The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1455

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1455 for Monday the 6th of

00:00:28.200 july 2026 it's fine we'll edit it out uh i'm i'm uh joined here today by uh harry burnham

00:00:36.600 hello there i uh unconsensually heard an oasis song on the way to work this morning and therefore

00:00:42.900 decided i had to burn a mex that was the rules i didn't i don't make the rules i just follow them

00:00:47.340 and we're also joined us today by firas who presumably heard no oasis on the way to the

00:00:52.480 office this morning well lucky you who's dressed absolutely normally keeping up the standard so

00:00:57.960 anyway anyway it's just the new standards like everybody abandoned ties with blair

00:01:03.680 everybody's just gonna go whole hog and abandon shirts on the burnham trendsetter yeah so long

00:01:08.540 as we don't end up with the sort of iranian collars instead of the proper shirt collar i'm

00:01:13.380 just ahead of the curve mate okay like if you want to see where things are going just look this way

00:01:17.780 anyway well today ladies and gentlemen we're going to be talking all about the questionable

00:01:23.080 finances of Nigel Farage. We're then going to be talking all about the Pope's recent trip to

00:01:29.660 Lampedusa, and then we're going to be concluding things with a segment just celebrating the recent

00:01:36.080 weekend of 250th anniversary of America and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So

00:01:43.020 a lot of eclectic things to talk about today. Also as well, of course, it's Monday, so at three

00:01:49.200 Clark Firas is going to be live on Realpolitik talking all about Russia's looming struggle

00:01:54.620 they they're struggling a bit are they well they're doing well on one side but there's

00:01:59.440 as they advance they're going to face a wall of eight cities that they have to take

00:02:03.180 problem there could be challenging yes could be challenging uh all right so with all that said

00:02:08.880 ladies and gentlemen let's get into today's segments so there's a bit of a storm brewing

00:02:13.900 at the moment for nigel farage and the reform party that he leads uh which is to do entirely

00:02:19.900 with his finances now i saw a little bit of this brewing over the past few months i believe this

00:02:25.080 story that i'm starting with uh came to light around the end of april and started getting a

00:02:30.200 lot of public attention in may and i was noticing that it was something that the mainstream media

00:02:36.800 were pushing a lot of nigel farage finances this accepts gifts from here and there i didn't see

00:02:42.860 much organic public declaration of interest about this but it is still very very important because

00:02:50.840 it's developed since then it's been one thing after the other the media have really been pushing

00:02:55.520 this and this is something that is now going to in parliamentary investigate investigatory committee

00:03:00.940 for the parliamentary standards so it could have really wide-ranging effects for farage

00:03:07.840 and for reform as a whole um so just to just to let everybody know who may not know uh mps are

00:03:15.480 obliged to report financial benefits they receive in the 12 months before being elected if they

00:03:20.300 could quote reasonably be thought by others to be related to membership of the house or to the

00:03:25.240 members parliamentary or political activities end quote that's just some context that you're going

00:03:30.000 to need for a lot of this because a lot of the information that's been coming out has been

00:03:33.580 related to Nigel Farage's personal finances and associations that he's received those finances

00:03:39.480 from and whether or not it is right that he did not declare a lot of this money that was transferred

00:03:45.500 to him. The first one and the one that's being investigated by parliamentary standards is this

00:03:50.960 five million pound gift from a crypto investor Christopher Harbourn who gave him the money

00:03:57.400 before the 2024 general election interesting connection here being that harbourn is also

00:04:03.800 known to have donated one million pounds to boris johnson in 2022 and given that boris johnson and

00:04:11.460 nigel farage hate one another and boris johnson is currently being rumored to potentially try and

00:04:16.960 make it a return to the arena of british politics yes purely out of spite for nigel farage makes

00:04:23.140 you wonder what's in it for harbour harbour to be funding both of these i'm not necessarily

00:04:27.780 alleging conspiracy or anything but it might just be that he is an individual is trying to play both

00:04:32.120 sides because crypto investors crypto guys what's the one thing that we know that they love more

00:04:37.460 than anything crypto deregulation so it might just be well if bojo is going to get in later in the

00:04:43.160 future yeah or maybe it was just at the time with the conservative party uh they can push what i

00:04:49.900 want. Maybe he's trying to do the same thing with Farage, although Farage is denying those

00:04:53.780 kinds 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

00:05:03.400 political favours. Obviously, it seems like lobbying. They also pointed out that reform

00:05:08.360 announced several crypto-friendly policies after the general election, including a pledge

00:05:12.800 to lower the capital gains tax rate for crypto assets from 24% to 10% and to create a national

00:05:18.560 bitcoin reserve at the bank of england to stockpile crypto assets um if you're going to

00:05:25.860 lower capital gains tax lower them across the board because actually it is a good idea to lower

00:05:31.020 some capital gains or to lower capital gains tax in general and taxes on dividends that's how you

00:05:36.320 encourage entrepreneurship why just for crypto and why would the bank of england need a bitcoin

00:05:42.740 reserve like that's just getting on board with a fashionable trend well so yeah some people might

00:05:48.260 want to suggest that it's part of the like um hedging with crypto uh that people have been

00:05:53.420 pushing for a while crypto will be a more secure financial currency well yeah that's the thing i

00:05:59.740 for all of the people 10 years ago have been saying for 10 years that crypto was particularly

00:06:04.840 bitcoin was going to become new national currencies because of all the safety features attached to it

00:06:09.540 and the way that it retains value and whatnot um i don't see i've never seen the potential for it

00:06:15.880 to be actually used as a financial exchange mechanism it's mainly just something that people

00:06:20.440 buy so they can watch it gain value and eventually sell off as an investment but yeah i mean if there

00:06:28.500 is i'm not too familiar with reforms other policies if it comes to slashing taxes perhaps

00:06:34.520 they have announced some kind of slash on all forms of capital gains tax to this 10 percent level

00:06:40.500 uh rather than the 24 but the way that it's put forward in this financial times article

00:06:45.740 makes it seem like a carve out for crypto assets that might just be sneaky editing that they're

00:06:51.020 doing though so i'm not going to say outright that that's what's going on here i seem to recall if i

00:06:55.880 may um farage saying that he would only lower taxes after uh spending had been got under control

00:07:02.080 something like that well that kind of makes sense i mean that's that's a pretty reasonable thing to

00:07:06.860 No, 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.

00:07:12.340 Yeah, 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.

00:07:17.700 You're just going to be borrowing loads of money from us that we don't know if we can get back.

00:07:22.200 But 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,

00:07:29.080 setting out exactly how it planned to deregulate the sector.

00:07:32.720 And the Financial Times is trying to draw the connection.

00:07:36.400 there between the two goes on to give some information on harbourn who's lived in thailand

00:07:40.540 for more than 20 years made up a large chunk of his wealth by taking early bets on crypto

00:07:44.540 is now a significant investor in tether the issuer of the biggest stable coin at the end of may after

00:07:51.500 parliamentary standards commissioner announced he didn't launched investigation sorry i'm tripping

00:07:56.420 up over my words 4 30 a.m start folks be kind please launched an investigation into farage's

00:08:02.920 failure to declare the gift from harbourn reform removed that bill the crypto assets one from its

00:08:08.460 website while no other policy paper was removed which all does seem a little bit suspicious

00:08:12.860 especially again because of the fact that this was not declared yes um and uh it carries on to say

00:08:19.420 farage rejected any suggestion that the money from harbourn was given to secure political favors

00:08:23.740 saying in an interview that it was an unconditional gift to help cover the costs of security

00:08:27.820 which contradicts some of the information

00:08:30.540 that we'll get to later

00:08:31.660 Harbourn separately told the Telegraph

00:08:33.940 that he wasn't expecting anything in return

00:08:35.700 apart from ensuring Farage's safety

00:08:37.680 Farage later changed his explanation

00:08:39.680 telling the son that the money was a thank you

00:08:42.120 for his work to secure Brexit

00:08:43.500 if Farage is found to have breached parliamentary rules

00:08:46.880 by failing to declare the gift

00:08:48.540 he could be suspended from the House of Commons

00:08:51.100 and a by-election could be triggered

00:08:53.060 in his constituency of Clacton

00:08:55.360 which would be a pretty huge development

00:08:58.240 or reform

00:08:59.800 a pretty big blow to their public

00:09:01.960 reputation because that's the thing about this story

00:09:03.880 it doesn't matter so much if

00:09:05.900 the public are

00:09:06.940 frothing at the mouth for it now

00:09:09.640 an internal parliamentary investigation

00:09:12.200 could sink Farage

00:09:13.340 it would just mean

00:09:16.040 that he would be

00:09:17.440 again suspended

00:09:19.900 and then the by-election would mean that he would

00:09:22.080 be replaced

00:09:22.860 and wouldn't there be enough sharks in the house of commons again i mean he could he could but he

00:09:28.400 could also be replaced there's more information this one's just kind of like this is all declared

00:09:33.200 as far as i uh as far as i can tell this is just one of those classic envy articles where

00:09:39.780 nigel farage is one of the public faces of let me get the name for it specifically um what is it

00:09:48.060 called direct bullion he is the public face of a gold retailer called direct bullion and his

00:09:55.180 finances that he got from it uh equate to about 22 500 pounds an hour it's not a bad gig yeah he

00:10:03.180 got for advertising work this is so typical if you're a nationally recognized figure yeah and

00:10:08.620 in his case he is an internationally recognized figure across the anglosphere and across europe

00:10:14.060 especially especially being a free market type and uh admirer of thatcher and admirer of enoch

00:10:21.000 powell who was a free marketeer as well it is pretty unsurprising that he would put his face

00:10:26.360 to gold that's what they all love doing no one as of yet has approached me for gold but if you

00:10:32.640 would like to pay me a quarter of a million pounds to have my face holding up a little gold coin

00:10:37.980 hopefully that doesn't say diversity built britain please feel free to get in touch with me

00:10:43.540 yeah you got 270 grand for promoting them for 12 hours work 12 hours of work i mean he bear in

00:10:52.920 mind he's already a multi-millionaire right he already gets paid almost 100 grand a year for

00:10:57.820 his mp's salary uh and he's wealthy through other means as well i'm 12 hours of work i'm not an

00:11:05.900 envious person million but i understand where the envy comes from well i've just i've decided

00:11:10.820 i am and therefore hate him for this um but it is it is funny you would have thought the 16 000

00:11:18.800 pounds that he gets from cameo giving tributes to ian watkins every year um would um would have

00:11:25.400 covered all uh any extra costs that he has so this is his publicly declared earnings declared

00:11:32.140 more than two million pounds in earnings since his election as an mp in july 2024 his other

00:11:37.360 declared interests include social media work for x google and meta earnings from video platform

00:11:42.320 cameo the aforementioned big chungus um i love your bussy style videos that he does for those 0.61

00:11:49.120 there are a shocking and concerning amount of videos of nigel farage saying things like 0.59

00:11:53.840 like um get on da bussy big chungus and then wishing someone a happy birthday

00:11:59.820 um for a man who has ambitions to be the uh prime minister of the country it's kind of embarrassing 0.69

00:12:07.580 to think of but you know he's earning money from it and he also does speaking engagement for groups

00:12:11.140 linked to the u.s anti-abortion movement which is a more honorable thing to be attached to

00:12:16.440 than cameo videos among current mps this makes his outside earnings second only to former

00:12:23.120 Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who got £2.4 million since July 2024 from work including

00:12:29.840 advisory roles at Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and Anthropic, which is why you can tell that Rishi

00:12:35.140 Sunak is truly a friend of the common man, like you or I. The latest register shows that Farage

00:12:41.460 also received £18,000 for approximately six hours of presenting work for GB News in June.

00:12:47.440 So, you know, we've got access to a lot of his finances. The question is whether it was right

00:12:52.980 or wrong for him to not declare this five million pound donation uh from the crypto investor and

00:13:00.680 then there are as a result of all of this here's some more of the stuff that's going on uh questions

00:13:05.520 over whether a house that he paid 1.4 million pounds for was paid for with money from a tv

00:13:12.020 fee that he got for being on i'm a celebrity get me out of here or whether it was using the five

00:13:17.940 million pound gift because the investigation that's gone on showed that the cash that was

00:13:23.660 paid to him from Christopher Harbourn went out into a company sorry sorry the money that went

00:13:30.300 to Christopher Harbourn is different from the money that he was paid here the money that was

00:13:35.260 paid from I'm a Celebrity went to Thorn in the Side which is his personal media company that

00:13:41.480 manages his brand and if it was paid from that given that it's a public company the financial

00:13:49.200 documents that we have access to do not show that there was a 1.4 million pound expense go out for

00:13:55.520 the property and there is currently no mortgage attached to the house so people are asking where

00:14:01.680 did the money for the house come from was it from this five million pound crypto gift that you were

00:14:06.740 given yeah that's they're piling on but the really really big one that people are talking

00:14:13.720 presumably the security would be paid out of his company you would expect so but there's here's one

00:14:19.440 of the other things as an expense it makes more sense tax perspective and all of that it does

00:14:24.560 spend it out of the company well it's con it's contradicted by the next bit of information i'm

00:14:29.080 going to give him there's quite a lot to go over here uh which is this big article from the times

00:14:33.820 a new investigation that came out on the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day, everybody.

00:14:39.340 Nigel Farage secretly funded by a convicted criminal, which is this chap right here. And

00:14:44.760 there is an unfortunate bit of bias that goes into this story that I'm going to have to disclose

00:14:49.240 immediately, which is that most of everybody involved in this story has a highly punchable

00:14:53.980 face. So I will try not to allow that to colour my perspective so much. So this chap here on the

00:15:02.400 right and you can scroll it's a very in-depth article you can scroll very far down until you

00:15:09.960 can find let's see that was his mother uh some older pictures of him where is it here it is his

00:15:16.280 mug shot um from 2017 his name is george swinfan cottrell otherwise known as posh george baby-faced

00:15:25.380 british aristocrat former u.s federal inmate has no official role in reform uk but it's been

00:15:32.040 farage's closest advisor for more than a decade and travels with him in westminster and around

00:15:35.960 the country pairs lives are so intertwined cotrell uses the ex-soldier who is nigel farage's personal

00:15:42.040 bodyguard for his own protection having quietly paid for farage's security for a number of years

00:15:47.380 so this guy is actually the guy paying for nigel farage's security so nigel farage saying that the

00:15:52.740 crypto guy paying for his security with the five million pounds is contradicted by the information

00:15:57.820 through this investigation so this guy Cottrell was once labeled deceptive by a judge for legally

00:16:04.560 changing his name from Cottrell with two t's and two l's to Cottrell with one t and one l which

00:16:11.860 seemed to have been for the sake of avoiding the feds in the in the united states oh right

00:16:18.380 today he flies on private jets and makes bank transfers under the alias George Co and is a

00:16:24.440 key player in crypto gambling company owned via a complex offshore structure whose ownership is

00:16:29.980 invisible to the public he calls Farage daddy supposedly according to this article and here

00:16:37.260 are some of the basically here are some of the allegations regarding what this guy has been

00:16:43.040 paying for with Farage the reform leader received in-kind benefits ranging from his back office to

00:16:50.160 his private security staff, transport and accommodation. Cottrell recruited and paid

00:16:54.700 three staff to transform Farage's social media presence, one of whom being Jack Anderton,

00:17:00.540 producing content on immigration, human rights law and political correctness and that promoted

00:17:05.760 reform. Cottrell has been involved in a crypto gambling platform implicated in potentially

00:17:11.100 illegal betting in the UK. Two men, a friend of Cottrell's and a reform employee, owned UK

00:17:16.280 companies which allowed illicit payments originally from or destined for the platform

00:17:20.340 which did not have a legally required UK license since the election Cottrell has let Farage use a

00:17:26.140 five-story house that he rents on a street near Buckingham Palace his lawyer said as a close

00:17:30.720 friend our client did and does allow Mr Farage to stay in our client's rental property he's applied

00:17:37.240 currently for a presidential pardon from Trump where he pled because in the US he pled pleaded

00:17:43.280 guilty to wire fraud but there's more to that story and cuttrell received an 8.5 million pound

00:17:49.040 chelsea property from the billionaire reform treasurer nick candy in the last year so there's

00:17:55.000 there's a lot of involvement and whether any or all of this stuff actually constitutes breach of

00:18:03.040 parliamentary standards is still up in the air and still up for investigation but for a lot of people

00:18:10.340 the kind of look of Nigel Farage palling around with some posh toff with all of these fancy

00:18:16.660 connections where it seems to be a lot of behind the scenes backroom deals going on outside of the

00:18:21.380 public eye is something of a bad look that could hit his reputation or Farage could manage to get

00:18:28.520 himself out of this one as he managed has managed to a number of times in the past because simply

00:18:33.880 being friends with shady people is not against the law and doesn't necessarily mean that you've

00:18:41.300 got bad intentions for the country as the leader of a political party but it does figure in people's

00:18:46.620 calculations in their head when they're looking at all of this stuff and go oh this guy might be in

00:18:51.800 it for himself he's associating with dishonorable people how can i trust any of the words that he's

00:18:57.660 saying he received all of this money from some crypto billionaire maybe they are helping him

00:19:02.680 get into office purely so he can do what they want is he bought and paid for and there's

00:19:07.580 interesting information regarding Cottrell as well and that whole going to prison thing that he did

00:19:13.060 um he's a crypto gambling entrepreneur involved in an offshore bookmaker tether bet which uses

00:19:19.540 digital currency part owned by christopher harborn according to u.s court documents Cottrell denies

00:19:25.760 that he expected any benefit from his relationship with Farage unclear what due diligence if any

00:19:31.020 Farage performed before accepting Cottrell's help

00:19:32.940 Farage knew he was a convicted felon

00:19:35.140 because the pair were travelling back from a

00:19:37.100 Trump rally in Cleveland, Ohio in July

00:19:39.080 2016 when this kid

00:19:41.100 would have presumably been 22 years old

00:19:43.340 when Cottrell was arrested

00:19:44.900 and charged with 21 offences

00:19:47.160 for his role in a dark web

00:19:48.760 money laundering plot

00:19:50.720 he later

00:19:52.460 pled guilty to wire fraud and spent

00:19:55.100 time in prison in Arizona

00:19:56.660 so Farage was presumably there when he was

00:19:59.040 arrested in the first place

00:20:00.380 now Farage has registered at least one benefit having been received from Cottrell since he has

00:20:08.860 been in parliament which was to the tune of about 9,253 pounds for travel security and accommodation

00:20:15.420 to attend the conference in Belgium but according to this article an investigation has otherwise

00:20:20.220 declared nothing so everything else that he's received is still up in the air whether that

00:20:25.120 would constitute the breach so the information regarding this guy was that in uh obviously he's

00:20:30.900 of an aristocratic background his family he comes from like gentry wealth uh and it and also a soap

00:20:38.340 fortune one of those classic ones and uh he did not attend university he wanted to make money

00:20:45.360 became a fixer financier in mayfair learning how to move large sums of money around the world as

00:20:50.640 discreetly as possible, gave him valuable skills, among them the expertise in digital cryptocurrency

00:20:56.000 and the dark web. So in 2014, he offered anonymous drug dealers help laundering the proceeds of crime

00:21:03.220 into Bitcoin. Adopting the pseudonym Bill, he travelled to Las Vegas to meet his clients in

00:21:08.460 the flesh, outlining how he could move hundreds of thousands of dollars and brokering a deal to

00:21:13.000 launder an initial $20,000. Farage and Cottrell were travelling back together, flying through

00:21:18.520 Chicago's O'Hare airport. The men were heading

00:21:20.480 into their connecting flight when federal agents

00:21:22.660 sieged Cottrell. It transpired

00:21:24.660 that two years earlier when Cottrell had

00:21:26.320 offered his money laundering services,

00:21:28.400 he was actually speaking to undercover feds.

00:21:31.680 So he's not even

00:21:32.540 very good at all of this.

00:21:34.540 And also he has a major gambling addiction

00:21:36.700 by all accounts, which he's also not actually

00:21:38.580 very good at gambling. So he says

00:21:40.700 that he has a £250

00:21:42.580 million trust fund. His mum

00:21:44.640 has come out and said that that's rubbish 0.96

00:21:46.120 and a lot of people around him have said he's not as rich as he says he is he just owns a 0.70

00:21:52.460 gambling company which he has trouble keeping control of his own gambling problem with wow

00:21:58.080 which is a great person you want to be associated with interestingly enough after he got arrested

00:22:02.680 he was facing 20 years in prison uh but because of the fact that the feds thought that he could

00:22:07.860 provide useful info they struck a deal with him gave him a charge of wire fraud and he only ended

00:22:14.480 up serving eight months in prison wow okay so a bit of a shady character obviously yes um there's

00:22:22.220 a lot more info regarding him and a lot of more info regarding all of the dealings with his you

00:22:27.660 know his book making company as well uh but you can find the article yourself and read through

00:22:32.000 the rest of that information that's the info that people are really harping on just like how

00:22:36.000 much of a shady connection this is for farage reform have responded saying it comes as no

00:22:42.240 surprised that the sunday times has chosen to publish this baseless and contrived story

00:22:45.800 covering a period of time when nigel farage was not even an active politician let alone an elected

00:22:50.840 one given that the newspaper backed the labor party at the last general election contrary to

00:22:55.000 the story's tone no parliamentary rules have been broken we also understand the sunday times has a

00:22:59.520 new podcast to promote which it seems very excited about because they've also published a multi-series

00:23:03.600 podcast looking into the background of this guy its agenda should be plain for all to see but of

00:23:09.700 course just there's not actually a denial in any of that no it just says it basically says yes so

00:23:16.580 what we didn't break any rules and all this wasn't before nigel farage had a political career

00:23:22.100 yeah exactly well that's that's a contradiction um and labor have immediately jumped onto this

00:23:28.580 funded by crypto billionaires and convicted criminals what else does nigel farage have to

00:23:33.240 hide because of course up until now this was story was regarding his finances was kind of brewing

00:23:39.320 and the parliamentary investigation into the standards breaches

00:23:42.300 would have definitely been something that was creeping up on him

00:23:46.060 because, again, if it came to the idea that he had breached those standards,

00:23:51.280 that could really screw him up.

00:23:52.500 But now, with all of this, it gives his enemies a huge point

00:23:58.220 to push back against him on and to attack him on.

00:24:01.400 I mean, this is also after Robert Jenrick, when he was housing minister in 2020,

00:24:07.140 intervened in a planning application on behalf of a billionaire, Richard Desmond, in order to get

00:24:15.360 his housing project approved when it shouldn't have been in order to help him avoid additional

00:24:23.040 fees. And so, and then you have Nadim Zahawi and his association with the Kurds in Iraq,

00:24:30.600 who are, I mean, you know, the Kurds of Iraq are some of the most corrupt politicians in all of Iraq.

00:24:37.700 I've been hearing, I've not looked into it, I've heard some rumblings of people saying about Andy Burnham's backers. 1.00

00:24:43.760 Then you have Andy Burnham basically giving contracts to a media company and then using them to promote his social media

00:24:50.080 and giving a contract to his wife's company for the bus system in Manchester

00:24:57.460 and something that looks shady, at least so far,

00:25:02.700 involving some of the housing developments that he's been involved in.

00:25:05.400 Well, I even saw some articles alleging that there'd been money exchanged hands behind the scenes

00:25:11.260 in Keir Starmer's decision to ban people like Cenk Uygur and Hassan Paikar from entering the country.

00:25:17.940 Oh, wow.

00:25:18.580 Yeah, that was, I think that was drop site media alleging that kind.

00:25:23.840 But the thing is...

00:25:24.620 And with Keir Starmer, you have all of the stuff with Lord Ali,

00:25:26.840 and you have all of the gifts and you have all of that nonsense

00:25:29.880 and the use of properties from...

00:25:32.400 I don't actually deny at all that this is clearly a targeted media attack

00:25:36.200 because why is the Times only focusing on this rather than other stuff?

00:25:40.120 Is it just the case of media opportunism so that they can drive a story?

00:25:45.440 Is it a case where perhaps parts of the establishment have decided

00:25:50.140 actually we would rather have it so that Farage, Reform, Restore

00:25:55.320 and any other splits from there are out of the way

00:25:57.580 so that we can have the exciting choice of Labour versus Tories

00:26:00.740 back again in 2029.

00:26:02.660 If Johnson comes back, the media has a short-term memory.

00:26:07.000 They might go, the king returns, he backs Baden-Ock,

00:26:10.940 gives her a boost, try and make an actual play for it in 2029.

00:26:14.800 And this is part of trying to bring Farage down a peg

00:26:18.640 so that they're less of an electoral barrier for the Tories

00:26:22.820 come 2029 in that political space.

00:26:25.320 Especially if they seek to gain more control over YouTube

00:26:30.800 and the algorithm and what it's pushing,

00:26:33.060 which is also something we've seen in the past few days

00:26:35.460 about something they're going to be trying to do.

00:26:38.320 Yeah, and the response so far has not been great.

00:26:42.540 Nigel Farage has just said,

00:26:43.700 I've done no wrongdoings,

00:26:45.520 which is off of the back of Liberal Democrat MP Josh Barberind,

00:26:50.380 asking the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner

00:26:52.080 to investigate the connection to Cottrell

00:26:55.020 and the finances that have come through that

00:26:56.820 alongside the Harbourn connection

00:26:59.180 and the finances that have come through that.

00:27:01.020 So if that piles on top,

00:27:02.480 it would be interesting to see

00:27:04.120 where the committee would fall.

00:27:06.160 Liberal Democrats literally just had,

00:27:08.880 I think they ended up having to pay compensation in court

00:27:11.180 because they kicked out one of their candidates

00:27:12.960 just for being a Christian

00:27:14.660 and having some mainstream Christian views.

00:27:17.580 So the media is obviously being selective here

00:27:21.160 in sort of choosing Farage,

00:27:23.600 the abject reality is that everybody who's senior in politics

00:27:29.540 seems to be doing their best to line up their pockets

00:27:32.140 because they're not that interested in actually turning things around.

00:27:36.320 Well, much like in America as well,

00:27:37.900 where it seems that everybody's just going,

00:27:40.780 right, the financial system is constantly on a teetering edge.

00:27:45.740 Yes.

00:27:46.080 So let's just get everything out of it while we still can.

00:27:48.600 Yes, yes.

00:27:49.360 And 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.

00:28:00.420 The children of, what's his name, 9-11 man, luckiest man in the world.

00:28:06.700 Oh, yeah, Lutnik.

00:28:07.620 Yes, Howard Lutnik.

00:28:08.440 Trading on the tariffs and making money off of the tariffs.

00:28:12.720 The extent of corruption that is going on at an elite level is genuinely insane and it's completely bipartisan.

00:28:19.360 And 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.

00:28:26.240 Hunter 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?

00:28:41.020 Yeah, that's exactly what I expect the elite to be doing.

00:28:45.580 that seems to be you know degeneracy and corruption these seems to be the favorite elite pastimes 1.00

00:28:51.640 and uh those three plebs on the panel have never hung out in a tent of chinese prostitutes 0.83

00:28:58.400 tragically so uh but yeah and then the rest of the party uh robert jenrich's gone on to the bbc

00:29:06.240 and then also was part of what what could only be described as a car crash interview for gb news as

00:29:11.940 well where he didn't again they can't really deny anything because it seems like all of the

00:29:17.380 information in the times article and the other articles is true uh it's just how they try to

00:29:24.580 explain it away generic saying that uh he did this Cottrell give support to Nigel before he was a

00:29:31.380 member of parliament he hasn't done so since he became a member of parliament no rules have been

00:29:35.920 broken whatsoever he was pushed on this when in the gb news interview that i saw uh the interviewer

00:29:43.340 said yeah but it's about the 12 months before you become a member of parliament as well you

00:29:50.760 need to declare all of that to which he kind of just did this spluttering like well well yeah

00:29:56.320 he had no real answer are you going to let me answer you go that that kind of arguing back

00:30:01.900 The problem with Jenrick is that he's a complete charisma black hole

00:30:04.940 and doesn't seem to have any ability to respond

00:30:08.240 when people challenge him on things.

00:30:10.400 That's the thing about reform.

00:30:12.060 What happens after Farage?

00:30:15.200 Well, yeah.

00:30:16.140 Farage, for all of his faults, is very charismatic

00:30:19.320 and does know how to respond to media pushback.

00:30:23.320 And so long as Farage is at the tip of the spear of reform,

00:30:27.280 there is no actual question as to who should be leading the party.

00:30:31.120 I'll also give Farage this credit

00:30:33.300 following the Henry Novak stuff

00:30:34.620 his response was very strong

00:30:36.380 and I was liking some of the more

00:30:39.280 hardline stuff that was coming from reform

00:30:41.240 but if they can't manage

00:30:43.540 to get away from this

00:30:44.980 this could have a big effect on them

00:30:47.180 because supposedly

00:30:48.720 according to

00:30:50.160 foreign influence

00:30:53.360 operation The Telegraph

00:30:54.740 they are

00:30:56.640 allegedly, that's my jokey

00:30:59.440 allegation

00:31:00.520 and it's owned by a foreigner and it is seeking influence yes on behalf of a different foreign

00:31:05.860 country uh but uh they are reporting uh that preparations are beginning for a by-election

00:31:12.000 in clacton in the event that nigel farage has found to have breached parliamentary rules so

00:31:16.720 again the investigation is still ongoing but this could be what sinks farage if he is not able to

00:31:24.680 deftly maneuver himself out of this uh because this this might just be opportunistic uh this

00:31:30.060 could think that sink the whole political system that that's what they're not not understanding

00:31:34.180 because if you choose farage's corruption and you sink him because of it and you've given burnham a

00:31:41.320 pass and you've given boris johnson a pass and you've given uh starmer a pass and so on and so

00:31:48.500 forth but you make sure that you sink farage you're essentially saying yes again this is not

00:31:55.840 just a two-tier system for the plebeians this is a two-tier system even for the elite and if you 0.69

00:32:01.440 take any kind of line that is in any way remotely patriotic we will destroy you so it's not they 0.78

00:32:08.860 think they're destroying for us but they're actually destroying themselves that's that's

00:32:13.660 something to bear in mind that is so that is something potential but i personally can't wait

00:32:18.760 for 2029 when we're getting the exciting lineup of ed milliband versus boris johnson i can't wait

00:32:24.460 got one rumble rant for that that's a random name i may not have the money to get you to

00:32:30.200 promote my gold harry i have enough money and you lack enough dignity to read my fed posts

00:32:35.420 for the low low price of one shekel that's not true though is it i'd say on a ratio of how many

00:32:42.400 of your your chats that we read out um i'd say the ratio swings a lot in that's a fed post not

00:32:50.120 reading it that's a fed post not reading it they're always amusing random but thank you for

00:32:54.320 the money thank you for the shackles uh so let's talk a little bit about pope leo the 14th and

00:33:03.040 some of the comments that he's been making and it's sort of worth putting them into context

00:33:06.960 um the pope has been on a campaign recently against ai and against the commodification of 0.51

00:33:12.780 human beings uh which i think is fair play because we can all see the uh the the sort of train that

00:33:21.920 is heading our way, which is total control via digital ID, via the digital ID, central bank

00:33:30.700 digital currencies, etc., etc. And so the Pope has been correctly speaking out against this.

00:33:38.180 And the Pope has also been speaking out in defense of life in general, speaking out against euthanasia,

00:33:49.360 speaking out against abortion. He's taken a very strong pro-life stance consistently.

00:33:56.000 People have been a bit more upset with the Pope for the stuff that he has been saying about

00:34:01.920 immigration, most recently following a visit over the weekend to Lampedusa, where he spoke about the

00:34:09.760 people who have died in the Mediterranean trying to cross over into Europe. And he makes

00:34:16.140 criticisms of the countries of origin because of their corruption and indifference towards the

00:34:21.720 economic good, but also criticisms of the global economic system that generates poverty and

00:34:28.060 exclusion. Fear that fuels prejudice and contempt, the belief that such problems do not concern us,

00:34:35.280 the criminal calculations of those who profit from the suffering of others, meaning the smuggling

00:34:39.620 gangs, and the difficult transition from emergency management to the development of comprehensive

00:34:45.980 and shared policies. Now, I have a problem with a couple of these phrases here. The phrases that I

00:34:52.100 have a problem with are the global economic system that generates poverty and exclusion

00:34:57.620 and the development of comprehensive and shared policies. And the reason for that is simple.

00:35:06.340 Every economic system, by definition, is going to generate poverty and exclusion.

00:35:11.180 we are not all equal we are equal before god we are equal in human dignity but we cannot all be

00:35:19.960 economically equal this is simply impossible there will always be the haves and there will

00:35:25.200 always be the have nuts as the church says the poor will always be with us and we should have

00:35:31.580 concern for them but that concern doesn't come from compelled giving through taxation or it

00:35:40.040 shouldn't be expressed through compelled giving through taxation. Rather, it should be expressed

00:35:44.580 through charity, which are two completely different things. And then to say that we need to transition

00:35:52.260 from emergency management to the development of comprehensive and shared policies, there's a couple

00:35:58.240 of assumptions here. Because the underlying assumption is that illegal migrants, the emergency,

00:36:04.620 will be there forever, when in reality, this shouldn't even exist as a phenomenon.

00:36:12.800 States should have the ability to police their borders. The first job of the state

00:36:18.000 is to safeguard the welfare of its own citizens. That's job number one. And that does involve

00:36:26.360 maintaining a secure border. And so talking about this without that context is a bit of an issue.

00:36:33.680 Well, 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.

00:36:57.860 this is the same logic of oh you bombed to the middle east so obviously the middle east is going

00:37:02.180 to move to your country i can't think of many examples please correct me if i'm wrong of

00:37:07.900 of history where you are at war with a nation and therefore all of the refugees move into the nation

00:37:15.740 that they're at war with that seems illogical to me in a very strange modern that is an insane idea 0.99

00:37:21.320 but that is a completely insane all those guys over there want to kill us quick let's go move

00:37:26.580 in with them exactly exactly which is itself an absurdity the the very idea that so within 0.71

00:37:35.240 catholic teaching you can't go around killing random civilians this is set by saying well

00:37:42.440 this is obvious in and of itself but it's also codified by saint augustine in the just war theory

00:37:50.080 that he elaborates and one of the chief issues there is that you must have due concern for

00:37:56.260 civilians and you must distinguish between combatant and non-combatant and it is always

00:38:01.100 better to be merciful towards the non-combatants rather than to just massacre them fair enough

00:38:06.560 sensible fair enough moral even but at no point does that extend to by the way you should bring

00:38:13.700 all of the non-combatants into your capital city and give them political representation

00:38:19.240 even though they still hate you that like that there is no basis for that yeah i mean i saw

00:38:27.240 anywhere i saw zuma had a good post about this that i had to retweet where it was like oh yes

00:38:33.660 because during the blitz germany faced a massive influx of english refugees right because that's

00:38:39.420 how wars always worked exactly exactly it is genuinely absurd and then the other issue that

00:38:44.940 i have a problem with the development of comprehensive and shared policies well that

00:38:50.580 does assume a global government and you can't have the same government for muslims hindus

00:38:56.500 atheists animists and christians we figured that out at this point like it exactly it is by 0.90

00:39:04.280 definition an impossibility and it is not a desirable thing and even if you do you have to

00:39:10.620 impose christian values on all of them otherwise you're not really being christian so within that

00:39:17.500 statement yes the pope is correct to condemn the indifference and corruption in their own countries

00:39:24.140 the pope is correct to say that you don't want to have contempt towards other human beings prejudice

00:39:30.540 ha no joseph de master who's a very catholic uh thinker articulates a very robust defense of

00:39:39.100 prejudice, basically using the meaning of the word, which is to prejudge, meaning that there

00:39:45.220 is a situation that has occurred before so many times in the past that you are now in a position

00:39:50.580 to judge how that situation is going to unfold based on acquired wisdom. And you should, as a

00:39:58.240 Christian, want to acquire wisdom. And so if you constantly see that this particular group of

00:40:05.660 people is more prone to violence or more prone to rape you there is nothing in catholic teaching

00:40:11.360 that stops you from enacting policies that align with that reality and there is nothing in catholic

00:40:18.200 teaching that says that you have an innate hostility to statistics like that there are

00:40:24.640 assumptions that are being made here reddit told me once the christianity was just about like jesus

00:40:30.760 said that you should just kind of be generally nice to people yeah that's i mean okay is that

00:40:37.000 not christianity no i mean jesus wasn't very nice all the time when when he called the the pharisees

00:40:44.120 a bunch of vipers and when he says that they are of their of their father the devil what that what

00:40:50.920 does he know about exactly these weren't exactly you know let's all be nice and hold hands and

00:40:58.520 in kumbaya that this isn't the i don't understand what's being said here uh mercy can respond new

00:41:07.400 beginnings to the depth of human heart and the horrors of war yes we need to have mercy and it

00:41:14.120 should be in our hearts but we also need to have prudence i mean one of the seven virtues is is

00:41:21.080 prudence and part of prudence is to say well we've identified this pattern and it keeps on happening

00:41:27.560 and we must respect it and if his holiness is going to call for social justice there isn't

00:41:33.720 anything socially just about making the women of europe unsafe no in every town and neighborhood

00:41:40.200 and there's no acknowledgement of the danger or death that has been brought to europe as a result 0.79

00:41:46.680 of this catastrophe exactly and so social justice we want justice for the africans yes i am in favor

00:41:54.520 of that. I also want justice for the Europeans and for the Middle Easterners and so on. And I

00:42:00.820 realize that these things are in tension. And as they are in tension, I would suggest that the

00:42:06.700 prudential duty of European rulers is first towards Europeans. And it would seem, how to 0.58

00:42:14.780 phrase it politely, a touch cold for the Pope as well, given that Europe is the continent that has

00:42:22.460 upheld christianity for all of these centuries to suddenly go well this is the one given that

00:42:29.180 it basically birthed you know uh the missionary um experience from as far as africa to japan to 0.99

00:42:35.300 america across the world to actually have this continent now flooded by chancers pirates people 0.88

00:42:42.940 who we simply don't understand their identities or backgrounds and put us in harm's way and and 1.00

00:42:48.620 And here's where I want to sort of talk about this a little bit religiously, because His

00:42:52.500 Holiness visited Lampedusa and he was photographed at the so-called Gateway to Europe monument, 0.99

00:42:59.940 which is supposed to welcome migrants, illegal migrants, who are inherently break, who are, 0.99

00:43:07.300 you know, beginning their entry into Europe by breaking the law. 1.00

00:43:11.940 Who built the Gateway to Europe monument? 0.81

00:43:14.060 Oh God, tell me.

00:43:16.380 I don't know.

00:43:17.380 I'm asking.

00:43:18.380 I don't know either.

00:43:20.080 Samson, look that up for us.

00:43:24.120 And then he spoke to the media and, you know, said a bunch of things.

00:43:30.660 Europe is capable of addressing the crisis in this region in a comprehensive manner,

00:43:35.300 integrating immediate relief efforts into a long-term strategic plan

00:43:38.560 capable of receiving, protecting, supporting and integrating migrants. 1.00

00:43:42.340 Why is it always we have to take them into our house? 1.00

00:43:45.540 Hold on.

00:43:46.340 There are several things here.

00:43:47.620 There are several things here that should be thought about clearly.

00:43:54.600 The key duty here is on the governors of the countries from which the migrants come 0.76

00:44:02.320 not to make their countries so destructive as to make people want to constantly leave.

00:44:10.960 This is one thing, and I say this as an immigrant.

00:44:12.980 and like in my family there are people in argentina in brazil in mexico in america

00:44:19.520 venezuela everywhere the lebanese have been migrating guys get about years like we've been

00:44:25.860 running from lebanon for 150 years i was shocked when i found out the surf rock guitarist dick dale

00:44:31.920 was half lebanese i was like they're everywhere they are everywhere there are more lebanese

00:44:37.520 outside lebanon three four times as much as in lebanon oh you're the irish of the middle east

00:44:42.880 kind of yes that makes sense and so the problem here is with the governors of lebanon because

00:44:50.320 the way that they behave literally drives us away and it's a real issue and you don't have to take

00:44:56.660 any of us that's not what i'm saying but the first responsibility here isn't on europe it's on

00:45:04.360 lebanese authorities and on lebanese politicians and so the framing here that it's europe that's

00:45:11.420 supposed to address the crisis isn't accurate framing there is an issue with that assumption

00:45:17.540 it's literally white savior complex but also masquerading as a fellow king fan is he yeah

00:45:25.760 and we should do so sorry and so while assisting developing countries so that no one is forced to

00:45:30.940 immigrate technically i wasn't forced i chose to yeah and no and the people who are doing most of

00:45:37.820 immigrating for the most part they're not the poorest because they're paying people smugglers

00:45:44.580 time and time and time and again so the whole system is predicated on absorbing a lot of the

00:45:51.300 middle class rather and if they're not able to pass they're getting into basically modern slavery

00:45:56.860 situations to get get across the borders in the first exactly so so the whole idea here 0.67

00:46:02.940 the secondary evils that are coming from immigration especially illegal immigration 0.93

00:46:09.000 are far greater than the good of just absorbing endless people which is impossible 0.71

00:46:13.700 you cannot absorb infinity human beings yeah it's just noticed that yeah it's also not addressing

00:46:20.120 the crisis like addressing the crisis if addressing the crisis is fixing your own country if the

00:46:25.380 building next door to me is burning down if i if i just accept everybody who runs out into my house

00:46:31.540 and the building's still on fire well the crisis hasn't gone away somebody needs to try and put

00:46:37.240 some fire out exactly exactly and so the pope is basing some of his words on very well known

00:46:43.140 and genuinely good christian christian sentiments so saint john chrysostom says that every family

00:46:49.800 should have a room where christ is welcome and the person of the hungry and thirsty stranger

00:46:53.340 set aside a room in your house to which christ may come this is christ's room this is set apart

00:46:58.600 for him even if it's very simple he will not disdain it but this is not what we're getting

00:47:03.400 here what we're getting in europe is people who are demanding endless benefits and complaining

00:47:09.560 that 250 000 houses that are being given to them for free aren't good enough

00:47:14.360 so they're not behaving in a christ-like fashion to begin with um here looking at the um

00:47:21.160 um looking at some of the apologies that came from i think this is from uh justin martyre yes

00:47:29.160 um you see that the way that the church speaks about this is is you know different uh they who

00:47:38.360 are to do do they are who are well to do and willing give what each thinks fit and what is

00:47:44.440 collected is deposited with the leader of the community who suckers the orphans and widows and

00:47:50.600 those who through sickness or other cause are in want and those who are in bonds and the strangers

00:47:56.600 sojourning among among us and in a word takes care of all who are in need in the local community

00:48:04.360 though like when saint john chrysostom wrote these words uh when uh sorry justin martyr rose

00:48:11.400 wrote these words he wasn't thinking of the entirety of the planet he was thinking of

00:48:18.120 sojourners who are by definition leaving at some point who are in temporary need not individuals

00:48:25.080 who are going to be on welfare for three or four generations this is a different story entirely

00:48:30.360 and trying to apply that christian teaching here like it isn't it just doesn't apply

00:48:37.640 so the pope is operating i'm afraid to say here on on sentiment uh not so much on christian history

00:48:46.440 uh the emperor julian the apostate he recognizes the propensity of christians for charity and he

00:48:55.100 points out that you know he's speaking to to the high priest of the new hell of the old hellenic

00:49:00.420 religion that he's trying to establish and he mentions that it is disgraceful that when no jew 0.57

00:49:05.960 ever has to beg and the impious galileans by which he means the christians support not only their

00:49:12.080 own poor but ours as well all men see that our people lack aid from us teach those of the hellenic 0.84

00:49:18.260 faith to contribute to public service of this sort and the hellenic villages to offer their

00:49:22.720 first fruits to the gods and accustom those who love the hellenic religion to these good works

00:49:27.140 by teaching them and he he speaks you know with the authority of zeus and what was said in homer

00:49:32.640 and so on so on and so forth trying to promote that idea and so yes you have this very long

00:49:37.600 christian tradition of charity but it also comes with a christian tradition of responsibility and

00:49:43.920 of expectations from the guest and not just of expectation from the guest but of distinction

00:49:51.280 between different types of guests and so when you think it doesn't suggest that the

00:49:56.560 guest might one day become the homeowner and kick that this is so unprecedented

00:50:05.120 that nobody has ever thought about it and so you you know uh you see the first distinction here in

00:50:12.800 the in the apostolic constitutions uh where it is said in the the chapter titled the constitution

00:50:20.720 of james the brother of john son of zebedee none of the catechumens those who are learning the faith

00:50:27.120 none of the hearers those who are merely listening none of the unbelievers none of the heterodox

00:50:32.960 stay here when you're about to offer holy communion what is the distinction that's being

00:50:37.520 made here just to apply a bit of reasoning and to say how i'm applying it is that you make a

00:50:42.160 distinction between different types of people for the holy things and your home is something holy

00:50:50.240 like you don't have a civilization without it maybe obviously not as holy as the eucharist

00:50:55.920 that's the holiest thing obviously but it's still something that you want to make distinctions about

00:51:02.240 and just as the first christians made distinctions between different groups of people based on their

00:51:08.640 faith among other things you want to make some distinctions here uh and it says as well in the

00:51:16.160 i think rule number 34 do not receive any stranger bishop or presbyter or deacon without

00:51:22.160 commendatory letters like don't receive random people and give them charity uh if they are going

00:51:28.480 to claim a role in your community a leading role in your community essentially because all of these

00:51:33.920 bishops deacons etc they they are coming in and they have some authority over you if you're going

00:51:39.440 to receive people who have some authority over you you have to have commandatory letters you must

00:51:43.680 know who they are essentially let them be examined and if they be preachers of piety let them be

00:51:49.920 received but if not supply their wants but do not receive them to communion don't include them fully

00:51:54.960 in your family don't include them this should just be common sense prudence just be like exercise

00:52:00.720 good judgment i thought instead of saying this is my common sense against the popes i'd refer to the

00:52:06.420 church fathers no that no that's that's perfectly because my own judgment like it's not worth it

00:52:11.020 so this is why i submit to the righteous authority of the church no it's good but there is an issue

00:52:15.980 here with what the pope is saying and i just wanted to expand on it and the view of the church

00:52:22.420 after Vatican II has been to show some respect, more respect and consideration towards Muslim,

00:52:29.820 Jews, and people of other religions, but they are still held to be in error. They are still held to

00:52:35.600 be schismatics. They are still held to be heretics, in the Hindu's case, polytheists, etc.

00:52:41.880 And so, yes, you want to try to find a path through dialogue, but dialogue requires two

00:52:47.620 sides and they don't want to have dialogue with you they're not interested especially when you

00:52:52.520 have people like animists in africa who are just frankly insane uh they believe in like the various

00:53:02.640 spirits that they're constantly trying to appease including by human sacrifice and these aren't

00:53:07.180 people that you want to include in your community or if you are going to feed them to stop them from

00:53:11.500 being hungry you're not under the obligation of feeding them to stop them from being hungry in

00:53:17.120 your own house there are degrees here and these degrees are sort of laid out by uh various christian

00:53:25.060 teachings uh so tertullian says that yes we pray for the emperor and and we uh we are not guilty

00:53:32.620 of any betrayal to the emperor even though the emperor uh is persecuting the church but he also

00:53:38.360 says that um basically the reason we pray for the emperor is to prevent an even greater evil 0.89

00:53:45.140 which is the total chaos that would engulf the world if the roman empire didn't exist 0.97

00:53:50.340 and the same logic applies today if european states if the united states if if the west as

00:53:57.640 we know it does not exist we end up with basically a hybrid islamic african indian rule

00:54:05.420 that is just going to be a global disaster and you can say that without saying i'm prejudiced 1.00

00:54:12.560 against every single individual african or indian or muslim but you can say it through prejudice 0.88

00:54:18.420 because that is what their countries are like like look at egypt look at india look at nigeria

00:54:24.480 look at rhodesia look at south africa well i i looked um oh yeah i actually looked at some

00:54:29.820 government documents from south africa recently and found a very very troubling document detailing

00:54:36.620 the minutes of a meeting from last year talking about the explosion in rapes committed by

00:54:44.060 committed by 12 year olds in senegal i looked at some information that was coming out of senegal

00:54:51.660 they only classified rape as more than a misdemeanor crime in 2020 but still haven't

00:54:58.640 actually really done anything to try and enforce it as being anything other than a misdemeanor 1.00

00:55:03.880 these are the sorts of cultures and peoples that we're expected to take people in from 0.98

00:55:09.080 well and this is yeah go on just say as well the problem is uh so much of this and what the way

00:55:17.060 that you just described it harry the fact that we just expected to do this is so much of the reason

00:55:22.060 why we're fatigued from the united kingdom to france to germany to all of these nations across

00:55:28.240 europe well here's something else fun about the south african government document i was looking

00:55:32.820 through according to their 2007 law they only just began the process of amending either last

00:55:40.080 year or the year before the language wasn't explicit in the document um you could get away

00:55:47.460 with rape if you pled in trial that you thought that she was after it yeah if like as long as

00:55:54.940 what they think about anyone with a short dress yeah as long as you think that she was consenting

00:56:00.080 and she didn't explicitly said no but even then you could get away with it and they only just

00:56:04.900 realized hold up this is a major loophole two years ago um but if if i may just conclude the

00:56:10.820 point as well the fact that this is happening in all of these european countries means that when

00:56:15.780 the pope comes out and gives statements like this it basically puts in people's mind oh he's just

00:56:21.300 part of the same club it's the exact same thing there's no delineation there's no theological

00:56:25.420 supremacy above them he's just another open borders guy right he does say that states have

00:56:32.600 the right to restrict their borders and all of that stuff and he has said it in the past and he

00:56:36.280 has said that this is a global problem that needs to be addressed at the root causes but then these

00:56:40.560 kinds of uh press shoots yeah incidents are a problem and i thought i'd look at the dida here

00:56:50.200 and it explains what is the way of death.

00:56:52.940 It is evil and full of curse. 1.00

00:56:54.980 Murders, which we're seeing regularly at the hands of migrants, 1.00

00:56:58.020 including gang murders and group murders. 1.00

00:57:01.100 Adulteries, lusts, fornications.

00:57:03.140 Well, obviously that applies to rape.

00:57:05.280 Thefts, we can all look at crime data. 1.00

00:57:08.180 Idolatries, we know about the animists

00:57:10.120 and we know about the Indian idolaters and so on. 0.59

00:57:13.480 Magic arts, witchcrafts, same. 0.74

00:57:16.340 False witnessings, we see that all the time.

00:57:18.680 We see that with the sort of the families of the grooming gang saying they were actually really, really good people.

00:57:24.740 Hypocrisies, another example, double heartedness, deceit, haughtiness, depravity.

00:57:29.920 I mean, just think of the prime levels of that depravity. 0.97

00:57:34.100 Self-will, greediness, filthy talking, jealousy, overconfidence, loftiness, boastfulness.

00:57:41.120 I'm thinking about a bunch of people here,

00:57:43.940 including a lot of people of different faiths

00:57:48.340 who do tend towards these vices,

00:57:52.580 persecutors of the good, hating truth. 1.00

00:57:55.100 I mean, from our perspective, Muslims do hate the truth 1.00

00:57:57.940 because they reject Jesus. 1.00

00:58:00.140 Loving a lie, not knowing a reward for righteousness,

00:58:03.740 not cleaving to good a righteous judgment.

00:58:06.260 It continues on and on, 1.00

00:58:07.720 But this seems like a perfect description of huge numbers of the migrants that are coming to the West. 0.99

00:58:14.560 And the command given to Christians is be delivered children from all of these. 1.00

00:58:19.660 The command isn't welcome them into your home. 1.00

00:58:22.920 This seems like an absurdity.

00:58:25.440 This seems like an absurdity.

00:58:27.340 We know this from Catholic teaching, from what church fathers have said.

00:58:31.680 And then, you know, in the didact as well,

00:58:35.280 let every apostle that comes to you be received as the lord this is for an apostle for somebody

00:58:41.220 who's a who's a missionary for you but you shall not remain except one day but if there be need

00:58:45.900 also the next but if you remain three days he is a false prophet so the rules are that even for

00:58:52.120 somebody who's claiming to be an apostle working in the service of the church you give them three

00:58:55.880 days but if they're sitting there at your expense forever for more than three days they are false 0.98

00:59:02.560 apostles you don't owe them very much so how does that reconcile with welcoming infinity migrants 0.89

00:59:08.880 and putting them on welfare like these two things don't actually reconcile with each other 0.98

00:59:14.820 um and and and how does any of that ameliorate the economic problems of europe well exactly

00:59:23.140 how's the countries they're coming from yeah exactly and then tertullian again makes the

00:59:28.340 point a little bit later i'm skipping through a little bit here uh is skipping through to

00:59:36.540 tertullian's apology in chapter 39 which i won't scroll down to uh we have our treasure chest it

00:59:42.340 is not made up of purchase money as as if a religion has its price on the monthly day if

00:59:48.700 he likes each puts in a small donation but only if it be his pleasure and only if he is able for

00:59:55.340 there is no compulsion all is voluntary this is talking about the church's charity box essentially

01:00:00.480 which you know goes to show you how old this idea is these gifts are our piety's deposit fund

01:00:07.200 they are not taken and spent on feasts and drinking bouts and eating houses but to support

01:00:12.520 and bury poor people to supply the ones of boys and girls destitute of means and parents

01:00:17.060 and of old persons confined now to the house such to those who have suffered shipwreck or if there

01:00:24.340 happen to be any of them in the mines or banished to the islands or shut up in the prisons for

01:00:28.920 nothing but their fidelity to the cause of God's church. Just applying this logic and thinking

01:00:34.600 about the amount of persecution of Christians in a place like Nigeria or the Central African

01:00:43.780 Republic or what have you, the first priority of Christian charity should be to helping these 1.00

01:00:49.380 Christians defend themselves not giving welfare to chancers who are getting on boats making it 1.00

01:00:55.980 into Europe and trying to live on other people's welfare while also committing insane levels of 0.99

01:01:01.180 crime and then I had another quote here about what is to be done about a bishop who fails in

01:01:07.140 his judgment and fails to deliver justice and basically it's a sort of you know bunch of

01:01:12.000 attacks on any bishop who does that because the church is called on to deliver justice

01:01:16.240 so when you're thinking about social justice where is the justice to the europeans in all of this

01:01:21.120 firstly where is the prudence in this kind of we can assimilate infinity people so long as they

01:01:28.460 come from africa or india or wherever why why would that be and how does that serve christianity

01:01:33.560 and how does that serve christianity and if they're strangers like one of the objects of

01:01:38.060 christian charity was to turn more people to christianity but when you get animists and and

01:01:43.020 muslims and hindus who absolutely hate christianity and make them the target of your charity that's a 0.88

01:01:49.080 bit absurd i mean at the very least if you're going to say that there should be absorption of 1.00

01:01:53.600 these individuals there should be a project to uh teach them christianity and to make them into

01:01:59.820 christians at the very least right if you're going but we live in a society where it's controversial

01:02:04.800 to just be a christian mp so how on earth do we expect them listen to us best we can do is hand

01:02:11.560 out wristbands to women that say please don't rape me i mean seriously and at the end of the day

01:02:18.840 no deal no deal at all absolutely not and at the end of the day christianity always recognizes that

01:02:25.100 there is going to be inequality and it's explained in the parable of the talents where the master

01:02:31.820 gives five talents to one of his uh servants two to the other and one to one and the one with five

01:02:40.520 he trades and makes another five, and he's rewarded. The one with two, he trades and he

01:02:45.120 makes another two, and he's rewarded. The one who gets one talent, he buries it, doesn't do anything

01:02:49.860 with it. And so the master takes that one talent from him and gives it to the one with 10, which

01:02:56.700 is, when you think about it, is kind of a confirmation of the level of inequality that

01:03:01.600 is natural in society. And the idea that the Pope is going to intervene and say there should be an

01:03:08.920 economic system that taxes everybody in the countries that govern themselves well, so that

01:03:14.720 the countries that don't govern themselves well should receive more money that goes to their

01:03:18.960 corrupt politicians. I'm sorry, but that's absurd, and that isn't Christian in any way. 0.98

01:03:25.380 This is sentimentalism, and as an Augustinian, Pope Leo knows better than this, or should know

01:03:32.900 better than this and so what we want is hard-nosed theology and no sentimentalism

01:03:38.640 all right got quite a few rumble rents for that one and you are obviously the best to respond to

01:03:46.260 these maybe maybe just go with the ten dollars one because we're running up yeah fair enough

01:03:50.780 sorry that was a bit of a long segment that's all right that's sir uh the pope should be a shepherd

01:03:55.660 first a shepherd who castigates sheep for not wanting wolves among the lambs i wouldn't call

01:04:02.520 the pope a bad shepherd ever and no i'm not going to read that i'm not going to read anything

01:04:06.980 heretical or schismatic sorry that's right well uh move on i'm still very faithful to the pope

01:04:13.520 and always will be but i have the right to disagree intellectually about some things

01:04:19.360 i don't disagree with his religious authority well ladies and gentlemen this past saturday

01:04:25.380 was the 4th of July, 2026,

01:04:28.040 which marked the 250th anniversary

01:04:30.820 of the signing of the Declaration of Independence

01:04:33.620 and seemed to have been a really good weekend for you all,

01:04:37.480 judging from some of the things that we're going to go through.

01:04:40.240 We had a stab at it ourselves here on this side of the channel

01:04:43.480 in honouring you with a lads' hour.

01:04:46.120 Obviously, you know, some people in our panel

01:04:48.440 are more well-travelled of America than others,

01:04:50.820 but, you know, it was great.

01:04:51.760 It was just Carl's travel, though.

01:04:53.680 well let's let's be honest chaps it was carl's travel if you're interested in where carl's

01:05:00.800 been in america and how he thought of it check this out then you can get it all here but i

01:05:05.180 there is more that i wanted to say about all of this and i just wanted to begin by talking about

01:05:10.600 the awesome stuff that i saw from over the weekend so obviously you've got absolutely

01:05:15.900 magnificent displays of fireworks over washington dc uh absolutely glorious and really incredible

01:05:22.720 site uh something that caught my eye in particular though was this large fleet of actual sailing

01:05:29.360 ships crossing the hudson i'll just turn that off but um coming from 20 different countries you see

01:05:36.620 there obviously the uh spanish flags just like the uh american spanish war at the beginning of

01:05:42.460 the 20th century all over again there's something very magical about sailboats well this is it i

01:05:48.200 I mean, this is lagging a bit, but honestly, just get a look at this of them all on the water.

01:05:56.040 Get rid of the music.

01:05:56.840 But as people are saying there, it genuinely looks like you could imagine someone making an oil painting of that

01:06:03.640 with like the slight red at the back of the sky, the clouds overhead.

01:06:07.480 It's really something to see.

01:06:09.720 And so it's been an absolute visual delight this past weekend,

01:06:13.300 just seeing many things that we're so unused to seeing in this modern age.

01:06:19.360 Another example here, we have this parade from Boston.

01:06:31.440 It's good to see them recognising that they're at heart British. 1.00

01:06:36.640 In denial. 1.00

01:06:37.580 but it's never too late to acknowledge that denial and come back to the fold my friends

01:06:44.380 uh this one as well was uh particularly wonderful so they were performing at uh the boston pops

01:06:49.780 orchestra performed uh tchaikovsky no sorry tchaikovsky's um 1812 overture with real cannons

01:06:57.080 that is beautiful as the composer did in 1882 and given that this was did they blow the audience

01:07:02.400 I don't think I'll get copyright struck for playing something about 150 years old so

01:07:32.400 i see the royal albert hall is going to have to up its game for the proms this year

01:07:49.160 but that's just awesome absolutely awesome and you see all these ways that people you know

01:07:54.420 imagine i imagine in basically every town and city of america maybe over in portland

01:07:59.260 has been celebrating this past weekend and it's just really wonderful to see that patriotic spirit

01:08:05.240 at heart as friends i'm sure plenty of california was celebrating cinco de mayo

01:08:09.880 well i dare say that they were uh but this one as well i found this particularly touching so

01:08:16.240 america is burying a nearly one ton time capsule beneath uh beneath uh philadelphia's independence

01:08:22.600 national historical park as part of the nation's 250th birthday celebration inside a nearly 200

01:08:29.240 artifacts from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., the U.S. territories, all three branches of

01:08:34.800 government, and everyday Americans, including a signed pocket constitution, a crystal from the

01:08:40.340 2012, sorry, 2026 Times Square New Year's Eve ball, a Coca-Cola message in a bottle,

01:08:47.780 a rose parade flag, and more capturing life in America today. The waterproof capsule has been

01:08:53.580 sealed underground for the next 250 years and isn't expected sorry isn't expected to be opened

01:09:00.340 until um 2276 for the 500th anniversary coca-cola in there you've got to like freeze a big mac

01:09:08.620 well i was gonna say put that in there as well come on stick a coca-cola in there just make

01:09:13.000 sure you give it a good shake before you put it in so when they open it in 250 years like son of a

01:09:18.600 you know just go um and also as well there's been you know i i can't speak to the historical

01:09:25.260 veracity of this film i've seen some people saying it was very good i've heard others quibbling with

01:09:31.260 um you know a lot of the historical detail as we do with these sorts of things but the fact that

01:09:36.620 american with uh angel are putting out a young washington film as well and this seems to have

01:09:42.440 I've also seen it having over 20 million at the box office

01:09:47.680 and the fact that a sequel has already been greenlit.

01:09:50.540 This is all very encouraging for people who just four years ago

01:09:54.000 were going through a cultural revolution

01:09:56.080 with statues of Washington, statues of Jefferson being torn down.

01:10:02.040 And, you know, getting now the fact that,

01:10:03.740 no, you are actually allowed films about your founding legends.

01:10:07.020 You are allowed films about the story of your country

01:10:11.560 and why it's a good thing i mean baby steps right you know what is young washington i only just

01:10:17.680 started hearing about it today from what i understand and like i say i've not seen it but

01:10:22.360 it's to do with his early career in the when he was um a young soldier in the seven years war

01:10:28.840 uh back obviously when he was fighting for the british when he was still when he was on the

01:10:32.600 right side yeah um and i imagine you know about his slow evolution through it because one of the

01:10:38.580 things that from my rudimentary understanding of american history um at the time was the fact that

01:10:44.120 washington as someone who served there but was born native uh to america um received less

01:10:51.840 possibility for promotion in the british army than those who were of course from britain originally

01:10:58.280 uh and so basically he felt like his career was constantly being shafted and underappreciated by

01:11:04.200 the brits and you know everyone in there had their own rebellion and i'm not suggesting that

01:11:09.800 it was entirely resentment over his career in fact one of the things i was going to talk about was

01:11:14.460 the fact that washington was seems to have been a very very honorable man um for the age uh trump

01:11:20.820 of course gave a very very extensive speech which there's simply no point in me quoting you can

01:11:26.060 read through it in your own time or watch him actually give it himself but a speech that i

01:11:31.480 did want to just focus in on as well was the newberg address from washington this is back

01:11:39.000 from 1783 which is of course at the time when um uh britain and france and america the new

01:11:46.020 united states of america were getting around the table for the treaty of paris and the peace was

01:11:51.820 actually being had uh but throughout all of this as well and the genuine ebbs and flows of the

01:11:58.740 story of independence and the war of independence are genuinely remarkable when you think about

01:12:04.560 those early engagements like lexington and concord and the battle of bunker hill and the seeming

01:12:11.280 stalemate and then washington and the men's route from manhattan and the very famous quote about the

01:12:17.420 fact you know are these the men with which i am to defend america because all washington really

01:12:22.420 had was a militia fighting down one of it's not quite hegemonic at that point that really came

01:12:27.960 after the Battle of Waterloo many decades later.

01:12:31.300 But one of the great superpowers of the world

01:12:34.260 as the British Empire was at the time.

01:12:36.580 And the fact that eventually, you know,

01:12:38.860 those men who had been a bit of a disappointment

01:12:41.740 there at Manhattan

01:12:43.200 and just didn't have the professional training required

01:12:45.860 to face down the British Army.

01:12:48.200 And the fact that all of that training at Valley Forge,

01:12:51.080 the coordination with the French allies,

01:12:53.040 you know, which helped to tip it in your favor, I will say.

01:12:57.960 having an extra man on the field uh but all of this you know resulted in a genuinely

01:13:04.840 uncertain confrontation and i feel like you know the most those nights where it all seemed like

01:13:11.400 it was lost and you know all the traitors would hang together uh would have been very very tepid

01:13:17.320 but then of course you get to the fact that as well the army under here have you know the american

01:13:23.560 militia, you know, brought into the fold as a professional army. Washington, they're on the

01:13:29.640 verge of mutiny because they've not been paid. In fact, if I just go up, I'm cautious of time. But

01:13:36.340 George Washington's Newburgh Address was one of the most important speeches in his military career.

01:13:42.540 The soldiers who gathered in Newburgh, New York, were tired, bloody, homesick, and unpaid. They

01:13:48.120 were also on the brink of mutiny. Prior to Washington's speech, the soldiers had

01:13:52.480 circulated petitions criticising the Continental Congress and contemplating widespread insubordination.

01:14:00.720 When Washington heard of these mutinous rumblings, he was horrified. A large-scale mutiny by American

01:14:06.220 soldiers would shatter the public's confidence in the military, vindicate Great Britain's

01:14:11.840 scepticism about the American experiment, and tarnish the young nation in the eyes of the world.

01:14:18.120 and there is just one paragraph that I wanted to read from it towards the end here which is where

01:14:25.500 he says while I give you these assurances and pledge myself in the most unequivocal manner to

01:14:31.940 exert whatever ability I am possessed of in your favor let me entreat you gentlemen on your part

01:14:38.000 not to take any measures which viewed in the calm light of reason will lessen the dignity

01:14:43.720 and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained.

01:14:47.300 Let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country

01:14:51.140 and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress,

01:14:55.780 that previous to your dissolution as an army,

01:14:58.380 they will cause all your acts to be fairly liquidated,

01:15:02.860 as directed in their resolutions, which were published to you two days ago.

01:15:08.060 And he goes on to basically say, sorry, losing my track,

01:15:13.720 as you value your own sacred honor as you respect the rights of humanity as you regard the military

01:15:20.200 and national character of america to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who

01:15:27.000 wished under any suspicious pretenses to overturn the liberties of our country and who wickedly

01:15:33.560 attempted to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood not only was

01:15:41.480 the language used 200 years ago just far superior to our own and just truly beautiful but also heavy

01:15:48.040 metal oh yeah but also you see in there that just someone constantly uh that defines someone like

01:15:54.200 washington and who is genuinely a man worthy historically speaking to have been the fat for

01:16:01.880 the father of a nation is that you see constantly again this this eye to duty this eye for character

01:16:08.600 This 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.

01:16:21.540 And he was a great man, and so I wanted to just say a little about Washington.

01:16:26.660 And 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.

01:16:42.720 And 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.

01:17:09.000 They both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence within a few hours of one another.

01:17:16.460 Jefferson died in the morning and Adams, I believe, died in the late afternoon or evening.

01:17:21.440 In fact, Jefferson was so determined, sick as he was, he was dealing with, well, his body was breaking down and dying.

01:17:30.000 He was in tremendous pain in his final few days.

01:17:33.460 and he just kept turning over to his servants and saying is it the fourth is it the fourth he was

01:17:39.640 willing himself to live to see the fourth and eventually the pain became so much for him

01:17:44.980 that one of them said to him yes mr jefferson it is the fourth when it was in fact the third

01:17:50.580 just to let him go and fortunately jefferson managed to persevere to die on the fourth

01:17:58.040 i don't believe you stubborn man what he was that he was and so both of these men in their own way

01:18:05.680 were instrumental in steadying the ship of state after washington of course left after his second

01:18:13.060 term the peaceful transfer of power over and also as well adams is not uh respected enough i mean

01:18:20.720 the the hbo john adams series is truly magnificent uh and was one of the things that gave me an early

01:18:27.140 fascination for all of this when i saw it but the other thing as well is just that how these two men

01:18:33.440 with very different visions of what america was supposed to mean and what the revolution was

01:18:38.480 truly fought for adams was in favor of a strong central government jefferson wanted states rights

01:18:44.940 he wanted agrarianism he didn't want he didn't see the point in a revolution fighting for american

01:18:50.340 independence if in this if all you are going to end up being hocked to was you know the one the

01:18:57.420 banks of london and paris and you know the debt credits um hamilton won in the end hamilton did

01:19:04.460 win in the end but that's why you know i think it's something worth just saying about jefferson

01:19:09.700 because when you just take jefferson as one example for how accomplished these men were

01:19:15.900 Thomas Jefferson was a man who spoke five languages he spoke Latin Greek French English

01:19:22.400 obviously Spanish which he apparently learned in about 19 days from a Spanish book of Don Quixote

01:19:29.280 on his way over to um to um uh France uh according to the legend I these things get embellished of

01:19:37.300 course but some legends have it the moment he met a Spanish waitress his first words to her were

01:19:42.660 Uno birro, por favor, lass.

01:19:45.400 In classic English tradition.

01:19:47.560 Patriot.

01:19:48.280 In fact, as well, whilst he was having a small tour of northern Italy,

01:19:51.860 he brought back to America the recipe for macaroni cheese,

01:19:56.080 which sounds like such a trite thing today,

01:19:59.320 but, you know, at the time was something quite exotic.

01:20:02.800 Also, to just speak about the fact that it was Jefferson who, you know,

01:20:07.420 for the most part drafted the Declaration of Independence,

01:20:11.060 those iconic words that you imagine you know we hold these truths to be self-evident and you know

01:20:16.580 the the thing as biden put it you know they were you know they've now there's a statesman i've not

01:20:22.920 heard from in a while yeah where's old sleepy joe they've really stood the test of time he

01:20:28.780 popularized early on the neoclassical style of architecture in america he was a self-taught

01:20:34.820 architect and basically designed his um plantation of monticello which is absolutely quaint and

01:20:42.380 beautiful in every way um he was also as well the the man who means that i get to do this

01:20:48.740 well not that but this i get to spin the chair the one time i put the cable behind my legs

01:20:55.220 luca jefferson is the reason that you get to destroy this office right now jefferson

01:21:01.980 fought for my right to be a prat

01:21:03.960 he means that I get

01:21:06.340 to do this ladies and gentlemen

01:21:07.760 he invented the swivel chair

01:21:09.720 I did not know that he invented

01:21:12.200 the swivel chair

01:21:13.140 fortunately he didn't create these

01:21:16.260 I mean to be fair you never know what he got to

01:21:18.340 up in private he might have smashed

01:21:20.140 plenty of stuff swiveling around on that 0.55

01:21:22.060 around my legs

01:21:23.260 it's hooked on your

01:21:26.300 button just to be aware

01:21:28.340 I don't want any more accidents

01:21:30.200 in this

01:21:30.880 Neither 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.

01:22:00.880 alive today um you know even though they suffered and lost much more well you know and the fact as

01:22:07.620 well that there is just such tremendous literature and you know this is one of the things that we

01:22:11.380 said on the lads hour as well the genuine cultural power excuse me of america cannot be understated

01:22:19.440 and when i think about my own childhood even as a as a man of britain you know in those early early

01:22:25.880 films, I'm thinking of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, for example, you know, a lot of these and sort

01:22:31.460 of the romanticism of New York, this is as a result of the PR of Hollywood. And, you know,

01:22:37.080 that goes all the way through from those poignant, you know, Christian films that Hollywood made in

01:22:42.220 the 50s and 40s and 50s, like It's a Wonderful Life, right up to, you know, action blockbusters

01:22:48.760 from the 80s like you know the stallone stuff and you know uh beau and i did a um a chronicles um

01:22:55.680 sometime last year talking about ernest hemingway's the old man in the sea which is uh one of my

01:23:01.100 favorite not it's a very very short story and i recommend you uh certainly read the novel and get

01:23:06.180 our thoughts on it because um again just hemingway was one of the great american writers and the last

01:23:14.000 thing i'll just say as well is that um you know the american spirit is really something that's

01:23:20.520 admirable and for as much as you know we talk on this podcast about all of the problems that

01:23:27.020 plague america america uh we realize that you're sensible to them that you understand the problems

01:23:32.780 that face your own country as well and that this isn't the day for them the day that what this day

01:23:38.760 calls for is to celebrate your own strength celebrate your own capability your own ability

01:23:46.060 for compassion and kingship with one another and to look back at the grand tapestry of story that

01:23:52.360 you've created in already what is by all accounts a very very short space of time in 250 years and

01:23:59.820 hopefully all the good things that you're yet to do and I think that it's a day that well I hope

01:24:06.200 you've enjoyed it very nice all right got a couple of uh rumble rants there uh random name i'm gonna

01:24:15.500 tap uh add this onto the tally of we're not reading that because that's a massive fed post

01:24:20.100 so uh the ratio of those comments to the rest yeah but it is seen i swear he only pays so that

01:24:29.060 we see what he's writing in the first place that's to make sure yes but you have to love the game

01:24:34.500 oh i do i respect i respect the hustle in men's i respect it uh gimme o'gloin if you like a white

01:24:41.180 pill check out how antifa and co utterly failed to block the federal convent of the afd over the

01:24:46.200 weekend i'd not heard about this yes if you was holding their uh conference basically and

01:24:50.800 antifa sent thousands of people to try to stop them from doing it right they utterly and completely

01:24:56.640 failed oh good oh and the afd seems to have a bit of an inevitability about it which is good

01:25:03.720 I just hope so.

01:25:04.720 Random name, here's one we can read.

01:25:06.720 One dollar.

01:25:07.720 Witness me.

01:25:10.720 Alright, I like that one.

01:25:12.720 Okay, video comments, Samson.

01:25:14.720 Thank you.

01:25:23.720 When did this go?

01:25:25.720 Return to the weekend, I missed that.

01:25:27.720 I just left this clip out.

01:25:28.720 I don't think it was relevant. 0.54

01:25:30.720 I didn't think it would be too much of a white bill.

01:25:33.720 a hearts of iron 4 isn't going to play itself that photo on the wall is cursed that is pretty

01:25:49.160 horrifying hello lotus eaters um back from the last gold stream um carl informs me to basically

01:25:59.480 send an email about my entire case to be then hopefully been written into a journalistic

01:26:05.920 article. This is regarding to me being potentially facing prison time for tweets. Unfortunately,

01:26:12.860 I have an update and today I have been charged with this crime. So I just want to send that

01:26:19.560 update and I've also emailed to the Lotus Eaters for this.

01:26:25.160 I'm very sorry. Thank you for emailing. We'll pursue it.

01:26:29.480 so here we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the united states of america and i'm looking

01:26:37.600 at fort tyke ronda roga from up here on mount defiance and right down here you see the champlain

01:26:44.420 valley so now originally this weekend we were actually all supposed to switch over to do

01:26:50.020 happy birthday usa happy birthday usa michael yeah seeing as i went to america recently the

01:27:00.800 thing that really struck me about the place was just the uh like the sheer scale yes of how huge

01:27:08.040 it is and uh i don't know if i got to mention this on the live stream on friday but it really

01:27:13.140 did make it like i i in england i hate cars i hate driving around england i totally get why you guys

01:27:21.340 have such a car culture and need them so much in america now that i've been there i already knew it

01:27:25.720 was huge but like when you're driving through a place where it's like petrol station a couple of

01:27:31.720 houses and maybe a mcdonald's or something it's like oh this is a town this is this is a town in

01:27:39.100 rural tennessee and those houses are like a half hour walk from one another as well yeah

01:27:44.180 i get it um do you want to go through comments from your segment yeah sure binary server gaydar

01:27:51.160 pinging hard no pun intended on faraj's mate will it really be much of a surprise that someone who's

01:27:57.140 an extory basically moves like a saloon door and i'm going to leave that one up in the air for

01:28:02.260 everybody georgie sauzman i don't think this will actually do anything to reforms numbers the people

01:28:07.040 who are ill disposed will go we were right all along and those who are well disposed will go

01:28:11.800 establishment managers to take out one-man establishment we're out to get i'm going to

01:28:15.720 continue going against the establishment that's fair that the average reform voter aren't going

01:28:20.900 to be affected they're not going to care that oh nigel farage is friends with rich people who are

01:28:26.380 successful and who help help him out with stuff every so often they're not going to be upset about

01:28:30.820 that because they're not the sort of people who get upset about people being successful in the

01:28:34.220 first place is whether it turns out to be a problem internally within parliamentary standards

01:28:39.580 that's where it could affect him because if it ends up him getting booted out of clacton

01:28:43.560 um then that could affect reform's image uh do you want to go through the other segments

01:28:51.240 yeah sure uh david ward uh more than a little south american liberation theology and the holy

01:28:58.540 father's thinking uh good segment thank you uh how many souls has this sloppy thinking led astray

01:29:07.180 that that's that's the fundamental problem um you have to stick to the actual catholic theology not

01:29:15.000 your uh modernist kumbaya thinking about it uh baron val on war hawk loving and helping your

01:29:23.760 neighbors does not mean nor will ever mean rolling over and allowing your throat to be slit by

01:29:29.080 heathens who hate you and all of christianity well yes correct like that that you have a right to

01:29:36.040 self-defense if you choose to die a martyr's death this is your choice but you don't have to

01:29:40.720 you're allowed to fight back so yeah um all right just a few from mine then which is um

01:29:47.820 fioris dan says to answer harry's question i was in los angeles for the weekend and despite

01:29:53.380 there being a ban on fireworks americans aren't particularly fond of their freedoms being

01:29:58.020 questioned and let loose a barrage of fireworks anyway well i'm glad you guys got to have some

01:30:02.840 good celebrations yeah um az desert route says those servicemen were having way too much fun

01:30:09.140 on the cannons yeah they really were weren't you could see it on the face i thought they looked

01:30:12.400 like they were in a like a little bit of a panic rush like get it get it done get it done like that

01:30:17.720 looked like a stressful job to be in well you know normally when you're preparing cannons you're

01:30:23.300 not doing it to try and sync it with orchestral music are you did you see their faces that should

01:30:28.460 be a mandatory part of their training exercise i mean did you see their faces after it was done

01:30:33.100 that that wasn't that that was awesome that was a oh i think we just about got through that lads

01:30:38.260 that was that face going on uh and he also just says uh thomas jefferson is one of the historical

01:30:43.580 figures i'm pretty darn sure was a high functioning artist uh his servants weren't allowed to clean

01:30:49.020 his library because they would move books in the process of cleaning driving him crazy you know

01:30:55.020 what i don't like people touching my books either this isn't autism this isn't high functioning

01:30:59.340 autism my missus is not allowed into my office because she will move things about in ways that

01:31:03.840 i do not like that's perfectly normal and reasonable behavior yeah it's the autist

01:31:07.880 anyway we're gonna wrap off there ladies and gentlemen do come back in half now to join

01:31:15.940 Firaz for Real

01:31:16.900 Poggi

01:31:17.360 happy anniversary

01:31:19.780 once again

01:31:20.540 and see you

01:31:21.340 tomorrow for the

01:31:21.860 podcast

01:31:22.280 take care

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - July 06, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1455

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