The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1428

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1428 for Thursday the 28th of May

00:00:07.300 2026. I'm your host Luca joined today by Beau of Breakfast with Beau fame and acclaim

00:00:14.180 the darling of the breakfast scene of Britain. Beau's Breakfast Club hashtag the real BBC. Yeah

00:00:20.100 8 p.m at 8 a.m rather every morning or wouldn't be breakfast would it if it was 8 p.m so yeah

00:00:26.120 caught myself there. Anyway, today we're going to be talking all about the Punch the Monkey saga

00:00:31.300 and how one little monkey became embroiled with some hijinks from the Crypto Bros. We're then 0.97

00:00:39.400 going to be talking about the return of the Dark Lord himself because he's always in the shadows, 0.66

00:00:45.120 isn't he? And every now and then he feels the need to make his presence known. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:00:50.040 And then we're going to be talking about how the skies are simply not your billboards and I

00:00:55.260 intend to go on a somewhat meandering philosophical discussion about the corporations taking over our

00:01:03.480 skies and what we should actually be trying to do with our skies. So with all of that said,

00:01:10.520 shall we begin? So, Bo, have you ever heard of Punch the Monkey?

00:01:16.460 Only absolutely in passing on Twitter a week or two ago, I saw that there was this poor little

00:01:23.400 monkey and that it'd been abandoned by its parents or its right its tribe or something yeah and that

00:01:30.820 people had loads of uh sympathy for it beyond that i don't know anything i don't know anything

00:01:34.340 about crypto bros no beyond that oh fair enough i never thought oh wait i need to find out all

00:01:39.520 the details about this little monkey i was just like okay that's the thing that's going on i'm

00:01:43.260 not interested well you may not have felt that but fortunately samson is our our scholar of

00:01:48.620 japanese online trends oh it's all japanese yeah this is this didn't even know that all right

00:01:53.300 Okay. It's a Japanese zoo? 1.00

00:01:55.340 Yes.

00:01:55.840 Okay, all right.

00:01:56.560 Yeah, so we're in Japan.

00:01:57.860 I'm learning, I'm learning.

00:01:58.640 And this is a Japanese macaque monkey.

00:02:02.560 As you can see, absolutely adorable.

00:02:05.080 And just so there is no confusion about Punch whatsoever,

00:02:08.800 they've even helpfully put the fact that there's a monkey in brackets at the top.

00:02:12.820 Not to be confused with Lucy Punch.

00:02:15.480 No, or Punch and Judy. 0.98

00:02:17.080 Yeah, Punch.

00:02:18.180 Oh, right, yeah, sorry, yes.

00:02:19.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:20.060 So, but it is exactly as you say.

00:02:22.640 So this little monkey ended up going viral basically around X because of the tragic backstory that the monkey had.

00:02:32.280 So, as it tells us here, subsequently he was abandoned by his mother, who lacked interest in raising him.

00:02:38.600 And Alison Bahie, a primatologist expert at the Australian National University, attributed age, health and inexperience of motherliness as potential factors for why the mother chose to abandon the offspring.

00:02:52.020 But the larger point is that because of this, someone, just a spectator at the time, noticed that Punch had been abandoned by its mother.

00:03:03.580 And this allowed the zoologists and the local Japanese at the actual zoo to start caring for it.

00:03:09.560 And as a result of this, it became very, very attached to, as you can see here, this plushy orangutan doll.

00:03:16.620 and it goes on to make a point in the Japanese Times made an article all about this and this

00:03:23.800 creative idea to save the infant macaque and it goes on to point out that they typically obviously

00:03:30.360 cling to their mothers to build muscle strength and obviously give them a sense of security

00:03:35.360 so it needed a swift intervention to give it something as an acting crutch in order to aid

00:03:42.260 it with that and zookeeper kusuke shikano said and the keepers experimented with substitutes

00:03:50.900 including rolled up towels and other stuffed animals before settling on the the orangutan

00:03:56.780 from ikea as part of the the swedish japanese alliance no doubt or something of the kind but

00:04:04.080 um as quoted here seeing punch on social media abandoned by his parents but still trying so hard

00:04:10.580 really move me, said the 26-year-old nurse. So when I got the chance to meet up with a friend

00:04:16.460 today, I suggested that we go see Punch together. Because that's the thing, isn't it? The public

00:04:21.660 love an underdog story, and they love animals. And when you have an underdog animal in there as well

00:04:29.040 that is in a zoo, but mind you as well, this is not some grand zoo. This is actually a very small

00:04:34.940 zoo it's not something that would otherwise attract a great deal of tourists or attention

00:04:40.900 and so this one monkey and sort of like the viral sensation that has swirled about it

00:04:46.720 has led to uh it's like that final scene in night at the museum where it's just been abandoned for

00:04:52.260 and they all just burst in and everyone's like interested in the museum again has it gone super

00:04:57.200 viral then like millions and millions of views on this this poor monkey from what i understand yeah

00:05:01.720 Yeah, from what I understand. And just as an example, if we just play this clip here, you can see, as I point out, Punch abandoned the monkey, clutches his teddy after being attacked by other monkeys. So let's just play.

00:05:31.720 so so if you've got a soft spot for animals you can see why people have become very very hooked

00:05:41.540 to this right or thing yeah singles it out it's very very startled and but also as well it's it's

00:05:47.240 one of those things where you look at the animal and you actually because of its disadvantage and

00:05:52.680 where it's come from and the fact that it's singled out by the orangutan it's obviously

00:05:56.840 it gives like an emotional journey right you can see the growth of the monkey itself as it evolves

00:06:02.360 there's other photos of there of other older primates eventually coming and starting to form

00:06:07.740 uh friendships with it and all these sorts of things so people get very invested in the drama

00:06:14.340 of this monkey but anyway the real story behind all of this is that two men have been arrested

00:06:20.660 over a stunt where one of the men

00:06:23.020 broke into the enclosure of the monkey.

00:06:26.980 Right.

00:06:27.420 Right.

00:06:28.000 And just to help us out with this,

00:06:30.620 the BBC point out,

00:06:32.580 two US nationals have been arrested

00:06:34.820 after one jumped into the enclosure

00:06:37.360 of an internet famous monkey at the Japanese zoo

00:06:40.140 while the other filmed the stunt.

00:06:41.680 The police have said,

00:06:42.900 one of the men who claimed to be

00:06:45.440 a 24-year-old college student

00:06:47.340 is accused of scaling the fence

00:06:49.540 and by accused, I think we should stress, it's on camera.

00:06:53.300 Okay.

00:06:54.980 Scaling offence to gain access to Punch

00:06:57.980 and the other man claimed to be a 27-year-old singer.

00:07:02.640 Okay, great. You do you, bro.

00:07:05.520 Both have denied the allegations,

00:07:07.620 even though they literally filmed themselves doing it,

00:07:10.280 and police have said that no monkeys were injured during the incident.

00:07:14.360 So they didn't abduct Punch?

00:07:16.200 No.

00:07:16.580 They didn't harm Punch?

00:07:17.960 No.

00:07:18.440 Okay.

00:07:18.700 No, but this is the thing. It's weirder, right? You would expect that, okay, well, if they've broken into the monkey enclosure, like one of them, you literally see him drop down into the enclosure.

00:07:34.320 We'll reveal more in a minute. You're like, and okay, well, if you're going to do that, is this a heist? Are you trying to kidnap the viral monkey, the viral sensation and sell it off on some messed up black market somewhere?

00:07:47.620 No, no, it's even stranger, I'm afraid.

00:07:52.100 So as I point out here, as a result of all of this as well,

00:07:56.060 the Ichikawa City Zoo have put out a statement on X saying,

00:08:02.560 we will expand the restricted viewing area,

00:08:05.280 install anti-intrusion nets in the restricted area,

00:08:08.500 and conduct permanent patrols within the restricted area,

00:08:11.960 which is a very official way of basically saying,

00:08:15.300 look, you've ruined the fun for everyone now.

00:08:17.620 But let's take a look at these guys, shall we? So they are two black Americans, as it says here from Asian Dawn, who were arrested in Japan on Sunday after the reckless stunt inside the zoo, obviously housing Punch, who is just merely nine months old. 0.57

00:08:36.520 And the mascot costume worn during the stunt was reportedly associated with a cryptocurrency marketing gimmick or a meme coin.

00:08:46.780 And you can see here, right, this is the guy.

00:08:49.500 This is one of the guys.

00:08:50.680 And I'll just play the clip.

00:09:06.520 and then proceeds to just walk around the enclosure in his mascot costume oh i see 0.98

00:09:26.700 waving his little mascot so it's wannabe crypto dudes that are retarded trying to 0.88

00:09:35.860 ride on punches coattails basically that yes and so but i love as well here like the way that the 0.88

00:09:42.700 bbc uh went at it it's like two u.s nationals and then you've just got the internet going like

00:09:48.620 two black guys just being like ah american nationals might be here he thought well i mean

00:09:54.760 the rules don't apply to them didn't you know no i have been told that rules and just sort of 0.94

00:10:00.980 decency common decency yeah don't seem to apply to them so okay but it's absolutely absurd and

00:10:07.880 the guy proceeded to just go around and um you know walk about the enclosure and all of this

00:10:13.100 basically stems uh from you can see him in fact if we just play him being taken away here 0.99

00:10:18.640 so there's this little masculine just being ushered off looking like a total moron 0.99

00:10:28.240 yeah yeah he's retarded yeah you'd have to be a retarded person yeah wouldn't you really yeah 0.98

00:10:35.960 but yeah basically yeah sums it up um and so as a result of this yeah they've been held um 0.99

00:10:42.940 after breaching, uh, the pen and it goes on to point out that, um, the suspects were identified

00:10:49.720 as Reed Jani Dason, uh, who was, as it says, a self-described uni student and Neil Jabari

00:10:58.740 Duan, um, who is apparently, as I say, a singer. And this occurred and obviously it was all caught

00:11:05.800 on film. And basically there were just everyone, it's funny as well, because people from the

00:11:10.640 outside the japanese spectators just saw someone going and just went yeah a foreign man's jumped 0.61

00:11:15.900 into the enclosure they just knew even though he's got like yeah only a foreigner would actually do

00:11:21.240 that no japanese person they wouldn't dream of doing something so uncouth no yeah but also as 0.96

00:11:27.660 well you know there's a point to be had about the fact that everyone around is entirely sensitive 0.88

00:11:34.500 to the emotional development of this little monkey because you know for good or ill they've got

00:11:39.960 themselves really invested in it and so it's that thing to see someone else just go in there and put

00:11:45.280 on just like such a frightful unknown startling display like there's no telling after what the

00:11:51.560 monkey has been through what effect that is going to have on it seeing this random yellow 0.98

00:11:57.320 loser yeah just mocking about in itself anyway so it's all a little bit pathetic 0.93

00:12:06.320 But obviously the larger thing is here that this all links into an increasing trend that we're seeing now with crypto bros, 0.97

00:12:14.960 people just making meme coins, going to ridiculous lengths to try and make themselves relevant,

00:12:22.120 to try and continue viral trends going, to try and basically force themselves into basically a place where they can do like a pump and dump of their stocks.

00:12:35.260 and obviously of their meme coins.

00:12:38.640 As it points out here,

00:12:41.000 we estimate that $17 billion

00:12:44.100 was stolen in crypto scams and fraud in 2025

00:12:47.840 as impersonation scams show

00:12:50.360 massive 1,400% year-on-year growth

00:12:54.620 and AI-enabled scams

00:12:57.060 were 4.5 times more profitable

00:12:59.360 than traditional scams.

00:13:01.460 Major scam operations

00:13:03.080 became increasingly industrialized

00:13:05.220 with sophisticated infrastructure, including pishing as a service tools, AI generated deepfakes

00:13:10.960 and professional money laundering networks with strong connections to East and Southeast Asia

00:13:17.720 crime networks identified in places like Cambodia, Myanmar and other regions where trafficking

00:13:23.820 victims are forced to operate their scams. And also as well, the last point, law enforcement

00:13:29.720 made record-breaking seizures, including a 61,000 Bitcoin recovery in the United Kingdom

00:13:36.220 and a $12 billion seizure linked to the Prince Group criminal organization showing improved

00:13:45.020 capability to combat crypto fraud. So this is all like the high-end stuff. This is all like

00:13:51.120 they're using AI, they've got, you know, they're in there with the criminal gangs and everything, 1.00

00:13:56.140 right these are actually sophisticated operations and then there's those retards right is really 1.00

00:14:03.160 where all of this goes from and so this this meme coin that's basically was started off the back of 1.00

00:14:10.360 punch's uh viral sensation and as a joke right because that's all they do they're just parasites

00:14:16.880 they're just trying to lock on to something that's going about something that's getting clicks right

00:14:21.860 now oh let's make a coin out of that oh is there a punch coin punch the monkey coin right right

00:14:28.400 okay all right i see i see yeah so it's related to that and they're trying to like spring it up 0.99

00:14:34.340 obviously i don't want to give the give give these imbeciles uh you know and like what they were 0.97

00:14:39.560 trying to do uh too much attention and the scam would be that they own like a million or 10 million 0.97

00:14:47.140 of these coins that are worthless yeah there's a little bit of interest in it so it goes up in the

00:14:52.020 market a bit it's now worth like two cents and then they can just sell all of those right money 0.73

00:14:57.260 exactly so and then and then just walk away yeah it's so pathetic isn't it it's absurd and yeah 0.86

00:15:03.640 you're quite right i i think it is pathetic totally uh but this manipulation obviously and 0.76

00:15:09.540 them trying to make these pump and dump schemes where basically they obviously mislead investors

00:15:14.080 and they end up, you know, generating these profits, of course, for themselves.

00:15:18.720 Didn't the Hocktour girl do that? Do you remember Hocktour?

00:15:22.900 I do, yes. Yeah, she had that podcast and everything.

00:15:25.740 The last I heard is that that's what she did. 1.00

00:15:29.540 And then just left.

00:15:30.820 I don't know.

00:15:31.420 And no one ever saw her again.

00:15:32.520 Yeah, and then just disappeared.

00:15:33.300 Yeah, I think that might be the case.

00:15:35.780 I mean, not that I ever listened to her or paid any attention to her whatsoever.

00:15:41.020 In fact, as I think about it, didn't after Trump's second inauguration, there was some sort of like Trump coin and Melania coin, like even they had their hand in it to some point and just like sold it on.

00:15:57.760 And then obviously there was like a 90% crash or whatever after the people who'd organized it had obviously made themselves a hell of a lot of money.

00:16:05.900 and again it just wasn't um wasn't exactly the most honorable uh best foot forward from trump

00:16:14.000 there and starting the second presidency uh but obviously this saga is just really highlighted

00:16:19.280 the fact that all of these online meme coins and all that because there are so many examples of

00:16:24.980 this of just people starting to do these pathetic little um viral trends right to try and gain

00:16:32.180 themselves but obviously as we can see here it begins to have a genuine impact on the real world

00:16:37.280 and like sure okay it's a monkey in the zoo but it's like but it's the principle of the thing 0.91

00:16:42.760 right the principle is no one cares about your damn meme coin right they care about the actual 0.95

00:16:50.160 safeguarding and well-being of this defenseless creature poor little monkey right of this poor 0.99

00:16:55.240 little monkey, right? Not you guys who are, you know, student and I assume amateur singer or

00:17:02.140 rapper or whatever the hell he thinks he is. And so, yeah, as I say, as a result of all of this,

00:17:09.100 the enclosure, you can see it here, it's now being fenced off and you're not going to get

00:17:15.300 anywhere half as near. And so it's not just the monkey as well. It's now, so everyone who turns

00:17:20.920 up to that zoo everyone who's been going there you know turning up in the hundreds from all across

00:17:26.020 you know whether they've got the train in from tokyo or they've got flight from america because

00:17:30.220 some people have you know it's like all of this um what would have been great for the local economy

00:17:37.040 and the revenue that was going into the zoo well now all of a sudden this star attraction

00:17:42.240 has kind of been taken off a table that you can't see it as you once could before um and and at the

00:17:49.800 same time i don't i don't really begrudge those in charge of the zoo for doing it i mean if it's

00:17:56.620 been done once um once a precedent that has been set i can understand why they would care

00:18:04.600 more about the monkey's safety not just not just punch as well all the monkeys

00:18:09.620 then of course you know like who can actually you know peer over the edge and see it just because 0.98

00:18:15.740 two extremely selfish retarded scammers yeah now no one can really enjoy the monkeys so the 0.99

00:18:26.960 these guys who are just like peddling the meme coins are really just ruining the fun for everyone 0.99

00:18:32.520 it seems and it's just one of the reasons why honestly just don't i mean this is just me but

00:18:39.620 i'd say don't get involved in it right there are i say don't bother with small crypto yeah at all

00:18:46.400 yeah it's like if you've got a little bit of money to invest and and time and you want to

00:18:52.160 start playing the market don't really bother with like penny shares penny stocks like equities that

00:18:58.640 are worth just a few cents a few pennies right don't bother with that really there's no there's

00:19:03.560 no point the likelihood of you losing or making effectively nothing is pretty higher so i can only

00:19:10.080 imagine the same goes for some crappy little startup crypto yeah that no one's heard of like

00:19:15.400 don't don't bother no obviously i would say yeah it's just my opinion yeah but there you go it's

00:19:20.320 just our two cents and uh those two cents are probably harder currency than the crypto they're

00:19:25.440 offering so um yeah so sorry to the japanese people that some american nationals have gone

00:19:31.960 in and ruin something very wholesome for you. But I do wish Punch a very nice life in his

00:19:38.880 little monkey-ness. And yeah, all right, let's move on to... And now for something completely

00:19:44.920 different, as John Cleese would say. I'll just go through Rumble Rants. So we've got Sigilstone

00:19:52.260 for $2 says, Josh is somewhere in the office, absolutely seething that he isn't on this

00:19:57.140 segment. Well, he's not in the office, and so he's going to have to seethe elsewhere,

00:20:00.880 i'm afraid chimpanzee that monkey news yeah uh five dollars from based ape well there they are 0.56

00:20:09.340 this is your segment isn't it oh it's a monkey named punch jesus i thought we were going to get 0.54

00:20:14.300 a segment about how the internet is cheering on punching monkeys for monkeys i mean at this rate

00:20:19.780 anything's possible um i can only hope it's that they decide to punch a monkey that can punch much

00:20:25.020 harder than they can uh and sigil stone also says uh there's a lesson about a certain yeah people

00:20:32.520 ruining things yeah yeah absolutely sigil stone fair point uh there is pattern recognition off

00:20:38.960 the chart say um that's horrible yeah that's a poor thing poor thing all right

00:20:48.040 Luca we need to talk a little bit about the dark lord on his dark throne yes in the land of Mordor

00:20:56.880 the dark lord Sauron where the shadows lie uh Tony Blair yeah Tony Blair the dark lord for

00:21:04.160 anyone who might not know ruled England from 1997 the king Blair and still and did until very

00:21:11.360 recently it still does sorry yeah from 1997 until now no was it 2007 he left office he had a he had

00:21:18.020 straight up 10 years didn't he um okay so because he's like an ex-prime minister sort of a senior

00:21:24.360 statesman they made him they gave him the order of the garter so one of the most prestigious

00:21:28.560 knighthoods you can get yeah and he's now just a senior statesman and like all ex-prime ministers

00:21:33.480 every now and again will chime in every now and again like write an article for the times or

00:21:37.660 something like that may i just say on that one point as well the fact that he was given the

00:21:42.920 knighthood remember as well that him being offered the knight when it came into the news that tony

00:21:48.080 blair was going to be offered a knighthood not just a knighthood the order of the garden sorry

00:21:52.020 and the order of the garden wasn't there a petition of over a million people who said absolutely not

00:21:57.200 on your nelly and it just all went ahead anyway and obviously was totally ignored but it just

00:22:02.280 points to how the entire honor system has basically just been hijacked and given to the corrupt

00:22:08.560 and that they actually just hold the rest of us in contempt

00:22:11.940 because so few people around Britain are thankful

00:22:16.020 for what Mr Blair did to this country

00:22:19.420 and yet doesn't stop the honours being poured on him

00:22:23.060 and other people like him.

00:22:24.920 He'll probably get a peerage one day.

00:22:26.800 Not probably, I don't know, but most prime ministers...

00:22:29.060 It's interesting that Boris Johnson hasn't got one, I don't think.

00:22:33.560 Not yet.

00:22:34.880 Well, not yet, yeah.

00:22:36.020 Usually prime ministers get a peerage.

00:22:38.560 But the Order of the Garter is much, much more exclusive

00:22:41.180 than a peerage, much, much more.

00:22:43.420 There's only a very, very small number of people

00:22:46.240 with the garter, and they're usually like friends

00:22:48.760 of the royal family or members of the royal family.

00:22:50.920 Or like, I think once in a blue moon,

00:22:52.800 they'll give one to like a foreign leader 0.76

00:22:55.500 as like some sort of extraordinary token.

00:23:00.360 Just so I understand it, is this the honour

00:23:03.120 in which only a certain number of people

00:23:05.400 can occupy it at the same time?

00:23:07.440 like 10 or 12 people

00:23:09.160 and it goes back 0.97

00:23:10.320 to the Black Prince

00:23:11.460 it goes back 0.56

00:23:12.020 to the Battle of Cressy

00:23:13.000 greatest king

00:23:13.620 we never had

00:23:14.180 yeah

00:23:15.100 yeah it goes back

00:23:16.380 to Edward III

00:23:17.200 it's

00:23:17.680 there's knighthoods

00:23:19.580 and then there's knighthoods

00:23:20.860 and that is the highest one

00:23:22.040 the highest possible thing

00:23:23.140 yeah

00:23:23.800 it's almost

00:23:25.280 it's almost up there

00:23:26.180 with being created

00:23:26.900 an earl

00:23:27.480 or a duke

00:23:28.100 right

00:23:28.360 almost

00:23:28.840 I mean you're only a sir

00:23:30.200 it is only a knighthood

00:23:31.380 but it's

00:23:32.340 uber uber uber exclusive

00:23:33.740 you're already

00:23:34.460 the Dark Lord

00:23:35.320 what are the titles

00:23:36.120 do you need

00:23:36.640 right yeah

00:23:37.660 Greedy.

00:23:38.160 He missed out on being president of Europe that time,

00:23:40.280 so this will have to suffice.

00:23:42.040 Okay, so, but he does keep his silence reasonably well,

00:23:46.160 although there is the Tony Blair Institute and he pops up all over the place

00:23:49.440 and he's still active on the political scene.

00:23:52.100 But he doesn't sort of chime in every day.

00:23:54.260 He doesn't go on, like, Sunday morning news shows every weekend.

00:23:58.340 Yeah.

00:23:58.760 So he's actually kept reasonably quiet since the whole 0.73

00:24:02.260 Sarkir Stalin's

00:24:05.360 authority has crumbled

00:24:07.240 and the Andy Burnham stuff

00:24:09.680 and the West Streaking stuff

00:24:10.440 he's kept almost conspicuously quiet about it

00:24:13.480 he's broken cover now

00:24:15.060 pretty quiet during the Mandelson saga

00:24:17.360 as well wasn't he, didn't really come out and make

00:24:19.400 any statements then

00:24:21.000 or give us his two

00:24:22.880 he's broken cover, he's now decided to publish

00:24:25.660 a whole essay

00:24:26.740 like a 5600 odd word

00:24:29.540 essay about everything

00:24:31.260 he thinks is wrong with the Labour Party, the country,

00:24:34.640 Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham, West Street,

00:24:36.440 and he's chimed in on all of it.

00:24:38.900 So he's broken cover.

00:24:40.960 He's put his head above the parapet

00:24:42.260 because, you know, this may be the last Labour government ever.

00:24:46.420 It's certainly likely to be the last Labour government

00:24:48.040 for a long time, I would have thought.

00:24:49.740 It might be the last Labour government ever.

00:24:52.480 So...

00:24:52.900 Well, I mean, I hope so.

00:24:55.060 He wants to chime in while he still can,

00:24:57.180 while it still counts in any way.

00:24:58.520 While there's a Labour party to intervene for.

00:25:00.840 I mean, because obviously the other thing as well is that ideally what we want to happen is when we get on the other side of the next election and we have a restore Britain supermajority and we just fix the country and everything goes great and we enter a second golden age, all that good stuff, right?

00:25:18.640 Ideally, what needs to happen to Labour is the exact same thing, which is now obviously happening to the Conservative Party.

00:25:25.840 People just need to forget about it.

00:25:27.560 It's not even hatred anymore.

00:25:30.600 It's, you're not on my radar.

00:25:32.060 I don't think about you anymore.

00:25:34.100 You're a relic of the past.

00:25:35.820 Yeah, completely irrelevant.

00:25:36.640 Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it?

00:25:37.940 Yeah.

00:25:38.200 If both Tory and Labour Party became just withered on the vine

00:25:42.900 and no one talked about them, let alone considered voting for them.

00:25:46.240 Yeah.

00:25:46.700 Yeah, that's what they deserve, isn't it?

00:25:47.800 Of course, for the way they've run this country over the last century or so,

00:25:52.680 or the last couple of generations at least, or more.

00:25:55.820 So Tony Blair, people, when Starmer got in, various people,

00:25:59.320 all sorts of people the chattering classes all speculated to what extent is tony blair the dark

00:26:04.840 lord really controlling things to you know to what extent does kia starmer just do exactly what blair

00:26:10.040 is telling him and everyone had a different opinion i was of the opinion that not that much

00:26:15.360 i'm sure kia starmer talks to tony blair sometimes but doesn't really just go to him for policy all

00:26:21.260 that much and that seems to have been vindicated that seems to have been sort of it's one of the

00:26:27.820 things you can take from this yeah is that blair's not happy kia starlin and the labor party in

00:26:34.180 general are not doing what he wants like at all yeah it's not how he would be doing things and

00:26:39.440 that's what comes through right and though it wounds me greatly to see sir tony blair so upset

00:26:45.140 about the state of his party of course inside i am rejoicing well i mean as much as i despise

00:26:53.400 tony blair and i do i would put him on trial for crimes against the nation and the people myself

00:26:58.100 i think he i think he's actually like an evil person um i'm sure he would run britain better

00:27:04.080 than keir starmer has done i'm sure of it yeah no i would bet my mortgage on it yeah well he's at

00:27:09.520 least willing to address that there are a particular group of incendiary issues that are really

00:27:16.140 radicalizing the british public that keir starmer is just not willing to address now this is not me

00:27:21.280 of course saying that blair actually cares about these things or feels any guilt about the problems

00:27:27.640 that he has caused but for his own political expediency he would at least have the the common

00:27:34.460 sense to be seen to be doing something about it yeah in a way that starman just never seems to

00:27:40.120 feel the need well one of the points i wanted to say um and i'll get to it is about what he didn't

00:27:45.120 say in his

00:27:45.800 5,600

00:27:46.940 word

00:27:47.380 but I mean

00:27:48.580 you can tell

00:27:49.060 he's not

00:27:50.360 happy

00:27:50.820 I mean so

00:27:51.340 the headline

00:27:51.900 the headline

00:27:52.500 I suppose

00:27:52.940 would be

00:27:53.520 that Tony

00:27:54.660 Blair is

00:27:55.500 saying that

00:27:56.040 Labour has

00:27:56.560 no coherent

00:27:57.300 plan for

00:27:58.340 the country

00:27:58.880 look at

00:28:00.460 his mad 0.92

00:28:00.920 eyes

00:28:01.380 you can

00:28:02.340 almost see

00:28:02.660 the psychosis

00:28:03.560 on his

00:28:04.940 face

00:28:05.320 looks a bit

00:28:06.960 like a

00:28:07.240 Burns

00:28:07.460 victim

00:28:07.760 actually

00:28:08.100 so

00:28:12.240 anyway

00:28:13.800 um it speaks of how in the early blair years the new labour project he got in i think as leader of

00:28:22.500 the labour party in opposition i think 1994 reworked the the constitution of the labour

00:28:27.640 party a bit to make it much much less left wing so the left of the party have always hated him

00:28:32.980 yeah wasn't it blair that um basically put through in the constitution of labour not

00:28:38.140 that they wouldn't nationalize key industries yeah clause four isn't it yeah or clause seven

00:28:43.360 No, Clause 4, I think it is.

00:28:44.560 Yeah, right, yeah.

00:28:45.180 Just concessions with Thatcherite framing.

00:28:47.260 So he took the Labour Party, which was truly socialist, leftist,

00:28:52.420 and tweaked it so that it wasn't, basically.

00:28:56.760 So it was pro-business.

00:28:59.300 Lo and behold, he wins three elections, one after the other.

00:29:01.720 The only Labour leader ever to have done that, etc, etc.

00:29:04.340 Right.

00:29:04.960 Okay, so the left of the Labour Party, someone like Starmer and Burnham,

00:29:09.140 and even Streeting, always resented, not to mention, of course,

00:29:12.760 people like Corbyn have always sort of hated the Blair Wright project.

00:29:20.860 Well, Burnham left because obviously he was in their governments,

00:29:22.980 but still he was always to the left.

00:29:26.080 So, okay, now Tony Blair's coming out and saying,

00:29:28.620 attacking really the left of the party,

00:29:30.420 his prescription for everything is to abandon the sort of insane progressives.

00:29:36.760 We'll get into some of the details in a minute, 0.71

00:29:38.100 but like abandon redheads, net zero, insanity, all these things. 1.00

00:29:42.460 Let's go back to more managerial style of government. 1.00

00:29:45.340 Let's go back to policy, not politics.

00:29:48.460 Let's have more quangos, if anything. 0.99

00:29:51.400 All the same talking points.

00:29:53.240 ID cards, all the same stuff.

00:29:55.920 His passion projects.

00:29:57.560 Because Andy Burnham said, didn't he, recently, a week ago or so,

00:30:01.100 he said about the last 40-odd years of neoliberalism are the problem.

00:30:06.100 Yeah.

00:30:06.820 A big part of that, a big chunk of that is saying Tony Blair,

00:30:10.620 Tony Blair's style of politics and government was a problem.

00:30:14.220 It is a problem.

00:30:15.180 Hard locked it, triple locked it into our system.

00:30:18.900 Yeah.

00:30:19.760 And what we really need is much, much more leftism,

00:30:23.040 is Andy Burnham saying.

00:30:25.400 Well, even if Andy Burnham does think that and wants to do it,

00:30:28.680 I don't see him being a capable enough politician

00:30:32.220 to do any of the things that he thinks he can achieve,

00:30:35.200 which is one of the reasons why, you know,

00:30:37.780 when people talk about the battle for Makerfield,

00:30:40.620 and the by-election come up, I'm not scared by the prospect of Andy Burnham.

00:30:44.480 He'll be just as paralysed by the permanent state as anyone else.

00:30:49.200 But something Tony Blair said, it's interesting when someone you hate

00:30:51.200 comes out with a whole bunch of takes that you agree with, right?

00:30:53.840 Yeah, makes you feel like you've done it.

00:30:56.560 Like Zia Yusuf or Ben Shapiro has a take and you're like,

00:30:59.120 I can't disagree with that.

00:31:00.520 Yeah, on that, if nothing else, yeah.

00:31:03.240 Just go scrub myself for a bit.

00:31:06.460 Go sit in the shower hugging my knees, rocking backwards and forwards.

00:31:08.740 Yeah.

00:31:09.260 Oh my God.

00:31:10.620 Tony Blair had like 10 correct takes in a row

00:31:13.420 oh my god

00:31:13.920 yeah

00:31:15.140 so

00:31:16.840 okay

00:31:17.780 there's just been loads and loads of articles

00:31:19.100 over the last

00:31:19.740 news cycle and a half

00:31:21.440 24 hours

00:31:22.320 48 hours or so

00:31:23.060 there's been loads and loads of written about it

00:31:25.020 look will Tony Blair's intervention change

00:31:27.860 change the Labour debate

00:31:28.960 these are just

00:31:29.600 a few of

00:31:30.480 dozens and dozens of dozens

00:31:32.120 it's been all over the front pages

00:31:33.740 and all different takes on it

00:31:35.800 all different people's takes

00:31:36.720 some are like really pro

00:31:37.900 we need Blair back

00:31:39.220 Blair's brilliant

00:31:40.220 everything Blair's saying is right on the money

00:31:42.260 to people saying, no, he's insane, we've tried

00:31:44.540 all that, be quiet, old man 0.83

00:31:46.780 all those things

00:31:47.820 Labour must put policy

00:31:50.540 first, politics second, says Blair

00:31:52.220 because Blair has transcended politics

00:31:54.480 you see

00:31:54.900 He's an enlightened man

00:31:57.780 He's transcended, it's just about policy

00:32:00.880 Don't worry about if that policy 0.97

00:32:02.360 is mad and leads to a sectarian nightmare 0.92

00:32:04.620 Don't worry about that, it's all about policy 1.00

00:32:06.720 We're going to put policy first, okay

00:32:08.480 but i hate your policy as well so now what but your policies are mad yeah so tony tells government

00:32:13.940 to tear up net zero plans um all right i'm obviously for that yeah and uh burnham and

00:32:20.340 streeting both came out quite quickly uh look blair demands welfare cuts and ends and end of

00:32:26.180 unsustainable pension triple lock he had something to say about most things right yeah didn't have

00:32:31.940 anything to say about legal migration i'll get to that get to that okay like not a word not warm

00:32:37.760 Not a dicky bird about demographic replacement.

00:32:41.260 Not a single word.

00:32:42.500 Okay.

00:32:43.120 And, you know, like West Streeting and Burnham came out and said,

00:32:46.380 variants on, it's not 1997, old man.

00:32:51.300 Right.

00:32:51.640 You know, like we're the future, pipe down now.

00:32:54.360 You're talking about the centre.

00:32:55.880 You're talking about a radical centre.

00:32:57.620 Please, we're moving to the left, bro.

00:33:00.320 There's nothing you can do.

00:33:01.520 Most people are tired of the centre.

00:33:04.800 Yeah.

00:33:05.060 I mean, Blair is talking, a lot of what you say,

00:33:07.260 i read the whole thing okay it's all 20 minutes 30 minutes i read the whole thing and um big chunks

00:33:12.760 of it you can't disagree if you're reasonable yeah you can't disagree with it other chunks it

00:33:17.460 may be a third of it or more i'm reading it i'm thinking this is mad you're mad you're living in

00:33:22.380 a mad world like for example just the just the example that um it's still britain's place to

00:33:28.340 try and influence the whole world in various ways this is how we should be thinking about

00:33:32.900 in the future influence in India.

00:33:36.700 This is how we need to move the needle in Europe, 0.84

00:33:39.160 even if we're not in Europe, and all that stuff.

00:33:41.800 Whenever America goes to war, we should always be 100% behind them

00:33:44.780 because that's just realistic. 0.98

00:33:46.000 Oh, so he's for us getting involved in Iran.

00:33:49.140 Of course, yeah, of course.

00:33:50.240 Of course, of course, of course.

00:33:52.420 Well, Trump also wanted him, didn't he,

00:33:54.320 on the border piece in Israel-Palestine. 0.68

00:33:58.480 He's in their faction.

00:33:59.380 He's on the border piece, yeah.

00:34:00.760 Blair's their faction.

00:34:01.740 I mean, just on that real quick, almost as an aside, you know, he makes the argument that America is one of the two or three main world superpowers.

00:34:11.160 They're our closest ally have been ever since the World War II. 0.99

00:34:14.960 And it's just simply prudent to be their prison bitch, basically. 0.99

00:34:23.760 Right. And that argument isn't crazy. 1.00

00:34:26.040 It's not crazy.

00:34:27.260 It's actually, if you look at it dispassionately,

00:34:32.700 it's actually prudent and reasonable.

00:34:34.840 But it's not in our interest now anymore, particularly.

00:34:38.660 So, all right, it's not what a lot of people in the country want.

00:34:43.900 But that's one of the main things Tony Blair talks about,

00:34:45.940 is it doesn't matter what people want.

00:34:47.620 We need to fight against populism, if anything.

00:34:49.960 It doesn't matter what people want.

00:34:51.760 What matters is what I think is best,

00:34:54.120 what I, Tony Blair, think is best.

00:34:55.840 There just seems to be throughout all of his thinking, just such an unsentimental view of what constitutes a good life and what it means to be a human being. Like he has such an instrumental, instrumentalist view. It's just so cold and it's about these resources here and the power of what this thing can do for soft power.

00:35:17.920 And it's just all it's like, OK, but like if all of those things improve and you get all of those advancements and everyone is still miserable, I get the feeling like he would call it a success because he's been able to fulfill his objectives.

00:35:30.960 So so what are we actually responding to here, if not the concerns of ordinary people?

00:35:37.680 Yeah. Yeah. He's obsessed with AI and ID cards and all sorts of things.

00:35:42.180 Yeah. Yeah. He's not. He also did an interview with Nick Robinson on the BBC as well.

00:35:47.300 to sort of supplement the article, the essay he wrote,

00:35:51.380 where he just basically said all the same talking points.

00:35:54.000 Had an audience.

00:35:55.080 Yeah.

00:35:55.660 And, you know, in that he's talking about how populism must be fought against,

00:36:00.900 you know, like what the average person wants.

00:36:04.600 No, no, it's his view that should be carried out.

00:36:08.140 I mean, just, I say there's a range of reactions to it in The Telegraph,

00:36:12.520 at least this particular article.

00:36:14.740 Tony Blair created a generation of MPs who don't know how to govern.

00:36:18.520 I mean, that was one of the things that I wanted to say about this,

00:36:20.600 is that people like Keir Starmer and explicitly Andy Burnham,

00:36:25.560 but also people like even West Street to an extent,

00:36:29.820 they're all sort of Blair's children.

00:36:31.780 We're all Blair's children, aren't we?

00:36:34.760 No, but politically speaking, in the party,

00:36:36.460 they're all, you know, the next generation down,

00:36:42.060 the next iteration.

00:36:42.760 and that they're all in his shadow, very much so.

00:36:45.340 Aren't we all in Blair's shadow?

00:36:47.020 You know, and so it's funny to me how often it plays out in history

00:36:53.120 that you'll have some original thing, some original actor,

00:36:58.120 some original mover who's extremely strong.

00:37:01.860 I'm thinking maybe something like Genghis Khan.

00:37:03.940 Right.

00:37:04.400 Or Charlemagne.

00:37:05.860 Yeah.

00:37:06.140 Or Augustus or Napoleon or something like that.

00:37:09.380 and they're they're strong and successful and then two generations maybe three at most four

00:37:17.520 generations later you've got like a shadow of a shadow of that thing left you've got like the 0.99

00:37:24.040 the the corrupted crippled lame a retarded version of what once was yeah you've gone from 0.99

00:37:31.280 Athelstan to Ethelred the unready yeah you know just you've gone from Genghis Tarn to his great 0.99

00:37:36.580 grandchildren who are like uh chinese eunuchs yeah or something you've got like the great

00:37:42.900 grandchildren of charlemagne who are not like charlemagne right there's like charles of bold

00:37:47.940 you've got simple you've got the second or third generation of the julio claudian dynasty

00:37:52.660 they're they're sort of sort of deranged perverts augustus wouldn't hardly have recognized them

00:37:58.800 you know so i feel like that's something that's going on with this with the labor parties what

00:38:03.440 we're left with is someone like andy burnham which is like the scrapings of the bottom of the blairite

00:38:07.360 barrel yeah but but it's also just our entire politics is just full of the scrapings now isn't

00:38:13.380 it i mean you look at boris johnson and uh theresa may are these people compare comparable even to

00:38:21.520 i mean say what you want about them but like to you know to to churchill and mcmillan and eden

00:38:26.580 back in the 60s, you know, who saw action, who fought in war, who, you know, had a much more

00:38:34.100 rigorous education than even these people do today. It's like all of it, just a dilution of

00:38:40.480 statesmanship and the quality of politician. You remember back when Tucker Carlson did the

00:38:47.340 interview with Putin and Putin was like, oh, just give me, let me give you like 30 seconds of

00:38:53.380 backstory and he proceeded to go through like a 30 minute monologue about the history of russia

00:38:58.740 yeah where he saw it in you know a call to like why he's doing what he's doing today and back to

00:39:03.480 the kiev and rus of the ninth century or something would kia starmer be able to do that would he be

00:39:08.740 able to give like a 30 minute monologue about the history of england like a genuine history

00:39:13.140 or like or any of them would any of them be able to do that you know like when stephen edgington

00:39:19.000 asked Liz Truss about.

00:39:21.460 It's like, yeah, are you for a more

00:39:22.900 Disraelian or Gladstonian

00:39:24.620 foreign policy? She had no idea.

00:39:27.440 It's like everyone would have known

00:39:28.980 that who wanted to be a politician

00:39:30.700 at some point, you know, in the 20s.

00:39:33.220 But now just, they know

00:39:34.940 nothing. I remember David Cameron went on

00:39:36.980 Letterman once, whilst he was Prime Minister.

00:39:39.760 And Letterman asked him about

00:39:40.800 Magna Carta, and he didn't really know anything about it.

00:39:42.760 For example. I think, if I recall, right?

00:39:44.960 Something like that. He definitely went on Letterman

00:39:46.900 and Letterman asked him some straightforward

00:39:48.340 general knowledge questions about like english history and politics and he didn't really right

00:39:52.760 didn't really do it yeah awkward but then but then people would say that our entire generation

00:39:59.060 not just the zoomers my generation or even the boomers are like a shadow of the men that came

00:40:04.200 before them but then also people have always said that you can find someone writing in like the 0.93

00:40:10.040 14th century saying when i was a boy that's true all the old men they were proper men back then 0.85

00:40:14.560 Yeah.

00:40:15.300 Or old man Nestor in the Iliad.

00:40:17.060 Yeah.

00:40:17.680 In the Iliad, Nestor says, 1.00

00:40:19.320 you young whippersnappers think you're great warriors. 0.98

00:40:22.060 Back when I was a lad, men were men. 0.95

00:40:24.280 They were proper warriors then.

00:40:25.500 So I think that's always...

00:40:28.560 It's an eternal part of the human character, no doubt.

00:40:31.680 Okay, so here's the actual thing he wrote.

00:40:33.540 The Labour Party is playing with fire over its future

00:40:36.520 and the future of the country.

00:40:38.000 I thought I'd read a bit from it, a fair bit from it,

00:40:40.400 if people don't mind.

00:40:41.440 I mean, let him speak for himself.

00:40:42.660 um he says the labor party is playing with fire or more accurately with its future and that of

00:40:48.080 the country i led the labor party for 13 years and through three general elections it's a party

00:40:53.660 largely of decent well-meaning people i don't believe that who went who want the best for

00:40:57.540 their country absolutely don't believe that its mission is as its 1994 rewritten constitution

00:41:04.260 rewritten by blair uh to ensure that power wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many and

00:41:08.920 not the few. Bit pinko, isn't it? And it's a perfectly noble one. No, it isn't. It's

00:41:12.920 backward. But I'm afraid, like many progressive parties, it has an almost infinite capacity

00:41:18.100 for self-delusion. All right, he goes on. He doesn't pull too many punches, to be quite

00:41:22.200 honest. I'm talking about the intellectual wasteland of the Corbyn years. Because again,

00:41:27.960 as I said, the real lefties in the Labour Party, like Corbyn, despise Blair, and he despises

00:41:32.860 them back. He thinks you're just wrong-headed.

00:41:35.400 Well, they see him, don't they, as a man who took their party from them.

00:41:39.920 Yeah, right, yeah.

00:41:40.520 That's how they perceive him. 0.99

00:41:42.460 Like he's a crazy, evil capitalist wearing the skin suit of a Labour man. 0.99

00:41:48.140 Yeah. 0.99

00:41:48.680 Right, yeah.

00:41:49.700 Andy Burnham was an outstanding member of my government, but, you know, you get it.

00:41:55.500 Yeah.

00:41:55.800 The Westminster bubble.

00:41:57.600 The Westminster bubble isn't the problem.

00:41:59.360 It's the politics bubble.

00:42:01.300 Okay.

00:42:01.700 um so anyway one of the things he says i picked out here he says the cumulative risk for britain

00:42:09.540 is that we become frighteningly insular wary of america because of president trump out of europe

00:42:15.780 because we think it's inconsistent with national sovereignty it is inconsistent with national

00:42:19.920 sovereignty considering china as an enemy state it is an enemy state you see why it's it's all 0.97

00:42:27.780 the same crap uh yeah nervous allies uh of the gulf states because they're not democracies yeah 0.97

00:42:34.300 yeah uh and not much interested in the developing world because they're poor and potentially liable 0.99

00:42:41.880 to immigrate yeah i don't want my country full of third welders yeah yeah england britain isn't 0.97

00:42:47.860 some sort of overflow car park for the world's human detritus tony well this is the thing he 1.00

00:42:52.800 talks up in the article about the idea that oh well the Labour Party has just been captured by

00:42:58.100 fantasists and people who have no grip on reality but it's like Mr Blair why do you think that the

00:43:04.000 demographic replacement of the British in Britain is going to produce an outcome that's desirable

00:43:09.460 to you he doesn't talk about that like it just doesn't talk about any of that no no no uh another

00:43:15.480 thing he said he talked about uh new leaders like trump maloney uh mili people like that that are

00:43:24.320 right of center sort of people and he says he talks about how um that normal normal politicians

00:43:32.540 uh the the the allegory of they're going down the road they're driving down the road and they're

00:43:38.220 confronted by a brick wall and normal politicians good politicians as far as he said they'll stop

00:43:43.480 and they'll think about whether to dig under it,

00:43:46.060 climb over it, drive around it, whatever.

00:43:48.040 Well, melee is to worship it. 0.99

00:43:49.860 And it's, oh, ho, ho, ho, bdomps. 0.99

00:43:54.460 And that's the right thing to do. 1.00

00:43:57.760 And that's a process and that takes time.

00:44:00.380 But people like even Farage, but Trump, Maloney,

00:44:04.540 they just accelerate.

00:44:05.820 They see the wall and they accelerate

00:44:06.840 and they bust through it.

00:44:07.720 And for better or worse,

00:44:09.300 they just bust through that wall.

00:44:12.100 Okay.

00:44:12.260 he said this new breed of unconventional leaders has also understood how the new media landscape

00:44:17.640 operates social media has transformed both politics and conventional media uh which has decided not

00:44:23.960 all but most of it uh that new paradigm has decided that if you can't beat them join them

00:44:30.440 the effect is political debate conducted in a climate of perpetual gale force winds

00:44:35.380 capable at any moment of turning into a tornado and confusingly constantly changing direction

00:44:40.980 conventional politicians pay close attention to uh to what media traditional and social agitate over

00:44:48.040 this means they're blown this way and that trying to follow the prevailing wind the paradox is that

00:44:54.600 the public form part of this wind but at the same time deeply distrust it and look for leaders who

00:45:00.420 stand strong in the face of it i mean sort of describing how kia starmer's government is just

00:45:05.040 like bumbling stumbling along from one headline to another okay towards the extinction of his own

00:45:10.500 party yeah he said he goes on to say uh these unconventional leaders appear to have the ballast

00:45:16.280 many conventional politicians lacked he quoted john adams earlier where john adams at one point

00:45:20.840 said i feel like i'm paraphrasing but he said i feel like i'm floating around in the wind in terms

00:45:24.980 of policy and government i'm floating around in wind i need ballast right i need sort of weight

00:45:29.360 i need gravitas i need proper policies um and that's what he's accusing the labor the current

00:45:35.960 labor party of not having and i mean he's not wrong on that he's not wrong on loads of other

00:45:40.140 stuff he said it's mad in my opinion but on that he's not wrong um if i just finished this quote

00:45:44.560 he said um these new these new unconventional leaders they have attitude a tribe and a project

00:45:50.280 they're prepared to raise the middle finger to the part of the media which opposes them

00:45:55.460 and for protection they build a tribe a core of support which will follow them sometimes almost

00:46:01.100 blindly that's why the scandals which would immediately topple a conventional politician

00:46:05.940 they survive the tribe won't follow the tornado therefore uh they reduce in impact to switch

00:46:12.320 analogies uh they defang the beast and these leaders have a project you might not like it

00:46:19.200 but they have one it gives them it gives them strength and purpose so again he's saying that

00:46:24.500 kirstama doesn't have strength and purpose it's not wrong is he no he he does and he doesn't

00:46:31.120 Because like, yeah, OK, he doesn't have strength and purpose, but all the time that he proceeds on without that strength and purpose, it is still having one totalizing effect.

00:46:42.100 And this comes to, I'd just like to pull back on one of those quotes that you read from, which was where he says, the effect of the political debate conducted in a climate of perpetual gale force winds capable at any moment of turning into a tornado.

00:46:55.780 It's like, yeah, okay, he's identified the fact that these are sort of abnormally tempestuous times, right? Emotions are really, really high.

00:47:04.740 Or Twitter makes you think that.

00:47:06.260 Right. But as they say, this isn't 1997. We're not arguing about slight economic tweaks and we're not arguing about brownfield sites. We're arguing about a case of genuine existentialism for the British people, for the French in France.

00:47:25.460 These are not normal political issues. These are political issues that a public that shouldn't have had to have even contemplated having staring down the barrel of this threat is now having to reckon with.

00:47:40.040 and yeah it's not surprising that they're looking to whoever and you know whoever will just give

00:47:47.260 lip service to that anxiety which is of course why Farage was able to take them for so long

00:47:53.240 and why they're now turning to restore Britain because they actually see someone more trustworthy

00:47:57.920 of solving it but that is the anxiety and there is nothing that he has to say here

00:48:04.220 that seems to be catering to ameliorating that problem,

00:48:08.620 to saying, all right, yeah, okay, fine,

00:48:10.740 we're going to cut this off by saying 90% English,

00:48:15.180 no less than that, or whatever, or just like, you know,

00:48:18.040 some portion of re-migration, none of it.

00:48:20.580 You're stuck with this.

00:48:22.860 The word demographic or re-migration or anything like that

00:48:25.820 just simply doesn't come up whatsoever.

00:48:29.260 So he said he wanted, quote,

00:48:31.540 a serious debate about how the country is changing,

00:48:34.020 But it's not a serious debate, Tony, because you just fail to address the most serious things.

00:48:39.640 So, OK, there's loads.

00:48:40.700 There actually is loads.

00:48:41.620 He rambles on a bit, in my opinion.

00:48:42.580 But there's loads and loads of things in this 5,000 plus word essay.

00:48:46.500 He talks about all different things from AI, global politics, loads and loads and loads of stuff, loads of policy things.

00:48:52.640 And towards the end, he comes up with like a nine point program of what he would like to see.

00:48:58.360 Right.

00:48:58.860 So point one is just about the public sector and AI.

00:49:02.840 Right.

00:49:03.280 um it talks about deregulation okay it talks about energy okay it talks about private partner

00:49:12.800 private partnerships public private partnerships more of those apparently

00:49:18.080 the re-industrializing of the north right uh welfare but not how many people are coming here

00:49:25.520 but welfare the nhs right there is one bit on illegal migration which i'll read out for you

00:49:31.720 And then another thing about AI, basically, and digital ID cards.

00:49:36.660 At no point does he talk about the fact that all of our cities and towns 0.72

00:49:42.160 and even villages have been flooded with foreign people

00:49:45.800 and that it's not safe for our women to go outside often, 0.99

00:49:50.200 certainly at night.

00:49:51.960 That's changed the very fabric of our society.

00:49:55.620 That it's a high crime, low trust.

00:49:57.420 He doesn't talk anything about the insane organised crime in our society.

00:50:02.700 He doesn't talk about that.

00:50:03.820 He doesn't talk about legal migration and we're staring down the barrel

00:50:08.400 of a demographic decline and replacement and becoming a hated

00:50:11.660 and marginalised minority in our own ancestral homeland 0.99

00:50:14.480 and the looming nightmare of a sectarian world. 0.54

00:50:18.920 Well, he doesn't talk about that. 0.98

00:50:21.560 There's not a word about that.

00:50:23.180 oh but you want a serious debate about how the country is changing well what that means isn't it

00:50:29.880 is just oh yes we're very we're terribly sorry about that but we're just going to carry on doing

00:50:34.160 with the things that we we already plan to do right no i was just going to say as well and also

00:50:39.540 um i i just i'm thinking about um recent video uh by morgoth where he was talking about the fact

00:50:46.400 that you know when you saw uh recently because we've had a bit of a sweltering week in the sun

00:50:52.000 and all of the Indians and just Africans 1.00

00:50:54.700 going down to like Durdle Door on the South Coast.

00:50:57.820 And it's like, and, you know, Morgoth is just saying,

00:50:59.860 look, they just got access to everything.

00:51:03.900 There is nothing left that is just allowed to be ours.

00:51:07.960 There is like some sacred space for our people

00:51:10.640 or anything like that.

00:51:11.660 They just took everything.

00:51:13.860 And that's when you make people unpredictable.

00:51:18.440 That's when it gets dangerous, you know?

00:51:20.940 and if he's not going to address that truth

00:51:24.240 there's nothing about demographics here

00:51:28.220 honestly, not a single word

00:51:30.900 the only time he even addresses anything to do with immigration is this

00:51:34.240 in his nine point plan, point A is

00:51:37.480 take effective, i.e. whatever it takes

00:51:40.000 action to solve the illegal immigration issue 1.00

00:51:43.680 the Home Secretary is right in believing that solving this issue

00:51:47.260 is critical and has completely changed in nature since 2007

00:51:50.460 since he left.

00:51:52.220 Solving it is preconditional 0.99

00:51:55.040 to getting the British people

00:51:56.440 to listen to bigger arguments

00:51:57.680 about the future.

00:51:59.600 We should deal by whatever means

00:52:02.380 with small boats,

00:52:03.400 but recognise the necessity

00:52:05.060 of targeted immigration

00:52:06.740 in certain sectors

00:52:07.620 for economic growth

00:52:08.820 and be unashamed to advocate it.

00:52:10.820 That sounds awfully a lot to me

00:52:12.660 like more safe and legal routes.

00:52:15.160 It sounds like you've just

00:52:15.900 not learned anything.

00:52:17.280 Yeah.

00:52:18.100 So again, that's all he has to say.

00:52:19.600 in total about about immigration about the fact that uh we will at this rate because without

00:52:25.800 re-migration become a minority in our one and only ancestral homeland right marginalized what

00:52:31.980 a marginalized one and that you're and that you've squandered our children and grandchildren's 0.69

00:52:38.040 heritage you've destroyed the country in all sorts of senses he's not he doesn't doesn't say 0.89

00:52:43.360 anything so he's lying by omission oh he wants a serious debate about how the country is changing

00:52:48.520 Well, he's fundamentally unserious.

00:52:51.220 He's fundamentally dishonest, lying by omission,

00:52:55.220 just not talking about that.

00:52:57.220 Are you going to any town and city and it's flooded

00:53:00.020 with sub-Saharan Africans, North Africans, East Africans,

00:53:03.280 Middle Easterners, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis?

00:53:06.580 You're not going to talk about any of that, no? 0.98

00:53:08.480 No.

00:53:09.120 And the crime that goes with that, 190-odd, 200 rapes a day.

00:53:15.980 A day.

00:53:16.580 But you want a serious debate. 0.99

00:53:18.520 do you tony cheeky bastard it's sickening to me yeah it is sickening to me that he sort of dare 0.99

00:53:26.260 pipe up and give his prescription of how britain needs to change for the better and this is what 0.99

00:53:32.100 and this is what we get talking about id cards yeah well this this is what i was saying on the

00:53:37.400 podcast just the other day when we're talking about the fact that you know reform have stuck

00:53:41.500 their party with like generic and braverman and all the it's like no no i don't want to see you

00:53:46.080 again never mind jumping parties like you you had your time not only did you fail you absolutely just

00:53:52.360 like made our country worse by every discernible metric and the fact that blair says there further 1.00

00:53:57.460 down as well about it's like oh well we need to tackle immigration so we can start having uh

00:54:02.240 discussing you know the bigger questions about our future it's like we're what we're doing is having

00:54:07.760 a question about whether or not we even have a future right right and all of his ideas about

00:54:12.740 oh well an alliance with americans and power in the indian ocean and all of these sorts of things

00:54:17.740 it's like it is predicated on having a stable demography if the people are constantly changing

00:54:24.500 and the demography of your your country is constantly being ship of theseus style replaced

00:54:29.780 then obviously it's going to grow different interests different geopolitical interests

00:54:35.440 different royalties as time goes on and there's just no seeming admittance of this fact

00:54:44.400 there isn't not in this article no again not a peep about any of that well i guess we'll wait

00:54:51.020 for the next one won't we about any of that it's uh i honestly feel like he's done enough

00:54:56.680 he's done enough he should just get in the dustbin of history now get in the back of the van

00:55:02.460 uh just quickly say i got a couple more links it's just there's a the the the reaction to it

00:55:09.200 uh across the across the board not just things that i've said of course you got someone like

00:55:13.540 owen jones who doesn't like it but from the left he thought tony blair's plan was just more war

00:55:20.120 more billionaires less democracy completely disingenuous reading of what it was but there

00:55:24.840 you go that's Owen Jones hateful little creep this one Tony Blair is the only sensible voice

00:55:33.140 left in Labour oh only sensible voice okay bring back Tony Blair the golden years of Tony Blair

00:55:40.540 Burnham and Street accused Blair of ignoring inequality as they hit back i.e. we do need

00:55:46.760 just more leftism your sensible centre thing is old hat yeah and we we just need we just need to 0.99

00:55:53.040 be more more socialist if anything which just means gibbs for migrants yeah probably yeah yeah 0.84

00:55:59.960 all right oh fair enough um let's have a look at rumble rants uh we've got so uh 40 and barber 0.94

00:56:09.140 says uh the dark lord is much like a broken clock he's right occasionally if it it just feels dirty

00:56:14.820 unrelated save our nicotine pouches before they're banned have a great day chaps thanks for um

00:56:20.700 your service what's going on is with big tobacco are they uh they're coming for them

00:56:25.900 uh one dollar logan pine thank you says uh bb i expect um uh you to ensure uh that when you

00:56:34.580 write the history books uh that blair is an acronym for traitor um sigil stone says today's

00:56:41.780 news swarming of flies constitutes tony blair's form uh gathering once more to bemoan lack of

00:56:48.240 progress on excavating his spire

00:56:50.400 made of obsidian beneath the

00:56:52.320 dark lands calls for less

00:56:54.400 bureaucracy.

00:56:56.540 Ochidor says,

00:56:57.780 if you are aware of it, the Russian blank

00:56:59.980 signpost is a great response

00:57:02.100 of how blind these politicians are.

00:57:04.440 I'm not aware of it. I don't know what that is.

00:57:06.440 But I'll have a look after.

00:57:08.060 And it's not that there was a blank they've written, the Russian blank

00:57:10.380 signpost.

00:57:13.420 A blank sign

00:57:14.440 protest. Yeah, I'm not sure what

00:57:16.340 that is. I'll take a look.

00:57:18.240 And Tom Ratt says, there were never any good old days. There are today, there are tomorrow. It's just a stupid thing. We say cursing tomorrow with sorrow. Ultimate by Gogol Bardello. Yeah, I agree with that. And when you do have this golden tinted view of the past is always better, it can have an effect on just you feeling like the future, like you're naturally predisposed to pessimism for the future.

00:57:46.440 And so, yeah, it is something to always be cautious against.

00:57:50.400 K. Clarke, Kenneth Clarke, the art historian, not the Thatcher politician dude,

00:57:54.400 the art historian, the father of Alan Clarke,

00:57:56.720 he talks about in his brilliant series, Civilisation,

00:57:59.860 he talks about how when you see, for example, the Renaissance or classical Athens,

00:58:07.080 that those societies, those cultures were filled with confidence.

00:58:13.380 confidence they're just extremely confident that no the future's bright and whatever we set our

00:58:18.020 minds to we're going to bloody well do it yeah just watch us and that you will need that that

00:58:24.440 mindset otherwise if it's doom and gloom and defeatism across the board that is what you will

00:58:30.460 get it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy yeah no it's true and that's why i think restore britain

00:58:34.920 is so great because there's an optimism that feels like it really does feel like that there's

00:58:40.040 and a genuine optimism hope and how rare is that hope hope is important help is low be one can

00:58:47.180 obey or any home yeah all right then ladies and gentlemen so uh listen i appreciate that this

00:58:55.940 segment might become a little bit idealistic but i have given a bit of thought to it and i hope that

00:59:02.420 you'll sort of indulge it as i meander towards the overarching point of it and i want to start

00:59:09.040 here Bo because I don't know if you've seen this just going around on your social media but now

00:59:13.540 with you know the creation of drone technology well on the one hand let's have a look at this

00:59:19.520 because they're popping up the now these drone shows all across China um yeah probably best for

00:59:25.620 copyright so let's play it in the background and we can talk well over it these are all each dot

00:59:32.000 of that is a drone yes oh wow and so look it is quite spectacular yeah right it is beautiful it's

00:59:39.700 um you know it's colorful and my god you know given the state of film these days it's nice to

00:59:44.880 actually see something that actually embraces color right it's crazy it's really cool because

00:59:49.980 i've seen a few years back i saw earlier versions of this where it's much much more simple right

00:59:56.480 but well they've taken it to i've not seen these yeah this is taking it to a crazy and you can see

01:00:02.500 here this is from the guinness world records official youtube channel and it's from a month

01:00:07.640 ago uh so as you can see here uh they've basically achieved a world record for the number of drones

01:00:14.020 all synchronized at the same time to create this display now on the one hand look and i want to be

01:00:20.280 because i i really don't want to sound like a luddite on this right that's fine i'm on

01:00:26.400 Go ahead. You're in good company with me.

01:00:28.560 On the one hand, this is really impressive.

01:00:31.440 And if we are going to have drone technology, and this is indeed the future, 1.00

01:00:36.500 then I am glad that we can find a use for these drones that doesn't involve vaporizing Ukrainians. 0.87

01:00:43.700 I'm glad that they're not just going to be used as a weapon of war, 0.92

01:00:47.240 and that there is some aesthetic beauty, that there is almost like an art that can be used and programmed with them.

01:00:52.660 as mankind first invented shadow puppetry

01:00:56.940 to tell stories about things.

01:00:58.840 You can see how the evolution of this

01:01:00.680 in a technological age could give way

01:01:03.120 to some incredible displays in the sky, right?

01:01:06.840 For people to gaze upon.

01:01:08.180 And I imagine it could create

01:01:09.920 some sense of wonder to it, right?

01:01:12.360 People would enjoy it.

01:01:13.980 And so you can see here as well,

01:01:15.640 it's now, you know, as it's been done in China,

01:01:19.360 it's also now being done in America as well.

01:01:21.980 And Hollywood, of course, have another remake coming out.

01:01:26.240 Some Masters of the Universe, He-Man one.

01:01:29.720 And you can see Skeletor there.

01:01:32.520 And again, this broke the Guinness World Record for the tallest, I think.

01:01:37.920 So you just have this enormous view of Skeletor on the horizon.

01:01:43.460 Of all things.

01:01:44.220 Of all things.

01:01:45.900 I mean, some people weren't making part.

01:01:47.380 Imagine having no idea who He-Man was.

01:01:49.640 And you just open your window and you see that just outside your window, right?

01:01:58.080 It's kind of crazy.

01:01:59.480 However, at the risk of being a killjoy, I agree with Matt Walsh about this,

01:02:06.480 which is that when he says, call me a buzzkill,

01:02:08.380 but I don't think that we should allow companies to take over the entire night sky

01:02:12.540 just to be an ad for their product, right?

01:02:16.360 And there is an element of this.

01:02:18.300 So it's like, okay, look, as a novelty, I can understand this, and it might seem like something unusual and, as I say, novel in the night sky, but that's only because the sky now is so overwhelmed by light pollution that the actual beauty of space and the cosmos and all those things that mankind has been able to enjoy for millennia has been taken away.

01:02:45.740 so now the night is just merely a blank canvas in the cities and as someone said and honestly as

01:02:52.700 well right you have a look at this account it's like man f this uh our night sky isn't your your 0.97

01:02:57.900 effing billboard it's like look he he swears a lot because he's some like anarchist commie loser 0.98

01:03:04.420 but i actually find myself agreeing with the anarchist commie loser i'm a big fan of swearing 0.88

01:03:09.560 myself yeah um so my feeling is my feeling is um it's a shame about uh light pollution 0.58

01:03:16.280 means that you can't really see like the milky way and stuff if you're in the city but that is

01:03:20.940 a shame but okay um whereas making like the sky a billboard like it's only for a while though

01:03:27.980 isn't it only for like a few minutes one evening at most i've got i've got far bigger reservations

01:03:34.600 than that

01:03:35.300 yeah

01:03:36.900 like if they can

01:03:38.680 if they can

01:03:39.600 coordinate drones

01:03:40.880 to that level

01:03:44.400 of sophistication

01:03:45.320 just imagine

01:03:47.080 what they do

01:03:47.620 when they're

01:03:48.400 battalions of

01:03:49.240 battle drones

01:03:50.120 that's my worry

01:03:52.240 not a bloody

01:03:52.920 Skeletor advert

01:03:54.040 personally

01:03:56.880 I get the point

01:03:57.460 you're making

01:03:57.840 until the beams

01:03:58.980 come from its red eyes

01:04:00.360 and it just sort of

01:04:01.140 eviscerates California

01:04:02.440 I get the point

01:04:03.080 you're making

01:04:03.520 like the sky

01:04:04.060 shouldn't be a billboard okay yeah i suppose i agree with that it doesn't it's not the end of

01:04:08.480 the world is it doesn't really to me that's my feeling yeah it doesn't really matter it's only

01:04:12.020 there temporarily isn't it like probably for a few minutes yeah but i'm concerned are you not

01:04:18.820 more concerned that once they decide to turn them into um things of war and it's not just one

01:04:26.020 individual drone zoning in on one individual ukrainian or russian soldier it's not that

01:04:29.880 anymore it's actually uh yeah whole divisions of them well just to add a little detail as well

01:04:36.960 uh that original one that i showed you in china yeah all of those drones were coordinated from

01:04:41.840 one laptop okay right exactly how concerning is that yeah i mean it's not the uh it feels like a

01:04:49.000 other segment that is definitely worth discussing but um and i i agree with you it is obviously the

01:04:55.180 graver concern well one more thing just to add on that you know when you see something like

01:04:58.640 Boston Dynamics, or there's loads of companies where they've made

01:05:01.460 some sort of four-legged dog-like droid robot drone thing

01:05:07.480 that can run really fast, faster than a human even,

01:05:10.700 over crazy terrain.

01:05:13.960 And all you need imagine is that there's like an M60

01:05:17.240 or an AR-15 on its back.

01:05:20.320 And suddenly it's one of the most terrifying things you could imagine.

01:05:23.940 And then they've got thousands of them.

01:05:25.640 Again, they've got regiments of them, divisions of them.

01:05:28.640 yeah it's horrifying that's the that's the worrying thing isn't it yeah it is um it is i mean

01:05:36.000 i i hope it doesn't make me seem trivial uh for the rest of my segment because it's not the

01:05:41.520 thrust of where i was sorry okay sorry no no not at all because you are right that is obviously

01:05:46.380 the broader concern but the reason why i wanted to go down this particular route was because i

01:05:51.300 i think that it's i think that there's a less obvious perhaps angle here that i i wanted to

01:05:57.160 just explore, which is that if we go to this article from The Independent back in 2019,

01:06:02.560 some people may remember this at the time, but Pepsi considers space billboards to project its

01:06:07.940 logo across the night sky using satellites. Now, obviously, this is before sort of like the

01:06:13.560 revolution of drones and what they're able to do now. But obviously, you know, everyone disliked

01:06:19.380 this. No one was on board with this. Honestly, they got hounded for even being suggested because

01:06:25.660 they were working with a russian space startup okay right is what it was going to be um pepsi

01:06:31.580 said its russian subsidiary uh agreed a partnership with start rocket for an export exploratory test

01:06:39.020 for stratosphere as advertisements of its adrenaline rush energy drink um and the startup

01:06:45.900 says that it was using an array of micro satellites to project company logos into low

01:06:51.240 Earth orbit. And they said that space has to be beautiful. And with the best brands, our sky will

01:06:58.780 amaze us every night. I'm sorry, this is really dystopian. It's like, I'm sorry it is. At the end

01:07:05.100 of the day, right, we have adverts literally everywhere. They're in the subway, they're in

01:07:11.400 the football stadiums. They're every time, just literally, you go in a book, everywhere you go,

01:07:17.080 you are surrounded by advertisements do we really need coca-cola projected into the heavens

01:07:24.100 for that one person on planet earth who hasn't heard of a bloody coke right fair point i remember

01:07:30.920 the first time i saw have you ever seen this i think you get it much more in big cities like in

01:07:35.800 underground stations in london where on the steps on the vertical face of every step yeah is like

01:07:43.040 it's just a long mcdonald's banner yeah on every step and i remember the first time i ever saw that

01:07:47.600 i was like that's the future like at what point will just the pavements just the pavements be

01:07:53.580 covered in uh adverts i think even in some sci-fi what is it in like maybe uh there's more than one

01:08:00.400 sci-fi world on in films yeah where that's the case where just like just the road and the pavement

01:08:07.540 itself is covered in adverts um imagine blade runner yeah the original blade runner something

01:08:13.160 like that yeah well sometimes now you get ufc fighters or mma fighters or boxers even and

01:08:19.400 they've got like um a temporary stencil or temporary tattoo henna tattoo or whatever

01:08:24.440 on their body while they're fighting yeah there's no limit to it really is there well unless we put

01:08:31.300 limits on right and there's no limit to where you could put an ad yeah almost and that's really my

01:08:36.560 point that i agree with you for like if it's in the sky for 20 minutes it's like okay whatever

01:08:41.260 but like but what i'm asking is a broader point where is the actual limiting principle here

01:08:47.000 where is the limiting principle and i want to bring this to the fact that i've spent uh the

01:08:53.940 past few weeks and i'll spend another one yet actually talking all about samuel taylor coleridge's

01:09:00.040 the rhyme of the ancient mariner uh for chronicles on the website and one of the things about this

01:09:05.620 and me looking through it is that really what Coleridge is asking here and the journey,

01:09:11.760 the spiritual journey that the mariner goes through, is that he begins a story with an

01:09:16.740 instrumentalist view of what it means to be a human being. So far as the albatross has a purpose,

01:09:24.640 a utility to mankind as it's weaving and navigating the mariner's ship through the fog

01:09:31.180 of the Antarctic circle, then it's good.

01:09:34.480 As soon as they're out there

01:09:37.080 and they're safe in the Pacific Ocean, 0.98

01:09:38.680 he can shoot it with his crossbow 0.79

01:09:40.820 because it serves no purpose anymore. 0.94

01:09:43.260 It can just be something that's discarded.

01:09:45.920 And really what Coleridge is reacting to

01:09:48.240 is how this drive to basically just master and exploit

01:09:52.580 and casually dismiss the natural world around us

01:09:56.640 is obviously going to lead to both,

01:09:58.980 like it's going to lead to a social mental and spiritual um profanement of who we are of what it

01:10:05.920 means to be ourselves and i think this is a very very pertinent message for our times and i think

01:10:12.140 the fact that when you look at it the fact that we have had the stars for millions and millions

01:10:18.220 of years and you think about how the stars have just been one of the great forges of human

01:10:25.520 imagination what what are the constellations what the sky what the milky way has contributed to

01:10:31.860 theology to philosophy to literature to navigation to all of these different things right and now

01:10:39.920 we're living within a few generations removed of just not having that anymore and everyone just

01:10:46.960 seems to have gone oh fair enough that was just something we were happy to lose were we are we

01:10:52.580 Are we sure about that? Are we really sure about that? That we're just happy now for our cities forever to have not a single star in the sky? That the situation has become so bad that now we have to just put artificial light in the air to take its place and to entertain and dazzle people for a few minutes?

01:11:17.040 And this is where I'm really going with this.

01:11:19.140 I think that this is a catastrophic error.

01:11:21.600 And I think that the further we go down this path of basically saying, oh, well, yeah, fine, the skies are blank now because most of our Earth is covered in light pollution.

01:11:31.820 But that's all right.

01:11:33.060 This new technology of drones will put something fake and artificial there to amuse us and be our little bread and circuses in the heavens.

01:11:40.320 I'm not convinced.

01:11:42.480 I'm not convinced that this is the way.

01:11:45.620 I mean, you do make a good point.

01:11:47.220 The stars have beguiled man since the dawn of civilisation, haven't they?

01:11:54.560 Yeah.

01:11:54.760 I mean, Carl Sagan talks about how ancient peoples,

01:11:58.600 long before civilisation, in fact,

01:11:59.960 hundreds of thousands of years before recorded civilisation,

01:12:02.660 would have looked up at the stars and just wondered what they were.

01:12:06.920 There's sort of something almost fundamental in the human experience,

01:12:10.400 the human condition, connected with the stars.

01:12:13.060 Yes.

01:12:13.340 what they are or even that we're made of star stuff but and it's a numerous experience and

01:12:19.740 to i mean despite the amount of light pollution and even these drone light shows you know if you

01:12:25.200 wanted to you could still go to a mountainous area and and and see them but i i get the overall

01:12:30.440 meta point you're saying yeah that um but even though robs us of something fundamental it could

01:12:36.680 or is robbing us of something more um more ancient and fundamental yeah to who we are

01:12:44.700 and our place in the universe right and and here i've pulled this up this is an illustration by um

01:12:52.340 edwin duncan from 1869 uh excuse me he was a victorian uh he was a fellow of the royal society

01:12:59.820 and also ended up being president of the royal astronomical society as well and you can see here

01:13:05.340 this illustration that he had of the London night, of the nighttime of London back in 1869.

01:13:13.240 And you can visibly see the Milky Way, you know, to the left of it and all the rest of the

01:13:17.680 constellations. And that is in London. That's in the capital city. You can have a city that still

01:13:23.880 caters for both, right? Obviously, a lot of this comes from, of course, Thomas Edison and the

01:13:28.680 electric lights and everything. And this is why I'm cautious of my own Ludditism in this. I'm not

01:13:34.580 suggesting we abolish electricity or anything of the sort. But what I am saying is that the light

01:13:41.680 pollution problem has gotten really, really severe right now to a point where I feel like

01:13:46.680 people have accepted a normal that actually we shouldn't accept. And your point, though,

01:13:53.100 I agree with you that there are still places where you can go to find a beautiful night and,

01:13:59.140 you know, to see it in utter clarity. As the years roll on, those places are going to stop

01:14:06.480 existing as well as urban expansion continues and continues and the new LEDs go up and, you know,

01:14:13.980 just new cities are springing up in places where they haven't. So why don't we take a cautionary

01:14:19.300 measure against this now before, as we see here, one third of people can't see the Milky Way

01:14:25.320 anymore um it talks about the fact that artificial light pollutes the night sky for more than 80

01:14:30.440 percent of the world's population and as it says at one in three i've never seen the milky way

01:14:36.420 with my own eyes i've never seen it and i should have been able to see it there's no reason why

01:14:41.740 we shouldn't really and one of the points that i wanted to add with this is that actually

01:14:45.920 the technology and that the people that are trying to push back against this is out there

01:14:51.040 It's just not given the publicity that it really deserves.

01:14:57.840 There hasn't been enough of a concerted effort to actually tackle the problem because it doesn't require us to go back to the Stone Ages.

01:15:05.840 As we can see here now, the Flagstaff solution talk about the fact that this is Ashurst Lake, July 2016,

01:15:16.440 and how they're able to reduce the light pollution in the sky

01:15:22.140 to obviously bring about a purer stars.

01:15:26.080 Now, for the purposes of time, I don't want to read this too extended.

01:15:29.740 Oh, in fact, no, I have got time.

01:15:31.660 So they go on to say that they were founded in 2000

01:15:36.860 with a mission to celebrate, promote, and protect the glorious dark skies

01:15:41.120 of Flagstaff and northern Arizona.

01:15:44.500 The primary efforts have been to raise awareness about the value and importance of dark skies through celebration.

01:15:50.600 And we've created the ARTEX exhibit Night Visions and the Flagstaff Star Party.

01:15:56.280 Another outreach is to basically just raise community awareness for the problem and to also put across the actual value of a proper night sky as well and to actually protect it.

01:16:07.600 And they say despite nearly 40 years of efforts by dark sky advocacy organizations, accumulating evidence shows that light pollution continues to increase essentially everywhere and that Flagstaff's success has proven that increasing light pollution is not inevitable, even in the face of continued development.

01:16:27.280 If other communities take advantage of Flagstaff's experience, it is clear that even with continued population growth, light pollution tomorrow can still be dramatically less than it is today.

01:16:41.460 In fact, this research demonstrates that visibility of the Milky Way can realistically be restored in communities as large or larger than Flagstaff, which has a population of about 80,000 people.

01:16:52.260 um and it says that too few are aware um sorry too few are aware of this positive message and

01:17:00.300 that with their project it's endeavoring to make um that experience accessible and understood

01:17:04.820 and so it's one of those examples where i think that look i am i confess i am somewhat tempted by

01:17:14.880 the technology that this offers i mean imagine you know it is dystopian yeah but it is it is

01:17:20.540 sort of yeah you're right you're right it is yeah and also as well the other thing that i would just

01:17:25.920 say about this is that because of the nature of capital and the markets and the corporations

01:17:32.120 it's like okay well who's going to have the power to project whatever they want into the sky

01:17:38.300 it's not going to be me and you is it it's going to be hollywood it's going to be a military

01:17:44.640 industrial complex it's going to be all the big billionaires and the tycoons you won't you won't

01:17:49.980 see what you want to see coca-cola you'll see what they want you to see and what i would like

01:17:55.940 to see is the restoration of the heavens would that and i don't think that's an unreasonable

01:18:02.080 thing to ask actually and i don't even think that you have to be a christian uh to advocate for it

01:18:07.800 i think that it's something that should touch the soul of every human being that we return the cosmos

01:18:13.280 to its proper place in the night.

01:18:17.000 Yeah.

01:18:18.120 Good point.

01:18:19.180 Good point.

01:18:19.660 Well made.

01:18:20.100 All right.

01:18:20.500 Good.

01:18:21.400 Well, all right.

01:18:22.520 We'll go to,

01:18:23.580 I'll go to the rumble rants

01:18:25.120 for this segment.

01:18:30.820 Okay.

01:18:31.640 Let me see.

01:18:32.420 I've lost.

01:18:33.340 Sorry.

01:18:33.700 Okay.

01:18:34.160 So $2.

01:18:36.180 Sigilstone17 says,

01:18:37.780 those drone shows only look good from far away.

01:18:40.140 Imagine the nonsense you see from under it.

01:18:42.460 I didn't even think about that

01:18:45.040 it only works from one specific

01:18:47.740 angle doesn't it? If you go and walk onto the hill

01:18:49.860 If you just went 10 miles that way it wouldn't work

01:18:51.920 would it? No

01:18:53.440 I didn't even think about that

01:18:55.600 Good point 0.98

01:18:56.900 These dumb displays are meant only for the cameras 0.98

01:19:00.080 set up to film 0.99

01:19:01.140 people there in the moment who are

01:19:03.780 relevant

01:19:04.340 $2

01:19:06.500 Loch Ness Monster

01:19:08.460 I mean to be fair it would be pretty fun to project one in the sea

01:19:11.800 Loch Ness Castle monster

01:19:13.480 oh sorry I misread that

01:19:15.400 he's a guy

01:19:16.140 it's an in joke

01:19:16.720 for my breakfast show

01:19:17.620 oh right

01:19:18.100 he just wants me

01:19:19.220 to look that up

01:19:20.100 okay

01:19:20.520 I will

01:19:21.300 Sigil Stone says

01:19:24.220 it's only for a few minutes

01:19:26.080 it's like

01:19:26.520 until it's one show

01:19:27.520 right after the other

01:19:28.480 forever

01:19:28.960 and don't you dare

01:19:30.100 try to say

01:19:30.780 it would never get

01:19:31.460 to that point

01:19:32.040 it obviously will get

01:19:33.360 to that point

01:19:34.540 this is why

01:19:35.420 it's like I can see

01:19:36.360 where this is going

01:19:36.980 another good point

01:19:38.040 by Sigil Stone

01:19:39.080 yeah fair enough

01:19:39.880 it says coming soon

01:19:41.540 advil-sponsored uh herpes that can only be treated using their brand partner uh pseudofed

01:19:48.100 injection i'm not going to pretend i actually understood what any of that was about so just

01:19:53.520 don't forgive me um sweating out my concentration here in this studio today it is warm in the studio

01:20:01.140 right now i'll tell you second lucas stripped it is uh tom rat says um what i've built is at risk

01:20:08.940 because everyone is waking up to how monstrous it truly is.

01:20:12.360 Here is what I propose so I never get to know

01:20:15.400 what a few thousand pitchforks look like.

01:20:18.720 Ochsdorff, $2, says,

01:20:20.740 By not seeing the stars, we lose our purpose to strive for new heights.

01:20:25.140 How many legends are to reach the stars?

01:20:29.120 Gimli Sonagloin says,

01:20:30.760 Somehow this feels like being prepared to live underground

01:20:33.920 under an artificial sky across the surface is uninhabitable.

01:20:38.940 um well that that really is my complaint just the ever incorrect of just the artificiality

01:20:45.160 of the world around us all the time um and uh for five dollars uh accrual says flagstaff is one of

01:20:52.020 most shitlibs shitlib cities in the entire country i didn't know that it's a shame it's a very

01:20:57.180 beautiful area right yeah all right okay so just to be to clarify you are saying the technology

01:21:02.980 and what they're doing does work it's just that the people there aren't necessarily worthy of it

01:21:08.320 because I did, yeah, it's just one of those things.

01:21:12.700 I've always just wanted to go out and see, you know,

01:21:15.680 just the full night sky, just everything.

01:21:18.500 You know, that thing that just gave birth to all of those legends,

01:21:22.740 you know, that three wise men followed a star through to, you know,

01:21:25.860 to meet the Messiah, or that Captain Cook and his voyagers

01:21:28.840 used for their navigations.

01:21:30.400 Just the amount that it has contributed to human life on Earth

01:21:34.940 just can't be understated.

01:21:36.160 and I think we would be deeply ashamed of ourselves when the history books were written if we said

01:21:42.020 yeah we just decided to let that go actually. I would love to see the Milky Way in all its glory

01:21:47.840 I've seen it a bit in fact not a million miles from Arizona right I was once in the deserts of

01:21:54.260 Utah and one particular night you could see it it wasn't super clear it was much more clear than

01:22:02.200 in the skies above suburban swindon right but uh it wasn't so but there are certain places that are

01:22:08.520 known you know if you go to like the high andes for example apparently you get some of the best

01:22:12.700 views possible i've never again i've never seen that with my own two eyeballs in real life i would

01:22:17.040 love to me too i would love to me too um all right do we have video comments samson

01:22:22.280 we do excellent well i'll just read um some of the comments from my uh my first segment

01:22:29.540 whilst we get those up.

01:22:32.060 Lordenquistah Hector X says,

01:22:33.420 Rip Harambe, his birthday was yesterday.

01:22:36.860 Remember Harambe? 0.59

01:22:37.840 I do.

01:22:38.320 Old yet? Feel old yet?

01:22:39.680 I do. I feel ancient.

01:22:44.220 Okay, I don't think...

01:22:45.820 Okay, have we got the...

01:22:47.700 Oh, it's all right. 1.00

01:22:48.300 He's just having a ching wag. 1.00

01:22:50.500 I can see him there. 1.00

01:22:51.480 Have we got the video comments, Samson?

01:22:53.720 Are there any today?

01:22:57.680 Okay.

01:22:58.820 Do I just need to refresh?

01:23:00.920 My comments haven't come through.

01:23:03.200 Are they down here?

01:23:06.800 My laptop with the problem, ladies and gentlemen.

01:23:13.280 Let me just find my place.

01:23:15.060 Okay.

01:23:15.920 Omar Awad says,

01:23:16.900 The Naradiyah live so harmoniously alongside the Japanese

01:23:20.740 that they've learned to bow in greeting and crossing the road

01:23:23.580 at designated crossing areas.

01:23:25.520 I did that with one once.

01:23:26.800 it was an incredible experience uh to call their behavior um yes okay i actually can't read the

01:23:34.540 rest of that i don't think um if you're making the uh parallel i think you are but forgive me

01:23:40.340 if you're not and i'm just being overly cautious p's and c's on youtube yeah we don't want to get

01:23:45.300 the channel struck um someone online says punchy story reminds me of the cloth mother versus why

01:23:52.760 mother experiment i'm not familiar with you ever heard of that no but i can sort of guess that

01:23:58.780 there was some sort of surrogate mother one was made of cloth and one was made of wire yeah um

01:24:03.660 and lord inquisitor hector x's diverse americans jump into the enclosure and uh yeah i probably

01:24:10.760 shouldn't have read that either you are all very very you are determined to get me in trouble ladies

01:24:16.540 and gentlemen and it almost worked all right uh your comments bow oh um okay michael dribelbis

01:24:25.960 says keep in mind bow even a broken clock is right twice a day um in 1000 policies labor

01:24:33.500 blair will hit maybe one percent you agree with yeah right yeah yeah i mean there's a good maybe

01:24:38.500 third of that article blair wrote that was just like yeah i can't disagree with that i'm for

01:24:42.620 For abolishing Net Zero, re-industrialising the North.

01:24:45.380 Exactly, yeah. 0.98

01:24:45.980 And for these things.

01:24:47.000 Yeah, scrapping the whole Net Zero thing.

01:24:49.540 Yeah, well, I couldn't agree more, yeah.

01:24:50.640 But I do want, if we are going to re-industrialise the North,

01:24:53.740 I do want it to actually be manned by native Northerners,

01:24:57.780 not people from the subcontinent. 0.51

01:25:00.680 Yeah, right.

01:25:01.280 Yeah, or owned by people from India,

01:25:04.700 as has been the case, obviously, with Port Talbot

01:25:07.340 and Scunthorpe at the time.

01:25:10.240 Okay, Michael Drew Belvis again says, 0.97

01:25:12.620 um as though it's a quote uh boomers are a poor shadow and then he says which is why they

01:25:18.380 overcompensate they can never compare with the greatest generation or the silent generation

01:25:22.920 that said uh if i've sat amongst the best of the best boomers that said i've sat amongst the best

01:25:30.080 of the best boomers vietnam veterans who performed as admirably as their fathers did in the same

01:25:35.360 circumstance yeah do you know what i think again harking back to the idea of like old old man nesta 0.97

01:25:41.580 in the Iliad is that every generation has a whole bunch of worthless cowards and a whole bunch of

01:25:48.100 absolutely fearless chads every generation has got both it's true it's just it's as simple as that

01:25:53.520 yeah and it's just whether you're lucky enough to get the chance to show it I think yeah I think

01:25:59.280 that and I think as well but beneath the sort of illusions that modernity wants to cast over us

01:26:05.760 It doesn't actually diminish the capacity that human beings have for bravery and virtue, right, to just commit themselves to all of the things that men have done for countless ages, right, to protect your loved ones, to raise your family, to defend your homeland, all these sorts of things that are eternal parts of the human character throughout time.

01:26:30.340 they're no lesser so today we just live in a more complicated world that seeks to distract us from

01:26:36.620 those truths in a way in a way every generation in some senses is better or builds upon what came

01:26:44.140 before stands on the shoulders of giants one tiny little example just popped into my mind you know

01:26:48.160 that alex honnold the free climbing oh right extraordinary dude right who can climb up

01:26:54.400 mountains without any ropes well i'll leave that to him as fearless and as chad like as a human

01:27:04.180 being can be and no one before him ever did those things no one no there's no one in the greatest

01:27:10.140 generation that had the guts and skill and ability to do that yeah but yet he's also in the same 0.99

01:27:16.020 generation where there's just loads of weird purple-headed losers yeah degenerate freaks 0.98

01:27:20.620 so it's both at the same time yeah it's just both at the same time well there's one little example 0.97

01:27:25.420 but i think people get the point i'm making and i think they feed off of one another don't they

01:27:30.380 that actually as you look around at the um uh the lowest levels of you know lowest examples of

01:27:37.460 people today it inspires you to rise above and to become something substantial in the same way that

01:27:43.840 you write when you rise to be something substantial it engenders sort of an envy and a bitterness and

01:27:50.360 the spite in those who are below and there's kind of like this yin and yang effect or two of them

01:27:55.720 in the way okay uh karl's evil twin valsh that's the name of the person making the comment

01:28:02.840 karl's evil twin valsh says um isn't it funny tony pops his head up tony blair uh pops his head up

01:28:09.440 after restore have become a threat this just shows reform our containment yeah i mean sure i can agree

01:28:17.360 with i can agree with that sentiment yeah yeah i mean blair does actually chime in from time to 0.73

01:28:22.280 time but just not constantly but yeah i mean it's a fair point cole's evil to invulge you make there

01:28:27.060 um yeah reform kind of just obviously are containment aren't they yeah more uni party

01:28:32.560 we're for jason slow up it becomes more apparent and more obvious to just regular people as well

01:28:38.560 every day every day uh and then from my final segment michael de belba says my son is a military

01:28:45.440 drone pilot instructor and stays on the cutting edge of drone technology and yesbo he addresses

01:28:51.560 the same concerns that you do he talks about the iranian use of drone technology so yes it is

01:28:57.080 something to be concerned about um uh yeah imagine that they're not just in formation like that but

01:29:03.600 their their their tactics are really advanced where whatever you do they've already second

01:29:09.680 guessed what you might do and how to counter that far quicker than a human could ever dream

01:29:15.780 of of working out and calculating it like fighting a terminator yeah yeah there's just

01:29:21.060 been no stopping uh division of battle drones there'll be no stopping one

01:29:25.840 um the ghost of carl's aunt wow there's a lot of relatives of carl here today aren't there

01:29:32.420 uh all adverts are psychological operations if you needed the thing they wouldn't uh be having

01:29:38.260 to advertise it for you well i'm not necessarily sure about all of them being psychological

01:29:43.340 operations but i understand the thrust of your point and i would say as well that on some level

01:29:48.360 by definition he's right yeah sorry go on sorry you go on well i was just going to say that um

01:29:54.480 like in the case of maybe this isn't the best example but like when you see an ad pop up on

01:30:00.420 youtube which is just another thing when youtube came about no ads on youtube and now you're at

01:30:05.280 the point where you literally have to pay for the liberty of not having them unless you use an ad

01:30:10.320 blocker but the point is that it's like okay not only are you advertising on youtube you do realize

01:30:18.120 that i am less likely to buy the thing you're advertising for wasting my effing time right now

01:30:24.700 you know and it's exactly the same sort of reaction i feel whenever i see an advert come up on 0.96

01:30:29.480 television or anything else like no you're wasting my time with this crap i'm gonna go out my way to

01:30:34.140 actually boycott you do you know what i think and but people some people might think i'm exaggerating 0.97

01:30:38.920 but i think maybe once or twice in my entire life my entire life have i seen an advert not

01:30:48.200 been aware of that product seen the advert and go oh oh i'm gonna get that and then oh that's great

01:30:53.100 i love that i need that i need that in my life i'm gonna go and get that tomorrow whatever a

01:30:57.120 couple of times ever right right out of the thousands hundreds of thousands of adverts

01:31:02.200 i've been bombarded with over my life right maybe once or twice maybe yeah and even the adverts that

01:31:09.820 you you used to like back in the day yeah they used to be much more charming yeah they really

01:31:14.400 did it seemed to me anyway yeah but but at least you go you just go okay i haven't had my time

01:31:19.480 totally wasted because that was slightly entertaining you don't go right i'm gonna

01:31:23.800 get that now because her advert was just so good it just how many times you see an advert for

01:31:27.660 something which isn't even really a product it's like an advert for british gas right like well i

01:31:32.140 can't not have british gas yeah the thing i've got in my house on my flat is is a gas powered thing

01:31:37.320 so why are you advertising it like what you know yeah it's like it's like you know when there's

01:31:43.940 just like barclays around the football stadium it's like oh thank god you've introduced me to

01:31:47.840 the concept of banks yeah yeah it's like yeah just waste my time um and uh final one where he says

01:31:55.460 uh az desert rat says i'm sure the technology to program drones to this level has existed for the

01:32:01.220 military for years yeah probably true probably yeah anyway we've actually uh ran a little bit

01:32:07.580 over so bo thank you for joining today no thank you and we hope you've enjoyed the show ladies

01:32:12.360 and gentlemen uh you can obviously catch bo on the morning show tomorrow 8 a.m be there uh you

01:32:18.500 band of brothers and uh for the rest of us obviously look forward to seeing you on the

01:32:22.780 podcast tomorrow. Take care.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 28, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1428

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