The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1491

00:00:00.480 Hello, and welcome to the podcast of The Lotus Eaters, episode 1491 for Tuesday, the 25th of August, 2026.

00:00:09.000 I'm your host, Luca, joined today by Carl and special guest Peter Barnes, who's come in to join us.

00:00:14.240 Hi guys, thanks very much for having me.

00:00:16.460 No, it's an absolute pleasure.

00:00:17.800 And today we're going to be talking all about, well, the fact that Reform UK seem to have done something accidentally right-wing.

00:00:24.580 Well, Richard Tice said something accidentally right-wing, and everyone's dragging him over the coals.

00:00:28.220 Quite out of character for Mr. Tice.

00:00:30.000 It genuinely was.

00:00:31.040 That's why it's newsworthy.

00:00:32.160 Yes.

00:00:33.760 Yeah, that's why he's made the news.

00:00:36.640 Then going on from...

00:00:37.920 It's really true as you think about it.

00:00:39.500 That's genuinely what's newsworthy.

00:00:41.360 The whole country just went...

00:00:43.120 What?

00:00:43.320 Hang on.

00:00:43.880 It just won't turn that way.

00:00:46.420 Anyway, we're then going to go on from talking about Richard Tice

00:00:49.580 to talking about literally the coolest thing ever.

00:00:52.340 And then we're going to be talking about why Labour are seemingly

00:00:56.260 currently beating reform uh out there in the political landscape so a lot to discuss uh no

00:01:02.500 announcements today so i suppose we can go straight to it okay so richard tice accidentally

00:01:07.560 went and said something conservative and what's funny about this is you can tell he really hadn't

00:01:11.980 thought this through very much because this was obviously like received wisdom from previous eras

00:01:17.360 that he hasn't repackaged for the modern liberal sensibilities of 21st century britain and the

00:01:23.480 thing is about it as well he's completely right just to be clear but we'll listen to uh this a

00:01:28.680 bit of this extract from times radio because it's caused some serious shockwaves my lifetime has

00:01:33.240 been spelt spent uh building homes in property i've actually built more homes than the previous

00:01:40.180 24 housing ministers of this century combined so we're going to get stuff done we're going to build

00:01:45.560 homes we're and the simple fact is the housing system is broken yeah the affordable housing 0.98

00:01:50.200 system is broken and reform will fix it does a married british couple get priority over a single 0.97

00:01:55.140 british person uh yes that is the uh preference well because actually they're doing the right

00:02:02.180 families are a good thing uh having british children british born children is a good thing

00:02:07.680 we need to encourage that and it's a very natural normal thing has been over centuries for uh for

00:02:15.580 able to get together to get married have children and contribute to their communities and everything

00:02:20.860 that we're doing is focused solely on that a single person might have children they might but

00:02:27.640 in an ideal world it is well known that married couples children in married couples for example

00:02:34.020 will do really well at school and we want to encourage that of course you know sometimes

00:02:39.560 life doesn't work out we understand that but as a as an objective that is surely preferable where

00:02:46.300 would a married same-sex couple fit in your priority list well there'll be an allocation list

00:02:50.940 but at the end of the day at the end of the day calum what we're focused on is young british

00:02:59.360 workers first and same-sex couples british couples working you know they will have priority over

00:03:06.460 those coming from overseas okay we'll stop it there just say hey what are these questions

00:03:12.420 like obviously a government has to incentivize in the broadest terms what it wants to get the

00:03:17.540 results of and obviously yes i again richard thinking i want to come i mean shockingly coming

00:03:24.400 from richard tice who's i don't care what happens after i'm dead i'll be long gone actually we should

00:03:28.780 do something good for the future so actually you know encouraging people to get married have kids

00:03:33.340 and prioritizing them for social housing it's a no-brainer but the times radio host obviously 0.83

00:03:39.900 some sort of libtard just been like what what what about what about gays what about gays how 0.93

00:03:44.740 many kids are they going to have none oh what about the married single mother okay yeah not 0.97

00:03:48.300 not great but like you know we need to prioritize what we want to incentivize right yeah sorry go

00:03:55.120 on i was just gonna say what they do is they obsess over the fringe question right that's

00:03:58.920 what they do they find the niches thing and they make that the central argument they don't really

00:04:02.840 want to talk about what richard wants to talk about no that's that's what they're doing they're

00:04:06.040 shifting it on and this is what always annoys me about like reform and other political parties they

00:04:09.460 fall into this trap they don't prepare for that yes i mean everybody knew at all i mean everybody

00:04:14.760 knew that you start talking about british workers they're going to ask you about non-british workers

00:04:18.540 you start talking about something they will ask you about the other thing that's what annoys me

00:04:21.600 so much is the lack of preparation is astounding to me it's just you could predict everything in

00:04:27.620 that interview yeah weirdly tim montgomery has a great point on that you know i'm not a fan of

00:04:31.940 in montgomery but when he came out and said look you're not prepared to deal with hostile questions

00:04:35.260 about women or whatever it is you know and this is a great example of that it's like why wouldn't

00:04:39.860 well yeah obviously we're you know we're going to have a set of priorities and we're prioritizing

00:04:45.320 married british couples yeah and it's sorry it's remarkable as well when you see especially

00:04:50.680 an outfit like the times as well you know that has done reporting on the past on things like

00:04:54.900 birth rates and the problem of birth rates and you know that what we need immigrants because

00:04:59.820 of the birth rates okay do we want to put some incentives into society to actually you know so 0.73

00:05:05.080 people form fam british people form families have children's god no wouldn't that be prejudicial

00:05:10.200 it's like yeah it would it's kind of the point and you you can imagine the way that this was received

00:05:16.780 the independent you know every left-wing rag up until including the times and the telegraph at

00:05:22.980 this point uh were described it literally as highly controversial remarks from richard tice

00:05:28.280 that they would prioritize newly married couples under 35 with children for their social housing

00:05:34.700 plans like yeah yeah like what kind of country would you be if you didn't prioritize the people 0.56

00:05:40.280 who are producing the new generations and and also as you said no preparation right like so

00:05:46.820 richard tyson was like well it's just well known it's good no no no this is one of the most well

00:05:50.340 attested things in all of sociology right the best start you can give any child anywhere in the world

00:05:56.320 is father mother married living in the same household even if they're unmarried children

00:06:02.120 get a worse outcome even if they live in the same household there's something about the i don't know

00:06:06.260 the the term the act of getting married that just for some reason makes things more permanent makes

00:06:12.260 things more stable makes things better for the children so it's completely uncontroversial yeah

00:06:17.560 this is what richard should have done he should have been able to quote a study to quote a statistic

00:06:21.340 because that then makes any rebuttal impossible because you've got something to back it up

00:06:25.180 the problem he's got there in that interview is he's just talking in vague generalities which is

00:06:29.300 easy to shut down and they received wisdom as well yes yeah yeah clearly everybody believes it

00:06:33.560 you've got again they they keep forgetting that just because you're right doesn't mean you're

00:06:37.840 winning the argument yes they've got you've got to keep convincing people that you're right even

00:06:41.660 though you are it's ridiculous that reform have yet to learn this question but they're not the

00:06:45.880 only party that do it you know the tories were terrible at this stuff for a long time but part

00:06:51.460 the reason that the Tories were so terrible at it was because they actually agreed with the

00:06:58.080 progressive narrative on it. I mean I looked it up there are 86,000 gay marriages married gay

00:07:04.120 couples in Britain okay there are millions millions of young people who want to get married

00:07:09.920 and start a family so you know on any level you can be like well that's a very fringe number you

00:07:15.980 know that's 86,000 and of course gay couples are actually some of the highest earning in the 0.98

00:07:20.580 countries and they're not qualified on economic grounds for social housing any answer would have 1.00

00:07:25.200 been a good answer other than well let's just say everyone knows don't they yeah because they don't

00:07:29.460 have the credibility they lose credibility in the argument and once that's gone nobody's actually

00:07:33.820 listening to what you're saying because it's just been shot down repeatedly by very easy questions

00:07:38.360 that they just can't handle and then they just scream establishment to walk off that's usually

00:07:41.900 what they do yeah i mean they're not wrong but again it doesn't explain it you know it doesn't

00:07:46.760 actually disprove anything and this is all this is all really easy stuff to find i mean just google

00:07:52.280 how many gay marriages are there what's the best life circumstances for the the flourishing of

00:07:57.860 children all of these things are just so well attested and so it was it was as you say really

00:08:02.640 shocking that he's just not prepared well they're not prepared for hostile interviews which is weird

00:08:06.780 considering how hostile all of their interviews are every single interview they do is a hostile

00:08:12.280 interview and yet for some reason they're not on the ball here particularly recently as well

00:08:16.740 with everything swarming around Farage.

00:08:19.140 Yes.

00:08:19.760 It's the floundering.

00:08:21.080 So they're announcing

00:08:21.680 before they've actually finished the policy.

00:08:23.240 If you look at the benefits one,

00:08:24.740 it would be nice to finish the policy

00:08:26.060 before you announce it.

00:08:27.400 I mean, you know, you want to change pit policies.

00:08:30.740 You might want to tell people

00:08:31.640 what qualifies and what doesn't,

00:08:33.360 you know, because then again,

00:08:34.460 the media and the press will then say,

00:08:35.940 well, what about this?

00:08:36.500 And what about that?

00:08:36.920 If you haven't got the answers,

00:08:38.460 the everything else collapses around it.

00:08:40.300 And because they are doing everything

00:08:41.640 to not talk about the elephant in the room

00:08:43.340 that is Farage and the Harbour money,

00:08:45.360 they're having to announce everything so much earlier than it's ready and that that was another

00:08:49.160 example of why don't you have a ready answer yes that was shocking get an answer and stick to it

00:08:53.500 even if even if the left or the media or whoever don't really like it i mean honestly you should

00:08:58.060 have just stuck on well it was a donation because he was a generous benefactor who appreciated my

00:09:02.960 work during brexit that's it just don't don't expand that you just it's just a gift every

00:09:07.860 every interview he did on that on that day he gave a different reason it was crazy it was like a bingo

00:09:12.060 card it was it was ridiculous i was like just pick one and then also don't say the public don't have

00:09:17.080 a right to know because then the media are going to go oh there's definitely something here then

00:09:20.700 isn't it yeah like you basically said don't look over there and you know this is what these people

00:09:24.820 are like so it's again it's the the lack of preparation and the lack of like firewalling

00:09:29.540 this stuff off that a proper outfit would know how to do and a great example of how to do this

00:09:34.120 is actually the trump administration and their press corps right like the what was the um the

00:09:39.200 blonde woman KB McEnany right she was superb and they've replaced her but with other women who are 1.00

00:09:44.740 like really on the ball where they've got you know they they know exactly what sort of talking 0.96

00:09:47.980 points coming down the lines they've brainstormed this in advance they've wargamed the situations

00:09:51.960 what they likely to come at me with bam bam bam bam bam and so they were there was and they still

00:09:57.220 are but there was a period of time and Stephen Miller was particularly good at this just completely

00:10:00.620 shutting down the media on everything and Farage and his team have learned nothing about this it's

00:10:06.220 like look you you could get almost any political commentator in the uk who's on the right and i

00:10:11.100 really mean this like you literally choose any political commentator and they would be able to

00:10:14.660 tell you what to expect from the left when you say what what about this and like well actually

00:10:19.940 they're going to say this this and this so just be prepared for anyone can do this yeah why can't

00:10:24.040 you guys do this well they're just floundering they've they've no i always say they needed like

00:10:28.720 a matron like a kind of like somebody to say you stand here and say that you stand here and say

00:10:32.720 they've no message discipline yeah they've out they're all over the reservation and it's because

00:10:36.880 they don't have anybody with it with it who carries a big stick basically there's no party

00:10:40.900 discipline yes that's that's why you end up with these interviews and these kind of rushed policies

00:10:45.240 because they have to distract from their own chaos because heaven forbid something is reform's fault

00:10:49.660 and the the worst part is is that tice is right all of this yes oh yeah totally this is what

00:10:54.940 annoys me about it i'm agreeing with richard tice stop making me agree with richard i very rarely

00:10:59.620 come out in support of richard tice but it's one of these cases where he stepped on a landmine

00:11:03.820 without realizing he's stepping on a landmine yeah so richard have you even thought about the

00:11:07.660 meta politics of what you're suggesting what you're saying here is that actually there is a

00:11:12.140 qualitative difference between kinds of people in society and they're all freaking out about that

00:11:18.340 but it's true and as a right winger as a conservative you actually need to be able

00:11:23.340 to stand on that so you have to explain why that's the case and instead of just going well

00:11:27.840 everyone knows they really don't in fact in fact everyone doesn't know everyone thinks the opposite

00:11:34.180 of what you think ed david the leader of the liberal democrats came out and said well reform

00:11:38.400 have said they will deny social housing single mothers they haven't said that they said they're

00:11:42.840 going to prioritize married couples to incentivize child rearing children um they're vindictive and

00:11:50.380 okay well that's that's that's the extreme lib dem opinion which also happens to be the labor

00:11:56.960 opinion of course you know well my mum brought me up alone she was the parent who stayed council

00:12:01.080 gave her a flat and oh it was all terrible but it's okay same opinion but it doesn't change the

00:12:06.600 fact that actually that's not the ideal way of doing something so okay we've got the left's

00:12:12.040 opinion but that also happens to be the conservative opinion from ben here who's a conservative mp well

00:12:17.220 i can't believe he's going to prioritize heterosexual married couples of unmarried parents

00:12:21.560 single parents or same-sex couples why are you a conservative this this is gonna say i think with

00:12:27.840 that one that's more let's just stick it into reform at the moment because of how terrible

00:12:31.660 it's gone down maybe but this is a perennial problem with conservatives and i think luca was

00:12:35.140 writing i don't think they disbelieve this right attacking reform from the left on this is honestly

00:12:42.340 just putting yourself in the same group as the lib dems and labor and this is why people say

00:12:46.820 uni party because at the end of the day ben if you can't distinguish between these things then

00:12:52.180 i mean again why are you a conservative is the most basic conservative thought that we have to

00:12:57.300 prioritize marriage and children right there's nothing if you are if you can't say that that

00:13:03.060 needs prioritization over any other kind of lifestyle you can't be a conservative right

00:13:08.880 that's just the very base risk of the bedrock of society and so what are we doing and then you've

00:13:13.620 got like the young uh concert was what was he from luke robert black was like the next generation 0.92

00:13:20.720 tory sorry um saying well my god it's completely unfair that same-sex married couples would rank

00:13:26.080 lower than heterosexual couples why are you a conservative i mean don't get me wrong i understand

00:13:31.360 the conservatives half of the gay and half of the homosexuals i don't know how accurate that

00:13:38.000 actually is i do that's why i'm not the tories yeah i like what charles brown jobs used to say

00:13:44.620 it's not the party with its back against the wall anymore but the point being what are you doing how

00:13:51.620 is it you can't again okay you know you don't like you don't have to be straight to think this

00:13:57.100 is the obvious like thing that are conservative things even if you know if you're a grandparent

00:14:02.560 or something you know i'm not gonna have any kids no but i think that should be the case and i think

00:14:06.100 that should be the case because it obviously is the case so even if it doesn't fit your particular

00:14:10.660 individual experiences and circumstances it's obviously still a net good for society as a whole

00:14:17.560 exactly to live within its framework yes but also like the very nature of you go back to literally

00:14:22.800 any point in conservative thought like you just go back to the burkean contract between the past

00:14:27.780 the present and the future okay well how do we generate a future from the present it's from

00:14:33.160 heterosexual couples getting married and having children and so facilitating that means there 0.58

00:14:37.860 is a society for you to live in in the future no matter what your kind of lifestyle it just has to

00:14:42.900 be that way so why why are the conservatives standing side by side with the lib dems and

00:14:48.020 labor going all that richard tice richard tice sorry richard tice is he he's the far right

00:14:53.780 outrider in this conversation zia yusuf's got to up his game yeah it really does like

00:14:59.560 you're basically corbyn at this point richard tyson's having british-born children is a good 0.96

00:15:05.200 thing and that is the out of bounds far rightism it's come on you know it's i mean it's ridiculous

00:15:11.140 and you know you've got like uh this times radio political editor who is a ukrainian woman who was

00:15:16.580 born in ukraine and came to the uk when she was six and she said i wouldn't qualify for these

00:15:20.680 things so how bad do they pay at times radio if you need social no no you wouldn't qualify

00:15:25.360 because you were born overseas sorry social housing in britain should only be for people

00:15:29.580 who are born in britain again not controversial you know you don't that doesn't mean they're

00:15:34.320 going to eject you from the country it just means you don't get free housing yeah but also as well

00:15:39.520 i mean morgoth made the point about this that they use stuff like this exactly with someone of like

00:15:44.720 ukrainian um uh you know heritage uh in this case to kind of be like okay but like oh won't you think

00:15:52.420 of like the ukrainian woman because they're going through war and everything right now and we should

00:15:55.960 be really sympathetic to those people it's like okay i'm sure that might muddy the water ever so

00:16:00.040 slightly for some people out there but again it doesn't get rid of the general rule that we don't

00:16:04.900 want to just give all of our housing to hordes of african and the indian subcontinent like just

00:16:11.260 because there's this one ukrainian woman 100% we're obsessed with the anomaly radio it doesn't 0.99

00:16:15.840 mean we're obsessed everything in this country is built around the anomaly it's not built for the 0.70

00:16:19.860 yeah yeah the majority it's just not and i think it always stems from the fact that minorities 0.91

00:16:23.660 somehow you know they think that if they're not consistently talked about then they want to be

00:16:27.620 erased yeah that idea of consistent validation but that you know if we don't think about them

00:16:32.000 then something bad is going to happen to them i mean that's yeah the margins need to belong in

00:16:36.900 the margins so the marginal belong in the margins is just the way any society has to function right

00:16:42.120 if you if you are not part of the normal way that life is lived then yeah i mean that doesn't mean

00:16:47.340 we're going to push you into the sea or something but it just means you don't get the spotlight on

00:16:50.840 you yeah because you don't need it it's you know but that's why there's a total drive to erase

00:16:56.080 the visibility of the majority yes because they just want to deny that there's an entire

00:17:01.080 majority population here that may have some very understandable grievances about society has been

00:17:07.720 organized in recent decades and obviously uh so they push forward people like that when it's

00:17:12.940 clearly not what the policy is about he really does crack me up there's richard tice that stepped

00:17:17.540 on this landmine yeah keep it up lad yeah of all the people who i would have said are not really

00:17:24.080 right wing you know and he's an economic thatcher okay fair enough you know that might be considered

00:17:28.680 right wing on an economic spectrum but in every other thing he's just like a 2000s guy yeah he's

00:17:35.420 not like you know i'm pushing the envelope to the right or anything like that and he's accidentally

00:17:39.520 stepped on this bit of received as well everyone knows that's good no they don't yeah you've

00:17:43.200 learned this the hard way i mean you had um you know someone like albie here but this this again

00:17:48.400 i disagree with right marriage and two-parent households should be incentivized hang on a

00:17:52.560 second no mothers and fathers right sorry it's again like heterosexual or same-sex adopted no

00:17:58.500 these are not the same thing you get different outcomes from this and i'm not saying that it's

00:18:03.280 bad that you know same-sex couples have adopted if if you know that you know whatever although

00:18:07.900 that an argument could be made i'm not trying to get into that argument yeah the the obviously it's

00:18:12.140 going to be better with two parents than one parent blah blah blah but again it's the idea

00:18:16.520 that we can just like level all these things into the same category it's like no what what we have

00:18:21.100 to accept is that there are special distinctions and there are single issues where they are superior

00:18:27.400 to all of the other things this is not an egalitarian argument that you can make because

00:18:32.560 all the numbers are in yeah like you said it's the fact that there's so much data they like

00:18:36.640 there is undeniable fact about this and it's the denial of that and the denial of reality

00:18:41.440 that they just can't face because it just breaks their entire structure of what society should be

00:18:46.340 and not what it is they live in their own fantasy world nine most of them do anyway i had this

00:18:51.660 conversation with david stark here a while ago where he was saying look there was always a place

00:18:56.500 for the kind of misfits in society you know the you know the arts or you know in theater or

00:19:02.200 wherever it's there's there's always been a place for this it's just not in the main where the kids

00:19:07.660 are you know and it's like that's fine everyone knows you know that's no one no one ever when i

00:19:11.680 was young it was never objected to you know it was always yeah that's their thing that's fine

00:19:15.860 but here's timmy mallet or whatever you know like normal and trivial and you know and but there's

00:19:21.920 this attitude where we just can't have this anymore it's like no i'm not happy with this

00:19:26.020 and i'm not happy with this kind of again the sort of liberal blender effect is everything's reduced

00:19:30.200 to the lowest common denominator it's like no this thing is important and needs to be held up

00:19:34.160 above everything else i'm afraid because it's actually the future of our civilization that

00:19:38.740 we're talking about and encouraging these distinctions isn't very left-wing it's not

00:19:44.040 very liberal and sometimes it could be uncomfortable but it is actually good necessary and the actual

00:19:49.020 right-wing thing to do oh without a doubt without a doubt so i'm i'm i'm very uh very i've been very

00:19:55.340 much enjoying the fact that this has happened uh all over my time in the past day uh this because

00:20:02.020 it seems like such it's because it's not like oh um you know a race question or like a gender

00:20:08.060 question really in many ways like it's because it's something that's actually like um outside

00:20:13.280 of the current ideological discourse that we have right so and and this is why richard tice just

00:20:17.700 kind of blundered into it because it's just well yeah of course kids couples should get married

00:20:21.420 and have kids well actually richard yeah actually there's a lot here sit down and let me i'll tell

00:20:25.600 you a story but it's but it's one of those things where it's it's so uncontroversially true that

00:20:32.720 actually reveals everyone else by their objection to it and actually making them all stand in

00:20:37.800 shoulder to shoulder like if if if they had disciplined messaging nigel farage would literally

00:20:43.520 be coming out and saying what i'm saying right now and saying look the uni party right there

00:20:46.740 the uni party is right there they all want the destruction of britain they think this is the

00:20:50.480 innovation of our country and you trying to prioritize you the young married couple is there

00:20:55.160 you know that they that's their kryptonite that's what destroys their parties or they're all together 0.99

00:21:00.160 but he's not doing it he's you know there's a tepid weak messaging um there are a few other

00:21:04.400 things that they said well would evict social housing tenants over unkempt guns a bit of a

00:21:08.760 less strong argument there i think um no i think a lot of people care about that kind of stuff

00:21:14.860 yeah like i always think it's like it's because it shows that you're like invested in the community

00:21:20.920 if you actually make changes to the actual property and the and its gardens it means that

00:21:25.240 you're not going anywhere and that's half of the problem why everything is collapsing because

00:21:28.240 everybody rents so you you want to stay as long as your contract is there i mean i i totally agree

00:21:32.880 with you by the way you know there's and i and i i personally would be able to make the argument

00:21:36.680 from standards right so no you've been given something something can be expected of you in

00:21:41.320 return and then there's no reason why we have to tolerate you making a complete state of the

00:21:45.820 points you know um and i i totally agree that would actually be a good thing and but i i just

00:21:51.000 can't see farage or tice come out and standing in defense of this you know i can see them backing

00:21:56.180 down on this they haven't yet admittedly but um and give it time yeah exactly this is all very

00:22:03.100 recent so you know this this literally happened this morning so um i i can't see them standing

00:22:08.320 on it forever the gardens may stay on kempt yet yeah yeah um but then you people on the right

00:22:13.940 um pointing out well you know there is also the ethnic question that underlies all of this

00:22:20.140 and it's like okay well we've just brought in millions of boris waivers against the will of

00:22:24.920 the population and richard tice is essentially blind to this question which is okay well

00:22:33.120 you know what happens when it you know is this for native british people as of immigrants you

00:22:39.000 know as well and while it might seem like a bit of an unfair distinction to make it is a distinction

00:22:44.800 that is going to be made because immigration is one of the most salient issues in political life

00:22:49.600 and so again it's going to be uncomfortable but nigel friday and richard tice are going to be

00:22:54.240 confronted with this question okay there are loads of somalians here are you going to be giving them

00:22:59.920 houses if they get married, and

00:23:01.560 it's going to be an uncomfortable thing. Yeah, reform have a real 0.97

00:23:04.080 problem on this. They've been avoiding the

00:23:05.760 what do you mean by British national

00:23:07.980 question? What's a wealth? Yes, yeah.

00:23:09.760 Five years, paid taxes. Yeah, it's been the elephant in the room

00:23:12.020 and it's coming up on them that they can't keep

00:23:14.040 avoiding it. They really can't. Obviously, since Restore has

00:23:16.160 come along and, you know, kind of claimed this issue,

00:23:18.440 you know, it's undeniable for them now.

00:23:20.400 And this is basically one of the reasons they keep being

00:23:22.060 tripped up on, because they can't nail that

00:23:24.000 one question. And until they do that,

00:23:26.320 these things are going to keep happening.

00:23:27.460 But it's that one question more than any other that defines the ideology of the Uniparty itself, because they have been determined to basically deny us our own existence and our own demographic security. And unless that is addressed from the right, then you're just more of the same.

00:23:45.580 yeah that's true they need to have i say the same for restore they need to have their definition

00:23:49.760 and stop debating other people's definition defend their own what they actually believe

00:23:54.260 because you know rupert lowe tripped up over this when he started defending matt goodwin's

00:23:57.800 definition for god's sakes like come up with your own uh kind of structure what you believe

00:24:02.280 and then that stops these these kind of attacks but again that comes from doing some hard work

00:24:06.060 and actual thinking and also it can be um it could be publicly unpopular when you're being

00:24:10.720 interviewed by beth rigby right yeah okay you know beth rigby will take exception to it you say well

00:24:14.860 i'm sorry beth that's just your opinion and i disagree with it you know you just you stand on

00:24:18.840 your own as you say stand on your own definition and you go nowhere else and they won't drag you

00:24:23.600 anywhere either if you just commit to your own thing but um but yeah as you're pointing out

00:24:27.640 there's it's a lot of people who are blundering through politics at the moment which is very

00:24:34.840 frustrating anyway we'll leave that one there um that's a random name says uh i deal with

00:24:40.000 hostile questions about women all the time well i'm sure you do fantastic um anyway oh before we

00:24:48.140 go okay get islander as well i forgot to say islander 6 is on sale and we'll probably be

00:24:52.600 off sale by the end of the week i think we'll probably run out of stock or something so

00:24:55.700 anyway please carry on okay uh all right then ladies and gentlemen so this is going to be a

00:25:01.740 very medieval segment because we're going to be talking all about knights and gallantry and

00:25:07.120 virtue old virtues and i think this is really really important because the thing that caught

00:25:12.460 my attention was this article in the financial times uh if i go here why is the far right so

00:25:19.960 obsessed with knights and they're cool yeah i mean even the uh i gotta say even the image that

00:25:26.140 they've used there is very very cool actually uh something a long-standing meme though isn't it

00:25:31.820 it's like every time the left try to make us look bad it makes us awesome yeah a timeless archetype

00:25:36.800 right there um but as you can see military uh medieval military monks have become a regular

00:25:42.260 site at political rallies and marches yes medieval military monks that's cool what are you yeah yeah

00:25:48.580 um so obviously i i saw this headline it immediately grabbed my attention and i thought okay

00:25:54.020 i'm gonna i'm gonna listen to that and then as you can see here it's written by written by

00:25:58.500 elise morrison and it makes no total fact that she is a writer who's currently a phd candidate

00:26:03.480 at the university of cambridge though though giving cambridge's recent story i love how all

00:26:09.860 three of us went yeah yeah so um i i accept the fact that i'm you know a bit unmatched here um

00:26:17.680 you are punching down i thought um i thought we'd begin with it by just going through the

00:26:23.680 article itself because she says a sure sign of a lunatic according to umberto echo is that sooner

00:26:29.260 After or later, he brings up the Templars.

00:26:31.740 If Echo is right, you don't need to look hard to find examples in Britain today.

00:26:36.340 Among the crowds at football games, political rallies and marches, with red crosses splayed

00:26:41.180 across their goose-white tunics and plastic chainmail coifs on their heads, the imagery

00:26:46.740 of the Knights Templar, a medieval Catholic military order, has been increasingly co-opted

00:26:52.620 by the contemporary far-right.

00:26:54.660 well co-opted co-opted as in this is a traditional left-wing symbol yeah you've

00:27:01.220 stolen no the those ultra progressive medieval templars who were all for pluralism and you know

00:27:08.740 like muslim immigration into britain and you know actually fought against the spanish so that they 0.97

00:27:14.080 could you know come back to your sole raison d'etre is killing muslims yeah it's been co-opted 0.97

00:27:19.520 And protecting Christians on the pilgrimage routes. 0.97

00:27:23.240 So references to its symbolism have become increasingly common

00:27:28.240 in far-right spaces on platforms like Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, and 4chan.

00:27:32.720 Some of this content is innocent.

00:27:34.820 Reels by historians discussing the history of the knights,

00:27:38.320 but on the extreme end are social media accounts

00:27:41.560 that wrap white supremacist and anti-Muslim politics

00:27:45.080 in the romanticised imagery of holy war, medieval chivalry, and Christian martyrdom.

00:27:50.940 Now, gentlemen, I just politely want to ask you,

00:27:53.880 do you think anything has happened in the past few decades or so

00:27:57.380 that could possibly contribute to anti-Muslim sympathy in the West?

00:28:02.560 Anything at all?

00:28:04.000 It means I have to go back decades.

00:28:05.220 Go back to the last week of news if you want.

00:28:10.080 Go back an hour if you really try.

00:28:12.460 Breaking news.

00:28:13.480 but of course all of this has just fallen out of the sky of course now the phenomenon became so

00:28:19.980 disruptive that in 2022 fifa banned the crusader costumes being worn in stadiums by england fans 0.97

00:28:26.780 especially for matches against uh muslim majority countries we call that we call that muslim fragility 0.84

00:28:34.920 is what my diagnosis of that is but as she goes on these costumes are sometimes framed as harmless 0.83

00:28:43.120 fun i mean i personally think this entire article is very anti-fun oh yeah that's what it's oh i

00:28:47.800 think it's hilarious oh yeah um uh or as a patriotic homage uh to saint george an early

00:28:54.680 christian martyr who became patron saint of england this creates plausible deniability

00:28:58.780 there's nothing to deny here like it's a perfectly wonderful thing to embrace um allowing extremists

00:29:05.260 to prevent uh present a more innocuous front to the public while simultaneously communicating an

00:29:10.820 aggressive racialized ideology to those who are turned into a subculture and i just want to point

00:29:18.660 out with all of this as well one of the things that i expected to find as i went into this article

00:29:24.900 was okay fine she's obviously got a lot to get off but but how like why like some genuine analysis of

00:29:34.220 why young men in particular which is really what she means when she says far right are becoming so

00:29:40.780 enamoured with like the mysticism

00:29:43.020 and the romance of

00:29:44.780 Arthurian tales and of medieval

00:29:46.860 films and all the crusader chivalry

00:29:49.180 and the crusades themselves

00:29:50.920 and there just isn't any of this

00:29:53.060 in the article whatsoever

00:29:54.840 I mean as you see here

00:29:56.260 she just got 20th century fascist

00:29:59.040 movements including the Nazis and the Ku Klux

00:30:01.120 Klan relied heavily on

00:30:03.020 imagery of them and other medieval

00:30:04.980 Christian symbols. If you think knights are

00:30:07.020 cool you're a Nazi

00:30:08.020 is a level of analysis of this article.

00:30:16.980 Historical evidence suggests that the early Templars

00:30:19.420 were pious and dedicated to protecting others.

00:30:21.700 Yes, but from some other people.

00:30:25.040 Yeah, they had preferences.

00:30:26.900 So just for anyone who doesn't know,

00:30:28.920 basically the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem

00:30:30.640 and they were protecting pilgrims from Muslim attacks

00:30:33.580 on Christians travelling from Europe to the Holy Land

00:30:36.180 so they could pray, you know, wherever in Jerusalem.

00:30:41.480 They weren't initially a military order,

00:30:43.580 but then became a military order.

00:30:45.380 They lost for a few hundred years,

00:30:46.920 and then we lost the Crusades.

00:30:49.060 And they were done dirty by Philip IV of France.

00:30:52.660 Was it Philip IV?

00:30:53.420 Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.

00:30:54.620 Yeah, and that's why Friday the 13th is a day of bad luck, you know.

00:30:58.800 And whenever you drive around Europe,

00:31:00.560 whenever you see sort of like Temple Mount

00:31:01.980 or Temple this, Temple that,

00:31:03.040 that was a Templar property.

00:31:05.060 and they became fabulously wealthy

00:31:06.900 and the kings became

00:31:07.720 fabulously jealous of them.

00:31:10.320 Because weirdly,

00:31:11.300 they'd invented

00:31:11.780 kind of modern banking

00:31:12.840 because basically

00:31:14.880 you deposit money in France,

00:31:16.780 you travel to the Holy Land

00:31:17.720 and they will give you some money

00:31:19.220 equal to the same amount.

00:31:20.100 And that's actually a really

00:31:20.920 clever and useful thing to do.

00:31:23.000 But anyway, sorry,

00:31:23.860 yeah, Nancy, as you were saying.

00:31:26.160 Well, but the point of this as well

00:31:28.320 is that the entire tone

00:31:29.520 of the article is like,

00:31:30.660 look, look, look,

00:31:31.320 if you like knights and medievalism,

00:31:33.600 that's fine,

00:31:34.440 but you have to enjoy it on our terms yes you have to like it for the reasons we say you can

00:31:40.040 like it it's like i'll have my own reasons actually that's that's also fine um and as it

00:31:46.180 goes on to conclude despite the fact that historians have long understood the gulf

00:31:50.540 separating medieval and modern conflicts yes just all historians have just agreed that there was some

00:31:56.480 sort of like point between the medieval era and modern society which kind of like just

00:32:01.080 cauterized off and all of a sudden everything that came from the old past just isn't relevant

00:32:09.280 it's not our inheritance these things are entirely separated from one another and one of the worst

00:32:15.400 holes in this argument so she presents it here of course is the fact that since becoming a wonderful

00:32:21.220 diverse society we've seen actually that many people have arrived from all over the world

00:32:25.880 who take their own cultural history going back thousands and thousands of years very very 0.77

00:32:32.120 seriously there is no cut off point for them i mean maybe if you're you know from an islamic 0.80

00:32:38.380 country and you're not so interesting like ancient mesopotamia because it's like it's 0.96

00:32:42.460 not your civilization but you get my point the history goes back a long long way to the wars 0.59

00:32:47.420 of muhammad and all of it matters muslim activists already i mean all the way through the war on 0.86

00:32:52.920 terror the muslims were just calling the americans the crusaders yes they were just calling them the 0.66

00:32:57.400 crusaders and they were like oh this is happening to us again so i mean in a way it's not even a 0.98

00:33:01.940 bad argument frankly because george w bush was a mental absolutely mental with his like evangelical

00:33:07.920 christianity i think he used the word crusade himself i think he did actually yeah so it's

00:33:12.600 not even like a bad argument from the muslim side of the argument but um but the the objection here 0.90

00:33:18.460 is of course again as everything boils down to um being an absolute libtard yeah uh who just can't

00:33:24.140 recognize that there are two different groups that are in conflict here yeah i think the the history 0.91

00:33:28.780 is quite an interesting point because i always think the one underrated line in 1984 is the

00:33:33.100 clock struck 13. in other words time stops we're now in the best thing it's ever going to exist

00:33:38.620 so therefore what we say now is is what is the correct thing there's nothing that came before

00:33:42.780 there's nothing will come after and you know this this is what they're trying to do this is you know

00:33:46.300 know they use history in a very perverse way and i think that's this this article is absolute proof

00:33:50.900 of it because he's like you said she's just stating it as though i'm clearly correct without

00:33:55.520 having to prove anything that she's just argued there is no effort in here to explain why such

00:34:01.580 anti-muslim sentiment might have arise yeah arose even as we have institutions like five pillars

00:34:07.540 just openly subverting our societies trying to always pressure i mean the endless ngos that

00:34:14.180 you've got now just putting pressure on the government to cripple our free speech to put in 0.99

00:34:19.420 you know like islamic blasphemy laws so the fact that the poor gentleman from the batley school 0.74

00:34:24.520 teacher oh yeah is now out the fact that we had a rape epidemic of our youth and our children we 1.00

00:34:31.420 still have to this day yes on the lines of they were dirty white english pigs and they deserved 0.98

00:34:37.080 it which is an entirely theological position to justify it and none of this is addressed and 0.98

00:34:44.740 it cannot be denied that not just in england though obviously that's my chief focus but

00:34:50.380 obviously across the west the whole of the west is obviously being undermined from from beneath

00:34:56.300 by subversive actors and so it's no surprise really that you find a lot of people today

00:35:02.920 having a very romantic view of a very feudal hierarchical system that suggests to you that

00:35:10.720 everyone whether you be master or servant everyone has their own portion of moral virtue

00:35:15.920 everyone has their own place in the world that holds up that system and everyone is entitled

00:35:21.860 to their own share of peace and justice within that system but none of this is explored now i'm

00:35:28.100 not going there are a few things about this that i find really interesting i mean the first one

00:35:32.340 it's written by a nerdy academic woman i don't know anything about this one but if you're doing 0.68

00:35:36.880 a phd in cambridge as a woman i don't really expect you to get why nights are cool to be

00:35:42.900 honest yeah like my sons totally understand why nights are cool you know i i'm sure you don't get

00:35:49.180 it right and and it's fine i don't get why you also i bet she's never tried to sure i think that's

00:35:54.760 that's also a key point i think that she's got this image and she's not bothered about being

00:35:58.880 that being challenged yes by the way that this is written is i'm clearly the correct one yes and

00:36:03.200 anything you think is incorrect so she's not interested in the debate yes and i think that's

00:36:06.800 a key point it begins with a liberal prize right it's like yeah no if you've got a bunch of men

00:36:11.420 who have decided that for the glory of god they're going to conquer the holy land well that's not

00:36:15.360 very liberal you know that's and this is why she's trying to say no no that's what happened in the

00:36:18.980 deep past this is you know there's a there's a there's a strong cutoff point where we didn't

00:36:24.080 just get large groups of chads together and go and beat people up but you can see why that would

00:36:30.060 appeal right as in you know the the crusades for good or ill were a time where europe was 0.67

00:36:35.740 self-confident and willing to express itself you know it's willing to push outwards and say no

00:36:42.000 actually we are strong and we can do things and we're going to do things and we're going to do

00:36:45.680 them for god we're going to for the right things you know this is the thing we truly believe

00:36:49.440 and you can imagine that a modern liberal woman is like that i just don't get this at all so yeah

00:36:53.020 because back then it was they believed that they were doing the right thing they believed that they

00:36:58.300 weren't the villain we're trained as a society now to be consistent you're the bad person that

00:37:02.960 we're always bad and i think that one of the big things here is is the protector aspect that's why

00:37:07.840 people are latching onto it now people living normal lives know that something isn't right

00:37:12.520 yes and it's the people who live in the ivory towers of cambridge absolutely they're just so

00:37:16.440 detached from it all um i mean on one hand look the um you know the the times that we live in now

00:37:22.140 are very demoralizing and it's only natural when when anyone lives in a demoralizing time that they

00:37:28.160 become very nostalgic for a past and this is what they always lean on to that i oh yeah well it wasn't

00:37:33.800 as great as you think it's like no but it would have been a damn sight better than this and i'm

00:37:37.460 just talking i'm not even talking about like medievalism here i'm just talking about 50 years

00:37:41.520 ago you know something like that but they come down to all of this and this is not the first time

00:37:46.640 in british history that this has happened there was an entire medieval revival during the victorian

00:37:51.560 era i mean it began obviously in the 1700s and there were a lot of the romantic poets

00:37:55.980 as well that looked at what was going on with the industrialization of britain and it was actually

00:38:02.300 a deeply reactionary thing and they wanted to get away from the renaissance and like neoclassicalism

00:38:08.580 and like the scientific revolution and address the fact that look there is another aspect of the human

00:38:13.980 soul that is not being uh serviced here within this new paradigm and one of the things is um

00:38:20.280 For example, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who I've done some work on on Chronicles, one of his Rhyming the Ancient Mariner, is in the style of a medieval ballad.

00:38:30.000 That's not just random choice. It's because the displacement of populations, as they're drawn from the villages to go and work in the factories, are being untethered from the places where they would have heard their oral histories, where they would have all sang the same folk songs, etc., etc.

00:38:46.740 and it's a way to preserve something of that tradition there's also of course the fact that

00:38:51.540 over the 19th century you had an entire revival of architecture and you went for neo-gothic

00:38:58.800 architecture most famously with the houses of parliament and many pieces of art as well

00:39:03.940 where people were looking back to painting medieval scenes you obviously hear uh water

00:39:09.360 houses the lady of shallot from the arthurian tales you also have the accolade by edmund

00:39:14.700 Blair in the I think he was in the Edwardian era but all of this is to break through it's trying

00:39:21.300 to it's not just painting it because it looks beautiful it's trying to communicate to a society

00:39:26.340 something that the medieval mind understood but has since been lost to us and in the case of

00:39:32.260 industrialization it was in a way kind of what Marx critiqued in the communist manifesto about

00:39:39.360 it being a very reactionary thing of the way it's the world is becoming more and more transactional

00:39:44.300 and we're destroying the human bonds between us

00:39:47.000 and our oaths and obligations and our loyalties.

00:39:49.860 So all of this comes into play 0.90

00:39:51.320 and all of this has been exacerbated by multiculturalism 0.92

00:39:55.940 because before, even if you went to a village

00:39:58.020 and you came to a city, okay, fine,

00:40:01.360 but at least you're still meeting your own countrymen.

00:40:03.760 Now you don't even have that.

00:40:05.920 Now you're meeting people who don't understand your language,

00:40:08.620 who don't respect your culture,

00:40:10.080 and they're only here for the economic benefits that it provides.

00:40:13.840 And so it's the reductionism, the trajectory of reductionism that we've been on since that time is still carrying on unabated.

00:40:22.420 I mean, just a quick thing, if you go back to that previous thing, right?

00:40:25.400 I mean, look at what is happening here and ask yourself what in modernity reflects anything about the sentiments that these people would have been doing these things for, right?

00:40:36.600 like what when in your life are you ever in a situation where the the princess the queen whoever

00:40:43.360 it is is is dubbing you is is changing your ontological status in society right that a knight

00:40:51.280 is not merely a man right a knight is someone who has a sacred duty he has a divine transcendent

00:40:58.140 order to uphold he is he has got to use his um power in the world for a certain way of organizing

00:41:06.260 the universe like no like in the in the liberal reign of quantity where we're at the end of 0.52

00:41:11.860 history and no one should do anything is it any wonder that like especially young men are just

00:41:16.520 like no i think i'd rather have been a knight because at least then i know what i'm supposed

00:41:20.360 to do right and i i understand that i'm doing something greater than myself yes in all purpose

00:41:25.480 exactly it's purpose it's all i think it links very strongly to the masculinity crisis you know

00:41:29.660 if you look at modern society you know this kind of stuff is basically outlawed yes but the people

00:41:34.500 But men, young men in particular, want to be of service.

00:41:37.060 They want to do something of value.

00:41:39.040 And, you know, there's nothing more of value

00:41:40.540 than you go back to the Knights and that kind of thing.

00:41:42.540 You know, again, it is very self-obvious, all of this stuff.

00:41:46.020 And, yeah, again, this isn't my area of expertise,

00:41:49.020 but, again, the fact that the article makes no references

00:41:52.880 to why this is happening is the startling bit, if I'm honest.

00:41:56.940 Instead, you're meant to live in a feminized, HR-dominated office environment.

00:42:01.440 It's like, yeah, I think I would be daydreaming about this as well,

00:42:03.760 if that were my life um and obviously this goes beyond you know why is a far right so obsessed

00:42:09.460 with knights is like literally the coolest thing ever and we can see here a young captain of gondor

00:42:14.300 showing his quality in a return of the king but i also just wanted to tease out some other things

00:42:19.920 as well because i've done some work on chronicles on numerous pieces of medieval literature at this

00:42:25.080 point and as what you have with the example of the nibelungen lead not only was it rediscovered i

00:42:30.300 think in the 1700s and went on to become kind of an early piece of um early piece that galvanized

00:42:36.520 early german nationalism and obviously all of the medieval pieces like the song of roland did this

00:42:41.780 for the french and um segwayne and the green art etc etc beowulf they all went on to become really

00:42:48.100 really close to the identity of their peoples but one of the things that you see particularly in the

00:42:52.760 niebelungen lead and something that the medieval mind doesn't get enough credit for is that even

00:42:57.600 though we have and again i come back to this because i'm trying to show i don't just have

00:43:01.620 some rose-tinted nostalgia for all of this it was all good you can see whoever it was the unknown

00:43:07.360 poet who wrote the nibelungen lead really interrogating the moral system of his time

00:43:13.500 he's trying to figure out the limitations of a society of oaths and honor and where that can go

00:43:19.720 wrong and how good men can be turned into conflict against one another where perhaps they might not

00:43:26.000 have interest to because of the knot of oaths that they've tied themselves up in and also as

00:43:33.040 well I've covered with Nathan Hood, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which is an absolutely terrific

00:43:37.540 tale and I think that Sir Gawain speaks to another thing that is really resonating with

00:43:42.940 young men or the far right as at least would term them which is the fact that as you say it's a

00:43:50.600 question of purpose and it's a question of service and there is something within society right now

00:43:55.720 that tells men as they are being all of the things that used to be put them in a place of

00:44:02.960 their own unique particular masculine reverence just in the way that we had to carve out

00:44:08.220 and reverence for the particular feminine roles in society well all of these have become muddied

00:44:13.700 and entangled to the point where well all of a sudden you don't in fact i'll just pull this here

00:44:20.460 this is just from the other day women now hold 176 000 more u.s payroll jobs than men reversing

00:44:27.600 a gap that favored men by nearly seven million jobs in the 1990s so you can tell how fast yeah

00:44:34.660 this revolution has happened and what was once thought to be just a staple of society that men

00:44:42.000 would go out into the workplace there will be providers there will be carers there will be

00:44:46.280 community leaders uh with it within the community well you can't be a community leader if your

00:44:52.100 community is constantly being replaced and you can't be um you can't even get a job and you

00:44:58.100 yeah and you can't be a provider and a husband and someone who people depend on and not giving

00:45:03.420 your life purpose if these opportunities are being taken away from you and while society is

00:45:09.300 simultaneously celebrating this change and gloating and awarding it over you oh without a doubt i

00:45:15.260 always say that the worst thing to happen to society was me too yeah me too just became man

00:45:19.180 hating yes and they suddenly wonder why everybody became incels and they're that radical thing that

00:45:23.140 they are so scared of they created it they suddenly said to men oh you don't matter anymore

00:45:28.040 and you know they just forgot about them i mean the education standards are the clear marker on

00:45:32.320 this you know it's i think it's just about now that we're starting to get some balance back but

00:45:36.060 you know if you suddenly don't give people a value something to actually cling on to and you know

00:45:42.260 give themselves a purpose in life they're going to wander off the reservation oh yeah and you know

00:45:46.640 if they can find something to hook into to give them any stability they're going to find it and

00:45:50.480 this is a reservation and the thing about that as well that the night is such a perfect representation

00:45:56.900 of what has been taken away as well because it's a position of status and honor that is reserved

00:46:02.880 for men it is you know you you don't get women nice because what they have to do is very painful

00:46:08.240 and very dangerous and has a high attrition rate you know very few women actually want to sign up

00:46:12.620 to be that sort of person so it's it's it's one of those things where it's you know this isn't

00:46:17.340 working in an office where it's on a spreadsheet or something like this this this is a this is a

00:46:21.480 position of honor that other people recognize and so but this comes itself with a series of codes

00:46:28.940 knights have literally a chivalric code that's supposed to determine and circumscribe their own

00:46:33.700 behavior so it's not like young men are like yeah you know what i want to be a just a reckless

00:46:37.180 like guy out of like mad max or something you know they want order and structure and they want

00:46:41.880 their own control but they want to be respected for the things that they do and the things they

00:46:46.100 don't do and these are really appealing things and of course you just get the ones like well

00:46:51.880 that's nazism it's like no yeah it's so far yeah from that you don't understand what these people

00:46:58.160 are longing for here you know that right and what they're longing for is uh the point i was going to

00:47:03.720 make with Sir Gwain and the Green Knight, is to answer the quest. To answer the calling of the

00:47:09.280 quest. And that's what I feel like men are in a situation of these days, where you can see your

00:47:14.620 entire society being subverted, you can see all of the moral foundations being gutted out, even

00:47:20.160 to a point in your last segment, where all of a sudden we're suddenly debating the fact that the 0.74

00:47:24.340 nuclear family is obviously the best circumstance to raise children in, and has been for all of time. 0.55

00:47:29.620 Well, it's these sorts of things that undoubtedly, and especially when you've had the cultural revolution that has gone on where there's kind of this like year zero respect to the Windrush generation that tells you, oh no, this is a new modern Britain.

00:47:43.460 I think as well that that driving young men to look back at the romance and gallantry of knights and medievalism is also to say, yeah, actually, I'm an Englishman.

00:47:54.960 And those things that happened in England 700, 800 years ago, they still matter.

00:48:01.340 They're not just gone and made redundant to be nothing more than a curiosity of academics.

00:48:10.780 there is actually virtue that can be learned in them for us in the modern day yeah and there's

00:48:16.000 an unspoken parochialism in it as well this is ours yes you know the the people who are coming

00:48:20.660 here have got no affinity with like the robin hood legends or the king arthur legends or anything

00:48:26.060 they don't care about any of this why would they yes they just don't i mean there was this there

00:48:31.100 was this um uh this video that went viral a while ago of um someone in birmingham outside the

00:48:38.580 cathedral where some somali homeless guy was there oh yeah he was like yeah this cathedral

00:48:42.980 is a nice place to do drugs but that's it it's like okay okay you know i i understand that you 0.98

00:48:49.400 just it doesn't make an impression on you i mean this is a beautiful building you just don't care

00:48:54.040 about it at all and because there's nothing to do with you and that's fine but this is ours and we

00:48:58.280 do feel protective and it doesn't mean that we should allow you to be here to disrespect it

00:49:02.820 Yeah. We actually don't need that.

00:49:05.880 And so there's all sorts of questions right now as we're exploring here in terms of what needs to be done.

00:49:11.460 And that is really the theme of the latest issue of Islander, which I will just tell you is probably only going to be on sale until the end of this week, possibly Friday.

00:49:20.440 It's selling out very, very quickly. People are always quick to get them in the final week.

00:49:25.300 So don't make sure that you don't miss out. They always leave it to the last minute.

00:49:29.060 But we're really proud of this issue.

00:49:30.720 Rory once again has done an absolutely incredible job with the aesthetics and with the actual imaging of the magazine and there's some really really important articles in here talking about not just addressing or identifying the problems of where we are now and what the problems are but how do we genuinely start to put them into action?

00:49:50.860 How do we genuinely begin to fix things? And this is one of the things that I'll just talk about in terms of my own article, only because it's the most relevant to the segment that I'm doing, is one of the things that I tried to explore in my essay on Samwise Gamgee, is the idea that you actually need to break through the illusion of modernity, that you are somehow, you don't come, you're not a part of the grand arc of history, that you're just a person living for your personal reasons here and now, and once it's gone, it doesn't matter.

00:50:20.440 Sam, through his journey, through his adversity, through everything that he does, comes to understand himself as a person, a very, very ordinary person, in the same way that Tolkien saw very ordinary heroism in the men of World War I, and he uses that to re-energize and mythologize a particular virtue and quality that he found in those men.

00:50:40.400 And since then, lo and behold, Lord of the Rings, and Sam in particular, became a fan-favorite character for one of the fan-favorite literature series in English history.

00:50:51.340 And so all of this is related.

00:50:53.040 There is this one great continuity to it here, and it is significant to us.

00:50:59.380 And it's something that's very relevant to how we live our lives now.

00:51:04.460 And especially, I mean, to go back to the Lord of the Rings as well.

00:51:07.580 it's like Labour's plans to make Britain's countryside less white again why on earth would

00:51:12.940 young men feel the need to answer the quest as they see corruption spread throughout the land

00:51:18.640 and it seems to be in a very Arthurian sense a land without a king as well who seems very absent

00:51:25.200 from leading his own people his oldest subjects throughout this quest as time goes on and so

00:51:31.900 and you also have the the whole just modern glaze of these sort of nebulous virtues and qualities

00:51:39.400 where it's just about understanding democracy and it's about being pluralistic and not

00:51:45.300 discriminating against anyone it's like what's really frustrating about the the idea of um

00:51:50.180 british values right i i hate this kind of values-based discourse because anyone can hold

00:51:55.120 a value and behave in any way they like and say well okay i was wrong to do that but i still hold

00:52:00.140 the value i still i still give lip service to the thing right but when you talk about virtues

00:52:04.460 virtues is something you have to do to be to demonstrate and to produce the virtue so if you

00:52:12.040 don't do the thing over and over you can't pay lip service to the virtue because that could be

00:52:15.980 you know i i think the virtue of temperance is a good thing i could be you're a perennial drunk

00:52:19.740 so you know you you don't demonstrate the virtue of temperance right whereas i say i i've got the

00:52:25.340 value of you know democracy or tolerance or whatever it's like okay even if you're being

00:52:31.300 an intolerant person you can say oh yeah no i was wrong i value tolerance and they're oh well back

00:52:34.600 welcome back in the fall it's like no you values are fake virtues are real right virtues are actually

00:52:41.780 concrete and they only get the virtues by doing the thing repeatedly and the fact that we have

00:52:46.440 no discourse about virtues and we only have discourse about values shows why the country

00:52:50.960 is falling into the complete dilapidated states in now i think you're right there because the way

00:52:55.240 i always differentiate is that you know virtue is i think it's a lot more clear-cut there's not

00:52:59.780 that word salad that comes around it it's a very literal thing and like you said it's i suppose it's

00:53:04.720 the aristotle kind of practical ethics you know you you have to do it in the world to be seen to

00:53:08.860 be doing it that kind of thing and you're right we don't really have the virtues conversation

00:53:12.400 because that would actually mean holding people accountable for when they don't do something and

00:53:16.560 the one thing we don't have in society are consequences you wonder why people like the

00:53:20.520 the knights and all that kind of stuff the chivalry code came with a consequence and you

00:53:25.480 know until the people suddenly realized there has to be a consequence when you do something bad

00:53:29.400 you know nothing is ever going to change ever um and so yeah to conclude this segment i think um

00:53:35.800 a large part of it to answer the question that at least didn't seem interested in answering in their

00:53:40.280 own article is the fact that i think uh there's a there's a real need there in young men to answer

00:53:45.400 the quest so you can see the corruption of their civilizations they realize that there is an attack

00:53:50.440 on the historical continuity from which they came from and that is one of the reasons why they look

00:53:56.840 back to the time of knights and as well as you say carl i think there is something inherently

00:54:01.380 masculine about the knight and his virtues which is a very enticing thing when you have been guided

00:54:08.680 by the severe hand of feminism and also the homogenizing virtues of modern liberalism is

00:54:15.180 To believe in these allies is for anyone.

00:54:18.580 It's like, no, the distinctiveness of knightly virtue. 0.96

00:54:24.360 I mean, knightly virtue doesn't apply to women. 0.58

00:54:26.400 They have their own medieval virtues. 0.70

00:54:29.080 The virtues of a medieval lady are completely different. 0.99

00:54:31.800 It's chastity. 0.98

00:54:32.720 It is patience, forbearance, all this sort of thing.

00:54:35.560 Faithfulness.

00:54:35.840 Faithfulness, yeah.

00:54:36.880 These are not, I mean, loyalty is, you know, I guess,

00:54:39.960 but they are a different set of virtues for a different kind of life.

00:54:43.740 and so this no no i am a man i am something different and it's about distinction it's about

00:54:49.720 bringing out of the mass of and this is what standards do standards separate one from another

00:54:55.220 and you build up into something else you literally ontologically change your status in society

00:55:00.360 by adhering to a set of standards that makes you something that other people are not and until we

00:55:06.440 get to that point where we can say no that's a good thing and we should have if you didn't do

00:55:10.260 these things you don't deserve to be in this category until we get to that point things are

00:55:14.880 just going to keep getting worse yeah it's like i'm saying i call it the ex-factification yes you

00:55:19.840 know the sub story you know that somehow you deserve something yeah you could be a terrible

00:55:24.180 singer but oh they deserve to be in the competition no you don't it's a competition yeah you know

00:55:28.920 that somehow the background started to matter more and that once that kind of crept in literally we

00:55:33.740 get to jason hardy but yes yeah jason hardy is a very epitome of that line of yes it's

00:55:40.100 destroying cambridge yeah okay but obviously the adversity is part of the quest and the struggle

00:55:47.060 is part of the quest because you know that the the thing that you're working towards on the other

00:55:51.240 side will create a much more a society that's much more in balance with itself much more harmonious

00:55:57.820 and serves its own people first and that yeah but but it's also it is respectable yes there is a

00:56:04.740 reason that the the again going back to like the the woman in the night um you know this this isn't

00:56:10.940 just given out for free right this guy has to go through a lot to get to the point yeah he didn't

00:56:15.580 subscribe to our only fans exactly yeah yeah it creates a respectable society that other people

00:56:21.160 can respect intrinsically by just seeing the person right okay he's gone through a lot i can

00:56:25.640 tell you know like it makes everything better i think it's also the fact that failure wasn't the

00:56:31.400 kind of end of everything you know that you could actually get some resilience you could actually

00:56:34.760 try again and i think that's one thing we don't do anymore the minute the fear of failure means

00:56:39.280 we've taken away risk and nobody takes a risk anymore we're so terrified of something going

00:56:43.700 wrong that we must protect everything and that's just kept us in stasis more than anything else

00:56:47.720 absolutely um so anyway to conclude because coming to the end of my segment now uh keep it up at the

00:56:53.580 footy matches uh jolly good sport and uh obviously in terms of the virtues do take them to heart

00:56:59.940 because they're very powerful and they're far older and more resonant with the human soul than

00:57:06.860 anything that the modern world insists on you adopting and i think that uh well again they

00:57:14.300 they want to claim that they have a monopoly on liking this particular thing and you just don't

00:57:20.480 have to accept it you don't even like it they don't like no i just don't want you to have it

00:57:24.640 yes that's what it is uh and so you should because it'll annoy them yeah i mean as one for one

00:57:30.020 paladin says in the suit chats we just need more you know these are these are deeply christian

00:57:34.940 western philosophical traditions that's why they don't want you having it it's literally

00:57:40.140 and a base tape says what do we lose the crusades it's like well listen man i'm not saying they're

00:57:44.460 over but you know paradoxical rebellion sends some subscriptions i didn't know we had those

00:57:54.600 on rumble i have no idea sorry um but thank you and uh medieval ladies virtues are antithetical 0.73

00:57:59.940 to uh the modern feminists yeah i mean they they literally are about preserving innocence 1.00

00:58:04.420 chastity and beauty so i mean i mean literally it's the thing that feminism is trying to destroy 0.99

00:58:10.620 yeah like expressly stated um and caliph says uh i simply point out the molotov cocktail by finland

00:58:18.520 is a tool of national independence against the against the demonic universalizer of the ussr

00:58:23.620 and that's an interesting point anyway let's let's move on

00:58:28.120 there's something to be said this was uh julie savola had a great point in the america and the

00:58:35.560 soviet union were both modernist homogenizing projects right they had different ideas for

00:58:42.460 economic prosperity but at the end of the day the you know the beauty of feudal europe was dying and

00:58:47.940 being killed in the pince movement and he's right about that i mean anyway let's let's have a talk

00:58:53.100 about why Labour are beating reform because this is you know political pundits and it's one of those

00:59:00.400 things where I don't have a preordained answer to this so I'm happy for this to be very discursive

00:59:06.440 but before we begin get your copy of Islander 6 it'll probably run out of sale soon but these are

00:59:12.060 the polls so it's not been great for reform now we've been talking for a while how reform I mean

00:59:19.300 if you go back a year now were really riding high in the polls and this year has just been

00:59:24.540 a series of catastrophes for reform until they've lost about seven percent of their vote share

00:59:30.500 and for Labour um Keir Starmer was the catastrophe uh Miss Keir to be honest uh but they've they've

00:59:38.000 got back they've very briefly on this average uh but they're polling neck and neck and the

00:59:43.700 Economist has got a poll of polls here which puts Labour slightly above actually 27 so um not good

00:59:51.940 for reform oh absolutely not but it's one of those I hate to say it but I love to say I told you so

00:59:58.120 because all of this is self-inflicted that's the thing that they haven't quite worked out

01:00:01.480 everything that's gone wrong for them it's not somebody else that's done it to them it's their

01:00:05.380 lack of preparation and the fact that they just couldn't be bothered to build a political machine

01:00:09.480 do you know they'd rather give out football shirts and you know have a big party and all the rest of

01:00:13.200 That's not how it works because they collapsed the two parties and then thought the two-party system still existed.

01:00:19.440 They're still campaigning as though it's like one big party versus the other.

01:00:22.920 They keep forgetting there are other options available for people.

01:00:25.700 And that's the real point.

01:00:27.120 But when you actually look at what Farage said yesterday, where he's on about the idea that, you know, if the Tories just disappeared, they would get half the vote share and all this kind of stuff.

01:00:37.180 what he didn't say was what that poll actually proved is that the the coalitions to stop reform

01:00:43.380 coalesce so everybody abandons the greens of the lib dem so they all line up behind burnham this is

01:00:48.940 why makerfield was the end of reform realistically as a kind of inevitable force because burnham

01:00:54.700 became the kind of acceptable acceptable vehicle to be able to take down reform and he proved he

01:01:00.080 could do it that's his that's what he's got in his in his uh his armories i i turned a make

01:01:04.940 makerfield a reform seat you know in the red wall back to Labour and won an increased majority

01:01:11.060 that narrative is incredibly powerful for voters that want to stop Farage and that's a lot of

01:01:15.860 people it's also as well what one thing that I'd speculate on is the fact that since Starmer has

01:01:20.700 been ousted and Burnham has been brought in um you can see also the the decline of the Green

01:01:26.220 Party there as well and it's not unlikely that some of those people and the Lib Dems as well

01:01:31.180 yeah those people burnham is bringing all of the sort of like the the corbynistas and the sort of

01:01:36.920 soft left into his party yeah it's the anti-farage vote very much and then more important it's the

01:01:42.180 tactical voting that is actually killing them when you look at the mrp poll in the seats

01:01:45.780 you know they've not actually had a commons majority since january you know that you know

01:01:51.060 when it's a year on realistically and you know they still think that the country is one big

01:01:55.740 constituency so vote share matters that's not what matters it's seats and they're just not

01:02:00.620 gaining them you know and it's it's infuriating because it had so much potential and they're just

01:02:06.220 wasting it because they don't know you know how to actually understand what different bits of the

01:02:10.520 country want yeah we we've talked about this at length obviously but like so what i thought we'd

01:02:16.380 do is have a look at the constituencies that they give us here right so this is really interesting

01:02:19.620 so this is um the constituencies by age now what's interesting is the labor vote has collapsed

01:02:26.280 amongst 18 to 24s uh the greens are still currently beating although there is an uptick

01:02:30.920 under burnham but greens are kind of they're kind of leveling off i don't think that the young are

01:02:36.260 going to go back to labor i do think they'll probably mostly be the the green party be the

01:02:42.940 party of the youth but man what what happened for us i thought something was happening out there

01:02:47.620 you're on 12 with young people yeah like the conservatives on 10 that's because you know when

01:02:52.940 you unfortunately it's the racism aspect but young voters are heavily motivated by morality politics

01:02:59.380 yeah so if you don't have clarity and you allow these narratives to be written about you rather

01:03:04.180 you write them yourself this is what happens young people just automatically turn away from you

01:03:08.080 the biggest one and i presume you might get to it is women yeah women oh yeah my god i think

01:03:14.300 i think another thing is the general economic messaging of reform is not great in my opinion

01:03:19.720 there isn't any uh yeah yeah again look look at the 65s the conservatives have overtaken reform

01:03:26.440 that was their their primary thing you've got a bunch of i mean you look at any reform rally it's

01:03:30.420 a bunch of silver-haired people it's like okay fine but like that's that's a that's a limited

01:03:37.380 demographic there's gonna be time limits exactly yeah there are time limits on that demographic

01:03:41.340 so who are you pitching to what are you appealing to here it's like we're going to protect your

01:03:45.400 pensions okay well you can understand how young people like well hang on a second you know i'm

01:03:50.420 you're making commitments from me right and then the older demographic are sewn up right you know

01:03:55.440 that like labor lib dems miles away from anyone there so you don't need to worry about them it's

01:04:00.140 almost become for those uh traditional conservative voters who are sticking with the party just a

01:04:04.760 single issue party of preserving the triple lock yeah and so long as the tory party does that

01:04:09.960 they'll continue to vote for them yeah and then you look at the people who are actually working

01:04:14.160 and running the country right 35 44 they haven't decided on anything that is a that is a terrible

01:04:20.060 spread for everyone you know labor slightly ahead because of the burning bump but again this is like

01:04:25.840 it's so compressed this is you know five competitive parties here and it's not uh terribly

01:04:32.140 dissimilar for again the uh slightly olders but it's comes it comes down to reform and labor but

01:04:37.860 again it's it's on a knife edge right these these are and you would think that farage being a

01:04:44.040 capitalist would be a lot more business having okay so the 35 to 64 age group i should be able

01:04:51.020 to sew up with massive tax cuts your wages going up it's on your backs the country has run this

01:04:57.860 should be easy but no like again no clear messaging on this and as you said they're not setting their

01:05:03.100 own narratives they're constantly on the back they've never set their own narratives reform

01:05:05.940 has been described they've never once actually said what they stand for they've always had things

01:05:09.920 written about them and that that's a huge problem when you particularly if you're an insurgent force

01:05:14.580 because you need the kind of the coalition of lots of different groups to push this forward

01:05:18.840 and all that all that's happening is they're narrowing it down so much that it's going to

01:05:22.980 become the tiniest protest movement that's got a lot of you know media capture but no executive

01:05:27.980 power correct there is also just the mere toxicity of the people who've been brought into the party

01:05:34.240 since they had that incredible momentum yeah i do think taking in the tories actually really did

01:05:39.660 cost them about five points in the polls oh yes yeah because it showed the blatant hypocrisy

01:05:44.440 you can't run around for years saying the tories broke the country oh by the way tories come on in

01:05:48.280 well i mean that's people wanted to pick up the reform party and use it as a weapon against the

01:05:53.980 and so because it was the only thing they had at their disposal to punish them yeah for those 14

01:06:00.540 years and now they can't even have that because they know that people like generic and braverman

01:06:05.520 and nadine doris um um what's his name zahawi yeah yeah i mean with the moment he suddenly

01:06:12.980 appeared at that press conference i was like well that's the end of this why do you want any of

01:06:16.660 those people what does nadine doris and nadine zahawi bring to anything you just see nadine

01:06:21.740 doris just writes these like hit pieces like for the daily mail or whatever it is and just gets

01:06:26.240 like 28 likes on twitter and just gets ratioed into and obviously it's not entirely real life

01:06:32.340 i grant you but it's like there is why isn't any any organic love for what you're saying

01:06:37.260 you know yeah like i said there's no star power anyway when it goes by region um obviously reform

01:06:43.120 aren't going to win london no one thought they were somehow labor are still in the lead though

01:06:47.560 i mean come on london have you not had enough um some people just like to suffer yeah honestly

01:06:53.880 they really do but even then i mean the conservative reform vote that's 38 that's not a

01:06:58.820 small percentage that you could tap into there but um anyway in the midlands reform are still

01:07:05.100 in the lead but later labor are coming up at them so well that's not good is it um and of course

01:07:10.440 in um the rest if i can get this to work in the north labor are fully in the lead now that's a

01:07:17.020 big problem for reform i mean look at it look at it only a few months ago you know reform 34

01:07:22.800 Labour 24.

01:07:25.040 It's a huge swing.

01:07:26.860 I think it also, it completely rubbishes everything that people said about the Red Wall.

01:07:31.140 Because the thing that people forget is every constituency is so different in the North.

01:07:35.380 You know, just because they happen to be in one geographical region doesn't mean they're all the same.

01:07:38.540 And everybody was a bit lazy saying, oh, well, they voted for Brexit, so therefore they'll vote for reform.

01:07:42.740 It doesn't work like that.

01:07:44.080 And it never has.

01:07:44.860 Again, it's the kind of the disconnect between the Westminster blob people and the actual people that live there.

01:07:50.620 you know they already talks they don't talk to them they tell them what they think yeah and and

01:07:54.660 don't get me wrong i i i think that the i think the people in the north heavily socially conservative

01:08:00.200 but also economically people people say left-wing but that's not the right way to phrase it is

01:08:05.600 they're not like oh we want communism or something like this what they are is we want to know that

01:08:10.880 our jobs are going to be protected right we're happy with a free market over there like but we

01:08:16.160 want you know in manufacturing jobs extraction jobs you know we'll get steel and coal and we'll

01:08:21.820 produce things to put on the market that's fine but this is what we do right that's the northern

01:08:27.440 attitude we're like the backbone of the country is the way it was it was and so far as coming in

01:08:33.340 and being like right i'm going to throw you to the walls of the three market is not a pitch to them

01:08:36.800 no but the problem also they have though is that the reform is that kind of northern kind of like

01:08:42.480 you know that kind of toil kind of people and then it is the thatch right people they are made up of

01:08:46.380 too many different varieties of people to come up with a single coherent economic policy which is

01:08:50.940 why you know generics slop the other day to make no sense to anybody well he hadn't finished writing

01:08:55.300 it but that would help but again because they haven't got a single vision about what they believe

01:08:59.640 in they know what they're against not what they believe in and that's always been reforms from

01:09:03.580 populism works if it's positive populism yes there's this grievance based so it you know when

01:09:08.420 you actually have to fix the thing that's when everybody falls out but the point is like they

01:09:12.540 should be pitching to the north it's like no no we are you're gonna have essentially guaranteed

01:09:17.660 government jobs extracting steel extracting coal extracting whatever manufacturing these things and

01:09:22.840 then we're gonna make sure that all gets onto the market through the southeast and then that'll go

01:09:26.560 out into the wide world and so we'll have an economic engine there that it doesn't leave you 0.86

01:09:30.620 open to being bought out by china you know we're not going to leave you open to being you know 0.98

01:09:34.800 extracted from and left in tiny houses that are just falling down we're going to make sure that

01:09:40.300 you have a good quality of life as you do this service right that's and i and that is if you

01:09:46.000 were just pitching that to the north i'd be like okay i don't care i don't live in the north i

01:09:48.900 don't want that but i don't live in the north so if they and then they came to the shires and said

01:09:52.220 right okay great low taxes for you guys i'm like oh brilliant that's all i want just leave me alone

01:09:56.360 and so you know don't pitch the same economic message for the entire country because we're

01:10:00.060 all different yeah you know you've got to understand that these things don't work the

01:10:03.260 same and i don't begrudge the northerners for thinking differently to me because obviously

01:10:07.080 that's useful if they're going to extract a bunch of raw resources um anyway in the south

01:10:12.640 they're barely beating the conservatives it's like this is terrible that's terrible

01:10:17.780 but that one is economic credibility yes that is your economic credibility i think i looked i

01:10:23.340 looked up the other day a reformer nine percent trusted on the economy nine percent and they think

01:10:28.740 that they're going to waltz into number 10 with a massive majority when you think not when that's

01:10:32.400 what you trusted with which is going to be one of the biggest issues at the election as it always is

01:10:36.320 cost of living the economy people wonder why burnham's plugging all this stuff now he knows

01:10:40.940 that reform are weak on it and also as well this is with the age of a you know very large news

01:10:47.520 station with gb news constantly giving a pro-sympathetic reform position and yet it's

01:10:53.400 still not breaking through yeah no for some reason right i mean if i were niger frage when i went to

01:10:58.800 the south i'd be my rhetoric would be massive tax cuts deregulation job growth money in your pocket 0.90

01:11:04.720 you're earning money this is how thatcher converted essex right and like my dad was a thatcher man

01:11:10.040 you know because he was in the military and she was like 30 pay rise for the military he's like

01:11:13.800 well it's me thatcher forever then but money in your pocket is literally the argument you're going

01:11:17.940 to make more money you're going to get you know less intrusion from the government so you can earn

01:11:21.480 more in your business great make the argument in the south make a protectionist argument in the

01:11:25.940 north but explains people you're getting money we're going to support you you know this is going

01:11:31.580 to be patriotically improving the economy you get nothing from farage nothing and it's like

01:11:36.780 okay where are we going here i mean like labor can't win in the south obviously but burnham's

01:11:42.220 doing better here than he should be i mean you know labor should be on nothing they were doing

01:11:46.560 better than they should be in general in the south labor or nothing in the southwest there is no

01:11:50.460 labor you know they don't have anything and then of course scotland wales have become little

01:11:54.680 ethnostate fifes right um no they really are you know the smb why we're scottish that's why

01:12:01.220 in wales it's played comry because we're welsh that's why like labor i mean this was always

01:12:07.080 labor obviously forever um but now it's play comry and reform but labor are catching up there too

01:12:13.140 so it's like okay you really drop the ball on on this one they really like to allow labor to be

01:12:19.940 coming back on this because you've got no line on the economy like assuming like thatcherite

01:12:25.540 credibility is not sufficient that's the word credibility yeah this is why i i bang on about

01:12:31.460 this all the time when you announce policy you have to have the detail you have because you look

01:12:36.180 like you're in command that means that you're leading it reform a greater riding a wave that

01:12:40.800 they didn't create and this is the thing they need to learn to create their own waves and that comes

01:12:44.580 when you actually want to change something and you have the proof and the timelines and all this kind

01:12:48.460 of stuff. You've got institutional credibility, so like the IFS backs you. Stuff like that matters

01:12:53.020 to people. You can't just say, oh, we're going to do this, and then end of sentence. That's not how

01:12:58.680 this works. Again, they fall into the trap. Just because they're right on the issue doesn't mean

01:13:04.320 you're convincing people that you are correct, and they have never understood that. And also,

01:13:08.540 their supporters, again, I'll try to care because I don't want my Twitter to explode,

01:13:13.100 but realistically they have to learn that things aren't going great otherwise they're never turning

01:13:19.540 this around yeah i mean it's what what i find bizarre is okay now nudge of forage should have

01:13:24.740 been able to meet with various business leaders and say look if i give you a tax cut of if we

01:13:29.680 have corporation tax or in line with ireland right how many jobs do you think that i create and you

01:13:34.620 know whoever whatever international megacorporation well maybe 10 000 jobs you know 3 000 here 4 000

01:13:40.140 there and i just wrote right okay i'm going to just get this list and then go out right we're

01:13:43.660 going to be these tax cuts i've spoken to these corporations and they think that's you know 50

01:13:47.640 000 jobs to a net benefit of however many billion to the economy let's do it like and like that

01:13:53.840 it's not even very much detail yeah it's just something you know the problem is they can't do

01:13:58.860 it because a company doesn't want to be associated with nigel frage because he is the most unpopular

01:14:02.820 leader you know that that's killed them because the nobody can lend their credibility so then

01:14:08.960 that's why everything looks like everybody's against him it's just they can't stand next to

01:14:12.260 him otherwise their bottom line gets hurt most yeah and i mean let's i was going to go through

01:14:17.380 some of the local elections but there's no point we know basically reform haven't been winning

01:14:22.060 anything no labor have been taking councils off reform non-stop uh and of course uh we know what

01:14:28.080 happened in makerfield so um you know and this was just a quick thing on makefield right you're

01:14:33.440 from me i am i found it really interesting um burnham was running a reactionary campaign

01:14:40.160 oh yeah he was running a right-wing campaign in makerfield so essentially make make feel great

01:14:45.260 again make make labor makerfield again you know that's all yes yeah yeah he was because it was

01:14:50.740 clear that the the southern uh human rights lawyers have captured the labor party and they 0.83

01:14:55.060 drag it off without a doubt into the the weeds of libtard human rights lawyer nonsense and he was 0.92

01:15:01.640 just like no no we're just going to make it so we just give us little jobs again yeah and look at 0.99

01:15:05.580 this over you know complete victory 54 nearly 55 absolute victory it's like that's all burnham has

01:15:14.380 to do to win the north oh yeah 100 because reform forgot to campaign yes i mean they kind of gave

01:15:20.480 him the job of prime minister andy burnham without making him an mp first yes they didn't hold him

01:15:24.700 accountable for being a mayor they kind of just gave people that oh we get we get to get rid of

01:15:29.520 Keir Starmer, who we don't like,

01:15:30.740 and this guy who we think he's all right.

01:15:32.200 He's not great, but...

01:15:33.260 So that's what reform put on the table to voters.

01:15:35.900 You know, they keep saying,

01:15:36.620 oh, it's the popularity of Andy Burnham.

01:15:37.820 It was like, you made him popular.

01:15:39.600 I mean, most people...

01:15:40.940 The bit I'm from is oral,

01:15:43.040 and, like, nobody considers themselves

01:15:44.500 part of Greater Manchester.

01:15:45.480 We put Lancashire still on envelopes

01:15:47.600 and stuff like that.

01:15:48.440 You know, so this idea that Andy Burnham's

01:15:49.860 kind of great Manchesterism works

01:15:51.420 was nonsense.

01:15:52.640 What it was is Andy actually spoke to people

01:15:54.980 and listened.

01:15:55.760 You know, my parents,

01:15:57.340 they went to a few of the campaign events

01:15:59.780 for different parties

01:16:00.500 and they said Andy never spoke about reform once

01:16:02.940 he never mentioned them once

01:16:05.180 and none of the campaign material

01:16:06.660 none of the speeches

01:16:07.640 he was referenced

01:16:08.740 he was very clear what he was doing

01:16:09.820 but he didn't talk about them

01:16:11.260 reform never shut up about him 0.96

01:16:13.040 it was ridiculous 0.87

01:16:14.320 it's the same in Gordon and Denton

01:16:15.440 Matt Goodwin's entirely negative campaign

01:16:17.980 yeah

01:16:18.280 okay but what are you for

01:16:19.580 exactly

01:16:19.960 I'm not even sure

01:16:21.180 anyway but I think you're right

01:16:22.780 about the popularity thing

01:16:24.760 obviously everyone knows who Nigel Farage is 0.84

01:16:26.360 a third of people like him but 52 percent of people dislike him and the neutrals are very

01:16:32.840 very very narrow and also if you're neutral on nigel farage at this point yeah like i mean you've

01:16:39.880 got a real commitment to neutrality yeah yeah spiritually switzerland you should work for the

01:16:46.100 bbc you could teach them something yeah exactly i mean i've seen other polls where the dislikes

01:16:51.800 are at 60% plus so you know like but the point is Nigel Farage has got no wiggle room now yeah

01:16:57.320 that's what he always had that was his great skill was he was the king of the escape hatch

01:17:01.460 yeah so his kind of popularity forced him to survive the closer he's got to prime minister

01:17:06.780 the less survival room he's made for himself and it's the collapse of the neutral that is

01:17:11.780 absolutely devastated him because this is why I keep saying the privileges committee it's not

01:17:16.660 about the by-election it is that kind of judgment against him that kills his kind of moral

01:17:21.760 righteousness dead it's like when corbyn and the labor party got called institutionally racist

01:17:25.780 you know they couldn't suddenly start you know browbeating everybody anymore because that was

01:17:30.020 bewielded every single time they dared open the mouth this is and it's going to say because if

01:17:34.300 you don't like somebody and then they have this judgment against them you are then cemented in

01:17:38.420 your opinion because you were right not to like him yes so that's that's the danger there and

01:17:42.940 you know they just keep thinking it's about the by-election that's it's a problem but the real

01:17:46.620 thing is the cemented positions of a person do you we're becoming so presidential like you know

01:17:52.080 it's it's just a killer for them and it could have been all sorted if they kind of got rid of him

01:17:57.700 yeah i really think if they got rid of him i think there would be at least a better chance for them

01:18:01.640 well this is this is the hobson's choice that they have though isn't it because

01:18:05.360 nigel farage would be making the case well reform have only been so high in the polls because

01:18:08.980 my personal popularity despite the fact that they were rising in the polls anyway and he'd

01:18:12.920 jumped on the bandwagon of rising he's going to swan off to america and help donald trump but

01:18:17.280 instead oh no i can win in clacton therefore i will okay well now you you've taken credit for

01:18:21.840 the rise so now you have to take credit for the fall yes you know now you were responsible for

01:18:27.080 these consequences and so like where where can they go if nigel france resigned tomorrow

01:18:32.240 does the reform vote completely collapse i think probably yes yeah because they're fighting a war

01:18:37.320 on two fronts that most of the voter migration shows that 40 percent will go back to the tories

01:18:41.520 but a big chunk would go to restore absolutely they're now so that they're being ripped apart

01:18:46.440 yes um it's quite entertaining because they're using the same narratives that the tories used

01:18:50.100 against reform and the brexit party saying you're splitting the vote you know you all this kind of

01:18:54.460 loyalty stuff i was like well you've definitely on the pail yeah yeah they said all that to you

01:19:00.800 yeah but this is this is the problem that frage has is he's trying to be a mainstream party wearing

01:19:07.880 a right-wing face and so he I mean Nigel Farage has never taken allegations of racism or bigotry

01:19:14.400 very well at all he's always been personally offended by them if he had started on the

01:19:18.680 Rupert Lopez and said well I don't care about that you know like that that's a great way of

01:19:22.060 diffusion so not my problem you know that's your problem and you can keep it to yourself you know

01:19:25.880 let's talk about the economy let's talk about this you know go on the attack when they but

01:19:29.120 instead Nigel Farage gets very defensive he's like no no no no I've always kept the BNP out of

01:19:32.580 policies that's nonsense yeah it's just nonsense yeah but it's also not a good defense from the

01:19:37.840 right yeah that's a left-wing defense nigel it's just crazy that that this is the big problem

01:19:42.920 reform it's all built on folklore and myth yeah you know like oh i put you know they stood aside

01:19:47.720 to let boris win yeah boris was already going to win he was the one that was going to split the vote

01:19:52.100 but it's again it's how he's able to craft this kind of narrative around himself as this as the

01:19:57.040 only savior i mean everybody has a go at people thinking andy burnham is the messiah the messiah

01:20:02.040 complex around Nigel Farage is incredible but Burnham Burnham actually has a much more legitimate

01:20:07.840 hero's journey than Nigel has right like for I'm not a northerner I don't want to vote for labor

01:20:12.620 but if I was a northerner but I can look at why they're doing it what Andy Burnham is promising

01:20:17.240 who he authentically is and be like yeah no that's a much more legitimate hero's journey

01:20:22.860 than Nigel Farage I mean Burnham at least represents the thing he claims to be he is a

01:20:27.140 he's just a regular looking schlubby northern guy fine nudger farage he's like oh yeah family

01:20:32.240 community country you're you're divorced you're about to you're twice divorced you're about to

01:20:37.780 swan off to america you know like what what you you you're never in clacton what are you talking

01:20:43.080 about community for yeah you're not from there you're never there you know you're a complete

01:20:47.020 artificial thing there's a media production and you know the sort of i say the sort of like

01:20:52.420 narrative weaving but there's no essential truth to it yeah in andy burnham there is an essential

01:20:57.760 truth there there's a bit of authenticity exactly and i've never understood where people think

01:21:01.800 farage is authentic no i don't either i've never got that one yeah and i mean so just going to the

01:21:06.640 disliked like the 52 dislike is pretty pretty bad i mean kimi bay knocks only on 36 and 90

01:21:12.820 fame everyone knows who she is a lot of people are neutral on her you know you know only 26 0.76

01:21:17.360 like her when it comes to rupert low fame 60 which is not bad 20 liked 25 dislike that's not not

01:21:23.560 terrible and uh when it comes to like ed davy 75 no he is pretty neutral like generally isn't

01:21:30.120 pretty middling um and then andy burnham himself again pretty middling actually yes right it's not

01:21:35.980 the these are not like i'm surprised rupert low has like got such a low dislike rating to be honest

01:21:41.980 um but these are these are the sort of like normal boring politicians and okay that's fine

01:21:50.580 they don't trigger a massive reaction and as you say is this that is triggering the um

01:21:56.500 protest votes yes without a doubt and and i don't know what nigel frost can do about this

01:22:02.460 i don't know how we can make the people who hate him like him and there are loads of them and it's

01:22:07.460 and it's genuinely a fundamental character judgment i mean this is why john cleese is like

01:22:11.240 yeah i love rupert lowe i hate nigel farage it's like okay i mean realistically like you know

01:22:17.180 there's a big venn diagram of right-wing policies that they're both massively overlap on and yet

01:22:24.020 rupert lowe can't stand you and it's because of your character yeah it's how you present yourself

01:22:28.760 you know a bit of a jack the lad a bit of a sort of wheeler dealer well that's not what the moment

01:22:33.280 calls for also as well someone who has walked away from the fight so many times yeah in his

01:22:38.480 professional career as well someone who's actually not being willing to see things through to the

01:22:44.220 end um i mean him stepping away from ukip after i mean i you know on some level i get i get it

01:22:50.240 you know dedicated a lot of his years to that and he obviously still had some trust in our

01:22:55.340 political institutions that they would carry out the will of the people and everything but once it

01:23:00.160 became apparent that this was simply not going to happen you have a mandate to destroy these people

01:23:07.260 politically speaking you know and just take everything from them and become the new

01:23:11.640 farage's narrative oh i i keep getting dragged back in as well that's not good enough either

01:23:17.320 no i don't think it's true either well no i don't think it's true for me the brexit was uh was proof

01:23:22.440 of the opportunism he walked away because he knew it was going to be a catastrophe and he's mr

01:23:27.180 brexit yes so to protect his own personal brand he couldn't be anywhere near it that's not that's

01:23:31.900 not being a patriot that's an opportunist by the definition of the word but it but it's also you

01:23:35.780 know you're a you're a professional political commentator on gb news you get a million a year

01:23:39.060 oh they drag me back and say well you never left if you were if you were like you know like

01:23:43.360 diocletian or whatever with the cabbages um you know farming your cabbages and they're like no 0.92

01:23:48.460 nigel we need you back maybe you'd have a persuasive argument there you've always been 0.98

01:23:51.740 orbiting around this thing looking for the opportunity and right clackton was it it's

01:23:55.280 like that's an opportunist's maneuver you know doesn't he live in thanet is it yeah yeah so it's

01:24:01.200 like if you'd run there i would understand you being like okay i'm feeling forced back into it

01:24:05.300 no you looked for someone somewhere that was opportune and you took it so there's a streak

01:24:10.860 of inauthenticity in farage and reform that i just i can't i can't stomach it and i think that's the

01:24:17.660 big problem is people can see it now because now the other parties have kind of got their act

01:24:22.260 together this is this is why they're suddenly struggling to have this kind of meteoric rise

01:24:25.760 again because everyone's going oh wait a minute you say you're different you are no different than

01:24:29.640 the rest of them you know they say they're not the uni party i mean when you literally welcome

01:24:33.680 them into a fanfare people are going to judge you by it it's hilarious to me because they they fall

01:24:39.360 into the labor trap they think their politics makes them better people they think oh the country hates

01:24:44.720 all politicians but not us people the country hates all politicians they need to understand that

01:24:50.240 and also um the the the the spirit of insurrection that you were coasting on

01:24:56.720 is a powerful thing for a short period of time right because don't get me wrong everyone was

01:25:04.160 pissed off with how everything was going and okay that's that's forced andy burnham to change the

01:25:10.100 labor messaging which is really helping andy burnham okay now you need you are forced to

01:25:15.340 change your messaging what what is it it's like i didn't take five million pounds or i don't care

01:25:19.320 if i took five million what were you doing like this this is not useful this is not advancing

01:25:24.260 your case like anyway it's just yeah yeah they've got the thing is the potential was there yes i

01:25:32.560 mean they had the voter base they had the momentum the one thing that you know the the blob people i

01:25:37.060 call myself that we all look at was who's driving the agenda yeah at one point reform were at 44

01:25:42.120 percent they're at 16 now that drop is what we mean by the end of inevitability because

01:25:47.240 reform are now reacting even more than they were before they're on the defensive yes and they're

01:25:52.100 on the attack because they think everything every criticism is an attack yes rather than saying no

01:25:56.980 we're just saying that you need to fix that thing but also it's the policy right because i mean like

01:26:00.420 if you go back to the first segment with richard tice saying yeah no families are the best thing

01:26:04.680 and he's just like oh why are you why aren't you attacking them attack them oh no family formation

01:26:11.860 has been down birth rates are down our country is collapsing so the the very idea that they would

01:26:16.100 challenge this should be like oh you know if you're going to challenge this affirmative position

01:26:20.700 that Tyson's put forward you look like the bad guy you know you want the collapse of the country

01:26:24.860 but instead like and again Nigel Farage is the same oh I didn't mean to get I didn't want to

01:26:28.420 get dragged back in okay why aren't you on the attack constantly what you if it was me in Farage's

01:26:32.840 place I would just be leathering them every day I'd be like we're gonna get millions of people 1.00

01:26:37.720 out of here what are they doing here the entire Boris wave is here get Nadine Doris up here to

01:26:41.760 explain this you know Nadine what are we doing about we're getting rid of them all aren't we 0.97

01:26:45.120 because you're a traitor get out of my party you know like yeah I'd be furious but he's not furious 0.94

01:26:49.840 he's not furious he doesn't have fire in his belly he looks tired he looks tired he looks like he 0.99

01:26:54.860 looks exhausted you know i said at the beginning of the year this is going to be the most exhausting

01:26:58.640 year of his life because it's make or break it is you know they had that historic rise and to

01:27:03.600 maintain it i mean like a proper institution party would struggle to maintain that absolutely let

01:27:09.120 alone an insurgent force when literally nobody could get along with each other i mean they make

01:27:12.740 the tories look like happy families most of the time anyway we'll leave that there just because

01:27:19.500 I just don't, I think it's over for reform at this point.

01:27:22.740 I don't think there's a recovery that is in the future.

01:27:25.060 I don't think they've got the self-awareness to realise that, though.

01:27:27.660 I think that's the end.

01:27:29.220 I think that's why they've collapsed.

01:27:30.480 Sunk cost fallacy.

01:27:31.620 Too much has been put into it at this point

01:27:33.900 for them to just pack it in and go away.

01:27:36.020 Even if Farage steps down,

01:27:37.760 someone will be there to just carry it on,

01:27:40.180 on like 7%, whatever it falls to,

01:27:42.740 because they've come this far and it still gives, you know,

01:27:46.520 someone at the top of the party a certain prestige

01:27:48.760 and ability to turn up on the on the radio circuit and you know the media appearances

01:27:53.840 and the dinners but um yeah a party of grandees yeah that's what they'll become yeah well they're

01:27:58.580 media personalities aren't they oh without a personality well no no they've all got personalities

01:28:03.880 they're just they're the they're the men behaving badly of british politics so i don't want to put

01:28:08.540 them in charge yeah but you know kirstarmer is like the love actually men of british politics

01:28:12.920 which are insufferable but they seem more legitimate even though that everything they're

01:28:17.720 creating is causing the problems i still don't want to put the member even badly yeah it's called

01:28:21.180 valence politics yeah and it's why they've lost women women don't vote for chaos yeah well yeah

01:28:25.920 yeah absolutely um just for the sake of time we'll probably have to skip the video comments i would

01:28:30.880 think okay um but there are a bunch of comments i want to read out before we get on um there are a

01:28:35.960 bunch of people who are like happy to see you on by the way oh thank you um but omar's got a great

01:28:40.360 comment here poor motless reformers they could have fortified the most right-wing priors but

01:28:45.260 they haven't dared defend the position lest it be correct too early and that's what they have

01:28:50.880 always had this problem with Nigel Farage being like oh no I don't want mass deportations to my

01:28:57.260 name now everyone's scrambling so oh no we'll mass deport more it's like I'm so tired of Farage being

01:29:03.920 behind the crest of every wave yeah it's exactly as you said they've never gone out and made their

01:29:08.200 own yeah he's a surfer he doesn't create the waves and that's you know but people think he does

01:29:13.380 even Brexit for example

01:29:15.180 he isn't the mastermind behind Brexit

01:29:17.660 he's good at corralling the narrative himself

01:29:19.940 oh 100%

01:29:20.900 that's exactly it

01:29:23.800 Alex says

01:29:24.800 interviewers in the modern media aren't interested in getting to the core of any matter

01:29:27.800 as we saw with Nathan Coughness

01:29:29.880 and Nick Ferrari the other day

01:29:31.340 I'm finding

01:29:34.140 myself taking more of a shine 1.00

01:29:36.060 to Nathan just because of his kind of autistic

01:29:38.200 I don't understand why you're getting upset with my face 0.99

01:29:40.220 and it's the fact that that is infuriating

01:29:41.900 everybody else i find very entertaining ap says show me the incentive and i'll show you the outcome

01:29:50.500 charlie munger one of the truest things ever said and yeah it's exactly you you get what you

01:29:54.560 incentivize um michael says when my son went to basic infantry training it was still all men

01:30:01.600 and as such there were a great deal of um grab assery michael's american grab assery and physical

01:30:07.620 competition and my son thrived in that environment yes it was exactly like an order of knights yes

01:30:11.880 and this is appealing to young men and and it's another thing as well i've got like

01:30:16.680 environments where it's all women and all men are just different to mixed sex environments and it's

01:30:21.480 one of those things that's just difficult to talk about but it's true and is preferable in some 0.99

01:30:25.960 cases i hate going to a mixed sex gym i hate it no i really hate it it's like the women wandering 1.00

01:30:31.200 around this unbelievably form-fitting and i'm like look i don't want my eyes dragged by your 1.00

01:30:36.180 arse as you walk past and they know why they're doing it they know why they're doing it uh and 0.96

01:30:42.920 he says why is labor beating reform easy with weak milquetoast policy statements for our just

01:30:47.540 backstabbing nature and reform being a cult of personality yep and that's this this is an

01:30:52.100 american chap who's just watching from across the pond uh he knows you know he knows i always find

01:30:57.740 it funny that they think that the donald trump they had the clinton campaign through and through

01:31:01.680 you know that the entitlement even hillary clinton's going that seems a bit much you know

01:31:05.780 it's hilarious to me you know they think they think that this great insurgent force they're

01:31:09.520 in the palace walls complaining about being outside of it it makes no sense yeah it's really

01:31:13.560 frustrating that like he didn't farage doesn't understand i think it's because farage himself

01:31:17.960 is a creation of the media he's always been very good at getting his appearance on the media on

01:31:23.760 television and making himself like the most right-wing person in a room full of liberals

01:31:28.840 it's like okay but that's not how donald trump did it right donald trump did it by coming out

01:31:33.000 and saying i hate you all the media is the enemy of the people i'm for us against you so i can

01:31:38.180 plausibly claim to be outside yes attacking inwards nigel france just can't do that and 0.94

01:31:42.600 he doesn't have the balls to go with the go toward the media oh yeah definitely trump's greatest line

01:31:46.380 was in the one of the debates where he said i'm using the same tax rules that all her donors are 0.96

01:31:50.940 like that really showed that he was actually the real outsider yeah you know for farage would panic

01:31:56.660 like anybody like you've never seen because he wouldn't know what to do because i find it quite

01:32:00.560 funny that he hates the bbc they made him yeah he was made by the very people that don't like him

01:32:05.600 bbc sky news it's a bit of a pantomime villain in a way exactly that's exactly a pantomime villain

01:32:11.180 that's a great way of describing him and that's that's why he'll never be able to flip the media

01:32:16.080 and the the establishment in the way that trump did right you know trump flipped them by deliberately

01:32:21.440 standing outside and just pointing everything inwards farage is not unlike you said he's

01:32:25.740 trying to defend on both sides she was getting torn apart in the center it's he can't win

01:32:29.500 absolutely well uh it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show thank you

01:32:33.360 thank you for coming in i hope you've enjoyed the show ladies and gentlemen we look forward

01:32:36.960 to seeing you in the next one and enjoy the rest of your day of course take care

01:32:55.740 Thank you.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 25, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1491

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