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London Calling, London Calling. There's pictures of a hand aby my neck and
that is the security saying that he knew that if I, if I totally
hit the floor, you become not a human anymore. It's not like someone
punching in the phase if you're a body on the floor. The police agreed,
every police officer I've talked to agreed in New Zealand that I was lucky
to be alive. Welcome to London calling with me James dulling Part and my
very good friend mister Toby Young. I've got nothing to tell you this week.
I've just been I've been having this sort of it's like being in a
desert of meaninglessness because I was so resigned to the fact that I was going
to die in the hunting season that I wasn't really expecting this lease of life
or this or this void as I look, I wait until next November,
which is when it all kicks off again. I'm not even sure they we're
going to be alive then. So you're now so devoted to hunting. It's
become such a central part of your life that you feel almost as though life
has ended when the hunting season ends and now won't begin again until November.
Well, it's what it has to do with. I mean, look,
everyone goes to hell in the manner of their choosing. And it's about adrenaline,
really, isn't it. Adrenaline and camaraderie. I have no social life
really outside the hunting field, and I'm not really interested in talking to people
not on a horse, frankly, and I missed the adrenaline bars. It's
just it's just like, I mean, you get this from war correspondence,
don't you, when when they come back from war zones and and they just
missed the miss the bars. You know, do you think you might be
suffering from PTSD? Curiously, one of the symptoms of post raumatic stress disorder
is paranoia, So maybe one of the reasons you are prone to lapping up
these paranoid conspiracy theories is actually just a symptom of the PTS that the post
raumatic stress disorder you suffer in virtue of riding. Yeah, that would be
that's really that's really insightful. Well done, mate, I'm so impressed the
way that you marrige a segue from hunting into I don't want to believe in
conspiracy theories because they are too scary in the cias probably not too nice.
One times, listen, I wrote down something which I wanted to run past
you, which I thought was quite quite a strong rebuttal of the notion that
Bill Gates has been pulling the strings behind the scenes because he has this depopulation
agenda, and I just wanted to get your reaction to it. It's quite
it's it's not particularly mean spirited, and it's by a blogger called Eugypius who
we republish, you know, just the guy who's into nar He wants to
go so far, but no further because it's too scary, Like like a
lot of you people. I think he's I think he sits somewhere between Team
Chains and Team Tobia, but probably closer to Team Toby than Team James.
Certainly on the role of Bill Gates. So this was what he said.
He said, I would observe that theories of Gates and the vaccines must be
brought into alignment with several basic facts. Vaccination rates across Africa and the Third
World are truly dismal. Gates himself has repeatedly criticized the mRNA vaccines for their
inability to stop transmission, and the Earth's population has continued to increase since the
pandemic began, undaunted by all public health policies. If the plan is indeed
depopulation via the mass administration of pharmaceuticals, we can take some solace in the
boundless idiocy of our shadowy overlords. What do you say to about James,
I mean, if it is Bill Gates's plan, it doesn't seem to be
going very well. I don't think it. It demonstrates much other than of
course, the powers that be, the Cabal, the prevator class, whatever,
I mean, They're going to have these plans. But no plan survives
contact with the enemy. So the fact that he wasn't a or to get
such traction in Africa, despite having probably helped inspire or even being involved with
the bumping off of people like President Magafuli of Tanzania who opposed the vaccines,
the fact that the funny died of COVID. Oh yeah, yeah, right,
but he died of COVID, of course he did. So, the
fact that they couldn't persuade people in Africa, who after all, you know,
people still live in remote villages in Africa. And also Africans have bitter
experience of Bill Gates's vaccination programs would end up killing more people than they say
if they save any lives at all. So I don't think that Africa's reluctance
to get death jabs is a prima faccia. Case for showing that Bill Gates
is not trying to depopulate the world is that these are non secretaries. Well,
one of the reasons more vaccines weren't available in developing countries was because they
were diverted. Vaccines intended for developing countries were diverted by Western political leaders who
wanted a hog what they believed were these very effective vaccines for themselves. There's
something in them WhatsApp exchanges in the Lockdown files and which Matt Hancockie believers is
seen to try to divert some vaccines intended for the developing world to the UK.
So it's not the reluctance of you know, skeptical Africans to take the
vaccine that has retarded the vaccine in Africa. It's the lack of availability of
the error vaccines in Africa. I mean, I think that's that's I think
I think that that point remains unproven, doesn't it. You're you're you're stating
something that that that in these possibly concocted WhatsApp messages, which I'm skeptical of
anyway, But supposing they're true, supposing they are accurate, well, you're
just saying that the lucky Africans dodged a bullet because because idiot Western politicians decided
that they would hog that they would hog the doses that were going to go
to Africa. But it doesn't it doesn't demonstrate that had this not been the
case, Africans all across the continent would have been queuing up to have these
death shots. I don't think they would. Maybe not, but maybe the
fact that people like Hancock, who I understood you believe to be a puppets
puppets of the w EF, and people like Bill Gates, why are they
trying to divert vaccines intended for the developing world to the Western world when if
your object is to depopulate the world, surely you'd start in developing really really
obsessed with this. This is your your Keller argument, isn't it, Toby,
that either Ridge is Bill Gates are his grand plans to depopulate the world
and if he doesn't, or if he doesn't, then he's failed. It's
as I said before, no plans survives contact with the enemy. Of course,
they are going to be cock ups on the way, which enable people
like you to say, oh, it's all just incompetent ministers, and it's
and there's nothing nothing planned about it. It means none of the stuff means
anything. It's just there's just your coat mechanisms for trying to justify what is
actually rather sinister and horrible. Just just just on the telegraph being brought and
paid for. I mean, if the telegraph was brought and paid for,
James, how come it published regularly? People like Shinetra Gupta and Carl Hennagan
and Martin called up occasionally sometimes published Menism and Alison Pearson podcast people people who
were prepared to operate within the terms of the Overton Window, which was certain
not people like me. I think it's it's it's coverage of the government,
of course, you do. Was was was more even handed than any of
the other They certainly did give a platform to skeptics, including people who were
skeptical about vaccinating child like Molly Kingsley of us for them by Molly Kingsley.
And this is in your your Champion example ever since because you love it,
because it proves what the Telegraph was was really really critical of what was going
on. I don't think so. Well. It doesn't prove that they were
necessarily more critical than they were accepting, but it does prove that they weren't
bought and paper, which you said five minutes ago. Anyway, Listeners who
are interested in this debate about the veracity of the lockdown files or whether it
was part of what you still believe is some kind of conspiracy to persuade us
now the conspiracy. Now they're conspiring to persuade us. It wasn't a conspiracy.
Readers were interested in that question. We'll have an opportunity to hear me
interview. Isabelle Oakshot, who released the messages to the Telegraph on stage at
the Emmanuel Center. I'm taking a leaf out of your book, James.
We've organized a live event at the Emmanual Center on June the third, doors
open at seven from ten from eight till ten, and in addition to me
interviewing Isabel on stage about the Lockdown Files, we're going to have some dramatized
readings of some of the more sensational exchanges with actors playing Matt Hancock and Dominic
Cummings and Boris Johnson. That this is my minor Isabel's idea. But tickets
will go on sale on April the eighth, and we'll put up a link
to how people can register to be notified when the tickets go on sale at
the bottom of the podcast page on Ricochet. But I'm just I've just been
in the process of organizing is setting it up, getting some flyers done,
and trying to emulate your own successes in various respects. James. I've been
told by one of your collaborators that it's better to announce when tickets go on
sale rather than put tickets on sale immediately, to build up some anticipation and
a bit of excitement and hubbub about the forthcoming event anyway, James, I'm
you are clearly a marketing genius, given that you sold out the Emmanual Center
within a couple of weeks and sold nine hundred seats. So you may have
an opportunity to crow about lack of ticket sales to minor Isabell's event in due
course. But tickets are. Tickets will go on sale on April eighth,
and it's going to take place on June third at the Emmanual Center. I
wouldn't experience any chardon freud or if you sold no tickets terms. I wish
you well. Yeah, I mean, it's tough making a living in this
kind of it is, so good luck. Should we hear from one of
our sponsors, James, I think it's your turn. See if you can
guess who this advert is from. Oh it's it's headlined personal note from thor
So there's the giveaway. Hey there, fellow caller. What I'm going to
share with you now is one of many, though please keep me anonymous,
but LinkedIn messages that I've received since the world went mad in March twenty twenty.
This message is from a director of an energy services business who went on
to engage me. That's Thor in developing his team's strategic presentation capability. Thor,
I've watched and read your posts. I think you are about to spot
on for a non brainwashed dummy, as a regular soul can be. We
are being hoaxed daily. I cannot often like comment because the world has indeed
been hoaxed, and I still need to work closely with guys who are absolutely
lost. If you or your business might benefit from an advisor who's very much
not brainwashed, someone who will help you create a positive mental framework and then
take useful action no matter how lost the world may be. Let's talk.
The first step is to connect with me LinkedIn dot com forward slash in forward
slash Thorholt or what's at me four four seven nine zero six three two one
five nine three school thor Ps. Please do connect even if you don't need
my services, because I'd like to stay in touch with you, my fellow
London caller LinkedIn dot com forward slash in forward slash thor Holt, So James.
Last week I went on a little mini break with Caroline. We went
to Marbaya for two nights and it was at the invitation of the owner of
the British International School of Marbaya. He wanted me to talk to Euar eleven's
and six formers about free speech, and he put us up at this very
nice hotel on the beach and we went out to supper with my cousin's son
who lives in Gibraltar. I hadn't realized that Gibraltar was so close to Centing,
about a forty five minute drive from Marbaa. But yeah, I had
a really nice time. It was great to be in the sunshine, um,
you know, particularly as we've had such a dismal spring here in England,
so it was it was a lovely sort of two day break, but
nice to get away. And you don't have to be vaxed to go to
Spain anymore. So problem and you did you get any kind of shedding from
from Gibraltar, because I mean, like Gibraltar is one of the most jabbed
dark places on earth, isn't it. Gibraltar from the Seychelles I think are
about the worst. Yes, we we we once ran a piece actually siting
I think the spike in infections in Gibraltar, in spite of it being one
of the most vaccinated regions of the world as evidence that the MR and a
vaccine did not prevent you from infecting other people. And there was kind of
you know, was it called vaccine escape and and the it was denounced by
the then First Minister of Gibraltar in the Gibraltarian Parliament. One of the day
lee skeptics or was it then was the lockdown skeptics is finest hours. Yeah,
um, well, I'm that's one of the things I've been trying to
do. I've been trying to plan a holiday, um, and I mean
it's hard because, apart from really else, one doesn't know how many holidays
one is going to be have before one ever gets oft by the evil Cabal
or prevented from traveling by the by their master plan, which is I mean,
it's very clear um that if you look look at the fires document,
I think it's called that there are plans to close most of Britain's airports by
by twenty thirty and stoppers traveling. That is, that is the game plan,
and it's the same all over the world. And it's a bit depressing
really, I mean, it's quite quite difficult to explain to one's one's um
normally friends when they say, oh, well there's always you know, we
can always go next year or the year after. Well, will we be
able to? I'm not sure you will. I sometimes worry when he talked
like that, that that you're making yourself depressed by catastrophizing in this way and
imagining that you have less control over your life than you really do. There
was interesting piece actually by Jonathan Hite, whose next book is going to be
about the negative impact of social media and smartphones on jen Z and it's I
guess the kind of data point that he's trying to explain is why is jen
Z so susceptible to mental illness? Why is there this mental health crisis amongst
kind of young people, particularly young women. And he wrote this book,
or The Codding of the American Mind, in which they kind of explored this
a little bit. But it's going to be the only subject I think of
his next book. And he co wrote that with Greg Lukianov, who suffered
a depressive episode at one point and was hospitalized and was able to come out
of it because he did a course of cognitive behavioral therapy and building on Greg's
insight, Jonathan Heights hypothesis is that the reason we have a generation of young
people who are suffering from unusual levels of depression is because they are being exposed
to the opposite what he calls reverse CBT, at universities and on social media
platforms that they frequent. So CBT teaches you three sort of basic lessons.
The first is stop catastrophizing, the second is stop engaging in emotional reasoning,
and the third is you aren't as at the mercy of these external forces as
you're imagining. You can control aspects of your life. The locus of control
can be within your grasp. And universities obviously and insofar as they've been captured
by the woke cult and most social media platforms that particularly women are on,
which is why women, he thinks, suffered from more mental ill health than
young men in the same demographic. They teach them to catastrophize, whether about
the environment, about their future, about the pandemic. One of the reasons
that young people believe that the government should have been stricter, I mean,
that was the extraordinary finding in a couple of recent polls that young Britons actually
think the government should have been much stricter during the pandemic and been a place
asunder an even more constrained form of house arrest than the government did, much
more so than older demographics, curiously, even though they were more adversely affected
by and less at risk from the virus. So they catastrophize. They've been
taught to catastrophized by universities and social media. They engage in emotional reasoning that
you know, they're taught to prioritize their lived experience or whatever that is,
over evidence and data. And they also imagine that they are the mercy of
these forces beyond their control, whether it be white supremacy or the patriarchy.
They believe that they walk past a statue of a slaver or a colonialist like
cecil roads, it's going to traumatize them, it's going to have this kind
of evil eye like impact, it's going to enervate them and sat their energy.
All kind of nonsense. But they've been taught reverse CBT, which is
why they're suffering from depression. And sometimes when I hear you talk, it
sounds like you've kind of brought into this kind of reverse CBT too. You
catastrophize, you engage in emotional reasoning, and you imagine that all these dark
forces, these satanic forces that are beyond your control, are kind of,
you know, affecting you. You're at the mercy of them. Do you
sometimes think that that could be You've looked at CBT as a possible cure for
you while you're busy diagnosing my accurate concerns about the future as as mental illness.
I was just I was just looking up this this website called uk fires
Org. Uk fires is a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Oxford,
Nottingham Bath and Imperial College London. We are funded by the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council, which is the main funding body for engineering and physical sciences
research in the UK. So this is is an organization which is producing research
sort of sort of blue sky thinking for government policy to deal with with net
zero. Are you saying that this this site and this statement by its director,
Professor Julian Allwood, delivering on the UK's commitment to zero emissions in twenty
fifty Did I just conjure this up from my depressed imagination? Did I just
imagine that they have produced this document in which they say that by twenty thirty
all the major most of the major airports in the UK will be closed down.
You say that it's only my negative thinking, which is which is which
is getting in the way of my traveling. But surely a more likely thing
to get in the way of my traveling is if I cannot catch a plane
anymore because all the all the airports are being airplanes as being grounded and all
the airports closed. You seem to be at odds with reality, odds with
evidence. It's all very well waving it away, saying, oh, it's
mental illness. And by the way, here's here's a book that I've heard
of by Jonathan Height, But it doesn't actually address the key issue of there
is a plan for a great reset. There is a plan called for net
zero. It is embedded in UK government policy, in fact in government policy
around the world. And I think to bury your head in the sand and
go, oh, actually, you're just crazy. It's not really addressing the
issue. Well, I did think you're crazy for imagining that there is a
net zero agenda. And there are various climate activists, sometimes in key positions
important institutions, who have a kind of net zero agenda under the government itself
tops and in the government. To an activist, all the government are on
board with this. Well, I don't. I don't think no, I
don't think that's a paranoid fantasy. But interestingly, I think that the support
for net zero is partly fueled by the catastrophizing which people who sign up to
these various utopian agendas have been engaging in. But I do think that your
sense that the closure of Britain's airports by what did you say, twenty thirty
is inevitable because some people are arguing for it. I think that is an
example I think of imagining that we have less control over our body. I'm
not talking about activists were funded as well by the government. But let me
give you an example of why I think you're being too pessimistic, too fatalistic
about the closure of airports. Did you see that there was there was a
referendum in the city of Berlin in Germany yesterday and they were asked to vote
on whether to bring forward the date at which the city of Berlin becomes carbon
neutral. And I think the the the current date is something like twenty forty
six, and they were they were voting whether to bring it forward massively accelerated,
so I think within the next ten years, and it was firmly rejected
at the ballot box. Um so doesn't look like Berlin Airport will be closing,
at least not before twenty forty six. So you know, of course,
of course there are there are people out there with an agenda to close
airports, and that may impede your ability to travel, but it's not inevitable.
It's not it's not inevitable. You can do something about it. These
people other conservative government that you repeatedly brown nose and support because you want them
to be your friends. And I'm saying that you should cut loose from these
people because they are not they're not conservatives, they don't represent your interests.
Why do you why do you give them credit? Why do you respect them
in any way? Then it's already well saying, oh, there's a few
activist groups out there that are floating these crazy ideas. This is embedded in
government policies, just like fifteen minutes cities are embedded in government policies, just
like this transition from petrol driven cars, which they're about to to make.
You know, you can't buy them, buy them anymore. That this transition
to electric cars, which we don't have enough electric points to charge. All
these measures are actually a policy of this government which you repeatedly support, and
you see very much and too criticize. I don't get it that all these
people, everyone at cabinet level, is on board with this stuff. It's
not just Greta Thumberg and her crazes. Well, you mentioned fifteen minutes cities.
I don't think the government is promoting fifteen minutes. Of these fifteen minutes
cities have been promoted by local authorities. But Richie Sunas actually said that there
may be a case for government intervention to stop local authorities imposing, you know,
traffic calming measures which run popular with the public and which they haven't voted
for. And I don't think that, you know, the emergence of fifteen
minute cities is inevitable. I think there's been quite an encouraging pushback against the
fifteen minutes city plan, certainly in Oxford, in Canterbury, in other parts
of the country. So I don't think that's I don't think that's inevitable.
Nor do I think it's inevitable that you know, our airports will close by
twenty thirty, and I don't think that's government policy at the moment either.
So I think you have a tendency to catastrophize and imagine these things are just
inevitable if you haven't ready to sort of wonderful thing that's sort of gone viral
on social media of Sandy Adams addressing addressing I think Blastonbury Town Council and explaining,
explaining to these people who are kind of feeling generally worn towards the notion
of these wonderful cities where they can people can walk to all the shops they
need within fifteen minutes and will be no more congestions. And she explains to
them that no fifteen minutes cities is a top down plan which has been planned
since at least the Rio Earth Summit in nineteen ninety two. It's it's part
of a long term agenda by the people I call the predator class whatever whatever
you want, the powers that be, the cabal that they want to keep
us penned into these like prison cells. I mean in Bath that the different
districts are literally called cells. And yeah, I mean there may be some
resistance, but the game plan all over the world is the same. This
is top down stuff. This has been planned at a superun national level,
and unless people wake up to the fact that this is not the grassroots initiative,
this is not what people want, and it's not going to be something
that people people are going to enjoy or benefit from, then these things will
go ahead in the same way that HS two went ahead, regardless of what
you remember, how many reports came out about how HS two was completely unnecessary.
It wasn't going to make any difference to Britain's transport infrastructure other than you
do shortening the journey from Birmingham to London by maybe twenty minutes. But there
was no desire or need for it, and yet HS two went ahead because
because the governing class was just following orders in the same way you've reported on
the very interesting Maybe we'll talk about this in the next section. The Global
Warning Policy Foundation has produced this very damnage report, one of several ists produced
over the years into wind turbines by an Oxford physic business physics professor. Anyway,
so a proper hard science so he probably has an idea of what's real
and what's not real. Damning about wind turbines, but maybe we should talk
about that after the after the next ad, let's do that. So it's
my turn, let's do applied for Sal to her CFA who listens to us
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Listeners check out Sal's podcast, Angel Invest Boston.
It's mostly on building technology startups, but it's not all about business. Sal
also delves into other aspects of human flourishing, such as creativity, good relationships,
and healthy aging. Curious about digital health and good eats, you might
enjoy Sal's interview with his brother in law, startup founder Martin Aboyatis, titled
Healthcare and Paella. The web page for the episode has a picture of the
delectable piela Martin cooked the night before the interview, so images of the bottles
of Ryocca wine that accompanied the piela had been suppressed. Do follow Angel Invest
Boston on your podcast app and leave a rating and a written review to help
it get found. That's Angel Invest Boston. Yes. So this is an
excellent piece of research published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation on the absolute idiocy
of imagining that our energy needs currently provided by oil and gas, can be
replaced by wind turbines. And he makes, he makes, he makes a
variety of very effective points. One is that the wind speed has to essentially
be within this kind of Cinderella like Goldilocks like window, and if it's above
or if it's below, then they don't generate any thing like as much electricity
as we need, and if it's above then they burn out and don't work
and have to be switched off. That's one point. Another point is that
the batteries we'd need to create in order to store the power when the wind
is blowing so we could then use it when the wind stops blowing is just
absolutely enormous. It would be, you know, at a conservative estimate,
something like the gross national product of the United States spent on just batteries alone.
And the area which these batteries would have to sit in in order to
serve this purpose it is kind of, you know, hundreds of square miles.
So lots of really good points about Like I read my favorite bit from
that because because I've got in front of me, it is, if the
wind speed is ten meters per second, about twenty miles an hour, the
power is six hundred watts per square meter one hundred percent efficiency. That means
to deliver the same power. As Hinckley points c that's the nuclear nuclear power
station by wind would require five point five million square meters of turbine swept area.
That should be quite unacceptable to those who care about birds and to other
environmentalists. But the performance of wind is much worse than that, as a
look at the simple simple formula shows, Because the power carried by the wind
depends on the third power of the wind speed, if the wind drops to
half speed, the power available drops by a factor of eight. So,
in other words, these turbines have got to be running at maximum capacity.
Otherwise if if it drops a bit, the actual energy produced decreases exponentially,
so almost worse. If the wind speed doubles, the power delivery goes up
eight times, and as a result the turbine has to be turned off for
its own protection. So yeah, if it's slightly too as you said,
slightly too windy or not windy enough, that these blades, these these bat
chomping bird slicing eco crucifixes ceased to be any good at all. It's outrageous.
But so my point, which which I never feel you push far enough,
But it's true. It's that we've had this this has been common knowledge
to anyone who's looked into wind turbines for the last what a couple of decades.
I've been writing about it the Late Christopher book. I used to write
about it all the time. What effect has this had on government policy is
zero? I mean less than zero. They go through with this stuff like
they went through with HS two, like they're going through with net zero,
like they're going through with the with the war on petrol cars, like they're
going through with this electric car thing that they do not care anymore what we
think. They carry on regardless that the democratic process is broken. These are
not answerable to the people. Well, um, I agree that there does
seem to be an unnerving degree of cross party consensus about the pursuit of replacing
oil and gas with so called renewables, and a blind spot about the role
that nuclear power could play, which is, after all, a renewable.
But I don't think that means that we just have to resign ourselves to the
net zero climate alarmist agenda. I think, you know, let's let's try
and organize, let's try and have a referendum about net zero, James,
Let's try and persuade the public that it's not in their interests to immiserate themselves
to pursue this pointless goal, given that now other countries around the world,
or very few other countries around the world, including India and China and Brazil,
will be pursuing it, and given the fact that the link between carbon
emissions and global warming, to my mind, at any rate, has yet
to be definitively proved. So I think, I think there is I think
we can. We can fight back. We're fighting back. But I think
you'll, I think you'll. I think I think we agree about the undesirability
of this agenda and the lack of any robust science behind you know, wind
power and other renewables. But what we disagree about is whether it can be
stopped. I think it can, but you, you, I think,
are too despairing because the system is broken. There was no there was no
recourse for for the majority who just actually want to be able to get around
the country drive their cars, who just want to be able to heat their
homes using traditional, cheap, reliable fossil fuels rather than back chomping, birth
silizing eco purisi bits is it. It's not an option on the table because
the uniparty has decided that karstarma is rishisnak is is that is the new Hamsa
Yusuf. The news talk about that case in charge of Scotland now in replacing
the previous nutcase cranky woman. Yeah but but actually surely that that that's all
to the good. We should be celebrating Humsa Yusuf's triumph because there couldn't be
a kind of worse exponent of the separatist cause in Scotland. Nothing, nothing
could be better for Unionism than hums A Yusuf becoming the leader of the SMP,
particularly as there's now likely to be a legal challenge over the electoral the
integrity of the leadership election, given that he was always the continuity candidate,
and we've now discovered that actually more of the same might not be a good
thing for the SMP because they have thirty thousand fewer members than was originally claimed
by the now resigned CEO of the party, also happens to be Nicholas Durgeons
at the beginning of this electoral contest, So you can see there could be
a successful legal challenge and that will mean having to rerun the leadership contest.
The SMP is now going to be in turmoil for you know, many months
to come. So this is just fantastic news. I think it's always could,
may might. Rashi Soon Act says there may be a case for possibly
consider ring action at some future date, or there could possibly be in the
future some legal action which might delay the inevitable for a few months. You
know, I'm not buying it. Well, I think better Humsa than the
other two candidates, both of which I think would have been better. He's
just I think Nicholas Sturgeon, although not as good as Alex Salmond at his
peak, not as skillful a politician, not as good a communicator, nevertheless,
is pretty good. But there's now been a really significant decline. I
think if you compare homes are us off to Nicholas Urgeon And it's partly the
consequence of running Scotland like a one party state. You know, um Stalin
is now dead and in order to preserve his authority, Stalin didn't cultivate any
successes. There isn't any bench strength in the SMP, just as a very
little in the Labor Party, but it's particularly apparent in the SMP. They're
they're they're they're fishing in a very shallow talent pool. And I don't think
the party is going to survive. I think there'll be various splits. And
there's already there are already two separatist parties in Scotland. I'm sure there'll be
a third one soon. And you know, it looks like the Separatist cause
is just in its death throws, which is surely if you're a unionist,
a good thing. You're trying to settle the point of presidency between Allows and
the Free Terms. They're all the same that they're all they're all used as
they're all these sort of bad actors who are there to distract us with their
with the despicabled lantics. And that's it. And no, I mean I
don't. I don't pay attention to this stuff anymore. It's just a distraction.
Okay. Um did you see the mobbing of Kelly J. Keene in
New Zealand. I don't know if you saw some of that, which is
pretty disturbing. Posy Parker, Yeah, also known as um um uh is
it um? Yeah? Oh god, no I said it a second ago
and that slipped out of my moment anyway, Yes, yes, so it
was. It was. It was yeah, and someone emptied a tomato ketchup
bottle over her head and had her security. Had she not had private security,
she might well have been killed, if not badly injured by by this
particular group of protesters. I mean, they were unbelievably violent, um and
um ferrell. And she was immediate kind of whisked from the scene by the
police and taken to the airport and put on a plane and sent home.
But I think I thought it was in some ways a very revealing moment the
kind of the woke authoritarians claim to be, you know, the nice people,
the compassionate people, the people on the side of inclusion and making people
feel safe and accept it. But beneath that veneer of sweetness there is this
brutal, kind of almost fascistic, authoritarian intolerance of anyone who challenges their dogma.
And I thought, yea, the more often, I mean, well
done for Kelly j Keen for exposing it, and the more often that can
happen, I think, the the sooner the kind of woke cults will begin
to recede. But I think that that is that is the woke cults.
Achilles heel. A lot of people are attracted to it because they think it's
it's um, it's nice. It's all about making people feel included, about
helping disadvantaged minorities, about creating a more diverse, healthier, more respectful society.
And yet when they see its exponents engaging in this kind of brutal,
iron fisted censorship, the veil is whisked aside and they realize it's it's it's
a horrible maoist cult, which, you know, which has very little going
for it. So I thought that was a great coup on her part,
even though it must have been very unpleasant to trigger that kind of reaction.
But I think it'll make it it'll make it harder for the trans rights activists
to advance their agenda. Yeah, I don't know whether this exactly has come
from, because I don't really understand for people of our generation, it's quite
difficult to comprehend why a chap would decide that he wants to be a well,
first of all, that he wants to be a woman, probably not
not the extent of actually having a sex change, but just kind of passing
as a woman, because a lot of them look like blokes. Still don't
think blokes interesses, and not only that, but would then want to get
into vicious cat fights, dog fights, depending on what gender they decide they
are with women who are actual women, and they get violent. I don't
understand what the mentality of these people are, and I think that the culture
that's encouraged them is repellent. And by the culture, I mean organizations like
the BBC. I mean in the days when I used to do mainstream media
stuff, I certainly went on at least one BBC program where it was me
with some pretty man who was actually addressed looking like a girl, you know,
I mean quite quite nice looking girl, because a lot you know,
these are some of these these men are um. They have the sort of
androgynous looks which which would previously made them a very good, good gay man.
Um and and now they're they've got this sort of feminine charm and that
the youth on their side. Um And but these are presented as something more
than that, as as as figureheads for what a sort of new way of
looking at the world, as a brave, brave movement. They've taken the
great courage to decide that they are, in fact the girl and to go
around a girl, I don't think it requires much courage. And I don't
understand why they've been promoted, because it's not like when I when I drive
shopping, it's not like everyone look around me is thinking if only there were
more transgender people around, if any we gave them more attention that there there
there are a fraction of a fraction of a minority in the country, and
yet they've been picked up and to be something they're not, it's it's it's
weird. Yeah, well that In the most recent UK no I think census
in England and Wales, people were asked for the first time whether they identified
as a gender, which was at odds with their birth gender, and and
it turned out that only north point five percent of the population does. But
if he drilled down into the data, some of those were, you know,
the equivalent of sport ballot papers. It was more like north point four
percent. So no point two percent trans women, north point two percent trans
men. So it's extraordinary. How you know, politics in Britain, in
America, across the anglosphere has been poleaxed by this question. You know,
what is a woman? Should trans women be able to compete? With biological
women in women's sport, and should they be able to enter women's changing rooms,
should they be housed in women's prisons. I mean, the political class
has been wrestling with these questions for something like five years now, and we're
talking about, you know, for the most part, because it's mainly about
trans women, not about trans men, zero point two percent of the population.
I don't know if I mentioned this before, James, but I wrote
a spectator piece about this and said that given how successful, you know,
the trans lobbyists have been, you know, every toilet in every institution in
the United Kingdom now has essentially been changed at enormous expense to the taxpayer to
accommodate trans women, even though they are zero point two percent of the population.
What about men who suffer from shy bladder syndrome, They surely are a
much higher percentage. The means are men who can't we if they fear that
other men are overlooking them when they've got their todgers out much much must be
a much higher percentage of the population than trans women, and yet they've been
ignored for you know, for millennia. But along come this, this energetic
lobby group and suddenly everything changes, politics is disrupted like it has been by
no other issue in the same sort of time period. I mean, it's
extraordinary. I suggested in the Spectator that, you know, they should hire
out their services as lobbyists to other people, other tiny minorities who've been complaining
that society hasn't accommodated them. Isn't isn't isn't making enough of an allowance for
them, like dyslexics, for instance, you know, why not change every
road sign? I mean, the number of dyslexics must be huge compared to
the number of you know, trans people. So it is, it is
extraordinary how effective they've been. But if you look at the activists in New
Zealand, in some of the video footage, for the most part, the
people attacking Kelly J. Keane weren't trans women. They were big, hulking,
great male allies of the LGBTQ plus Q community, and and and so
it's sort of like, well, why why why are they doing that?
Why are they kind of viciously attacking you know, a single, lone women's
rights campaigner. And it's hard to suppress the suspicion that actually it's just an
excuse to attack a woman. You know that they can indulge their kind of
most primitive, misogynistic, sadistic impulses and physically assault a woman in public and
tell themselves at the same time that they're being virtuous by doing that, they're
performing a useful public service, and often do it certainly without the interference of
the authorities, if not the blessing of the authorities. If we saw the
same thing on a similar on a smaller scale happening in Hyde Park yesterday.
So there was a pro women's rights protest and it was mobbed by trans rights
allies, trans rights activists and their allies. But it's the allies, these
vicious unpleasant you know, black masked men, the people who've been tearing up
cities in France over the past couple of weeks, over Macron's railroading, through
of the rise in the retirement age from sixty two to sixty four. It's
it's these really unpleasant for the most part, left wing young men who any
excuse to just break things, set fire to things and attack women. Yes,
um, do you think we should do another ad before we then let's
do another Okay, if you're responsible for a business and for commercial or by
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network Your house may be repossessed if you do not keep up with repayments on
your mortgage. So, James, have you seen anything, Well I have,
Yeah, I've seen the new the first episode of Succession. Oh you
have it. I I'm really jealous. So I wanted to watch that yesterday.
I thought that in America the debut was Sunday, but in the UK,
of course, we have to wait twenty four hours unless you're somebody special,
in which case, so you got it on DVD or something. I
got it, well, I got the modern equivalent of DBD, where you
have to go through this incredibly tedious process to get through the Warner Brothers system.
And it took me. It took me forty five minutes just to pass
all the tests to get and then I couldn't work out how to get the
sound properly on my going through the TV rather than my computer. Well I
did later on, But the point is that for the first half I was
listening, I was I could barely hear the dialogue. And you know,
we all go death at this age, and you know how important dialogue is
on the Succession. I mean, it's it's it's the thing that makes it
so good. Could you not put the subtitles up. I wouldn't. I
wouldn't have known how to do that. I didn't think I had that option.
But I agree wherever possible I watched with subtitles me too, And I
think I used to kind of be slightly hesitant about turning on the subtitles for
fear that it was like, you know, giving into old age, and
we ought to strain and try and hear what the characters are saying and not
just kind of take the easy road. But actually, I don't think it's
a generational thing. Even my kids prefer to watch things now with subtitles totally,
I think. And also I think in the case with Jesse Armstrong,
we have a duty to not missed any bit of DNA because it is.
It is. Actors these days are much less better at articulating, aren't there
than than they were because they probably haven't had the stage training, they haven't
been to the RSC and been taught by whatever her name was, m and
Cicily Cicily. Yeah, anyway, so they mumble anywhere and the joy about
succession because I mean, the thing that one would hate succession session to be
is a thing about who inherits a media empire. But it's not really about
that at all. It's just about how rich people live, how very very
rich people live, how they get in and out of helicopters, how they
travel live awhere by private jet, the sort of thing they get up to
in their private lives, how messed up they are, which is which is
great? That the business aspect, you think about it, If if what's
it called Logan Roy, If Logan Roy were really this titan of of of
of media and entertainment that the series pretends he is, mum, the organization
will be going from strength and strength. But but but actually it's it should
have closed down in season one because he's just a sort of blustering bully.
His kids are all absolutely useless. And when it when it gets sort of
gets farmed out to somebody like the Matthew mcfaddian character Tom Tom Warms. Have
you pronounced it surname or Greggy? Yeah. The idea that that branches of
this supposedly world beating company are being run by the likes of Greg and Tom
is just absurd. But I love that about it. It's not really about
business. It's about snappy dialog and helicopters. Yeah, I mean, I
absolutely love it too, and I agree, you know, you don't want
to miss a word of the writing because it's so good. But one of
the reasons it's I think I think the reason people like it isn't why they
or the reason they think they like it isn't the real reason they like it.
I think the reason they think they like it is because they style themselves
radical critics of you know, late stage capitalism and the neoliberal globalist agenda,
and they like this kind of waspish, acidic portrait of our kind of media
overlords. But actually the real reason they like it, I think, is
not because it kind of they think it's going to ferment revolution. They like
it because they can kind of reassure themselves that these unbelievably rich and privileged people
are actually really unhappy, and that being this powerful, this successful, this
rich, having this kind of access to power and celebrities is actually just a
recipe for lifelong misery. And I think it's sort of a source of comfort.
It comforts the afflicted by making them feel that they're better off, you
know, not being part of that ghastly corrupt three ring circus. So it's
I think there is a slight disconnect between why people think they like it and
why they applaud it, and what the real reason it appeals to them so
much. I don't know. I don't get that that vibal fit. I
mean, obviously they're all deeply messed up and repellent, but it's not I
don't really feel that it's selling us the message that, look, you can
be you can have all the money in the world and still be unhappy.
I think it it makes a very attractive case for being fantastically rich, that
the life they lead is amazing, the locations are sumptuous that you don't you
don't watch Succession and thinking, oh, I'm so much happier with my impoverished
life. So I'm not sure. I quite quite by the thesis that they're
they're messed up independently of their of their their helicopters and mansions, and I
think I think I think part of their being messed up is is they're all
scrabbling for kind of a slice of the pie and to fill Logan Roy's shoes
when he eventually shuffles off his mortal core. That's one of the slightly implausible
things about the series is like, you know, you could see the premise
of the show in the title is Who's going to succeed Logan Roy? And
he was sort of dying and about to kick his clogs in season one,
and and because it was so successful, they've decided to kind of extend his
life. Definitely, he's made a complete recovery by the looks of it,
hasn't he. I don't know. I haven't watched the whole of Verse.
You're right, I mean, I think episode one, season one, he
was on his last legs, and his legs he has an episode and you
think, well, is he going to survive the night? And probably Jesse
Armstrong when he had the first series commission, was by no means certain there
was going to be another one. Yeah, so, but this happens with
all this series, doesn't doesn't it? If they can squeeze out another three?
Yeah, I was slightly when Brian Cox is getting on a bit,
I was slightly worried that the actor might die before they killed off the character,
and then they'd be going to pick up. Well, he's killed himself
now I think he's I think he's designed. He doesn't want to do anymore.
This is the last season, isn't it? Yea? It is?
Which is which is really sad because I don't think it really mattered the um
the story arc about whether or not who gets to inherit the company, because
it's not about that, it's about the parties. You think about all the
memorable, the really memorable moments of succession apart from the dialogue that any scene
involving Greg and Tom, who are the real stars because it's just common because
I don't think Jesse Armstrong's really interested in in big business really what he likes
is there's a great scene I don't want to spoil it for you too much,
but where Greg Greg shags somepathy that he's brought along to Logan Roy's party
and then and then he is advised by by Tom that he needs to fess
up to Logan because it would have been recorded on security camera. Is it's
just just ridiculous but really really funny. So that those scenes, and then
there are the set pieces, and I still think the best set piece was
the the Mother the Harriet Water at Eastern Or Castle party when Greg is trying
sorry, Um Kendall is trying to score some drugs and he goes off with
one of the way to and it ends up inadvertently drowning this guy. But
the whole it's so well done. All that or the boar, Yeah,
I love it. I think it's I think it's one of the best things
I've ever seen on TV. It's up there with I think it's a top
top top six shows of all time. Um. So I had a rather
less happy experience. I watched I've watched the first two episodes of the Night
Is It the the Oh God, I think it's called The Night Watchman,
um, but that can't be right. That now doesn't sound right. It's
it's a new a new series. No, it's a new series on Netflix
and it's called the It's I think it's called The Night Manager, um,
and it's I know it was it. It's got the same name as I
think it's got the same name as the Lacari series. But it's actually about
a kind of low level FBI agent who picks up the phone when he's kind
of manning the phone in this kind of operations emergency center, and he's contacted
by this young woman in distress and he has to go and kind of rescue
her. And in the course of rescuing her kind of stumbles across this kind
of conspiracy involving the FBI, the Secret Service, the President, and I
thought it sounded, I like those kind of paranoid, you know, three
Days of the Condall style conspiracy thrillers, and so I kind of leapt on
it. But it's quite it's it's it's quite kind of low brow, and
it's at the lower end of that kind of conspiracy thriller spectrum. I think
White Rabbit, Sorry, rabbit Hole sounds more promising. And if you've seen
any trailers Rabbit Now, is that on Netflix as well? No, that's
on Paramount Plus, and I think it's tipped me over the edge. Your
praise of the Tulsa King plus the fact that you can get all the series
of Yellowstone as well as the two prequels on Paramount Plus and now Rabbit Hole
as well, I think has made me think I'm going to subscribe to yet
another streaming service. But I don't know whether to subscribe to UK Paramount Plus
or US Paramount Plus, and I don't even know if there's any difference between
them, but I can I can subscribe to either one because of my setup.
Here. I think that when when the accountants unravel my estate, they're
going to find that the reason I went bankrupt is because of all these TV
sets I've signed up to and then forgotten about, and they've been on Direct
Deva ever since, because I'm certainly signed up to Paramount plus I think I'm
signed up to Disney Apple TV. Or do I pay for that? Probably?
I don't know. Probably do if you watch Slow Horses and I never
remember to claim my expenses from the spectator, who would probably completely tight ask
anywhere about about paying out for this stuff even though they should. Um,
but yeah, it's it's expensive. But if we've got the excuse that we've
got culture Corner and I'm a TV critic, so I have to watch this
stuff, quite a good excuse. Yeah. The rabbit Hole looks quite promising,
doesn't it. It's a it's another paranoid conspiracy for I like the title.
It could be about me, couldn't it. It could be? Yeah,
And but I think I think it. I think it's probably closer to
Team James than Team Toby recent events. Judging from the trailer Keith of Sutherland's
in it Charles Dance, it looks it looks looks pretty highbrowd, well not
high brow, but it looks looks to be of higher quality, bigger budget,
better writing than The Night Manager. Yeah, I think I think I'm
going to watch that. That's next on my list. Okay, well,
that's the only new thing I've watched I think since we last spoke. I've
just started listening to I've finished Sharp's Waterloo and have started listening to Royal Flash,
which is the second in the Flashman novels by George McDonald Fraser. And
it's very good. It's very funny. He's a very good writer, George
McDonald Fraser, he is um sorry. Can I ask you a question about
Trollop? Yes? Did you listen to the first in the Palliser series?
Yes? I did? Can you can you forgive her? Yes? Do
you share my irritation with I think the hunting scenes are fantastic. I think
that his portrait of the pursuit of money and the class system is matchless.
But his central characters are just diet. You're not rooting for any of them.
I mean that stupid girl, what's he called? Alice? She's a
pain and George Vavason, he's a pain. Um, the mister Pallas or
whatever his name is, he's a ball. The flighty girl, the heiress
he marries him, she's just a bit of a dipstick. Um, I'm
not rooting for any of these people. I don't really care about them.
Yeah, I think he's well, I think I think he was a pretty
fearful snob and you do need, I think, to share his snobbish fascination
with the kind of most glamorous, richest, aristocratic, kind of class of
his era. But I love all that. It's just the character. It's
just the characters, Like what's her motivation? That? Why? Why should
we care about this girl who can't make up her mind whether to marry this
boring man in Cambridge with with a nice house and a nice garden, or
whether to marry this kind of tosser with a scar across his face. He
doesn't who doesn't really love He just wants some money for his his stupid political
career. Well, I mean, what kind of heroine is that? Give
me give me Lizzie Bennett any day? Or she was too too passive and
just kind of the plaything of the combination of of of sort of passivity,
high mindedness, indecision. Just I couldn't recognize her as a as a as
a human type, or certainly not a type that I wanted to spend in
time with. That's that's interesting. I don't recall being particularly irritated by the
central characters. I do remember the hunting scene, and I think his depiction
of it was only one the English class system or the hunting scenes. But
but yeah, I mean I thought I thought the Heiress was kind of quite
sympathetic. She is a bit flighty, and she makes some terrible errors of
judgment. She's initially dazzled, isn't she by this kind of good looking young
swain. He turns out to be a complete loser and less impress I mean,
always the kind of running theme in fact, of all Trollops novels.
I mean, they always have this kind of uh they're essentially romantic comedies,
aren't they. And it's all about, you know, whether the woman will
choose the right man over the wrong man, in the same way that Jane
Austen's novels are about the same thing. Um. But but you know,
it's always about not being dazzled by the you know, exterior, not judging
a book by its cover, but but kind of being able to see that
the kind of duller quarter is is the more honorable, more worthy partner than
the kind of dazzling young blade. But that that's sort of I mean,
I quite like this is sort of you know, it's it's one of the
kind of five great plots, but I quite like it. I'm always kind
of sucked in, and I'm always kind of willing the female character to kind
of choose the nice man and not run off with the bad one. And
when when when my wife first read War War in Peace as as a young
woman, she just skipped as a teenager, she skipped past all the war
pits because she's probably been boring, although she later she did appreciate the later
on when she reread the book. But I feel I feel a bit like
that with Trollop, that I just want to read the hunting scenes and the
kind of the ball scenes maybe and just skip past the romance which is just
tedious. But I remember that the next one in the series, which is
about I think the central character is an Irish politician, and there's I remember
there's even more hunting in number two in the Palliser series. So you've got
that to look forward to. James, that's good. I should I should
probably go now because it's my largest approach in only two it's in Project before
I go. So okay, all right, well good, good to talk
to you as always, and next week I would have seen episode one of
Successions as well. Give me your unique take. Well okay, okay,
cool right apply then it's London Poling. Ricochet join the conversation