The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1415

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters, episode 1415, the year of Agincourt, how great, for Monday the 11th of May 2026.

00:00:10.540 I'm your host Luke Kirk, joined today by Karl and Stelios.

00:00:13.480 Hello everyone.

00:00:14.220 On this Monday and today we're going to be talking all about the Iron Fist of Keir Starmer, trying to keep those rebels in line. 0.97

00:00:22.840 We're then going to be talking about how the councillors across Britain seem to be getting spicier. 0.99

00:00:28.440 and then we're going to be talking about how the odyssey film seems to just be a disaster 0.97

00:00:34.000 that some people are going to hate watch it some people are actually going to think go in there

00:00:39.380 thinking it's a good film and we're going to give you our take on that as well before we get into

00:00:44.120 the main show just want to draw your attention to the merch store on the main website because

00:00:49.540 to celebrate over a hundred episodes of the nation's favorite breakfast show breakfast with

00:00:55.960 we have wonderful wonderful new merchandise we have drive time mug and shirts and i'm reliably

00:01:02.480 informed that if you get these you can get 10 off at the checkout so if you'd like some wonderful

00:01:08.460 uh merch for breakfast with beau you can go and get that with all of that said uh carl take us

00:01:15.520 away yeah um so it's been a bit of a rough weekend for keir starmer yes the election results came out

00:01:22.220 on friday and uh they weren't great for labor they weren't as bad as they could have been

00:01:28.140 i'll actually i'm actually doing this in preparation for my talk with dan tomorrow

00:01:32.300 uh about the current state of play from the local elections we're doing an autopsy on the

00:01:36.380 local election elections but this is the first the most immediate consequence of it which is

00:01:41.820 kia starmer uh i mean look at his face there he knows he's in trouble he's got a lot uh riding

00:01:49.420 on this and but the thing is a lot was expected from this as in everyone knew this was going to

00:01:54.480 be a walloping for labor and so Keir Starmer has clearly had this planned for a while that he would

00:02:01.940 have to be like right okay I'm going to face an insurrection directly after the locals but I

00:02:06.600 Keir Starmer am prepared to fight them because he seems to hold the entire rest of his party in

00:02:12.200 contempt it's so great uh just want to be want to be really really clear right i'm a i'm a hardline

00:02:19.800 kia starmer supporter in this particular conflict i want kia starmer to crush these rebels mercilessly

00:02:26.820 route them like he'd be driven before him like he did with the corbin easter left i mean corbin is

00:02:31.700 no longer a member of the labor party from being the leader that kia starmer supported because

00:02:36.980 starman kicks him out brutally once he won so it's not like we don't know that i mean there's a

00:02:43.800 reason people call him like queer starlin is because he he tends to have this kind of bureaucratic 0.58

00:02:49.380 uh coldness in him where he's like no i've made decision you're all out and it people had to beg 0.65

00:02:55.620 him not to kick out diane abbott and it's like you you want to kick out diana but it's like

00:02:59.580 kicking a puppy don't kick out diane abbott she's the only person giving reasonable explanations

00:03:04.420 for what's happening out here basically yes and and also like she's there's something like 1.00

00:03:11.120 grandmotherly about her at this point that is kind of like oh come on okay yeah she's a lunatic 0.99

00:03:15.960 she often wears two left shoes or can't find her way out of a gate or whatever it is she can't

00:03:21.540 count but there's still a kind of familiarity about dan abbott that i you know starmer's

00:03:26.320 managerial bureaucratic uh coldness doesn't seem to recognize and so he's like anyway the point

00:03:33.320 being he's been rough with all of his opponents and so now the the soft left of the labor party

00:03:40.560 who are the people who thought Keir Starmer was their guy are beginning to realize no Keir Starmer

00:03:47.360 is the man of the system he is the system's man he doesn't know anything but it and he will broach

00:03:54.500 no challenge to it he is like the last avatar of avatar of Blairism you can see this in the fact

00:04:00.320 well who did he who did he bring in to uh come and help him well he brought in harriet harman and

00:04:05.840 gordon brown it's like why i guess those beloved figures of the british landscape of politics

00:04:13.040 yeah it's it's just it's so weird i mean brown's going to advise on global finance ah yes couldn't

00:04:19.340 have picked anyone more apt for that and harriet harman will focus on social and economic improvements 0.70

00:04:24.300 for women and girls so what why would you want them like nobody wants them no like this was

00:04:30.880 really unexpected and everyone's like working that's weird and it's got to the point where

00:04:34.540 dan hodges is a male on a daily mail columnist and he speaks to a lot of the mps and apparently

00:04:41.000 one solidly loyal cabinet minister has said everything he does just makes it worse and it's

00:04:45.600 so totally true so we'll look at the current state of play shall we so um labor are just on

00:04:52.860 the road to destruction right these are just the predictions for the next election uh labor

00:04:59.740 and these are roughly in line with the polling as it stands at the moment

00:05:03.100 reform on about 26 labor on about 18 conservatives on about 18 and then the rest on whatever but as

00:05:10.140 you can see the the predicted seats you've got highs and lows of predicted seats here

00:05:14.940 the labor average is 78 conservatives 112 to be honest with you i think these are optimistic

00:05:19.900 frankly uh reform 248 so no hung parliament no government in waiting basically but the potential

00:05:26.460 labor lows i mean i've seen polling that puts labor on potential like 14 seats you know on the

00:05:31.260 average of 18 seats i mean we can only pray but as we'll talk about tomorrow in fact uh it doesn't

00:05:40.060 look like this is going to happen it looks like we the managed decline is going to continue declining

00:05:45.820 and as dan put it last week in our political chat like kia summer doesn't want to give up because

00:05:50.540 there's so much more decline to manage and including his own party and the entire and

00:05:55.740 also it's going to have to be overseen by a decline of manager as well the managers who have to manage

00:06:02.620 the decline just keep getting worse as well and that is a point we'll come back to very shortly

00:06:07.340 actually um so it this isn't unprecedented right it starmer's loss was bad they lost a thousand

00:06:14.860 100 seats which is bad but thatcher had lost a thousand seats major lost 2000 seats blair lost

00:06:20.860 800 seats like may lost 1134 all without resignations so he's not even like some sort of

00:06:29.580 radical outlier in how badly they did they did badly but it wasn't that badly and actually

00:06:35.100 starmer can make this argument and start uh perhaps clawing it back because i mean not even

00:06:41.160 half of labor voters think he should resign so if his own party he's actually got a majority of

00:06:46.740 people who are not saying he should resign well he can leverage this i wonder what it would take

00:06:51.940 for those particular people to actually just break their loyalty from the labor party not

00:06:58.180 the mandelson stuff i get that they don't care about southport and kids dying right and the rape

00:07:02.360 gangs and all that but from their own perspective yeah like what would it take i mean that's that's

00:07:08.740 a great question but i assume that these are all basically people employed by the government at

00:07:13.940 this point that's the the only the only i can only assume a labor voter at this point is someone who's

00:07:18.560 directly employed by the state and so keir starmer as the avatar of the state they're seeing

00:07:23.820 themselves represented in him and of course they understand the decline has to be managed and keir

00:07:28.380 armor is committed to the managing of the decline so i assume they're just like no no he's the guy

00:07:34.260 there's literally no one better around him um but it's not going to stop the insurrection so

00:07:39.460 uh 29 mps have just uh announced that they would like here's something to resume they haven't done

00:07:45.080 anything formally 100 councillors and former candidates this person has mislabeled these

00:07:49.800 mps but it wasn't 100 councillors and former candidates have called for his resignation

00:07:53.820 and so the question is okay well who's in the lineup you know if you if you're going to get

00:07:59.500 you know the the price of a an effective attack is a constructive alternative so who would you

00:08:04.700 have in the wings i don't think anyone wants to step on his shoes i just i really don't think i

00:08:10.580 think they want him to lose the next elections so they can just start a new that's just my hunch

00:08:16.620 i mean maybe uh the thing is it's not really indicative that's the chart that's the case

00:08:22.180 so angela rayner has been one of those people that's been spoken about all the red queen

00:08:26.480 big and queen of the cv yeah she's she's a stalking horse in the background it's like kind of

00:08:31.940 but actually she's come out and endorsed andy burnham uh so andy burnham is the mayor of

00:08:37.400 manchester and relatively popular within manchester and keir starmer prevented him from

00:08:43.660 getting into the house of commons for anyone who doesn't remember he wanted to resign his seat as

00:08:48.240 the mayor of Greater Manchester, and run in the Gorton and Denton by-election, where polling

00:08:53.140 suggests he probably would have been very competitive and won it, because he is, like

00:08:58.000 I said, well-liked in Manchester, he's a local, and he's Labour, so he would have had every

00:09:04.220 opportunity. Keir Starmer, using his executive control of the NEC, the Labour's internal

00:09:11.060 body, prevented this, and so Andy Burnham is currently on the outside, and this is one

00:09:17.240 of the reasons that the sort of soft left types that Rayner and Burnham represent don't want to

00:09:22.620 have an open challenge to uh Starmer at the moment because if they do well their candidate just isn't

00:09:28.480 in place the Labour internal rules say that anyone who does an internal leadership challenge has to

00:09:33.040 be an MP well Burnham isn't so he can't so if it were to all kick off now their guy who's literally

00:09:42.000 the best chance that they have it seems of actually being recovering anything with the Labour Party

00:09:47.020 can't even fulfill the role so not great for them but they are well aware that andy burnham is their

00:09:55.760 best bet i mean the the allies say oh we've got a seat for him lined up 100 private polling has

00:10:01.240 been conducted it reassures them he's going to win the by-elections uh well

00:10:05.220 is there is there a labor safe seat anywhere well fewer and fewer but even if he did win as well

00:10:14.680 well, okay, you might find a particular seat for him in Manchester

00:10:18.140 or somewhere where he has reasonable support,

00:10:20.880 but not the support of the country.

00:10:23.260 There's nothing unique or dazzling about Andy Burnham

00:10:27.000 that is going to allow him to save the Labour Party single-handedly.

00:10:32.420 He is going to be more of the same,

00:10:33.780 but he's probably going to be less personally repulsive than Keir Starmer,

00:10:39.020 which is which is one of the like he he he has a more human side to him sure that Keir Starmer

00:10:45.940 clearly doesn't I mean you've got people on the sort of like left of the Labour soft left like

00:10:50.700 Clive Lewis saying oh yeah I'm backing Andy Burnham and this got parlayed into a series of

00:10:58.300 rumours like oh he's preparing to resign his seat in Norwich South to give to Keir uh give to Andy

00:11:05.860 burnham uh clive lewis to say well no i'm not gonna do that you want annie burnham but you're

00:11:14.140 not gonna resign your seat which theoretically in any other era would be a labor safe seat

00:11:19.320 but not at the moment at the moment it looks like the greens are gonna win it because norwich south

00:11:23.520 is though like 86 white british full of students because the university of east anglia there yeah

00:11:30.660 and the students are like yeah no the labor party isn't fulfilling their promises we're

00:11:35.340 we're flipping to the greens and so it looks like he won't even have that seat come the next election

00:11:40.500 anyway interesting so there i mean there's i just can't see anywhere that would be actually a safe

00:11:47.320 seat at the moment the challenge from the greens from the left is really strong and they've got

00:11:52.960 the wind in their sails and everyone's sick of the i mean kistam is viewed as being the soft left but

00:11:58.120 i don't think he is that's the thing he isn't and i think uh that was evident in southport yeah he

00:12:03.980 had a perfect opportunity to appear as if he is the diplomat is going to be mediate between the

00:12:09.760 two communities and he just didn't and one thing about this i think i don't know whether the greens

00:12:15.520 are going to lose momentum i think they will because every time polanski is being interviewed

00:12:20.360 he is losing momentum yes so i i really think that in in the last in the next three years

00:12:27.580 there are going to be more interviews of him and agreed i mean polanski can only gather the

00:12:32.840 faithful in my opinion if you're not already an insane radical student communist or part of the

00:12:38.380 muslim bloc who's looking for handouts why would you why would you flip to polanski he's he's just 0.76

00:12:44.540 going to ruin things uh so i think there's a natural cap on the greens and so i'm i'm not at 0.88

00:12:48.760 all worried about them which because i'm not a labor supporter and i think you're right any

00:12:53.340 basically public exposure to polanski is negative to polanski yeah once you go beyond the immediate

00:12:59.380 constituency that already support him you realize wait a minute this guy seems inauthentic and he's

00:13:05.260 basically just telling me through a sort of a cloud of pleasant words he wants to take my money

00:13:11.560 and give it to foreigners why would i want more of that he wants open borders he wants unlimited

00:13:15.460 immigration he wants unlimited government spending no no no no no this is nonsense this is just

00:13:20.760 the extremity of the labor left finding a new packaging for its own outlet and as we know from

00:13:27.880 uh the lads hour we did last week as well the quality control of their councillors on the

00:13:32.980 doorstep is not particularly high or endearing yeah so like i said i'm a supporter of the greens

00:13:38.100 too um uh so anyway the the current business secretary peter kyle has just been like look

00:13:44.100 uh andy burnham just needs to stay in manchester and shut up but this isn't going to keep the

00:13:51.400 rumblings down because everyone is aware that in the next election Labour are going to get creamed

00:13:59.140 the entire Labour front bench looks like it's going to lose they're going to lose their seats

00:14:03.080 the Labour leader in Wales recently lost their seat which was the first example of a

00:14:09.080 sitting party leader losing their seat so in British history so although I'm pretty sure

00:14:16.040 Jo Swinson lost her seat as well yeah I thought yeah as the leader of the Lib Dem so I'm not sure

00:14:20.440 that's correct i've seen other people saying that maybe i'm not sure maybe it's because she was

00:14:25.260 actually holding the office rather than just being a party leader the actual leader um but the point

00:14:30.260 is this was bad and it looks like it'll be bad for labor because frankly none of them look like

00:14:36.020 they're going to hold their seats uh i mean david lammy will say oh yeah no i'm definitely going to

00:14:40.420 but it's like it's still it's on a knife edge it's it's all bad for all of them and so a relatively

00:14:45.740 unknown uh former mp and ex-minister um is pushing forward called catherine west now you've probably

00:14:53.980 never heard of her she became an mp in 2015 and then uh she resigned but she became some sort of

00:15:01.480 someone working in the machinations of the party right okay and she's just come through and said

00:15:07.460 no i'm going to bulldoze my way through this um by i see i don't know she must still be an mp she's

00:15:13.180 a former minister um but she says if there are no leadership hopefuls who come forward tomorrow

00:15:17.860 then monday morning i will put my name forward to stand as the leader of the labor party and begin

00:15:22.040 a leadership election now this is great you're not going to take that are you kia you're not

00:15:27.020 going to let that stand are you kia katherine are you are you going to just let him grind your party

00:15:32.040 into the dust come on you've got to stand up for it you've got it you've got to push this now now

00:15:37.840 now now we can't possibly wait until andy burnham has a seat lined up we've got to do it right now

00:15:42.660 while you've got the um wonderful pick of talent yes around you to use um this is brilliant right

00:15:49.180 for both for no matter where you stand on the issue i mean i i i assume you're with me on the

00:15:55.300 pro-kir starmer side of course but if you're with say yeah if you're with the navara media and you're

00:16:01.260 on the anti-kir starmer side you want the soft left in charge uh well this this is this is bad

00:16:06.180 for you um because starmer's likely going to see off a kind of incompetently put together and

00:16:11.600 spurious leadership challenge just some hasty like oh we just got to do something now exactly yeah

00:16:17.440 for for the the people here who can't um withstand the pressure of the environment and haven't laid

00:16:24.660 good plans um she'll probably square it up for them which would be great you know people will

00:16:29.360 be uh you know that the labor soft left are kind of flighty they're like a herd of deer basically

00:16:33.960 you know and if if one of them jumps and it scares the lot of them they'll all go but then

00:16:39.780 they are still flighty when someone else jumps on the other side and they'll flood back and so if

00:16:45.300 kia starmer just uh you know juts at his giga chad chin and says no i don't care uh i think i think

00:16:52.000 they'll fail i think this will not work um burnham uh and his allies are desperately trying to

00:16:58.240 convince her to shut up for the love of god don't screw this up for me please and she's

00:17:04.840 she's she's just come out and been like well i guess if he gives a banger of a speech i'll uh

00:17:12.460 i'll let it go i'll let it go because kirsten's plan was to give a speech this morning which he

00:17:16.320 has given and we'll go through in a minute he just gives an amazing speech which he's never

00:17:20.040 given before but if he can just do this now so did she flip-flop there after andy burnham's uh

00:17:27.440 she she's she's kind of wavering yes winding a neck in yeah because uh burnham has just said

00:17:34.700 look this just isn't this isn't the time i'm not ready we are not ready um and so she has given

00:17:42.000 herself a kind of out here so well if it's an amazing speech and you say he's never given he

00:17:45.360 has given a few um to the faithful in the labor party sure okay fair kiss i can't give a banger

00:17:52.140 speech that wins over the country but he can win over the kind of uh managerial left in the labor

00:17:57.580 party who um oh well i suppose they call them the right of the labor party who are entirely

00:18:02.880 dependent on him and his fortunes for their seats right he can win those people over the nhs spending

00:18:08.700 must go up at all costs absolutely yeah exactly though exactly that and in fact that's precisely

00:18:13.840 what he's promising um but yeah so she's like okay okay maybe and when streeting has told carter

00:18:21.120 starmer that he's preparing his case to be the next p.m should a leadership contest be triggered

00:18:25.320 by someone else as in if catherine west is going to trigger i'm going to put my hat in the ring

00:18:29.380 and it's like well i mean great if you look at ilford north which is yours you won that

00:18:35.680 by 500 seats in 2024 500 votes like a local party nearly unseated you and of course it's predicted

00:18:44.620 they will unseat you come the next general election i remember uh getting lost in ilford

00:18:49.740 one time and i didn't see a single english person there no no it's 33 percent white british uh there

00:18:56.100 you um at the and that's not even white british actually that's just and people who have white

00:19:01.560 skin uh at the last election uh the last census and it's probably worse now so i mean the idea

00:19:09.120 that we're streeting who's going to take this is just preposterous frankly he looks really scared

00:19:14.480 yeah he does he has this whole expression of his just i'm scared yeah the flighty deer syndrome

00:19:20.440 because these people have never really had any interaction with the reality and have lived

00:19:25.120 entirely within the uh confines of the sort of labor machine which has protected them from

00:19:30.260 actually having to get a job uh anyway uh ed milliband uh is expected to be uh urged to go

00:19:37.940 forward to become the leader but the thing is he's already been the party leader and he didn't do a

00:19:41.520 good job but i was like i mean you might remember his uh heck yes i'm tough enough to take on putin

00:19:46.980 speech i do remember embarrassing it's like you're not tough enough to take on a bacon sandwich

00:19:52.960 And as you were saying,

00:19:54.860 Diane Abbott has actually given quite salient

00:19:56.900 political analysis on all this.

00:19:58.820 So it's John McDonnell,

00:20:00.540 who's another Corbyn ally.

00:20:02.700 He was the shadow chancellor under Corbyn,

00:20:05.940 close with Diane Abbott.

00:20:07.780 And the good thing about the sort of like radical left

00:20:09.880 in the Labour Party

00:20:10.860 is that they're actually quite unchained

00:20:13.360 to give a real assessment

00:20:15.440 of what's happening from the inside.

00:20:17.540 And so John McDonnell just says,

00:20:18.980 what's happening in the Labour Party?

00:20:20.320 One, Keir Starmer is desperately trying to cling on.

00:20:22.080 obvious too many mps in shock and realizing no chance of an election if he stays which again

00:20:26.800 is obvious but what's interesting is this has become like a latent uh sort of uh something

00:20:32.740 they've only just realized so oh wait are we all about to get creamed if we go into a general

00:20:36.800 election it's like yeah have you just noticed uh three told you that after you won the last

00:20:42.320 yeah exactly you accidentally won the last one the three leaf stability and so calls for real

00:20:48.420 discussion and a smooth transfer to a new leader is possible. And this is the chaos we were going

00:20:53.720 to talk about in a minute. Factions are also considering a coup. If factions around Wench

00:20:57.680 Streeting or Angela Rayner bounce the party into an individual leadership election under the

00:21:01.480 existing undemocratic rules and whilst individual candidates remain blocked, it will just sow the

00:21:05.660 seeds of increasing division and disillusionment playing into the hands of reform. So Keir Starmer

00:21:10.600 is actually in a stronger position than it looks. As in, he has the core infrastructure of the party

00:21:17.940 behind him and the timing is bad for the soft left they don't have their ideal candidate in place

00:21:25.240 and the only name really being floated that is currently in place is in an insanely precarious

00:21:32.260 position because come any contact with the electorate he's probably going to lose his seat

00:21:37.320 so it's actually kind of great it's actually kind of brilliant uh for the people who want another

00:21:43.720 yes decade of kiss and then there is just always the nuclear option as well which is just challenge

00:21:49.160 me and you all lose your seats there is also that now starmer hasn't said this at least publicly

00:21:54.140 um i don't know whether he's thinking it he's not a long time labor politician so it could be that

00:22:02.860 he eventually gets to the point where he's like okay well beep i don't care boom you know but he

00:22:07.280 hasn't said that and that's i've not seen anyone talking about the threat of that either but that

00:22:11.720 is definitely a sword of damocles he hangs over their heads but anyway kia starmer said no i'm

00:22:16.120 gonna get 10 more years in number 10 and i'm gonna fight my challengers they are gonna get

00:22:20.860 the iron fist of starmer and i you know i'm i'm for it well i like my prime ministers as optimistic

00:22:27.860 as an x-man what i just like the idea that he's like no i'm just gonna bully the hell out of my 0.84

00:22:34.160 own mps i'm just gonna crush them grind them into dust uh kind of like a conan the barbarian

00:22:41.420 figure yeah he has to do this from within this framework i know it's amazing isn't it it's a 0.78

00:22:46.160 genuine will to power in kia starmer the nietzschean over man yeah exactly yeah but honestly i mean

00:22:53.900 that's that's literally what he's saying like all of the signs are terrible everything's going

00:22:57.880 horribly and he's like no i'm having another 10 years so and i will destroy yes in my way and

00:23:04.160 okay and you know when asked are you definitely going to lead your party in the next election

00:23:09.480 and he's like yes i will well not quite in such a dramatic voice yes i will um

00:23:16.300 okay kia i mean i the chatter around this now is oh he's delusional and it's like yes he is

00:23:27.400 which is great uh nigel faras did call him the best recruiter for the right which i think is

00:23:31.880 correct uh but yeah he's threatening to flatten the lot of them and so he comes out and gives

00:23:35.960 this speech now this speech was very interesting because it begins it's surprisingly high energy

00:23:41.680 like he's got a crowd around let me get the image up he's got a crowd of people watching him and

00:23:49.040 uh you know they're applauding hard so these are the closest apparatchiks right and you know it's

00:23:55.680 quite high energy and he comes out and he's you know giving the fairly standard kiss time of

00:24:00.580 speech but it's quite aggressive he's like no we're going to go down a dark path if we don't

00:24:05.000 allow me in charge and i won't plunge the country into chaos by having a leadership election and

00:24:10.780 that's an amazing commentary about his own subordinates and colleagues isn't it yeah if 0.99

00:24:14.600 we change leader now chaos why because they're crap they're all crap everyone around me can you 0.99

00:24:20.620 blame him on this no he's correct on this i know i'm holding back the chaos of my own party 0.99

00:24:27.380 that's literally what he's telling the public you don't want these guys these guys

00:24:34.860 mental i know these guys exactly i'm the last bastion of sanity yeah genuinely that's his pitch 0.78

00:24:43.940 right everyone around me is a lunatic i'm the only thing holding them back and he literally says look

00:24:49.960 you know i didn't get into the war with iran did i you know i made sure that we got more funding 0.85

00:24:54.100 for the nhs and blah blah blah blah blah he was very very spirited and was basically threatening

00:24:58.360 to flatten the lots of them uh he doesn't say it explicitly but the implicit is no i'm gonna

00:25:03.360 fight it and i'm gonna crush you because i've crushed everyone up until this point because i'm 0.91

00:25:07.780 a as nick dixon describes him he's like a shark right he's got black beady eyes these bites 0.95

00:25:12.280 forward doesn't matter what's in his way and this is essentially what he's threatening

00:25:15.880 and so he's like look we're gonna have strength through fairness i sound bloody hell he's talking

00:25:20.660 about strength now he's like he sounds like like uh what's the guy from v for vendetta you know

00:25:25.440 just v and then the the prospero is it the the guy who um prothero oh yes yeah where he's like

00:25:31.580 you know labor prevails is essentially like the the energy that comes out of it but um i mean he

00:25:37.680 throws out some some serious red meat for the sort of soft lefties like we're going to nationalize 0.78

00:25:41.900 british steel we're going to swing back to the eu we're going to do all of these things and we're

00:25:46.520 finally going to get it done and then the letters for resignation started coming in um people have

00:25:51.660 just been like no no we we want you to go but the question is how many people can actually muster

00:25:59.620 challenge yeah that's the point because they can people can individually say starmer leave yep but

00:26:05.620 if no one wants to jump to get the top position yeah why would he leave he needs 81 signatures

00:26:13.600 on the letter so yeah so what what he can tell them instead is you will fool the you will feel

00:26:20.020 the full force of the law yeah that's basically what he's going to do so anyway apparently

00:26:24.700 can't from west is going ahead with her letter to the labor mps today uh but she stopped short

00:26:29.400 of stating her own candidacy uh she will instead canvas support for a timetable for the pm to stand

00:26:34.740 out so notice how it's uh entirely managerial so okay we're gonna set our calendar we're gonna get

00:26:40.140 a timetable together we're gonna make sure this is done through process because that's how they

00:26:44.260 do everything so it's literally the way their minds people's front of judea just sat around

00:26:48.200 talking about it all and it is incredible uh proper like high level student politics

00:26:53.920 and then like so you've got her here's the email she sent out uh looking around canvassing for

00:27:00.120 names but what does this tell us this tells us there isn't a proper insurrection in the labor

00:27:04.900 party actually because they knew for a long time these elect the local elections were going to be

00:27:10.160 rough they knew it was coming and they're not prepared but what is interesting here is that

00:27:15.860 they're trying to apply pressure on him and he just tells them i just don't recognize you unless 0.96

00:27:22.100 you step up i don't care what you're doing yeah and if you step up i'll crush you and you are chaos

00:27:27.180 yes yeah you're chaos incarnate i've just got the meme you know the old star and we'll be loving 0.98

00:27:32.100 this you know sort of in my head it's you know whether whether you like starmer or not he's done

00:27:36.320 a good job of shoring up his own position he has i mean the blocking andy burnham was genius in

00:27:42.620 hindsight because this has just left them essentially without the ability to properly

00:27:48.080 form a coalition against him on their own terms if they're going to do it now okay go for it but

00:27:54.800 you can already tell they're all like look please don't do this well you know so the the in the

00:27:58.520 faction itself of the soft left led by Rayner and Burnham who are trying to overthrow Starmer

00:28:03.080 there's already divisions like no no not now we're not ready you can't do this and yet she's pushing

00:28:07.460 ahead anyway starmer will probably defeat this based on the this will cause chaos and might end

00:28:12.780 up triggering a general or something who knows right we don't want that and so you have to stick

00:28:17.060 with me i'm the only person it's gonna be 10 more years we're gonna carry on and so it looks like i

00:28:23.520 think and i loathe to make predictions but unless they have a plan that they pull out of nowhere

00:28:30.080 that just isn't you can't see from the public position uh i don't think some is going for this

00:28:35.440 It would be very poetic for the Labour Party

00:28:38.040 to begin with a Keir and Keir Hardie

00:28:40.240 and end with a Keir.

00:28:41.600 Yeah.

00:28:41.920 Well, it would have a nice poetry to it.

00:28:44.360 So I think what's going to happen is

00:28:46.060 you're going to see a lot of moulding of Labour MPs

00:28:48.720 on Twitter and publicly,

00:28:50.640 but I don't think they're actually going to make the moves needed.

00:28:53.180 Now, I could be wrong, and tomorrow, you know,

00:28:54.700 we could see, boom, that's it,

00:28:56.020 West Streeting's going for it.

00:28:57.240 Good luck, Wes.

00:28:59.400 I could be completely wrong.

00:29:00.640 Of course, who knows, right?

00:29:02.080 We're in very...

00:29:02.820 We've all got you back in Ilford, Wes.

00:29:04.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:29:05.440 We're in very disorderly times, and

00:29:07.340 things are very difficult to predict. But I've

00:29:09.520 got this hunch that Starmer's just going to

00:29:11.420 ride it out. I think

00:29:13.460 he's the man. I think Giga Chad

00:29:15.520 Starmer is the key. I support

00:29:17.380 my Prime Minister. Yeah, me too.

00:29:20.660 Oh, can we

00:29:21.420 have the rumble rants on the...

00:29:24.220 Thanks, Harry.

00:29:28.420 Alright, okay. Well, I'll just head

00:29:31.400 over to my segment then.

00:29:35.440 Thank you.

00:29:36.720 All right, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know,

00:29:38.940 we had many council elections towards the end of last week,

00:29:43.100 and what a success they were for the party that we're obviously enthusiastic about

00:29:48.500 and the hope on the horizon that is, of course, Restore Britain,

00:29:51.820 who won unanimously across Great Yarmouth.

00:29:55.740 Ten seats, ten victories, right?

00:29:57.900 And it was really something.

00:30:00.200 And not just a victory, but conclusive, seismic.

00:30:04.480 you know 50 percent 45 percent just over and over over double what reform could muster in every seat

00:30:11.760 yeah it was every seat yes so a lot to be very very optimistic about there however this was

00:30:18.540 obviously uh tactically the correct thing to do for restore britain to focus on an area where

00:30:24.500 the constituents have got to know rupert and where we can field candidates who are also known

00:30:29.180 in the local communities as well and who have obviously been endorsed by the majority of the

00:30:34.640 public and so we can see now that this is a formula that has legs and it can certainly be

00:30:41.420 carried out throughout the rest of the country and i look forward to seeing what these fine

00:30:46.600 patriotic englishmen do with on their with their council seats but of course you know that that's

00:30:54.080 still in its infancy so far. And really, a lot of the eyes were on how far were Labour

00:30:59.040 going to fall, how hard were Restore going to rise, and whether or not anyone would even

00:31:04.620 notice what was happening to the Conservative Party. And so all of these things were very

00:31:09.880 much on people's minds. And obviously, as we can see here, reform, you know, won the

00:31:16.320 night, really, in terms of, you know, the candidates sort of field and the councils

00:31:19.840 that were won over with a huge upshift in votes.

00:31:24.320 Bear in mind, the last time the Louise Council elections,

00:31:27.320 they only had two councillors,

00:31:28.820 and they've come forward with nearly 1.5k more,

00:31:31.960 which is, yeah, great, you know, good for them.

00:31:34.060 Because ultimately, unlike the higher-ups in the party,

00:31:38.480 who are, you know, Nigel, Tice, Zia Youssef,

00:31:42.420 and everyone that they've let in from Boris's cabinet,

00:31:45.360 and Nadine Zahawi and Nadine Dorries and Robert Jennerick,

00:31:50.620 these are the people, these are the creatures of the establishment

00:31:54.460 who have just a history of backstabbing, of climbing the greasy pole,

00:31:59.460 of trying to preserve their own positions, hang on to power,

00:32:02.500 and time and time again have proven that really they're only looking out

00:32:06.460 for their own self-preservation.

00:32:08.320 Or they themselves are the people responsible for the Boris wave.

00:32:11.200 Exactly that.

00:32:11.840 That is directly factually true in the case of Sweller and Jemmerick.

00:32:16.420 Yes, and exactly, and who are complicit in so many of the terrible things that have been forced on our nation.

00:32:24.200 But obviously when it comes to the councillors, they're not so much like that.

00:32:28.020 These are just people from the local communities stepping up, seeing, just like the men from Restore Britain were doing in Great Yarmouth,

00:32:35.260 who were just going, my gosh, my country's falling apart right now, the momentum seems to be with reform,

00:32:41.040 So I'm going to stand as a candidate for them. I'm going to, you know, and that's all very, you know, service to your community trying to cut away the corruption. All very, very commendable. However, it does come with, let's just say, less consideration, especially when these are people who have not been in politics before, for political correctness and the sacred cows of Westminster and the establishment.

00:33:08.360 Now, I want to make it absolutely clear, I am not personally ever going to be in a position where I'm going to vote for Reform UK.

00:33:18.500 However, the Observer has had a jolly good go at trying to make me.

00:33:23.680 And so I thought we'd just hear their case, right, and hear what they have to say about it all.

00:33:30.100 Because it is when you actually see some of the things that, and this is, I want to make it clear.

00:33:35.880 My point here is not to sort of like cheer on or disavow any of the opinions that are voiced in here.

00:33:45.440 My only point in reading you all of this is just to say that, look, the country is falling apart and it is radicalising the British public at a rate that we are just simply not used to in society thus far.

00:34:00.540 And so with that, you end up getting, as the observers say here, among them was Stuart Pryor, who won two seats, one on Rochford District Council and one on Essex County Council.

00:34:16.160 he won despite media coverage exposing his extremist activity on a social media account

00:34:23.560 that posted pictures from his home prior alleged allegedly described white people as the master

00:34:30.640 race quote and he also went on to when he was pressed about this by the daily mail he turned

00:34:36.760 around and just said i don't recall that at all blinding i have no memory of this uh in bolton

00:34:44.400 They say Derek Bullock was elected for the seat in Houlton. Bullock was twice expelled from the Conservative Party for his anti-Muslim hatred, including a reaction to the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017 with the words, and I want to be clear, I'm quoting here, shoot the packies on the spot, which last week he said he believed was actually a screenshot and entirely fake.

00:35:10.680 um however he's not the only one as well as it seems that uh trevor jones of reform uh won in

00:35:18.940 the ward of tong uh with the uh holding bolton from the labor council leader nick peel and jones

00:35:26.660 once posted that if the labor if labor won it just be sharia law in britain as well and to

00:35:32.620 screw that right so you can see all of these things it's like look but these are just like

00:35:37.560 when you don't have an entire campaigning arm around you telling you this is what the message

00:35:43.000 is this is what to say this is just people's undistilled private thoughts coming through

00:35:47.800 at times when they were just not having to make considerations of political career even in the

00:35:54.020 humble sense of a county council it goes to show you how as more and more people step in

00:36:01.100 to the fray and decide to volunteer into politics it is going to get harder and harder to

00:36:07.340 gatekeep them for the sheer quantity of people who are now uh radicalized can we go through a few

00:36:14.080 more of these because they're just so funny oh sure uh as you can see here andrew mayan uh said

00:36:19.260 oswald mosley was 100 right calling for educational correction and described enoch

00:36:24.120 powell as correct kaylee ashman uh once referred to goyslop in a post

00:36:29.020 ben rao was elected in plymouth and uh said that kirsten was under the control of a globalist

00:36:36.360 zion cult uh he i mean jesus christ i mean it's it's kind of unreal like when you actually see

00:36:44.940 them doing this write-up and i'm like wow if only there was somewhere where i could compile

00:36:49.600 uh like the undistilled psyche of reforms counselors and the observer just turned around

00:36:56.340 here you go mate yeah and just gave me this massive list the reform membership is way more

00:37:02.260 radical than the leadership exactly what we can take from this i think so too um and so and there's

00:37:08.120 again just great work here from um obviously this is a sniveling like leftist account that's going

00:37:14.320 around but again tracy clayton is restore uh sorry reform uk new councillor for colin valley west in

00:37:20.760 kirk lees uh she's had a been a huge supporter of tommy robinson promotes britain first uh and

00:37:27.880 supports the afd she's transphobic she regularly posts anti-muslim content she doesn't support

00:37:34.540 our police and she thinks the climate change is a hoax and just for good measure unless you

00:37:40.260 weren't convinced on her ladies and gentlemen she also says that she wanted sadiq khan deported

00:37:45.540 she's a saint what are you talking about oh no my lobster's too buttery

00:37:52.540 uh jamie pullin here for rugby in warwickshire goes on to basically for for words that i don't

00:38:02.400 believe i'm actually allowed to say on youtube but basically he just says that yeah that thing

00:38:07.200 that the left are continually gloating about yes that's actually happening in towns and cities

00:38:12.080 across the united kingdom and that's a good thing well he's um being charged guilty of just believing

00:38:17.780 them when they say it oh um you know which you know give the red and gray squirrel analogy there

00:38:24.360 as well yeah so he's a big fan of sunder cut waller uh and then of course the man of the hour

00:38:31.500 the man whose name is now known up and down the country we have the great and powerful glenn

00:38:39.100 gibbons uh who went on to um provide um just some outside thinking really to the the pothole 1.00

00:38:46.980 uh problem i don't know about you but there are a lot of around there are and a lot of nigerians

00:38:52.720 too yeah and and take this from someone who uh doesn't even drive and barely spends any times

00:38:58.020 on the roads as well i know how bad the potholes are because every concerned citizens up and down

00:39:03.500 the land always go on about them in idle small talk so i'm very much aware of this um anyway

00:39:09.500 and so you know he basically thought that um he could solve the potholes with uh the ingredient

00:39:16.400 of diversity I suppose we'll just say and then obviously this put Richard Tice in the position

00:39:22.240 where he's having to just answer questions about it on the BBC and so we'll just play a bit of this

00:39:30.580 but many voters do still have concerns about reform and just as you and I have talked about

00:39:36.520 many times you have had problems on lots of occasions when some of your candidates

00:39:42.380 views have been revealed to be offensive.

00:39:46.780 Now, as Bridget Philipson mentioned, but we were going to ask you

00:39:48.980 about this anyway, one of your new councillors who's just been

00:39:51.760 elected in Sunderland previously suggested online that people

00:39:56.540 should melt Nigerians to fill potholes.

00:40:00.480 We have an internal party process. 1.00

00:40:02.780 But here's the point.

00:40:03.300 It's not a very good one.

00:40:04.400 If somebody expresses that, can be elected.

00:40:06.080 We've heard all the smearing and the smearing.

00:40:07.540 Let me tell you what people are really concerned about.

00:40:09.020 No, forgive me.

00:40:09.540 Laura, Laura, that's not a smear.

00:40:11.060 I'm going later to a campaign against the scourge of anti-Semitism,

00:40:16.760 which is the greatest threat.

00:40:19.380 It's like, yes, some of our councillors do want to melt Nigerians down 1.00

00:40:23.920 to cover the potholes, but on the other hand...

00:40:27.300 You know how much I love Jews.

00:40:28.700 Have you considered that law?

00:40:31.320 And so I just found this, and oh my gosh, just see,

00:40:34.860 the way that these two bits of messaging coincide together

00:40:38.260 just had me in stitches this morning

00:40:40.300 from Hope Not Hate, where it says,

00:40:41.820 reform candidates, this cycle includes racists, 0.86

00:40:44.640 anti-Semites, Islamophobes 0.57

00:40:46.500 and conspiracy theorists.

00:40:48.260 Zia Yusuf called it the best vetting

00:40:50.180 in the country.

00:40:53.820 I mean, that is...

00:40:56.980 Again, I can feel

00:41:00.440 myself torn on my allegiance

00:41:02.080 in this particular segment.

00:41:04.040 Mission accomplished, I guess.

00:41:05.700 I mean, this one as well, just...

00:41:07.500 It's like the first newly elected councillor to resign

00:41:10.340 following the elections in France.

00:41:12.260 Daniel Devaney, elected in Bradford, resigned,

00:41:15.080 saying he doesn't want to be a councillor

00:41:16.880 and has decided to go on holiday.

00:41:18.800 He has made a multitude of offensive posts about Muslims.

00:41:22.260 Well, in Little Bradford.

00:41:23.380 Yeah.

00:41:24.000 I love that I've accidentally been elected as a councillor.

00:41:27.080 I'm like, oh no, yeah, exactly.

00:41:30.220 How did this happen to me?

00:41:32.360 I just love the idea.

00:41:33.540 It's like the entire campaign. 1.00

00:41:35.320 It's like, yeah, these Muslims are a bit of a problem, isn't it? 1.00

00:41:37.420 you've won oh i didn't want to go that far i just want to take you know he also wants to go on a 1.00

00:41:43.440 holiday so tempers die down going on holiday to tunisia or something now he's just going to go do

00:41:48.960 some med maxing yeah um and the other thing as well as connor points out here when it came to

00:41:54.200 the boris wave candidates that reform uh put in as you can see here so the bangladeshi national

00:42:00.120 candidate who came over uh adi mo uh lost his um bid to become the local councillor in central

00:42:08.020 south sea ward of portsmouth but all of his british colleagues won the five seats maybe a

00:42:13.640 lesson here for reform and certainly something that um well what was his solution to solve the

00:42:20.060 pothole problem or the boris wave yeah yeah yeah um but it comes down to the thing doesn't it it's

00:42:27.140 like look you can put these types of candidates in front of the british electorate you can say to

00:42:34.780 them it would be really good to help us save the system and manage multiculturalism better

00:42:39.640 if you will just put in what reform will just see as like the good ones like the the helpful ones

00:42:45.380 but you cannot force the public to actually vote for them right you just can't once you're in there

00:42:51.820 out the ballot there is also a lot of i don't really care what he said about muslims or nigerians

00:42:58.380 or whatever you know there's a lot of this like the the um sensitivities around politically

00:43:06.060 correct statements are a luxury belief yes and when your country is going down the tubes as fast

00:43:11.740 as our country is suddenly it's just like yeah i don't care about that and most people don't care

00:43:16.220 yeah no it's not not in any way you know like go vote labor if you can because it isn't just that

00:43:21.020 people um don't care about it on its own it's that they look also at what the westminster circle

00:43:29.120 does care about and they say yeah it's a completely different value system and not once have they

00:43:35.460 solved my pothole problem yeah yeah and you know they have no no suggestion no proposal i mean you 0.86

00:43:42.320 know if was it laura kisenberg was like look richard nigerians don't melt they burn like all 0.76

00:43:48.960 humans like there's this it's just not a plan that actually works yet again richard dummy yeah 0.58

00:43:54.780 exactly yet again reform put forward a proposal that just can't work on the merits then she would

00:44:00.720 have actually got him and it wouldn't have been a smear but on the other hand people who were just 1.00

00:44:05.120 watching the bbc that morning are now aware of some of the try and melt down the nigerians

00:44:11.780 some of the policies but it's just that thing that like 0.70

00:44:15.940 it becomes because just think back to the last time that reform uk were running the councillors

00:44:25.980 yeah and there was just so much apologia as oh we're sorry that we put this person through

00:44:30.560 and oh this person got through and it is a mistake and uh tice does go on to concede some of that as

00:44:35.920 well what i'm saying here is yeah but like the raw numbers at this point and just suggesting

00:44:41.560 that you're going to be harder pressed to find someone who is squeaky clean

00:44:45.260 and actually a good candidate than someone who's, you know, a bit spicy online

00:44:51.840 and who actually cares about the issue and is willing to dedicate their time to solving it.

00:44:57.020 Yes.

00:44:58.420 Thinking outside the box, as they do.

00:45:01.320 And all of this is, of course, juxtaposed by the fact that...

00:45:04.580 So for this, we're just looking at people who are obviously very, very reactionary

00:45:08.400 to the state that Britain has been put into.

00:45:11.560 But it's obviously also on the left as well.

00:45:15.060 And when you look at the collapse of the Uni Party,

00:45:18.840 you look at the Labour Party hemorrhaging councillors, hemorrhaging support,

00:45:23.080 you look at the Tories just being basically non-existent at this point,

00:45:27.020 and my God, I would love to have a single conversation with someone who still votes Conservative,

00:45:32.320 just to try and get into their head, to see what they're still fighting for.

00:45:36.780 but the other thing as well is that it's not just the sacred cows on the right about multiculturalism

00:45:43.520 and all these sorts of things that we're just sick to death of obviously from the left as well

00:45:48.100 you're just getting like this total just mask off moment from the greens now it's just lunacy isn't

00:45:54.600 it yeah where they're not even just pretending there's no pretense of like that they don't have

00:46:00.060 utter contempt yeah the social standards for just anything and obviously for the fact that they're

00:46:06.040 their pet issue of Palestine is just very underrepresented in parliament as well and that

00:46:12.180 is very much like you know we have an issue with diversity on this side of the aisle they're just

00:46:17.120 looking at something they feel unrepresented in and they're trying to make something of it and so

00:46:22.280 you're getting from both sides you're just chipping away at it until there's absolutely nothing in the

00:46:26.640 center and actually where in in the grand scheme of things the political landscape has become so

00:46:33.660 um out of sorts from what the establishment the careerists are used to that actually were

00:46:41.080 arriving at the point where no provocation and the edginess is becoming a bit of a boon

00:46:47.240 at the ballot box they all won their seats right they all won i mean just can we explain this one

00:46:53.660 very quickly yes i was going to sorry sorry no it's all right so allow me to introduce to you

00:46:59.240 one Q Manivanan who identifies as non-binary and was elected as a member of the Scottish Parliament

00:47:08.680 on the Edinburgh and Lothian East List for the pro-independence Scottish Greens. So that's

00:47:15.280 another thing as well right this guy has been in the country since 2021 right he came over during

00:47:22.320 the Boris wave from from that period of time and not only that so not only have you been in the

00:47:29.220 country literally less years i mean bear in mind he's not even been in scotland for five years so

00:47:34.580 nigel farage would not consider this man a scot yeah but the other thing as well is that imagine

00:47:40.040 turning up to a country as a total foreigner unaccustomed to its way of life just totally

00:47:46.360 uncaring of its traditions who it is its own sense of identity and place and just going oh yeah you 0.86

00:47:51.400 know that political union that you guys have had for about 200 years now and forged like the most

00:47:56.980 successful civilization of all time yeah 300 cheers i'm just gonna break that yeah i'm here

00:48:02.260 to destroy it yeah but it's isn't it isn't he on like a visa that doesn't extend to the length of

00:48:07.780 the elected office that he's in so what happened was it said um it was reported earlier this week

00:48:14.280 that the former phd student has appealed to colleagues for just over 2 000 pounds of funding

00:48:20.100 for a temporary graduate visa this will give the anthropologist and poet and we'll get to that in

00:48:26.560 a minute a further three years to work and live in the united kingdom picking up the taxpayer

00:48:32.020 funded smp's salary of nearly 80 000 pounds a year jesus um manavinen uh is said to have told

00:48:41.440 colleagues that this would help him uh help buy time to save up uh the cost of applying for a

00:48:47.080 global talent visa and the self-described queer tamil immigrant was only only able to stand in

00:48:56.040 the election after the smp ministers loosen the rules over who could be a hollywood candidate

00:49:02.900 literal foreigners yes people who literally don't have citizenship and don't even have their visa

00:49:08.060 can be candidates for the smp sorry for the greens sorry uh scottish parliament uh manvin

00:49:14.320 was told uh sorry so he's born in yeah the uh tamil nadu region of southern india and has

00:49:22.280 declared a strong connection would you believe to the region's significant history of resistance

00:49:29.160 of social justice of ecological justice being inexorable from social justice and all the rest

00:49:37.440 of that garbage and i mean i i like the sound of bagpipe could i have an honorary scotsman

00:49:43.760 lordship position or something there's literally nothing stopping it literally the the scottish 0.95

00:49:50.620 And quote, the Scottish Parliament rightly and explicitly chose to permit everyone with the right to live here to stand in elections, including new Scots on visas.

00:50:03.040 Q is on a valid visa with the right to work and live in Scotland and is a Commonwealth citizen.

00:50:09.940 So what?

00:50:11.440 Just, oh God.

00:50:12.820 It's absolutely insane.

00:50:15.220 It's Dr. Q, actually.

00:50:17.740 Yeah, yeah.

00:50:18.120 Well, I think it's in James Bond or something.

00:50:21.240 Anyway, I mean, it gets even worse.

00:50:22.880 He does slam poetry, which, from my point of view,

00:50:25.440 is just literally a crime against humanity.

00:50:28.800 It's the worst, worst form of art.

00:50:31.580 I hate it.

00:50:32.860 Anyway, and not only that, as soon as he arrives,

00:50:35.380 it's like, yeah, I'm just going to help all of your Scottish women 1.00

00:50:38.740 just become prostitutes. 1.00

00:50:40.760 It's like, okay. 1.00

00:50:42.420 This guy may be the biggest role out there.

00:50:44.480 I mean, it's just insane.

00:50:46.520 I mean

00:50:47.740 immediately arrives

00:50:51.700 tries to destroy your union

00:50:53.440 and is like yeah and now let me help 1.00

00:50:55.260 your women into sex work 1.00

00:50:57.280 yeah so we're going to shoot Pakistanis 1.00

00:50:59.500 and melt down the Nigerians on one side 1.00

00:51:01.240 and we're going to turn Scottish women into whores 1.00

00:51:03.280 on the other side 1.00

00:51:03.840 you can see how the dialectic here is

00:51:06.780 and why it might be escalating

00:51:09.680 incredible work

00:51:11.040 so

00:51:12.900 he went on to issue a statement

00:51:15.560 about this

00:51:16.360 because a lot of people because obviously as we've seen here there is nothing to possibly

00:51:21.360 criticize about this man he is a man beyond reproach everything every concern about his

00:51:27.940 character must possibly be the most bad faith interpretation of him known to man um and

00:51:34.960 basically he just says oh if my mere existence causes this much trouble i'm excited to see how

00:51:40.280 much my words will and it's like okay so just total childishness but the larger point yeah exactly

00:51:46.940 but and i mean there is a chance that perhaps this visa application might all fall apart and

00:51:54.260 obviously let's come on kia let's come on shabana mahoud are you going to tolerate this yeah um 0.97

00:52:00.880 but the larger point with all of this is that though this gentleman is obviously pathetic 0.94

00:52:08.000 and obviously has no right to be participating within our political system i would just say that 0.83

00:52:15.040 he is taking advantage of a system at the very tail end of its lifespan now right and so actually

00:52:23.300 when you see things like this happen and they will continue to happen don't get yourself too

00:52:29.960 animated about it just remember the fact that actually we're in control our movement is on the

00:52:36.280 way it's ours that are winning you know first in great yarmouth and as well as i um i think the

00:52:41.820 evidence i put forward you today suggest the reform councillors as well right are um are very

00:52:48.320 much against um the green party's style of politics and frankly have had enough for of the

00:52:55.580 niceties and the political correctness and they just obviously see that the system does not support

00:53:01.680 them and is taking advantage of of them in ways that they couldn't even conceive of before and

00:53:08.160 so this will all continue and so long as it does well i tell you these uh these council elections

00:53:14.800 are going to be far more entertaining right um i shall check which ones of these i can actually

00:53:23.280 read given that uh so uh 14 bar uh barb says a brother luca brother stelius brother carl the

00:53:30.480 The restoration will be glorious.

00:53:32.280 The political class faith in polling is a weakness. 0.99

00:53:36.680 Climbing the greasy pole sounds like a slang word for sleeping with an Italian. 1.00

00:53:42.420 That's very funny. 1.00

00:53:44.900 For $5 too.

00:53:46.180 Thank you, Malice. 0.88

00:53:47.760 Sigil Stone says,

00:53:48.660 Fun fact.

00:53:49.780 When the writer of Jingle Bells recorded said song in Thomas Edison's studio,

00:53:55.540 in the same session he also recorded another song he wrote that holds something I cannot say

00:54:01.720 what interesting trivia and the he also says yes yes he also makes another good point there as well

00:54:10.980 so well done the cigarettes all right so Stelios over to you sir Harry can we move it along thank

00:54:19.300 you you will probably have heard that Christopher Nolan is directing a movie about Homer's Odyssey

00:54:28.240 which is going to be released this July and normally I would be very excited when it comes

00:54:35.060 to movies I'm very easy to please I tend to just want to watch explosions and battles and stuff and

00:54:41.800 that's it I'm not particularly hard to please but in this case I don't know guys I look like you've

00:54:48.300 taken it very personally yes i have i have in this case i'm i'm um i'm very against christopher

00:54:55.880 nolan who i must say i feel kind of betrayed by him in a way it's personal because i really like

00:55:02.340 him as a director oh okay almost everything he has done except for tenet yeah i think it was

00:55:08.320 really good i get the argument that the batman adaptations were much darker than the than the

00:55:14.800 comics and stuff but i think that as movies were really good right that's sorry yeah just thing

00:55:21.380 here like the look at the framing the odyssey defy the gods no wasn't it defying the gods that

00:55:25.760 got you sent on the odyssey in the first place not only is defying the gods not the moral lesson

00:55:31.420 of the odyssey it's not the moral lesson of any greek mythological story yeah defy the gods and

00:55:38.120 you get punished a lot in fact you might end up finding yourself on an odyssey or something

00:55:43.480 Yeah, so they have this slogan here, they say, defy the gods.

00:55:50.140 And that shows me that they arguably don't know anything about the epic

00:55:57.420 and about the culture within which the epic was written and then circulated.

00:56:04.920 So it's not about defying the gods.

00:56:07.640 Hollywood does try to portray the Homeric heroes even in the 2004 film as being very anti-god and

00:56:15.780 it's just not the case um there is no scene in the Iliad where Achilles is decapitating a statue

00:56:22.400 of Apollo no but a huge amount of like Greek wisdom literature is just don't get on the bad

00:56:27.640 side of the gods yeah because they'll punish you and you'll wish they hadn't it's don fa so you don

00:56:33.640 fo yeah yeah that's exactly it yeah if i was going to summarize what the greek view of the world was

00:56:39.000 is just don't mess around just get on with it and do the proper thing you know and also that's not

00:56:43.880 it the odyssey begins with zeus saying that odysseus is the wisest of all men athenae is helping

00:56:50.360 him along the way to get back the only god who had a beef with him was poseidon because uh odysseus

00:56:58.200 and his crew blinded his his son polyphemus and that was again an instance where they were the

00:57:05.000 instruments of divine justice because it was poseidon's son that had defy the gods right let's

00:57:13.080 move forward um apart from the whole way of framing it because let's say i'll just say the

00:57:19.320 last thing defy the god is like that's not what odysseus did no that's massively wrong but also

00:57:25.960 It's what the suitors did, but why make a pseudocentric film?

00:57:30.900 I don't care about it.

00:57:32.060 You're missing the entire wisdom of it if it's just about the suitors.

00:57:36.700 But also, it's such an insufferable imposition of the modern conceit.

00:57:41.660 We've mastered nature, we've mastered the universe, we've mastered everything.

00:57:44.440 We don't need to be religious.

00:57:45.820 We are in control of everything.

00:57:47.560 But are we, though?

00:57:49.620 The answer is, of course, no, you are not.

00:57:52.260 this is the point of this sort of ancient wisdom literature is to be humble to know your place in

00:57:57.320 the universe don't push at certain boundaries because it'll you know you'll get rake in the

00:58:00.980 face at best and you'll get cursed and horribly horribly dealt with at worst so be sensible

00:58:08.220 is just the the the message comes out and hollywood's just like yeah no defy the gods be an 1.00

00:58:12.700 idiot it's like okay but like you're just going to end up like some indian jumping off a fucking 1.00

00:58:17.580 house who's standing in front of a train yeah yeah being hit by it or something exactly you'll 1.00

00:58:23.600 get that train just hit you and it's like is that what you want no and uh the the other bit here is

00:58:29.660 that um we are supposed to be in the late bronze age yes just look at look at that just to be clear

00:58:37.900 for anyone who doesn't know anything about the bronze age they didn't use metals like iron yes

00:58:42.800 so the people are saying that it's too dark for the for the era it has to somehow have

00:58:51.360 a med maxing feel colors should be a bit brighter um people during that age tended to have all sorts

00:58:59.240 of shields that carl is going to talk about here yeah so we actually know a lot about um the kind

00:59:06.440 of armor they wore there are lots of um uh sort of reliefs that show like for example in egypt

00:59:12.400 they've got relief to the sea people so we can see exactly what the warriors look like and we've

00:59:15.840 found what is replicated here is called the dendra panoply so it's a full suit of armor that's found

00:59:20.820 at dendra uh and it's basically bronze plate armor which is great i mean bronze is a perfectly good

00:59:26.640 material um it's brittle if it's uh not made entirely correctly uh but it's actually not

00:59:33.700 particularly weaker than iron or anything like that the issue is that bronze is harder to make

00:59:38.760 so bronze comes from copper and tin the mediterranean world itself has lots of bronze

00:59:43.780 but tin's actually quite hard to come by the tin supplies that the mediterranean world used

00:59:48.940 came from afghanistan and cornwall so like a thousand miles either way eventually and they

00:59:55.160 had you know huge infrastructure and part of the bronze age collapse is the collapse of these trade

01:00:00.020 routes and chaos going on and it's you know still uh archaeologists are up in the air about it and

01:00:05.480 is it you know droughts and whatnot who knows barbarian invasions but the point is we know

01:00:10.780 they dress like this because we found the clothes and so having them in like iron or steel plate

01:00:17.960 armor it's like no this is this is not correct and the reason that we didn't use uh iron in the

01:00:24.600 bronze age is because iron is actually quite difficult to smell so bronze is actually really

01:00:30.800 easy right you it's the the mixture of bronze that is important uh so like 10 tin a very small

01:00:38.860 amount of arsenic and then copper and you i've i've made a bronze sword right i've actually made

01:00:44.300 a bronze sword and then you just pour it into a mold and then it sets but that's not what's done

01:00:48.600 with iron with iron what you need is a consistent heat and you have to continually work the metal

01:00:53.160 in order to make sure it doesn't become very fragile and brittle or very soft i mean one of

01:00:57.800 the issues that the celts had actually fighting the romans is that because they use quite long

01:01:02.340 swords they would find their swords bent and so the romans have given us reports of the celts

01:01:07.780 literally straightening out the gauls straightening out their swords in the middle of a battle which

01:01:12.240 is one of the reasons why the romans used a short sword because then it didn't bend and it was

01:01:16.160 actually quite rigid and could be used as effectively so the point being is this is kind

01:01:20.980 of like and i'm not even overstaying this it's kind of like watching a film about oh i don't know

01:01:30.560 william the conqueror and william the conqueror rocking up in an abrams tank right and he

01:01:37.080 i'm not and then yeah you know like shelling the saxons this is a thousand years at least

01:01:45.360 out of date but even then the kind of armor like uh to have like the the full plate armor i mean

01:01:50.920 not only is this an ugly and ridiculous version like age of ultram yeah but but william the

01:01:56.280 conqueror himself didn't use full plate armor he was wearing mail that was layered with leather 0.50

01:02:01.200 underneath because actually it's difficult to make effective full plate armor in iron so this was

01:02:06.680 sort of like high middle ages standard so you know 1400s 1500s is when like we actually had armor

01:02:13.920 like this and the odyssey is set somewhere around a thousand three hundred bc so you're literally

01:02:20.100 thousands of years out of so it's just from a historical perspective it's just like what are

01:02:23.980 they doing but then from like narrative perspective okay who's this guy with this armor he's meant to

01:02:29.140 be a giant cannibal stone age barbarian yep like the last dragonians were literally you know giant

01:02:35.340 cannibals in sicily who didn't have any technology they were primitives it's like why have you got 0.81

01:02:40.360 like this has anyone even read they were ahead of their time they're ahead of the greeks by thousands

01:02:45.920 of years in technology and it's like what are we doing have you even read the odyssey what is

01:02:50.640 happening here why are you doing this why are you making these choices right yeah of course

01:02:56.340 another example as well because one of my favorite films is um excalibur uh from from 1980 and you

01:03:03.500 obviously see in that it's it's just post-roman dark ages and everything but in the film they're

01:03:09.660 all wearing like full plate armor and everything but it's obviously a stylistic choice it's trying

01:03:14.940 to fuse like the origins and inspirations for the arthurian mythos with the actual medieval world

01:03:20.820 in which the stories were spoken around so it's wielding together that pagan and christian medieval

01:03:26.300 sense of it um to kind of not be able to really pin any of it down in a time and place make it

01:03:31.880 some sort of like fantasy land so it's all a stylistic choice and you can see is this style

01:03:37.280 it's just hideous it's just hideous to look at by the way Excalibur is a wonderful film

01:03:43.880 you know I absolutely love it I haven't watched it since I was a teenager and I can't really 1.00

01:03:47.260 remember it right so let's uh talk about the race swapping in roles and we are at a stage where 0.99

01:03:54.080 sorry I've had enough and I've had completely when the Greek began to hate no no no for one 0.98

01:04:01.120 major reason is that they're doing it on purpose yes yes of course right that's what that's what 1.00

01:04:06.460 angers me most and i'll give you one example which i always give is when it came to bruce almighty

01:04:13.260 with um who was jim carrey with jim carrey yes they cast morgan freeman as god yes and he was

01:04:20.860 wonderful for the role and you could actually see why they would do it because he has a very deep

01:04:26.720 voice he has a sense of gravity he can sort of support the role and also he wasn't marketed as

01:04:33.420 we have to make greater representation of one group just because for activist reasons is but

01:04:41.900 also the the figure of god could be literally anyone it could be any human yes betray god

01:04:46.800 because we're meant to be made in the likeness of god and therefore god could obviously just look

01:04:50.920 like whatever he wanted so it's not like a tremendously offensive thing yeah but you could

01:04:56.220 see how for instance you could say europeans have portrayed god in a particular way like in the

01:05:01.840 in chapel or something but even there there wasn't any sort of outcry or or massive anger

01:05:08.720 right i wasn't angry um at all in fact he did a pretty good job he did a great job there but

01:05:16.080 it's the way that it is packaged is that they're doing this not because they think that it has

01:05:22.360 artistic value they're doing this on purpose they're doing this for wokeness so nothing against

01:05:27.640 the people who are going to be cast there uh themselves but it's the whole packaging of

01:05:33.880 wokeness that completely tries to subordinate artistic value to political expediency and

01:05:40.820 political goals i don't want to watch is this helen of troy uh no sure well i mean they say

01:05:47.520 that she's gonna be it's it's meant to be the actor who's helen of troy actress right is that

01:05:51.640 a face that launched a thousand ships like jesus in the opposite direction at least get an attractive

01:05:56.840 woman doing um what one thing as well i'll just say stereos is that when you look at christopher

01:06:01.640 nolan's uh film before this one oppenheimer he was actually able to basically have an entire cast

01:06:09.000 that was like racially sensitive to the time period in which the film was being set

01:06:14.840 and that actually nolan being one of those directors who has the power and that much

01:06:21.000 control over the project that he's actually able to leapfrog a lot of the dei practices going on

01:06:28.620 in hollywood goes to show that he could actually if he'd have wanted to have the bargaining power

01:06:34.340 to actually cast us more authentically i'm sure the director's not done it if he'd wanted to

01:06:39.000 anyway yeah he's he's the director yeah but yeah i mean is there a single greek even in the film

01:06:45.300 no and i'll say this because people ask me you know are any you know offended that greeks are

01:06:50.320 in the movie or something i mean that's not the issue the issue is do you want to portray something

01:06:56.500 that you do you respect the material do you want to make something that has artistic value

01:07:02.420 or do you want to do propaganda and here it seems to me that it's just propaganda and here we have

01:07:07.800 sorry before we go into that that's a great um point because this is why like if you look at the

01:07:12.320 2004 troy movie um okay there probably aren't any greeks in that either but you can look at like eric

01:07:17.800 banner and brad pitt yeah they have a really good representation of achilles and yeah it's do you

01:07:22.560 respect the material that's my question like they've actually yeah achilles is described as

01:07:26.520 having golden hair like a lion okay brad pitt's a great choice for it you know eric banner looks

01:07:31.060 like what you would think an anatolian man in you know a thousand bc would actually look like and

01:07:36.500 they're both great and i mean the fight scene i was literally watching it earlier because it's

01:07:40.200 just such a good fight scene and it's literally saying it's about what am i trying to do here

01:07:45.580 and what they seem to be trying to do i mean especially with this it looks like it's just

01:07:49.560 an attempt to essentially humiliate westerners for even liking the story like like we're gonna 0.93

01:07:55.760 make this as crap as possible and we're gonna make it so it's weird and vulgar to you and now 0.84

01:08:01.860 we want you to go and pay money to watch it it's like this is gonna end like you think we will talk 0.94

01:08:06.700 a lot about this because it has to do with the kind of translation that christopher nolan has

01:08:11.560 found inspiring oh no he's not using that woman is he he absolutely is oh no right so um oh tell

01:08:18.840 me of a complicated man am you right so homer pavlos again uh he says here oh the greek god

01:08:25.320 is athena whom the greeks call her laugh copies the one with bright and piercing eyes like an owl

01:08:31.320 and nikiforos victory bringer because as spear arms shield bearing general she brought victory

01:08:37.640 And he says, Nolan read about Athena and imagines Zendaya.

01:08:41.800 Just a quick thing here, right?

01:08:42.960 This is a great description.

01:08:43.780 Because I went to, a couple of years ago, I went to Rome.

01:08:48.320 And in one of the museums in Rome, they had a statue, a Greek statue of Athena from, like, the third century or something.

01:08:55.360 And the eyes are cut sapphires.

01:08:58.960 And so, and I've got a video of it.

01:09:00.520 I don't know what I did with the video.

01:09:01.820 Because the eyes flash and glint because they're so well crafted.

01:09:07.640 the the rest of the eye is obviously marble but the actual iris is blue sapphire so it's

01:09:13.240 incredible and i i wish i could find that bloody video uh because it's such a worthwhile little

01:09:18.600 thing where you just you move around and the eyes glinting like piercing bright eyes of an owl it's

01:09:24.680 like it's beautiful it's not zendaya sorry yeah it's it's it's not zendaya and here we're going

01:09:30.520 to talk about the achilles page uh controversy it's calm now one thing i i don't know i think

01:09:36.360 it is true i don't know yet around we have seen rumors but it seems to me that there's a there

01:09:42.840 are two um options here one is um page is playing achilles mother no this is his mother in the

01:09:54.200 underworld or page is playing achilles everyone on the internet is saying that page is playing

01:10:00.360 achilles and i don't think i don't think that nolan's career would nolan would walk the streets

01:10:09.720 of hollywood if page was playing odysseus's mother in hollywood they're all gonna be like oh well

01:10:16.440 that's so stunning and brave to put elliot page as achilles that's such a good idea the the white

01:10:21.960 supremacist chuds are owned with that so yeah that's i'm sure it'd be really popular in hollywood

01:10:26.840 but the thing is as well because i expect this film to actually do very very well at the box

01:10:32.220 office just because it's a christopher nolan film and i think he is one that still has like

01:10:38.600 people like normies do respect him they do like his films that they kind of expect it to

01:10:45.640 to bring in a crowd and so actually you can put in page as achilles you can make helen of troy

01:10:51.740 black and they'll just be like oh see it it didn't matter we won it right that's obviously

01:10:55.440 what they're hoping for i'm hoping i hope it crashes yeah i mean i don't want to watch netflix

01:11:02.780 yeah no i want to watch you know a good adaptation that respects the material i love it's right so

01:11:08.800 um this can't be real rumors according to rumors page is gonna play achilles and they say here

01:11:16.720 name a bigger downgrade i just can't even imagine right and uh john dell arrows says here that is

01:11:24.020 about subverting western culture entirely none of this is an accident and it absolutely is not

01:11:30.040 it's because we are most people don't know it the people you mentioned who are gonna watch the movie

01:11:36.320 and are enthusiastic about it don't know it but we know it because we know how the woke think

01:11:41.540 we know that the woke karate constantly say well the west has a very bad idea of masculinity it's

01:11:47.300 toxic masculinity and we need to subvert it and achilles for instance is going to be one of the

01:11:53.620 major heroes in the western canon so we need to subvert that it's about taking something away

01:11:59.400 from you that's what this boils down to and it was the same with like the 2016 ghostbusters

01:12:04.120 ghostbusters was always like a sort of fond memory you know when you were a kid you watched

01:12:08.780 ghostbusters yeah everyone loves it right it was something you watch on a sunday afternoon or

01:12:12.400 whatever it was fun you enjoyed the characters and like yeah no we're going to take that away

01:12:16.500 from you and spoil it that's that's what they're doing with this it's not about creation it's not

01:12:22.260 not about creation it's about swapping the already existing material because i will say

01:12:27.660 one thing is that i don't like constant remakes i do think that there are there need there is a gap

01:12:33.980 for new movies and new epics and new in a way a new era of cinema why don't you create your own

01:12:41.740 movies because they don't want to they why don't you create your own epics because they're not

01:12:45.920 interested in doing that the the the only reason that there would be to do this is to destroy

01:12:51.400 something you love it is a psychic attack a spiritual attack on you it's on purpose and the

01:12:57.080 thing is all of their like i'm gonna do a big video about this because the theory behind it

01:13:02.060 is quite quite straightforward and they just tell you you know no it's about time that we

01:13:07.180 stop putting straight white men in heroic roles in order to make sure they don't feel like they're 0.51

01:13:13.240 the protagonist of western civilization they tell us this and that's what this is that's the whole

01:13:18.580 point of this and yeah exactly what they tell you you anticipated the next link says emily wilson

01:13:25.800 shut up emily i don't want to hear about the complicated yeah so i want to hear about the

01:13:29.480 chat so the audience is an ancient epic it has been translated many times not every translation 0.94

01:13:35.780 is the same um there was a kind of divine inspiration that every poet was claiming and

01:13:43.840 asking for when they were narrating these events and the text the texts and the translations get

01:13:50.740 progressively more dry because it seems then they aren't communicating the something really

01:13:57.740 important about the poet's perspective well one thing emily wilson has i've seen interviews where

01:14:03.200 and read interviews in magazines and stuff where she's uh i suppose bragged about it where she said

01:14:07.460 no what i'm giving is kind of like the most literal translation it's like okay but actually

01:14:12.960 if you think about modernity and the uh sort of latinization of our language compared to like

01:14:18.420 in tolkien's day where he spoke in like 80 anglo-saxon words and now george rr martin is

01:14:23.400 writing with 50 latin words you've got this um sort of thinning out of the richness of the

01:14:29.260 language and culture and what the old like you get victorian translations of the odyssey that

01:14:33.880 you just find on the internet and they're very rich because they're trying to give you the spirit

01:14:37.900 of the text rather than the literal words because actually the literal words don't necessarily

01:14:42.940 encompass what is actually being communicated by the poet like it was in ancient greece and so this

01:14:49.100 sort of reductionism this sort of reductive you're not reading a manual when you're divinely inspired

01:14:55.100 exactly this kind of reductive translation fad is actually reducing and removing something that's

01:15:02.580 caught to the text from you having access to it they're removing something away from you

01:15:07.320 just like they're doing with the film itself now i'm trying to take something away from you

01:15:10.760 and it's this constant attempt at immiserating the western canon because they believe that in

01:15:17.260 representation you find um motivation and moralizing and so what they're trying to do is

01:15:25.060 take that away they're trying to demoralize you take this away so they can have positions of power

01:15:29.440 and authority and you can't it's explicit and that's why i'm saying that they're not respecting

01:15:34.380 the material absolutely she says here and i'm talking about the translator of the odyssey

01:15:41.400 that christopher nolan says is very much inspired from she they say here um historically men

01:15:47.920 translated the odyssey here's what happened when a woman took the job so the way they're framing it

01:15:53.240 isn't like she made a better translation because she's a linguist she has studied this

01:15:58.660 they say she uh you she may she's a woman and listen to her because she's a woman and the

01:16:06.520 others were men but not only that that's how they're packaging it so i don't see what christopher

01:16:11.560 nolan finds interesting in this but not only that because she is a woman and because she's doing it

01:16:18.000 for the sisterhood it basically means it's predetermined that it's good as well oh yeah

01:16:22.860 And what I want to do now for the rest of the segment is to actually destroy one myth, the myth that modern academia is completely against ancient Greece and ancient Greek epics.

01:16:40.080 Some of them are, not all of them are.

01:16:42.560 And I will start with the bad, let's say, ones.

01:16:47.060 The bad ones are this.

01:16:49.120 And also show you some really good work about the Homeric epics of academia that is modern.

01:16:56.880 And actually, it's far better to draw inspiration from when you want to adapt a Homeric epic.

01:17:04.280 Right, so let's look at here.

01:17:05.760 we have unfortunately a very woke presentation of the Homeric epic and Achilles and Odysseus

01:17:14.420 and we have here Alexander Thatcher saying here Achilles isn't the embodiment of Greek and Roman 0.98

01:17:20.180 male perfection he's a pain in the ass emo kid who kills the most clearly heroic and sympathetic 0.97

01:17:25.980 character in the story because his male lover wasn't as good a fighter as either of them his 0.99

01:17:32.040 name brings bringer of woe to the people and he brings woe to both greeks and and trojans so it's

01:17:39.560 it's a it's a bane it's really deeply shameful that we can only look at the past and just 0.95

01:17:47.080 constantly see gay people it's like the meme from the sixth sense with i see dead people it's like 0.88

01:17:52.440 the modern academic is like that but also happy is like i see gay people they they do it everywhere 0.52

01:17:59.560 they even do it carl in the epic of gilgamesh when gilgamesh is crying for enkidu yeah when he died

01:18:06.120 they have tried to predict yeah he was gay for crying for his friends no straight people don't 0.79

01:18:11.880 have emotions he had emotions therefore he's gay that's the way he this this what what a trite 0.66

01:18:19.320 um description of achilles where he's an emo kid uh no no i mean like don't get me wrong it's like 0.83

01:18:26.680 watching everyone rubbing tips in antiquity just out on but it's it's not just that though it's

01:18:31.600 like look like we again it's a you don't understand the kind of framework that the people

01:18:40.300 that achilles is representing had and to to emphasize the shame that agamemnon has brought

01:18:47.700 on achilles by giving him a slave girl that he's in love with as his prize brisius and then taking

01:18:54.420 her away because you feel like you haven't got enough of a treasure hoard yourself and you've

01:19:00.180 humiliated him publicly in front of the entire host and like front and reputation is is the most

01:19:05.940 important thing for these people and then you're like right okay now i want you to go and fight for

01:19:09.500 me to take troy and achilles like no me and my myrmidons are going to stay in the camp because

01:19:15.340 you have wronged me and until you make restitution i will not fight for you and then when he's losing

01:19:23.460 that the trojans are losing and patroclus dies he gives briseus back and so achilles has actually

01:19:29.800 been correct the whole time that agamemnon admits with the restoration of briseus yes but no no

01:19:35.380 actually i was wrong i needed you and then he goes out and wins it for the trojans uh for the

01:19:39.660 for the achaeans right so i can't recommend enough this um speech here by dr erwin cook

01:19:47.000 who is talking about the contemporary relevance of the alia there will play some parts of it but

01:19:52.320 i will say uh two things briefly definitely watch it if you want an antidote to all this madness

01:19:58.580 and i'm gonna go watch that sounds good yeah and he says he does two really interesting things here

01:20:04.240 he says that if you read from the the homeric epics and you check out the psychology of of

01:20:12.500 inner city gangs and gang members and also combat veterans you will have a much better idea of what

01:20:20.060 it is that Homer was talking about. And there is obviously the metaphysical and the ethical

01:20:27.520 aspect of the Homeric Apex, i.e. homecoming as finding meaning, finding your rightful

01:20:34.140 place in the universe, and being an instrument of divine justice. But there is also another

01:20:40.000 element on why they feel the way they feel. They don't feel the way they feel because

01:20:44.700 they're gay and only gay people feel they feel the way they feel because they lived in a particular

01:20:50.820 their lived experience was a very peculiar one and he mentions here an article and a book by

01:20:57.960 elijah anderson and this is a compressed article from that was published in the atlantic 32 years

01:21:04.640 ago imagine the cultural change in these 32 years now talking about the code of the streets where

01:21:11.520 he's talking about the psychology of the of the inner city gang members and he's saying that

01:21:16.560 essentially the iliad is a war epic and it describes really well how people in this world

01:21:25.120 experience experience life because status for them is everything not only because no and the

01:21:32.560 main reason is because status for them is a psychological device that intimidates other

01:21:38.400 people and in a world where there is in a in a sense a war of all against all people who don't

01:21:45.040 command respect are in an immediate physical danger yes and there are also other elements of

01:21:51.360 feeling left behind the society and that check out the video but their status is essentially

01:21:58.160 constantly under negotiation and when for instance you mentioned agamemnon and briseis and how he

01:22:05.040 they are trying to separate to distribute the spoils of war it's not about the truth it's about

01:22:11.680 it's about insulting one another because they can yeah it's a constant fighting for status and there

01:22:18.400 is just a quick thing it's it's it's the the bonds of loyalty as well and obligation and reciprocity

01:22:24.880 these are all just and the code of the streets is exactly the right way of framing it because

01:22:29.040 What they're living in is the same kind of warrior society

01:22:32.900 that doesn't have, like, a code of laws or something.

01:22:36.380 No, it's all about personal relationships.

01:22:37.800 Yes.

01:22:38.320 And, as you say, status negotiations.

01:22:40.680 And this is why what Agamemnon did to Achilles

01:22:43.680 is so obviously frames Agamemnon as the villain.

01:22:47.480 Like, it might be strange looking from the outside,

01:22:49.860 but it's unquestionable in its own moral framework.

01:22:52.280 There's just no doubt that Achilles is the wronged party,

01:22:55.100 and he didn't deserve it.

01:22:55.880 He's been a loyal soldier for Agamemnon the whole time.

01:22:59.040 and agamemnon still completely relies on him or the entire war is lost exactly and in this world

01:23:06.240 where status is they perceive status as everything and status must constantly be negotiated it's a

01:23:13.040 sort of like immaterial capital or an immaterial shield um people who live this way they're

01:23:20.080 notoriously thin-skinned yes and ready to and really trigger happy like the same thing we see 0.99

01:23:26.640 with the movies with the gangs and the and the the italian you you come into my house 0.97

01:23:31.760 respect exactly the same morale that's it so it's not because they're gay it's because they live in

01:23:39.680 a particular reality where this is the thing it's not like alexander thatcher said before

01:23:44.560 he's a spoiled emo brat that's not it it's this is isn't a an epic about people sitting in their

01:23:53.040 sofas watching netflix and being being you know occasionally edgy with their friends this is a war 0.90

01:23:59.440 epic right it's because he's not a spoiled brat that he's on such a knife edge like his everything

01:24:06.240 could be taken away from him in a moment as like a moment is showing and no no surprise he's a bit

01:24:11.800 bothered by it uh i'm a bit conscious of time i'll have to wrap it up a bit speaking of agamemnon

01:24:17.260 check out uh the chronicles episode luca and i did on agamemnon um really great stuff yeah we

01:24:25.260 talked about the whole trilogy didn't we the rs dire through agamemnon's murder returning home

01:24:30.200 from troy to also with as little as five pounds a month you can subscribe and watch all our premium

01:24:36.780 content right and the other bits i want to show from here have to do with the combat veteran

01:24:41.860 aspect of it i'll i'll say this is that six minutes yeah we do have six minutes i will i

01:24:47.260 will say this but dr cook is talking about a clinical psychologist i'll just i'll just describe

01:24:53.960 what he says and people can go watch it afterwards he's um he says that there's there are two books

01:24:59.200 by jonathan dr jonathan shea a friend of his who's a doctor of clinical psychology who was

01:25:05.040 working with war veterans especially in vietnam and he has written two books achilles in vietnam

01:25:10.700 and Odysseus in America.

01:25:13.860 And he's saying essentially you can look at the Odyssey

01:25:16.140 also from the perspective of a war veteran coming home

01:25:21.020 and how difficult it is to reintegrate in society.

01:25:24.600 But when it comes to Achilles, 0.84

01:25:26.340 it's again not about being gay or emo or something.

01:25:29.860 He says that when you fight,

01:25:31.980 what they saw in the veterans that they were talking to

01:25:36.840 was that when you fight for a long time

01:25:39.740 and you have the people back at the headquarters

01:25:42.100 giving you orders that are frequently completely wrong

01:25:45.960 from your perspective,

01:25:47.180 you frequently get the sense of a betrayal.

01:25:49.680 And there is a complete shrinkage

01:25:51.540 of your moral and social horizon.

01:25:53.880 And this boils down to two or three people.

01:25:56.700 You're really close friends.

01:25:58.120 And when these people die,

01:25:59.980 frequently these soldiers go completely berserk

01:26:03.280 and on a rampage.

01:26:04.920 That's literally what's happening

01:26:06.080 with Achilles and Patroclus and Hector.

01:26:07.900 Absolutely.

01:26:08.300 that's literally what's happening yeah so um it's not that the entire culture and the entire

01:26:13.680 modern academia has turned its back on it it's a few um activists who are doing this on purpose

01:26:20.200 so let's find and highlight the good ones all right wonderful uh i'll just quickly race through

01:26:27.320 uh rumble rants i've got if you can bring the mouse across um yeah the face that launched a

01:26:34.060 thousand dinghies uh that's a random absolute banger of a comment uh the achaeans were clearly

01:26:41.320 um ethnic bantus that wore medieval plate armor yeah everyone's having a good pop of it oh punk

01:26:47.380 says achilles was long like a trap yeah there are many many candidates here for the sake of time

01:26:52.820 gentlemen i'll have um alexander the great looks at his um dead cousin and weeps surprisingly 0.81

01:26:58.660 base left us upon seeing this like ha gay it's yeah it does seem to be a hapsification where he 0.62

01:27:03.480 says late bronze age is at very much so very much so and he also says there were literally only two 0.52

01:27:09.320 black people in uh homer's epic and they were in the iliad from the kingdom of cush yes and they

01:27:14.660 were killed in the war they weren't in the odyssey all right do we have any video comments harry

01:27:20.100 okay let's have a look in the meantime as esther king says kia starmer is the guy got the gets the

01:27:27.680 guy who crashed the economy, sold the gold to

01:27:29.640 advise him on the economy, while getting the woman

01:27:31.760 who supported the paedophile information exchange

01:27:33.400 to advise on helping young girls. What's happening here?

01:27:36.380 Uh, yeah, it's

01:27:37.720 really, really peculiar.

01:27:39.780 Can't explain it, frankly.

01:27:43.660 Here, Peter Perler is

01:27:45.760 fiercely defending the house against

01:27:47.760 the fearsome enemy of mosquitoes.

01:27:50.700 Always a deadly

01:27:51.660 enemy in southern Southern California.

01:27:55.240 He

01:27:55.720 knows the danger of the day of the danger flies so he fiercely defends the screen door whenever

01:28:02.360 it opens he also defends the house against the dangers of the neighbor's cat always an enemy

01:28:10.440 that steals his streets oh patriot you look well defended so that's just all right another go on

01:28:17.960 Well, good morning, gentlemen, and a good morning it is.

01:28:24.860 It is 8 o'clock Paris time.

01:28:30.600 And we have a bit of a sunrise.

01:28:33.000 Okay, it's a little after sunrise.

01:28:35.020 Sunrise was a bit earlier this morning.

01:28:38.260 So, yes, my final day in Paris.

01:28:41.200 My father and I fly home today.

01:28:44.440 Have a better one.

01:28:46.520 Oh, excellent.

01:28:47.360 Excellent. I hope you had a really good time out there, Michael.

01:28:49.660 Have a good flight back.

01:28:56.400 Well, isn't this interesting?

01:28:58.380 I guess we'll see what Josh is doing with his spare time.

01:29:04.180 He's making wine.

01:29:08.160 Excellent.

01:29:09.300 Any more, Harry?

01:29:15.140 It's also the same frame.

01:29:16.780 Full travel documentary, yeah.

01:29:18.600 ...video from the City of Lights

01:29:20.380 before my father and I head home to the United States.

01:29:26.100 Welcome to Paris.

01:29:27.560 What?

01:29:31.380 Wonderful.

01:29:32.740 All right, then.

01:29:34.360 From...

01:29:34.880 Is there more?

01:29:35.720 There's more?

01:29:36.820 Okay, go on, then.

01:29:39.320 You know, with all the hubbub around the SLPC

01:29:41.500 manufacturing its own oppression to solidify a cultural narrative,

01:29:44.760 it really highlights the question as to how much of culture is even legitimate.

01:29:48.060 Going back to the 1930s, what we now understand to be modern art

01:29:50.840 was actually kind of a CIA campaign to counter the rise of fascism.

01:29:54.400 They laundered this idea into high culture by paying off patrons to commission the art.

01:29:58.440 Then, during the Second World War, every state on Earth suddenly realized society itself was its purview to curate.

01:30:03.640 This is something we've never really turned off.

01:30:05.680 The inescapable conclusion is that we haven't actually had a legitimate culture since the 1930s.

01:30:10.460 how do you even begin to calculate the damage or worse yet ever falsify that it isn't happening in

01:30:15.500 future just a quick thing on this this is so completely true billy corgan was actually

01:30:20.140 talking about the rise of rap and it's completely artificial i think harry did something on it not

01:30:24.940 so long ago um but basically in the 80s and 90s rock became really popular with white kids and

01:30:31.180 for some reason the establishment was like right here we're just gonna literally uh emphasize rap

01:30:35.740 and uh sort of essentially kill off rock and okay that lasted for a while but now with the diffusion

01:30:42.460 of cultural choices and personal choices from the internet well if you look at like the top 40s now

01:30:47.600 there's like one rap in there and it's all back to like white kid rock oh thank god i know but the

01:30:52.920 point is he's right that how you know we when was the last time we have an authentic culture well

01:30:57.500 on the on the cusp of a change before it becomes centralized and controlled so the agenda can be

01:31:02.660 enforced but when that doesn't happen then you know then we can have an authentic culture a

01:31:09.000 culture beyond banksy would be great can i go through some of the comments here just as a oh

01:31:13.620 yeah sure last minute because there's some great ones nicholas says i didn't realize what a hero

01:31:17.900 starmer is he's the wall keeping everyone safe from the rest of labor what a true hero and it's

01:31:23.340 like no that's that's literally kia starmer's message he is the firewall yes starmer is like

01:31:28.760 the doom slayer instead of except instead of fighting hordes of demons he's holding back the 0.97

01:31:33.880 endless tides of retarded communists in the labor party yeah that's exactly what he's doing it's 1.00

01:31:38.900 exactly the pitch to the country it's like trust me after me you're gonna regret it so you better 0.99

01:31:44.200 hope i can hold the lie you're gonna miss me when i'm gone and lord hector x says so are the potholes

01:31:51.380 not getting filled in another campaign promise broken gutting really gotta think outside the

01:31:56.600 pothole he says and then uh do you want to just read one from yours and we'll uh wrap it up well

01:32:04.060 as uh it says um uh lancelot says hollywood butchers history imagine my shock and uh az

01:32:10.460 desert route says hollywood needs to write and produce diverse stories instead of recasting

01:32:14.720 stories that have already been told dude i just wish all i wanted was my my odyssey film with

01:32:19.980 sean bean yeah playing Odysseus again but that's but that's not the point they don't create new

01:32:25.760 films because i'd love a film about shaka zulu for example that'd be an epic life and then

01:32:31.160 eventually he goes he becomes like a mad tyrant and gets murdered by his brother yeah you don't

01:32:34.940 want ryan gosling play saka it doesn't matter well yeah obviously i don't but like that's an

01:32:39.380 epic story why aren't you telling it and the reason they're not telling it is because they

01:32:42.520 don't care about your epic stories what they want is to take something away from you and make sure

01:32:45.960 you're unhappy uh omar says it started as a meme but given enough time they will unironically put

01:32:51.260 the 2021 bmw 5 series 503i with optional heated seating in your medieval fantasy setting and

01:32:57.600 that's exactly what's happening yeah could could be the case could be the case well we hope that

01:33:01.960 you've enjoyed the show ladies and gentlemen and we look forward to seeing you at 1 p.m tomorrow

01:33:06.220 for the next one take care

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 11, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1415

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