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Dec. 7, 2020 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
01:16:29
Laura Perrins 4
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I have been getting so many letters from particularly saying how much they this is like that has been their gateway drug to to deling pods generally.
Oh of course!
And no absolutely and it makes me realise that well are women quite shallow?
Are they as shallow as men in their way?
Do they have to have a female presence in order to make things, like, to help them along, to hold their hand?
Well, I do.
I mean, because conservative women don't like to play identity politics, I do think it makes a difference, though.
I have noticed in, like, the US conservative scene, they don't have enough female, you know, they don't interview enough women, I think.
But I watch The Daily Wire a lot, and I love Michael Knowles.
I actually don't watch Ben Shapiro that much, but I started with him.
He's kind of annoying, isn't he?
He's a bit annoying.
He's a megastar but actually his voice can be hard to listen to but Michael Knowles I really like because he's also Catholic so he does both and he's really pretty to look at so he's beautiful to watch.
They are getting Candace Owens now.
I think that she'll be their first female interviewer.
So, I mean, Molly Hemingway is great at The Federalist.
I emailed and said they should get her as well.
You know, it is good to have a mix.
Oh, listen, don't get me wrong.
I totally love conservative girls, conservative women.
Yes.
The ones you mention are just fantastic.
And also you're nice to look at and you're different.
So I'm not really having a go at the idea that you need a woman on board to get the women audience in.
I think that's absolutely fine.
I'm very, very happy.
So this morning I was reading, I'm sorry to say this Laura, I read your piece in the Daily Mail.
I'm just wondering, do you find that you, when you're writing for the Mail, and I can say that this is the case with me as well, you slightly rein yourself in.
You slightly sort of make yourself a bit more moderate.
I mean, you're quite feisty on Conservative Woman and on podcasts.
Did you rein yourself in?
Well, I think it's interesting with Mail because a lot of the time you're actually trying to rein them in.
They, you know, sometimes they come to you with an idea and they're like, we want you to, you know, say this and say that.
And because they're the mail, you're a bit like, I'm not going to go that, you know, I just genuinely don't agree with that position.
So I'm not going to go there for this piece.
And I don't mind telling the, the, the viewers and a lot, my pieces are ghostwritten for the mail.
So you talk to somebody and he writes it up for you.
Yeah, yeah.
I wouldn't have even had time to do it in my defence.
But I didn't even get the paper yesterday, so I have no idea where it was.
Obviously, I've read it online.
And no, you have to approve it and all of that.
Sure.
So I think their position was, we really, really oppose passports, but we do not want to get sucked into anti-vax in general.
So this is what I thought.
Yeah.
And my position is, You know, whatever happens, your first step is you must oppose any kind of compulsory vaccine, passports, papers, please.
Because no matter what your position is on the vaccine after that, you know, if you're made to have it, You're doomed, right?
Or if they're going to make your life difficult if you don't want to have it, then you're in deep trouble.
So it's that thing.
If you go for complete purity and ideological purity all the time, especially when it's not your publication, obviously on the website we tell it as it is, then What was I going to say?
Then you're going to be compromised.
I mean, the thing is, you know, all my children do have vaccines and things like that.
And I'm definitely flip-flopping on this current vaccine, which we can talk about if you want.
I think we should.
We had this conversation yesterday.
So yesterday, at the time of recording, yesterday was when the government announced that they were, I hate that phrase, rolling out.
Rolling out this vaccine that they'd bought from Pfizer and you, you actually uncharacteristically, I thought, because I like to think of you as a kind of, you know, you fight with your teeth and you go for raw meat, basically.
You're one of me.
You're like me.
I love that in you.
But I thought that you surrendered the past slightly.
You were making noises about, you seem to be sharing the excitement of.
Yeah.
I mean, just.
To the eternal discredit, I'm afraid, of Julia Hartley Brewer, who was pushing this line on her show as well, like, yippee, it's all over.
We've got the vaccine.
It's going to be great.
And I was I was like, oh, my God, this vaccine has been rushed through.
It's potentially dangerous.
And you were saying you say, no, I'm OK, actually.
Because I've got a friend, and a friend in the vaccine industry, who's been telling me that it's OK.
And I was thinking, Laura, what possible reason could your friend in the vaccine industry have for saying that vaccines are all going to be OK?
And before I give you a chance to defend yourself, it reminds me of a conversation I had.
Do you remember Telegraph blogs?
Telegraph went through a brief period of kind of conservative Yeah, the male copper telegraph.
The telegraph blogs for a period were absolutely fantastic.
They were very robust.
They had some very feisty right wing voices like my own.
I mean, this is this is when I started to spread my wings and realized that actually this was the future.
And I remember I was writing a lot about, you know, the whole environmental scam and about global warming being bollocks.
And that was where I broke the the climate gate story.
So it was my biggest, biggest scoop.
And I remember the blog's editor, Damien Thompson, taking me aside and he's saying, Jamie, he used to call me Jamie, Jamie, I've spoken to a friend who knows about climate change and he says you're wrong.
And I was thinking, yeah, Damien, So you've got a friend in this massive industry which has been pushing this complete lie, and I'm supposed to go, oh well, if your mate says so, who am I to... And it's a bit like that.
I just don't believe that these vaccines are safe.
So tell me...
Why do you think they are?
Okay.
Right.
Well, this is, this is the pitch.
Okay.
Now the first thing, now I've done like a 360 sort of twice in the last 48 hours, because, you know, you're, I'm genuinely, I don't want to, you know, push a preconceived lines.
You're just working with the information you have.
I mean, the first thing James has to say is that although in the first, you know, podcast, we've said how you should never really trust politicians.
Don't give them the benefit of the doubt, et cetera, et cetera.
Leave me nodding.
Yeah, when it comes to a story like this, you know, I do want it to be over, James.
You know, part of me, surely we all want it over and that we don't want these nefarious influences everywhere, okay?
And C.S.
Lewis wrote about this and you see, I don't want to be on the right the way, you know, the way the people on the left see racism and white supremacy everywhere.
Right.
They think ill of everybody and there's always a problem.
And you're like, guys, you need to chill.
You know, I mean, you have a supply and demand problem.
It's like you want there to be racists.
OK.
And CS Lewis talked about it.
It's like if you read a news story and it's terrible and then you find out that actually that news story was wrong and it's a good story.
If you're a little bit sad about that.
Right, you should you should think long and hard about yourself.
OK, so I want it.
I want the vaccine.
I want it to be safe.
I want it to be over.
OK, so part of you wants that.
Now, on the other hand, before I the night before, I was thinking.
I did a little bit of research on vaccines and on the who, as we know, from the horse's mouth, the World Economic Forum, who are obviously a problem.
They are they they themselves admit it's 10 years, 10 years to get a vaccine, OK, from whatever R&D to the to the finish line.
So as I say, as I texted to you, I'm like, well, so this is something if they're able to turn this around, what, nine months?
That's never been achieved before in human history.
It's what they're saying is that this is a miracle potion.
It's what has happened is a miracle.
Now I believe in miracles if there's divine intervention.
Okay.
By the way.
Yes.
You're bouncing up and down.
Are you moving your... It's going to give people epilepsy.
Oh, okay.
Is your screen doing that?
Yes.
Wait a second then.
Let me guess.
Hang on.
I'll have to change my...
It's great.
I've got somebody even less technical than me.
It's fantastic.
It's like we've got the same brain and it's not a technical brain.
Let me do that.
I think we've got girl brains.
As long as that's not too dark.
So, yeah, so I so they're basically saying, you know, this is this is a miracle potion.
Right.
Please take my miracle potion for an illness that will not affect you badly.
OK, so this is my negative thing.
So I'm thinking, well, why would I take a miracle potion for an illness that is not going to affect me anyway?
So that would certainly be my, I'm not taking this vaccine position.
And the other half of me is I want it to be over.
OK.
Can I just address your first point?
Yeah.
What you're saying, what you're really saying, Laura.
It's that you don't want Tinkerbell to die.
Because she's such a sweet little fairy with her little wand and she flosses around.
And you know that if you say you don't believe in fairies, Tinkerbell gets it.
It's noble.
If Tinkerbell actually existed, that would indeed be a desirable thing.
But she doesn't.
I know.
Tinkerbell never existed.
So if you say you don't believe in fairies, Tinkerbell's not going to die.
She never lived anyway.
She was only in Peter Pan, which was fiction written by J.M.
Barrie.
I'm sorry to break it, but there it is.
Yeah.
And the second thing is, sorry, I think your second instinct is right.
Have you seen the written by Mike Yeadon?
Yes.
Yeah.
Now, what do you think about that?
Given that Mike Yeadon.
Yeah.
was head of the very department at Pfizer, the company that's rolling out this vaccine.
He was the head of their respiratory infections department.
And he's written this letter with a German doctor called Wolfgang Wodarg, I imagine is how you pronounce it, who was a physician, an epidemiologist.
And he points out He points out, inter alia, he says he's worried about the studies that show that the formation of so-called non-neutralizing antibodies can lead to an exaggerated immune reaction, especially when the test person is confronted with the real wild virus after vaccination.
Now, I talked to one of your compatriots, Dolores Cahill, earlier in the year about this very thing.
There had been cases of I think it was possibly US military who'd been given a flu vaccine and had been particularly susceptible.
They'd actually got worse symptoms.
I mean, serious symptoms worse than they would have had.
Have their natural immune system just been left to deal with the problem?
So this is a particular worry for those of us who've already had the virus, that it can trigger a hyper immune response.
So and yet Matt Hancock is saying, no, it doesn't matter.
You know, he was asked about this yesterday.
Doesn't matter.
You know, absolutely oblivious to this to this issue.
I won't read it all out, but there's the worries about infertility in vaccinated women.
The infertility thing is what caught my eye because... Because you're a woman.
Well, yes, that's the first thing.
And it was very specific in that it stopped, it might stop placenta from forming.
And the thing is, also, how would they know that in terms of, you know, say it did cause, say it did, and I don't know, it did cause infertility in fertile women.
It mightn't cause it to such a degree and to such an extent that they would be able to trace it back to the virus, right?
Because infertility problems for lots of different reasons are so widespread in the West.
So that's a real concern and it's also a concern because I did hear it mentioned by someone who I would consider a bit of a conspiracy theorist.
But you know, when you see one person mention it and then another person in a completely different field and is actually an expert in it, yeah, then I'm very sad.
Then I'm like Bambi's been shot and I'm very sad to hear that.
Bambi's mummy has certainly been shot, I tell you that.
Definitely.
She's a goner.
She's venison.
There it is.
On that point you made about declining fertility, here's a thought experiment.
Imagine if the billions, if not trillions of pounds and dollars and euros which have been wasted on this scamdemic, imagine if instead this money had gone into persuading people to have better diets, To look after their health better.
Not coercive, not sort of taxes on, not sugar taxes and stuff, but educating people, encouraging them to, you know, because I think I'm totally with Ivor Cummins on this.
I think that a lot of the diseases of civilization, of modern civilization, are actually traceable to what people eat and how they look after themselves.
And we could, I think, Fertility problems would be reduced.
I think people's susceptibility to cancer and diabetes and all manner of things would be reduced.
And we've just blown all this money to no effect.
I mean, do you not think that the whole trajectory of government policy since February, March has been essentially nothing will work until we get the vaccine?
You know, don't use hydroxychloroquine.
Oh yeah.
Don't use, don't use zinc.
Don't use vitamin, vitamin D3.
Just, just keep shutting down the economy and keep you masked, keep you muzzled until the vaccine.
Isn't that in itself sinister?
Yeah well if again we are to put on our very critical sinister hats and you want to play around what are the real motives and you know this is just let's say educated you know kind of not guessing but thinking as we're entitled to do.
You know, so you could say, OK, it's ultimately for complete authoritarian control.
That's their end game to keep the restrictions on.
I am thinking maybe not on that.
Again, partly because I don't want to think it.
And then so then you think, well, maybe the vaccine.
Well, there was two theories I gave you, wasn't it?
So maybe the vaccine was the end goal.
So why do they want the vaccine to be out?
It could be just money, right?
That somebody somewhere wants to make a lot of money.
It could be that it could cause people problems.
And fertility would tie, remember that the fertility thing would tie into the green.
So that is a concern because they think there's too many people, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this, if you want, you know, depending on how many... Oh, I like that particular rabbit hole.
Good one.
Well done, Laura.
Yeah, so that's why a lot of alarm bells are going off for me.
Or the other thing, as I said to you, could be just that.
Look, they wanted to get rid of Trump.
And they used this slightly more serious seasonal flu to say, we want postal votes.
This is the easiest way to do it.
And the other Western countries went into it.
And this was the overall aim.
Get rid of Trump.
And now everybody else in Europe is saying, OK, guys, you've got your way.
Our economy is on fire now.
We want to end this.
We want to end this.
Can you please give us the vaccine?
And the vaccine actually is safe.
And it's fine, what they got rid of Trump.
Laura, you have segwayed effortlessly into the topic, the only other mystery in the world that counts right now, which is this extraordinary phenomenon of where we're being gaslit into imagining that there hasn't been the most epic fraud in the history of US elections.
I mean, I think you'll agree with me.
There is so much evidence now of fraud in any number of ways, ranging from old-fashioned ballot stuffing.
Yeah.
Just some of these ballots have turned into the voting stations and they've been xeroxed and they've just got Biden's name on it.
I mean, they haven't even made an effort to make these things look realistic and these are passed by By vote counters who are not being observed by Republican observers because the Republican observers are kicked out in the middle of the night.
You know, you've got you've got the even even more shocking story.
I think that the Dominion voting machines are actually programmed to convert votes for Trump into votes for Biden.
I mean that these machines were designed to swing elections and that and There's lots of precedent in this in companies that were originally devised in Venezuela to help Chavez win to ensure that Chavez won.
Now, I think that this is a story which makes Watergate look like the teddy bear's picnic.
I mean, it is absolutely it is.
And it's a globalist plot because we know that there's been, I think, what, 400 million We know that Donald Trump has injected from a company connected with China.
We know that this is that Lord Malik Brown is connected with this George Soros.
All the kind of the rogues gallery of left have been involved in rigging this election.
And in the UK, our media has been going, no, And here is President-elect Biden's new cabinet, and this is what President-elect Biden is going to do.
And you haven't just got this in the Daily Mirror, a left-wing newspaper, but you've got it in the Daily Mail, in the Telegraph.
You've got people like Andrew Neil, who we sort of thought for a time was a Conservative.
I don't think he is, actually.
Almost every day, Andrew tweets out that this is definitely not stolen.
No, who could imagine this was stolen?
It's definitely, definitely Biden's election.
And I'm thinking, The lady doth protest too much.
Why all these people?
So go do some journalism.
I know.
I think Trump, for the conservative establishment of the UK, is the line, right?
That they'll be on our side for pretty much everything other than Trump.
And in that is Daniel Hannan and Tim Montgomery and Andrew Neil, for sure.
I don't get that hot up about it because I've only got so much energy.
I'm busy stressing about vaccines and lockdowns and what Christmas presents I'm going to get.
So this is their test and they feel that no matter what else they do, they hold on to their respectability if they say this election is fine.
Absolutely fine and nothing to see here.
They don't even bother reporting on any of the irregularities.
It's all opinion.
And the other thing is, you know, a lot of people probably just want a bit of a quiet life, James, and defending Trump can be time consuming and it creates energy.
But Laura, surely it's not easy defending them, but yeah.
But the reason that defending Trump is It is time consuming.
Yes.
It's precisely because of the way he gets reported in the UK media that you never read a story ever.
Yeah.
In even the conservative newspapers reporting fairly on Trump, let alone positively.
So you never hear.
Yeah, you never hear that he's increased the vote amongst black people and Latino.
Huge increase, right?
And on all the border states as well, I think.
A big increase with Latino votes.
So when everybody tells him, if you take a hard line on the border, you take a hard line on the wall... Oh my God, you're freezing.
Oh, am I still freezing?
That was really bad then.
Every golden word you said just then was just like... I mean, the thing is they don't even report on what, say, what the voting was.
OK, so stuff we can agree on.
So they won't say, oh, well, Trump increases black vote or Trump increases Latin vote.
That's interesting.
You know, he held his line on the border and the wall and all the experts told him he'd be killed in the Latino vote.
No, no, he increases, he increases vote.
Look at Florida.
Florida Latino Vote Central.
We were told throughout that she wasn't going to win Florida.
Instead, the Latinos came out massively for Trump because not least because Florida and Texas, which was the other other state that he was thought he was going to lose, were not subject to these dodgy voting machines.
They didn't think that he was going to the left.
The reason that the left has been caught out on this is only because they underestimated how many people would come up for Trump on the day.
And what that meant was that when they started looking at the results coming in and realizing that he was on course to win, They had to start cheating more flagrantly and desperately in order to correct the imbalance of people democratically voting for Trump and putting him into the Oval Office again.
So they had to, they panicked.
And this, according to the theory, anyway, the positive theory on Trump, I call it positive, is why they're going to get found out.
By the way, you said that you haven't got much time.
You've only got so much time to get emotionally involved in Trump.
It's my belief.
You're talking about antidotes.
Trump is the antidote.
Yeah.
Unless Trump gets back in, what we're going to have is we're going to have this kind of globalist medical sort of big pharma establishment.
Look at look at the moves that that Biden has made already.
Or, you know, I think Mars should be compulsory in every state.
He's no he's no friend to our freedoms, no friend to No, I agree.
Trump would be the counter to all this.
Oh, I agree.
Look, the British, the British media are terrible.
As I said, even if you don't want to be pro-Trump, why don't you just report some interesting stories, right?
As I said, on voting patterns.
How did the women vote?
How did that vote?
It's all, you know, orange man bad.
Yeah.
You know, thanks.
We've heard that.
Go on.
Go on.
You know, go and give me an actual news story.
Now, in my defence of me defending Trump, I went on a big defence of Trump to my parents of all people, who, now this is how effective the media are, so myself and my parents are pretty much actually at one on most things, but they really don't like Donald Trump.
Because they watch CNN.
And when I'm on the phone to them, I can literally hear the CNN talking lines.
And I'm calling them.
I'm like, I didn't call to know what CNN said.
I know what they said, because I've seen it in Michael Knowles' podcast, might I add.
And it's so effective, though.
It's so effective.
So anyway, I did do a big defense of the Donald.
I was like, I love him.
I love his hair.
I love the tan.
I love the tie.
And they're like, no, no.
And I'm just like, Don't, you know, try and manipulate me into not sort of defending someone.
So I will if it's necessary.
But, you know, there's only so much you can do.
But I mean, it'll be interesting.
I mean, yeah, look, it will be bad if he does definitely lose.
And I mean, OK, so this is a story they could cover because he's the equivalent of Foreign Secretary or Secretary of State.
He's another pro-war neoliberal bombing guy.
Have you?
Do you know Biden?
Yeah, Biden.
Biden's sidekick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was.
You know what?
I've been I've been a bit mummy make the nasty things go away.
And in terms of in terms of Biden's cabinet, I mean, I know who you mean.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The very, very suave guy with, you know, the typical, yeah, just typical, typical guy.
He, I mean, let's just see.
Let's do the countdown onto the next foreign war.
Let's just wait and see.
Well, it's interesting, isn't it, that Trump had tremendous opposition from senior levels of the military.
I don't know whether we discussed this on the last podcast we did, but for example, Mad Dog Mattis.
Mad Dog Mattis, who I had thought at one stage was a kind of cool guy because I think when he was taking the bridge at Fallujah, I think it was, he was one of those, he was a bit like Patton.
He was the guy, he's striding around with his pearl-handled pistols while all the men are taking cover and he's like, you know, what is this?
And he's got his hands on his hips and he's giving commands and he's fearless and you think, yeah, This is why this is why America, you know, is great.
But actually, no, he's just another another cog in the military industrial complex.
Yeah.
A lot of a lot of these a lot of these senior senior military figures support the Democrat or the Republican or the GOP swamp, because both those those institutions, whatever you want to call them, both those variety of alligator.
...want more foreign wars.
They want wars so that you get promotions for the senior military, so you get juicy defence contracts and stuff.
And Trump, quite rightly, has been saying, I don't want to get involved in these wars.
They cost blood and treasure.
And yet you never hear this and you'd never know this from the UK media again.
You'd never know that he was the opposite of a warmonger.
If you think if Biden is going to be our next president, can we have some examination on all his picks?
And not just fawning, you know, aren't they great because the orange man didn't pick them?
You know, I mean, the thing is, actually, at the moment, the only pushback is coming, of course, from the hard left, who are seeing some of this, who are seeing a lot of this.
Isn't it interesting?
Yeah.
You are seeing that a lot of the picks are very establishment, military industrial complex, more foreign wars.
So this is the thing.
Sometimes your enemy enemy is the only one who will tell the truth in terms of what's happening in the perceived center.
You won't get it on the right of centre because they're, you know, they're in it as much as anybody else.
So you'd have to go to places like The Guardian or, well, not really The New York Times, but even something more or less than that, to see, to really see what the problems with this guy is, because you're not going to get it from, you know, The Spectator necessarily, or... No, wait, can you say that?
I've published today, actually.
Yes.
In the Australian Spectator, which was the only branch of the Spectator I could get it published in, which I think speaks volumes, I've written a piece saying where, like, this election was stolen.
Biden did not win it.
Why is nobody reporting on this stuff?
And it was, I mean, I am slightly gobsmacked.
Look, we've got We've got certain maverick newspapers, let's say.
So you've got probably the most conservative, the papers closest to where we are, are probably the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph.
And also the Mail, even though, I mean, it got completely cucked over Brexit, and it's been ghastly for most of the time over coronavirus, has recently started becoming very robust.
But, you know, the The Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph, why, for example, is neither of those newspapers running a piece by me or by you saying, I know you may not come across this idea at all, but have you considered that Trump might have won this election?
Why aren't they running these pieces?
I mean, your voice and my voice used to be, would have been considered not beyond the pale at one stage in our career lifetime.
Yeah.
Whether it's climate change or whether it's the Great Reset.
Have you read anything about the Great Reset in the papers?
No.
I didn't think so.
They're still considered, you know, I think sort of too, too far out there.
As you said, they just don't look at the, because they don't want to look at the evidence or they don't even want to think about looking at the, you know, looking at the evidence.
Look, I think, I mean, in terms of, you know, generals being brave on the battlefield, I mean, this applies with media as well.
You know, people hate being crucified by the mainstream media.
That is scarier than being fired at by the Taliban, in a way.
If they come at you, or if you're a journalist and you're suddenly put outside the circle as opposed to inside the circle, people find that quite terrifying.
You know, so I mean, I never considered myself inside the circle, so it doesn't really matter to me.
But if you're in the telegraph and you're deep in it and you think you're going to run something that's a bit edgy, that will will put you on the far right, not not, you know, some cave dweller on Twitter, people whose opinion you actually value and suddenly you're considered far right.
You know, that is a terrifying prospect for a lot of people.
And this is You know, this is part of the reason why they're just so, so careful.
You know, it takes courage to run those pieces.
One of the best things that's happened to me in my life, Laura, and I offer this as a tip to anyone, I now do not give a flying fuck what people in the mainstream establishment think of me.
I just do not care.
And occasionally they have a go.
There's been a couple of instances on Twitter recently where that guy who, the guy who owns Hattrick Productions that puts out Have I Got News For You, I forget his name, Cambridge graduate from the North.
Whoever he is, you know, probably got quite a strong Twitter presence.
This isn't James Felton or someone, is it?
No, no.
Oh no, that's a different person.
Who is James Felton?
Where does he...?
Like, he's a nobody.
Who cares?
Never heard of him.
Yeah.
But, OK, so... Oh, what's he called?
Anyway, it doesn't matter what his name is.
No.
This guy once asked me on Have I Got News For You.
You know they pay, like, £5,000 to go on there?
No!
They pay you £5,000!
And I said... I said, not interested.
Not interested in being your token right-wing dickhead to be mocked by your left-wing... Anyway.
I would never turn that amount of money!
Never!
No, no.
No, no.
Well, you see, integrity is worth more than money.
Well, I won't say what I want to say, but, you know... He tried tone-policing me on Twitter.
You know, he tried sort of suggesting that... And I see this now and again.
And I think, I see what your game is and I'm not going to play because you are part of an establishment that I so despise that it is a bit like Walking along and seeing a dog turd and suddenly the dog turd says, you are really right wing and evil.
And I'm thinking, yeah, but you're a fucking dog turd.
I know, I know.
The how dare you's, I get a lot of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
With a lot of my culture pieces, I get that.
How dare you?
You're so mean.
OK, so this brings us on to Laurence Fox having his lunch.
Oh, yes.
Well done.
And you know, when everybody gets, and you know that they're getting desperate when they do the hot, I prefer if they just go, you're an asshole, right?
But then they do that.
But people are, but people are dying, Lawrence.
Oh, you're so, I think with Brian Moore, you're so selfish.
You know, you're so selfish.
No, you're the one trying to control other people and who they have for lunch.
You know, this is what we get back.
You, you are, you are this dressing up their sanctimonious garbage.
Right?
With the how dare you's and we all have sacrifices to make and you're just like, give me a break.
And it's like, if you are more worried about who Laurence Fox had for lunch than the fact that, what, 12,000 jobs may go if Arcadia go.
Right?
And the thousands of jobs that will go in the airline industry.
And the fact that people are killing themselves over the lockdown, which was, there was a latest suicide reported in the Daily Mail.
You know, and the fact that new mums, the post-natal depression rate for new mums has gone up again because of this lockdown.
But you never, you know, you don't spend a half an hour of your life tweeting about that.
You will tweet about Lawrence Fox's lunch instead.
You know, you might as well.
Yeah, just don't, and then, oh, but that's whataboutery.
And I heard it, it says, what about whataboutery?
Whataboutery exposes what your motive is.
You know, if you care more about X than you do about the way more important issue Y, then you're just grandstanding.
I'm not interested in what you have to say.
You know, because- I agree.
It's all about them saying, I'm a nice person.
I could really get going here.
So what these, and you get this a lot on the left, If you notice, they're personalized.
Now, I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I'm genuinely not naming anybody.
Oh, I will name somebody in a minute.
Their personal lives are a shambles, right?
Because they think that if they want, they want to save the world, for instance, and this gives them moral license then to treat their spouse like rubbish.
So day to day, if you look at these people, you'll find they probably get in from their hard day's work fighting climate change and are just garbage to their face.
You know, just in small ways, because they are... Boris's dad.
Boris's dad.
Do you like this?
What's he called?
I don't know.
Have you not read the biography?
Well, I mean, Boris.
What's he called?
What's Boris's dad called?
I don't know.
You know these people, James.
I don't know them.
Oh God, yeah, it all came out in the biography.
He literally did what you described.
He went around the world, saving the world from climate change.
Meanwhile, he left his wife stranded and miserable in Exmoor without a car.
And then he came back one day and broke her nose.
That's exactly what you described.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So you get a lot of this.
And I mean, I think a lot of this sounds you might have even got it in the old days with conservative Victorian women.
They did.
They were essentially the social security net.
Right.
They did all of the calling and they would genuinely would have done a lot of work in their communities, but like terrible to their kids.
Enid Blyton.
Amazing stories.
Terrible to her kid, right?
She was properly neglectful to her.
And I actually wrote, I actually read, because of the new biography or autobiography by Steinbeck out, right?
The Grapes of Wrath and all this.
Yeah.
Right.
Yes.
So he was really for the little man, really, you know, he would go out and look at all the terrible, and it was terrible, poverty and the depression.
Very, well, poor family relations.
And I think, I read this in Culture magazine, the Sunday Times, one of the kids, he rubbed one of his children's noses in like dog excrements.
He was in such a rage or something.
Who did this?
Steinbeck.
The Grapes of Wrath.
Yeah.
A wanker.
Yeah, so you've got to be careful about a lot of it.
Well, I mean, look, I think it spreads both left and right.
If you feel you are amazing and making huge cultural or societal changes on defending the weaker person, you know, often they treat the little people around them quite poorly.
You know, so you always say, I remember saying to my daughter, she's really young, I'm like, you know, when and if and when you ever go on a date, always check what they're like to the waitstaff.
And if they're, if they're rude to the waitstaff, you never see them again.
That's a good mother's tip.
Well done.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well done.
That's really clever.
Yeah, and lofty.
You, you don't want, you just don't want to know them.
You don't want to know them.
Yeah.
That is... yeah.
You do.
You want them to be kind.
You want them to have a good sense of humour.
I think those are almost the most important things, actually.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, this did come to think of.
I did Moral Maid yesterday, for anybody who wants to listen to it.
Oh, how was it?
Well I thought it was good and it was quite ironic because I was on the opposite side to Melanie Phillips because you know that unfortunately Melanie Phillips is very pro-lockdown.
She's lost it.
She's absolutely jumped the shot.
I've had lunch with Melanie.
I know Melanie and you know obviously she's normally on the right side of pretty much everything.
I think it's because I think she genuinely just Again, being beneficial.
She just is genuinely scared and wants to save the other people.
I mean, you know, I think that's it, but I disagree.
Scared is the word.
Yeah.
I've got no respect for people who have a thunk, you know, I mean, I'm sorry, but while you're cowering and gibbering, the rest of us are going over the top and killing the enemy.
She's gone over the top on 95% of the big issues.
You know, she's gone over the top on 95% of the big issues.
So, but I think...
And now she's got a shelf shot.
The interesting thing is that we were on the opposite side.
So she was examined, because you know how moral mage works, right?
You've got one witness and you're examined.
They've got a panel of four and they're split, normally left, right.
So normally you'll be a left winger examining me, but it was Melanie Phillips and, oh, you know, the prosecutor guy.
I don't always say this, but I thought I did well.
You can re-listen to it if you want.
It's on the iPlayer.
I'm second off, so you don't need to... It's on the BBC, Laura.
It's on the BBC.
You've basically consorted with the BBC.
I'm not sure if I should talk to you again.
Okay, well... So, who was on your side?
You know, this is so bad.
I listen to myself and then I turn myself off.
Yes, absolutely right.
I'm the only one worth listening to.
Tim Stanley was the panellist on our side.
On our side.
And then Andrew Doyle was also saying, let's have Christmas.
Tim Stanley, let's have Christmas.
I'm let's have Christmas.
But other, they had a scientist on and I don't know who else.
But the thing is, because it's moral made, just while we wrap this subject up because it's linked.
You know, they get obviously, I mean, that's fine to get moralistic on the moral maze.
And I'm just thinking, it's like, you know, you're the good guy for you're a bad person.
You might spread the disease if you have Christmas.
And I'm thinking, this is what the government wants.
And again, so Boris Johnson is giving is essentially giving me lectures on morality.
And we've done him before, right?
Boris, the philandering, abortion paying for, I'm on my, I'm making my way onto my third wife, although I still haven't married her yet, even though they have a child together and she's living in Downing Street, is now going to give me lectures on the morality of visiting friends or not visiting friends.
And I'm like, you know what?
I think I'm pretty well positioned to make this decision myself.
Thanks, Boris.
You know, you are in no position to get on your moral high horse.
What a crazy world we live in, right?
You treat your family like garbage and you think that you can, but because you're saving people from COVID, right?
He's probably even worse now because if he thinks he's saving, you know, the whole country from COVID, God knows what he's like.
Could be, you know.
So be wary.
Be wary of the Great Crusader because on a micro level he's rubbish.
If he comes cruising round my neck of the woods and tries to pull me, I'm going to say no because I can see he's a loose man.
His morals are loose.
He's not having my bottom, I tell you.
Yeah, yeah.
So I mean, it's just it's the same thing on Twitter, right?
It's a lot.
It's all moral grandstanding.
And everybody is trying to say who's the nicer person.
But this is why the left are often very effective, because for the right, they have managed to demonize the right, not just as having bad policies, but being bad people.
That's why we've always been at a disadvantage.
Absolutely right.
Can I talk to you about another of my Bugbears, which I'm sure you'll share with me.
Yeah.
Which is this phenomenon whereby commentators who really should know better act as the useful idiots of government's draconian policy, authoritarian policy.
For example, there have been certain columnists, and I'll name no names, I think they're of the female variety, Writing pieces about, I'm really quite glad that Christmas is being banned this year.
I really don't like the hassle of having relatives around.
And you're thinking, this is a piece that should never have been written.
It's completely unconscionable.
You are turning a... it's a bit like in sort of...
It's a bit like some columnist in Nazi Germany saying, well, there is an upside to the Jews being killed.
At least now we can get jobs in banking, whereas before we couldn't, or something like that.
It's like making light of something which should never be made light of, because it's really, really, really serious and bad.
I think, look, every year, every year, the Guardian will run some ridiculously laughable piece on, you know, I'm not wrapping the presents anymore.
Women do too much wrapping and, you know, or, you know, I can't believe that it's typical that Father Christmas is a man.
You do all the work and he gets all the, you know, he gets all the credit.
And they always run one of these pieces.
But as we said, as I said before, you know, a lot of this is giving coverage to, as I said, the narcissists and the Grinches that hate Christmas anyway.
And I mean, it's one thing to actually be honest about it and say, listen, this actually suits me.
You know, I'm happy.
I'm happy not to have to do that much work.
But then when you get people like, you know, Piers Morgan or whatever saying nobody should do it.
And again, dressing up, you're essentially Grinch them.
And narcissism and spoiling everybody else's fun with, as I said, you know, self-righteousness.
That's just a lie.
And there are a lot of people, there are a lot of people out there, as I said, who, look, you get this a lot on the left, right?
They just like to crush other people's joy.
So say they see a great work of art.
Oh, but it's by a straight white man.
So you can't enjoy the beauty of that, that work of art anymore.
So they destroy that little piece of joy.
Or again, they do with Thanksgiving and Christmas all the time.
Oh, you know, Thanksgiving, why are we celebrating the genocide?
Why are we celebrating the killing of the Indians?
So let's crush that joy.
Don't celebrate it at all.
Let's crush that joy as well.
You know, or, you know, I mean, the whole, the whole The point now of this wokedom is to crush any pride or joy we have in our entire cultural heritage.
So how very dare you be proud of the fact that Churchill and Britain saved Europe from the Nazis?
Didn't you know he was a racist?
So they pick, you know, and we're not just talking about respectable historical criticism here, which is fine.
You know, that's fine.
But they have been on a downer, basically.
Right.
They have been crushing joy in small things for years now.
So you shouldn't be surprised that they're now trying to crush all the joy out of Christmas.
You know, oh, if you have your and not only are you being consumerist, but you're going to kill your granny as well.
This is what they do?
Yes.
But I think we ought to make a distinction here.
We expect this, as you say, it was the Guardian's annual piece.
Yeah.
And it's fine.
It's what the Guardian does.
I'm thinking very specifically about people on our side of the argument who really ought to be fighting tooth and nail for freedoms and are then conceding the pass by pretending that this is just a ha ha ha.
I mean, you see this a lot in the Telegraph.
The Telegraph did a We did a news report on how Sage tells us we should be spending our Christmas and then it had a list of Sage recommendations and one of them was, I remember, seat grandma near an open window so that she can...
So the fresh air can... And you're thinking, hang on a second, isn't she more likely to catch a chill and die that way than she is of catching coronavirus from a slightly less or more ventilated room?
And what bothered me about this was that this was not satire.
The Telegraph was not saying, look at this ridiculous... That's the kind of thing I mean.
Look, I can't defend them.
I mean, I guess it's either that they just want copy or someone has said to somebody, listen, I'll pay you if you write this.
Bill Gates did.
He gave them three million dollars.
Oh, yeah.
Well, there you go.
So there's your answer.
It's either money or just influence or fear.
I mean, say it should be relentlessly mocked.
And I did I did a blog on this a couple of days ago.
It's like now you cannot question the science.
So the science and this is what they did with climate change as well.
So what they do is they take what should be a political issue.
Right.
So meaning you could be for and against it.
But if they can move it to the science category, then it's no argument.
This isn't politics.
This is just science.
So now, you know, you can't question the mad scientists.
You can't question SAGE.
And if you do, you're now anti-science.
So this is what they will have done to you with climate change.
If we can make a certain policy, not political, but scientific, then you're not allowed argument.
And if you do argue with it, you're a conspiracy theorist.
That's why I'm so familiar with all this stuff.
Because I've spent 10 years or more fighting the same phenomenon with a different name.
You know, climate change is COVID-19.
It's just the early version.
Yeah, I don't mind.
As I said to scientists, just give me just the facts.
You can tell me how it spreads.
You can give me the breakdown.
You can, you know, all of that.
But once you start advising me how to live my life, no, no, no.
Now you're straying out of your field of expertise.
And I also said, you know, a lot of these, so one of them in the Times, Times 2, was like, genuinely, I can't believe, I don't understand the calculation that would say, you know, we've come this far and we've risked, sacrificed so much and a vaccine is just around the corner, why you would throw it all away at Christmas, okay?
And I'm thinking, yeah, I know you don't, you literally don't understand it.
Because you're an atheist and you have a completely different... The thing is, I'm wary of these people because their value system will a lot of time be completely different to mine.
You know?
Well, also, don't forget, on the subject of scientists, a lot of these people aren't hard scientists.
They're social scientists.
Some of them have got arts degrees, not science degrees.
They're public health experts.
Well, public health is a huge can of worms.
It's a social science.
In other words, it's not really a science at all.
And as Richard Lindzen said to me, anything with science in the name isn't actually science, you know?
Science is stuff like physics.
Social science, yeah.
Same with studies.
Gender studies.
Yeah, anything with studies in it, yeah, yeah.
Unless it has physics or chemistry on it, it's neither studies nor science.
Yeah, no, I know.
It wasn't Richard Lindzen, it was Will Happa, who was, you know, I mean, he's one of the greatest Scientists living in the world today, you know, worked on the missile programs and absolutely brilliant.
And he was scathing about this stuff.
But one of them particularly, that woman, Susan Mickey, you know, you're talking about she's not a Christian.
You're right.
She's a communist.
She is an actual communist.
And she's a behavioral scientist.
She's not a real scientist.
And yet she's on the stage panel telling us we can't have Christmas.
Go figure.
And what, by the way, Jonathan Van Tam, we haven't mentioned him, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, saying that when he was asked about whether, now that there was a vaccine, can we stop wearing masks, and he said something like he'd rather people continued wearing them, like forever.
Really?
Because the guy, the head guy in the US said that, I saw that clip, but I didn't know that they said that here too.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, this is the thing, you know, you have a mad scientist stereotype for a reason, right?
Because they are just obsessed with solving the problem in front of them.
They don't care about anything else.
And for the politicians to sort of hide behind them, right?
And to use them to say, this is just science, it's not a political decision, locking down your country, destroying businesses, destroying people's lives.
It's science.
It's so cowardly.
It's just so cowardly.
Single objective function.
They're absolutely driven by one particular goal.
Speaking of moral license, because, you know, on The Science is Sure, our friend Ferguson, if you want to know about, you know, trashy personal life, he has the open marriage, right?
So, I mean, I'm not going to take moral teaching from you, Professor Ferguson, who has pretty much broke the first lockdown that everybody obeyed to essentially answer what was no doubt a beauty call, right?
Oh, totally, totally.
I've just had one more thought, which ties into what you've been saying.
About useful idiots, about people who should know better.
Alistair Stewart, you know, the newsreader who's been sensibly critical of the BBC.
For an ex-BBC man, I think he was BBC, he's quite on our side of the argument.
And yesterday, he was tweeting out about what an amazing communicator Jonathan Van Tam was.
And I tweeted, yeah, so was Goebbels.
The idea that these people are being judged on the way they communicate their propaganda, and not on the quality of the argument, I think speaks volumes about how piss poor our media are these days.
They're not interrogating these people.
They're not interrogating the facts.
I just think, I think a lot of people in the media are terrified.
People are genuinely terrified of being called names, you know, called conspiracy theorists.
How dare you?
So people toe the line.
People toe the line a lot, you know, and I think, again, it may be that, like me, they just want it to be over, you know, and maybe this is it.
It doesn't excuse it because they are journalists and they should deal in reality and not fairy tales.
But, you know, look, what can you say?
Let's see how the vaccine rollout goes with all the elderly people and, you know, we'll see.
But I wanted you to discuss The Crown because we need to do a bit of TV.
We're going that way now.
Yes, of course.
Laura, well done.
No, I like that.
Again, no one even noticed the segue there.
It was like, you know, Yeah, moving on next.
Yeah, the crown.
So do you want my view or are you going to give me your view first?
Yeah, I read your review.
So you give the viewers your view then.
I think it takes tremendous artistic liberties on occasion.
And you can see that the guy who wrote it is a man of the left rather than the right.
Occasionally shows itself, whether it's deliberate or accidental ignorance, but where the Queen uses the word blood sports, which she would never use.
She would always call them as field sports.
OK.
And the way it kind of manipulates history.
So, for example, Margaret Thatcher loses, loses her son, Mark, in the middle of the desert.
Yeah.
And this is this is timed.
When supposedly the South Georgia is being invaded by the Argentines prior to the Falklands War, and actually it didn't happen in that period.
They were in reality, they were two months apart.
And although I sort of understand that you've got to shape history to create a sort of satisfying narrative, nevertheless, this is definitely fiction we're being presented, not fact.
And I think that is slightly dodgy, given how Elsewhere, they've sought verisimilitude.
I mean, the scenes of Stag Stalking, for example, are just magnificent.
They take the breath away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's so much money has gone into the locations and the casting is often really superb.
I think the girl who plays Diana is fantastic.
Emma Colan, I think is her name, yeah.
Yeah, really, really good.
Yeah.
But it's dangerous because it gives people a false impression of history.
So Tom, give me your take.
Well, as you know from the previous podcast, I don't watch a lot of TV.
So I'm really giving someone a compliment.
You watch Terminator, basically, over and over again.
You are Sarah Connor.
Yeah, a lot of people like that bit, by the way.
So I've watched all of The Crown, and because pretty much everything on TV is left-wing, I sit there praying for a Conservative-like programme to come along.
Now, up until this series, I think I, again, maybe the hopeful part of me, the Bambi part of me, thinks The Crown is quite a Conservative watch.
Because it talks about duty, it talks about sacrifice, it talks about personal sacrifice a lot, tradition, custom.
And it's also, especially the first three, there's quite a lot of religious themes in it.
And they did an episode with Philip's mother, Prince Philip's mother in it, who was a nun.
I loved that episode, actually.
Yeah, that was a really moving episode.
I mean, I was properly moved on that.
So she was a Greek Orthodox nun.
And it was pretty accurate as well, because like you, you end up on the phone, because I'm younger than you, so I have to check this stuff out.
I didn't live through the Falklands, so I don't remember it.
I get to get that in it.
Oh, Bambi.
You are Bambi, aren't you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you know, I'm checking a lot of this stuff on the phone and that was a pretty accurate episode, supposedly.
So, you know, to me, I'm sorry, it's not Fleabag, right?
They're not pushing some sort of liberal individualist garbage on you, right?
Fleabag.
Most overrated series ever.
I don't ever watch that.
So I'm trying to give the crown the benefit of the doubt.
Now, I mean, I did enjoy the episode.
I totally get it.
And the thing I found interesting is that a lot of people said it does a hatchet job on Charles.
I mean, I was a bit like a plague on both of their houses.
I can I can imagine that it was, you know, horrible for both of them.
And although the detail may well be made up, I mean, we pretty much know it was a horrendous marriage and it was essentially an arranged marriage.
And you do have, I mean, it actually in a way would bring out the Republican in me, because obviously I would have less attachment to the royal family.
I'd have it be attached to it for conservative reasons, namely we should be slow to take anything down, right?
But I'm not British, so I don't have the same, you know, I respect them, but I wouldn't have the same love.
But that gilded cage element of it, to me, that would be the argument From republicanism, if you're watching season four, you're just thinking that you can't do this to people anymore.
You know, you can't demand that they have an arranged marriage.
You can't demand this level of personal sacrifice to fulfill a role that Charles may not get until he's, what, 70 or 80?
Don't upset me.
I'm hoping... I'm banking on never.
Please God, please let Charles never be king.
It may well skip him.
It may well skip him.
But from a personal point of view, I mean, he can't be that bad.
That's his whole life gone, James.
He's never been... No, he is.
Laura, he's pushing the Great Reset.
He's very, very dangerous and stupid.
He's that combination of Because he's got nothing else to do.
And the devil makes work for idle hands.
And you're sitting around, instead of him being able to go off and become whatever he could have become, maybe not a lawyer because he mightn't be that bright, but, you know, a podcast person, for instance, you know, and it's even worse for Andrew and Edward.
Why do you think Andrew ended up getting caught up with all that nightmare acting thing?
Because these are rich kids with nothing to do.
So, I mean, I think he would have been a very good Scarecrow.
I think that would have been within his talent range.
It's just this massive gilded cage.
It's a massive gilded cage.
It causes all sorts of personal problems.
If they have personal problems, then it comes back as your problem if they start pushing things like the Great Reset.
I thought, so in terms of, oh yeah, I tell you, I didn't enjoy it as much mainly because of Just how sad they were.
Like, it's just miserable, right?
Margaret's miserable.
Anne's miserable.
Diana's miserable.
Charles is miserable.
And I never, I haven't felt the same since watching Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited drink himself into an early grave.
Where you're just nearly, it's not a horror film, but you're just hiding behind the couch watching this personal disaster, you know, come about.
And honestly, I've never been happier to do the laundry and the housework.
Because I'm like, maybe they're just miserable because they've got nothing to do.
You know?
What do you think about Margaret Thatcher?
So yeah I mean it was oddly although I do I think I mean I I that she well I thought they did an okay job on on her I don't think they were particularly Ghastly.
But Gillian Anderson, do you think it was a kind of caricature or do you think it was a sensitive performance?
I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt.
I mean, I don't get why she always had her head that way, you know, but I thought she was good.
And I thought the last episode where the Queen gives her the, it's in her personal gift, the Order of Meris, is it?
She hands it over to her and she pins it on her.
It was quite a moving scene.
I tell you what, Do you not think Olivia Colman hasn't been good as the Queen?
No, she hasn't been.
She hasn't captured that special magic the Queen's got.
She just makes the Queen look a kind of grouch.
And the one before Olivia Colman was much better.
Yeah, I mean, Claire Foy... I mean, the thing is, of course, she's just beautiful, right?
And those first two episodes are just...
This amazing aesthetic thing to look at.
And for me, you don't get that a lot on TV now because a lot of it is just, you know, blood and gore and people being... So those first two episodes are just, as I said, so aesthetically pleasing.
And I mean, you, as you said, you enjoy the hunt scene so much, right?
This amazing scenery.
So these are things that you can at least appreciate.
I think it is a beautiful watch.
In terms of how they put the set together and the clothing and similar scenery.
And so that all sets a little bit the misery and the fictional taking of liberties.
I mean, look, I know some people think, oh, they did a hatchet.
I don't think they did a hatchet job on Thatcher.
And that final scene of the Queen giving her that personal, I think it's Order of Meritors, whatever gongs you guys have, was very moving.
And so there do have some moving, you know, elements in it that probably make it worth the watch, like Prince Philip and his mother in season three and that final scene in season four.
But it is quite, I mean, it's kind of a hard watch in a way.
So it was... I liked the episode with the Nazis in it.
Do you remember the Nazi episode?
That was great.
Which one was this?
Where the young, I think the young Prince Philip has to go to a wedding of his cousin in Nazi Germany or something?
I mean, anything with Nazi and it's got to, it always perks it up, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
And the one about, the one about Charles at Gordonstoun having a really rubbish time.
That was, that was good as well.
I enjoyed seeing Charles put through the mill because of what he's doing to the country now.
I was thinking, God, I'm glad you had an unhappy childhood, because at least it's sort of pre-payback for what you're doing to the country now.
No, James, the reason for why they're like now, again, this is the maternal instinct, is because they... I know that you went to Eton, but it doesn't paint a very good... I didn't.
I didn't.
I didn't.
I went to Malvern.
I mean, OK.
I agree.
Certainly, the prep school experience I had in the 1970s was not dissimilar from people who went during the war.
It was absolutely spartan and horrible and strict and stuff.
And did it damage me?
Well, I mean, look at me.
I rest my case.
Let's do the boarding school thing for a minute.
So this is where I get to say, see, you're the Queen, in the Conservative land, you're the Queen, James, and I am Margaret Thatcher.
I am the middle class girl, and you're slightly aristocracy, okay?
So, I mean, you watch Charles in the Scottish boarding school, and you're just like, this is just a horror show.
And he referred to it as Colditz, right?
Yeah, my prep school.
Well, CS Lewis also went to boarding school.
A much smaller one, not one of the fancy ones.
He went to my school.
CS Lewis went to Malvern.
Well, the first one he called Belsen.
You know, so if you're calling all these boarding schools like Galditz and Belsen and, you know, concentration camps, you're just like, and anyway, he does a few, he does a few chapters in it.
And it's honestly, the way he does it, it's really worth reading.
And he said, first of all, he's like, there was loads of abuse, loads of abuse.
CFOs would say, not between teachers and students, but between the older students and the younger ones, right?
We're talking proper abuse.
And he would say that wasn't even the worst thing.
It was the whole fagging system.
That was the worst thing and how they tried to, you know, humiliate the boys.
And he actually went on.
It's so good the way Lewis said that because he said, you know, the reason they set up this system is to try and say to the boys, there's nothing special about you.
You know, you have to fit in here.
And of course, there will be a minority of boys who would completely reject that and say, I'm way better than you.
I, you know, I don't fit in here.
And they took that with them through their whole lives.
And he actually said, and this must have been, and this was right before the First World War, he wrote an answer to that.
And he said, like, this is the reason the country is in the mess that it's in now.
And when I was reading it, I was thinking, this is, this is Boris's problem.
This fits in so much with what Lewis was explaining.
Seriously, you'd make a nerdy close down all the schools tomorrow.
Go on, defend.
You know, and then I'm going to have my coffee because it's coffee time.
But I'm loving this conversation.
You are great.
I really love you.
No, I think you're fantastic.
And I agree.
You look back at the history of public schools.
I mean, not Eton, for example, which was founded in 1440.
So, you know, you can't say it had the same purposes.
Most of the schools, like the ones I attended, were founded in In the middle of the 19th century, my school was founded in 1865, and they were designed to train young men to run the empire.
Sure.
They tried to instill that sense of moral duty, which is why you went to chapel every day, although that's been removed from the curriculum now, sadly, I think.
It's designed to make you play games like cricket.
I bloody hate cricket because the ball is really hard.
When you catch it, it hurts.
When it hits your body, it hurts.
And it's quite scary having to... But that's all part of the training program.
You know, if you're not good at cricket, you don't fit in.
It's all about fitting in.
I was... I was at school.
My house was... You won't be surprised to hear, was the crazy outsider house.
We were just... We were just lawless.
We had a sort of laissez-faire housemaster, God bless him, called Mr Stewart, and our house was unusually creative and we just did not... we did not fit in.
It was great.
We were very proud of this reputation.
And if you look at the history... OK, well, I said Eton's not like other schools, but look at the history of Eton.
Eton undoubtedly has produced conformist people.
It prepares them to run the country, basically, to become part of the establishment.
And I look at the behaviour of people like Boris Johnson, like David Cameron.
Look at them all.
I mean, Prince Harry, Archbishop Justin Welby.
Justin Welby.
They're all creatures of the times.
They're all creatures of groupthink.
They're all sort of aligning themselves with the political correctness of the day in order to get on, in order to fit in.
But equally, you do get people rebelling against that system.
Look at George Orwell, an Ottonian.
Look at me, an old Moravian.
My brother, well, both my brothers actually, they're not, we don't fit in at all.
And, but, sorry, the final point I was going to make was, yeah, Public schools are undoubtedly guilty of all the things you accuse them of.
But is their indoctrination any worse than the indoctrination that you get in state schools, where you are brainwashed into the values of the liberal left elite?
You know, you get fed drivel about climate change, which isn't true.
You get fed the left narrative on everything.
So I think schools are places of indoctrination, which is why so many people like us are into homeschooling.
Yeah, no, I agree.
Look, you're right.
I guess what you would say is just that there is just less of it, right?
If you're at boarding school, you're there the whole time, right?
So there's no hiding from whatever propaganda they may be pushing.
But of course, yeah, I mean, a regular non... I mean, the Church of England schools aren't great anyway.
I'm certain they're... I mean, my kids go to a Catholic school, but they'll still absorb a fair amount of You know, your mainstream PC nonsense.
You just try and sort of shield them a little bit.
I mean, in defence, I think, of course, boarding schools now are a lot nicer.
It would be more the, you know, just how harsh a regime it would have been, especially to very young kids, like seven or eight.
You know, these boys, they shouldn't, you shouldn't be sending your kid, you shouldn't be sending your son to boarding school at seven.
Like, it's just not... I did.
Yeah, well... No, not seven, but my little brother, I went to boarding school at six.
That was really harsh.
They're so sensitive.
They might be boisterous, right?
And they might trash your house.
But little boys are so sensitive.
And the idea of handing your child over to someone and saying, see you at Christmas.
I mean, yeah.
I did it to all my kids.
You did not?
And they've turned out really well.
All of them?
Yeah, yeah.
Not seven, no.
Nine, I think.
OK.
Well, I mean, even two years.
I think 12, 13, I think that to me would be the youngest.
But I think nine is still, you know, it's still young, man.
They don't hate me for it.
No.
And you know, actually, you mentioned the point.
Are they all boys?
No, two boys and a girl.
OK, OK.
So you said that, OK, it's worse because they're there all the time.
But actually, the bits where they're there all the time, they're actually engaging with their fellow kids.
They're not being indoctrinated 24-7 by the staff or by the system.
Actually, they enjoy a degree of liberty within that.
They interact with... So no, I wouldn't say that they're any worse at indoctrination than Yeah, and I mean, you know, if you bring your kids home and they spend all the time on the internet and watching the BBC, then it's the same amount of damage.
I mean, of course.
Exactly!
Worse!
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I absolutely agree.
There's pluses and minuses.
I'd say they're pretty harsh in the 40s and 50s.
I know you've to go but there was, Ian Hislop did a series on the stiff upper lip.
The British stiff upper lip, right?
And it was it was quite funny, but there was a letter to a boy that basically he read out a letter.
This was, I mean, probably a hundred years ago of a boy in a boarding school.
Same thing he was explaining in that they're training them to go to the empire.
And, of course, smallpox.
He was rushing, like, making its way through this boarding school.
I know it killed, you know, a fair few kids.
So he writes to the mother, this little boy, and it's like, you know, the smallpox is here.
I'm just wondering if you're coming to get me.
And they never came.
Because as you say, the thing was to make the sacrifice.
No, you cannot be soft.
You cannot pander to this.
If he's going to go to India, he'll have to survive smallpox.
Yeah.
I'm just thinking of the, you know, the contrast to now, whereas if somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who had a cold, they'll shut the whole school down.
That's what they're like now.
That is what they're like now.
It's ridiculous.
Look at what's happening at Eton.
Trendy Hendy, their ghastly, woke headmaster.
But that's for another day.
I need my coffee.
And Dora, you're fantastic.
And thank you for bringing Thank you for bringing in all this new traffic and for being interesting constantly and for being one of the true conservatives.
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