0:02

This is London Calling.

0:07

I don't know why the crowd is booing Azareka. They

0:11

got the wrong player, really?

0:16

There is nothing to say. She

0:18

doesn't want to shake hands with Russian

0:21

Belarusian people. I respected

0:23

her decision. I did what

0:26

should I have done? Stayed and waited? There

0:29

is no thing I could do that would

0:32

have been right.

0:38

Welcome to London Calling

0:40

with me, James Delingpole, and my very good friend,

0:42

Mr. Toby Young. Now, Tobes, Brian,

0:44

the Evil Producer, and I have been speculating.

0:47

I can see an image of you. You've

0:50

got

0:52

some sort of palm-type thing, leafy

0:55

thing in the background. I glimpsed

0:57

your bathroom, which is absolutely gopping.

1:00

I mean, really hideous. I'm

1:02

doubting some of the furniture in your apartment,

1:05

wherever it is. You're obviously somewhere abroad, and

1:07

you've got a weird sort of wispy chin

1:09

beard, like a sort of, like

1:11

a blonde person just who hasn't shaved

1:14

properly.

1:15

No, I don't think my beard has changed,

1:17

but I am abroad. See if you can guess where

1:19

I am.

1:20

Well, I was going to guess, looking at the bathroom,

1:23

I was going to guess somewhere on

1:25

the front line in

1:27

the Ukraine, but

1:31

maybe somewhere ritzier than that. I

1:33

don't know. I'm in Ibiza. Oh,

1:37

are you? Oh, that's

1:39

interesting. I got here

1:41

on Saturday, and I'm heading home tomorrow,

1:43

Tuesday. Have you just

1:45

come to

1:47

do a bit of Mandy and hit

1:49

the space? Does space still

1:51

exist in Ibiza? You know,

1:53

I don't know. I was told yesterday, we were

1:55

at this restaurant yesterday, and people were singing the praises

1:57

of a restaurant called, of a club called DC.

1:59

10. But

2:02

I think manumission may still exist.

2:04

And I think they still have phone parties. I

2:08

thought manumission was the one where the couple

2:10

had live sex in front

2:12

of the, you must have got very wearing after

2:15

a time. Do you know about this? I

2:17

think that's right. Yeah. But to tell you

2:19

the truth, James, my wife only agreed

2:22

to come to Ibiza on condition

2:24

that we didn't go clubbing.

2:26

So we really haven't been clubbing. We're

2:29

here for a friend's birthday party, which

2:31

is actually today. And the

2:34

late lunch is due to start in about an hour. Yeah,

2:37

I was wondering about the odd timing

2:40

of this podcast. I must say you are very,

2:42

very diligent about you never

2:45

like to, I'm kind of yeah, whatever,

2:47

I'm on holiday, I don't care. But you're like,

2:49

I must allocate some time in my Toby,

2:52

my Toby way to make sure the podcast

2:54

goes out, which is which is to your credit.

2:57

So is Ibiza,

3:00

are you in Ibiza town or what? No,

3:03

we're in the country.

3:06

Overlooking a beach in quite a

3:08

nice villa. For

3:11

me, the bathroom seems perfectly fine. But

3:13

I didn't think you got a very good look at it actually. It's

3:15

actually, it's all very nicely done.

3:18

Okay. It's very comfortable. Sorry

3:20

for dissing your your you get on Airbnb?

3:24

No, no, we're actually staying as guests

3:26

of this friend of mine, his birthday.

3:28

Oh, okay. Okay. And

3:31

I'm sorry to grilly, I'm just I'm just

3:34

curious about the sort of thing because this is this is

3:36

no friction conversation. Do

3:39

you find it quite

3:42

as you get older, it's quite difficult

3:44

staying at other people's houses?

3:47

Do you find sleeping and stuff? And

3:50

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm always

3:52

inclined, always tempted to bring

3:55

my own pillow with me. The thing I find more difficult

3:57

than anything else.

4:00

is generally how uncomfortable,

4:02

how sort of solid the

4:05

pillows are. I like a very soft pillow, but

4:07

my wife is very scornful. She refers

4:10

to whenever I try and pack a pillow, she says

4:12

that's typical dayboy behavior,

4:14

harking back to her days as a

4:17

boarding school girl. And

4:20

so I find I'm too

4:22

much of a cuck to

4:24

actually pack a pillow very often. So

4:26

I do struggle to sleep with the kind

4:28

of very hard pillows. Well,

4:31

you know how you, Toby Young, have an anecdote

4:33

for every occasion. Weirdly, I'm

4:35

going to play the Tobes role here. And

4:38

I do have an anecdote about pillows. And

4:41

one of my friends, one of the very few

4:43

friends I've got left actually, was

4:47

in the SES.

4:48

You know, he was an officer rather than a

4:52

ranks or NCO who

4:55

were the real, who do the real fighting and stuff.

4:57

But nevertheless, he was in the SES. And

5:00

on his last

5:02

tour of duty, he

5:05

went to Afghanistan and

5:09

he took out with him his favorite

5:11

pillow.

5:12

And also,

5:15

I know that who's

5:17

that slightly sort of queenie shrill,

5:20

not David Starkey, but the

5:23

other one, TV historian, sort

5:26

of quite highly strong, what's his name?

5:29

Lefty.

5:33

Oh, I know he mean, who writes

5:35

a lot about the French

5:37

Revolution. Yeah, intense. Yeah,

5:40

Simon Sharma. Simon

5:44

Sharma. Apparently, I

5:47

bumped into some people who'd been filming

5:50

one of his series.

5:52

And I think I'm right in saying

5:54

he's very, very fussy about his special

5:56

pillow. And I think one day, his

5:58

special pillow may have been lost in.

5:59

transit and there was a massive... Major

6:03

meltdown. The massive... Oh, while

6:05

we're there, do your friends actually have

6:07

they retired to Ibiza?

6:10

Sorry to quit it. No,

6:12

they haven't. But we did, we're

6:14

sort of renting a house from someone

6:17

who rents villas to

6:19

numerous people and he lives quite

6:21

nearby and he had a party

6:24

on our first night and we kind of wandered

6:27

over to

6:27

his party. I mean, you

6:30

could go as far as to say we gate crashed because we weren't

6:32

formally invited and it was pretty amazing

6:34

James. It was exactly what you'd expect Ibiza

6:37

to be. So, you know, it was full

6:39

of kind of men in

6:42

their 50s and 60s, clearly

6:46

sort of pacing themselves and

6:49

girls in their

6:50

early 20s kind of dancing

6:53

and obviously high

6:56

and they were kind of amazing

7:00

kind of bowls full of

7:02

every kind of ichor and wine, cold

7:04

beer on tap. I mean, it

7:07

was just exactly what you'd expect Ibiza to

7:09

be. There was a pool, there was a DJ. Do

7:13

they have dwarves with

7:15

plates on their heads with

7:18

pills and lines of coke and stuff? No,

7:21

no dwarves. I think that's probably only

7:23

in the movies, but it was about

7:25

as close to the kind of movie

7:27

cliche

7:28

idea of Ibiza that you could possibly get. And

7:31

how these people made their money? Yeah, good question.

7:33

I think I did ask that actually of our host,

7:35

how did your landlord

7:38

make his money and he thinks that he inherited

7:40

it. So the old fashioned way. I

7:44

see. Well, okay. Well, I'm

7:47

sorry to have to bring you down temporarily from your Mandy

7:51

cloud to come down to the

7:54

reality of doing a London.

7:59

calling, oh, can I just bore you

8:02

briefly with my progress

8:04

on this sodding stupid

8:07

keto diet? So I'm in my

8:09

second week and I haven't even gone into

8:11

full ketosis. I've been peeing

8:13

on this little stick which changes colour

8:16

to tell you how much ketosis you're in and

8:18

I'm really, I'm only on the outer fringes

8:21

of it.

8:22

It just seems to me that

8:24

you make a slight mistake

8:26

and you come out of ketosis or maybe it's just

8:28

really, you've got to so restrict

8:31

every last tiny bit of sugar and

8:33

carbs that you can't, you

8:35

really can't eat anything apart from steak and

8:37

bacon and an egg and clotted

8:39

cream which is nice but it does get a

8:41

bit, a

8:43

bit wearing. It's hard to imagine

8:45

that that's good for you as well.

8:47

It sounds a bit like Jordan Peterson's diet. I've

8:50

signed up for something called the Zoe

8:52

program. Do

8:53

you remember during COVID

8:56

the Zoe app

8:58

would, there would always be data yielded

9:00

from the Zoe app which supposedly rivaled

9:03

the O&S data about

9:05

how many people were infected at

9:08

any one time and often

9:10

the data on via

9:12

the Zoe app was a bit more optimistic than

9:14

the data being produced by

9:16

various

9:21

public health authorities and

9:23

the O&S so we occasionally

9:25

reproduced some of the data in

9:27

Lockdown Skeptic than it then was. Anyway,

9:30

I've signed up, you can sign up to

9:32

a kind of Zoe health program and of

9:34

course they do monitor all your kind of

9:37

data and you have to kind of consent to that

9:39

but they also send you this kit

9:42

and you have to kind of poo in

9:44

a lovely sample bag of some kind

9:46

and send it back to them and they analyze your poo and

9:49

they analyze your pee and you tell them

9:51

what your typical diet is and after sort

9:53

of after crunching the data they then get

9:56

back to you and tell you how many

9:57

bananas you should be eating a day, what percentage

9:59

of

9:59

of your diet should be meat, what percentage vegetables,

10:02

how much rough would you need, etc. By doing

10:04

it with my wife and she persuaded me to sign

10:07

up to on the grounds that it would be something nice we could do together.

10:09

So I've signed up. Going bags

10:11

together. His and hers, poo bags.

10:15

When you're young, you

10:18

can go off to parties together, learn ballroom dancing.

10:21

But when you're our age, it's pooing in bags.

10:25

So I'll be able to join you on this weird

10:28

diet, oddest

10:29

time, James. You haven't had

10:32

any result, you haven't been told what you're going to do. They

10:34

haven't sent me the kit yet. I only signed up to it last

10:37

week. Has it occurred to you? You know

10:39

those things where

10:41

you can research your ancestry and see

10:43

whether you're descended from Genghis Khan,

10:45

as we all are, of course. As in

10:48

23andMe, you mean genetically. That kind

10:50

of thing. Yes, exactly. Those things.

10:52

And they seem like a tremendous wheeze

10:54

at the time. And everyone was exchanging

10:57

notes on how Mongol

10:59

they were or how

11:01

scanty they are. How

11:06

Jewish they are. Yeah, how Jewish

11:09

they are. I don't know how you measure that.

11:12

But I think that is one

11:15

of the

11:15

bits of data you get

11:18

when you do 23andMe. It tells you how much Jewish

11:21

ancestry you have and what percentage of

11:24

what percentage Jew you are. And one

11:26

reason I haven't done it, I'd be very disappointed

11:28

if I wasn't at least 50% Jew.

11:32

Are you? Well,

11:34

no, probably not. There's probably some Jewish

11:36

blubber. I'd only like

11:38

to be Jewish from

11:41

the actual, you know, proper

11:44

kind of children of Israel, sort

11:46

of Palestine Jews. You

11:50

know, the original deal.

11:52

I wouldn't want to be because

11:54

they want to be Ashkenazi,

11:57

not Shafar.

13:59

I think more likely, more likely, you know,

14:02

for vain, glorious reasons, he wants to be

14:04

the person who goes down in history

14:06

as having cured a major disease like

14:08

malaria used his money. You think he does?

14:10

You think that's even at the back of his mind that

14:13

he might try and cure any disease?

14:15

Yeah, I think yeah, I do. Blimey,

14:18

I've got a new a new range of bridges for

14:21

sale. When you get back, you,

14:23

I can't wait to show you them to you.

14:25

Well, pictures, I've only got pictures,

14:27

but but they're a good, they're a special prize to you,

14:29

my friend. Yeah,

14:32

I think your

14:35

willingness to believe the worst of everyone

14:37

is slightly jaundiced. It's

14:43

like looking at, you know, across the room is a guy

14:46

with horns and a forked tail,

14:49

and he's got sort of, he's got this nasty

14:51

tongue, and he's looking at

14:53

us with sort of red glowing eyes, and you'll say, James,

14:57

why do you think, why do you want to think

14:59

bad of this guy? He's just like, obviously, he's

15:01

just born a bit, you know, with a with

15:04

a horn defect and a forked tail defect.

15:06

And, and he seems to like, oh,

15:08

poor guy, he's addicted to eating children and,

15:11

and but actually,

15:13

it means well, it's

15:15

a more accurate picture

15:18

would be, you know, you're looking at a guy sitting

15:21

opposite you. He's one

15:23

of the world's most famous philanthropists,

15:26

he appears to have devoted much of his fortune

15:29

to curing malaria and other major

15:31

disease. He hasn't, he's made like a bandit.

15:33

And you know, more likely, someone

15:36

sitting opposite with a halo over his head,

15:38

he doesn't, rather than horns and

15:40

a forked tongue. What

15:42

do you think he was doing on Epstein Island all those times?

15:45

Do you think he was just kind of admiring the view

15:47

and going for going for snorkeling? Well,

15:49

I have no idea what he was. I mean,

15:51

he went loads of times, we

15:55

should probably, we should probably not speculate too much about that. We don't

15:57

want to, you don't want to know he thought they'd only

15:59

have to speak. what he might have been doing on Epstein.

16:01

We know he was a regular visit to Epstein Island,

16:04

and we know that Epstein was

16:07

a complete pedo and pervert. So,

16:09

you know,

16:11

join the dots. Anyway, okay,

16:14

who's going to do the first ad? Shall

16:16

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17:30

before we move on to whatever agenda you wanted

17:33

to promote, I

17:36

just wanted to

17:36

mention something that I didn't mention last week

17:38

and should have done, which is has

17:41

the plight of my friend,

17:44

Abby Roberts, crossed

17:46

the free speech unions radar.

17:51

Abby Roberts is a comedian, a

17:53

very funny comedian and lovely person. I'm very

17:55

fond of her. And she went down to the

17:59

hearings for the stupid COVID

18:03

hearings. The kangaroo,

18:05

whatever it is. The hallet

18:07

in quorum. Yeah. And

18:10

she turned up to see Matt Hancock

18:13

arrive

18:14

and she shouted him at him that

18:16

he was a word beginning with C

18:19

and ending in UNT. And

18:22

I know that it's a rude word,

18:25

but I'm not sure that shouting

18:28

a rude word at Matt Hancock justifies

18:31

what happened to her, which she was held, she

18:34

was arrested and held in confinement

18:36

for 17 hours. So she was in

18:38

a prison cell overnight for

18:41

calling Matt Hancock something,

18:43

which is, I think, the very mildest

18:46

of terms to describe somebody with so

18:48

much blood on his hands. I

18:51

was wondering what your position would be on issues

18:53

like this. Should people be being arrested

18:56

for calling

18:58

terrible loser? Well, I mean,

19:01

psychopathic politicians, what they

19:04

are. Was she charged?

19:06

Do you know, when did this happen? But I mean, 17,

19:09

being held for 17 hours suggests to me that she was,

19:12

well, it was an abuse of police

19:15

power, isn't it?

19:16

Why did they need to keep her for 17 hours? Yeah,

19:19

I don't know. I don't know anything about it. I haven't seen the story.

19:21

When did this happen, James? Just before

19:24

our last episode.

19:26

So

19:29

before last weekend.

19:31

Right. Well, if she is

19:34

being charged with

19:37

being grossly offensive,

19:40

which is section 127 of the

19:43

Communications Act, then

19:46

we are defending

19:47

someone else who was charged

19:49

and convicted of being grossly

19:52

offensive. Do you remember, you talked about this before, but

19:54

when Captain Tom, the NHS

19:57

campaigner who raised millions of pounds

19:59

for the

19:59

NHS by walking around around his garden when he was 100

20:02

years old. When he died, an intemperate

20:04

Scotsman

20:11

tweeted, the only good British

20:13

soldier is a dead British soldier. And

20:17

friends of his contacted him to tell

20:19

him that they thought that was offensive.

20:22

And he might get in trouble. So he, I

20:25

think, deleted it within 15 minutes. But Police

20:27

Scotland already, it had already been reported

20:29

to Police Scotland by then. And he was

20:31

duly arrested and convicted under

20:33

Section 127 of the Communications Act.

20:36

And sentenced, I think it wasn't sentenced

20:38

to

20:39

prison, but he had to do community service and pay

20:41

a fine. We are helping him

20:43

appeal that conviction. And

20:45

we think it'll end up in the European

20:48

Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And we're

20:50

hoping that if we can get that conviction

20:52

overturned on appeal, it'll make it very difficult

20:55

to convict people in future of

20:57

being grossly offensive, which is often

21:00

why people like Abby Roberts are arrested

21:03

and sometimes charged for saying

21:05

things like that. Did that legislation

21:07

come in the grossly offensive? Was that a recent

21:10

thing? Does that come from the Blair era?

21:12

It comes from the Blair era. Yeah. Oh,

21:15

just like, you think the

21:17

things that people used to do in the

21:19

18th and 19th century to MPs,

21:22

they'd often

21:25

rough them up physically if they get

21:27

the chance. And they certainly would chuck

21:29

stuff at them and things. And

21:31

the idea that a word,

21:33

even if it's a rude word, I

21:36

mean, I have to say, I would,

21:40

if I were myself a vagina,

21:42

I

21:43

would be very upset about seeing my

21:45

name taken in vain to describe Matt

21:47

Hancock. I think that is offensive

21:49

to

21:50

vaginas around the world. But apart

21:53

from that, I see nothing wrong with it. I

21:55

mean, you think of what Matt Hancock is

21:57

and what he's done.

21:59

It's just small

22:01

beer, isn't it? Just tossing a few

22:03

rude words at him. I'll tell you

22:05

a story, James. As you know, maybe I shouldn't

22:08

tell you the story. Oh, go on. Because

22:10

it might be telling tales out of school, but it's

22:12

something that happened at the spectator party. But

22:15

why weren't you there?

22:17

Oh, when was it? It was on

22:20

Wednesday of last week. Was it?

22:22

I'm sure you were invited. Invited all the writers. Yeah,

22:24

I didn't. I... Do you

22:27

know what? It sailed over my head. Was it good?

22:30

Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, you know, like it normally

22:32

is. Thing is, Topes, I tell you what,

22:35

I mean, I

22:37

genuinely didn't know it was on. But

22:40

I, you know, I mean, people

22:42

often say to you, don't they, you

22:44

know, what's happened to James? Why

22:46

has he gone,

22:48

you know, absent

22:51

without leave? I

22:54

think there would be too many

22:56

sticky conversations, wouldn't there? You think?

22:59

It would be kind of awkward for me. Do you

23:01

reckon people would...

23:02

I suppose when they became sort of after they'd had a few

23:04

drinks and became disinhibited, they

23:07

might start asking

23:09

you about some

23:12

of the conspiracy theories. Oh, you know, I wouldn't mind

23:14

that at all. I totally love that. It's

23:17

just, I find it quite hard

23:20

making noise to people that you kind

23:23

of despise, you know?

23:25

That's the thing. Quite a lot of them

23:27

would be old friends, wouldn't they? Well,

23:29

I don't know if I've got any old friends. I mean, you

23:32

know, there you are, clinging on by your fingernails, Topes.

23:34

But we, you know, we're the

23:36

marriages. It's

23:39

rocky, but we, you know, we have

23:41

good makeup sex. But

23:44

I just think some of the people... Have

23:46

you broken up with most of your

23:49

old friends? Yeah,

23:51

no, it's not officially, not formally.

23:54

I haven't, I just haven't seen them and

23:56

it's just like embarrassing. I mean,

23:59

it would be embarrassing enough.

23:59

just seeing Dave,

24:02

Dave whom I last saw, well what,

24:04

I was smoking a splist with him in

24:06

Peck 3 in 1980.

24:12

I don't think Dave, David

24:14

Cameron was there actually, so

24:17

you wouldn't have had to see him.

24:19

Anyway, so what were you saying? So before

24:22

I went into this riff about... Well no, I just

24:26

swallowed, I just bit my tongue, but one

24:28

notable absence obviously of the spectator part

24:31

was Jeremy Clarke. I used to really like...

24:33

You know his coin-tobes?

24:35

Well yes, and his

24:38

memorial services today and I rather regret

24:40

the fact that I won't be able to go because I'm in

24:42

Ibiza. But yeah, and

24:46

they're not having it at St. Brides, they're having it at

24:50

another church in,

24:53

what's it called again? I can't remember now, but

24:55

a bigger church because they're expecting 500 people.

24:58

When I heard that James, I couldn't help but feel a

25:01

twinge of envy and think crikey,

25:03

how many people are going to come to my memorial

25:05

service? I doubt it'll be 500 people. They might

25:07

even be a memorial service for me, but anyway

25:10

he's having a memorial service and over 500 people

25:13

are expected to turn up. So yeah, that's a good... Bloody

25:15

impressive. That's a good turn up. I'm sorry,

25:18

are you telling me that because

25:20

I went on to my digression

25:22

about friends, you're not going to go ahead

25:24

with this industry anecdote now? You've

25:27

got to. Well no, I realised that if I do, I

25:30

could be accused of

25:32

telling tales out of

25:34

school what happens at the spectator party. I think it's supposed

25:36

to stay at the spectator party and

25:39

it wasn't too embarrassing. Well can't you lie and

25:41

say this conversation didn't happen at the spectator

25:43

party? I think it's too

25:45

late for that now James. Anyway, Matt

25:48

Hancock was there. But it's what you're famous for,

25:51

foot in mouth. You've written the whole book. Look, you've

25:53

made a career out of this. Well

25:56

I did, but I have regretted.

25:59

some of the indiscretions over

26:02

the course of my career, James. So for instance, in

26:04

How to Lose Friends and Alienate

26:06

People,

26:07

I wrote about an episode

26:10

at the Groucho Club. I was filming,

26:12

I was trying to arrange a photo shoot for

26:14

the cool Britannia issue of Vanity

26:16

Fair, this was in 96, and

26:19

it was a photo shoot with Keith Allen, Damien

26:22

Hirst, and the

26:24

chat from Blur, who's become a cheese monger.

26:27

Alex James.

26:29

And

26:31

as a condition of agreeing

26:34

to cooperate, they demanded

26:37

cocaine, not just to be plied with vodka

26:39

and as much as they could drink, but also drugs.

26:43

And so I had to kind of,

26:45

admittedly not terribly difficult to obtain in

26:48

the Groucho Club, I had to do a bit of kind of scrabbling

26:50

around. And it

26:52

behaved like complete prima donnas.

26:54

I mean, they couldn't have made my life more miserable.

26:56

They were like the kind of worst cliches

26:59

of kind of pampered, entitled

27:02

celebrities.

27:03

Like, you know, you mentioned Simon Sharma

27:05

throwing a hissy fit when his pillow got lost in transit.

27:07

I mean, they were like Simon Sharma, pillowless

27:10

times 10. And my

27:13

revenge was to write about just how appallingly

27:16

they behaved in How to Lose Friends and Alienate

27:19

People, because I mentioned the Groucho Club.

27:21

Matthew Freud, who was then one

27:23

of the owners of Groucho Club, banned

27:26

me from the Groucho Club. And I've been

27:28

virtually a founder. Yes, you are. And it was my

27:30

home away from home. And since

27:33

then, not only

27:35

am I not allowed to come as a member,

27:37

even if they haven't refunded my membership fee, obviously,

27:41

I'm not allowed to be taken there by anyone either.

27:43

If there's a book party, even now, or even

27:45

now. And so a couple of times

27:47

since,

27:48

people on the membership committee, friends of mine

27:50

have said, you know what, Toby, I think there's been enough

27:53

water under the bridge. I think we can get you back

27:55

in. Let me let me make a pitch to

27:57

the membership committee, but it would probably help if

27:59

you wrote.

27:59

the chair of the membership committee and proffered some kind

28:02

of apology. And so of course, I've duly

28:04

done this only to be then told, I'm

28:06

afraid Toby, the membership committee took a

28:08

vote on this and they've decided to uphold

28:10

the ban. It's like so humiliating.

28:12

It's bait and switch. I feel like the kid

28:15

in the Peanuts cartoon being baited

28:17

by Lucy with the football. And it's happened twice

28:19

now. And even though people still suggest to me,

28:22

even today, you know, I think I could get you back in.

28:24

I'm on the membership committee. Let me have a go. I'm like now,

28:26

like, no, I've been humiliated

28:29

three times over

28:29

this. Not never again.

28:33

I didn't even know the Groucho was still going.

28:36

That's how out of touch I am. Do

28:38

you think we ought to do?

28:40

Yeah, let's say from our Yeah, let's let's

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30:06

James, before we go on to Culture Corner, and we better

30:09

go on to Culture Corner because lunch is going

30:11

to be served now in about 20 minutes.

30:13

I just wanted to make

30:16

a minor piece offering

30:18

to you. I remember a few episodes

30:20

back, you said you thought

30:23

the kind of real reason behind

30:26

mass immigration and

30:29

the authorities'

30:31

tolerance for all the small boats arriving

30:34

there, the lack of any real will to do

30:36

anything about it. The fact

30:38

that net migration

30:41

in the most recent year was something like, was

30:44

it something like 800,000

30:45

highest number on record. And

30:50

you said, well, it's all part of the plan.

30:52

These are essentially the WEF's foot

30:55

soldiers who are going to turn on us

30:57

and start attacking us. I

30:59

think you were thinking it was

31:01

part of some diabolical plan to kind of assert

31:04

control, reduce our liberties, erode

31:06

democracy. But

31:08

curiously, I noticed that one of the

31:11

first things Macron

31:13

has suggested as a solution to

31:15

the ongoing rioting,

31:17

the outbreak of civil disorder across France

31:20

in response to the murder

31:22

of this 17 year old boy, may

31:25

not be murder, I don't think it's been tried yet. So let's not

31:27

preempt that. But one

31:30

of Macron's first responses was, let's

31:33

cut off the internet in these

31:36

areas where civil disorder has broken

31:38

out. Let's impose curfews. It was almost

31:40

to say they were building up to, let's

31:43

impose another lockdown. So

31:46

even though, I'm not suggesting that the

31:49

youths of North African heritage

31:51

rioting in

31:54

city on the outskirts of Paris are

31:56

doing it at the bidding of Klaus Schwab or

31:58

Bill Gates. Nonetheless, the

32:03

policy of mass immigration

32:06

in France dating back to the 1950s

32:08

does seem to

32:10

have produced a kind of tinderbox

32:13

which is now being rolled out as

32:15

an excuse to interfere

32:18

with basic liberties.

32:20

Right, yeah. I mean, it's

32:23

ultimately, I don't know how you pronounce it, is

32:25

it Kalergi or Kalerji? But

32:27

either way, Kalerji-Kudenhav

32:29

plan, which has been around for a long,

32:31

long time, it's white replacement. It's

32:34

part of the destruction of our

32:36

culture, the takeover. Yeah, but I also

32:39

think that in the medium

32:41

term, they want to use these people as

32:43

kind of police,

32:46

as paramilitaries with no loyalty to their

32:48

host community who are prepared to go in hard

32:50

and

32:50

crush any resistance

32:52

when things kick off. But

32:55

I mean, we're talking about

32:58

the devil.

32:59

The devil is ultimately in charge and

33:01

he controls things like the Tri-Atrial

33:04

Commission and the

33:06

Council on Foreign Relations and lesser

33:08

players like the WEF. And

33:11

we are heading for

33:14

very grim times, seven years

33:16

of tribulation. The problem with that hypothesis

33:19

is partly that the people

33:22

rioting are not exclusively

33:26

first, second, third generation migrants.

33:29

Some of them are seemingly white,

33:32

indigenous French people. And

33:35

it's as though, you know, it

33:37

seems to me to be more symptomatic

33:39

of a general lack

33:41

of respect for the rule of law,

33:43

a collapse in the

33:45

family,

33:47

Western civilization, teetering on

33:49

the brink and

33:52

not a kind of malaise that's just confined

33:55

to

33:55

migrant communities. So

33:58

it doesn't feel like it really is part of. of

34:00

a plot or a conspiracy. That's

34:03

a separate point, James. I mean, I mean,

34:06

I'm not saying that people

34:08

with fair skin

34:09

haven't got as much right to riot

34:13

as any

34:15

other nationality or skin

34:17

color or whatever. It's not that. I'm

34:19

just saying that if you import loads

34:22

and loads of people from an entirely

34:24

different culture to your country and

34:27

you house them in say, well, I mean, scarily

34:31

on ex-military bases or on

34:34

decommissioned airfields, which is what,

34:36

or you put them in hotels in every

34:39

single town around Britain

34:42

at massive expense to the taxpayer. And

34:45

France is analogous although

34:47

it's got its own problems. You

34:50

have to ask questions about why these people are there.

34:53

And I have to say that it tends to encourage

34:55

some people suspicions

34:59

that dark things are heading our way.

35:02

And we can only speculate on it because we weren't known

35:04

until it kicks off but there's something really odd

35:06

about it. Most people in

35:09

rural Britain are very disturbed about

35:11

the fact that there are these

35:14

hotels

35:15

where they were perhaps planning to have their wedding

35:17

or something. Suddenly the hotel's been closed

35:19

and shared loads of money has been

35:22

chucked at the hotel owner by

35:25

circa or whatever. I mean,

35:27

by the government, basically. to

35:30

house these people. And it's weird.

35:33

What are they doing here?

35:34

And what are they, have they all come to pick

35:37

fruit or work McDonald's?

35:39

I'm not seeing any evidence of this.

35:41

Well, I think

35:43

most of them, I mean, I think

35:46

I'd agree with you that the

35:49

claim that a

35:51

majority

35:52

of illegal migrants end

35:55

up on our shores because they're genuine asylum

35:57

seekers. I think that's probably not right.

35:59

But I think most of them are economic migrants

36:02

that they're coming here in search of better opportunities,

36:04

a better life, because we're

36:06

so much better off than the places they're

36:08

leaving. But I was thinking more in a specific French context.

36:12

One thing that struck, I mean, people say, you know,

36:15

it's because they have, you

36:17

know,

36:19

people in these communities haven't been properly

36:21

integrated. They feel alienated

36:24

by the French policy of

36:26

trying to impose French culture

36:29

on them. Yeah, they have a less kind of laissez-faire,

36:31

multicultural approach to assimilation

36:34

than us. And it appears to have backfired

36:37

the banning of the burqa and so

36:39

forth, has left these

36:41

communities feeling very alienated from the French

36:43

state. And they have much

36:46

more regard for, you know, their parents'

36:48

cultural heritage

36:49

than France's cultural

36:51

heritage and so forth. And that's what a lack of loyalty

36:53

to the French state is what's prompting this kind

36:55

of outbreak of civil disorder. I think one shortcoming

36:58

of that hypothesis is that many

37:00

of the rioters, when you see them, when they're

37:02

interviewed, seem very French. I mean,

37:05

they may not be white, but nonetheless, they have that kind

37:07

of, you know, Gallic arrogance. They

37:09

kind of have that kind of, you know, French insouciance.

37:14

And also, you know, it's virtually a tradition in France

37:17

to riot. I mean, there are

37:19

almost continuous riots in

37:21

French cities, but, you know, the

37:23

republics are kind of typically defeated after 35

37:26

or 40 years. Revolution

37:28

is virtually a cultural

37:30

tradition in France. So perhaps

37:32

the issue isn't that they haven't been properly

37:34

integrated. They're not French enough. Perhaps the issue is that they've

37:37

become too French.

37:39

Yeah, maybe. I

37:42

think it's probably the Sabatian Frankists who taught

37:44

the French how to revolt. I

37:47

mean, look, France was a great

37:49

power and a great country

37:52

and a great people. And I think that

37:55

the powers that be

37:56

have long sought to destabilize

37:59

France.

37:59

in different ways as they have

38:02

to destabilize Russia and

38:05

so forth. And I mean, you

38:07

present these things as kind of national characteristics,

38:09

but I'm not sure what they are, really. I'm sure that what

38:12

it comes down to is that the

38:15

forces of darkness know how to manipulate different

38:17

countries and push their buttons. And

38:20

I mean, I don't ultimately, I

38:22

think that the people who are controlling

38:25

these riots, you know, although the individual

38:28

writers may feel they have autonomy and that

38:30

they are they are they made the decision

38:33

and they're protesting. I think that this this this

38:35

this violence was fermented

38:38

by by bad actors.

38:42

But there we are anyway. OK, so

38:44

we should we take a break now for a programmatic

38:46

ad and then. Yeah, I

38:48

think we should.

38:49

Everybody James Lyle is here for the Ricochet podcast,

38:51

the flagship podcast. It's July.

38:53

That means it's hot. What better

38:56

to do than sit inside with

38:57

the air conditioning going full

39:00

blast? I listen to the heated, sparkly,

39:02

prickly fireworks like opinions of

39:04

Peter Robinson, Rob Long and myself

39:06

as we talk to. Well, you'll just

39:08

have to tune in and find out, won't you? That's Ricochet

39:11

dot com, where the flagship podcast can be found

39:13

every week.

39:14

Don't miss it.

39:17

OK, James, what have you

39:19

seen in the past week? Well, well,

39:23

I've I my

39:25

family have been watching Wimbledon

39:27

and the

39:30

third test, and

39:32

I there's no point

39:35

raining on their parade by saying this

39:37

is bread and bread and circuses. This is

39:39

designed to distract you from from

39:42

the horrors that are being imposed on you by the

39:44

elite. I mean, it's I

39:46

think it's typical that the BBC is all over

39:48

Wimbledon. The BBC arch

39:51

propagandist wants to keep

39:54

hold of these these cultural events and do

39:56

weird things like this. Have

39:58

you noticed this thing they do where? they

40:00

interview, they

40:01

stand up on the court

40:04

after the match and they interview them about 20

40:07

feet away from the player. What's

40:09

that all about? You know, I haven't, I'm

40:12

not sure. I haven't watched much of Wimbledon,

40:14

but so- Like a legacy of COVID.

40:17

Well, I'll bring you up to speed. All

40:19

the Brits have been knocked out.

40:21

Right, I didn't know that. Yeah.

40:25

Yeah, and I saw Andy,

40:28

well, I saw him getting back into

40:30

a match against a

40:32

Greek player, whose name I won't try and pronounce,

40:34

but- Sitsipas.

40:36

Sitsipas, that's it. And he,

40:40

and I didn't watch him, it looked like he was gonna go

40:42

on to win that. I mean, he came back from one set down

40:44

to then take the next two sets and

40:46

then

40:47

match, the play was stopped because it was quite

40:49

late. And then he resumed the following

40:52

day and lost, which I thought was

40:54

pretty disappointing. What is it though?

40:57

Is it? I was watching, I was

40:59

watching my favorite

41:02

player, obviously,

41:04

cause he was Novak's and stuff, Novak's

41:07

Djokovic. And he's

41:10

just so good. He's so

41:12

good that I find it hard to believe

41:14

that in 2013, Andy Murray beat

41:16

Djokovic

41:18

in the finals. How

41:21

did that happen? That could only have been the noisome

41:24

partisanship of the Wimbledon crowd, which

41:26

I find loathsome. I can't

41:28

bear it. I find it pretty loathsome too, yeah.

41:31

The way that they cheer when the

41:33

player that don't like misses a shot or fluffs

41:36

a shot, or maybe the ball hits

41:38

the net and doesn't go, it lands on the wrong side,

41:41

luck doesn't go their way. And they

41:43

boo and it's awful. I

41:45

thought we were supposed to believe in good sportsmanship. I

41:48

think

41:48

they should sit there and watch and shut

41:50

up.

41:51

Yeah, I agree. I think that is very

41:53

poor form. Did you see that

41:55

when the Belarusian woman

41:58

lost to the Ukrainian woman? the

42:01

crowd booed the Belarusian

42:03

as she walked off. Not

42:07

realizing that Belarus is a completely different

42:09

country from Russia.

42:10

I suppose they think of it as a Russian ally. I

42:13

don't know. Anyway, so much for Wimbledon. Have

42:15

you seen anything else? Not

42:17

much on TV. I tell you what, I tell you what I've been doing books

42:20

wise. We have finally reached the point, wife

42:22

and I, where we can no longer

42:24

bear to

42:25

listen to another book from

42:27

the Utrecht series. I've just had

42:30

enough of the shield war

42:32

and wasp sting and the smell

42:35

of shit and blood and guts

42:37

and detailed descriptions of people being

42:39

disemboweled and trodden on

42:41

and the jabbing of wasp sting and blah, blah,

42:44

blah, and how tough it is in the shield.

42:46

I think enough already. I've had enough.

42:49

I've heard every variation

42:52

on the theme of combat in

42:55

the era of King Alfred.

42:58

I don't want it. So we've moved on to

43:00

Trollope. We

43:02

listened to 100% Trollope now rather than

43:04

just on Cardiones. And we're listening

43:06

to the second one with the Irish name.

43:09

I

43:12

keep forgetting his name. Isn't it

43:14

something Finn, about the Irish MP? Finnius

43:16

Finn. Yeah, something like that. Finnius

43:18

Finn. I don't know why I keep forgetting the name.

43:21

I mean, it's a really odd

43:23

book title because

43:27

a book, oh, I suppose it's like Anna Karenina. I suppose

43:29

that's an indeterminate person who doesn't exist as well. But anyway,

43:31

Finnius Finn just doesn't do it

43:33

for me. There's

43:36

a lot of 19th century politics.

43:38

Yeah, that's the second in the palace of novels, isn't it?

43:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are a few hunting scenes

43:42

in there. I seem to recall. Oh, yes.

43:44

Oh, Tobes, the hunting scene

43:47

where he stakes his horse or

43:50

whatever the term is when you're jumping

43:52

up a river and your horse

43:55

goes headlong into the other side and breaks

43:57

its neck.

43:58

And yeah, oh Lord, what's his...

43:59

face breaks. Actually, Lord Watts's

44:02

face has the same injury that I had

44:04

when I was hunting with the Heathrip a few years ago,

44:07

where he breaks his collarbone and several ribs.

44:10

And

44:11

so I had great sympathy for him. Yeah,

44:13

the hunting scenes are really good. The

44:16

politics scenes are just so done.

44:18

You think why, Anthony,

44:20

why are you taking this crap seriously?

44:22

Yeah, well, they're all a bunch of charlatans. Stop

44:24

it already enough. Yeah,

44:26

I know that I love the Palace of novels, and I still

44:28

got one left, actually, in that series. I haven't read

44:30

The Prime Minister's Children. I've read all

44:32

the others. Very, very good. And I'm currently

44:35

listening to Framli Parsonage, which

44:37

I think is the

44:38

fourth novel in the Barts to Chronicles.

44:40

But yeah, very good as well. He's an

44:43

eminently listenable, readable

44:46

writer, isn't he? I mean, it's better, would you say?

44:49

I think I think the Barts to Chronicles,

44:52

marginally better than the Palace of novels, but they're

44:54

much, much easier. You don't get, do you? They're all

44:56

narrated by Timothy West,

44:58

which is, he's a joy, isn't he, to

45:01

listen. He's so good. He's a really,

45:03

really, he was always like he was born to read,

45:05

to read Trollope. Born to do it. Absolutely.

45:10

What's so extraordinary is I find when he does, he

45:12

does like, women's voices. I mean,

45:14

he does, he's great with accents. But

45:16

what's really impressive is that when he does a woman's

45:19

voice, you

45:20

know, you can completely believe it's

45:22

a woman talking. He's

45:25

just remarkable like that. You're

45:27

absolutely right. He's brilliant. I was going to

45:30

ask you, does the

45:32

kind of the clerical stuff get in the way

45:34

and the way the politics does in the political novels, or

45:36

is it handled lightly?

45:38

No, not, no, no, it's

45:40

all handled quite lightly. I mean, you have to kind of,

45:42

you know, you're immersed

45:45

in the kind of

45:46

office politics of the Church

45:48

of England. But that's all

45:50

quite interesting. And you realize, I

45:52

mean, it's amazing contrast between the Church

45:54

of England today, but back then, you know, being

45:57

an archbishop, being a bishop,

45:59

in the Church of England was a position

46:02

of extraordinary prestige. Even

46:04

being a dean or an archdeacon

46:07

was, you know, you were virtually at the top of

46:09

the kind of Victorian social hierarchy.

46:11

And it's in such, it's so different

46:14

today, isn't it? Oh, totally. In

46:16

my fantasy, my

46:19

historical, if I had to go back in time and be anyone

46:21

anywhere in history, I would be,

46:24

I'd

46:24

have a nice rectory, I

46:27

would be a hunting person and I would save the souls

46:29

of my parish.

46:32

Yeah, so I can imagine you being very happy doing that. I can

46:34

easily imagine you doing it. I'm so happy. I

46:36

can picture you now in a dog collar. Yeah,

46:38

golden horses. I'd be really

46:41

happy doing it. And

46:44

also I'm finishing, I'm

46:47

on the home straight of Anna Karenina. And

46:49

the disappointment about reading

46:52

Anna Karenina is realizing

46:54

that

46:55

you will never read a book, a

46:57

novel as good as that again. It is absolutely

46:59

peak literature. It will never

47:01

get better, in

47:03

my view.

47:04

And are you reading that or listening to it?

47:06

I'm reading it. Okay,

47:07

I've just come now completely

47:10

switched to audio books. I've gone, I

47:12

find it hard to read a book. But having said that, I

47:14

have just read most of What

47:16

About Men, the new book by

47:18

Caitlin Moran,

47:20

which may surprise you to learn. I read

47:23

most of it because I'm writing about it in my spectator.

47:25

I was going to say you're being paid to write to read it otherwise.

47:27

I'm not

47:30

recommended that one, James. It's all about

47:33

how men, the mental health crisis, the

47:39

identity crisis amongst men, particularly

47:41

young men can be addressed. And

47:44

she's concerned that they're turning to these

47:46

toxic gurus like Jordan Peterson

47:49

and Andrew Tate. What they really need

47:52

at James Dalico, what they really need are wholesome

47:55

gurus like Caitlin

47:57

Moran. And she thinks

47:59

that women have taught themselves,

48:02

the feminist movement and its successes

48:05

over the past hundred years have an enormous

48:07

amount that men can learn from. So

48:10

she portrays the community of kind of liberated

48:12

women as

48:16

being a kind of joyful community

48:19

in which they share each other's, they share

48:21

their problems with each other, they give each other mutual support,

48:24

they're very quick to come to each other's aid when they get

48:26

into trouble. It's this sort of utopian

48:29

picture

48:29

of the kind of feminist community and

48:32

contrasts it with kind of these poor, sad,

48:35

lonely men who can't talk about their problems,

48:38

never come to each other's aid, end

48:40

up kind of feeling suicidal, suffer

48:42

from acute anxiety and

48:44

so on and so forth. But first

48:47

of all, it's such a cliche. It's sort of,

48:50

you know, you wouldn't even, you'd even

48:52

expect Prince Harry to come up with something

48:54

more original than the reason men have

48:57

got problems, it's because they don't talk about their feelings

48:59

and cry enough, you know, but

49:01

of course that is exactly, but that's exactly her

49:03

hypothesis too. And yes,

49:06

James, you wouldn't believe this, but she talks about,

49:08

she says, you know, virtually everything I know about Jordan

49:10

Peterson is secondhand, so I decided to take

49:12

the plunge and listen to some of his podcasts. And

49:14

she listened to this podcast of him with Russell

49:16

Brand in which towards

49:18

the end of the podcast,

49:20

Jordan Peterson starts crying and having

49:22

encouraged men to cry more and

49:25

having kind of railed against the taboo against

49:28

crying amongst men. She then absolutely

49:31

ridicules Jordan Peterson for crying

49:33

when he was talking about his feelings in

49:35

this podcast. And also says, you know, you

49:37

think you've got problems as a successful man,

49:40

you have the occasional stalker. What about successful

49:42

women? They get rape threats all the time. They can't

49:44

disclose the fact that they have children unless male

49:47

stalkers go to their children's schools and attack

49:49

their children.

49:50

You've never had it so good, Mr.

49:52

Peterson, you don't know what, you don't know the half

49:54

of the trials and tribulations of being famous.

49:56

And it's like, so having encouraged him to cry

49:59

when he cried.

49:59

she then ridicules him for being a crybaby.

50:03

So yeah. It's

50:07

what they do. Because

50:09

they're not bound by the rules of

50:12

logic or let alone the Mark

50:14

Wishes Queensborough rules. They're just, they

50:16

play dirty.

50:18

Anyway, I've written about it in my spectator columnists

50:20

week. Oh, good. No, I actually look forward

50:22

to reading that that really, you know,

50:24

good. But you

50:26

want to go and snort some lines

50:29

off the back of a dwarf.

50:31

The dwarves heads. Yeah. Now that I can

50:33

see the dwarves beckoning James. So that's

50:35

what Freddie Mercury used to do. Apparently, that's why

50:37

I brought it up. Apparently, these patches,

50:40

they used to have dwarves with cocaine on

50:42

their silver trays on their heads, I think.

50:45

Right. And I'm afraid this is very middle

50:47

aged and sedate by comparison. Anyway,

50:51

is it is the is the sky blue?

50:53

And is the sea

50:56

clear? The sky's maybe

50:58

a little bit hazy and

51:00

can't quite see the sea yet.

51:03

But I'm hoping it's going to clear up. We're going

51:05

to have an azure sunset later

51:07

on. Good. Well, have a good

51:10

have a good time, Tabs. I envy

51:12

you. Thanks, James. Bye.

51:15

Back next

51:15

week. Bye. This is

51:17

London Calling.

51:34

Ricochet. Join

51:37

the conversation.