X who really cares about social media you know it's

00:03:31.320 not the real world or anything but actually X is probably the main place where political

00:03:37.360 podcasters and politicians and journalists interface with one another and it's where a

00:03:43.220 lot of ideas are created. We've covered things like the Motability thing that started off

00:03:49.040 on X by Max Tempers and a few other things that have started on there and have bled into

00:03:55.860 mainstream politics and actually turned into a real world policy. So it's not just meaningless,

00:04:00.400 I think that the platform can be used for actual change but the problem is...

00:04:05.420 even international diplomacy yeah some level can go on there does go on there so if that's not real

00:04:12.060 life i don't know what is the means by which you communicate so to to say that that's not real life

00:04:17.500 is i mean it's just nonsense and of course the online world more generally and the health of

00:04:21.260 that ecosystem is very important because it's an important part of life now and what i pulled up

00:04:26.620 here is something that is a personal pet hate of mine and that is this slop siren and the problem

00:04:32.780 with this is just that it sensationalizes everything not because there's actually a

00:04:37.660 real political goal in mind otherwise you would pick and choose the importance right

00:04:42.700 maybe it'd be warranted if there's like a missile strike on a western country or something that's

00:04:48.460 really important like wow this this is going to change politics forever but most of this is just

00:04:54.380 run-of-the-mill nonsense i've only used the siren two maybe three times ever and that was in a parody

00:05:00.860 using it ironically right ironically yeah i'll allow it all right i won't believe you

00:05:06.400 but this sort of thing i find is very tiresome it's sort of a way of signaling it's like the

00:05:13.060 mark of the devil you know they're evil you know they're up to no good if they're using this siren

00:05:16.760 because they're out for themselves they're out to get maximize engagement they don't actually care

00:05:21.340 about politics and this is a problem largely because people putting themselves first and not

00:05:28.520 you know having a duty to the people in their country to do better and do right by them it's

00:05:34.100 part of the reason that politics is so bad in the first place and so tolerating this sort of thing

00:05:38.980 is actually much more of a problem than it might initially seem I think you think that's fair

00:05:46.160 okay so there's also the fact that you just have people posting identical posts which adds nothing

00:05:56.140 people just copy each other i call them slop networks where people just follow each other

00:06:01.500 and copy and post the same thing and what it does is it saturates people's social media feeds

00:06:07.580 and pushes out well thought out things that take time um for the exact same thing and this is

00:06:13.580 obviously not ideal and we'll be talking about that's interesting where they have they have

00:06:19.340 gone to the trouble of changing the first word from like just in to boom or change it to breaking

00:06:25.820 but other than that it's a cut and paste job it's sort of like copying someone's homework isn't it

00:06:29.800 you change it a little bit so the teacher can't exactly tell but it's similar enough that you

00:06:33.940 sort of can i do think cutting and pasting someone else's tweet is really quite low

00:06:38.800 i've never ever done that i as i recall never consciously ever ever done that it's one thing

00:06:45.400 to see someone else's tweet and just completely agree with their take and you write out that take

00:06:50.200 in your own words that's more common and there's in a way nothing wrong with that i think

00:06:55.300 or of course quote tweeting them that's fine but just to take their tweet highlight it copy it put 0.96

00:07:02.880 that in as your tweet and paste then that i feel like that's actually like a scumbag move yeah

00:07:07.500 actually i i called out basil the great recently because i posted this and it did quite well and

00:07:13.160 he copied my image copy and pasted it it was the exact same dimensions copied the exact same

00:07:19.880 statistics and then just rewrote the final line and then i i called him out just like listen you

00:07:26.120 posted this less than an hour after i did what the hell's the deal i recently went in a twitter

00:07:31.380 space with him had a good conversation now he's ripping off my tweets and then he had a go at me

00:07:36.360 saying well why couldn't you settle this in in dms why did you have to make it public it's like well

00:07:40.560 because you're plagiarizing me who do you think you are i think things don't have to be done in

00:07:45.540 private at the end of the day no i think if you're if you're stealing stuff from people he's just

00:07:49.520 like well it didn't take you very long to write and it's like that's not the point is it it's like

00:07:52.620 a professional courtesy it's just like well you know if i went into your wallet though and i told

00:07:58.120 stole 25p like it wouldn't be the fact that it's not very much money to you it's the principle of

00:08:04.160 yeah exactly disrespect yeah yeah um but it's a very lucrative business um and that's not meant

00:08:11.220 to be a pun on this guy's name um but he makes a killing he makes over 50 000 a month just

00:08:18.380 reposting other people's stuff he doesn't actually create anything all he's doing is adding the slop

00:08:23.940 siren to videos he's found on other people's channels and online he's just scouring the

00:08:28.580 internet and reposting it which isn't really adding very much but people are able to harvest

00:08:34.620 a living basically just saturating the market with nonsense and sensationalized slop which adds 0.96

00:08:40.640 nothing in my opinion and it's really frustrating i worked hard for this shut up dom shut up oh it 0.93

00:08:48.160 gets worth it mate you were oh i worked hard for this oh it's really difficult to type out this 0.78

00:08:53.400 shut up yeah right click copy yeah it's real really hard yeah oh oh sorry i had to go into

00:08:59.440 the emojis and find the slop siren shut up over that um honestly there's also uh instances of 0.73

00:09:06.880 people obviously using ai to write their posts as well and uh this one's very obvious you've got the

00:09:13.140 EM dashes, you've got some short sentences here

00:09:17.460 that is obviously written by ChatGPT.

00:09:20.980 Oh, that land year bloke, he's all right, isn't he?

00:09:23.420 He's a good lad, good kiddie.

00:09:24.940 Good work, keep it up.

00:09:27.020 But yeah, this is very frustrating

00:09:29.120 because normally it's low quality.

00:09:31.400 There's nothing really being added

00:09:32.540 because it's written by a machine to sound like meaningful.

00:09:37.740 But also, is that person even real?

00:09:40.220 That's the other thing.

00:09:40.700 It's entirely possible that they could be not real.

00:09:42.840 they could be a bot yeah you delegitimize everything you're actually doing by doing this 0.93

00:09:46.900 yeah and at the end of the day people will just look at it and go probably a bot or some indian

00:09:51.800 bot farm or something like that and and people are somewhat tolerant to this being on their own side

00:09:56.660 sometimes because they're saying well at least it's a voice on our side but i'm saying that

00:10:00.520 it does delegitimize real people right people who put their head above the parapet and actually

00:10:06.100 speak with their own voice with their own face and put their own reputation on the line then you

00:10:11.480 have things like this that are just not very useful i've never ever used any sort of ai to

00:10:18.500 generate a piece of text at all let alone actually then post it anything i use it for is is proof

00:10:25.040 reading for spell you know spelling errors and things like that but the actual writing style is

00:10:29.500 awful so why rely on that google documents or whatever or word has already got that anyway but

00:10:34.720 i just feel like it's like cheating on a test i agree yeah um ultimately there's no point in that

00:10:41.100 because let's say it's like chemistry you want to be good at chemistry or physics or something

00:10:45.260 okay you could cheat at the exam then after that you're still left devoid of knowing chemistry

00:10:50.020 properly so what was the point of that then yeah it's better to learn how to post properly sorry

00:10:54.260 yeah to write something so similar similar to what you're saying is also the fact that

00:10:58.040 you know say if you were to gain notoriety in whatever space it is that you're posting this

00:11:03.240 kind of junk i mean imagine the the hollow victory that comes from that oh people really

00:11:10.000 like my takes they're not your takes they're not your wording exactly it's all ai slopathon i mean 0.94

00:11:16.860 it's just how sad how bitterly sad you must be i agree it reminds me actually of the chinese 0.76

00:11:25.060 getting people to write their essays for them at university it used to infuriate me they could 1.00

00:11:29.980 barely speak english and they were getting like first it's like i had to work so hard for that

00:11:34.180 and then you're getting the same by cheating basically and there's nothing i could have done

00:11:38.980 about it um and there are also things like this that are obviously a bit more innocent but um as

00:11:44.320 you can see by the squirrel's tail this is not real um i wish it was but alas um as uh the

00:11:52.340 community note says this is ai slop um interesting that they use the word slop there but this is a

00:11:59.000 more innocent version of you know a wider thing there's there's also drama alert posting ai slop

00:12:05.820 i know yeah i'll do it really i was just gonna say i play a little bit of devil's advocate

00:12:12.140 tiny bit in in defense of ai slop um as long as it's up front yeah yeah i'm just being honest

00:12:19.020 um the other a week ago or so i was scrolling through youtube shorts and there was a whole

00:12:24.700 bunch of just ai slop stuff like obviously obvious of like not in trying to not be ai

00:12:30.140 and a little few of them i found mildly amusing i'm not going to lie to myself

00:12:34.940 i did find it mildly amusing there was one where the ai it was skateboarders and they swapped out

00:12:39.580 the skateboard for like a dashing i've seen that yeah like i was like huh yeah that's mildly funny

00:12:45.500 i mean there's there's a i mean what would you have it's a profile on on twitter that's just

00:12:50.300 called ai slop that just posts ai slot and you sort of get what it says on the tin and you can

00:12:55.660 enjoy it a bit more then there's a difference isn't that masquerading as something that you're not

00:12:59.420 yeah exactly accepting those sort of the levity within certain little videos okay some weird

00:13:07.020 sort of trends here of people making videos of characters getting like children's characters

00:13:12.780 getting cuckolded i've noticed so there's disney ones there's uh spongebob one super weird one

00:13:19.580 um there's utensils and as this person points out here um 95 of a high slop i don't think it's

00:13:26.540 conservatives making cartoons of inanimate object cuck fantasies but this is something that keeps

00:13:31.900 on coming i don't think it's conservative i was gonna say how has that conservatism got anything

00:13:36.460 to do with this in one way or another i think uh certain parts of the world are making this because

00:13:42.060 it's very emotive i've looked at some of the people making these things and it's africa and india 0.58

00:13:48.540 basically right um it's very weird um but i did want to point out that if you've got a brain it's

00:13:55.500 It's like this, right, you're falling for something that's entirely obvious, as Visigrad

00:14:00.340 points out here, you shouldn't be able to fall for it, but there will be a point in

00:14:05.480 time whereby it will be indistinguishable from reality, and so getting the good policies

00:14:11.840 in place to deal with these sorts of things is very important, but thankfully this is

00:14:16.100 actually something that the mainstream is taking quite seriously, and I, for once in

00:14:20.180 my political career agree with the mainstream here and i was very pleased to see the bbc of

00:14:26.420 all things calling out ai slop um and and how it's transforming social media and and it was talking

00:14:31.860 about backlash you okay what what you're not gonna get those words coming out my mouth

00:14:38.900 very often i just i'm gonna see where you go with this um but they were calling out ai slop and and

00:14:44.420 And just low-quality things like this, right, of people pretending to be people to get...

00:14:50.300 Like, that almost got a million likes on Facebook.

00:14:52.620 How?

00:14:53.100 How that did.

00:14:54.500 What?

00:14:55.700 I know.

00:14:56.980 It's so obviously fake.

00:14:59.240 I mean, one, it's raining and there's candles and they're still lit.

00:15:01.640 It doesn't make any sense.

00:15:02.300 So, I mean, come on now.

00:15:03.060 But, you know, weird things like this, just poor quality rubbish that clogs up the feed.

00:15:08.220 And I agree with the sort of mainstream line on this, that nobody really wants this and it's just for money.

00:15:13.600 and there are people pushing back on it um here's um forbes talking about it as well ai companies

00:15:19.720 race to clean up ai slop because models performance depends on it and that of course is part of the

00:15:24.780 reason why they're concerned about it because it's limiting the expansion of ai um and so if ai

00:15:30.840 gets ai feeding into its training material well it's going to you know make it just puts out

00:15:36.420 degrades its own output basically exactly yeah and um yeah one thing i read here which i was

00:15:44.960 very pleased about is uh this line here cleaning up ai slop is one of youtube's biggest initiatives

00:15:50.740 in 2026 which is actually a good thing that youtube is doing although they've recently

00:15:57.320 started to uh demonetize uh just actual creators because they believe that the ai yeah the

00:16:04.440 algorithm is sort of savage there's a bitter irony here that their ai algorithm is now sort of

00:16:11.640 overzealous in setting up genuine creators that are putting a lot of time into their videos which

00:16:17.320 is very frustrating but hopefully um this is going to get cleaned up so there's one other thing again

00:16:24.120 they're slop and they're slop i saw one ai generate one out of dozens or maybe even hundreds

00:16:29.480 where it was i don't know if you ever saw i think it got loads and loads and loads of clicks

00:16:33.000 it was it was um like jeffrey epstein walking around all different and and bumping like one

00:16:39.720 long shot like it's goodfellas shaking hands with all different people all different dodgy people

00:16:44.280 throughout the last couple of decades and it was completely ai generated but it made a good point

00:16:49.560 it made quite a powerful point actually and you could easily just cast that as that's just ai slot

00:16:55.560 but it there was more there was more to it than that and i say it's only one video out of

00:17:00.200 must be dozens that have come across my feed but it can be it can be valuable surely yeah well it

00:17:08.200 depends how it's applied if it's applied honestly and it's not masquerading as you said um then

00:17:14.120 that's fine and and to be honest when i when ai is particularly bad and it does a bad job of making

00:17:19.960 something i find it very funny i don't know why there's just the absurdity of it um but they're

00:17:25.320 also um here um forbes saying ai slot produces second order mental health harm due to the

00:17:31.840 therapeutic slop feedback loop what on earth is that which is a headline i never expected to read

00:17:37.280 the therapeutic slop feedback loop but is that where you're just mindlessly scrolling through

00:17:44.160 ai slot using ai for mental health guidance but the problem is that ai isn't programmed to deal

00:17:50.920 with this sort of thing yeah and so it hallucinates fake information or situations and it basically

00:17:57.880 gives bad advice is the short of it but there are many many different areas where this is actually

00:18:04.140 a genuine point of concern and I think it's nice to see that there are lots of people opposed to it

00:18:10.700 for a change normally I'm used to pushing back on the mainstream for pushing all the evil in the

00:18:16.060 world but it seems like because they want ai to get better that there's aligned incentives for

00:18:21.900 the time being the thing about llms is it seems to me that most of the time it's trying to agree

00:18:28.000 with you it's trying to please you it is so it reflects back what you've sort of you're beginning

00:18:33.480 to suggest to it's too agreeable i think yeah yeah in many ways to the point where sometimes

00:18:38.140 it'll actually lie to you right absolutely yeah and it and as matt goodwin i'm sure is acquainted

00:18:43.780 with it or hallucinate things that you want it to create but there is some integration of people

00:18:50.760 not wanting AI into various software such as Firefox which added a kill switch to its AI

00:18:57.760 features if you just don't want any AI features at all which I think is the direction things are

00:19:02.680 going to have to go that it's just a setting that you can check and if you don't want it then that's

00:19:06.840 fine and I think that that's very difficult to argue with really. I do find it pretty pathetic 0.80

00:19:12.900 on twitter you see it all the time don't you when someone says at grok is this true i know yeah 0.93

00:19:17.600 especially in an argument you're like mate you're running to ai to no come on just look it up

00:19:22.020 yourself yeah have have the good sense to know how to verify something and um there is something

00:19:27.920 actually that is quite an effective ai detector just for text so if you did want to check i found

00:19:34.040 out about um this service while i was i'm not sponsored or anything i just thought it was a good

00:19:38.620 thing but it boasts a 99.98 accuracy in detecting ai text and as compared to other services it's

00:19:50.320 clearly the best this is false positives and you can look at that's booking there shouldn't we

00:19:54.920 we should yeah i'm sure it will probably come back yes but it it seems to be quite a good one

00:20:02.640 so if you did want to call out people for using ai using a relatively reliable service i very much

00:20:08.600 support that i think that people should be socially shamed for using ai and that's how

00:20:13.500 you disincentivize it there should be a stigma attached like you're not able to think for

00:20:17.300 yourself you have to use ai to write your ideas for you well why should anyone listen to you then

00:20:22.200 if you can't even write properly there's no point um but i also wanted to talk about um x because

00:20:30.900 there's been probably the most promising um pushback against slop in a more general sense

00:20:36.940 It's not just AI that I've been able to see.

00:20:39.520 Obviously, they've already introduced regional content filtering. 1.00

00:20:43.320 So say you don't want to see Indian content farmers. 1.00

00:20:46.820 I've tried to find that.

00:20:47.520 Where did you get that?

00:20:48.260 It's in the replies, I think.

00:20:50.540 So you can't get people replying to you.

00:20:53.040 But I think they're going to expand it further just so you don't have to see posts from specific parts of the world. 1.00

00:20:58.180 If we could just erase India from the internet, I'd be very happy. 1.00

00:21:04.000 It's the worst thing that's happened to the internet. 1.00

00:21:05.800 I'm happy to stand on that hill.

00:21:06.680 i'll die on that hill i don't think there's going to be much disagreement then to be honest i mean

00:21:11.160 i mean so much of the egregious stuff you look it up it's like okay account based in india okay

00:21:16.360 which is actually bringing me on to another thing that you can now check where an account is based

00:21:20.600 because beforehand you had people posing as like americans and saying we blah blah blah and it'll

00:21:25.880 be like based in indonesia it's like okay ian miles chong did that for a while as well didn't

00:21:31.240 yeah uh talking like he's already the most notorious one he is yeah and then he was living

00:21:36.660 in malaysia i think it was now he lives in dubai um of course he does ran you missed a trick for

00:21:42.400 us there but alas um so i really liked the fact that the the head of x was personally calling

00:21:50.940 out slop here he is saying i remember when you used to post great content for your turkish

00:21:55.560 audience now it's all slop and spam did you sell your account for this guy i don't know who that

00:22:00.720 is but i've just seen him recently on a tirade against this sort of thing it's heartening it's

00:22:06.800 nice to see someone actually do something good for a change um here's one which has a lot of

00:22:13.180 additional information but i'm going to just read the pertinent parts for the creator payout cycle

00:22:17.800 we're experimenting with a new tool to identify original authors of content and allocating a

00:22:22.580 portion of revenue to them reposts and commentary will always be a core pillar of x but our revenue

00:22:28.560 sharing program should incentivize original high quality content that brings new value to the

00:22:33.280 timeline this means rewarding the effort it takes to produce something not just the poster who helped

00:22:38.420 it travel the furthest which is great if they can do this effectively that's really going to

00:22:43.000 incentivize people posting actual quality stuff so i agree and disagree with this because at the

00:22:47.780 end of the day um the way x formerly twitter works is it should be sharp snappy sort of content that

00:22:56.340 just sort of load up quickly have a look at and then you sort of disappear this kind of reward

00:23:00.980 system realistically actually only works when you can organize your content so people can

00:23:07.300 recurringly what like see it and so that's why like i agree you should be incentivizing like

00:23:13.220 original works but it lives and dies in like 48 hours and then it's done yeah and so that's why

00:23:20.020 this doesn't actually work in practice unless you begin changing things like they start talking

00:23:24.980 about wanting people to upload original videos and content it's like yeah okay then you need to

00:23:29.400 add a playlist function you need to you know create a way where people can organize it into

00:23:35.020 a library functionally where it can be repeatedly watched otherwise i think uh what they're trying

00:23:40.340 to do is is get an incentive to create it in the first place before they introduce the

00:23:44.060 infrastructure which i think is perhaps a little bit backwards but i'm interpreting this to mean

00:23:48.420 like original content meaning you wrote the tweet yourself um and even if it's like quote tweeting

00:23:54.320 a news article i think that that sort of thing is something that people want to see because you're

00:23:58.300 reacting to the headline or the story or whatever and that's of value so hopefully that's what is

00:24:03.940 meant but it's not entirely clear but the thing that made me very happy was this all aggregators

00:24:10.420 had their payout reduced to 60 this cycle we will add another 20 deduction in the next cycle

00:24:16.180 aggregators are the people who are just stealing other people's posts and aggregating them in an

00:24:21.300 count um it became abundantly clear flooding the timeline with hundreds of stolen reposts and

00:24:26.180 clickbait every day crowded out real creators and hurt um new author growth which i've been saying

00:24:31.360 for years um the next step is to assign a permanent deduction to habitual bait posters who use

00:24:37.020 breaking on every post my goodness this is this is music to my ears i've been saying this

00:24:43.440 this whole time i hate the slop siren and the breaking thing total vindication it is yes um so

00:24:50.460 this is sort of my victory lap um and it says x will never infringe on speech or reach but we will

00:24:56.260 not compensate for manipulation of the program um or our users and i was very pleased to see that

00:25:04.040 this is already having an effect here's dom lucra here saying x just emailed me saying my creator

00:25:10.180 monetization is paused and i received now warning this is the the extent of his grammar by the way

00:25:16.100 when he's actually writing in his own voice i was the first creator demonetized on this platform

00:25:21.180 i doubt it and i was for an entire year i got it back and just lost it without any insight

00:25:27.660 how could this be possible i am one of the hardest working creators on x i really

00:25:31.840 hardest working i mean that's the heavy lifting there in it it is working and creating those two

00:25:38.220 words are doing heavy lifting he got called out by nikita here brilliant who highlighted the fact

00:25:44.820 Users who post AI-generated videos of an armed conflict

00:25:47.980 without adding disclosure that it was made with AI

00:25:50.760 will be suspended from creator revenue sharing for 90 days.

00:25:54.620 And he attaches a screenshot of his post

00:25:57.720 where he's claiming that the supreme leader of Iran

00:26:02.460 was walking into an operations room looking at nuclear reactors.

00:26:06.460 And for some reason, they would just upload this online.

00:26:09.800 And this definitely isn't AI.

00:26:11.560 It's visibly AI anyway.

00:26:12.980 but yeah this is just muddying the water and creating fake information and it should be 0.99

00:26:19.180 punished i think if you're an idiot reposting ai videos you shouldn't be rewarded for it that's for 0.94

00:26:25.200 sure like he has so it's nice to see people like him get punished and if check the ego on this by 0.98

00:26:32.880 the way i've been told this app isn't the same already i'm done defending myself as i have seen

00:26:38.280 time and god do before they will reveal everything every change people begged for to hurt me hurt

00:26:44.460 the entire app arrogance will be all of your downfall i'm sitting at the top of my tower

00:26:50.040 watching the world burn and by the way arrogance will be your downfall i'm sitting at the top of

00:26:54.640 my tower immediately afterwards the irony of that yeah it's quite ironic and uh as the community

00:27:01.380 note rightfully points out he's openly um defending selling paid comments for two thousand five

00:27:08.260 hundred dollars plus retweets at nearly five thousand dollars and quote tweets for six thousand

00:27:13.600 six hundred dollars each so he's just selling access to his account uh for money which uh is

00:27:21.800 not in the spirit of you know creating good content and there are lots of people pushing back

00:27:28.400 it wouldn't even occur to me to do that

00:27:30.440 if I had a giant account

00:27:32.120 someone said you could do that you know

00:27:33.480 I'd be like well no 0.98

00:27:34.620 it feels like a scumbag move 0.98

00:27:38.100 I'll just do 0.99

00:27:40.280 anyway

00:27:41.920 I've gone over time so

00:27:43.640 yes I've basically

00:27:45.980 declared this my victory lap

00:27:47.460 this is a success in my book

00:27:50.120 so my call to crusade 0.87

00:27:52.040 on slop I feel like has been

00:27:54.260 a total vindication

00:27:56.360 total success

00:27:57.280 and as long as this carries on as it is I think it will be a total victory that's a great gift as

00:28:03.760 well that's Salieri isn't it from Amadeus that's right yeah can't believe how beautiful the thing

00:28:07.780 is I can't believe it great anyway I've got a few rumble rants here Baystate says I heard that

00:28:14.680 Lotus Eaters have been nominated as the second best political podcast in the country have you

00:28:19.440 seen this have you heard about this no i don't know where that might be but i'll be very interested

00:28:30.440 if you could tag me on twitter i think they aren't they just joking aren't they just isn't

00:28:34.220 that just a reference to say it's just saying state of politics is better than okay have you

00:28:37.960 seen this have you i think i think that's what they're joking yeah all right yeah i thought that 0.55

00:28:41.840 was it um the downside to bullying is that you end up with people like mad ed and sir queer 0.58

00:28:48.160 no they've not been bullied enough i agree yeah yeah that's that's no no no complete no no solution 0.86

00:28:54.240 is more bullying yeah ochig door uh says the bbc has called out ai slop have to protect their turf

00:29:02.880 um i mean a lot of it's not written by by ai if if it were written by ai it would often be a lot

00:29:08.380 fairer to be honest uh sigil stone says twitter wants original content but shadow bans uh foundering

00:29:14.200 uh lying a-holes um yeah i think that there's there's a lot to be changed to be honest i think

00:29:20.780 the shadow banning thing in particular it's better just have everything out in the open and be

00:29:24.760 transparent although so at least tell people you've been banned like just tell people no we've we've

00:29:29.900 reduced your exposure actually yeah i also think that some people think they've been shadow banned

00:29:34.220 but actually um they're just not posting very good stuff not saying that's the instance there

00:29:38.980 Oshigdor says, should social media for pay bring back agents and editors that if you want paid, you have to send to a person at the company that checks before posting?

00:29:50.620 I think that would ruin the fun aspect of Twitter in that it's quick and easy.

00:29:56.080 It also ruins the sort of decentralized grassroots element of social media.

00:30:04.720 You don't want to do that.

00:30:07.560 It's not a terrible idea, but it would centralise editorial control in too few hands, I think,

00:30:12.520 and it would ultimately be worse than the problem it's trying to solve.

00:30:18.280 Okay, gentlemen, we need to talk about the SPLC, Southern Poverty Law Centre.

00:30:25.620 We need to talk about that this morning, this afternoon, sorry.

00:30:28.860 They're in a spot of bother.

00:30:30.760 Oh, okay.

00:30:31.360 It looks like.

00:30:31.920 Good news.

00:30:33.040 They're one of the most insidious organisations going, really, aren't they?

00:30:37.560 have either of you ever noticed that certainly in the west in european america in australia

00:30:43.240 places like that there's quite a lot of anti-fascist anti-racist organizations there's

00:30:49.720 quite a lot of them people do call me nate the noticer so i've noticed yeah i've noticed too

00:30:55.460 actually yeah quite a lot like in the uk of course there's hope not hate there's like the runny me

00:30:59.960 trust show racism the red card stop hate this is just the most simplest google search there's

00:31:05.300 there's dozens and dozens more stop hate uk liberty european network against racism

00:31:12.180 stand against racism and inequality the black curriculum kick it out it just goes on and on

00:31:17.600 and on it seems like racism is a very lucrative industry there's a lot of money to be made from

00:31:23.020 harvesting out one would think that we were just inundated with an epidemic of racism 0.95

00:31:28.360 you would think that wouldn't you in america the same the naacp black lives matter equal justice

00:31:34.640 initiative race forward the race justice program advancement program showing up for racial justice

00:31:41.760 color of change and on and on and on and there's quite a lot there's loads of these things our

00:31:46.340 society is flooded with them actually one of the biggest ones perhaps arguably maybe one of the

00:31:52.380 most prestigious ones is the southern poverty law center um and so their thing is uh just about

00:32:01.060 racial justice

00:32:02.220 right they say things

00:32:04.260 call it yeah

00:32:04.940 yeah right

00:32:05.940 they say things like

00:32:07.360 they're all about

00:32:08.020 equal justice

00:32:08.980 community organising

00:32:10.180 and outreach

00:32:10.800 policy advocacy

00:32:12.180 tracking and reporting

00:32:13.820 on hate

00:32:14.660 and extremism

00:32:15.660 relegating

00:32:17.140 white supremacy

00:32:17.900 out of the mainstream

00:32:18.900 lifting up

00:32:20.500 community voices

00:32:21.460 organising for

00:32:22.840 racial equality

00:32:23.660 shifting power

00:32:25.600 to black and brown 0.61

00:32:26.380 people in the south

00:32:27.360 racial justice

00:32:28.740 and civil rights

00:32:29.620 things like you know and in reality it's just reputation destruction for mainstream right

00:32:35.140 wing voices as well as um direct anti-white hatred yeah basically i mean if they want

00:32:41.600 segregation again just say it you don't need all that's basically what it is language and

00:32:46.820 window dressing that's all it is that's all it is yeah yeah i mean and they try and do the thing

00:32:53.300 for like the people that are credulous it's not always your fault if you're you know it's called

00:32:58.020 someone ignorant or credulous it's not always their fault you've not spent time researching

00:33:03.220 something no one's ever told you something it's you know like i'm ignorant of knitting for example 0.98

00:33:08.520 i don't know how to knit i've never tried and no one's ever taught me so there's no problem with

00:33:14.200 that so on at first blush right if you were a bit credulous you might just think that the

00:33:19.760 the southern poverty law center is sort of a good thing ultimately that's the way they try and

00:33:24.660 this is the the old president and ceo there's someone new now but this woman margaret huang

00:33:30.080 let's listen to her for a little bit it's the mission of splc it's thinking about how we fight

00:33:37.700 hate in all of its forms just fighting thinking about how we bring justice to communities that

00:33:43.620 have faced nothing along those lines it's about standing up and making this world a better place

00:33:50.480 and the opportunity to do that here is what's so exciting arriving at the southern poverty law

00:33:56.920 center is a little bit like a dream it just goes on and on you get the you get the tone and tenor

00:34:01.940 of it from that straight away it's about making the world a better place it's so thinly veiled

00:34:08.100 propaganda just like yeah we're just fighting hate and i'm like well all hate really i don't

00:34:13.800 know about that like if i get bitten by a mosquito and i slap it and say i hate mosquitoes it's the

00:34:19.520 southern poverty law centre going to come up and say no no no we're fighting you now you

00:34:22.860 like no it's very specifically directed towards people you politically disagree with you're not

00:34:28.620 fighting hate as an emotion you're not declaring war on a feeling you're declaring war on right

00:34:35.100 wingers specifically and white people specifically in in the uh in the example of the southern 0.74

00:34:41.560 poverty law centre specifically taking taking power away from whites and giving it to black

00:34:48.800 and brown people by their own definitely their their words i read out before no they nakedly 0.98

00:34:54.320 shifting power to black and brown people in the south i'm sure that would just go just stellar 0.97

00:35:01.460 the outcome of that would just be epic i bet you know it works so well in zimbabwe um yeah just 0.98

00:35:07.540 basically trying to make america and particularly the south but america in general less white you

00:35:14.560 know the original sin of being white i mean one of their slogans is uh when we transform the south

00:35:19.920 we transform the nation what sorry what that sounds almost like it's when we try communist

00:35:27.580 country as well when we transform the south we try i mean you literally don't 0.98

00:35:32.740 you've just transformed the south but also what pathetic

00:35:36.480 sure so it's it's just it's simply all about trying to make a better world reduce the amount

00:35:45.320 of hate in the world definitely nothing nefarious no no no definitely not that

00:35:50.980 definitely not no just a black and brown advocacy movement uh it's look you've got a smiling 0.93

00:35:57.140 you've got a smiling lady there talking about making the world a better place and reducing

00:36:01.920 of course um black and brown advocacy groups fine white advocacy groups evil white supremacy that is

00:36:11.520 yeah relegating white supremacy out of the mainstream 0.95

00:36:15.840 in favor of black supremacy yeah yeah right exactly yeah black supremacy good any sort of 1.00

00:36:21.280 in-group preference for whites evil must be stamped out and destroyed anyway they definitely 0.99

00:36:26.800 definitely don't do anything nefarious and or illegal uh oh wait yes they do and welcome back 0.96

00:36:34.040 everyone here to a live now from foxham your host i'm mike page i want to take you out right now

00:36:38.260 live news conference just popping up on our screens we have todd blanche and the fbi director

00:36:43.160 cash patel doing this news conference let's listen in in total according to the indictment

00:36:50.100 Between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight individuals at least.

00:36:59.960 These individuals were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, the Nationalist Socialist Party of America, Nazis, and the American Front.

00:37:18.180 ah now as the just to quickly say if anyone doesn't know that's the attorney general of

00:37:25.000 the united states speaking there huh it's not just some random dude that's the highest lawman

00:37:29.460 in the united states sorry is this by chance the fact that the uh need for racism is is is quite

00:37:37.700 low well the need for racism outweighs the uh the supply yeah is that what as far as anti-racism

00:37:44.100 organizations go there's just not enough racists are there there's just not enough of them i like

00:37:50.260 brilliant that they they want to be angry at something so much that they fund actively

00:37:54.980 fund it exists so the chain of millions of dollars as well three three was it three and a half million

00:38:01.220 to eight people yeah that's mental and we'll play a bit more of this in a moment but they're like

00:38:06.260 making like shell companies doing layering like actual financial crime yeah we layer it so it's

00:38:10.900 not really clear where that money went um so i've missed this gravy train overnight i needed to step

00:38:18.420 up my game apparently let's listen to the ag and then a bit of cash patel that this gentleman is

00:38:24.020 about to speak there is the head of the federal bureau of investigation diamond lays out after

00:38:31.380 sblc paid members of these extremist groups it created work product that reported on these

00:38:36.980 activities that the members participated in or contributed to and to that end it was doing the

00:38:43.620 exact opposite of what it's told its donors it was doing not dismantling extremism but funding it

00:38:52.180 to carry out this scheme splc created bank accounts in the name of at least five completely

00:38:57.860 fictitious organizations that had no bona fide employees or legitimate business purpose just to

00:39:05.300 say of course that's completely illegal so because one the question would be would be like

00:39:12.260 well it's not even if someone at the spfc as weird as it is counterintuitive as it is if they want to

00:39:17.520 give money to a neo-nazi organization what's illegal about that well exactly what i just said

00:39:21.840 there is that they didn't they didn't say they were going to do that their donors didn't know

00:39:26.340 that's what they were giving money to and they created false sort of accounts and things so

00:39:32.100 that's the key of it yeah that's the actual illegal thing and they've been indicted by a

00:39:36.880 grand jury right so it's not just the the ag and cash patel are just making a statement that

00:39:43.380 in general we don't we don't like the splc we're going to investigate them no there's been an

00:39:49.160 investigation that's gone on for years and now they've been indicted by a grand jury

00:39:52.280 i would love it if we had restore britain gets in power and they and they look into hope not

00:39:58.100 hates dirty secrets in their bank accounts because it's absolutely unequivocally happening here oh

00:40:03.920 almost certainly just oh oh how hope not hate hasn't funded us yet you know we're you know

00:40:11.840 accepting donations yeah come on come on guys you didn't even really you know well they did

00:40:16.200 that radical but they did though because they signed up to the website to watch that liz truss

00:40:20.040 that's true yeah they did technically actually fund yeah at one point and you know their little

00:40:25.240 dossier on us they're watching hate watching us all the time aren't they so we get a tiny bit of

00:40:30.280 revenue from that so if you're watching hope not hate thank you thank you very much you're a very

00:40:35.220 dedicated listener and we appreciate it yeah you've got respect the grand over at hope not hate

00:40:40.760 um yeah so one of the questions because i won't play all of this i only want to do the next few

00:40:47.060 minutes of it but later in the q a section after this um someone asked them like when did you find

00:40:53.920 out about this and the ag says well there's been an investigation being we've had this investigation

00:40:59.840 open for years and years and years oh wow and in fact before the biden administration and he says

00:41:06.680 but during the biden administration it was just turned off they just took someone at the doj or

00:41:11.640 and or the fbi just turned it off of course they did right yeah and then when trump got back in

00:41:17.380 they turned it back on

00:41:19.260 and now we can

00:41:21.280 so that's interesting isn't it

00:41:23.300 one data point of note

00:41:25.180 it might almost be an extension of the

00:41:27.600 democratic party some might say if that's the

00:41:29.660 case

00:41:30.000 well another thing muddies the waters a bit in the past

00:41:33.900 the SPLC and the FBI

00:41:35.740 have worked hand in hand openly though as well

00:41:37.820 both sort of boasting

00:41:38.880 that they're working for a common cause and things

00:41:41.700 but now of course

00:41:43.440 the FBI are actually

00:41:45.700 truly investigating them let's hear a little bit more of this the money was passed from splc

00:41:52.080 to one sham account to a second sham account and then loaded onto prepaid cards to give to the

00:41:58.180 members of the extremist groups this was designed to shield the source of those funds and because

00:42:04.360 of this splc is also charged with one count as i said earlier of conspiracy to commit money laundering

00:42:11.000 in conclusion i want to thank the acting u.s attorney in the middle district of alabama

00:42:17.940 kevin davidson who's in his district right now and not able to be with us for bringing this

00:42:23.360 important case along with the fbi team in alabama for their hard work during this investigation

00:42:30.540 this investigation is ongoing and i'd like to ask director patel to say a few words as well

00:42:41.000 so just to be clear it's wire fraud and money laundering is what it is very serious charges

00:42:47.960 aren't they pretty yeah yeah yeah um you know obviously they're they're the actual sort of 0.77

00:42:53.480 technical legal crimes but there's also just be just acting like scumbags if any that's a crime

00:43:01.220 taking money from their donors that think at least on that they're fighting sort of right-wing 0.64

00:43:07.440 extremes they're fighting racism and hate literally funneling it towards the ku klux

00:43:12.360 yeah yeah the actual national socialists of america it ends up in their pocket and this

00:43:19.000 stuff has a lot of funding as well so you can imagine being one of their donors like watching

00:43:22.400 this game sorry what to be fair i saw david duke on a podcast with a couple of black guys and he

00:43:27.480 was just like no i don't say the n-word so you know maybe that the money has had some influence

00:43:32.720 there is i thought the ku klux klan was sort of dedicated racists and then i was just like hang

00:43:38.000 on a minute what's going on here but anyway that's uh besides the point yeah it's not the 1920s

00:43:44.080 anymore we're the good guys now your granddaddy akk let's hear from cash thank you general blanche

00:43:52.320 what we're here today is to announce what the what the general just told you the southern

00:43:57.040 poverty law center in a massive sweeping indictment has been charged with allegations of fraud and

00:44:04.320 using the banking system to perpetrate that fraud i just want to talk about a couple brief things

00:44:08.960 here the southern poverty law center themselves advertise to raise money to dismantle violent

00:44:16.560 extremist groups for a period of at least a decade they use their donor network to raise money to

00:44:22.720 to purportedly dismantle violent extremist groups.

00:44:26.240 However, the SPLC, the Southern Poverty Law Center,

00:44:29.760 used the money they raised from their donor network

00:44:33.100 to actually pay the leadership of these very groups.

00:44:37.340 I just wanna say that again.

00:44:38.720 They used the fraudulently raised money

00:44:41.220 by lying to their donor network, thousands of Americans,

00:44:44.640 to go ahead and actually pay the leadership

00:44:47.280 of these supposed violent extremist groups.

00:44:51.440 The groups, as the general laid out,

00:44:53.260 include the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America,

00:44:57.060 Unite to Right, National Alliance,

00:45:00.600 the National Socialist Movement, the Aryan Nation Motorcycle

00:45:04.520 Club, and the National Socialist Party of America,

00:45:07.560 and also the American Front.

00:45:10.200 In at least one of these matters,

00:45:12.880 our investigation revealed that funds

00:45:14.580 were used to facilitate the commission of further state

00:45:18.260 federal offenses totaling over three million dollars so furthermore um there is something i

00:45:25.540 want to add here that there is a legitimate purpose here for them to do this sort of thing

00:45:30.740 in that if they fund the leadership then they effectively have some control and influence over

00:45:36.180 groups that would otherwise not care about what they would have to say and also it allows them

00:45:41.300 to entrap other people within those groups like people who are legitimate that aren't compromised

00:45:46.580 and have a better bearing of who these people are and how they're connected to things

00:45:51.300 and so they are actually legitimately trying to catch people out it's not just that they've

00:45:57.060 you know all of a sudden decided to switch sides right that they're using very insidious tactics

00:46:04.660 to do so okay you make a fair point but they've done it in a completely illegal way of course yes

00:46:11.140 so um i'm not defending them to be just explaining the rationale yeah yeah no there is a rationale

00:46:17.300 there but they've done it in an illegal way not just with like uh the layering the financial

00:46:23.060 layering of it which is illegal but also that as a uh as a non-profit or an ngo or whatever it is

00:46:29.620 you can't if you're going to do that you have to tell people you're going to do that if you're

00:46:33.140 taking money off people in america anyway if you take money off people you have to say that you

00:46:38.660 plan or you might you might plan to spend it in that way but they never said that to anyone and

00:46:44.200 that's illegal as well it's an assumed rationale isn't it it's nothing which has been explicitly

00:46:48.680 stated i mean if the us is anything like the uk again the demand for racism far far outweighs the

00:46:56.400 supply well i also think that these um groups are only in existence because they can have exemption

00:47:02.480 from particularly in the uk i know exemption from taxation by having charitable status and they can

00:47:08.520 only really exist because of that um whereas i don't think any political group should be

00:47:12.900 considered a charity because it's got an agenda that is not charitable in nature yeah plus the

00:47:19.460 other thing that uh mr patel just said just then was that the some of the organizations that they

00:47:28.320 sent money to then went on to commit crimes and so then you're sort of an accomplice in on some

00:47:34.080 in some way on some level or quite what's that phrase you live long enough to become the thing

00:47:39.760 you hate right yeah let's have a few more seconds of cash and then i'll go over to what the uh what

00:47:47.820 the splc themselves have said because their current president and ceo made a statement but

00:47:53.560 let's just finish here our investigation revealed that the southern poverty law center

00:47:57.880 on top of perpetuating this widespread, decade-long, multi-million dollar fraud,

00:48:04.180 conducted more criminal activity. They attempted to hide their criminal activity from our financial

00:48:12.300 banking network. They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial

00:48:18.180 institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that money was not

00:48:23.420 coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud,

00:48:27.200 but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud this is a serious

00:48:34.600 and egregious violation of a group that purported to dismantle violent extremist groups but in turn

00:48:40.740 actually only fueled the hatred this is an important case brought by the president by

00:48:45.840 president trump's administration we're thankful for the president okay so all right it's it's sort

00:48:52.160 of that's happened that seems to have happened here's a bit of a breakdown

00:48:55.360 on Twitter

00:48:57.160 some of the

00:48:59.920 monies

00:49:00.340 they gave

00:49:01.300 I imagine it was probably

00:49:01.520 their biggest donor

00:49:02.440 by that point

00:49:03.400 with those sums of money

00:49:04.500 right

00:49:04.980 right

00:49:05.320 yeah

00:49:06.040 Unite the Right

00:49:08.960 that's interesting

00:49:10.640 okay

00:49:11.360 okay

00:49:12.640 so

00:49:14.380 okay

00:49:15.540 so it's a

00:49:16.600 it's a

00:49:17.100 grand jury in Alabama

00:49:18.220 which I think is where

00:49:20.740 the SPLC

00:49:21.480 sort of their headquarters is

00:49:23.120 but obviously

00:49:24.740 it's much more than just a state thing if you've got the ag and the director of the fbi it's not

00:49:30.380 just like it's all across america isn't it and beyond it to be honest quite possibly yeah so i

00:49:36.120 thought maybe we could just go straight to themselves so this man is called what brian

00:49:43.020 fair and he's the acting or interim president and ceo of the spLC he's come out in the last

00:49:51.540 uh in the last day and made a short statement about relatively short statement about it so

00:49:57.940 should we hear from him giving the right of reply okay for 55 years the southern poverty law center

00:50:04.980 has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to

00:50:11.020 create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive we are therefore unsurprised

00:50:16.920 to be the latest organization targeted by this administration they're just being unfairly

00:50:24.180 targeted and unfairly persecuted for just being so good just the evil drumpf evil evil tunneled

00:50:34.100 drumpf is just trying to destroy the worse ones for no reason they have made no secret of who

00:50:40.900 they want to protect and who they want to destroy for example in october fbi director cash patel

00:50:48.380 announced the bureau would sever its ties with the splc and in december house republicans held

00:50:55.580 a hearing to accuse us of being partisan and profitable well that was probably a good idea

00:51:02.000 they cut ties with you as they were investigating you mate yeah so uh it's probably a good thing

00:51:07.920 for them it's also a weird thing to argue when they were funding actual neo-nazi groups at the

00:51:13.500 same time that the administration that's launched the investigate well or has pushed the investigation

00:51:18.380 again into them is probably at its closest to the nation of israel these these two things tend not

00:51:26.680 to be compatible with one another well that's the other thing how the just a side note perhaps

00:51:31.540 slightly that the splc is obviously about um racism against black people in the south but

00:51:38.380 it's been highly uh co-opted by sort of the anti-semitism the anti-semitism angle

00:51:46.700 does he as well so does he address the situation at all in yeah yeah so okay i'm like i'm listening

00:51:53.480 i still actually heard a rebuttal yet yeah okay let's hear it latest threat is the most serious

00:51:57.860 a criminal investigation and possible charges against the SPLC or some of our employees.

00:52:04.480 Although we don't know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC's prior use

00:52:09.840 of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups.

00:52:15.900 This use of informants was necessary because we are no stranger to threats of violence.

00:52:21.300 what oh so you were engaged in a self-directed like domestic espionage program of like of using

00:52:29.980 agent provocateurs on the right oh so you were oh so you were doing that you definitely did

00:52:34.740 actually pay people brilliant because they allegedly got threats of violence it allows

00:52:38.940 them to break the law financial laws as well like the law in a completely different area it's not

00:52:44.000 like you know someone's threatening you with violence so you assault them where there's sort

00:52:48.120 of justifiable circumstances around it it's we set up a series of shell companies and funneled

00:52:55.860 money to people we allegedly opposed those don't follow from one another funnily enough it doesn't

00:53:01.740 address the shell company side of it which are the actual charges of like wire fraud and um

00:53:07.480 and uh what's the other one anyway uh he doesn't address that but he does admit there as far as i

00:53:13.640 can tell that it was multi-million pound agent provocateur program. It was okay because they've

00:53:19.300 got threats of violence. In 1983 our offices were firebombed and in the years since there have been

00:53:25.960 countless credible threats against our staff. For decades we engaged in unprecedented litigation to

00:53:32.220 dismantle the Klan and other hate groups. In light of that work we sought to protect the safety of

00:53:39.000 our staff and the public we frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and

00:53:44.280 federal law enforcement including the fbi we did not however share our use of informants broadly

00:53:50.220 with anyone to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families oh okay yeah

00:53:56.440 it was purely altruism that you were doing this for sure of course if they're already working

00:54:02.940 closely with local law enforcement and the intelligence agencies surely these threats

00:54:07.620 against them would be dealt with by them you know i think the fbi and local law enforcement's

00:54:13.900 probably better at dealing with a threat than a shell company i was gonna say whoever said the

00:54:19.500 spLC were allowed to engage in what it's basically like domestic espionage isn't it then

00:54:27.280 like you're you're just supposed to be like an anti-racism organization you're not like another

00:54:34.080 wing of the intelligence services or you're just acting like another wing of the intelligence

00:54:38.380 services or you're just like another branch of the FBI effectively or the police no no you're not

00:54:44.780 and the fact that they're investigated before the Biden administration seems to suggest as well

00:54:50.240 that it wasn't them that necessarily initiated this it may well have come from them themselves

00:54:57.600 it's not like they gave them a nudge and said you know what you can do obviously they turned a blind

00:55:02.500 eye to it but it seems to be the case that they came up with this themselves from the details

00:55:07.540 that we've got yeah yeah they took it upon themselves to say sort of uh self-appointed

00:55:12.180 self-directed stuff uh like what you're acting like a law unto yourselves basically gave you

00:55:21.040 carte blanche yeah act in this way no one mate what are you doing i thought we could go around

00:55:26.360 just breaking laws fraudulently and doing again agent provocateur stuff without telling

00:55:33.640 your your your the people that donate to you that that's what you're doing completely outside

00:55:39.220 the law and while we no longer work with paid informants we continue to take their safety

00:55:44.460 seriously these individuals risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities

00:55:51.440 of our nation's most radical and violent extremist groups.

00:55:54.980 That's not even how informants work.

00:55:57.080 Normally you turn someone within a pre-existing organization.

00:56:01.940 You don't just infiltrate it, you know, your own guy who's there wearing a wire.

00:56:06.480 That might be how it's shown in film, but the way it actually works,

00:56:09.080 and we've talked about this before, haven't we?

00:56:11.380 Like the World War II double cross system.

00:56:13.740 And also Ruby Ridge as well, where they tried to make Randy Weaver an informant

00:56:19.860 by trying to leverage petty crime charges against him and fines 0.52

00:56:24.260 to make him an informant against the Aryan nation. 0.75

00:56:27.500 That's the same thing here, isn't it?

00:56:29.200 Yeah, like in World War II, you either get an actual German spy

00:56:33.180 or in the Cold War, you get a Soviet spy

00:56:35.560 and then you turn them to your side and send them back. 0.77

00:56:39.160 Yeah, much more common.

00:56:40.840 But he said they put their lives at risk.

00:56:42.720 You mean you put their lives at risk?

00:56:45.000 No one's asking you to have done this infiltration,

00:56:48.320 double agent whatever like you you've put them at risk if it's as he says it is yeah well you did

00:56:54.800 this that's your fault then yeah like what why did you do this why did you put their lives at risk

00:57:00.140 what yeah no one said to do that you didn't tell your donors you were going to do that when we

00:57:06.900 began working with informants we were living in the shadow of the height of the civil rights

00:57:11.580 movement which had seen bombings at churches state-sponsored violence against demonstrators

00:57:17.140 and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system.

00:57:21.920 There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.

00:57:26.880 Today, the federal government has been weaponized

00:57:28.980 to dismantle the rights of our nation's most vulnerable people.

00:57:33.360 No, it hasn't. No, it hasn't.

00:57:35.120 The rights of the most vulnerable people to create shell companies, yeah.

00:57:39.000 Pay over $3 million.

00:57:41.680 To engage in some shadowy skullduggery.

00:57:44.740 some weird multi-million dollar skullduggery yeah right organization like ours that tries

00:57:50.900 to stand in the breach we stood in the vanguard then and we stand in the vanguard today sure

00:57:57.340 we will not be intimidated into silence or contrition there you go he's not he's not

00:58:03.220 there's no contrition right yeah there you go that's that's in a nutshell so sbc is in a spot

00:58:11.200 of bother at least in Alabama and the eyes of the AG and the the very very top of the FBI are on

00:58:17.800 them now and if they've been indicted by a grand jury there's there's almost certainly something

00:58:23.960 there you would have thought they don't usually you don't usually get a press conference with the

00:58:29.420 AG and the FBI director after 11 indictments if they don't think that they'll get like

00:58:38.140 successful convictions and things

00:58:39.740 okay there you go that's that all right i've got a few uh rumble rents

00:58:48.700 uh all of these okay should i know we've done that one you heard it straight from the horse's

00:58:56.680 mouth bo hates knitters i don't hate them

00:59:00.560 oh state of politics featuring josh firm today fern yeah josh fern fern that's not how my name's

00:59:10.320 spelt that might explain why my middle name's boston no it isn't um that's a terrible joke i'm

00:59:17.440 sorry awesome stuff chaps i'll have to actually catch this properly properly later on thank you

00:59:22.140 very much um they were supposed to be the best of us not because what they fight not become what

00:59:28.240 they find oh not become what what's that reference to what's that talking about these

00:59:34.540 all right yeah they become the thing they you had an aneurysm sorry yeah

00:59:40.340 okay sorry slickerstone 17 sorry um sigillstone 17 says the anti-racists paying the racists 0.84

00:59:53.540 can't even have honest extremism these days everything is fake and gay and binary surfer

00:59:59.680 says same as hope not hate it was clear that spLC was security services run or supported

01:00:04.880 we will doubtless find out in time they enjoyed access to confidential state intel dossiers etc

01:00:10.760 disgusting creatures yeah yeah yeah i agree with that okie

01:00:15.580 that's all right let's go right 0.99

01:00:20.120 all right we need to talk about queer starlin's final gasps all right so this is just the the 0.78

01:00:30.380 fallout of the mandelson affair basically so queer starlin threw under the bus uh andy

01:00:37.460 uh ollie robbins sorry not not not not andy robbins i don't know where i got that name from 0.71

01:00:41.620 anyway ollie robbins um and immediately ollie robbins was like cool we're going to give evidence

01:00:47.620 at the foreign affairs committee and it's just the sort of backwards and forwards uh i think we

01:00:52.820 needed to to report on and have a bit of a chit chat about because it's funny basically and what

01:01:00.820 was very funny when when he was being questioned about the mandelson stuff did you hear him do his

01:01:06.340 best roadrunner impression starma yeah he went um he went me like that brilliant i've got that i've

01:01:13.780 got that later on in this yeah i've pretty preempted it um i know it's so where did that

01:01:20.260 noise come from so funny so the yeah ollie robbins i just want to outline not that we

01:01:27.220 surely speaking need to but i'm i don't care about civil servants i think they're awful people

01:01:31.540 generally speaking the state is ridiculously too big needs to be completely dismantled so i'm not

01:01:36.100 in defense of any civil servant they also have lots of undue influence over governance even

01:01:39.780 though they're not elected and that's not what they're supposed to do and sir sir ollie himself

01:01:45.380 was a massive massive uh remainer right he did everything he could back in the theresa may years 0.73

01:01:51.940 to thwart brexit yeah so he is a douchebag yeah as well let's make that against his own country 0.90

01:01:57.380 when he was appointed as you know negotiator yeah but however in this it is the left eating itself 0.85

01:02:04.420 and i'm here for it basically so politics uk just has a really nice summary uh with the slop siren

01:02:12.540 siren uh of the ollie robbins evidence to the foreign affairs committee so just go through it

01:02:18.840 and you know we'll just chit chat about it basically so number 10 applied constant pressure

01:02:24.820 on the foreign office to approve peter mandelson's appointment showing little interest in vetting

01:02:30.920 the message was to quote get this done before donald trump's inauguration or isn't the fuller

01:02:39.660 quote get this effing done yeah or something to the lines of like why why hasn't this effing been

01:02:44.980 done or things along those lines it's uh from morgan mcsweeney i think all sounds a bit thick

01:02:50.420 of it doesn't it as you say it's malcolm tucker exactly just the the the politicos from number 10

01:02:56.260 just bullying civil servants again not that I care about civil servants being bullied but yeah

01:03:02.200 just think they're they're the masters and they're they're above like uh Morgan McSweeney is above

01:03:08.180 MI6 vetting in some way like what he wants done yesterday is more important than the security of

01:03:15.320 our nation yeah I mean we're critical of how our intelligence services behave quite often

01:03:20.420 particularly when applied domestically

01:03:22.920 but at the same time

01:03:24.940 they do dig up things like you've

01:03:26.840 taken money from foreign governments that you

01:03:28.880 shouldn't have, that sort of thing is

01:03:30.780 genuinely important to that

01:03:32.180 massively important, especially if it's not

01:03:34.860 just, you're not just going to be the

01:03:36.640 t-boy at the foreign office

01:03:38.960 building, you're going

01:03:40.920 to have access to the most

01:03:42.980 sensitive information between

01:03:44.980 the UK and the US, it could be MI6

01:03:47.080 exchanging information with the

01:03:48.920 CIA or something as sensitive as that as sensitive as it gets well it was they call it strap three

01:03:54.300 don't they strap three um tier basically it's one of the highest of the high I mean it's mad

01:04:00.820 and again remember throughout all of this Mandelson was known to be a wrong and

01:04:07.180 yeah everyone knew it even in the days of new labor he had uh you know the nickname of was it

01:04:15.700 the dark lord and prince of darkness and he loved it and also um he was described as having something

01:04:21.440 of the night about him and i remember watching a documentary and he's like i quite like that

01:04:25.140 actually so he's happy with his reputation which normally is a bit of a giveaway if people are

01:04:31.340 calling you basically evil in a polite way well he was first disgraced and thrown out of cabinet

01:04:35.060 in like 2001 i think it was so it's a long long time we've known he's sort of not an entirely

01:04:41.480 trustworthy figure and queer Stalin wasn't exactly mates with them they weren't like buddy buddies so

01:04:46.420 the whole thing is just weird anyway so keep that in mind as we go through this just genuinely how 0.81

01:04:51.820 bizarre the whole situation is like what sits underneath all of this who was doing what who

01:04:58.180 was pulling what strings because it's inevitable that there definitely was something like that

01:05:02.240 going on yeah who really is running mandelson who are his handlers who is it that sits above

01:05:11.420 starmer and the foreign office someone like ollie robbins who sits above them saying get this done

01:05:16.220 we want mandy's our man we want him in that position don't worry about mi6 vetting don't

01:05:22.320 worry about any of that just make it happen now who are they you can sort of believe it 0.78

01:05:26.820 if queer Stalin has a long and storied history of being best friends with Mandelson but he's now 0.84

01:05:35.360 thrown his political career away for someone that he's not even actually like matey with it's very

01:05:42.760 odd the whole thing is super weird uh so the cabinet office argued that Mandelson didn't need

01:05:48.880 vetting but the foreign office was like well no obvious obviously he does obviously he does

01:05:55.900 that's weird from a few different angles right not just that he's friends with the convicted

01:06:02.540 pedophile jeffrey epstein but also his own business taking money from china and russia

01:06:07.200 particularly china yeah not a small amount either is a million million not good countries to take

01:06:12.800 money from if you want to be in the british government really yeah to have access to the

01:06:16.980 highest intelligence access to the white house as well yeah bit of an odd one uh so there was 0.75

01:06:23.960 constant chasing from uh queer starlin's private office during the time mandelson was being vetted

01:06:31.080 such as when is this done uh he says it was a matter of when not if so uh effectively the the 0.53

01:06:40.680 signaling is the messaging was no this is happening so just get it done again that's where that sort

01:06:47.000 of quote was like you know get this effing done well the other thing even to be even further than

01:06:51.640 that is not just sort of get it done not when it's like no it has happened we've announced him well

01:06:56.460 yeah that's that's the other part of it yeah right um so criticizing starmer's judgment and

01:07:01.260 appointing manderson saying he regrets that the serious reputational risks identified in the due

01:07:06.060 diligence didn't color the pm's judgment so that's just hilarious i pointed out when we talked about

01:07:12.200 this on monday that it was public knowledge that he was a risky person to a point like everyone

01:07:20.340 knew it even when he was appointed there were articles written in the mainstream media saying

01:07:24.720 oh it's a bit risky but it could pay up people saying that i think it was john sople saying that

01:07:28.940 like it's risky but ultimately it's a good decision that's mental i did not see that he

01:07:36.020 john sople is a classic classic that is insane i never saw that that's so funny commie traitor

01:07:43.100 that john sople but yeah well that would make sense trying to run a little bit of interference

01:07:46.600 on behalf of mandy a defense that makes perfect sense from sopal um so ollie robbins says he was

01:07:53.400 quite uncomfortable being told by number 10 to find an ambassadorship for the then comms director

01:07:59.000 matthew doyle who was recently suspended from labor over his links to a pedophile a completely

01:08:05.140 different one to jeff epstein just a different one yeah and that was without informing the then

01:08:11.220 foreign secretary david lammy why does why why does queer starlin have so many friends that are

01:08:17.940 chummy with pedos like what's going on there that's a bit weird isn't it that's a bit odd

01:08:22.420 i wonder if any of that network will be exposed during the uh oh the ukrainian uh rent boy thing

01:08:28.480 yeah samson i put that article i put that article in the podcast channel for you to pull up if you

01:08:33.600 wanted to um he raised concerns about doyle's credentials and the idea was dropped he later

01:08:39.340 revealed number 10 suggested a u.s post for doyle which would have posed a conflict of interest as

01:08:44.400 doyle had been the one who was satisfied with mandelson's vetting answers so that's weird and

01:08:49.900 circular that's a weird circular thing there isn't it that's very odd this is uh what i was on about

01:08:58.760 here my piece for the independent on peter mandelson um becoming next ambassador to the u.s

01:09:05.540 risky maybe but a very smart move classic wow classic john sople that aged brilliantly didn't

01:09:13.620 it brilliant classic oh my god uh so a little bit more here after mandelson was sacked as u.s

01:09:21.920 ambassador robbins requested full vetting documents but was denied access following discussions

01:09:27.540 between the foreign office and cabinet office on national security grounds it suggests that

01:09:33.080 senior officials knew robbins had concerns about the vetting process and why therefore the pm's

01:09:38.480 team did not probe more deeply that's weird that's super weird that's weird as hell yeah it is seems

01:09:47.460 to suggest that they're just lying about not knowing anything which i think is pretty likely

01:09:52.720 to be honest that it's an open secret that mandelson was a dark figure that had lots of

01:09:57.740 shadowy relations with people it's been his reputation for about 24 years before he was

01:10:04.220 appointed to this role and so it's not like it's something that you're ignorant of and in fact you 0.85

01:10:10.120 could probably ask someone on the street and they would know that oh he's a bit of a dodgy

01:10:14.980 character yeah probably best not to do that think about what that really is though so ollie robbins

01:10:21.220 is like the most senior head of yeah is he what the permanent secretary of the foreign office

01:10:27.180 right other than the ministers themselves the most powerful important person the head of it

01:10:31.020 it's all intents and purposes right and so mi6 comes under the purview of the fo they did the

01:10:37.900 vetting ollie robbins is made the head of the fo and he says oh i just want to see the vetting

01:10:44.600 documents our own vetting documents for mandy and the cabinet office say no you can't you can't see

01:10:50.620 them on national security grounds bit of a red flag a massive red flag like wait what on earth

01:10:56.460 is going on here what on earth are you talking about what national security guys why not yeah

01:11:00.520 why are you saying that what's going on here have a due process to follow don't they and and he was 0.69

01:11:05.920 a process yeah that is directly the the the um directly the result of queer stalin's processing 0.56

01:11:14.800 like he he he blames the process but he could change the process it's his process yep 0.74

01:11:21.120 mental the whole thing is the whole thing the whole thing is insane um so the veting team

01:11:28.880 reportedly ticked the red box which was an explicit recommendation not to approve mandelson

01:11:33.560 but robin says he was not shown that conclusion and recalls being told it was borderline and

01:11:40.000 leaning towards recommending against whilst being advised the risks could be mitigated

01:11:44.900 or very weird that just does sound like such classic whitehall stuff mi6 said no it's a no

01:11:53.380 and someone else somewhere along the line says well it's actually a yes borderline it's very

01:11:59.740 interesting as well how this plugs into the fact that the trump administration dragged its feet

01:12:04.980 over releasing those epstein emails yeah in the first place because of course trump was saying

01:12:10.080 like oh it's fake news and you know there's nothing there it's a democrat hoax and all of

01:12:15.260 this comes out which is very much being treated not as fake news or a democratic hoax yeah robbins

01:12:22.960 contradicted starmer's claim that he would have blocked the appointment if aware of vetting

01:12:26.940 concerns saying it would have been very difficult given the role had already been announced and

01:12:31.500 agreed with the u.s he also revealed u.s approval for mandelson as ambassador came before security

01:12:38.860 clearance and quote was delivered technically just by one working day by the biden administration

01:12:45.980 that's all weird as well

01:12:48.220 again take stock of that mi6 are saying uh we haven't finished and it's almost certainly going

01:12:56.680 a no ultimately said it's a no and everyone from number 10 to the biden white house just say it's

01:13:03.880 fine just just do it it's fine it's fine it's fine just make it through push it through and be quiet

01:13:08.120 and if and when you get the negative back from mi6 just shut up and sit on that because it's

01:13:13.560 happening it's happened yeah why why again yeah what again remember why is that yeah sorry i've

01:13:19.560 got a a tickle in my throat again the whole thing why why throw away all of these people's careers

01:13:25.480 for this one guy who is already like yeah obvious it's stuff's going on obviously um so he added

01:13:33.800 that blocking mandelson at that stage could have damaged us uk relations and caused issues with

01:13:38.420 donald trump's admin he concluded that he doesn't fully understand why he was sacked by queer starlin

01:13:43.540 and suggested he would sue the government as part of a separate process he couldn't go into

01:13:48.920 i'm here for that part yeah i'm definitely here for that part so that's all weird like obviously

01:13:54.580 super super weird um very bizarre but anyway uh number 10 hit back at this nonsense or they claim

01:14:03.420 it to be nonsense but they didn't actually hit back because if you look at it this there's no

01:14:07.640 actual rebuttals so they deny applying constant pressure saying quote there is a difference

01:14:16.540 between asking for updates constantly on an appointment process and the idea of being

01:14:22.000 dismissive about vetting that's not that's not a rebuttal also it's something that is so vague that

01:14:27.540 were it to come to a court case they're not actively seen as trying to cover things up right

01:14:32.820 yeah but that i mean that's not a rebuttal is it really no at all on the claim that the cabinet

01:14:38.600 office didn't think any vetting was needed number 10 says there were discussion this is the best one

01:14:43.760 there were discussions at the time with cabinet office and foreign office officials around security

01:14:49.220 clearance for members of the house of lords but these talks concluded there did need to be vetting

01:14:56.200 so sorry that doesn't say that the cabinet office that doesn't deny that the cabinet office didn't

01:15:03.800 think vesting was needed it's just trying to pass the buck and say listen we we did our thing we

01:15:09.340 said there should be vetting it was someone else's fault but then they've also got paper trails in

01:15:13.780 foreign office to show that they did yeah he wouldn't you know um ollie robbins wouldn't be

01:15:19.460 claiming that he tried to access these things without written records and i imagine that the

01:15:25.460 the system works as many government systems where there's it records when someone tries to access

01:15:30.660 specific files and it will log it there'll be a a pretty sizable paper trail there that can be

01:15:36.580 be called upon in court also that's just simply not actually denying it that's no that does

01:15:44.780 indicate that the cabinet officials genuinely thought that they didn't need any vetting

01:15:48.720 and due to a conversation with the foreign office they then concluded no we probably should

01:15:54.540 that's all that says which actually aligns with what ollie said the best case scenario is they're

01:16:00.800 incredibly incompetent like that's that's the most charitable interpretation is that they can't

01:16:06.120 communicate between department whatsoever and lots of things are getting lost in translation

01:16:11.540 but i don't think that's happening here no uh number 10 deny that the uk sv were only leaning

01:16:19.360 against clearance from anderson saying that the vetting body clearly recommended against

01:16:22.920 and that this should have been communicated to the pm i just don't believe that that wasn't

01:16:27.380 communicated to the pm i just don't believe that is the case and if that is the case the whole

01:16:31.620 thing needs to be dismantled right like none of this looks good regardless um they refuse to deny

01:16:38.100 that robin's claim that he was told to find an ambassadorship for starmer's then comms director

01:16:44.100 matthew doyle simply saying he left his role at number 10 he didn't take up a role at the foreign

01:16:48.580 office we know that yeah yeah i mean that's so you haven't denied that again brilliant all of that is

01:16:57.620 pretty weak sauce isn't it yeah like quibbling over it you might characterize it as constant

01:17:03.540 pressure we wouldn't characterize it in exactly those words we did have a meeting or something or

01:17:08.900 other and um well matthew joy wasn't given a role in the foreign office come on it's just a super

01:17:17.220 weak sauce it's the language of a guilty person isn't it it's trying to cover their tracks yeah

01:17:22.020 i do i just want to i do love this picture what the lion king

01:17:27.760 that's horrifying my poor but it is that is a bit yeah all right anyway okay

01:17:35.340 it um yeah it pleases the juvenile in me um so matthew doyle says he never asked for a job in

01:17:45.640 the foreign office okay but that's not the point the statement was queer starlin asked actually

01:17:52.200 wasn't that you asked it was the queer starlin asked that doesn't really deny it classic thing

01:17:56.640 of answering a different question yeah so they did queer starlin ask for an ambassadorship i

01:18:01.640 didn't ask for one yeah it's just admission admission by a mission isn't it yeah yeah you

01:18:09.620 you know that classic uh clip of uh paxman trying to grill um uh that ex-tory leader did you

01:18:16.280 threaten to overrule yeah he's asking him did you threaten to overrule somebody and said i didn't

01:18:20.980 overrule him and pax was like no i know we we know you didn't i'm asking did you threaten i've got

01:18:25.720 something like that coming up and they just do that like eight ten times i've got that i've got

01:18:29.440 something like coming up so the next set of peter mandelson's vetting files will not be released

01:18:33.480 until after the king's speech on may 13th and i put this in there because i was like okay

01:18:37.660 what's going to be in the king's speech then like that's weird why aren't you releasing these files

01:18:44.620 why why are you waiting until i mean may 13th that's quite a long way away so to me that just

01:18:51.220 it's just a weird thing that i noted and i was like that's bizarre the only thing i could think

01:18:55.380 of that's actually legitimate is that obviously the king's speech is talking about the direction

01:18:59.220 of the government and they're writing up what they're up to and that they've got a bandwidth

01:19:03.560 with problem but at the same time you'd think that something as important as this it was part

01:19:08.340 of the humble address people you know working on it right it's it's odd the whole that that to me

01:19:14.840 i'm just like okay that but just something to know so just pocket that for for future because

01:19:19.820 something may come up from that and then there was just this as well so the last release of

01:19:24.340 peter mandelson's vetting files the then permanent secretary of the foreign office said queer starlin

01:19:29.380 wants to appoint a small number of political ambassadors and it would obviously support

01:19:32.840 olive robbins claim that he was asked to find one for the chummy chum who's macy's with a 0.64

01:19:38.240 pedophile so there's that see all this could have been not all of it but the the fallout from it

01:19:45.300 politically for starmer himself could have all been avoided if just right at the beginning at

01:19:49.340 the very beginning of it all he just uh ripped the band-aid off so to speak and just admitted

01:19:54.200 it and just said look i for political reasons i wanted mandy in that job and uh yeah we cut a

01:20:01.000 load of corners in terms of vetting whatever sorry shouldn't have done it but there it is that's the

01:20:05.220 that's the honest truth there you go take it or leave it i am sorry i completely me a couple

01:20:10.180 completely on me he could have could have well have got away with it it'd be another sort of

01:20:15.460 scandal but not a not a giant giant giant one but now this lying about it again again doubling down

01:20:21.300 on the lies again again again just like nixon and the walske scandal no i didn't do anything wrong 0.57

01:20:25.860 you've got to be fired now you've got to be fired i didn't do anything wrong you've got to be fired

01:20:28.640 and on and on and on and on until your government collapses yeah again all all for someone 0.92

01:20:35.060 all for someone that was known to be a wrong and that he's not even matey with

01:20:39.980 so weird i think so weird as beau said like if you were politically savvy which obviously

01:20:47.240 starmer isn't but even so i think that update yet yeah there would have been people saying

01:20:52.200 maybe you just say listen with his experience with his name and prestige and prestige

01:20:57.960 he's the best person for the job but we cut some corners with the vetting and that in hindsight was

01:21:04.160 a mistake you could sort of move on from that so the fact that he's dragging his heels and trying

01:21:08.540 to reveal as little as possible about the process seems to indicate there's more shadowy things going

01:21:14.340 on in the process in the first place well without the humble address we wouldn't have had any of

01:21:18.380 this remember that but that humble address thing because they were they were like no yeah we'll

01:21:23.580 will release stuff and you know the humble address has forced them to release everything

01:21:27.820 so again like i mean well done from because that was and and fridge reyner that did that i think

01:21:34.020 wasn't it it was she that did the uh humble address oh was it i thought it was yeah i thought

01:21:38.900 it was oh you came in bed or not no i think that humble address actually came from big ang

01:21:44.080 big bad yeah um and then so and then now basically people are turning on 0.57

01:21:49.920 queer starlin so labor mp dan carden says it was plain wrong queer starlin to fire ollie robbins

01:21:57.400 carden sits on the foreign affairs select committee so that's interesting this also

01:22:01.480 there was a another individual i can't remember his name glassman he came out and was like yeah

01:22:06.740 no queer starlin's like basically done like this is untenable position now so there's this sort of

01:22:11.740 thing happening where people are sort of going around and round um anyway uh so this happened

01:22:19.800 just promote myself there a little bit but it was a banger tweet

01:22:22.720 doing his best pingu impression see that yet meet me uh i just thought it was funny but you can see

01:22:37.280 that the the you can see it's rattle 10 times it's so funny is it like what is that i saw a

01:22:43.760 great tweet which was just like the noise i i make when the coyote stands on its own dynamite

01:22:49.400 instantly i was reminded by pingo on this one but you can see it he's not dealing with as well

01:22:57.700 he's not handling this well and he shouldn't be you know this is a man that's definitely

01:23:01.980 under pressure and it's it's very interesting to see the sort of collapse uh in his composure

01:23:07.480 uh and then this to close it off with this you can see and and subsequently since this there's

01:23:13.280 been a few more interviews that came out ed milliband simply just again actually just gave

01:23:18.120 up defending queer Stalin at one point as well so there's a lot of people now just going yeah no

01:23:23.200 he's wrong yeah he was wrong yeah yeah he was wrong they've actually begun to quit defending

01:23:27.460 him but this was very frustrating so we'll have a watch of this but i just wanted to start with

01:23:32.020 something that we learned yesterday ollie robbins claimed that number 10 pushed for an ambassadorship

01:23:37.880 for matthew doyle former director of communications now suspended labor peer is that true it's the

01:23:45.260 first I'd heard of it yesterday. I don't know what conversations took place between

01:23:51.140 Number 10 and the Foreign Office about that, but it didn't come to anything, and I don't

01:23:58.460 think Matthew had the experience to become an ambassador. So I don't know what, you

01:24:04.520 know, if he was about to leave Number 10, what conversations were taking place?

01:24:07.660 I mean, you know you're doing the interview today. You must have asked them. Did it happen?

01:24:13.280 The implication is that it was Keir Starmer, right?

01:24:15.700 That he asked, he was like, right, let's get this guy a nice poster.

01:24:18.700 Look, it's not unusual if someone's leaving to say,

01:24:22.300 what do you want to do next?

01:24:23.820 Quite what he was asked, what he wanted to do next, I don't know.

01:24:29.940 I'm really sorry.

01:24:31.540 Normally, I'm quite forgiving when people say, I don't know.

01:24:34.860 In this situation, when it was this time, well, yesterday morning,

01:24:39.840 you must have asked the question.

01:24:41.060 or if you didn't ask the questions because you wanted to come in here

01:24:43.660 and say, I'm really sorry, I don't know.

01:24:45.160 I don't accept that.

01:24:46.140 No, I always try to prepare, but...

01:24:48.360 So what did you do? Did you ask number 10 what happened?

01:24:50.440 The important point for me is...

01:24:52.060 No, sorry, this is an important point for me.

01:24:54.040 Did you ask number 10 what happened?

01:24:55.860 So I'm told no appointment was made.

01:24:58.660 Did you ask number 10... We know no appointment was made.

01:25:02.280 Did you ask number 10 if it is true that Keir Starmer

01:25:05.280 asked for an ambassadorship by Matthew Doyle?

01:25:07.640 Did you ask the question?

01:25:09.040 I don't think he would have been right for such a post.

01:25:13.100 I think if right was no one was made.

01:25:15.000 Did you ask the question?

01:25:16.140 I don't know what conversations were held with.

01:25:17.460 Did you ask the question?

01:25:19.740 What question?

01:25:20.800 Did you ask number 10 if it's true,

01:25:23.280 Keir Starmer asked for an ambassadorship for Matthew Doyle?

01:25:26.040 Did you ask that question?

01:25:27.100 I don't think Keir Starmer would have asked for this.

01:25:30.060 I don't know what conversation...

01:25:31.460 Did you ask the question?

01:25:32.340 It's a really simple... You know the answer to that question.

01:25:34.580 Did you ask the question of number 10?

01:25:35.340 I have not asked if Keir Starmer asked this.

01:25:38.240 OK, and why did you not ask that?

01:25:39.840 Because you wanted to come on here and say you didn't know anything about it?

01:25:42.820 No, because I don't think the Prime Minister would be in the position

01:25:45.660 of picking up a phone on a personnel matter like that.

01:25:49.780 He's not an appropriate choice for that, is he?

01:25:51.380 And I guess part of the reason I think that people feel frustrated about this...

01:25:56.240 Anyway, I just wanted to end on that. That's comedy gold, isn't it?

01:25:59.460 Yeah. That's like a sketch.

01:26:00.880 So there you go. There's the fallout from the Mandy affair and Ollie Robbins.

01:26:06.580 an ongoing saga no doubt that's not the end of the story oh god no well it will end in the demise

01:26:13.060 of starmer's government won't it i would have thought ultimately after the elections after

01:26:16.600 the elections play a big role in it one way or another okay so we've got uh some we've got any

01:26:22.580 videos today samson are there videos today i think so he's pulling them up okay we do have

01:26:30.980 One rumble rant, actually.

01:26:33.160 Oh, two now.

01:26:34.720 Shall I read them?

01:26:36.740 I was led to believe Peter Mendelsohn,

01:26:39.340 don't know if that's what the composer,

01:26:42.240 was an all right guy when I met him at his previous job

01:26:45.300 of whispering into the ear of the King of Rohan.

01:26:48.280 Then Binary Surfer says,

01:26:49.760 there's no way he'd have legitimately gained

01:26:52.480 even a basic clearance, let alone strap.

01:26:56.080 Being mates with a pedo, Intel asset for years,

01:26:59.640 this reeks of I know where 0.96

01:27:01.820 political bodies are buried

01:27:03.040 yeah of course, of course it's that

01:27:05.640 he put money

01:27:07.860 there himself I don't know

01:27:09.300 it's a cat, yeah it's a cat

01:27:11.360 cat video

01:27:12.080 as the Lib Dem leader

01:27:13.700 Peter Perrer, the famous

01:27:16.540 banana cat

01:27:17.920 is quite famous for his

01:27:20.760 monetary policy

01:27:21.740 his is a

01:27:24.300 resounding and

01:27:26.500 quite restrained

01:27:28.420 Flat 10% on everyone

01:27:31.380 Everyone will pay their fair share

01:27:34.720 This is a purchase fully approved

01:27:38.660 By Peter Perrer, the Lib Dem leader

01:27:41.660 Brilliant

01:27:43.820 That cat for Prime Minister, I'd say

01:27:47.720 Sounds monetary policy to me

01:27:50.520 When he eats a banana, an amazing transformation occurs

01:27:53.740 He is Banana Cat

01:27:55.960 you transform into a banana just a perfectly ordinary banana completely in this you know

01:28:03.300 indistinguishable from any other banana do you remember you might remember the cartoon banana

01:28:08.440 man is that from um from the bino wasn't it before my time i think very certainly it was

01:28:13.760 from the bino that was uh desperate desperate desperate dan yeah and

01:28:20.900 ah denis the menace denis the menace and nasha denis the menace with nasha yeah anyway

01:28:27.300 john sampson

01:28:30.920 is he not playing so i've been seeing a lot of posts on twitter about brian jocks recently and

01:28:39.080 his opinions on writing it's important to keep in mind that he actually had no formal education

01:28:43.960 when he wrote his books and wrote them when it is when he was in his 40s so what got him to start

01:28:49.440 writing was that he was working

01:28:51.360 at a school for the blind and he

01:28:53.360 would read books to the blind children

01:28:54.960 and he was noting that all the books that they gave

01:28:57.340 him were about teen pregnancies

01:28:58.980 and abusive drunk parents and he's like 0.99

01:29:01.020 these all suck I'm going to write my own 1.00

01:29:03.260 book there's going to be rodents there's going to be 0.99

01:29:05.280 food there's going to be puzzles and a

01:29:07.300 whole lot of righteous killing

01:29:08.580 nice sounds good

01:29:11.320 I don't know those no I've never heard of them

01:29:13.380 books I've never heard of them no they sound alright though

01:29:15.260 they sound pretty good

01:29:17.380 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me

01:29:27.600 shall be my brother, be he there so vile.

01:29:30.600 This day shall be gentle his condition, and gentle men in England, now a bear,

01:29:36.260 shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap.

01:29:41.740 Whilst any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day,

01:29:47.380 Oh brilliant

01:29:50.680 For a second I thought that was Robin Hood

01:29:53.620 And I was going to say that's putting the robbing in Robin Hood

01:29:55.880 But it's Henry V

01:29:57.080 Alas

01:29:58.580 He's no Larry is he?

01:30:00.620 He's no Lawrence Olivier

01:30:01.520 He's no Kenneth Branagh

01:30:03.220 Brilliant

01:30:03.560 That was a bit of a weak delivery if you ask me

01:30:05.560 Okay I think it's written comments now

01:30:10.180 Blimey

01:30:11.480 Sophie's written a long comment

01:30:12.800 I'll quickly read for it

01:30:13.860 A terrible thing about AI really is how it takes away incentives

01:30:16.880 to learn skills and actually do things to be smarter more self-reliant that's a very good

01:30:20.920 point um it really is making people dumber because it's easier to just rely on ai failing to realize

01:30:26.540 this may not always be an option already ai is highly unreliable well the thing is ai basically

01:30:32.160 gets you to a midwit level at best like you can't really exceed you know an average and of course

01:30:38.380 that's sort of how it works right it looks at the average of what people put out and imitates it and

01:30:44.020 So it will never be exceptional for pretty much our entire lifetimes

01:30:48.840 if it carries on improving at the rate it is

01:30:52.200 because, you know, you can get to 95% accuracy,

01:30:56.060 but it increasingly gets more and more difficult, that remaining 5%.

01:31:01.660 And my reward, I'll read just one more.

01:31:05.260 I know we're over time.

01:31:05.960 It says, honestly, account selling is worse than slop or AI

01:31:09.640 since it's conning an audience built on authenticity and selling their trust that's

01:31:14.500 very true yeah i i have never ever accepted a penny for anything i've posted ever in my entire 0.94

01:31:20.520 life me neither all right a couple for mine um russian garbage human says the spLC literally 0.86

01:31:30.320 has a chart in their office proudly tracking the decline of the white population in america 0.94

01:31:35.100 and the change of foreign-born percentage in Europe. 0.95

01:31:40.680 Yeah, it sounds about their speed, doesn't it? 1.00

01:31:42.480 Sounds about right.

01:31:43.420 Yeah, it's completely insane.

01:31:45.120 Quick rumble rant to read.

01:31:46.620 Fictager says,

01:31:47.340 I've used AI to help me generate images and clips

01:31:49.440 to help towards a movie pitch,

01:31:51.840 so I don't think it's slop

01:31:52.820 as it's helping to bolster my concept.

01:31:54.860 But that's a good use of it.

01:31:56.020 I'm not against AI full stop.

01:31:58.180 It's more just the low-quality nonsense

01:31:59.700 to generate clicks.

01:32:00.980 So, no, I'm not some sort of Luddite.

01:32:03.200 okay do you want to do one or two nate yeah yeah um bo and nate whispering into the microphone

01:32:11.380 while you fellas were live live labor mp jonathan brash called on gb news for starma to resign

01:32:18.680 wow okay okay nice politics uh and just lastly that's a random name says whenever

01:32:27.020 starma speaks he sounds like he's trying his best to keep his back door shut after all those

01:32:32.340 rent boys passed through blimey wait a little bit of the tone at the end and on that bombshell

01:32:37.900 bringing up the rear there that's a random name

01:32:41.500 okay that's the podcast guys thanks for watching uh tune in uh well 8 a.m tomorrow morning for

01:32:51.200 breakfast with beau and uh the podcast again uh 1 p.m um until tomorrow then take care

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 22, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1402

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