This is London Calling. It's clear there was a major government of effort in
the United States, in Great Britain, across the EU, and it's now
happening around the world where there has been significant censorship over the last three years
of disfavored views that were often very accurate, including telling people's personal experiences of
an experimental drugs side effect. It's been in the public interest to fight for
knowing the side effects of drugs. Welcome to London Calling with me James,
Dennycote and my very good friend mister Tybee Young types. I I'm proud to
say that that one session in the gym with my son paid off because I
just went to went to my chiropractice one of my routine, like, you
know, how bad is my back sessions? And I said, I hope
you're going to tell me on my back. So Kenny said, well,
it's all right. But what I did notice is when you took off your
shirt you had quite good muscular definition. Wow. And that was just after
one session. I think I've got one of those bodies that that is.
You know, I'm like a race horse, as we know, and it
responds very quickly to to wow. That's that's that's a very immediate result.
I thought it would took a bit longer than that before you began to see
results. But one thing is it to be fair, I do already go
for one fitness session, you know, one PT session a week. So
by doubling it, I mean, by by doing two, I doubled my
rate. Apparently you are meant to do at least two, aren't you at
our age? Otherwise you're you are I've got to get around to it.
My my, my children, like yours, are constantly telling me I need
to start getting to the gym and doing some resistance training. Have you noticed
that that that generation, our kids generation? And I mean I think you
know, even though your kids are a bit younger than mine, I think
that broadly that they belonged to the same generation, same cohort um. They're
much much more into the gym than then our generation, I mean, almost
any generation. I think they're really they're they're real gym bunnies. Yeah,
I think that's probably generally true. Though I went through a stage in my
twenties when I used to go to the gym pretty regularly. Um. I
got into it when I was a graduate student at Cambridge. Actually, now,
I first got into it when I was a graduate student at Harvard.
This isn't just a way of dropping into the conversation that I went. But
yeah, I first got into it. I first began going to the gym
when I was at Harvard, and I took up swimming too, and I
lost a fair amount of weight and began to bulk up a little bit at
the same time, muscularly from a muscular point of view. So um,
yeah, and it stuck with me for a while. So maybe I was
a bit of an outlier back then. I problems types. I've had a
really annoying day today because I was doing my my Spectator TV review, of
which more in a moment we'll talk about some of the things I've been watching.
But um, then I heard this noise, this this water pouring noise
outside, And it was the noise of my son overflowing the shower and the
and the water going through the floorboards and taking out all the electrics, um
and and and so I tiny things like I couldn't. I couldn't. I've
got quite a sort of bad short term memory, you know. I couldn't
remember the name of the actress who played Blah blah in in thingy what's her
name? And so and all these things like I could no longer do because
I couldn't gain access to the internet to look up this stuff, um,
all these things that take So I ended up sort of bashing it out on
my laptop, which I hate doing because because the posture is appalling. And
you know, as we were suggesting earlier at our age, you've really got
to got to take care of your posture otherwise you you know, and your
muscles and everything else, because you just decay, become more crap. And
then I had to go to my my chropractic, which I mentioned earlier,
and then I had to grab some lunch and then do this. So I'm
feeling a bit flustered. It's probably understood. Could you not connect to the
internet using your phone or look up No? Because the phone no, because
unlike you you've got you've got the ether in London, which is full of
signals. Um, we don't have that here. We live in a depend
on You're in a not spot rather than a hot spot. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Okay, now just on that, James, I've noticed one
thing that irritates me about my children is how long they spend in the shower.
I'd always thought of the shower as a very quick, efficient alternative to
a bath. A bath takes, you know, at best, twenty minutes,
so you have to run it and then adjust the temperature to get in,
get out, let the bath, order out. But a shower,
I can get in and out of the shower, do everything I need to
do in about three minutes. So I just don't understand, Well, my
children just stand there, you know, in the flow, luxuriating for seemingly
hours on end. Can I ask you some questions to you? Are they
are they male teenagers? By any any chance they are male teenagers? What
do male teenagers do all the time? I don't just well you say that,
I mean, I remember from my male teenage days that sometimes it can
be quite quite a lot of effort before you finally get that. That would
be my analysis. It's horrible your son called, But your son's no longer
a teenager, so that can't be his excuse. Sure, no, and
no, well who knows, who knows? It's it's horrible thinking of our
children in this way. It just like like they find it appalling to think
that we might have any any manner of U sex life at our reverend age.
It's um you know, um oh. And the other thing I wanted
to mention to you, but I learned on my my health trip today was
that the large amount of money I spent on authotics at my for my You
know what authotics are. They these sort of inserts you put in your feet
because your feet start to collapse. And so, my son, is it
because you've got a fallen arches? You flat footed or fallen? Yeah,
well that same thing. I'm flat footed, So then you weren't born flat
footed, you developed flat footedness. I probably was born flat footed. Tabes.
The thing is, so they haven't fallen, they've always been on the
ground as it were. Well, I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know exactly. I'd rather not think about it about the cause I
just know that my my feet are just pretty pretty manc And I, um
so I spoke to my my current proctor, who I trust on these matters,
and he said, I said, you know, our authotics work worth
it? And he said, oh, let's look at what you've got and
he said, wow, I don't know. They kind of saw you coming.
Um. Yeah, they sort of okay and sort of not. I
said, well, what are you telling me? He said, I think
you should get some of those barefoot Massi shoes. He said, they're really
good. He said that that's what you want to be doing. You want
to get your get your feet muscles working again. And the barefoot technology stuff
is it works and it's and it's real, and that's what you should be
doing. So that's what I'm going to do. So you're gonna get You're
gonna get some of those bare feet running shoes. Yeah right, crikey,
So what would your kale? You're not spot your barefoot running shoes, you
are basically you'll be off grid, off grid. I'm over kale. I
don't. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm much more. I really, I'm
a bit like bear grills. I think. I think vegetables generally are a
bit of an imposition and an unnecessary thing. They're full of poisons, They're
full of vegetables are full of poisons designed to protect the plants from insects,
and we could eliminate I mean, look, I'm preaching the talk. I'm
talking the talk. I'm not walking the walk here. I would love to
go full keto. But um, I know that I'd get so much ship
from the wife that I'd never got away with it. But I is what
an all meat diet pretty much? Yeah, I can't be dealing with vegetables.
There they're they're stupid that there there are another contrary and another siop.
I mean that whole thing about have you had your five vegetables a day?
That's just government propaganda designed to kind of leure you away from meat. It's
not. But it isn't. Isn't your doesn't your five a day include a
portion of meat? It isn't. It isn't It isn't just five vegetables a
day. Yeah. Sure, But the whole, the whole, the whole
promotion of vegetables being some kind of essential panaceum is just utter nonsense. I
mean that obviously the whole of the vegan movement is utter, utter, utter
nonsense on stilts with bells on it. But even the even the promotion of
vegetables, I think is is a is a con We should just be eating.
We're designed to eat meat, We're meant to eat meat. Okay,
as bad girls as I mean, I mean, I have I have some
doubts about bad girls. But on that score, he's absolutely on the money.
Don't you find look at his body. Don't you find that the higher
the meat content of your diet, the longer you spend on the laboratory.
Without wishing to spell it out too expressively at all, take complan or silium
husks at the same time, not at all. I just the only thing
that I find that gives me problems on that front is morphine. Um.
You know, when you when you've got black pain or something or I mean,
I'm not on morphine at the moment, but I think morphine does give
you tremendous constipation. But no, just eating me is fine, fine,
okay? Um, So any anything of interests this weekend or in the past
week, James, I spent the weekend staying with a friend in the country,
which was nice. Took Caroline, she played a bit of one country,
went for a walk in the grounds. It was in um it was
near Basingstoke. Do you get do you get scared of being in the country
terbs? Do you do you do you get scared of cows and yeah,
and insects and stinging nettles? Because I'm so rarely in the country. Yeah,
scared of being run over by a horse. Well, to be fair,
TIBs, you did kill a blackbird last time I saw you. You
know, you think it was a crow or something. I don't know.
That must have been someone else, James. I don't think I killed a
blackbird or anyway. No, I quite like being in the country. I've
sometimes sort of talked to my wife about whether we'd like to live in the
country like you do, and I think I think we'd both struggle with being
outside London, having become completely accustomed to living in London, for you know,
because we've lived most of our lives either in London or other big cities.
I think I'd feel a bit isolated and a bit lonely and having to
having to kind of drive to the shop, you know, and make a
bit of an expedition of it, not being able to rely on, you
know, being able to get the internet on my phone. All of that,
I think would be I've become so accustomed to kind of urban living that
I think i'd find it. I think I would struggle a bit. But
you sound to me like a like a prisoner saying how how handy is his
cell is? And he gets regular, regular meals pushed through the hole and
the floor, and and you know, lots of people to talk to when
you get let out and stuff. I just go every time I go to
study Cahnes London. Now I look around and I everywhere seems to be under
construction, all these all these cones and and cordoned off areas of road and
stuff and cranes and stuff. And you wonder what sinister purpose that hats.
I'm damn sure that it is sinister. And then you get twenty mile last
speed limits so that you can't even drive normally anymore, and expect not to
be ticketed, that that they are out to get you every which way.
And Londoners seemed to be because of the on the on the boiling frog slow
boiling frog principle. You Londoners can't see what an awful place London is.
So what are the benefits of living in the country. What do you enjoy
about hunting that can only be about half a dozen times a year? What
about the rest of the year? Um, well, the green and pleasant
land I suppose m. Do you go for walks after lunch? Yea walks
in the morning. I give I go. I give for a run every
morning with the dog. And for example, this morning I saw I saw
startled deer with their sort of white bobberty tails, bobbing up and down as
they as they prompt away from me. Um. I saw various kinds of
well, you know, we get green woodpeckers and stuff. And I see
the swallows have come back this year again and they're nesting in the outhouse opposite
the bathroom, and I like, I like the countryside. I mean,
unfortunately it has been industrialized by the green movement, by you know, things
like wind turbines and solar panels and stuff, so that they are slowly ruining
it. But then I mean, they're ruining the whole world. So this
stuff is inevitable. It's you know, it's all going. But yeah,
I think the countries still you can get you can go a bit mad in
the country without anyone noticing you. Ever, everyone can become a bit more
eccentric and become themselves. Which that's interesting because it used to be that people
moved to cities in order to kind of be themselves because they weren't pleased by,
you know, the spying eyes of members of their local rural community.
You've got a good point. You could get a bit of anonymity and a
bit more freedom in the city. And if you were a bit deviant or
eccentric, you generally could lead a kind of less troubled, more independent life
in cities. Yeah, then you could in the country. I mean,
one of my theories about why there's why, why there's why we're in the
midst of a free speech crisis is that the threat to free speech diagnosed by
de Tocville and J. S. Mill in the nineteenth century, which was
the tyranny of the majority that applied in towns and villages and in rural communities
where the opinion of the majority could be expressed at town hall meetings and the
rest of it. And if you if you were a dissenter, you would
be identified by your peers and socially ostracized, particularly if you trespassed on your
community's sacred values. So people moved to cities and where they could be a
bit more nonconformist, and particularly if they weren't Anglicans or Catholics. But the
the what social media has done in the last fifteen years is recreate that oppressive,
intolerant atmosphere atmosphere of smaller communities. By if you now dissent within your
peer group, you can be kind of persecuted and ostracized in a way that
you could be in the nineteenth century, which means that Mill and Topville's warnings
and now kind of relevant. Again, I grew some of what you're saying.
I mean, village communities can be sort of censorious, and they can't.
I mean, I don't live in a village. Then one of the
reasons I didn't really want to live in a village particularly, or maybe I
wouldn't mind on the edge, is that people know your business, and I
don't like people know in my business. But then I suppose I'm being spied
on all the time by the security services, so I suppose I should get
used to the idea. I mean, you know, I don't know whether
you are, but I'm sure. I'm sure I am. But I can't
buy into your analysis that the reason that people moved to the cities was because
was some sort of act of free choice whereby they wanted to sort of forge
a new life where they weren't being judged by by petty petty village communities.
The reason they moved to the cities overwhelmingly was economic. They had to get
get get the work. And in the same way, now there was there
was a drive from their World Economic Forum and the Triateral Commission and the Committee,
the powers that be. They want to force us into cities to realize
their grand project of depopulating the country and controlling us in these designated zones.
But I don't think. I don't think in any stage in history is the
move to town's been a kind of a sort of decision made to avoid village
communities. I mean that that's that's not I thought. I mean, I
think it may have been. It may well. I agree that the main
driver will have been economic, but it may have been a byproduct that that
greater freedom, greater social liberalism, tolerance for descent coincided with urbanization in the
nineteenth and twentieth century, and that benefit is now rapidly disappearing, thanks in
part to the rise of social media. Yeah, and even more so that
the sort of the power of the growing power of the state and the inability
of people to resist, the reluctance of people to resist. I mean,
we can talk about that in a bit a bit later on because I wanted
to talk to you about these various journalists being detained and questioned for five hours
when they come to come to the UK. But maybe we'll do that in
another section. So we get onto that next. Why don't we just hear
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five three double O and we'll be happy to help. That website addressed again
the Live in Care Company dot co dot UK. Um. I don't know
all these people, but it was reported on Twitter and hit Clarenberg I don't.
I hope I'm pronuncing his name correctly. He writes for an online publication
called The Gray Zone, and another journalist called Vanessa Billy. Have you come
across Vanessa Billy? I greatly respect her as a foreign correspondent. She currently
lives in in Syria, and she reports on things like what's going on in
Syria and what's going on in the Ukraine, and and and so forth.
So these two and I think one more have been we came to the UK.
I mean they're British born, came to the UK and would interrogated for
five hours by the counter Terror police for writing the kind of articles which I
would not have been embarrassed to write. I mean, stuff questioning the narrative
about about the Ukraine, say and Russia, the narrative about Syria. I
mean Vanessa for example, has been very very good, assiduous at exposing the
scam of the Remember the White Helmets, the White Helmets who were supposed to
be heroes of the Syrian resistance and jolly good people, and in fact they
were completely in bed with with what one or other of the terror groups.
And we're probably um bonded by by the UK Security Services inter alia. UM.
But so what I wanted to ask you was do you think that the
counter terror police have any business interrogating British journalists for five hours about articles that
kind of I mean, we're talking about kind of articles that I would write.
Yeah, No, it does. See I haven't, I haven't.
I'm not completely across these episodes, so I haven't really been following it.
But it does sound pretty over the top. They live, they live overseas,
do they, and they were returning to Britain and they were detained at
at when they entered the country. I don't know. I don't know what
kick Clarenberg's residential stuff. Oh he lives. He says he lives in Yugoslavia
acorn To, so presumably he comes in and out. I know that Vanessa
lives in Syria but occasionally come back to to the UK. UM. I
mean it makes me realize that that, UM, if were I ever to
be driven abroad, UM to flee abroad and I came back, I'll bet
I'll bet i'd get I'd get similar to But why aren't you just why aren't
you detained anywhere when you return to them when you come back to the UK
supposed to. Well, that's that's that's an interesting, interesting question. All
I know is that Vanessa, who had quite a few times on my podcast
and I think is admirable, um that our security company services haven't absolutely no
question, you know, no business questioning her. It seems to be an
outrageous infringement of her free speech rights. And I just I mean, I
was just curious to see what your your take on this state of affairs was.
When we now have journalists who are being questioned for doing their job,
just reporting on stuff. Yeah, no, it does. It sounds like
something the Free Speech Union should be across. I noticed that the National Union
of Journalists, which isn't isn't the most robust of trade unions, has has
issued a statement objecting, i think, to the fact that Kit was detained
and questioned by counter terrorism officers. Yeah, it does. It does sound
pretty sinister. I guess it's of a piece with this. Did you see
the Telegraph published the fruits of an investigation on Friday? I think it was
It was essentially their version of Big Brother Watches investigation into the employment of various
shadowy agencies within Whitehall departments, particularly the Cabinet Office and DCMS, but also
I think the Home Office during the pandemic, to monitor the social media activities
of critics of the government's pandemic response, and in some cases the departments would
then use their trusted flagger status with Twitter or Facebook to try and get dissenting
posts removed on the grounds that they breached the terms and conditions of the social
media platforms in question because they were promoting misinformation or disinformation. And at one
stage I think there was one, I think one of these agencies existed in
the Department for Health, and Matt Hancock at one stage when he was the
Health Secretary contacted Nick Clegg to try and urge him to do something about some
particular gad fly he was irritated by. But it's good that this is getting
additional coverage. The Big Brother Watch report was great, and Big Brother Watch
encourage various journalists he thought, and scientists he thought that they were being monitored
by these shadowy organizations like the Counter Disinformation Unit. They encourage them to submit
subject access requests to the Whitehall departments that these agencies were based within to see
if they themselves had been monitored and I did that, and there was there
was some correspondence about me between some of these shadowy figures working for these agencies.
But it's um it's it's remarkably similar to what happened in the United States,
as revealed by the Twitter files. And it is extraordinary that you know
that a whole apparatus, an anti disinformation sector that was created with you know,
state funding after twenty sixteen, designed to protect domestic citizens from you know,
cyber security, see threats from foreign powers like China and Russia, has
been repurposed as a way for the state to monitor domestic citizens and penalize them
in various ways for dissenting, particularly during the pandemic. But yeah, we're
seeing it both in Britain and America and in Australia and in other parts of
the world too. But it sounds like it's of a piece with that,
that that the whole apparatus of counter terrorism counter extremism, which was originally set
up to protect US from foreign threats, has been repurposed to police internal dissent.
Yeah, exactly. Have you got any theories on why it has taken
the telegraph and it's riserably entitled Investigations Team, Investigations Team to take so long
to expose a story that was written, I mean, UK Color and Conservative
Woman were writing about this stuff in twenty twenty. Laura Dodsworth published a book
about this I Think again in twenty twenty, revealing the existence of these units
and the monitoring that was going on. Then you had your Big Brother Watch
report, which I don't think was you know, I think it was very
very late in the game, and actually was it was a classic limited hangout
story. I don't trust Big Brother Watch. I think their funding sources are
deeply suspect. I think Silky Carlo and her boyfriend or ex boyfriend are deeply
suspect. They've got connections with the security services. I don't trust that report
at all. I think it was, Yeah, I say limited hangout in
that a controlled release of information designed to distract. But at least it came
out a few months ago. Now you've got the Telegraph, which surely paper
record with a with a with a history of investigating stuff breaking stories is now
three years late to this party. Well, why are they taking so long
to write about it? Um? I don't know why. What the kind
of history of this investigation is, or why it appeared at the end of
last week. One I guess speculating it may be because the lockdown files in
the WhatsApp messages turned over to the Telegraph by Isabel oak Shot. And incidentally,
I'm going to be interviewing Isabel oak Shot about those WhatsApp messages at Unheard
on Saturday and then again at the Hippodrome next Tuesday. And tickets are still
available. Drinks tickets still available if you go to if you if you google
the lockdown files and event bright, you'll be able to purchase tickets. There
are only twenty five pounds if you want to come see us at the Hippodrome
on Tuesday week. But and we've got actors reading out some of the more
embarrassing bits from the WhatsApp messages. We've got an actor playing Boris Johnson,
an act playing Met Hancock. Should be an entertaining evening. But it could
be that the Telegraph investigation was prompted by some things which turned up in Met
Hancock's WhatsApp messages. Not this was all in the public domain. It was
all There's not a single thing in that Telegraph alleged investigation that is remotely mute.
It's all old. I think they you mentioned Big Brother watched so so
that they've they've cobbled together something from that. But as I say, the
Conservative Woman and UK column and and and generally people who use the internet.
You know, people are on my side of the argument. We were all
aware of this stuff. We're not. We didn't turn to our telegraph and
go, goodness me. It seems like a government units has been spying on
us all as time to come on, Well, um, you can't defend
these people. Well, I'm like, I don't think they don't be ridiculous,
James. They are ridiculous that the media is utterly corrupt and and it
is it has been, withholding key information from us in our interest. The
telegraph was part of this disinformation operation. It's all very well at the Telegraph
holding its nose and saying oh, passing through the smelling salt. It seems
it seems that people have been manipulated by the government. Well, the telegraph
was part of that manipulation operation for the last three years. I don't think
so. I think they they published quite a few of the people were being
by Yeah, they published me writing very critical I mean, do you still
you still got work from them, because I mean, I wouldn't have a
camera from the scum agraph. So I don't know why you're bothering to suck
up to them. I thought it was you were taking their corner, and
they're a bunch of evil, propagandizing, lying scum. I think I think
you're you're again. It's something we've long kind of argue it about. But
I welcome the fact that they're drawing attention to three years to iniquitous behavior of
the government during the pandemic. They shouldn't have been using taxpayers money to monitor
so called misinformation on Twitter or Facebook, and they certainly shouldn't have been trying
to persuade those companies to remove posts which they didn't like. And it's a
great illustration I think of the danger of placing this power in the hands of
senior officials and politicians. They will inevitably use machinery and resources designed to protect
us from cyber threats to suppress opposition to their own policies, their agenda.
And I think actually the fact that, of course, I think it's great
that other publications earlier on revealed this, and I welcome the Big Brother report.
I don't think for a second that it was limited hangout. I think
it was they did They did the very best they want to expose it,
and they did a great job. But the fact that the Telegraph is now
highlighting this, I think is fantastic news. It makes it more difficult for
the government to ignore. It makes it harder for the official COVID inquiry to
ignore, and hopefully will prompt kind of you know, proper a proper investigation,
ideally as part of the COVID inquiry to what the government was doing and
try and make it less likely this kind of thing will happen again. I
mean, these kinds of campaigns are inevitably take a while to get going,
James, and it took a while for the Twitter files to be disclosed,
and it was only because the Lark Twitter and was able to reveal that and
give access to the data to various journalists like Michael Schellenberger and Matt Tybee,
who incidentally coming over here to try and galvanize opposition to the the censorship industrial
complex, which is a global complex. They're coming over here at the end
of this month and they're having a meeting at unheard actually and in Central Hall
in Westminster to try and raise awareness of these this kind of activity which I
think most people. Most people don't read The Conservative Woman or you know,
No Column or various other you know, dissident media publications, so most people
aren't aware of it UK Column. So it's great that it's finally been latched
onto by the mainstream media and hopefully, hopefully James, we can we can
finally do something about it. I'll tell what. It's a bit like It's
a bit like. Um, there's there's the battered body of free speech,
barely alive, lying on the pavement. And this free speech body has been
had his head kicked in and his balls kicked in by any number of of
of malefactors. And they includes the government's various units, the seventy seventh Brigade,
their their military military propaganda branch, and this the various units attached to
the Cabinet Office and so on. And a key part of that gang which
has been kicking in free speech has been the media, the mainstream media,
the Daily Telegraph among them. The Telegraph that received three three plast million dollars
from the Built the Gates Foundation to propagate their provacts, propaganda and so on,
and suddenly the Telegraph, realizing that it might get found out having been
part of this this mugging gang is has has nipped up to the body and
just sort of put a put an a last plast on one of the one
of the injuries, and it says, we are from the Telegraph with love.
It's just too little, too late, terpes. I don't the one
lesson, Well, one of the many lessons we've learned from the last three
years is that the mainstream media, the legacy media, is just a propaganda
machine on behalf of interest which I'm not our own interests. They're definitely not
the readership's interests. They just push an agenda constantly. And I don't think
the Telegraph deserves congratulating. I say, three years too late means they're not
doing their job. Well, you know, I think that moving the dial
on these things bringing about political change, making it less likely that some of
the liberties the government took not just tarbid in other countries during the pandemic,
making it less likely that they'll take them again. All that's going to take
time. It takes a huge amount of effort and organizing. It requires us
to build coalitions, to make allies where we can, and not just think
we are you know, a kind of a sort of pure originals and anyone
else kind of eventually coming around to some of our skepticism about the government's pandemic
response should be kind of rejected and cast out because they weren't there at the
start along with us. You know, a long game, James, and
if we want to bring about change and improve things, it's going to take
a big effort, and we should not We should not insult people who are
late to the party. We should we should welcome them, not insulting that
the ordinary readers who have been thoroughly misled, who trust the Telegraph and other
newspapers out of habit. I'm talking about the fact that the Telegraph and other
newspapers had deliberately and cynically withheld this information because they were bribed to do so
by the government and because well, of course it's true, or you're denying
that they were spent. They were given lots of money in advert The government
became the media's biggest advertiser during during the so called pandemic. That buys a
lot of a lot of coverage. The newspapers just gave up trying to tell
the truth. And well, not they ever did, but they've sort of
accelerated this lie program. I think, I think, I think it's I
think some newspapers were too quick to be persuaded by the government and their scientific
outriders that the government's pandemic response was sensible and wise, and didn't want to
rock the boat for fear that if they undermine public confidence in things like social
distancing and mask wearing and the rule of six, that they would you make
it more likely that the virus would spread, people would become infected, hospitalized
and die. They were initially convinced by those arguments that propaganda, and I
think it's taken them a while to become a bit more skeptical and to question,
but eventually I think most I think, I hope that most of them
will come around to ask skeptical bond ofview. I don't know if you saw.
There was another story in the Telegraph this morning, James, which was
really quite hard hitting on the front page, reporting on a new book that
has been published today by the Institute of Economic Affairs by a group of researchers,
one from Johns Hopkins University, another from university called Lund University in Sweden,
saying that the collateral damage caused by the first lockdown, designed to mitigate
the impact of the first COVID wave in spring twenty twenty, not just here
but across the world, that the collateral damage far outweighed any benefit. They
estimate that the number of lives saved by the first lockdown in England and Wales
was around seventeen hundred, which that's a made up figure, which is which
is a tiny, tiny number. Okay, but but I mean even if
if if seventeen hundred is a tiny number, where did they get that made
up figure from. I don't believe a single life was saved by the lockdown.
You'd have to buy into the notion that lockdowns did anything to stop the
transmiss of this alleged virus, which I don't believe at all. Yeah,
so well they they in a sense, it's quite I agree with you.
I think it's it's it's hard to demonstrate that the lockdown saved a single life,
but in a way it's quite helpful to have people who aren't as dogmatic
about it as us and allow um, you know, for a variety of
reasons that it did save some lives. But say, even if we allow
for that, the collateral damage still far outweighed the benefits. So even if
you accept, even if you believe that lockdowns saved lives, it still wouldn't
be a good idea to lockdown again, because they did far more harm than
they alleviated. Anyway, it's the language in this report and the language quoted,
you know, in this Telegraph piece that about the it's described by the
authors of this this new paper, this new book, as you know,
the worst policied decision ever made during peace time. So it couldn't really be
more damning, even though it allows that the lockdowns did save a tiny number
of lives. Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously, I think it's
all the distraction because you look at oh look at look at the line that
the media has been pushing for some time, that the supposed skeptical branch of
the media. So columnists like Alison Pearson and say Dan Hannon, who keeps
telling us that he was one of the only voices that speak out against lockdown.
It's it's a distraction from the from the far bigger issue, which is
that governments around the world have been poisoning their their populace by forcing to take
this experimental vaccine which isn't a vaccine. So so whether or not it was
a bad ideas a lot of people, I mean, obviously it was about
the balladeers a lot of people down. But I would be much happier if
if this admission of guilt on lockdown went hand in hand with a submission of
guilt that yes, we were poisoning you, we were we were doing the
interests of big Farmer, they do control us. And yes we have poisoned
you and we did. We did kill your mum, and we did we
did cripple your your uncle. Yeah, yeah, you know, and we're
really sorry and we're going to do something about it and we're not going to
get in bed with these scumbags ever again. But I'm not hearing that.
I'm just hearing Oh yeah, Lockdown was just an honest mistake power crazed politicians,
which is it was never it was always more than that. It was
always coordinated at a global level. It wasn't individual governments responding to a perceived
emergency. It was coordinated. And it's interesting, by the way that that
that this report you quote was was co authored by the John John Hopkins,
who weirdly was the institution also responsible producing the twenty nineteen SPAS report, which
which which which which predicted the pandemic with uncanny accuracy because it was planned,
well the the I don't think it was planned, as you know. But
yeah, I think there isn't there isn't a single institutional view which is the
Johns Hopkins view. But I think this particular professor at Johns Hopkins, I
think it's Steve Hankey has always been a lockdown skeptic. But I think the
fact that he is a professor at Johns Hopkins is good because it gives the
report and in premature of institutional authority, and the fact that Johns Hopkins has
been, you know, very supportive of the US government's pandemic response is quite
helpful. And I think the Telegraph actually pointed this out in it's in its
in its piece about this this new book. You know that even John,
even a professor at Johns Hopkins, which until now has been an enthusiast for
the lockdown and other non pharmaceutical interventions, even a professor from that university is
now saying it was a colossal mistake. I mean, I think in due
course. I mean, they're not going to say the things you'd like them
to say about the vaccines. But they may in due course, except that
that that that the harms associated with the vaccines have been underestimated, and that
in many cases, the benefits of taking the vaccines outweigh, sorry, the
harms outweigh the benefits in of course, they may come along, they may
come around. But it's a journey, James, It's a journey. Um.
Anyway, should we hear from another of our sponsors, I think it's
your turn. Oh yes, you sent it to me, didn't you.
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Yeah, me too, Me too. Yeah. It supposedly very very funny.
Okay, good. So what else, James, have you been following
the brew her heat about Philip Scofield in the media. I don't suppose you
have very closely. I must say I'm fanning. It quite difficult to work
up any interest about Philip Scofield's departure from This Morning and whether Holly Willoughby is
co presenter can survive. I mean, the only thing which vaguely tweaked.
My curiosity was how uncannily similar the whole scandal is to the fictional scandal in
the Apple TV show The Morning Show. So for the benefit of our American
listeners, who I'm sure we'll know nothing about this. Philip Scofield is a
co presenter of a breakfast television program called This Morning with a woman called Holly
Willoughby, and he has recently departed the show under a cloud, seemingly or
that it wasn't obvious straight away, but seemingly because he started a gay affair
with a runner on the show who was considerably younger than him but not below
the legal age of consent. But it was when he started terms that totally.
I'm not saying that true James, No, no, no, you're
miss you. You got to know him, but suggestion that's kind of key.
People are not saying. Nobody is saying that he shanged an underage boy.
What they are saying is that they met him when he was much younger
and he groomed him. Don't try and dilute the story to totally irrelevance.
Well, I'm not sure. I haven't seen that. I think, yeah,
I think there is some there is if you're going to kind of whitewash
the whole thing, that wasn't a white word. It does seemed a bit
it is a bit strong to describe him as grooming this boy. Well,
in that case was completely normal and unobjectionable, and we shouldn't talk about it
because I think nothing is complained about well, isn't isn't isn't. What's seemingly
objection about it is that if you are a senior employee, you're not supposed
to just take advantage of your seniority to seduce younger junior members of the same
company. That's sort of you know, that's that's that's what did for the
co presenter in the morning show. It was a me too scandal. It
wasn't that he'd you know, he well, it came out that there was
an element of coercion in one of his affairs. But to begin with anyway,
the reason he left the company is because it was a me too scandal,
a classic me too scandal, and that he'd had a sexual relationship with
a junior member of staff. And that seemed to be that the issue here
too, apart from it was gay, which kind of which which added another
dimension to it. You're just soft peddling the whole story and actually just removing
all the bite out of it and actually making excuses on behalf of Phillip Scofield,
who is a scumback. Come on, well, I wasn't trying to
make excuses something, but you made my trying to. But you were.
You were doing exactly that. A lot of what what I've been saying has
been common knowledge that this is the story that the newspapers have been dying to
write about. I mean, I think it's all smoking. It's smoking,
mirrors and bread and circuses and distractions. But if we're going to talk about
it, at least let's point out the most salient point about this thing,
which is that that Philip Scofield, a TV presenter, met this guy when
he was when he was I think even a schoolboy. And and I'm not
accusing you of having broken the law, but he definitely did groom this this
this guy, perhaps by promising fame and fortune, I don't know what,
but but he's using his celebrity, and you know, I think it's a
far dodgier than just really being an executive and using his powers within the company
to advance, you know, to make sexual advances. You know, that's
no one would care about it if it were just that well, it seemingly
well with all these other details that you're referring to, any any sort of
come out in the aftermath of his departure. Um, and seemingly as a
result of kind of you know, tabloid tabloid's investigating the story rather than the
reason he was he he left left the program. But I think I don't
know, it's a bit it seems it seems um uh, we don't know
that he was grooming this boy from the moment he met him. I mean,
it's possible, but but innocent until proven guilty. He may have just
befriended him or offered him, you know, opportunities, told him how to
get into television, and then subsequently kind of reconnected with him years later,
by which time it was you know, not unlawful for for them to enter
into a relationship. Um, So we don't know. I mean, grooming
is a little strong and suggest share your desire not to not to get the
attention of libel lawyers. But I think if we're going to just tipto around
the subject, we might as well not bother talking about it. Frankly,
well, I wasn't going to go. I wasn't going to talk. I
was I wasn't going to. My point was not to kind of try and
summarize it for the benefit of our American listeners. Um. And so maybe
maybe you're right and I haven't summarized it quite accurately. Then my point was
that I haven't quite I haven't quite understood why it's become such an enormous story,
why it's dominated the news. It was at one point leading the BBC
News. It is just slightly baffling, um that there should be such a
I mean, I was going to say that I've I've almost come around to
thinking about it and the way you usually present these things, which is um
that it that, it's it's it's it's bread and circuses. Um, it
does, but it is. But I think it's just it's just for some
reason, it's a it's a slow it's a slow newsweek. It's that.
That's that's that's just that's a sort of a normal notion that there are these
thing. The news is a construct. There's never it's never a slow newsweek.
Really, it's the news is whatever there, the powers that be won't
be used to work at it. You were, yeah, they you were
really covering the news, weren't you. That's before I that's no. Sometimes
there's a lot to cover and sometimes there isn't much. No, I just
didn't know how the game. I didn't understand the game. Um, I
was an innocent as as you used to laugh. I suspect you're always wiser
than me, James, always always the enlightened one. Do you think we
should do? Um? Culture corner? Yeah? Why don't we? Why
do we? Why we? Why don't we move on to culture corner?
Yes? So what have you been reviewing your your Spectator column this week?
Just it was a bit desperate, So I started off wanting to review m
McGregor forever because I'm suddenly into these these traveler traveler boxing type, these Irish
travelers who just seemed to spend all their time drinking and fighting and with bare
knuckles and and and I used to I used to think, you know,
perceiving gypsies and so on, But now I've completely reversed ferreted on this,
and I think, actually I love these people because they have always understood that
our system is completely broken, which is why they don't want to put their
children in our corrupt brainwashing education system. And I kind of respect them.
They're gonna when it all kicks off, these people are going to survive,
and because they've kept their communities intact and their traditions alive and so on.
So anyway, I love Colin McGregor. He's been fantastic during the lockdown and
all the nonsense and stuff. And I was trying to persuade the wife to
sit down and watch a documentary about him, but unfortunately, in the first
thirty seconds it showed we were aware of this that in two thousand and twenty
one he had this he's a cage fighter, right, and he basically broke
his ankle in the mid of the tournament and you can see it breaking.
And the first thirty seconds of this of this program was was this man's ankle
being broken. And the way I said, right, that's it not watching
anymore, right, So it was so we didn't get to watch Colin gregor
and Stea watched this terrible, terrible series written by the guy who wrote Knives
Out and the Onion thing. Yes, yeah, I can't stand I really
hate those that that the James Bond guy who plays the kind of queenie Daniel
Craig. Yeah, just the most ludicrous crazy in the TV series too.
No, it's not no, no. This this is the premise of this
is that the woman has the power to tell when people people are lying always.
She knows when you're when you're lying. I think it's been done before
by wasn't there the Invention of Lyne with Ricky Gervais? And there has been
other other other films about but liar, liar, I don't know. I
think isn't there even another detective series about a detective is extremely good at telling
whether the pop are line or telling the truth, but rather than a woman,
I think there is, but I can't remember anyway, it's a bit
right. Actually, what really annoyed me so this woman is she's basically trailer
trash. She has a kind of sort of a sort of hicck accent,
and she lives in a trailer park, and she's got a really deep,
gravelly sort of voice. And you think, well, this woman is going
to smoke. She's going to smoke cigarettes obviously at a bare minimum. But
she doesn't smoke because it's Pussy TV. It's because it's like, oh,
if we have our main character smoking, people might think that smoking is a
good thing. And I'm thinking, no, this is just basic character character
depiction. You can't have a woman with a gravity of voice living in the
trailer park who doesn't smoke. And it reminded me of remember cheers, Remember
how nobody smokes and cheers. That was the beginning of the end. It
was the barn where everyone knew your name but nobody smoked. Right, How
stupid was that? So I so I it lost me a bit. Um,
so I wouldn't recommend that. I bet it's not as bad. There
was your Arnie Arnie series. I can't I watched about ten seconds of the
trailer for it, and that it just made me feel so ill that I
couldn't bring myself right right, Okay, um, yeah, no, it
was that. That's awful and not at all recommended. All I've done,
I think from a culture corner point of view, Well, I finished,
I finished Andrew Roberts's Magisterial, But of Churchill, I've i've now, I've
now given. I'm now giving myself some time out by listening to the very
last destroy then the Sharp no the Sharp Sharp novel. So it's it's called
Sharp's Devil, and it sets sort of about ten years after the Battle of
Waterloo, and it opens with a meeting between Sharp and Napoleon on Saint Helena
because Sharp is going to Chili and he stops on the way and has this
kind of fortuitous meeting with the Emperor. It's quite quite a good opening scene.
And I'm about I'm about a quarter of the way in and it's just
just getting good. So I'm enjoying that. But I also I finally watched
the last three episodes of Succession. I was waiting the reason why don't tell
me? Don't tell me? Okay happens? Okay, okay, all right.
I was behind because my wife was beginning to lose interest, and it
was one of those things we had promised to watch together. But she,
because she's losing interest, says said to me, look, go ahead and
watch them, don't wait for me. So I had now watched them,
but I'll wait for you before we discuss. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And don't don't give me any opinion at all, or even a hint that
you might. And I'm still plod plodding, my way through the diplomat,
which I think is pretty good, pretty entertaining. Have you tried that yet?
No, I don't. I don't think after your kind of lukewarmish sow
the other week, I thought I can't be doing. Oh, by the
way, another thing I would steer clear of. Did you did you enjoy
that Chernobyl thing a few years ago? Yes? Yes, so you're going
to forget the last of us? Yes, we've I think we not the
days okay day. The Japanese have made this account of that. They've done
a Chernobyl on the Fukis human Reactor. So they've made this drama series about
the the um you know, well every day the disaster in the disaster,
and it's really crap, it's really embarrassing. It's it's not helped by the
fact that because it's not set in collapsing Soviet era Ukraine, but rather is
setting in modern Japan, you haven't got that extra dimension of these corrupt stone
walling jobs worth useless officials. Yeah, everyone is Japanese and very keen and
doing their job efficiently. And yes, yes I will go into to investigate
this particular thing and die in the tsunami and I will but it, but
the acting is really crap. There are no characters and this is rubbish.
So I wouldn't watch that. And does it it does? It suffer from
the same shortcoming as Chernobyl, in that it presents the accident as being far
more catastrophic and harmful than it really was in reality. You know what,
I'm glad you made that point. I haven't given it the chance to I
just only watch the first episode. I don't know whether I imagine it did.
I'm very suspicious about all these narratives. I'm very suspicious about the Chernobyl
narrative. I'm very suspicious about the Fukushiman narrative because I think ultimately they're designed
to discredit nuclear powers. Yes, I think, yeah that they certainly do
seem too well. Chernobyl seemed it certainly wildly exaggerated just what harm had been
caused by what happened at Chernobyl, and implied that radiation sickness was contagious,
so it was viral and if you if you stood next to someone with it,
you could catch it, which was obviously completely ridiculous. And and if
you watched the whole series you would have come away with the impression that hundreds
of thousands of people died horrible deaths instead of you know, the true number,
which was something like the fifty, wasn't it? Um and I met
and and yeah, I mean surely. The kind of the most salient fact
about the Fukushima nuclear accident is that it showed that a nuclear power station can
literally be hit by a tsunami. Yeah. And and you know, it
causes very little, very little death, you know, because nuclear power is
so safe. So if we'd been producers at one of its Netflix Japan would
have said, we're not running this crap. It's just like just anti nuclear
propaganda. Don't bore us, we don't care. That would be a good
job to have FIS executives in charge of nixing nixing woke or a gender programs.
Yeah, yeah, um yeah. Oh. By the way, I'm
still reading Anacronina and it is still the greatest novel ever written. I think
there's no question about it. Okay, good one day, get onto it.
Yeah, all right, James, I think that's probably we probably exhausted
everything we had to discuss. M Good to talk to you and D again
next week. No, I'm very I'm very glad that you're concerned about that
kit Chap I mentioned, and also Vanessa Beli, because I think it's we
are heading for dark times and we'll look into that. Good okay, okay,
cool, all right bye. Thanks. M Ricochet joined the conversation