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is London calling, London calling. But I think that they want to understand
fully and completely the extent of any involvement by former British monarchs, by the
Royal household in this trade before deciding how to respond to whatever information may come
forward. So there is certainly no suggestion at this stage of reparations, but
I think that they want to fully to understand what the implications, what the
involvement, if any was welcome to London calling with me, James denn Pole
and my very good friend mister Toby Young. Happy Easter, Toby, Happy
Easter. James. I'll bet you didn't go to church. I didn't,
did you sound good? The son of yours that is saved, did he
go to church? I'm afraid, James, he's become a little bit lapsed
and slightly lost interest and hasn't been going to church, and his siblings are
accusing him of only having got baptized for the baptism presence. Do you know
what, I did that for the same reason? Pretty much. I'm not
sure that is his reason, but he's just I don't think he was doing
it for most new reasons. I just think he's lost lost interest. Oh
well, that's very sad. Um. Well, I did go to church,
obviously, and before we went we played church bingo or Easter service bingo,
to try and decide what things were going to crop up in the service.
And my son, who's back from his travels in Southeast Asia because his
mommy was missing him, and she called him back she'd had him up.
Um. He said, women singing lustily in the road behind us, And
I said, inevitable, inevitable invocation of Ukraine. And we thought that we'd
get bonus points if if the name Zelenski was mentioned in a kind of heroic
light, and rather disappointingly, we failed on all accounts. There was the
singing was atrocious, absolutely atrocious, and we now no longer have an organist,
so so we had to have piped music of of recorded organ music,
and as so often I find with hymns. I mean, you remember it
from the days when you used to have to singing hymns and stuff. But
they always seem to be pitched in a key which makes it impossible for anyone
other than a sort of trained chorister to be able to hit the notes.
I don't know, it was impossible. So the singing was crab and the
vicar, who was one of those visiting vicars you get where when you're in
a small church and lots of lots of churches crying out for an Eastern service,
but there wasn't old enough vicars to go around. He he started off
really promisingly by mentioning Ukraine, and he even pronounced Kief Kiev, which I
thought was we were onto a good thing. And then suddenly he swerved he
was actually he was only mentioning Ukraine to reference a to make reference to.
Rather, I don't want to be something like a bloody American to make reference
to a speech by Karin who apparently came to Kief in nineteen seventeen or something
and made a speech against Christianity and anyway the Christians in his audience weren't having
it. After he'd delivered this hour long dia tribe against Christianity, this orthodox
monk spoke up and he said Christ has risen, and everyone in the crowd
said he has risen, allelujah. So it started off promising me as as
a winning, winning thing about you know, I thought he was going to
go into Zelensky and he didn't, which is which shows an amazing restraint.
But it's almost everyone in the Church of England, probably in the Catholic Church
as well, mentions Ukraine as a matter of course. Well in every sermon,
certainly the ones I go to. Dick and I my brother Dick and
I went to a service. We went to see a band that specializes in
doing I mentioned this before doing early Genesis albums straight as they would have been
when they were originally before they do they do whole albums, right yeah.
And we were wandering around beforehand and we chanced upon Wells Cathedral would have been
Wells, no buf buff Bath Abbey not Wells, and we thought we want
to go in there, but they said no, sorry, sorry, it's
closed. We've got a service now, and we said, oh, we'll
have some of that So we walked into the evening service and as we walked
in, just at that point that the vicar was mentioning was mentioned in Ukraine,
and I was about to get cross, but luckily he sort of mentioned
it in a kind of He wasn't he wasn't wearing a sort of Zelensky green
T shirt. He wasn't really batting for Zelensky, not like he wasn't getting
for Toby, Like when you love Zelensky, I love him, you do?
But no, But I think generally, yeah, I think the Church
of England is part of the deep state propaganda machine pushing for war with Russia
over Ukraine. Yes, did I ever tell you the story of the think?
I think? He? I'm not sure if the right term of artists
prelate, but he was a trainee vicar in the Church of England and the
Free Speech Union. He reached out to the Free Speech Union for help.
That did ever tell you that story? So a trainee vicar in the Church
of England had either his third or his second child and posted a rather exuberant
celebratory tweet about it, in which he said how much joy it had brought
him and his wife to bring children into the world, encouraged people, encouraged
married couples to have as many children as they can, and quoted from the
Psalm about it being our duty to go forth and multiply. And this tweet
triggered an immediate pilot on Twitter, people saying, you know, how could
you be so insensitive? Don't you know that some people, some couples struggle
with infertility and just to have one child is a miracle, So for you
to effectively brag about having three is incredibly insensitive. And then others objecting that
it was very environmentally unsound of him to urge people to have children, given
how much carbon children generally omit. And the funny thing was, James,
I mean, it was literally a pile on. Within within minutes, hundreds
of angry people had piled on to condemn him for this insensitive treat and it
turned out that the vast majority of them were female vicars in the Church of
England, and I guess they were you know, his followers. And one
of them, maybe more than one, complained to his archdeacon about this and
claimed that essentially he wasn't fit to be a vicar in the Church of England
if he was going to tweet such grossly insensitive things as quoting from the Psalms,
and instead of dismissing this and saying no, actually quoting from a Psalm
isn't yet a disqualification from becoming a Church of England Vicar, an investigation was
opened into him, which is why he then reached out to the Free Speech
Union and we managed, we managed to get the penalty reduced to he had
to go on a course of therapy to help him understand why it was that
this tweet had upset people in the hope that he wouldn't tweet similar things again.
So the conclusion, James, is that if you express orthodox Christian beliefs,
if you quote from the Psalms in the Church of England, they think
you're mad, they think you're literally insane, and you need to undergo a
course of therapy to correct your thinking. Quite amazing, and that that that
prompts the question why has the Church of England becomes so captured by the woke
cult? And it has. I don't know if you saw, but earlier
this week I think though in his Easter sermon, Justin Welbe, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, the leader of the Church of England said that the Church of
England was setting aside one hundred million pounds to compensate people for to compensate the
descendants of slaves because of the church's links to the slave trade. One hundred
million. Whoa a lot more than the Guardian. So the Guardian in response
to the revelations that the founder of the Guardian and nine of his eleven backers
had links to the slave trade, not surprising since it was set up in
Manchester, you know, by people in the cotton trade. But the Guardian
in response to this said it would be setting aside ten million by way of
reparations. Ten million is zero point one percent of the Guardians or the Guardian
Trust's Scott Trust one million pound endowment. So it's it's it's a lot better
than the Guardians billions to paid blood money. Yeah, the Guardian has a
billion in endowment and extraordinary it set aside ten million, which is zero point
one percent. How was the Guardian got that much money? Is it presumably
when it was the Manchester Guardian. I suppose there must have been a period
where it did actually make money. Is that right or how can it?
I don't think it's I don't think it's money dates back to you know,
its success when it was the Manchester Guardian. I think the Scott Trust has
made a number of good deals and various people have given money to it.
I mean it sold what Auto Trader for for a serious sum of money some
year ago, and the and the and the kind of the much commented thing
about Matt sale was that the Guardian did it via you know, attack shelter
in the camera. Famously, the Guardian is goes to enormous lengths to avoid
paying tax in spite of hectoring everyone else about to answer your question. Yeah,
it's it's very obvious that suppose you're the devil and you are you want
to um make your displeasure known about being a fallen angel and you hate God.
Where are you going to attack? You're going to attack? Well obvious
you're going to attack the church, aren't. You're going to chat the stablished
church. You're going to You're going to infiltrate it and undermine it. And
it's happened with the Catholic Church, it's happened with the Anglican Church. I
mean I've often said this before. I think Welby and the current pope are
both batting for the other side. I don't. I don't believe that they
are men of God at all. And I think that goes for a lot
of a lot of clergy. It's what happens, it's it's um, I
mean a lot of frustrated by it. If you're serious, James, how
do you imagine it works? Do you think that the devil visits them in
the same way that the devil visited Doctor Faustus and strikes a bargain with them.
Yeah, they agree to promote the devil's work work, they get something
in return. It's sort of like that. I think that the works of
literature like Doctor Faustus are a very good, um, dramatized version of the
process. I don't. I don't believe that this this literal horned figure with
a with a with a long tail, comes and materializes on their shoulder,
like in a kind of Disney cartoon where you've got a devil and an angel
or whatever, and it's not like that. I think that. I think
that if you look at the writings in the New Testament, for example,
John talks about this, that the reverse to the devil as the God of
this world. I think it's it could be actually it's more want to be
poor. I think Um talks about the devil as the god of God of
this world, and so we are constantly exposed to darbolical temptation, and I
mean lots of us get noveled on the way. And I'm sure that's that's
what happened too. I mean whether I don't know whether well Be Evil was
a man of God or whether Hope Francis was, but I think that that
ship said long ago when they were actually decent, honest Christians. Yeah,
Um, I mean one of the reasons I find it curious, quite curious
that the Church of England, I think slightly less less, say the Catholic
Church. Catholic seemed to have slightly more antibodies to the woke virus, but
the Church of England Anglicans seem to have none at all. And one of
the reasons that's the prizing is that one kind of common hypothesis, a popular
theory as to why the woke cult has gained such traction across the angler sphere
and in particular amongst you high income liberal women, is it fills the god
shaped whole left by the ebbing away of the Christian tide. Those those people
that those demographics that have become the most secular, you know, over the
last twenty five to fifty years or so, seemed to be the demographics most
susceptible to woke gobbledegook. But if that's the case, if that does partly
explain the success of this cult, how do you explain it's penetration of the
Church of England. Well, perhaps the explanation is that there is a God
shaped whole amongst most Anglicans that they really are so little. The church has
been so hollowed out. They've now you know, that they have so little
commitment to orthodox Christian beliefs and have compromised so often that actually there is a
bit of a hole bear and so this kind of alternative creed has filled that
whole. And I think I think that I think that's part of it.
But I also think that people like Justin Welby believe that if the Church embraces
the woke cult, if it says it understands you know why people are unhappy
about Britain's involvement in the slave trade, and why the Church needs to make
amends for that and all institutions do, and why they need to apologize,
and so on and so forth. He thinks that that will make the church
relevant again, that will detoxify, modernize the Anglican Church and bring people back
into the pews, when it has exactly the opposite effect. I think I've
talked about this before. There was always there's always the narrative explanation, the
one that goes with the the eye catching initiative explanation, which is that yes,
well Bees trying to reach out, trying to make amends. That's the
official version, the unofficial worst version, and also the real reason is because
he's doing the devil's bidding. That's that's what it's about. I mean,
you think about it objectively, it is monstrous. I'm sure God is absolutely
appalled at seeing a hundred million pounds which could look There aren't many vicars in
the Church of England, including the I know the one that you mentioned earlier
on that these people have a very very tough time making making a living.
The church doesn't really support them anymore, and it should be supporting it's it's
it's priests, but they're going out to prince the Lord's work Otherwise, what's
the point of the church if you haven't got got priests doing the Lord's work?
That where's this? Where would that one hundred million go to you?
How would you find a slave? I mean, there aren't any slaves to
give the money to, So you'd be talking about descendants of slaves, many
of whom may have may have actually done frightfully well since their great great great
great great grandfather got released as a result of the efforts of the British Navy.
It's it's it's a nonsense, and it's insulting and and it's it's not
something that the church should be engaging with. And by doing this, I
think that well being is ilk are thumbing there their noses at God. I
think it's it's outrageous. There's a there's a there's a third strand to my
analysis, which is which I have to credit Tom Holland, the historian,
which is that actually there is quite a lot in common between Christian doctrine and
kind of woke theology, in that they both venerate victims in the same way
that Nietzsche said Christianity was a slave religion. It venerates the week, it
venerates the victims. It says the week shall inherit the earth. It was
a kind of way to compensate unique, not the week the meek. And
so we see the same, we see the same, the same things you
know in in in the woke cult, a veneration of victimhood, believing that
being meek is virtuous. John's not a Christian, I know. I think.
I think it's a norm Christian perspective. I thought because he's twisting it
slightly, because they're not like martyrdom for example. I mean, he's right
about how the blood of the martyrs s the church. It does make a
big deal, but it's but it's about it's about sacrifice. It's it's it's
about the mortification of the flesh. It's about about making heart, choosing the
hard path. It's not about claiming, speciously claiming victimhood, which is what
what you're really talking about. They're not quite the same thing. I think
the Christian suffering and victimhood is not the same as as woke people posturing trying
to plain the more high ground by dint of their minority status. It's just
I interviewed David Starkey on stage at a British at the British as An event
organized by the British Hungarian Society last week, and he made this analogy.
He said that in the same way that Christianity proved to be the ultimate undoing
of the Roman Empire, you know, against all expectations given us rather unpromising
beginnings, Similarly, the woke cult may prove to be the undoing of Western
civilization, of the kind of remaining kind of ruin of Christendom. And just
as we underestimated Christianity, or the Romans rather underestimated Christianity, so we shouldn't
underestimate the potentially destructive power of the woke cult. And he thought for similar
reasons, they appeal to people who identified as oppressed, who didn't like the
kind of prevailing regime, who thought of it as brutal and cruel and morally
bankrupt, and so on and so forth. And I thought it was quite
an interesting analogy. But it did take at least what four hundred and fifty
years or so for the Roman Empire to fall after the birth of christis a
bit of a start hot take to mean texts. I think it's an auspicious
analogy. Let's see I from one of our sponsors, James, I think
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So, James, I don't know if you followed this story, but the
Guardian, presumably in an attempt to deflect attention from the embarrassment of its own
involvement in the slave trade. Ran a story last week supposedly exposing I think
William the Third for having received or been the beneficiary of a trust which had
links with the slave trade. I think he received a gift, and the
Royal household's response was, yes, we're aware of this, and we have
we are supporting a two year research project being carried out by Royal Historic Parks
or something or Royal Historic Houses to look at the links between the royal palaces
and the slave trade. But he didn't rule out at some point the royal
family paying reparations. You said earlier that there aren't any slaves to pay reparations
too. There are only descendants of slaves. That's kind of true. But
there are slaves, you know, in the world at the moment, aren't
there. I mean, you'd think it would be Actually, in some ways
it would It would be kind of better to give the money to people trying
to free people who are currently enslaves, such as the weakers in China,
or you know, the hundreds of thousand, thousands of people in labor camps
in North Korea, or the people you know that are being exploited in Qatar.
And so forth across the Middle East. But there's never any talk about
doing anything for you know, people who are currently enslaved or who've been recently
in our lifetimes, in their lifetimes freed from slavery. Know, it's always
about helping the descendants of the Transatlantic slave trade, is it? Because why
why do people who supposedly care so much and feel such you know, hot
shame about Britain's involvement in the trans Atlantic slave trade seemed to care so little
about people who are currently enslaved in the world. I mean, it's a
sort of moral blind spot, isn't it. I've never quite understood that.
But my response to, you know, the suggestion that the Royal family or
that the British state should compensate, you know, the descendants of slaves because
of its involvement in the slave trade, is well, haven't hasn't the British
state you know, already effectively paid um, you know, m paid for
its sins because we we you know, we committed blood and treasure in the
form of the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron to ending the trans Atlantic slave trade.
And I think I checked this. I think between eighteen oh seven and
eighteen sixty, something like six one thousand, six hundred slave ships were intercepted
by the Royal Navy and one hundred and fifty thousand slaves freed, and the
cost of maintaining that squadron was about one point two percent of our annual GDP,
more in fact, than we currently give by way of aid. So,
you know, we have committed an enormous amount, particularly of treasure,
to ending the slave trade. Isn't that Isn't that sufficient to kind of,
you know, absolve us of having to give any more money by way of
compensation and sort of you know, moral whitewashing to you know, to absolve
us of guilt for our involvement in in the to the fair terms is not
being rude. This is another like conservative talking point. I mean, which
which which gets wheeled out again and again? I mean the reason the reason
that this is this is part of the punch and judy show of of the
fake news medium, which is that so the Guardian, whose allocated role is
to be the left represents sort of republicanism and so on, runs this incredibly
trivial and unimportant story about how, oh, King William the third may have
received a gift connected with slavery. Look the rural family. The reason that
they get away with what they do. I mean, I think that I
was stripping of all their power. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I'm certainly
not going to pay any attention to this ludicrous coronation thing involving this this appalling
World Economic Forum stooge that we're supposed to call the king and supposed to he's
supposed to rule over us. Well, he's suddenly not going to rule over
me. I think he's an absolute scumback um. That their their public image
is based on this false notion that and it's a very cultivate, carefully cultivated
false notion that they are these this the awkward archaic family struggling to find a
role for themselves in the modern modern world. That they mean well, that
they haven't got that much money. You know, the queen in going around
backing in palace, insisting on all the lights to being turned out, and
when she when she sits in her room, sitting on one of those old
old electric fires and only having one bar on instead of three, and all
this all this kind of bullshit that we're fed about the royal family. If
all that was wrong with the Royal family was that King William may have may
have accepted some money from the slave trade, then I think, um,
their their pr machine be very happy. I think their pr machine knows on
some level that the Royal family are monstrous. They are there, I mean,
they're evil basically. So so I don't know why we're discussing a silly
Guardian story designed to designed to provoke a counter reaction from all. Yeah.
So I think it's outrageous that the Ryal family is being attacked for slavery when
they barely touched it and the lovely people. Now it's it's just bollocks.
I'm not playing that game. Did you see the in the widely reproduced in
the media invitation to the coronation, Yeah, with the green man, with
the green man their payment. Yeah, presumably you interpret that as a kind
of subtle signal that actually Prince Charles is a devil worshiper. He's always been.
Yeah, he's always been very he's always been very uncomfortable with Do you
remember he declared, well, I think I was a young pup reporter on
the Telegraph when he said this. It was a long time ago he said,
I don't want to be fee day defender. I want to I don't
want to be defender of the faith. I want to be defender of faith.
Yes, And inevitably this was another kind of conservative talking point where people
said, well, this is outrageous. He's supposed to to represent the judge
of England, like like he's like like Henry the Eighth's founded for the break
of Roman, blah blah blah. This is just I don't think that that
many of the rules are actually remotely interested in church. That because they're not
really Christians think that that's that. And no order of service has yet been
published for the coronation, and the speculation is that the reason for that is
because there's an internal row about whether leaders of other faiths should be able to
um bless Prince Charles and say prayers during the The kind of the conservative position
is it's perfectly or right for the leaders of other faiths to be invited and
be given good seats, but if they have a formal role in the coronation
itself, because Prince Charles wants to be the defender of faith and not the
faith, that would be a huge departure. Well, it would be an
unprecedented departure from tradition, never happened of the coronation of a British king before,
but also might be a breach of canon law. Well, yeah,
I think I suspect that. I don't know, it'd be very surprising if
if, if, if, in fact, you know, he invites you
know, Muslims and Hindus to actually I don't know, as the crown has
been put put on his head. No, I think it'd be very unsurprising
terms because it's an essential part of the New World Order, which is an
essentially Luciferian project, and part of the nature of that of that project,
it's all it's all to do with stuff like the rebuilding of third Temperament stuff,
but all sorts of stuff like like that. But what it comes down
to the building. Oh, I don't don't. Don't ask me about that
one. It's it's too complicated. I mean, I don't know enough about
it. But I do know that that this is this is the deal,
this is this is where we are heading. That this is of a piece
with for example, Muslim clerics being invited into cathedrals to to say that they're
various Muslim Muslim prayers and stuff. There was this kind of move towards ecumenicism,
this idea that that we no longer have separate face Judaism, Christianity,
Islam and so on, but we sort of we're heading towards this one,
this one world religion. So Prince Charles, so I think he is sorry
King Charles, who is who is much more influence, much much bigger influencer,
and much more maligned than his in his knowledge. I mean, he's
very heavily embedded with the World Economic Forum, for example. He he's on
board with it, with his plan, or at least his controllers. I
don't know how much. He's so thick that I'm not sure how many original
thoughts he has. But whether it's Charles or his controllers that they are,
they are steering towards this, this one world religion. So it would it
would make absolute sense to me that he would he would invite people from various
religions to to participate in his in his coronation, which by the way,
I don't think. I know you're going to be watching it, but I
honestly think that lots of people are just not going to be interested in this
crap, what do you reckon? Yeah, I don't know. I hadn't.
I hadn't really made up my mind about whether I was going to watch
it. I might kind of, you know, glance at it from accuse
we are playing no, no, no no. I think all football matches
are bestponed for that period. Certainly not going to be clashing with it.
But do you think, I mean it's going to be a down square,
isn't it? Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean,
you know, I suppose the the the the this sort of pomp and ceremony
is one of the few things you know, the British is still really good.
At the Queen's funeral was was quite impressive. Um so I imagine you
know that the theater will be you know, suitably dazzling, but looking at
the kind of political you know, dimension to it, I imagine it'll be
horrifying. One thing, one point that David Starkey made is that the number
of people, so when the Queen was crowned, there were loads of MPs
and peers kind of squashed into a box overlooking the ceremony, so she effectively
had to look up and that was symbolic look up at her master's in you
know, in Parliament. But actually Charles has massively reduced the number of parliament
Harrian's who will be present. I think it's just twenty from each house,
which, according to Starkey is a grave insult to parliament, that symbolic of
Charles's disregard for parliamentary democracy in his attempt to try and subvert the democratic process.
To be fair terms, you are off for him to say this,
But Charles is absolutely right. I mean they are worth working scumbacks. They
compete. I get that. I thought heys to say. Starkey's absolutely right.
I see. Yes, let's have another ad, James. I think
it's my turn. Yeah, and let's hear from one of our most loyal
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so James are not available for everyone. Not available for everyone. So
I just wanted to take this opportunity to give a plug to my live event.
I know you don't even need to plug yours. They're so successful and
you have such a huge cult following, but I think I do need to
give a plug to the first ever live recording of The Weekly Skeptic, my
other podcast, which is hosted by the stand up comic and gb News presenter
Nick Dixon and will feature him and me and Will Jones, the editor of
The Daily Skeptic. The Weekly Skeptic is the podcast linked to The Daily Skeptic.
It gets about I think our last one got about twenty thousand download so
it's doing really well top one percent. Not quite as well as London Calling,
but still very well. And we've got this event coming up at the
Immanuel Center, which is in Westminster and the heart of London, on the
twentieth of May. Doors open, bar opens at seven pm, show starts
at seven thirty. It's a two hour show and it will include a Q
and A with yours at the end. And there are still a few VIP
tickets available for forty five pounds. You get to have a drink with me
and Nick and Will afterwards. So regular tickets twenty five pounds, VIP tickets
forty five pounds. May twentieth. Show starts at seven thirty and if you
want to if you if you want to buy a ticket for that show,
go to my website Daily Skeptic dot org and there's a banner at the top
of that website. Just click on the ban takes you straight through to the
event bright page where you can purchase a ticket. So, James, what
else is happening? Ah well, I just wanted to mention very briefly,
because I know that sometimes you get upset when you introduced a news item and
I say, who cares? Who cares? Who cares? Doesn't matter written
services. But so I was, um, I was actually getting um Brian
produced to google what it was that annoyed me. But um, you remember
how a few months ago, people like yourself are not necessarily you yourself,
but the people like you were saying things like, oh, having arguments about
whether they fancied Trump or de Santists, And I'd be going, it really
doesn't matter. They are all they're all chosen for these roles. They're all
completely compromised. They're all part of the system. Democrat, Republican, they're
all the same. It's just it's just part of the illusion that we have
we have a democratic choice, but actually that they don't represent us. They
just represent the system. And so I took a I didn't get involved in
these all. Who do you prefer Trump or Desantist conversations, and de Santist
has now gone and shown his colors, doesn't he It's going to have been
really really annoying by by doing something that he wasn't supposed to do but some
some sort of greeny thing isn't. Yeah, he did an annoying thing,
which is which is put in beyond the pale, and just confirmed um,
the justice of my decision not to get involved in these games anymore. And
there was another one as well. Another example was do you remember a few
weeks ago you hailed the success of the Dutch Farmers Party which had got this
one, this unexpected majority. They're called the bbb UM. Turns out they
were created by the Advertising Um, by Monsanto's advertising agency, and they're actually
just another sort of controlled opposition outfit. People are beginning beginning to realize they're
not the real voice of the Dutch Farmers Um and and they've demonstrated this.
But by there were there were calls for a debate on on whether on whether
the Netherlands is ridiculous war on nitrogen fertilizer was going to be scrutinized, and
whether whether it maybe that this was going to be um stopped because it's because
it's driving lots of farms out of business. Um. And this this this
BBB party that is supposedly the voice of the of the Dutch farmers actually sabotaged
this, this this motion. So I don't know. I think that the
news, what you think of as the thing wants you to discuss, is
just is just what the system, what what the corrupt, controlling narrative wants
wants you to discuss. But it's got no relevance to what's going on underneath
the bondage. Right. Well, I was gonncient. Remember when we discussed
the Trump indictment last week. I think I said I disputed that it was
unprecedented and a new low in democratic warfare law fair against the Republican Party.
But actually I got that wrong. It is unprecedented. No sitting president or
ex president has ever actually been indicted before charged with a criminal offense. Um
And Um, I think I like a graceful, a graceful admission, So
I admit error. And I think I think it was it has been a
sort of, you know, a slightly puzzling three ring circus in that what
is it exactly that you know Alvin Bragg, the ambitious Manhattan DA hopes to
achieve by this because it looks almost certain that the charges against Trump will be
summarily dismissed by another court in quite short order. Um, and so what
is it that Alvin Bragg is hoping to achieve? What is it that the
Democratic Party is hoping to achieve? And I think the only because, of
course it's enhanced his standing, his numbers, His poll numbers have gone up,
you know, since the indictment. And I think that must have been
the intention. I'm now going to sound a bit like you, James.
It sounds a bit conspiratorial, but surely they must unknown that if they if
Trump was charged with this offense, it would enhance his standing and consolidate his
position as the front runner in the race to become the Republican presidential nominee.
And that must have been why they did it, because I imagine that Biden
and you know, other and the people around him in the Democratic Party think
that Trump would be a less formidable opponent than Rhonda Santis as a Dosanta site,
if that's the right phrase. I feel that this is a diabolical conspiracy
against my candidate. I shouldn't have encouraged you. Should I I shouldn't have
encouraged you by by bringing up some American news and you love all that stuff,
and it's just it's all made up. It's like the tooth fairy.
It's just designed to appeal to children like you, and one day yours the
tooth fairy does not exist. Did you see the secret people in the background
to really get the tooth from under your pillow and put money in or not?
Didn't you even get that? Well, now I was on the subject
of the tooth fairy, James, there was some celebrities said that whenever his
child lost the tooth and left it under his or her pillow, they would
give them ten pounds. I mean, it just it's extraordinary, isn't it
that some people give as much as ten pounds per tooth? I mean,
if I was an enterprising five year old, I would literally get a pair
of platters and pull out my own teeth for ten pounds a tooth. How
much you give your children? You're talking about inflation, that's what it is.
I remember getting norm It's not unreasonable. It's funny that I in in
church, for example, um that when when you're when you're what when the
collection comes round? I think that it's not unreasonable to give twenty quid now,
not which which seems a huge huge amount. I mean that one doesn't
want to sort of ideally you put it in one of those little little um
envelopes that sad people can't see because it looks a shocking amount of money.
But actually twenty quid is what is the equivalent of a fiber um ten years
ago. It's it's like we're saying us, that does a lot of money,
but it's not true. I can see that, you know, allowing
for inflation, of course, giving your child six months I mean you know,
um six months dates back to predesimalization, which was what nineteen seventy So
yeah, but even if you index linked sixpence, say what it was worth
in today's money in nineteen sixty seven, I can't imagine it would have gone
up to ten pounds, it still seems an extrue Well forget you've got you've
got an enviably large number of kids, that's true. I have got four
children are own heritage of the Lord. Yeah. Um, as it says
in some one to seven, I've been I've been doing my Christian duty.
James, Yeah, yeah, you have absolutely. Um. Yeah, as
as arrows in the hands of a mighty man, so are children of the
youth. Um happy is the man that has a quiver full of them?
Yes, that's you? Yes, so um yeah, um, I would.
I don't mean I don't want you to give money at all for for
for losing your teeth really to be honest, but but yeah, if I
were a rich person, I would say that actually, and I were in
the business of giving my children money for their teeth. I'm not so shocked
that the tenor was now going away. It's just how things are. So.
Um, did you see that it looks as though the government has decided
to no longer back the Worker Protection Bill. I'm sure you'll think this is
just another distraction government fiction. It's it's um. It was quite scary.
So it was a private member's bill that tabled by a Lib Dem MP and
a Lib Dem peerum. And what it would do it was going to extend
employer liability to third party harassment. So what that means is at present,
under the Equality Act twenty ten, employers are liable for employee on employee harassment
and that includes, as I'm sure you know, overheard conversation. So if
one of you, if you're an employer, and one of your employees overhears
a conversation between two other employees in which one says to the other something the
earwigger finds upsetting or offensive in virtue of one of their protected characteristics, the
earwigger can then sue their employer for not doing more to protect them from this
kind of harassment. Now, if you extend that the third parties, what
that would have meant is that if if if a barmaid, for instance,
overheard a conversation between two customers in her pump, overheard them telling a saucy
joke which she found upsetting or offensive in virtue of her, her sex,
the fact that she's a woman, she could sue the publican for not doing
more to protect her. So, in order to kind of reduce their liability,
had this bill become law, publicans would have had to have employed bouncer
police, essentially police pubs to make sure that nobody engaged in banter likely to
upset any of their members of staff. It would have meant hotels, you
know, banning women wearing woman equals adult human female on their teas. I
get that, but have they stopped it now? But yeah, it's it's
currently in the Lords, but it looks as though it's going to run out
of time in the Lords because various Conservative peers have tabled amendments to it,
and the government initially was going to fight on behalf of the bill in the
Lords. But it's now said, at least it said in the Telegraph on
Sunday that it wasn't going to fight it any more any longer. It had
listened to the bills critics clearly it needed a bit more thought and they're going
to let this one time out, which is huge free speech victory. James.
This is it's all theater TEBs that this this would all have been been
planned. Of course, they want you to believe that this was only saved
by a few sharp eyed peers or whatever who spotted that this was wasn't just
shoved by beers. We've been alerting those pills to the shortcomings of the bill.
I mean, the Free Speech Union has been working very hard behind the
scenes to try and kill this bill. I don't want to disk the mighty
power of your organization terms I'm sure I'm sure, you've you've you've made a
difference. What I'm saying is that this is how it works, that they
get away with with with what they can. It's it's it's like Lenin,
push for the banners and if you feel must carry on pushing. But if
you feel resistance then then then stop that that's obviously I'm not quoting the actual
quote that he said, but that that was the principle that this is what
this is what they do. So you see, you are now crediting the
government essentially with a degree of common sense, or rather, you are crediting
the system with the power to stop lunacy happening because of these checks and balances
that you know, organizations like the Free Speech Union, peers sharp eyed MPs
who who spot the potential consequences of this outrageous bill that's going through Parliament,
that was sponsored by some Maverick Craze Lib Dem mp And it would have been
it would have been madness. And here's what would have happened. But it
was never ever going to happen because it was always going to be stymied at
the last minute. It wasn't going to go through. Okay, maybe maybe
in a parallel universe. It did go through, but I would say in
this one it wasn't going to go through. And yet you are now crediting
with the system with a sort of degree of common sense. In your eyes,
the system is working. I'm saying, the system is so broken beyond
measure. These are such fascist tosspot, authoritarian tosspots. They have not been
representing ordinary people that the electorate for a very very long time. They are
not fit for purpose. They are corrupt, They are a bunch of crooks.
They are on board with supernational interests which control them, the organizations like
the Triatural Commission which controls k STAMA, among others, um, the the
World Economic Forum and so on. And these these stories about how all this
bit of legislation was cut short. Shouldn't we be grateful all the systems working.
It's just part of the stile. I'm not by it at all.
I'm not interested. Well, James, I think I know more about this
issue than you, and I can tell you this bill would have passed had
it not been for the efforts of its opponents and the Free Speech Union.
And the reason I suspect it would have passed is partly because it's sailed through
the House of Commons on its first reading, and it was read on a
Friday evening, so there was there was there was almost no discussion about the
bill, and that seemed to be it seemed to be designed that way.
And the bill I think originated not with these two Lib Dem well MP one
Lib Dempier. I think they were asked to propose this as a private member's
bill by the Government Equalities Office, which is effectively an activist department within Whitehall.
And there was a parallel there's a parallel effort within the government to to
get various countries to sign up to an international treaty effectively extending liability to third
parties. So exactly what was contained in this bill is something that the government
has been promoting through another arm internationally. It thinks that for reasons of you
know, promoting equality, employers and other countries should also be liable for the
harassment of their employees by members of the public, by customers they come into
contact with. So it seems like kind of in so far as there is
a kind of seems like there is a sort of coordinated effort by the deep
State to all out this particular law, and they like it because, you
know, they think it will promote equality, they think it will protect vulnerable
employees from harassment. I mean, one of the ways in which it's it's
sold to people, and I think eleven countries have now signed up to this
international treaty is that it will impose a duty on employers to protect their employees
from sexual harassment. That's the kind of that's the kind of big selling point
of extending liability to third party harassment. But of course, the Workers Worker
Protection Bill and this international Treaty goes way beyond extending liability to employers for sexual
harassment of their employees by third parties and defines harassment in this much broader way
and includes overheard conversations, amongst other things. But it seems to me that
it was part of a coordinated effort by Whitehall, by the deep state,
to you know, impose its agenda and try as far as possible to bypass
the democratic process. But they been caught red handed by as you as you
put it, sarcastically sharp eyed parliamentarians. And it is an example, if
you like, of the system working. The system may be partially broken,
and there may be too many opportunities now for activist civil servants to bypass democratic
accountability, partly because we've had you know, three prime ministers in very quick
succession. Um, it's created a kind of vacuum at the center which has
been filled by you know, am ambitious officials with their own woke agenda.
But it can be stopped, James, And that this is an example of
how it can be stopped, and I think an inspiration hopefully to other people
that you know, don't give up this. It may be that there are
lots of people working to implement this you know, socialist agenda internationally, but
in a way but but but it can be stopped, James. I mean,
I like that rising defense of of of the free speeching and the heroic
work of a few sharp eyed MPIs. But in a way, what you're
saying it means you're you're actually veering towards Team James, which is that My
argument is that the government, um is it is so enthralled to these supernational
organizations which are really steering global policy and steering us towards a new world order.
UM, you seem to be endorsing that because when you talk about the
deep state, but actually I think you weren't just talking about Whitehall, you
were you were conflating that them with the people in the government who seemed to
be absolutely all up for for passing this this policy, and it was only
with they re not going to get away with it that No, I think
I think the government. I think, in truth, I think the government
just didn't have their eye on the ball with this one. He said,
oh, you're letting them off the hook again. You think, I think,
I don't think. I think I think, and I think that once
the shortcomings of the bill had been flagged up, then I think Rishi sunac
affective. You think that Rishi Saka is on your side? I think I
think. I think he represents your interests. He does seem to have that
as a well not I don't think. I don't think that now. I
don't think he's a creature of the w EF. I don't think he's trying
to impose, you know, he's working to create a world government, nothing
like that. I think he's I think he's you know, I think he
he he he has kind of managerialist, technocratic tendencies. But I also think
that you know, um, he isn't nearly as bad as I feared he
would be U and he seems to be if he can, if he can
actually do something about the small boats um he seems to have set up.
He seems he seems to want to do something about, you know, the
child grooming gangs. His anti woke agenda has extended to wanting to reform the
Equality Act to make sure sex refers to biological sex and not the sex that
trends people identify bias and so on and so forth. I mean, he's
and I think one of the reasons he told his ministers to effectively to withdraw
their support from the Work of Protection, but because it was so at odds
with his anti woke agenda, which I think he does seem to be.
I mean, he does want to pursue it, maybe for mercenary reasons,
because he thinks it's a way of winning back votes in the red Wall seats
and holding on to a few of them. But nonetheless, I think I
think he's been. He's been, He's been better than that I thought he
would be. And I do think that this bill flew under the radar and
needed to need needed to be kind of people, needed to draw attention to
it and flag up the risks associated with it, make the government aware of
it, and then the government as a consequence, so it's kind of back
backed off. I think they were rather you know, taken for a ride
by activists civil servants on this particular But I think, I think that can
happen often. But I didn't think these activists civil servants, you know,
are in league with the WEF for anything like that. I think they just
they just they're just, you know, they all think the same way.
They're just they're just they they've all kind of drunk the woke cooler and they
believe they I mean, I think that what's happened, James, is that
as recently as twenty five years ago, officials, people who worked for the
royal family, custodians of museums and galleries and so forth, were motivated by
a sense of public service, by a sense of duty to the public,
to the nation, Motivated ultimately, you know, out of patriotism to do
the jobs they did. That's what gave them a sense of higher purpose and
what gave their lives meaning and what they look look back on and reflected on
with pride towards the end of their lives. I think that's gone and it's
been replaced by you know, the woke cup. They now think of their
overriding purpose, the thing that gives their life a sense of purpose, meaning
is rectifying injustices, the injustices inflicted on the world by the British Empire and
you know, the East India Company and the rest of it. And it's
that now which motivates officials in all these institutions in the kind of you know,
state officials, including quite senior state officials. And I think that,
you know, this bill was part of that overall motivation, trying to protect
the weak and the vulnerable from exploitation and harassment. It's a kind of religious
It's a religious crusade, a greater wokening, and doesn't require you know,
there is no Holy See coordinating it. It's kind of the Holy See is
social media, if anything, So we have another ad yes, and then
let's let's move on. Okay. Even if it were not already moving the
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So, James, what have you seen on TV? In the past.
Well, I watched the I watched the last part of War Sailor, which
I definitely one of the best things you're going to see on TV this year,
I would say, really yeah, really really moving, brilliant acting.
Mostly it was originally released as a moving most expensive Norwegian film ever made that
got beaten by or quite on the Western Front in the in the international oscars
um. So it's been split up into three parts on Netflix. It's about
the Norwegian merchant navy in the war. It's very moving. Um, it
is good. And last night we were trawling around for something that we could
watch as a family and found something that I've been hitherto reluctant to watch,
which was a like a two hour film, maybe two and a half,
a new David Bowie thing. Yeah, I've seen the trailer Wow moon Age
in moon Age Daydream. I was reluctant to watch it because I just felt
I'd seen everything there was to know, everything there was to see about David
Bowe. I was a massive fan. Probably of all the kind of the
enduring pop stars, David David Bowe would be my one. Although I'm not
convinced that he's dead. I'm actually now I think maybe he faked his death
and he was the guy who appeared on that TV shows as a kind of
David Bowie fan club expert. Do you think do you think that Elvis is
still alive as well? I think Elvis was born in the same year that
my dad was, so he would be now. He was born in nineteen
thirty five, so he'd be quite old. I think it's quite possibly he
may affecd his death, although looking at him in his in his latter years,
he didn't look implausible that he might have died on the level not impulsible.
He might have died on them of this being fat. I mean,
that's that's how a lot of a lot of fat people go, isn't it.
They sort of try and do a pooh and the strain just gives them
a died on the lavatory. Yeah, But just to just to be clear,
Paul McCartney dead, David Bowie, Well, the original, the original
Paul McCartney is definitely dead. Yeah. The guy he plays it now is
called fall you fake Paul. Paul McCartney died in a car crash in ninety
sixty six. I mean the guy is yeah, he's um. I don't
know. It must be quite weird spending your life playing this guy, um
pretend to be somebody that that you. Yeah, it must be weird anyway.
Um, the Bowie thing is really really good. I think it was.
It's the first, the first production which has been authorized by the Bowie
estate, and it's got all this archive footage I've never seen before, and
there's no there's no narrative voice. There's I think with previous Bowie Bowie documentaries
and stuff, you've always found that the medium has got in the way with
the material. But this is just it's kind of perfect. It is the
perfect It's a Bowie fans fantasy come true. It's really good, and I
like the way it mixes you. You get old songs bumping rubbing up with
rubbing shoulders with his black Star material or or Hello Space Boy, or of
stuff like that, and that you might get that rubbing shoulders with with with
Major to ground Control, to space of the Tea and even his early stuff
in his in his at Anthony Newly phase. It's it's great, it's really
good. I looked at in the trailer there was a kind of it seemed
to stress his kind of spiritual side and had him kind of spouting sort of
mumbo jumber about the mystery of the universe, and they're being no beginning and
no end, and you think, oh, Christ, I could do without
a kind of all this religioe's gobbleded gook from you know, an't. Yes,
Well, I think I've wondered about where where Bowie pitted into the I
don't think he was. I don't think he was a Christian. I think
that I think Black Star is pretty much the work of a the Lisipian I
would say, probably be a talented Lusian in your view, Well, well,
yeah, I think I think. I think he was great, although
I think I think I think anyone who gets to that level in pop stardom
has probably sold his or her soul to the devil. I mean some of
the some of them were much more overt about it, the Donna for example,
or Lady Gaga. I mean, they are obviously in the service to
the dark lord. Um, I don't know. I don't know about Yeah.
Well, Bowie went through it through a terrible phase in his cocaine face
is in what he was living in la Um. He became convinced that the
devil was living in his swimming pool, and that there was this nasty kind
of I think, how is swimming pool exorcise or something. There was a
sort of a stain left by the departing evil. Right, Okay, so
if if we're on movies, I saw a film on Apple TV called Sharper,
which I'd been meaning to see for a bit, which which which is
a sort of it's it's a bit like it's a sort of um, it's
one of those kind of grifter in that in that grifter genre, these kind
of you know, two grifters ripping off a billionaire's son and another grifter ripping
off a billionaire, and they kind of fall out and gar up against each
other, and it's quite entertaining. It's a little bit long and slightly episodic.
That it's got a slightly unusual structure in that it tells the stories of
the different grifters one after the other and kind of weaves the kind of chronological
story in and out, so it keeps flashing back, which is slightly irritating
but nonetheless reasonably good. I'd give it three and a half stars out of
five. But I also I saw the I got to the end of White
Lotus two second season of White Loaders, which I which I actually thought was
really good at first. I was. I watched episode one and wasn't that
bowled over by it? And so there was yeah, the one set in
Sicily. Yeah, but I've been tempted. So you really good, really
good, I think at least as good as season one. Actually, by
the time I got to the end of it, I thought it was really
good. Okay, really it was a kind of yeah, I think one
that that state it felt to me, you know, state of the art,
high quality TV. This this is this really an example of really good
contemporary TV. So yeah, White Loaders two strongly recommended. I also or
episodes one and two of Beef, this new Netflix series that everybody's talking about,
which is it's about as It's set in in in Los Angeles, and
it starts with the kind of you know, the the the the triggering incident
is a road rage episode in which a Korean contractor gets into a kind of
spat with a much more successful I think also Korean but possibly Japanese woman,
like a yuppie, very successful own's own business, but it is also quite
unhappy, unsatisfied, with their life and they get into this kind of you
know, um little kind of spat on the road, and it escalates,
and it escalates through the series. At least it escalated between episode one and
episode two. But it's sort of, you know, it's not really about
you know, it's it's it's really about how unsatisfied they are, the two
central characters, how unhappy they are with their lives, and how they they're
kind of pretending to be kind of swept up by the American dream and they
pay lip service to, you know, their dreams of success and the kind
of ethic of self improvements and self discipline and the rest of it, but
actually, you know, there's a kind of void there in their lives.
They're both really deeply unhappy and not remotely satisfied by kind of capitalism. It
is good, Yeah, it's really well done. It's well written, and
definitely I'm definitely going to continue with it. Right, But do you feel
you're being worked over in the same way that you do when you watch Yellowstone?
You feel like you're being put through the ringer. I don't like being
put through the now. I don't think you know, it's it's not kind
of it's not. I mean, I like being put through the ringer.
I like the kind of you know, the visceral um uh, you know,
suspense um. I like being on the edge of my seat and finding
it unbearable and not being able to temis away. I love all that.
That to me is you know, that's why that's high drama. That's drama,
and it's best. No, it isn't. It isn't like that,
at least not yet. No, So it's it's probably a little bit different
to you know, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos and Yellowstone in that respect.
Okay, so no, I think you'll like it, James Beef, definitely
worth watching. How you could review it for the Spectator? Maybe good?
Okay, well we probably have. Yeah, we can talk about books next
week. Yeah, exactly. Okay, it's good. Okay, all right,
James's good to talk. Have a good rest of Easter undone Yeah,
okay, bye bye. Ricochet joined the conversation.