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1:00

Welcome

1:19

to London Calling with me, James Dellingport,

1:21

and my very good friend, Mr. Toby

1:37

Young.

1:44

I find that not much has been happening

1:46

in these sort of dog days of,

1:49

is it dog days yet, of summer? You

1:51

mean apart from the Titan

1:55

submersible story, the

1:57

attempted coup in Russia, the

1:59

possibility of... that the head of the Wagner group

2:01

has got hold of some nukes. We

2:04

can talk about those and I'd be interested

2:07

to hear your take on those. No, I just mean

2:09

in your life. You mean in my life and

2:11

I mean, because the ground

2:13

is too hard for riding really, the horses don't

2:15

get very excited. I mean,

2:18

my squash plants that I planted

2:20

a week ago have started

2:22

sprouting that that's exciting.

2:25

But I'm trying to think.

2:28

Did you get my message, James?

2:32

Someone bumped into, I think

2:34

they were in Shropshire. Maybe

2:37

they, I think this was in Gibraltar. They,

2:40

easily confused. They met someone

2:42

who was involved in the

2:45

Shropshire hunt and

2:49

she's very keen for

2:51

you to go

2:54

hunting with them. Oh, good. No,

2:56

I do. We would love James Dellingpole to

2:59

come to the South Shropshire hunt.

3:01

And I passed on her

3:03

details to you. And I

3:06

don't know if you got them. I pass

3:08

them on to your usual email

3:10

address. What's

3:13

that? Should I try sharing them with you on WhatsApp? Yeah, do

3:15

that. Do that. Because that sounds like my kind

3:17

of thing. I mean, I have to say as

3:19

a warning to to team

3:21

James people,

3:23

I don't know whether I'm revealing any deep

3:25

secrets here. I can be quite flaky.

3:28

And I'm really flaky at the moment. I've

3:30

got a renewed

3:33

bout of my whatever my health condition is.

3:35

I call it lime, call it whatever.

3:38

And it just makes you feel completely spaced

3:40

out and kind of apathetic. So

3:42

I just don't do anything. I just don't answer emails

3:44

and stuff. But that said, I

3:47

would very much like to come hunting with

3:49

the South Shropshire before they

3:52

before they ban it, which I'm sure was the plan. I'm sure

3:54

what happened when Kirstoma gets it. But

3:57

yeah, have you been doing it?

3:59

You're a alcoholic, Tobes, so you've probably been doing

4:02

loads of stuff and fighting lots of free

4:05

speech union cases that you want to

4:07

tell me about before we move swiftly on. Yeah,

4:09

well, I've had a fairly busy

4:12

time. So on

4:14

Wednesday, I was

4:18

an invited speaker at a gentleman's club

4:21

for the annual midlife crisis

4:24

dinner.

4:24

That sounds

4:27

terrible. Yeah, it was actually quite fun.

4:29

And then after that... But you liked drinking,

4:31

so you would. Yeah,

4:33

I was... And you like gentlemen's

4:35

clubs? I really don't anymore.

4:38

I do quite like them, yes.

4:40

And I particularly like this one. I've only been

4:42

to it once before, but the

4:46

food and the wine

4:47

over lunch anyway, the first time

4:50

I went was very, very good. So

4:53

I was happy

4:56

to be their guest speaker. But

4:58

when I suggested that... What were you talking about? Were

5:00

you funny?

5:01

Well, I gave a... Well, just

5:03

before I was due to speak, I thought

5:05

I'd better double check. I had in fact written a

5:07

speech. And I said,

5:10

what is it you were expecting me to talk about? What have previous speakers

5:12

talked about? And he said, well,

5:15

a lot of the people here probably aren't very politically

5:17

correct. I think if you shared some of your opinions

5:19

about some of the things happening in the news, you'd

5:22

find them a very receptive audience. And

5:25

of course, my speech wasn't about that at all. I'd

5:27

written a speech basically cataloging

5:29

my career, sort of describing how

5:32

from one failure to the next with no

5:34

loss of enthusiasm and telling

5:36

kind of the best anecdotes

5:39

from

5:40

my time at Oxford,

5:44

the Times, Vanity Fair, why

5:47

I'd been cancelled, why I'd set up the free speech. With accents,

5:50

with amusing accents on the way. With amusing

5:52

accents, James, yes. Kind of well-worn

5:55

territory, it must be said. Well-worn territory, yeah.

5:57

My greatest hits.

5:59

Anyway, it seemed to go down okay,

6:02

even though it clearly wasn't what they were expecting.

6:06

But after... It's tough. Oh,

6:08

it is tough. After that, James,

6:11

I then went along to another

6:13

party where,

6:15

which I'd been invited to a

6:17

dinner and

6:21

couldn't go to the dinner because I'd already committed to this

6:23

speech. So

6:25

I went along for drinks afterwards. And Boris

6:28

Johnson was that. And

6:32

I had a nice chat with him, actually.

6:38

He's quite changeable. So sometimes

6:40

when I've bumped into him at

6:43

events, fundraisers,

6:46

Tory stuff, he kind of gives

6:49

me a quizzical look as if to say, what

6:51

are you doing here? And then kind of moves on

6:53

to the next outstretched hand. But

6:56

this time, he evidently had a

6:58

little bit to drink. He was very friendly. He

7:00

sort of leapt up and said, Toby, Toby, Toby, Toby,

7:02

Toby, Toby. But why would he

7:05

not be friendly to you, Tobes? I mean, you've never dissed him.

7:07

Well, the first thing he said to me, James, was,

7:10

I know now, Toby, Toby, I

7:13

remember you saying I should resign.

7:15

You said I should resign when I was PM.

7:19

Why did you say that? So

7:21

there you go, James. Not only have I dissed

7:23

him, he recalled it. It was the first thing he brought

7:25

up. And

7:27

I said, well,

7:29

we had a difference of opinion about the

7:33

best way to respond to the pandemic. And

7:35

I thought your initial response was

7:37

bang on the money. But

7:40

I was really dissartened when you changed your mind

7:42

and told us all to stay in our homes

7:48

and then did that,

7:50

you know, two more times. And did he explain

7:52

to you that the reason that he had to do it was

7:54

because basically he was he

7:56

was he was forced to fake

7:58

having covered.

7:59

fake near-death experience and taken into

8:02

a room where he was warned that if

8:04

he didn't play ball he was going to get offed and

8:06

that's why he changed tack.

8:08

Funnily enough he did not say that. I

8:12

suppose he wouldn't, he'd have to keep it secret

8:14

that wouldn't he? It's not that

8:16

big a secret but I mean it's

8:18

a fairly open, open

8:21

secret but yeah. Well I.

8:23

What do you? I don't, I mean but

8:26

I don't think, I mean the

8:29

problem with that particular theory James is the

8:31

timelines don't work out because he changed

8:34

his mind about plunging Britain into

8:36

lockdown before he contracted Coronavirus so

8:38

it wasn't as if. Oh I see but

8:40

there were probably stages.

8:42

That was the, that couldn't have been the deciding factor.

8:44

No there were probably stages, they were probably

8:46

twisting the thumbscrews further and further

8:50

and that was the next, the next step.

8:53

Well anyway he was gracious

8:55

enough to acknowledge

8:58

without doing it too explicitly

9:00

and without giving me much that I could kind of take

9:02

away and write about, he

9:04

was gracious enough to acknowledge

9:07

that he might not have got the pandemic

9:10

response completely right. Big

9:13

of him. So yeah. Given

9:16

that millions or certainly hundreds

9:18

and hundreds of thousands have had their lives completely

9:20

ruined as a result of his policies so it's

9:22

nice to know that Boris is

9:25

prepared to concede that maybe

9:27

in not every detail was his response

9:29

perfect. I felt a bit, I felt,

9:32

I felt a, we were

9:34

having a fairly kind of warm and friendly exchange

9:37

I think. You were quite pissed by that point. I

9:40

was quite pissed and so was he. Hugs may

9:42

have been involved James and I

9:44

felt a bit hit, I felt, I felt a bit of a

9:46

weasel because at the

9:49

gentleman's club midlife crisis

9:51

dinner only 45 minutes earlier I'd actually, I'd

9:56

been asked, one of the

9:58

members asked me a question, asked me about it.

9:59

Boris, did I still support

10:02

Boris? What did I think he should have

10:04

done during the lockdown? And I said, you

10:07

know,

10:07

I was really pleased by Boris's initial

10:09

response. I thought, this is the guy that

10:12

I've campaigned for and supported

10:14

most of my life. The guy I wanted to be PM,

10:17

he's made exactly the right decision. He's holding

10:19

his ground. He isn't caving into pressure,

10:22

public opinion. It may

10:25

even be a minority view in his own cabinet, but he's

10:27

holding fast to it. And that's the guy

10:30

I voted for because it's the right decision.

10:33

That's Churchillian. And

10:35

then, of course, he allowed himself

10:37

to

10:37

be browbeat and into changing his mind. And

10:41

I think the culprits weren't, you know,

10:45

agents of the cabal. I think it was, or

10:47

maybe you describe them as such, but I think it was just pressure from

10:49

Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove and Matt Hancock

10:52

within the confines

10:54

of Downing Street. In forces of the cabal.

10:57

Maybe, maybe not. But anyway, and I said, you

10:59

know,

10:59

in that moment, you know,

11:06

when Britain was facing a pivotal decision,

11:09

it was a time of national crisis.

11:12

What we needed was another

11:14

Churchill. But actually what we ended

11:16

up with was another Chamberlain.

11:18

So I felt a bit guilty having

11:21

described him as another Chamberlain,

11:23

then making nice with him, 45 minutes later.

11:26

I'll tell you what, Tobes, hearing

11:29

you talk about this stuff, I

11:31

think, is very useful

11:34

for those people. There

11:36

was a sort of hardcore element on Team James,

11:39

who think that you are just absolutely

11:42

in the pockets of big evil

11:45

and that you don't believe any of this stuff that you say

11:47

and

11:48

that you're just controlled. But

11:52

it's obvious to me listening to you talk about this, do you actually

11:54

do believe this stuff that

11:57

you genuinely do believe that political.

11:59

figures have autonomy and you did

12:02

have faith in Boris and

12:04

I hate calling him and so on.

12:10

The

12:12

worst that can be said about you is that your, from

12:15

team James' perspective, is that you're naive that you're

12:17

under a spell. It's not that you're kind

12:19

of spinning a line because you're your

12:21

paymasters. What would be my take?

12:23

Yeah, I think, thank you. By the same

12:25

token James. By

12:28

the same token,

12:30

many people, and many people in the previous

12:32

week actually, have come up to me and said,

12:35

why has James gone down all

12:38

of these rabbit holes? What's

12:40

happened to him? What happened over the past three years?

12:42

Is it just that

12:44

because he, that's his audience, those

12:46

are the people giving

12:48

him donations and coming to his live events

12:50

and subscribing to his. Oh, you sowed that idea

12:53

in their heads last week. I don't

12:55

know. I don't think it was,

12:57

they may have come to that and vision themselves. But

13:01

anyway, James, so they effectively

13:03

accuse you of bad faith in the opposite direction. But

13:06

I do say to them, nope, I think he

13:08

genuinely believes it and

13:10

my way of explaining it to them and persuading them

13:13

that

13:14

it's perfectly possible that

13:16

you are saying all of these things in good faith.

13:18

As I say, think of him

13:21

as someone who's made a late life conversion

13:24

to become

13:27

an evangelical Christian.

13:31

You wouldn't accuse someone

13:34

of making that late life conversion of being

13:36

a kind of hustler

13:38

preacher, like some

13:41

American who's caught with his pants down

13:44

in spite of preaching sexual

13:47

purity from the pulpit. Nor

13:50

would you think that person, if they made a late life

13:53

conversion and became an absolutely zealous

13:55

evangelical Christian, you wouldn't necessarily think they were

13:57

mad either. I mean, you

13:59

might think

13:59

it a little bit odd

14:02

and you might have difficulty reconciling

14:05

it with the person you knew. But I don't think you

14:07

would jump to the conclusion that they'd just gone mad.

14:10

So

14:11

that's my way of explaining your late

14:13

life conversion, as it were. Al-Khalili, Jr. It definitely wouldn't

14:16

be a rational choice. Of all the things

14:18

you were going to become, if

14:22

all the options were on the table, you

14:24

definitely wouldn't become a Christian

14:26

because

14:28

Christianity is about choosing the hard path. You

14:31

look at the lives of the saints

14:33

and the prophets and the apostles,

14:36

they had it pretty rough. There

14:39

weren't many material rewards for it.

14:41

So yeah, I think

14:43

you made a perfectly fair point there. Yeah,

14:46

let's have a break for now. Hey folks, James

14:48

Lydics here for Ricochet.com. The other

14:50

day, I was looking at the member feed, which unless

14:52

you're a member, you can't read. And

14:54

I was writing a little private piece about my daughter's graduation.

14:57

And I sent it to private

14:58

because I wanted it to be for the community

15:00

that is Ricochet. And gosh,

15:03

I wish you would have been able to read it, but

15:05

that's on you, isn't it? Now, I know everybody

15:07

on the internet wants you to give

15:10

them money, streaming services

15:12

and subscriptions, and your apps have subscriptions.

15:15

It's annoying. And you look at it and

15:17

you say, I really don't want to be burdened with

15:20

another thing to pay. But the thing

15:22

is, Ricochet is not a burden, it's a gift. And

15:24

once you go there and start seeing all the voices,

15:27

meet all the friends and diverse

15:29

posts, I mean, we talk about radio and jazz and old music

15:31

and sports and everything else, you'll realize this is

15:33

the place you've been looking for all these years on the

15:35

internet. Forget Twitter, forget

15:38

Facebook. Ricochet, that's the

15:40

community that you have been looking

15:42

for. Ricochet.com.

15:43

Why don't you go there right now? This

15:46

summer, try any specially marked 20 ounce bottle

15:48

of Pepsi, Mountain Dew or Starry to get Apple

15:50

Music for up to three months free. Can you say

15:52

best summer ever? Ends 9-17-23 new

15:55

and qualified returning subscribers only. Renews for $10.99

15:57

a month until canceled. See full terms at pressplayandsummer.com.

15:59

We know you'd rather not be listening to an

16:02

ad, but if you have to, a mini ad

16:04

is better. Maybe even a Pepsi mini ad.

16:07

Still all the flavor of the full-size thing. Just...minier.

16:10

Pepsi minis. That's

16:13

what I like.

16:21

By the way, the

16:24

ad you just heard is what's

16:26

called a programmatic ad. So

16:30

it's essentially...it's

16:32

selected by an

16:34

algorithm, which I think doesn't

16:37

use any... The algorithm doesn't

16:39

know what the content of London Calling is

16:41

or our positions on various hot-button

16:44

issues. I think it just knows, you know,

16:46

the

16:47

ISP addresses of the people who are going to hear

16:49

the ad. So it just sells things to them,

16:52

as it were, and it thinks they're most likely

16:54

to buy, which is why sometimes people

16:56

hear ads they consider they're completely inappropriate

16:59

slammed into the middle of a London Calling

17:01

episode. Like, I think in one case someone said they heard

17:03

an ad for The Guardian in the middle of our...

17:06

It happens quite a lot.

17:07

They've obviously got a huge advertising expense,

17:10

haven't they? Yes. Although

17:12

I don't think it's very expensive. But,

17:16

yeah, so we should say to our listeners, you know,

17:19

we haven't selected... We didn't select the ad

17:21

you just heard, and listeners in different

17:23

parts of the country, different parts of the world will have

17:25

heard completely different ads. They're tailored

17:29

for you based on your ISP

17:31

and maybe some of your previous preferences. So if you just

17:33

heard an ad for The Guardian, that may be because you've

17:35

just bought some crunchy granola

17:37

from Waitrose. Yes.

17:40

Green ones, I think, happen quite a lot.

17:43

Sort of... Sort

17:45

of...cell panels or...I don't know. Do

17:47

they advertise carbon credits or stuff

17:49

like that? Maybe, yeah. I

17:52

think what it's indicative of is just how

17:54

much the world is

17:58

bankrolled by...

18:00

Stuff that

18:02

we've paid in the form of taxes that then gets channeled

18:05

back to these various green

18:08

green entities and they have issues

18:10

huge advertising budgets to spend

18:13

pushing products that we don't want. Yeah,

18:15

yeah. So on Thursday, James,

18:18

I went to an event where I don't think you would have been

18:21

entirely out of place. So it

18:23

was. A

18:25

two hour.

18:27

Interview on stage with

18:30

Michael Schellenberg and Matt Taibbi,

18:33

the two American journalists who

18:36

produced the first tranche of Twitter

18:38

files and who've testified

18:41

before Congress on

18:43

what they call the censorship industrial

18:45

complex. And I think by naming it, they have

18:47

kind of increased awareness of it. And

18:50

by that, they mean NGOs, commercial

18:52

companies paid by large

18:55

foundations and various

18:58

Western states to police

19:01

and suppress what they

19:04

identify as misinformation, disinformation,

19:06

malinformation and hate speech, but which you and

19:08

I would recognize as dissent of various

19:10

kinds. Anyway, they've drawn attention to

19:12

this kind of

19:13

metastasizing disinfo

19:15

sector that they call the censorship

19:17

industrial complex. And they'd come to London to

19:19

try and whip up

19:23

some opposition to it over here and try

19:25

and form a kind of international

19:28

organization initiative that can

19:30

take it on because it is a global thing and just trying to

19:32

take it on in individual countries, given the global reach of these various

19:40

anti disinfo organizations

19:43

make sense. I mean, sorry,

19:46

doing it internationally makes sense anyway. And

19:48

the person interviewing them on stage was Russell Brand.

19:51

Schellenberg

19:53

is he the Californian, the

19:55

Democrat who stood as

19:58

a anti environmentalist?

19:59

Well, he wouldn't describe himself as an anti-

20:08

environmentalist, but yeah, he's a climate contrarian.

20:11

Yeah. So, yeah, I did a podcast with him. It was

20:13

great. We bonded enormously. He's lovely,

20:16

lovely chap. Yeah, very nice indeed. Really, he's

20:18

good.

20:18

And yeah, yeah. Anyway, so it was

20:21

it was quite a fun meeting in Central Hall in

20:23

Westminster. There must have been about 500 people there. And

20:28

then the following day, a much smaller group

20:30

of people, about 45

20:31

people, met at UnHerd

20:35

with Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi.

20:39

And there were people there from different

20:41

countries who are fighting

20:43

this particular battle in their countries.

20:45

There was a group from Brazil. There was a woman from Italy.

20:49

There was a free speech, Ireland

20:51

group who were campaigning against

20:53

the hate crime bill in Ireland,

20:56

which is a very sinister

20:58

piece of legislation. And

21:01

and we were discussing, you know, what

21:03

can we do about this?

21:05

And we did come to a conclusion to

21:07

do something which which

21:10

I think is for the time being secret, but

21:12

which which will announce shortly.

21:16

But yes, Michael Schellenberger was an excellent

21:18

chair of this meeting and managed

21:21

to pull

21:22

us all together towards

21:25

the end and to unite around

21:27

a kind of common idea. I wouldn't have gotten that idea.

21:29

I'm very suspicious of all these

21:31

these groups.

21:33

I just think that they're

21:35

like they're designed to corral

21:37

the opposition.

21:39

I don't I don't think that they achieve anything.

21:42

I mean, I listen, I'll be really glad

21:45

if you and your your

21:47

team manage to do something effective.

21:50

I'm very suspicious of like, like anything,

21:54

any group purporting to represent the freedom fighters

21:57

is almost certainly controlled opposition

21:59

in one full run.

21:59

other. I mean, the fact that it was hosted by Unheard,

22:02

which in itself is called controlled opposition,

22:05

that makes me smell a rat. It's

22:08

a bit like Together, you know, it's one of those

22:10

groups that you think just pushes

22:12

it so far, but not so far there's any threat

22:14

to anything.

22:16

Well, I don't think Together or Unheard

22:18

are controlled opposition. But I also think that

22:22

this group may be able to achieve

22:24

something. I mean, I think

22:27

the group in Ireland have run a

22:29

successful campaign against the

22:32

Irish hate crime bill, and they're gradually winning

22:34

over

22:35

more and more Irish politicians to

22:38

their side, they're raising

22:40

awareness of the bill in the Irish

22:42

and international media. And I don't think it's

22:44

a foregone conclusion that that bill will pass, certainly

22:46

not in its current form, it may

22:49

be. I'll bet it will.

22:50

Well, we'll see. It may be, it may

22:52

pass, but in an amended less draconian form,

22:55

which would be. Yeah, but you know what, this is

22:57

this is this is the Hegelian

22:59

dialectic, it's probably a reaction and solution.

23:01

So the best you can hope for,

23:03

I

23:04

find in these situations is, yes,

23:07

it's gone through the bill, but we did

23:09

manage to secure these really vital

23:12

amendments that, you know, we're

23:14

not going to close you down from speaking

23:16

on a Tuesday afternoon. And that's

23:19

I think that's quite a win for our team. And it's not really,

23:21

it's just like we should be there

23:24

winning, they win all the time. But

23:26

it's we're too reasonable.

23:29

Well, there was one way

23:32

in which I think

23:34

we can take on the censorship

23:36

industrial complex is we can at least

23:38

persuade various

23:41

state departments, which are

23:43

supposed to be politically impartial,

23:47

to stop stop giving them huge

23:49

grants. We haven't yet succeeded

23:52

in doing that in the UK. So for

23:54

instance, one of the one of the players

23:57

in the code industrial

23:58

complex is the global. Information Index,

24:02

which was originally anyway a

24:04

UK company and is

24:06

at present part funded by

24:09

the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

24:12

There

24:14

was a big news story in America a

24:16

few months ago because it identified

24:19

what it called the 10 least reliable and 10 most

24:21

reliable news publishing sites. The 10

24:23

least reliable were almost all right

24:25

of center and the 10 most reliable were

24:28

almost all left of center and

24:30

the news publishing sites included

24:32

on the least reliable list, which it

24:34

also referred to as a block list and it

24:37

was intended to discourage advertisers

24:39

from advertising on these particular sites. They

24:42

included the American Spectator, the

24:44

Federalist Reason,

24:48

RealClearPolitics, the

24:51

New York Post and of course the publications

24:54

on the most reliable side were the New York

24:56

Times and CNN and MSNBC

24:58

and the rest of them. So that

25:00

was so blatantly politically biased

25:04

that I think

25:06

a Republican Congresswoman

25:12

managed to persuade the National

25:16

Endowment for something or other, which was funding

25:19

GDI in the US and which gets most of its money

25:21

from the if not all from the State Department

25:23

to stop funding GDI. So it has

25:25

been defunded at least by the US

25:28

government. So the next step is to try and get it defunded

25:30

by the UK government. But given

25:32

the success of the defunding campaign

25:34

in America, I don't think it's inconceivable that we might

25:37

achieve the same in the UK

25:39

and Newsguard, another of these pillars

25:42

of the censorship industrial complex, which

25:45

you'll dislike in particular because

25:47

it's not funded by

25:49

Microsoft. They operate

25:52

in a similar way. They give

25:55

news publishing sites a ranking out

25:57

of 100. And if you go

25:59

if they get a low ranking or even a ranking

26:02

below 85 or possibly even below 90,

26:04

it's very very difficult

26:06

to attract advertising on your website.

26:09

And the Daily Skeptic

26:12

was, it got a ranking I think of 75

26:16

and I complained about this

26:19

and it got a ranking of 75

26:21

because it said we frequently published misinformation

26:24

and false and misleading claims in various

26:26

articles, particularly about climate change and the vaccines.

26:29

Anyway, so I wrote

26:32

to them and said,

26:33

this is ridiculous, I can't get any advertising

26:35

because you're only giving me 75 out of 100, can

26:37

we review my ranking? And

26:40

after about six months, I got a reply and

26:42

they said, yeah, okay, we'll conduct

26:44

a review. And they sent me all

26:46

the pages that they thought, all the stories

26:48

in the Daily Skeptic that they had flagged as containing

26:50

this informational, false and misleading

26:52

claims. And I

26:55

then responded in great detail to

26:58

the things they'd flagged up in these pieces, in

27:00

which I pointed out that in I think every

27:03

case, what they had

27:05

classified as misinformation was

27:07

just a difference of opinion about how to interpret

27:10

particular data. But

27:14

I did say, I said to them, look, I

27:16

think this is an honest difference of

27:18

opinion, and we should just agree to differ.

27:21

There isn't a fact of the matter

27:24

in how to interpret this complicated

27:26

and sometimes fluid data. But

27:31

we're not guilty of making false and misleading

27:34

claims any more than you would be if

27:36

you published your interpretation

27:38

of this data. But what I will

27:40

do is I'll publish the

27:43

fact that you have reservations about

27:45

this particular article. And I'll

27:47

link to any fact checks that you've sent to me

27:49

about this particular article. And then beneath that, I'll publish

27:52

our rebuttal. And I thought that would be

27:54

enough for them. They'd be able to show their funders

27:57

like Microsoft that websites

28:00

that they regard as dodgy

28:03

are acting more responsibly by

28:05

agreeing to publish links to fact checks

28:08

beneath contentious articles. So

28:11

I was expecting them to kind of upgrade

28:13

me, having engaged in good faith over a lengthy

28:15

period of time. I mean, it must have taken weeks of work

28:17

games. And I then did put all these post

28:20

scripts beneath all the articles they flagged. And

28:22

then of course, their reaction was to downgrade

28:24

me from 75 out of 100 to 37 and a half. Sorry,

28:29

It

28:34

was worth it for that payoff. I think we should, but

28:36

I think I want to hear your take, your

28:39

hot take on the submarine.

28:42

Well, I thought James is an experiment. We

28:44

could, I

28:47

could give what I think is your take, and you could

28:49

give what you think is going to be my take to

28:51

see if we know each other's side well

28:54

enough to do that. Well, I'm kind

28:56

of, I'm only

28:58

only peripherally interested

29:00

in your take. I just

29:02

imagine it was pretty much the story that was played

29:04

out in the newspapers.

29:05

So but, but am

29:08

I wrong? Do you have special

29:10

insights that that weren't in

29:12

the, by the way, I'm meant

29:14

to ask you,

29:15

what newspapers do you read? Do you read the newspapers?

29:18

Yeah, I'm constantly

29:21

combing through lots of newspapers,

29:24

news publishing sites, looking for stories. What are

29:26

the main papers? We

29:29

do, because you know, because we either need to

29:31

summarize them in the daily skeptic or include them in the news

29:33

roundup. But I guess the

29:35

I mean, I saw a look at all the papers, James, mainly

29:39

UK papers, but not exclusively. I sometimes

29:41

look I mean, I look, you know, telegraph times,

29:44

Guardian, Sun, Mail,

29:47

very occasionally, the independent,

29:49

but its website is just so bad, it's almost

29:51

impossible to navigate Ditto, the Express,

29:54

the conservative woman, spectator, unheard

29:57

in America,

29:59

Stoney Institute. And

30:02

then we will look at a lot of sub

30:05

stacks to see if we want to republish

30:07

any of them, which is a good source of stuff

30:09

for us. Right. Just to cut to

30:11

the chase, would it be fair to

30:15

say that roughly, roughly speaking,

30:17

your take on the the Titan,

30:20

as I believe it's called the Titan sub, is

30:23

roughly the version of events that you that

30:26

one read in the in the various mainstream

30:28

media, legacy media,

30:29

newspaper? Well, the the the actually

30:32

the coverage was that there wouldn't

30:35

the jury seem to be out on whether

30:41

the the US

30:43

was it the US Navy had

30:48

had deliberately kept back the

30:54

evidence it had stumbled

30:56

across that there had been an underwater

30:59

explosion

31:01

for kind of sinister

31:04

reasons or whether it had just kept it back because

31:06

it was still unsure exactly

31:09

how to interpret these audio

31:12

signals it had received what it described

31:14

as anomalous. I think it was an underwater anomaly.

31:17

They didn't know for sure it was an explosion. So

31:20

but they didn't seem to be a clear line

31:23

on that particular point in the MSN.

31:26

But some people were saying the US

31:28

Navy sat on this information. And

31:30

we were all strung along thinking

31:31

that

31:32

there was a possibility the people

31:35

on the submersible might be rescued. Why

31:37

didn't they tell us sooner? That's very sinister.

31:39

What's going on? And there were others who thought,

31:42

well, there's a perfectly innocent explanation. They just

31:44

hadn't worked out exactly what the data meant

31:46

at that point. And didn't. What do you think? What do you

31:49

what's your best guess at what really

31:51

happened?

31:53

My best guess is that

31:55

well, one

31:58

conservative take, James, is

31:59

that the chap

32:02

who ran

32:04

the submersible company is

32:07

a great exponent of equity,

32:09

diversity, and inclusion, and

32:12

had said, I think at some point, that he's

32:14

not a great believer in hiring middle-aged

32:18

heterosexual white men. He

32:20

likes to give engineering opportunities to

32:23

a much more diverse group of people.

32:26

And so people were saying, well, no wonder the

32:28

submersible imploded. You

32:30

didn't hire the best people to design it.

32:34

If you'd had a more meritocratic hiring policy,

32:36

maybe this wouldn't have happened.

32:39

What's your take on it, James? It's

32:41

funny. I thought you might mention that detail.

32:44

When I read that detail,

32:47

I thought this is such

32:50

an obvious piece of

32:52

red meat, like almost

32:55

ground bait for people

32:59

of a conservative persuasion, that

33:02

it just made me think

33:03

maybe the whole story is fake. So

33:05

clearly, clearly,

33:08

people who consider themselves conservative

33:10

commentators right-wing would latch

33:13

on to this fantastic,

33:15

cherishable detail that

33:17

basically this woke

33:20

billionaire was using

33:22

cut-priced subs

33:26

run by interns, basically,

33:28

chosen for their diversity

33:32

or whatever, rather than for their technical skills.

33:35

And it was a kind of tremendous,

33:37

I

33:39

mean, schadenfreude on

33:41

stilts for conservative commentators.

33:44

But there was also a schadenfreude angle for

33:47

left-wing commentators, too. I mean, there was a lot of

33:51

triumphalism and cackling about

33:53

the fact that these men with obviously

33:56

more money than sense had a fair amount

33:59

of money. effectively killed themselves

34:01

by trying to go on this exotic

34:04

adventure. There was a kind of, you know, anti-billionaire,

34:07

Shad and Freudite.

34:08

I think we can agree. There was something

34:11

for everyone, which is, again, what makes

34:13

me smell a rat. I smell several

34:15

huge rats about this story. I

34:18

know.

34:19

My view is that suppose all the facts

34:22

or some of the facts as presented to us were vaguely

34:24

true about the run up to this story.

34:28

I think it is a given

34:30

that

34:32

everyone knew. I mean, the

34:34

US Navy, the Biden administration,

34:37

certainly, the senior

34:39

boards in the media all knew that

34:42

the sub had imploded

34:45

by last weekend, and yet

34:48

they ran this story. This

34:51

will, they won't, they survive. Oh, we've

34:53

only got a few hours left before we rescue

34:55

them. This story, which had loads

34:58

of people, including members of my family,

35:00

on the edge of their seat, because submarine stories,

35:03

there was a famous incident before the Second World

35:05

War when a submarine went

35:08

down and there was a sort of, well, they won't, they survive.

35:10

And there was that incident with the

35:13

Russian submarine a

35:16

few years ago and so on. These stories are

35:18

always very, very gripping because everyone

35:20

can identify. Everyone's seen, or many of us have seen, just

35:22

built, we can all identify with the claustrophobic

35:25

horrors. And we think about what a way to go and stuff.

35:28

I do,

35:30

I do believe that

35:34

the media, the media knew

35:36

about this. They knew they

35:38

had already gone, but at the

35:41

behest of

35:42

the Biden administration

35:45

in Turalia, they ran with this complete

35:48

distracting story in

35:50

order to... What were they trying to do?

35:51

Yeah, go on. There were a number of things, revelations

35:53

about Hunter Biden, revelations

35:57

about Durham.

35:59

the Durham investigations in the

36:02

US, the failure

36:05

of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

36:09

It's never clear. But, I mean, let

36:11

me explain. In my

36:14

belt and shower, my understanding of the world

36:16

that the whole of everything you read about

36:18

in the media is a lie. It's not

36:21

that I'm being evasive when I say, I

36:23

don't know what particular stories this

36:26

crap is distracting you from,

36:28

because almost by definition, you're not going

36:30

to know because that is how these stories work. They

36:33

are designed to focus our attention on,

36:35

look at these shenanigans. Look at this. Here

36:38

is this character, this billionaire that you've never

36:40

heard of who lived in, who lives in Dubai.

36:42

So you start thinking, well, who is he? How

36:44

have I never heard of him? Where did he get this

36:46

airline company that I never heard of and stuff? And

36:49

what about the 18-year-old boy who didn't want

36:51

to go with his dad, but it was Father's Day,

36:53

so he went and you can identify him. All

36:55

this stuff. I can see why people are drawn

36:58

into this stuff, which is

37:00

how the media works. It's a distraction device.

37:03

But I don't know exactly which

37:05

of the many stories they

37:07

weren't reporting or lightly reporting

37:09

it was designed to distract us from. But

37:11

yeah, another thing too, which we'll come to you in a minute when you've

37:13

made your point.

37:14

Well, I was just going to ask you, if

37:16

the media is so controlled

37:20

that it does the bidding of

37:23

various

37:25

people who want to want to

37:27

want to want to want to want to want to want

37:29

members of the public to be distracted from their wrongdoing.

37:33

How is it that the story then emerged

37:35

that the US Navy and others knew

37:39

that or suspected that the sub

37:41

had imploded days before

37:43

the search

37:45

was concluded? I mean, doesn't

37:48

seem like they're doing a great job of controlling the media.

37:50

That story got out nonetheless. Because

37:55

happily, there are other sources of information

37:57

other than the legacy media, the mainstream

37:59

media.

37:59

that they don't yet, although

38:02

they'd like to, have total control over all

38:05

the information we get. So inevitably this stuff

38:07

slips out in one way or another, although

38:09

even then, you're never sure whether you can

38:12

trust it. You have to kind

38:14

of

38:15

compare sources and decide which story

38:18

you trust, don't you? That's all you can hope

38:20

to do. The other detail, and

38:24

the other reason I sort of

38:26

have my doubts about so many aspects

38:28

of the story.

38:29

I mean, given that the media played

38:32

us along for three or four days

38:34

with what they knew to be a lie, certainly

38:37

at a senior level, I'm sure a lot of these stories

38:39

were prepared and planted. There's

38:42

the nature of the exercise that

38:44

was being conducted. You

38:47

know what the Titan was doing. It

38:49

was looking at the wreck

38:52

of what?

38:53

The Titanic, are you

38:55

gonna tell me that the Titanic didn't really sink, that was

38:57

just a big story? The Olympic.

39:03

See,

39:04

the story, obviously this

39:06

is team James, team Toby, people will be appalled

39:09

by this. They'll think it's a kind of crazy conspiracy

39:12

theory, whatever, because they haven't read up

39:14

on it. But the

39:17

Titanic, as

39:19

it was sold to us, did not sink

39:21

as a result of hitting an iceberg, not least because

39:24

just as jet fuel can't melt

39:27

steel, seal reinforced

39:29

steel girders. So the

39:32

hull of the Titanic stroke Olympic was

39:36

more than enough to handle bumping into an iceberg.

39:39

The Titanic was actually sunk for

39:42

a couple of reasons, partly

39:45

as an insurance job by the incredibly

39:48

corrupt and wicked owner

39:50

of the White Star Line, JP

39:52

Morgan. And partly to bump

39:54

off

39:55

four, I think it was, key opponents.

40:00

of the Federal Reserve. You

40:03

remember what year that the Titanic

40:05

sank in?

40:07

And

40:10

when was the Federal Reserve created?

40:13

You tell me, James. So

40:15

a year, within a year of the Titanic

40:18

sinking, the Federal Reserve had been created. And

40:21

happily for the people who created

40:24

the Federal Reserve, several of the key

40:26

opponents of the Federal Reserve had

40:28

gone down with the ship on this maiden

40:31

voyage, which amazingly, J.P.

40:33

Morgan, at the very last minute, was found

40:35

himself too ill to attend. He

40:37

managed to get off the ship. So,

40:39

and you saw a hint of this in the,

40:41

I

40:45

don't know, you saw it, there was a story in the papers about

40:47

how

40:49

it may be that there was another factor in the sinking

40:51

of the Titanic besides the iceberg.

40:54

And it was a story about something about the boiler room exploding

40:56

or the engine room. In other words, what they were

40:58

already doing is seeding the idea that

41:00

maybe if the record

41:03

was examined, it would be shown that

41:05

there'd be an explosion as well as

41:09

the damage from the outside done by an iceberg.

41:13

Yeah, so I think the Titanic probably sank because

41:15

it was blown up,

41:17

but sabotage rather than hitting an iceberg.

41:20

But it's worth it. Look, when you've got time, T.A.B.s, because

41:22

I mean, obviously we can't cover this on this particular-

41:25

Well, as a new one on the engine. It's

41:27

worth looking into. Always

41:29

good to hear. Another conspiracy

41:31

theory.

41:33

So, should we cut, should

41:35

we have one more break? I mean,

41:38

we haven't talked about the Wagner Coon. Maybe we should briefly

41:40

talk about that. Oh, I think we should definitely

41:43

talk about that, T.A.B.s. And then have a break. You think

41:45

it's important, don't you?

41:46

Culture corner. So

41:48

let's do the next break before culture corner. So what's your take

41:51

on the failed Wagner

41:53

Coon? Yeah, it's interesting, because you got quite

41:55

cross when I was suggesting

41:58

that there wasn't much.

41:59

There wasn't much in the news this week.

42:03

I got I got invited on to a

42:06

to do a show yesterday about

42:08

on this subject. And I said, look,

42:10

if there's one thing I've seen in the last

42:14

this is on Sunday, if there's one thing

42:17

I've noticed in this this weekend of

42:20

of news from Russia is

42:22

all these pundits

42:23

coming up with these

42:26

wild, wildly contradictory

42:28

version of events. I don't want to be

42:30

one of those people. I

42:32

mean, I don't want to be John. I don't want to be John

42:35

Sweeney. Did you did you see him? He

42:39

has gone a bit mad. He has. But I mean,

42:42

he used to be. I suppose people

42:44

are saying what happened to Sweeney, but the same what happened to

42:46

James? John Sweeney. I

42:48

mean, he was quite a thing. Wasn't he? Wasn't

42:51

he? He was like BBC. Yeah, I think he was

42:53

for a long time at Panorama. Wasn't he made

42:55

several films? He was. For

42:57

a long time at Panorama, wasn't he made several

43:00

Panoramas? Yeah, you saw the flagship

43:04

documentary current affairs show.

43:07

OK, so this John Sweeney was pictured

43:09

wearing. Did you notice this way? Maybe you don't follow

43:12

him. He was wearing blue and

43:13

yellow

43:17

nail polish

43:19

on his finger to signify his allegiance.

43:23

And he was getting really excited. He

43:25

was saying that the tanks are now the

43:27

tanks of the Wagner group. I presume it's Wagner

43:30

rather than Wagner. The Wagner

43:32

group are now within 20

43:35

miles of Moscow. The

43:37

unthinkable has happened. There was no

43:39

resistance. There was no popular will to

43:42

resist this this glorious

43:45

coup against the evil Putler.

43:48

And unless

43:51

something's happened since we started the show, I don't

43:53

think Putler has been has

43:55

been deposed. I mean, it was a big fact, nothing

43:58

but wasn't it? The this.

43:59

if it was a coup? Well,

44:01

it was a bit anticlimactic, certainly. One

44:05

moment, you know, he, the,

44:09

I'm going to call them the Wagner group, but I don't know what the correct pronunciation

44:12

is. One minute they were, you know, the tanks

44:14

and troops and missile

44:17

batteries were on their way to Moscow,

44:20

as you say. And the next,

44:23

a settlement

44:25

had been negotiated by the president of Belarus.

44:28

And, and it turned

44:30

out, how do you pronounce the name of the leader

44:33

of the Wagner group? Progogen.

44:36

Progogen. So next we knew he was, he

44:38

was, he was, he was, he was going to go to Belarus.

44:42

And Putin was safe. And it was

44:44

unclear exactly why he'd

44:47

abandoned his coup so quickly. I

44:49

mean, he was, I guess he's been given that

44:52

all charges against him have been

44:54

dropped. So he's no longer being targeted

44:56

for criminal prosecution by the Russian

44:59

state. And maybe that's what prompted him

45:01

to mount this coup in the first place.

45:04

Then there's a suggestion that he might have

45:07

picked up some, he might have picked up some nukes

45:09

from one of the towns,

45:13

cities he successfully captured

45:15

during the coup's 12 year life.

45:17

Well, you sound like you're worried about this. You were quite

45:20

emotional about it at the beginning of the podcast. I didn't

45:22

mean to be emotional. I was just, I just thought I

45:24

thought when you said nothing's happened in the last week, I

45:26

was thinking quite

45:28

a lot's happened. I didn't

45:30

mean to sound emotional. So

45:33

you're not worried about being nuked in action by

45:35

by precautions, wicked forces?

45:39

No, no, I think more

45:41

likely he's, if he's captured any nukes

45:43

at all, he's captured some tactical nukes

45:45

and he may in turn

45:48

use them in Ukraine. I think that would be the, that

45:50

would be the biggest fear. But

45:53

then there was also a suggestion in the papers today

45:55

that Putin and

45:58

his goons

46:00

had threatened family

46:03

members of

46:05

Pergosjin and

46:08

that's why he called it off. But yeah, it was very mysterious

46:10

why it was a little bit. So you should call him by his

46:13

correct name, his correct mainstream media name,

46:15

Putler.

46:17

Because he is the most evil man in

46:19

the world. So I read, I glanced

46:21

at some of the

46:24

legacy media reporting of this story and

46:26

it was just like reading, it

46:29

was like sort of MI6

46:32

CIA porn, just

46:35

designed to fool

46:38

everyone. I

46:38

mean, I read the mail on Sunday and I read the Telegraph

46:41

and they were all saying like, the moon would just come

46:43

and lots of the talking heads were saying that this was

46:46

the final moment where

46:48

Putler was going to be defenestrated,

46:51

people had had enough and he was really unpopular

46:53

and he'd shot his bolt and blah, blah,

46:55

blah. And yet

46:57

I don't know, I've got a suspicion

47:00

that what may have gone on here

47:03

is some classic

47:05

Russian mass. I don't know

47:07

how to pronounce it correctly because I wish I could speak Russian.

47:10

I mean, I was really embarrassed the other day when I was talking about

47:12

a character from Anna Karenina

47:15

and I was calling him Levin

47:17

and it's not Levin, it's Yevon,

47:19

Yevon, all these kinds of companies.

47:22

But have you heard about the concept of

47:24

Maskarovska? Maskarovska?

47:27

No. The Russians are really big on

47:29

this. It's deception, basically.

47:32

And there is a theory abroad and you

47:34

could, I mean, I don't

47:37

know because I don't think anyone knows anything about this.

47:40

The

47:41

Progogen actually

47:43

has

47:44

cooked this up with his old pal,

47:46

Putin. That it

47:49

was a way

47:50

of moving forces

47:55

to the north of Ukraine

47:57

in order to facilitate facilitate

48:00

an attack on Kiev or

48:03

Kiev as you probably call it. Yeah.

48:06

What can they have just done

48:08

that anyway? Why do they have to come? Well,

48:11

because you see, it's about geography

48:13

and about the area

48:16

where they can move. So they're

48:18

obviously being watched by NATO all the time.

48:20

And if they simply move

48:24

the Wagner Group, the forces wholesale

48:27

to the north of, within

48:31

striking position of Kiev, which is in the

48:33

north, it would be very

48:36

obvious. But if they can do it

48:38

as a pretend coup, which

48:40

requires them to retreat to Rostov and

48:42

then sort of advance towards

48:45

Moscow, and then dramatically

48:47

being told that they've got to go to Belarus,

48:50

which is on top of Ukraine,

48:52

if you look at a map, I

48:55

mean, the Rinal, I read one report that

48:57

there's going to be 8,000 Wagner

49:00

Group people stationed

49:01

in

49:02

Belarus. Why? Where

49:04

did this agreement come from? I mean, surely,

49:07

surely if Progoshin was staging a real coup,

49:10

Putin would have had him off. I mean, you know, there would have been a lot

49:12

more bloodshed than there has been.

49:14

So what I'm saying is that there's a lot about

49:17

this story that doesn't make sense. And it's

49:19

possible that the Western media,

49:21

certainly John Sweeney, and

49:23

possibly a few others have been completely

49:25

played

49:26

by what looked like a coup, reported

49:29

like as a coup, but was actually a

49:32

military tactic.

49:35

Yeah, but

49:38

against that, James, weren't a lot

49:40

of Russian aircraft,

49:43

military aircraft shot down

49:45

by the Wagner Group in the course of the coup.

49:48

Would Putin

49:50

really be willing to sacrifice all those

49:52

aircraft in order to kind of engage in

49:56

a bit of subterfuge to reposition

49:58

the Wagner Group north of Kiev?

50:00

I mean, I'm not aware of

50:02

this story about, can

50:06

we believe it anyway? Do we know how many aircraft were

50:09

shot down? I think what I

50:11

would suggest is that, and this doesn't apply

50:13

just to Russia, this applies to

50:16

all countries. I

50:18

think they're prepared to take a bit

50:20

of collateral damage in

50:23

order to advance a particular, I

50:25

mean, for example, look at Pearl Harbor.

50:28

Pearl Harbor, the American

50:31

senior military, they

50:33

sacrificed their lives to the people on

50:37

the various ships that went down in

50:39

order to drag, to

50:42

widen the scope of the war.

50:44

They

50:46

knew it was coming. You mean, you think they knew it

50:48

was coming and didn't alert

50:51

their naval base in Pearl Harbor? Yeah,

50:54

totally, totally. It was a trick.

50:57

You don't think Americans,

51:00

look, okay. And it was in

51:02

the same way that Churchill allowed the

51:05

sinking of the Lusitania

51:07

in order to

51:10

drag America into the First World

51:12

War.

51:12

That's what I mean. You think that the guys

51:15

who make these decisions are kind

51:17

of like you and me, that they would not

51:19

sacrifice their own people, but

51:21

actually they didn't give a toss. They really don't.

51:24

People like us are just worm food to them.

51:28

It's a tough one, James. It's

51:31

my choice. Shall we have

51:33

one more ad break and

51:36

then do Culture Corner? Mm.

51:39

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

51:42

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

51:46

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

51:49

Mm. Mm. The

51:51

media are burying some of the biggest scandals of

51:54

our lifetime, and I'm here to call

51:56

them out on it and make fun of them

51:58

for it. The Twitter files.

51:59

government censorship, the Biden

52:02

documents, the Hunter laptop, the

52:04

lies of the FBI and the

52:06

Russiagate hoax, China

52:08

spy balloons and toxic chemical

52:11

burn-offs. Join me to hear things

52:13

no other journalist will dare tell you.

52:16

All that and more on What's Buggin' Me,

52:19

available for download and streaming every

52:21

Thursday right here on the Ricochet

52:24

audio network and wherever

52:26

you get your podcasts. Ricochet.

52:30

Join the conversation.

52:38

So

52:55

James, I haven't really seen anything new on TV this

52:57

week because I've been so busy.

53:22

So, but

53:25

I have, I have, I finished

53:27

a book called Traffic by Ben

53:30

Smith, which is really

53:32

about the rise of BuzzFeed and

53:35

how internet

53:37

traffic became the sort of oil of the 2000s

53:40

and how those who managed

53:45

to attract the most traffic.

53:48

Is BuzzFeed still going? Rolling in money.

53:50

Well, no. Isn't that extra?

53:52

Isn't that weird? That's really

53:55

weird that the BuzzFeed was this enormous

53:57

thing

53:59

and now it's just nothing.

53:59

I think it's just like, I don't know if it's like, has it

54:02

been closed?

54:04

I think it still exists, but I think it in

54:07

a much reduced state and

54:09

it's no longer valued at, you know, 1.1

54:11

billion or whatever. No,

54:14

it's like, it's like the, the IEA

54:16

or, or, or it's like always

54:19

institutions, but used to be, we used to care

54:21

about and now just mean nothing. They're just gone over.

54:24

Um, I,

54:26

you mean the Institute of Economic Affairs? Yeah.

54:29

Oh, that's still going James. It's, um, yeah, but

54:32

what I mean is it's credibility shot.

54:34

It's just like nobody I know just

54:37

takes it seriously anymore. I mean, I think

54:39

all the people that, that,

54:41

that, that didn't take a

54:43

strong line on, on, on the, on the VACs and

54:45

stuff, their credibility is so shocked that,

54:47

that nobody who thinks we'll ever

54:49

take them seriously again.

54:52

I think maybe, maybe amongst, um,

54:55

people like you, The Awake.

54:57

I think, think, think it's the clock shot, uh,

55:00

the kill jab, but I don't think many people,

55:02

I don't think they're, they're, their opinion

55:04

of the IEA will have been affected by that. No,

55:06

I think it's still,

55:07

I think it's still a fantastic think tank. Um,

55:10

they'd published a fantastic, uh, book

55:12

book length paper, um, on, which

55:15

was a meta analysis of the, um,

55:17

effect of various non-pharmaceutical

55:20

interventions, um,

55:22

like lockdowns, uh, and judge

55:24

them to be almost completely ineffective. Uh, they published

55:26

this a

55:27

couple of weeks ago and they got quite a lot of press

55:29

that Telegraph

55:30

gave it some good coverage. I take them

55:32

seriously. If they started covering things

55:35

like them, the what, 75% increase, uh, year

55:39

on year in cancer deaths in the U S.

55:41

Oh gosh, I wonder what could have caused that. Or

55:43

I think they, I think they, I think in this

55:45

book they do take account that it's all about the collateral

55:49

damage, um, cause. Oh yeah, but they're

55:51

going to be blaming it on lock. You know, all

55:53

these people, they've only got their own joining of cancer

55:55

because they didn't get early

55:58

treatment because the lockdown was not that.

55:59

What I mean is when they start making

56:02

the connection between the death jab and

56:05

these, then I'll start taking them seriously

56:07

again. If they can't remember the lockdown,

56:09

I'm thinking, no, you're just you're running cover

56:11

for the enemy.

56:13

Well, I think you're wrong about

56:15

that.

56:17

I

56:19

don't think I'd recommend Traffic by Ben

56:21

Smith. It should

56:23

have been an essay

56:26

in Wired and didn't really

56:28

kind of hold up as a book. But I've just started,

56:31

I've just embarked on Stramly

56:34

Parsonage by Anthony Trollope,

56:36

which is the, I think it's the

56:38

third book in

56:40

the Barts to Chronicles. And I'm

56:43

really going

56:44

as read by Timothy West, who is

56:46

still unsurpassed, I think, as

56:50

a voice actor, as a reader

56:52

of audio books, he really is the best. And

56:54

so I'm really enjoying that.

56:58

Well, I'm just on

57:01

number two of the analysis.

57:04

Okay, right. Yeah, I've read

57:06

those two. He narrates those two, doesn't he?

57:09

He doesn't do the first one, but he does the second because I think

57:11

he's probably better at Irish accents than

57:14

the original reader. Okay. Yes.

57:17

The one about the Irish

57:20

MP. Exactly.

57:22

Yeah. Yeah. There

57:24

are some great hunting scenes in that. There

57:26

are actually quite a bit of hunting in,

57:29

in the in Stramly Parsonage as well, actually. What's

57:33

really interesting is that I

57:35

think he's quite good at

57:37

getting inside the heads

57:40

of young men, effectless

57:43

young men who want to get on.

57:46

So some of the scenes I very

57:48

much see myself

57:51

in, when I was a younger man, sort

57:54

of wanting to land invitations

57:57

to big houses in order

57:59

to build.

57:59

and to be invited shooting and stuff.

58:03

And without

58:06

really sort of why would anyone want to invite somebody

58:09

like you or me to these big houses

58:12

and get this sort of consciousness of this

58:14

need to get on and without

58:16

any

58:17

effort. Yeah and

58:19

also being flattered by the attentions of

58:21

Air Reses and Jews and Dutches.

58:24

All that incredibly

58:26

superficial world which of course I've now totally put behind

58:29

it. And the young men.

58:31

Yeah and it's kind of

58:33

it's almost as though yeah that

58:35

in every troll novel that

58:38

the central male protagonist

58:41

is one of these ambitious

58:44

young men. You know not

58:47

quite an aristocrat but fairly

58:49

well educated, respectable,

58:52

a gentleman. And

58:55

he seduced by or allows

58:57

himself to be seduced by this

58:59

kind of world of glittering prizes,

59:02

the Vanity Fair. And

59:05

often he's

59:06

kind of pulled in two directions.

59:09

He recognizes that this world

59:12

is not very substantial

59:14

and isn't going to bring him any lasting satisfaction

59:16

and he sort of stutters from self-loathing

59:18

because he allows himself to be seduced by it. And

59:21

that's often represented

59:23

by a conflict between two women. There's

59:25

the kind of good simple kind

59:28

of country mouse who's

59:32

in love with him. And

59:35

then there's the kind of

59:36

there's the ambitious ruthless

59:41

female socialite, what we call an it girl

59:43

today who he's initially dazzled

59:45

by but who clearly is not going to make him happy.

59:49

And without wishing to give away any

59:51

spoilers by the end of the books he usually chooses

59:53

the nice pure-hearted. Oh yeah

59:56

they're such they are ultimately formulaic

59:59

potboilers.

59:59

but he's just got an engaging way, hasn't he? That

1:00:04

you can't. He's got a great turn

1:00:06

of phrase and he's very good at drawing

1:00:08

these characters and making you care about them, hasn't he? They

1:00:11

come off the page, they leap out of it. Finneas Finn

1:00:14

is the one that I'm... Finneas Finn, yeah.

1:00:17

Yeah. There's

1:00:19

a bit too much

1:00:21

politics in it,

1:00:22

but it's clear that by this stage, and it's

1:00:24

good, because you know that Trollope,

1:00:26

when he was younger, he wanted to be

1:00:28

an MP. And he ended

1:00:31

up campaigning to become an MP

1:00:35

and spent something like £400, which was

1:00:37

presumably an awful lot of money in those days,

1:00:40

campaigning to get this Northern seat which he didn't

1:00:42

win. And I think it gave him quite a jaded

1:00:45

view of politics and election agents, and

1:00:48

how just pointless

1:00:51

the whole system was that previously he'd admired. But

1:00:54

yes, I wanted to

1:00:57

just

1:00:58

castigate you briefly for

1:01:01

one of your semi-recommends from last week. This

1:01:03

is Life I'll Never Get Back,

1:01:06

that I spent watching that

1:01:08

crappy Afghanistan

1:01:11

movie about the Guy Ritchie film.

1:01:14

Oh yeah. The Covenant. It's

1:01:16

like some sort of oter work. Guy

1:01:19

Ritchie film. Guy Ritchie's Covenant, yeah. Yeah,

1:01:21

exactly. He didn't like it.

1:01:23

Well, the thing is,

1:01:26

once you make the

1:01:28

heroic journey and go down the rabbit hole, you

1:01:31

start realising how

1:01:32

propagandistic so

1:01:35

much of the crap that comes out of Hollywood is. So

1:01:38

you could see what the purpose of this film

1:01:40

was. It was one, trying

1:01:43

to give the completely

1:01:45

false impression that there was anything

1:01:47

good about America's involvement in Afghanistan.

1:01:50

There was anything noble about it. They were achieving

1:01:52

anything useful. And

1:01:54

secondly, it was essentially,

1:01:56

it must have been written on there, we need to make sure

1:01:58

that more people are aware of it.

1:01:59

more Afghan immigrants

1:02:03

come into the West in

1:02:05

the form of interpreters who've

1:02:08

heroically served our forces. And

1:02:10

it was like a sort of advert for

1:02:13

a cause. And that's how these

1:02:15

films get their budgets, get

1:02:17

their support from the military, etc.

1:02:20

They're just propaganda. But

1:02:23

it wasn't propaganda, was it? Because

1:02:26

it really condemned

1:02:28

the US in particular for not honoring

1:02:31

their promise to these Afghan interpreters

1:02:34

that they would blame the bureaucracy, residential

1:02:37

visas,

1:02:38

blame the bureaucracy, not the military or the politicians.

1:02:41

Well, yes, it blames the bureaucracy

1:02:44

in order to generate an anger

1:02:46

within the viewer, which

1:02:48

then translates into calls for

1:02:51

more, this is how it works, like

1:02:53

sort of pressure that we've got to have

1:02:55

more open borders, we've got to have

1:02:58

like we shouldn't be asking awkward questions, we should

1:03:01

just let them all in.

1:03:03

So I think it would be very much suited to,

1:03:06

for example, the Biden regime, which takes

1:03:08

that

1:03:08

view about everything. I

1:03:10

thought that it was essentially criticizing

1:03:13

the Biden regime for abruptly

1:03:15

withdrawing from Afghanistan, leaving

1:03:19

an arsenal of valuable

1:03:21

military equipment behind. I didn't get

1:03:24

that message. Those who'd help them. I

1:03:26

didn't get the message at all. And also, I just thought,

1:03:28

you know, I thought that

1:03:31

the Taliban were just like

1:03:33

painted as the sort of evil

1:03:37

and incompetent at the same time. They were cannon

1:03:40

fodder, but they were really nasty cannon fodder in

1:03:42

whose deaths you were invited to rejoice.

1:03:44

And I was thinking, actually, I think

1:03:47

if my country had

1:03:49

been invaded on a false pretext, like

1:03:51

Afghanistan was, I think I might join the

1:03:53

Taliban, actually. I think I

1:03:55

can see you actually with with

1:03:57

with the kind of beard and no mustache wearing

1:03:59

the the white robes

1:04:03

and having

1:04:04

a In my Toyota,

1:04:07

my Toyota highlikes. The highland cruiser.

1:04:10

Yeah, absolutely. With my technicals,

1:04:13

they're called, aren't they? With all of the machine guns on the back. Yeah,

1:04:15

I'd probably been very good at that. And I hope

1:04:18

by the way, they're looking after Lord Miles Routledge,

1:04:20

the young adventurer chap who's

1:04:23

been imprisoned by the Taliban.

1:04:26

You

1:04:26

know, if all it is, the chap who just goes

1:04:28

to danger zones. Right. OK. And

1:04:31

he's well, he's been captured by the Taliban. Yeah,

1:04:35

yeah, I think better, but the Taliban, the nicest

1:04:38

in as much as the

1:04:39

I mean,

1:04:40

they're all obviously infiltrated

1:04:43

by the CIA, so you don't know who's who. But

1:04:45

yeah, anyway, that

1:04:48

was it. I just thought it was just

1:04:50

bollocks. I wouldn't recommend it.

1:04:52

OK, all right. We'll disagree about that one. Have you seen anything

1:04:54

you like? You wrote about the

1:04:57

the bicycling documentary

1:05:00

on Netflix. I saw in the spectator, but we talk about it. Yeah,

1:05:02

I watched the tennis one.

1:05:04

I watched the update to the. So I

1:05:06

know that Djokovic

1:05:08

beat

1:05:10

the angry Australian who's

1:05:13

quite fun

1:05:14

last year. OK. In the final

1:05:16

Wimbledon. Oh,

1:05:18

I did see something, James. I'm

1:05:20

now remembering I went and saw the

1:05:22

latest Indiana Jones movie

1:05:25

with 15 year old son. He's an Indiana

1:05:28

Jones fan. It was it was a multimedia

1:05:30

screening and actually was quite

1:05:32

good. Really? I

1:05:34

quite like I quite like that

1:05:37

franchise. I didn't like the last one, but,

1:05:39

you know, I like the first one. I quite like the second one. And

1:05:43

of course, it's slightly odd that, you

1:05:45

know, this 80 year old geezer is

1:05:47

playing an action hero even

1:05:48

odder than seeing Schwarzenegger

1:05:51

play an action hero in Fubar. And

1:05:54

clearly, you know, the city.

1:05:57

I think Harrison Ford is now 80. I don't know if he was 80 when

1:05:59

he made. the picture, but

1:06:02

they have to use some quite creative CGI

1:06:05

to kind of have him kind of, you

1:06:07

know,

1:06:09

do his action hero stunts. But

1:06:12

he has and he and his sort of main, his

1:06:14

main sort of partner in crime

1:06:16

as a young woman, who, you know, is implausibly

1:06:19

good at knocking out kind of fully grown men

1:06:21

and fighting off hordes of bad guys. But

1:06:24

some of the but it's quite cartoonish, so you can kind

1:06:27

of suspend disbelief about that almost takes a leaf

1:06:29

out of the kind of John Woo School of Filmmaking,

1:06:32

in which you know, you're not supposed to take

1:06:34

it seriously. And

1:06:37

but it but it's some that some of

1:06:39

the kind of set pieces,

1:06:42

the set piece action sequences, like the chase

1:06:44

sequences and so forth in the film,

1:06:46

there are about three extended set

1:06:49

pieces are really good, really well choreographed,

1:06:51

thrillingly.

1:06:53

What era is it set in?

1:06:55

It's set well, it's truly set in the it's

1:06:58

set in 1969. Right.

1:07:04

Moon landings. And it

1:07:06

does it doesn't it does sort of container.

1:07:09

There's a kind of Von

1:07:11

Von Braun,

1:07:12

Von Braun character. Yeah, he's the

1:07:14

main villain. And he's

1:07:17

making up these landings. I mean, I know

1:07:20

not because of that. No, he's, he's thought to genuinely

1:07:22

helped Americans land someone

1:07:25

on the moon. But he's, he's

1:07:27

doing it for kind of he's got this other agenda, he's trying to get hold

1:07:29

of this kind of ancient artifact, which

1:07:31

will enable him to travel back in time, to

1:07:35

a crucial period. What he wants to do

1:07:37

is he wants to travel, maybe it's a bit of

1:07:39

a spoiler, so I won't, I won't tell you, but he's

1:07:41

thought of a way to

1:07:42

enable Germany to win the Second

1:07:44

World War, if you can get hold of this time

1:07:46

traveling ancient artifact invented

1:07:49

by Archimedes. So the kind

1:07:52

of that's the MacGuffin, the film is all about, you

1:07:54

know, the battle to get hold of this artifact. And

1:07:56

then at the end, they do travel back in time. So

1:07:58

basically, they've shoehorned.

1:07:59

or shoehorned in Nazis, because

1:08:02

this is basically Operation Paperclip,

1:08:04

because you know, Operation Paperclip,

1:08:06

don't you?

1:08:07

No. All these, many of

1:08:09

the key Nazis were basically assimilated

1:08:13

into American society. The American

1:08:15

establishment, be they rocket

1:08:17

scientists like Von Braun or whatever,

1:08:20

they were all given sort of

1:08:22

new identities and absorbed

1:08:24

into the system. So that,

1:08:26

yeah, that's, so

1:08:28

the world is full of Nazis. And

1:08:30

I suppose that's what the film

1:08:32

is telling you. It's slightly, well,

1:08:34

it's revelation of the method as it's known us.

1:08:37

I don't think so. I think they're just,

1:08:39

they're just, because it's almost like reboot

1:08:42

and an homage to

1:08:45

all the other Indiana Jones films.

1:08:47

So they needed to bring Nazis in somehow, even

1:08:49

though, you know, Harrison Ford has clearly aged

1:08:53

40 years since the first one was made, but

1:08:55

they couldn't bring it up to the present because,

1:08:58

you know, he's-

1:09:00

Or he'd be dead. So because

1:09:02

the first one set, you know, during the Second World War,

1:09:04

or on the eve of the Second World War. So

1:09:08

I think they had to kind of inject a Nazi

1:09:11

into the plot to make it all about the Second

1:09:13

World War again by a hook or by a crook. And they've done that

1:09:15

quite well. Anyway, I thought James Mangold,

1:09:17

the director, did a good job. It's pretty entertaining.

1:09:20

Admittedly, two hours and 20 minutes, bit too long, but

1:09:23

still quite fun, modest

1:09:25

recommendation from me. I

1:09:27

think, well, good. Well,

1:09:30

I'll see you next week,

1:09:32

I guess. Okay. All

1:09:35

right, James. Okay. Bye, everybody.

1:09:37

Bye.

1:09:39

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