00:00:00.000Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1455 for Monday the 6th of
00:00:28.200july 2026 it's fine we'll edit it out uh i'm i'm uh joined here today by uh harry burnham
00:00:36.600hello there i uh unconsensually heard an oasis song on the way to work this morning and therefore
00:00:42.900decided i had to burn a mex that was the rules i didn't i don't make the rules i just follow them
00:00:47.340and we're also joined us today by firas who presumably heard no oasis on the way to the
00:00:52.480office this morning well lucky you who's dressed absolutely normally keeping up the standard so
00:00:57.960anyway anyway it's just the new standards like everybody abandoned ties with blair
00:01:03.680everybody's just gonna go whole hog and abandon shirts on the burnham trendsetter yeah so long
00:01:08.540as we don't end up with the sort of iranian collars instead of the proper shirt collar i'm
00:01:13.380just ahead of the curve mate okay like if you want to see where things are going just look this way
00:01:17.780anyway well today ladies and gentlemen we're going to be talking all about the questionable
00:01:23.080finances of Nigel Farage. We're then going to be talking all about the Pope's recent trip to
00:01:29.660Lampedusa, and then we're going to be concluding things with a segment just celebrating the recent
00:01:36.080weekend of 250th anniversary of America and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So
00:01:43.020a lot of eclectic things to talk about today. Also as well, of course, it's Monday, so at three
00:01:49.200Clark Firas is going to be live on Realpolitik talking all about Russia's looming struggle
00:01:54.620they they're struggling a bit are they well they're doing well on one side but there's
00:01:59.440as they advance they're going to face a wall of eight cities that they have to take
00:02:03.180problem there could be challenging yes could be challenging uh all right so with all that said
00:02:08.880ladies and gentlemen let's get into today's segments so there's a bit of a storm brewing
00:02:13.900at the moment for nigel farage and the reform party that he leads uh which is to do entirely
00:02:19.900with his finances now i saw a little bit of this brewing over the past few months i believe this
00:02:25.080story that i'm starting with uh came to light around the end of april and started getting a
00:02:30.200lot of public attention in may and i was noticing that it was something that the mainstream media
00:02:36.800were pushing a lot of nigel farage finances this accepts gifts from here and there i didn't see
00:02:42.860much organic public declaration of interest about this but it is still very very important because
00:02:50.840it's developed since then it's been one thing after the other the media have really been pushing
00:02:55.520this and this is something that is now going to in parliamentary investigate investigatory committee
00:03:00.940for the parliamentary standards so it could have really wide-ranging effects for farage
00:03:07.840and for reform as a whole um so just to just to let everybody know who may not know uh mps are
00:03:15.480obliged to report financial benefits they receive in the 12 months before being elected if they
00:03:20.300could quote reasonably be thought by others to be related to membership of the house or to the
00:03:25.240members parliamentary or political activities end quote that's just some context that you're going
00:03:30.000to need for a lot of this because a lot of the information that's been coming out has been
00:03:33.580related to Nigel Farage's personal finances and associations that he's received those finances
00:03:39.480from and whether or not it is right that he did not declare a lot of this money that was transferred
00:03:45.500to him. The first one and the one that's being investigated by parliamentary standards is this
00:03:50.960five million pound gift from a crypto investor Christopher Harbourn who gave him the money
00:03:57.400before the 2024 general election interesting connection here being that harbourn is also
00:04:03.800known to have donated one million pounds to boris johnson in 2022 and given that boris johnson and
00:04:11.460nigel farage hate one another and boris johnson is currently being rumored to potentially try and
00:04:16.960make it a return to the arena of british politics yes purely out of spite for nigel farage makes
00:04:23.140you wonder what's in it for harbour harbour to be funding both of these i'm not necessarily
00:04:27.780alleging conspiracy or anything but it might just be that he is an individual is trying to play both
00:04:32.120sides because crypto investors crypto guys what's the one thing that we know that they love more
00:04:37.460than anything crypto deregulation so it might just be well if bojo is going to get in later in the
00:04:43.160future yeah or maybe it was just at the time with the conservative party uh they can push what i
00:04:49.900want. Maybe he's trying to do the same thing with Farage, although Farage is denying those
00:04:53.780kinds of allegations. So it says in this article from the Financial Times, revelations of the
00:05:00.060$5 million gift have led critics to allege that money may have been a way of securing
00:05:03.400political favours. Obviously, it seems like lobbying. They also pointed out that reform
00:05:08.360announced several crypto-friendly policies after the general election, including a pledge
00:05:12.800to lower the capital gains tax rate for crypto assets from 24% to 10% and to create a national
00:05:18.560bitcoin reserve at the bank of england to stockpile crypto assets um if you're going to
00:05:25.860lower capital gains tax lower them across the board because actually it is a good idea to lower
00:05:31.020some capital gains or to lower capital gains tax in general and taxes on dividends that's how you
00:05:36.320encourage entrepreneurship why just for crypto and why would the bank of england need a bitcoin
00:05:42.740reserve like that's just getting on board with a fashionable trend well so yeah some people might
00:05:48.260want to suggest that it's part of the like um hedging with crypto uh that people have been
00:05:53.420pushing for a while crypto will be a more secure financial currency well yeah that's the thing i
00:05:59.740for all of the people 10 years ago have been saying for 10 years that crypto was particularly
00:06:04.840bitcoin was going to become new national currencies because of all the safety features attached to it
00:06:09.540and the way that it retains value and whatnot um i don't see i've never seen the potential for it
00:06:15.880to be actually used as a financial exchange mechanism it's mainly just something that people
00:06:20.440buy so they can watch it gain value and eventually sell off as an investment but yeah i mean if there
00:06:28.500is i'm not too familiar with reforms other policies if it comes to slashing taxes perhaps
00:06:34.520they have announced some kind of slash on all forms of capital gains tax to this 10 percent level
00:06:40.500uh rather than the 24 but the way that it's put forward in this financial times article
00:06:45.740makes it seem like a carve out for crypto assets that might just be sneaky editing that they're
00:06:51.020doing though so i'm not going to say outright that that's what's going on here i seem to recall if i
00:06:55.880may um farage saying that he would only lower taxes after uh spending had been got under control
00:07:02.080something like that well that kind of makes sense i mean that's that's a pretty reasonable thing to
00:07:06.860No, I know what you're saying, but as opposed to Liz Truss one of just, oh, we're just going to, you know, put them down now.
00:07:12.340Yeah, that's what crashed her in the first place when the bond markets went, well, you can't borrow from us if that's what you're going to be doing.
00:07:17.700You're just going to be borrowing loads of money from us that we don't know if we can get back.
00:07:22.200But it says it also carries on to say the party also took the unusual step of publishing a draft crypto assets and digital finance bill,
00:07:29.080setting out exactly how it planned to deregulate the sector.
00:07:32.720And the Financial Times is trying to draw the connection.
00:07:36.400there between the two goes on to give some information on harbourn who's lived in thailand
00:07:40.540for more than 20 years made up a large chunk of his wealth by taking early bets on crypto
00:07:44.540is now a significant investor in tether the issuer of the biggest stable coin at the end of may after
00:07:51.500parliamentary standards commissioner announced he didn't launched investigation sorry i'm tripping
00:07:56.420up over my words 4 30 a.m start folks be kind please launched an investigation into farage's
00:08:02.920failure to declare the gift from harbourn reform removed that bill the crypto assets one from its
00:08:08.460website while no other policy paper was removed which all does seem a little bit suspicious
00:08:12.860especially again because of the fact that this was not declared yes um and uh it carries on to say
00:08:19.420farage rejected any suggestion that the money from harbourn was given to secure political favors
00:08:23.740saying in an interview that it was an unconditional gift to help cover the costs of security
00:08:27.820which contradicts some of the information
00:27:49.360And you saw that with Trump making $1.4 billion out of crypto and then Trump getting involved in all kinds of investments through his sons in natural resources, including in Kazakhstan.
00:28:00.420The children of, what's his name, 9-11 man, luckiest man in the world.
00:28:08.440Trading on the tariffs and making money off of the tariffs.
00:28:12.720The extent of corruption that is going on at an elite level is genuinely insane and it's completely bipartisan.
00:28:19.360And that seems to be the one point of agreement to the extent that they're no longer really investigating Hunter Biden and all of his corruption.
00:28:26.240Hunter Biden came back to Twitter and tried to rehabilitate his public image by just being like posting a picture of himself hanging out with Chinese prostitutes at hotels going, do I really look like one of the elite to you?
00:28:41.020Yeah, that's exactly what I expect the elite to be doing.
00:28:45.580that seems to be you know degeneracy and corruption these seems to be the favorite elite pastimes
00:28:51.640and uh those three plebs on the panel have never hung out in a tent of chinese prostitutes
00:28:58.400tragically so uh but yeah and then the rest of the party uh robert jenrich's gone on to the bbc
00:29:06.240and then also was part of what what could only be described as a car crash interview for gb news as
00:29:11.940well where he didn't again they can't really deny anything because it seems like all of the
00:29:17.380information in the times article and the other articles is true uh it's just how they try to
00:29:24.580explain it away generic saying that uh he did this Cottrell give support to Nigel before he was a
00:29:31.380member of parliament he hasn't done so since he became a member of parliament no rules have been
00:29:35.920broken whatsoever he was pushed on this when in the gb news interview that i saw uh the interviewer
00:29:43.340said yeah but it's about the 12 months before you become a member of parliament as well you
00:29:50.760need to declare all of that to which he kind of just did this spluttering like well well yeah
00:29:56.320he had no real answer are you going to let me answer you go that that kind of arguing back
00:30:01.900The problem with Jenrick is that he's a complete charisma black hole
00:30:04.940and doesn't seem to have any ability to respond
00:31:00.520and it's owned by a foreigner and it is seeking influence yes on behalf of a different foreign
00:31:05.860country uh but uh they are reporting uh that preparations are beginning for a by-election
00:31:12.000in clacton in the event that nigel farage has found to have breached parliamentary rules so
00:31:16.720again the investigation is still ongoing but this could be what sinks farage if he is not able to
00:31:24.680deftly maneuver himself out of this uh because this this might just be opportunistic uh this
00:31:30.060could think that sink the whole political system that that's what they're not not understanding
00:31:34.180because if you choose farage's corruption and you sink him because of it and you've given burnham a
00:31:41.320pass and you've given boris johnson a pass and you've given uh starmer a pass and so on and so
00:31:48.500forth but you make sure that you sink farage you're essentially saying yes again this is not
00:31:55.840just a two-tier system for the plebeians this is a two-tier system even for the elite and if you
00:32:01.440take any kind of line that is in any way remotely patriotic we will destroy you so it's not they
00:32:08.860think they're destroying for us but they're actually destroying themselves that's that's
00:32:13.660something to bear in mind that is so that is something potential but i personally can't wait
00:32:18.760for 2029 when we're getting the exciting lineup of ed milliband versus boris johnson i can't wait
00:32:24.460got one rumble rant for that that's a random name i may not have the money to get you to
00:32:30.200promote my gold harry i have enough money and you lack enough dignity to read my fed posts
00:32:35.420for the low low price of one shekel that's not true though is it i'd say on a ratio of how many
00:32:42.400of your your chats that we read out um i'd say the ratio swings a lot in that's a fed post not
00:32:50.120reading it that's a fed post not reading it they're always amusing random but thank you for
00:32:54.320the money thank you for the shackles uh so let's talk a little bit about pope leo the 14th and
00:33:03.040some of the comments that he's been making and it's sort of worth putting them into context
00:33:06.960um the pope has been on a campaign recently against ai and against the commodification of
00:33:12.780human beings uh which i think is fair play because we can all see the uh the the sort of train that
00:33:21.920is heading our way, which is total control via digital ID, via the digital ID, central bank
00:33:30.700digital currencies, etc., etc. And so the Pope has been correctly speaking out against this.
00:33:38.180And the Pope has also been speaking out in defense of life in general, speaking out against euthanasia,
00:33:49.360speaking out against abortion. He's taken a very strong pro-life stance consistently.
00:33:56.000People have been a bit more upset with the Pope for the stuff that he has been saying about
00:34:01.920immigration, most recently following a visit over the weekend to Lampedusa, where he spoke about the
00:34:09.760people who have died in the Mediterranean trying to cross over into Europe. And he makes
00:34:16.140criticisms of the countries of origin because of their corruption and indifference towards the
00:34:21.720economic good, but also criticisms of the global economic system that generates poverty and
00:34:28.060exclusion. Fear that fuels prejudice and contempt, the belief that such problems do not concern us,
00:34:35.280the criminal calculations of those who profit from the suffering of others, meaning the smuggling
00:34:39.620gangs, and the difficult transition from emergency management to the development of comprehensive
00:34:45.980and shared policies. Now, I have a problem with a couple of these phrases here. The phrases that I
00:34:52.100have a problem with are the global economic system that generates poverty and exclusion
00:34:57.620and the development of comprehensive and shared policies. And the reason for that is simple.
00:35:06.340Every economic system, by definition, is going to generate poverty and exclusion.
00:35:11.180we are not all equal we are equal before god we are equal in human dignity but we cannot all be
00:35:19.960economically equal this is simply impossible there will always be the haves and there will
00:35:25.200always be the have nuts as the church says the poor will always be with us and we should have
00:35:31.580concern for them but that concern doesn't come from compelled giving through taxation or it
00:35:40.040shouldn't be expressed through compelled giving through taxation. Rather, it should be expressed
00:35:44.580through charity, which are two completely different things. And then to say that we need to transition
00:35:52.260from emergency management to the development of comprehensive and shared policies, there's a couple
00:35:58.240of assumptions here. Because the underlying assumption is that illegal migrants, the emergency,
00:36:04.620will be there forever, when in reality, this shouldn't even exist as a phenomenon.
00:36:12.800States should have the ability to police their borders. The first job of the state
00:36:18.000is to safeguard the welfare of its own citizens. That's job number one. And that does involve
00:36:26.360maintaining a secure border. And so talking about this without that context is a bit of an issue.
00:36:33.680Well, there's another assumption I feel has been slipped into here, which everybody just kind of takes for granted these days, but is a very, very, very recent phenomenon, which is that countries will blame, say, European countries, for instance, for lack of economic development and creating the conditions that force them to move into those European countries in the first place.
00:36:57.860this is the same logic of oh you bombed to the middle east so obviously the middle east is going
00:37:02.180to move to your country i can't think of many examples please correct me if i'm wrong of
00:37:07.900of history where you are at war with a nation and therefore all of the refugees move into the nation
00:37:15.740that they're at war with that seems illogical to me in a very strange modern that is an insane idea
00:37:21.320but that is a completely insane all those guys over there want to kill us quick let's go move
00:37:26.580in with them exactly exactly which is itself an absurdity the the very idea that so within
00:37:35.240catholic teaching you can't go around killing random civilians this is set by saying well
00:37:42.440this is obvious in and of itself but it's also codified by saint augustine in the just war theory
00:37:50.080that he elaborates and one of the chief issues there is that you must have due concern for
00:37:56.260civilians and you must distinguish between combatant and non-combatant and it is always
00:38:01.100better to be merciful towards the non-combatants rather than to just massacre them fair enough
00:38:06.560sensible fair enough moral even but at no point does that extend to by the way you should bring
00:38:13.700all of the non-combatants into your capital city and give them political representation
00:38:19.240even though they still hate you that like that there is no basis for that yeah i mean i saw
00:38:27.240anywhere i saw zuma had a good post about this that i had to retweet where it was like oh yes
00:38:33.660because during the blitz germany faced a massive influx of english refugees right because that's
00:38:39.420how wars always worked exactly exactly it is genuinely absurd and then the other issue that
00:38:44.940i have a problem with the development of comprehensive and shared policies well that
00:38:50.580does assume a global government and you can't have the same government for muslims hindus
00:38:56.500atheists animists and christians we figured that out at this point like it exactly it is by
00:39:04.280definition an impossibility and it is not a desirable thing and even if you do you have to
00:39:10.620impose christian values on all of them otherwise you're not really being christian so within that
00:39:17.500statement yes the pope is correct to condemn the indifference and corruption in their own countries
00:39:24.140the pope is correct to say that you don't want to have contempt towards other human beings prejudice
00:39:30.540ha no joseph de master who's a very catholic uh thinker articulates a very robust defense of
00:39:39.100prejudice, basically using the meaning of the word, which is to prejudge, meaning that there
00:39:45.220is a situation that has occurred before so many times in the past that you are now in a position
00:39:50.580to judge how that situation is going to unfold based on acquired wisdom. And you should, as a
00:39:58.240Christian, want to acquire wisdom. And so if you constantly see that this particular group of
00:40:05.660people is more prone to violence or more prone to rape you there is nothing in catholic teaching
00:40:11.360that stops you from enacting policies that align with that reality and there is nothing in catholic
00:40:18.200teaching that says that you have an innate hostility to statistics like that there are
00:40:24.640assumptions that are being made here reddit told me once the christianity was just about like jesus
00:40:30.760said that you should just kind of be generally nice to people yeah that's i mean okay is that
00:40:37.000not christianity no i mean jesus wasn't very nice all the time when when he called the the pharisees
00:40:44.120a bunch of vipers and when he says that they are of their of their father the devil what that what
00:40:50.920does he know about exactly these weren't exactly you know let's all be nice and hold hands and
00:40:58.520in kumbaya that this isn't the i don't understand what's being said here uh mercy can respond new
00:41:07.400beginnings to the depth of human heart and the horrors of war yes we need to have mercy and it
00:41:14.120should be in our hearts but we also need to have prudence i mean one of the seven virtues is is
00:41:21.080prudence and part of prudence is to say well we've identified this pattern and it keeps on happening
00:41:27.560and we must respect it and if his holiness is going to call for social justice there isn't
00:41:33.720anything socially just about making the women of europe unsafe no in every town and neighborhood
00:41:40.200and there's no acknowledgement of the danger or death that has been brought to europe as a result
00:41:46.680of this catastrophe exactly and so social justice we want justice for the africans yes i am in favor
00:41:54.520of that. I also want justice for the Europeans and for the Middle Easterners and so on. And I
00:42:00.820realize that these things are in tension. And as they are in tension, I would suggest that the
00:42:06.700prudential duty of European rulers is first towards Europeans. And it would seem, how to
00:42:14.780phrase it politely, a touch cold for the Pope as well, given that Europe is the continent that has
00:42:22.460upheld christianity for all of these centuries to suddenly go well this is the one given that
00:42:29.180it basically birthed you know uh the missionary um experience from as far as africa to japan to
00:42:35.300america across the world to actually have this continent now flooded by chancers pirates people
00:42:42.940who we simply don't understand their identities or backgrounds and put us in harm's way and and
00:42:48.620And here's where I want to sort of talk about this a little bit religiously, because His
00:42:52.500Holiness visited Lampedusa and he was photographed at the so-called Gateway to Europe monument,
00:42:59.940which is supposed to welcome migrants, illegal migrants, who are inherently break, who are,
00:43:07.300you know, beginning their entry into Europe by breaking the law.
00:43:11.940Who built the Gateway to Europe monument?
01:12:48.200And the fact that all of that training at Valley Forge,
01:12:51.080the coordination with the French allies,
01:12:53.040you know, which helped to tip it in your favor, I will say.
01:12:57.960having an extra man on the field uh but all of this you know resulted in a genuinely
01:13:04.840uncertain confrontation and i feel like you know the most those nights where it all seemed like
01:13:11.400it was lost and you know all the traitors would hang together uh would have been very very tepid
01:13:17.320but then of course you get to the fact that as well the army under here have you know the american
01:13:23.560militia, you know, brought into the fold as a professional army. Washington, they're on the
01:13:29.640verge of mutiny because they've not been paid. In fact, if I just go up, I'm cautious of time. But
01:13:36.340George Washington's Newburgh Address was one of the most important speeches in his military career.
01:13:42.540The soldiers who gathered in Newburgh, New York, were tired, bloody, homesick, and unpaid. They
01:13:48.120were also on the brink of mutiny. Prior to Washington's speech, the soldiers had
01:13:52.480circulated petitions criticising the Continental Congress and contemplating widespread insubordination.
01:14:00.720When Washington heard of these mutinous rumblings, he was horrified. A large-scale mutiny by American
01:14:06.220soldiers would shatter the public's confidence in the military, vindicate Great Britain's
01:14:11.840scepticism about the American experiment, and tarnish the young nation in the eyes of the world.
01:14:18.120and there is just one paragraph that I wanted to read from it towards the end here which is where
01:14:25.500he says while I give you these assurances and pledge myself in the most unequivocal manner to
01:14:31.940exert whatever ability I am possessed of in your favor let me entreat you gentlemen on your part
01:14:38.000not to take any measures which viewed in the calm light of reason will lessen the dignity
01:14:43.720and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained.
01:14:47.300Let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country
01:14:51.140and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress,
01:14:55.780that previous to your dissolution as an army,
01:14:58.380they will cause all your acts to be fairly liquidated,
01:15:02.860as directed in their resolutions, which were published to you two days ago.
01:15:08.060And he goes on to basically say, sorry, losing my track,
01:15:13.720as you value your own sacred honor as you respect the rights of humanity as you regard the military
01:15:20.200and national character of america to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who
01:15:27.000wished under any suspicious pretenses to overturn the liberties of our country and who wickedly
01:15:33.560attempted to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood not only was
01:15:41.480the language used 200 years ago just far superior to our own and just truly beautiful but also heavy
01:15:48.040metal oh yeah but also you see in there that just someone constantly uh that defines someone like
01:15:54.200washington and who is genuinely a man worthy historically speaking to have been the fat for
01:16:01.880the father of a nation is that you see constantly again this this eye to duty this eye for character
01:16:08.600This eye for everyone putting their best foot forward, for remembering the fact that what you do here now will be remembered in 20 years' time, in 50 years' time, in 250 years' time, and so on and so forth.
01:16:21.540And he was a great man, and so I wanted to just say a little about Washington.
01:16:26.660And I'm delighted to see as well, after the Cultural Revolution of 2020, that Thomas Jefferson has got a new statue as well, and it being shipped to the White House for Trump's Walk of Fame display, as per the New York Post.
01:16:42.720And obviously Jefferson is another man that I have always had a great deal of esteem for. In fact, you know, this past 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence was not just the 250th anniversary of that, but also to the very day, the 200th year that both founding fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died.
01:17:09.000They both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence within a few hours of one another.
01:17:16.460Jefferson died in the morning and Adams, I believe, died in the late afternoon or evening.
01:17:21.440In fact, Jefferson was so determined, sick as he was, he was dealing with, well, his body was breaking down and dying.
01:17:30.000He was in tremendous pain in his final few days.
01:17:33.460and he just kept turning over to his servants and saying is it the fourth is it the fourth he was
01:17:39.640willing himself to live to see the fourth and eventually the pain became so much for him
01:17:44.980that one of them said to him yes mr jefferson it is the fourth when it was in fact the third
01:17:50.580just to let him go and fortunately jefferson managed to persevere to die on the fourth
01:17:58.040i don't believe you stubborn man what he was that he was and so both of these men in their own way
01:18:05.680were instrumental in steadying the ship of state after washington of course left after his second
01:18:13.060term the peaceful transfer of power over and also as well adams is not uh respected enough i mean
01:18:20.720the the hbo john adams series is truly magnificent uh and was one of the things that gave me an early
01:18:27.140fascination for all of this when i saw it but the other thing as well is just that how these two men
01:18:33.440with very different visions of what america was supposed to mean and what the revolution was
01:18:38.480truly fought for adams was in favor of a strong central government jefferson wanted states rights
01:18:44.940he wanted agrarianism he didn't want he didn't see the point in a revolution fighting for american
01:18:50.340independence if in this if all you are going to end up being hocked to was you know the one the
01:18:57.420banks of london and paris and you know the debt credits um hamilton won in the end hamilton did
01:19:04.460win in the end but that's why you know i think it's something worth just saying about jefferson
01:19:09.700because when you just take jefferson as one example for how accomplished these men were
01:19:15.900Thomas Jefferson was a man who spoke five languages he spoke Latin Greek French English
01:19:22.400obviously Spanish which he apparently learned in about 19 days from a Spanish book of Don Quixote
01:19:29.280on his way over to um to um uh France uh according to the legend I these things get embellished of
01:19:37.300course but some legends have it the moment he met a Spanish waitress his first words to her were
01:21:30.880Neither do I. And as well, just as you go through the story of America and you look at all of the great pioneers and trailblazers going through all the way from Jefferson was president and put across the, you know, funded the Lewis and Clark expedition to those who went across for the California and Oregon gold rushes to those, of course, who fought during the fractured union and, you know, who seemed to make far more attempts at reconciliation than most people.
01:22:00.880alive today um you know even though they suffered and lost much more well you know and the fact as
01:22:07.620well that there is just such tremendous literature and you know this is one of the things that we
01:22:11.380said on the lads hour as well the genuine cultural power excuse me of america cannot be understated
01:22:19.440and when i think about my own childhood even as a as a man of britain you know in those early early
01:22:25.880films, I'm thinking of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, for example, you know, a lot of these and sort
01:22:31.460of the romanticism of New York, this is as a result of the PR of Hollywood. And, you know,
01:22:37.080that goes all the way through from those poignant, you know, Christian films that Hollywood made in
01:22:42.220the 50s and 40s and 50s, like It's a Wonderful Life, right up to, you know, action blockbusters
01:22:48.760from the 80s like you know the stallone stuff and you know uh beau and i did a um a chronicles um
01:22:55.680sometime last year talking about ernest hemingway's the old man in the sea which is uh one of my
01:23:01.100favorite not it's a very very short story and i recommend you uh certainly read the novel and get
01:23:06.180our thoughts on it because um again just hemingway was one of the great american writers and the last
01:23:14.000thing i'll just say as well is that um you know the american spirit is really something that's
01:23:20.520admirable and for as much as you know we talk on this podcast about all of the problems that
01:23:27.020plague america america uh we realize that you're sensible to them that you understand the problems
01:23:32.780that face your own country as well and that this isn't the day for them the day that what this day
01:23:38.760calls for is to celebrate your own strength celebrate your own capability your own ability
01:23:46.060for compassion and kingship with one another and to look back at the grand tapestry of story that
01:23:52.360you've created in already what is by all accounts a very very short space of time in 250 years and
01:23:59.820hopefully all the good things that you're yet to do and I think that it's a day that well I hope
01:24:06.200you've enjoyed it very nice all right got a couple of uh rumble rants there uh random name i'm gonna
01:24:15.500tap uh add this onto the tally of we're not reading that because that's a massive fed post
01:24:20.100so uh the ratio of those comments to the rest yeah but it is seen i swear he only pays so that
01:24:29.060we see what he's writing in the first place that's to make sure yes but you have to love the game
01:24:34.500oh i do i respect i respect the hustle in men's i respect it uh gimme o'gloin if you like a white
01:24:41.180pill check out how antifa and co utterly failed to block the federal convent of the afd over the
01:24:46.200weekend i'd not heard about this yes if you was holding their uh conference basically and
01:24:50.800antifa sent thousands of people to try to stop them from doing it right they utterly and completely
01:24:56.640failed oh good oh and the afd seems to have a bit of an inevitability about it which is good