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April 30, 2021 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
54:29
James and Laura's Chinwag #18
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So, Laura, I was on the march.
Oh, yes, I saw that.
I saw your Twitter feed.
Don't worry.
I've been Twitter stalking.
I'm glad.
I'm really glad that you are aware of its existence because so many people, I mean, like I went riding and they asked me what I've been up to.
They do.
And I said, oh, I went on the big march the weekend.
They said, what march?
It wasn't in the papers.
And it makes you realize that so many people, particularly of the older generation, Yes.
Are still stuck on there.
They watch the BBC.
Yeah.
They read the Daily Telegraph and they imagine they're getting the news.
I know, I know.
It's extraordinary.
I think that's the most depressing thing about this because, no it wasn't, it made the Sunday Times, it was around page three and the headline, it was quite small and the headline was, you know, ten arrested ass You know, lockdown march or something and a nice picture of a police officer with lots of blood down his face.
So they were any headlines that ran it were all that.
You know, these are basically violent far right thugs that that was.
Have you seen the footage of that particular incident?
OK.
Oh, no.
The guy.
Yeah.
This is the thing.
Everything.
Everything is recorded.
If you know where to look.
Sure.
There was a I mean, to a degree, the police provoked it by forming two lines and kind of marching to confront these people who were basically playing music in Hyde Park long after the march was over.
Yeah.
So it couldn't really be connected with the march.
I mean, unless everything that takes place in Hyde Park is de facto a march, which I don't quite believe.
So the guy who was provoking the police, he went in front of them and really sort of wound them up.
He was wearing a mask and he was obviously Antifa.
Nobody, not one single person on that march was wearing a mask because why would you?
I mean, it's anathema to us.
We don't believe in masks.
It was fantastic being with so many people and not wearing masks.
And the guy's behavior was completely, um, it contradicted everything I saw on the march.
That everyone was friendly to the police.
They were happy.
I think the police were, I mean, we got on, we got on perfectly well.
I had one exchange with a, with a Burley police sergeant who, who was telling the people around me to keep Moving because otherwise they'd end up being squashed by the people behind and there could be a sort of you know a safety incident Yeah, which is only concern that was the only kind of that was as heavy handling as the police Handed as the policing God.
Yeah, and then suddenly you have this incident which is completely Just just not at all like anything that's happened before and you realize we are being played this guy was either a national provocateur working with the authorities or he was just antifa doing what antifa do I mean I suspect possibly the former it was all a bit too.
I mean, they needed that headline.
Yeah.
I mean, I just, I mean, even if it wasn't your, your, your, if it was one person out of how many were on the March 20, I mean, I don't want to say he wasn't, he was wearing a mask and he was not like us.
As I said, it's more than media coverage.
The media, again, we've said it every week, they are so biased.
I mean, as you say, I don't watch any of it.
I can't remember the last time I turned on BBC News.
I don't watch Marr.
I don't watch any of it.
I do get The Times, just, you know, to know what they're saying.
And now and again, I listen to Radio 4.
But yes, unfortunately, for pretty much everybody over the age of 45, And even, you know, in our what we would traditionally have called allies, they get all their news from the BBC and from the papers.
And that's it.
And, you know, if there's this what they say and they actually accept it is truth.
Um, and you know, I don't, I don't believe anything they're saying.
Um, but it's, it's, it's annoying.
Yeah.
And the fact that the march is completely ignored.
Well, I mean, it's just typical, you know, it's just, just because, you know, there's somebody did up somebody's flash somewhere, uh, in Downing street, which is like a much bigger story that, you know, somebody, uh, again, we're, we are not people to defend Boris Johnson, but this story.
It's such nonsense in that, first of all, it's only £60,000.
You've already blown like, what, £60 billion or something on all this COVID nonsense.
And you're worried about a £60,000 donation not being declared.
It's just... It's that whole story.
I mean, it's not just that story, but the Dominic Cummings blog post and the events leading up to that where Cummings was accused of being a leaker of what?
I mean, it's pantomime, it's theatre.
It was coming, right?
The other question is, what's the motive for saying that Boris had said, I'd rather see the bodies piled high?
I mean, I don't believe it.
And secondly, but I am interested in to see what is why is the motive behind that?
Why are they running that story?
Is it to?
I think it's obvious.
Bounce him into another lockdown in autumn is as easily as he can.
Well, you tell me.
Yeah, because you you're more than I am.
I mean, yeah, it's it's obvious what's going on here.
I mean, the media in cahoots with this horribly bent, useless, dodgy administration is gaslighting us to believing that there was only one decision to take on lockdown and that lockdown is necessary and that this was what protected us from mass deaths.
So here is Boris Johnson saying something, I think he probably did say it, saying something with actually, I think, any sensible person would agree with that.
Yeah, actually, I'd do anything to avoid another lockdown.
I mean, obviously, it's not very good for a for a prime minister to be talking about.
I don't care about bodies piling high.
But even this is this was colloquial speech.
He wasn't he wasn't making sure it wasn't a newspaper article or a commons speech.
I'd like to hear him.
That Boris had actually said stuff like that because it shows that he's got a sense of perspective and proportion that finally, you know, we recognise that that it is a it is a trade off to a degree between why I didn't buy that line.
Actually, I think I don't think it is a trade off.
I think there should never have been lockdowns.
I think there should never have been mass.
They should never have been quarantined.
I think we would have got through fine.
You know, in a Sweden style.
But what you see is how we are being manipulated.
This is the story.
We are now being invited to be shocked that Boris could consider there is anything more important in the world than locking us down forever.
Yeah, no, I know.
Do you think it was leaked by Gove?
Oh he probably, I mean I'm glad you said that just for my own clarity and I'm sure the readers are the listeners and also yeah because everything now and what the inquiry which they will eventually get will absolutely be the only narrative now rewriting history will be not only was lockdown right but we didn't lock down hard enough and early enough right so everything
Everything is directed towards that, and that's... I mean, I could write the inquiry now, Justice McWhatnock will say, well, you know, it was... he did dither, and it was outrageous, and so X... and then some scientists will say X many lives could have been saved if we'd locked down in, you know, November or October, and stopped anybody from doing anything.
Or 10 years ago, actually, it would have been a lot safer.
People understand they basically locked down for six months from November because it was only two weeks in December.
So I mean, this is just it's just as you said, the whole thing is nonsense.
Everything is gaslighting.
You know, it's there's a sense of comedy and there's a sense of Roman emperor about Boris sort of sitting there with his harem, his latest, you know, lover.
Of half his age and she's demanding whatever fancy wallpaper that she's demanding and then they have to go off and find someone to fund it because he's too busy paying off all the previous lovers he's had and all his previous kids.
And you're just like, this is what happens.
Again, for me, from a sort of a cultural point of view, this is what happens when your personal life is a shambles, right?
If you leave yourself exposed, people will think, oh, this could have happened to anybody.
Look, whatever you say about Keir Starmer, it wouldn't happen to Keir Starmer because Keir Starmer doesn't have, you know, a line of lovers going back 20 years that he's had to pay off.
So Boris is tight for cash, right?
And he has the lifestyle of You know, of somebody who he needs a lot more money to run the lifestyle he has, right?
Because if you want to have the four wives and the ten kids, that's going to cost you.
And he doesn't have it.
So that's why he has to get out his begging bowl, you know, every whatever two or three years, probably to fund whatever the latest scheme is and to keep to keep the latest the latest lover happy.
So there's an element of comedy to it.
But yeah, I mean, all of it, the serious side is all of it is is saying that, you know, we should have locked down harder and earlier.
Yeah, go on.
That's that's right, that we're being manipulated.
I mean, actually, the fact that we're even talking about yeah, this is it really would make no difference whether Keir Starmer was running the country or whether Gove was running the country or whether Dominic Cummings was back in the it's all Pantomime.
These people are just irrelevant to what's going on.
This is happening across the world.
You look at what's happening in India right now.
Look at how that country, everything that's happening is being manipulated to fit into this agenda, which is This is a deadly plague.
We must vaccinate.
We must have these vaccine passports.
Any other way is irresponsible and is killing people.
And it's extraordinary.
I mean, you've got people who probably couldn't even place India on a map, suddenly quoting India as the paradigm which demonstrates that this is serious.
I actually had this problem.
I had this problem the other night.
With some friends who came to came to Playbridge, you know, sceptic sort of the husband is sceptical on most issues, absolutely, completely buying into the whole government narrative about, you know, the lie narrative that this is a this is a pandemic and that we must vaccinate and vaccine passports are good and the vaccines don't kill you and everything like he believed all this shit.
But, and his wife started citing India.
Well, what do you think about India and Brazil?
And I was thinking, well, I know what I think about the kind of the fake news coming out of India and Brazil.
I don't know what's actually happening there, but I suspect it's not as it's being depicted.
It's everything you read in the newspapers and this is this really bothers me as a journalist.
Yeah, you know you there's this you conservative woman girls and who else I mean, there's the critic to a degree and there's there's me.
Nobody else is doing their job.
They've all given up.
This is what people say at the march, by the way.
They were loving you and me.
They were saying, I feel like I haven't been pulling my weight, as you know, for the last month, but there's been crazy stuff going on at home.
Not crazy, just, you know, refurbishment and stuff.
But yeah.
People respected you because you were doing the mother thing.
How is your pregnancy going?
Oh, well, I'm bumping.
That is not a lockdown diet, people.
Yeah, it's all going well.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's good.
It's good.
So that's the main thing.
I think people are happy that you are a kind of good Catholic mum, because it's old school.
People are saying things like, I don't like this new world where we are muscling our children in schools and forcing them to take experimental MRNA therapy.
Well, it all links in because I'm going to go back.
So this vaccine passport, which, as you know, seems to be the end game.
You're like, OK, so I totally don't think anybody cares about this coming story.
They only care about whether or not they're going to Greece.
So again, I'm reading in The Times today.
So even if you're a pro-vaccine passport, all it does is it lets you go to Spain.
And unless you come back, but even if Spain is on the green on the green list, you still have to take, I think, two tests, they said.
I think that's what it said in the paper, either two or one, but at least at least a test.
So think about it.
Say I didn't care and I thought I'm going to get my vaccine so I can get my vaccine passport so I can go and see myself in Spain.
We have five in our family, same as you.
The tests are around 100 quid a pop, right?
They haven't, there was a story that they'd reduced.
They're not, they're 100 quid a pop.
So if they get the kids to test, which they will, then that's an extra 500 quid, even with your passport and your digital passport, right?
That can be zapped all the way around the world.
And even if it's on the green list, on your return, you're still adding 500 quid to your ticket.
So, I mean, what's the benefit, right?
I mean, even if I was setting up a vaccine passport scheme, if I was to sort of, if I was in government and I was going to sell it, I'd be like, okay, this is an actual passport.
You are exempt from everything, right?
You don't need a PCR test going out.
You don't need a PCR test going in.
You'll be, this is going to save you 500 quid.
But you're like, There's no benefit to it.
And of course, even if I, I mean, you know, eventually, as you know, they will want to vaccinate the kids.
So even if I was kind of going to wobble on, or you get some people going, well, you know, I don't really want it, but I want to travel.
So the two adults get your vaccine, because you want your vaccine passport.
It's like, well, there's no way I'm getting the kids done.
Right.
So you're back in square one anyway.
You're going to have to jump all the hoops and get all the tests anyway.
So I mean, you know, pick your pick your line, people.
Just because you think if you get the vaccine, you're going to save yourself 200 quid.
If you've got three kids, your choice is either to give them this Vaccine, which is completely and utterly unethical.
And or you're down 300 quid and 300 quid is a lot of money to people.
I mean, it's a lot of money to me.
It might be to other to other people, you know, so it's it's they're selling this as a great sort of, you know, passport to freedom.
But it's not it's just it's just I mean, those passports, those tests are such a racket.
I mean, who is some some people are making a lot of money out of this.
Oh yeah, mostly friends of the government, friends of the administration, like Matt Hancock's local publican.
And yeah, it's extraordinary, this orgy of corruption that we've seen in the last year.
And it's one of those weird situations where, what's it called, fox batterer, the kimono fox batterer, weirdo.
I still don't like him.
I know.
I know.
No, he's a tosser.
But sometimes... Manon or something.
Oh, I've forgotten.
Readers should know.
Jolion.
Jolion.
Jolion Wag.
He has a posture.
Jolion Wag.
Yes.
So Jolion Wag.
He does seem to be fighting a few legal cases against the government corruption.
So hats off for that.
Although I look at his tweets sometimes and they are still so sanctimonious.
And I think what people don't understand Is that that woke the whole identity politics thing everything that we can't stand about the subversion of academe etc that the corruption of television?
Well, I could like it needed corruption corrupting.
Yeah, but everything we object to on the on the kind of culture wars front.
is just another branch of what's happening in the the biosecurity state front.
It's all part of the same overall plan to crush our culture and our civilization.
So I kind of think people who are tweeting woke tweets while simultaneously fighting lawsuits against government corruption, they don't quite get it.
They're still kind of No, no, no, they don't.
I mean, you certainly can get an overlap between, you know, us and people who you would think, you know, we have nothing else in common kind of thing.
That sometimes happens, you know, you find yourself on a march with Jeremy Corbyn or whatever, but you always have to be very cautious about it.
Or Piers.
Yeah, or Piers Corbyn.
You always have to be very cautious about it.
And the thing is, I mean, looking at the, so he runs the Good Law Project, and I think they did an interview with him in the Sunday Times, I didn't run it in full, but what always annoys me about this, and I hold myself partly responsible, the Good Law Project are, you know, there'll be a group of barristers, I mean, a lot of human rights barristers are all left-wing and they test the government on various, so say there's a cut to social welfare, there'll always be a case on that, etc.
But what annoys me is that there isn't a right-wing equivalent.
You know, so there isn't a group of barristers to get together.
I mean, you could say the Free Speech Union would be the closest you'd get for whatever lawyers are working on that, where something comes up and maybe the Christian Concerns.
I've just undermined my argument.
But basically the equivalent of a right wing lawyers who will take certain strategic cases, you know, against the government to test whatever mad policy they've brought in.
I mean, it can happen, but they're not as coherent as, say, something like the Good Law Project is, because the left are very well organised and that's Oh, and you know, they're incredibly well organised.
That's why they've had all the big cultural wins.
Oh, this gets me on to my rant about the silent majority, if you want me to do that, which I may, whereas the rightists aren't, you know.
Talk about it, because when you've had your rant about the silent majority, I'll tell you about two people I met.
Yes.
In the last few weeks.
Give me your silent majority.
Okay, so well it links back into because there's a few stories have come and gone since we saw you last.
So I got there, I was the only one on the right and I think even you, me may disagree on this.
So you know the Bahamut cartoons?
In the schools, right?
And there was a big hoo-ha.
Now, of course, I don't agree with the protests, and I don't think the teacher should have been fired.
That goes without saying, OK?
But what I do disagree with is this idea, and it stopped me joining the Free Speech Union, is that, you know, we just defend, we defend any speech Anywhere.
And I'm just thinking, what are you talking about?
I mean, schools, first of all, are one place where actually speech is quite restricted.
Okay.
And also prescriptive.
You know, it's prescribed what you can say.
So you can't You know, you can't go into a school and give a speech and just say that is obviously anti-semitic or obviously racist or obviously sexist or whatever, right?
Everybody accepts that you cannot do that.
You might agree or disagree on what constitutes You know, each of each each category.
So that's that's the first thing.
And actually, when you think about it, well, teachers go in there and they actually have to teach a certain curriculum so that, you know, you can't go into a science class and then start even talking about English.
And surely this is what the right get get get, you know.
angry about is when you hear about a school that's gone completely woke.
And you're like, well, really, when you when you push it, you actually are saying that those teachers should not be speaking in that fashion or shouldn't be teaching, you know, critical race theory and saying to white kids that they're inherently racist.
Okay, so let's just abandon this idea that schools are some sort of free speech oasis.
It's not question time.
The classroom isn't question time.
It isn't this podcast.
And the other thing, of course, is the audience.
Kids can't get up and leave, right?
Whereas if you're on a speaker's corner and you're in Hyde Park and you hear somebody say something offensive, will you just go on your way?
OK, so when it comes to free speech, viewers, it's always what's being said, who's saying it and who's the audience.
So this is why back in the day when the Christian right actually had some leeway and would get angry about a book or a film, say, the argument would always be, well, don't go and see the film, which is true.
There's an element, there's an element of truth to that.
But as I said, the kids can't get up and can't get up and leave.
They have to sit there and listen to whatever either woke nonsense is coming out of the teachers or indeed somebody waving around a Muhammad cartoon.
But so that was my first thing.
And then I just think about, yeah, so this, and then because it came, uh-oh, no, no, I don't wanna do any of that.
So then it came across, and then I don't know if you saw the story soon afterwards about the Pimlico Secondary School, where it is quite a left-wing, so quite a left-wing school in Pimlico, very well-known.
And it hadn't hit the news, but previously the kids had taken down a British Union flag and burnt it.
And basically the headmaster, I think, has had to issue a groveling apology over uniform policy, where he said hair must be neat so Afros can't Block someone's view and hijabs can't be too colourful.
And of course the kids won on this and they got a grovelling apology.
But it all overlaps.
So then I'm thinking about, then you get Well, it comes back to this silent majority.
So you get people who go, Lawrence Fox sometimes says, you know, most people aren't into this whole woke agenda, blah, blah, blah.
And I stand for the silent majority.
And I'm like, yeah, but the silent majority are silent.
Therefore, they're completely useless.
So I'm really Digging at my own side.
Because you get so many people that in their job, right, or say something happens at their school, it could be small, and they'd rather, I'm just going to keep the peace.
You know, I'm just, I'm just not going to speak up.
And I'm like, no, viewer.
Yes, you have to pick your battles.
I agree with that.
And I don't think you need to go in there all guns blazing over something small or trivial.
But on the other hand, if you feel your school or something you actually have control of, unlike, say, Boris's flat being done up, you have to use your voice.
I dunno.
No, I don't.
I mean, I can't agree with you on the Bradford school, because actually I saw the people who were stirring this trouble.
You know, there are these sort of activist groups which are there to cause trouble.
And that's what's happening.
And that teacher, his life has been ruined for just trying to teach a kind of... No, I knew he disagreed.
No, you know he used, specifically used the Charlie Hebdo cartoons?
Yeah.
Yeah, I knew you'd say that, but it wasn't just a picture of Mohammed, was it?
Those pictures are Mohammed with a bomb A bomb on his head.
OK, so you're implying that essentially Muslims are terrorists.
Now, look, listen, I am nothing.
I like to be consistent.
If, say, 20 years ago when the IRA were blowing stuff up all over Britain, somebody brought in, you know, an image of St.
Patrick with, you know, carrying a semtex.
suitcase into an Irish Catholic school in the middle of Birmingham.
Would I have a problem with that?
Yeah, I would.
I mean, I wouldn't go down there and ask for the teacher to be fired, but I would raise it and I would say, this isn't acceptable.
I don't think it's helpful.
You know, and it's a school.
So it's not just, it wasn't just that it was a blasphemy image, because there are other images of Mohammed he could have used.
And remember that those images, those cartoons were used specifically to offend, right?
Because that magazine is a satirical magazine, right?
I'm not buying into this whole offense.
Offence-taking is a kind of national sport.
I mean, look, I tell you what, Laura, I totally like the... If someone went in there and started, like, into my kids' Catholic school and started trashing, you know, Catholic teaching, yeah, I would speak up.
And if someone said back to me, oh, well, this is free speech, I'd be like, this is a school.
It's not question time.
What are we going to do about it?
I'm not saying I would gather my mob together and march on down there and ask teacher X to be fired.
But I reject this idea that there is just some sort of free speech, you know, everywhere.
It's nonsense.
We've loads of laws against specific speech.
I like the heroic loneliness of the thorough that you're playing on this one.
And I totally I totally respect that.
I think, you know, I disagree with you.
But I like.
But I was the kind of thing.
Why are we.
OK.
Awful incident.
But why are we talking about this when we are just losing our entire civilization?
I mean, that's a facet of it.
But actually, there's so much worse shit going down right now.
Well, I think what happens in schools is really important.
And most of it comes from the left, OK?
So if you want to set out your parameters, you have to be consistent about it.
So, you know, if someone comes in and say trashes the Queen or trashes Churchill and all the rest of it, not in a sort of let's have an academic discussion about this, or you had the guy at, what was it, the guy at your school, at Eton, Who has been suspended?
It wasn't my school, but my son's school.
Well, it's your son's school, yeah.
The thing is, look, I just think given we're the country, look, let's get Get real here.
Given we're the country that invented, that gave the world Gilray and Hogarth, inventors of satirical humour, I think it's not unfair to expect people who live in this country to be able to deal with satirical cartoons which are flashed briefly across their eyes, the teacher having worn them first.
I think you're choosing a really, really weird hill to die on there, if I may say so.
I don't know what kind of features it's got.
It's a blue and purple and red hill with spots on it.
It's the weirdest hill I've ever seen.
It's a hill that says schools are not free-for-alls, therefore don't go into my kids' school and start saying that like girls can become boys.
Our boys can become girls.
It's actually quite an important hill in terms of, you know, objective truth is important and you shouldn't just randomly go in there and kind of mock, as I said, into a captive audience that says, And just expect people to say, Oh yeah, that's fine.
You can just, you can just trash, you can just trash my beliefs.
I mean, this is the whole taking the knee thing, right?
Weren't we all pretty, well maybe you weren't, weren't we all like, why are all these sports stars taking the knee in the middle of all these, right before, you know, before sports matches?
Are you saying I was supporting it?
No, but that's their free speech.
But that's their free speech.
If they want to take a knee, take a knee.
No, they're not speaking.
They're just, they're just going on their knees.
And actually, look, and also, also, also, actually, actually, Laura, it's the, the problem I have with that is that they were never exposed to the audience, the people who pay their salaries, because of the, because of the anomalous situation in which we find ourselves, where people haven't been able to go to football matches.
I mean, can you imagine a Millwall crowd reacting to that, to taking a knee?
I mean, did you hear Toby, Toby, Toby, well, yes, the worst, was it West Ham I think?
Toby went to the FA Cup semi-final and I think there were 5,000 people.
In a stadium designed for 80,000.
And they all had to wear masks.
And I said, and did they take the knee?
And he said, yes, yes, they did.
And the worst thing was, as they did so, a ripple of polite applause echoed around the stadium.
And I was thinking, yeah, because that's what happens when you give tickets to middle class wankers.
I think these people should suffer career damage for doing this kind of thing.
By the way, can I change the subject to your topic?
You're into tennis, aren't you?
Well, I can't play that much now, but yeah... No, no, but you care about Wimbledon, don't you?
Well, yeah, yeah.
I do care, but I'm just one of these weird people that I much prefer playing than I do actually... Yeah, obviously.
Obviously, you're just way better at playing than... Yeah, I know.
Go on, go on.
I know Wimbledon.
So Wimbledon, I think I'm going to boycott Wimbledon this year because of the, I suppose, is it the Lawn Tennis Association or that's the one that organizes Wimbledon, isn't it?
They've decided that all the players cannot rent houses like they normally do and hang out with their families.
They've got to stay in a special quarantine hotel.
And the audiences are really, the crowds are going to be much, much reduced.
So I happen to be on a, um, you know, one of those WhatsApp groups where there are various people who know serious amounts about tennis, let's say, put it that way.
And I, so I put out this question, why don't these, Why don't these players, the leading players, take a stand and just say, fuck off?
Because in the same way that my hero is, um, what's he called?
Um, Max Verstappen in motor racing.
Do you know why?
Because Max Verstappen refused to play the woke, the woke bullshit game that that ghastly, what's the English guy?
Oh, he's insufferable.
Lewis Hamilton.
Absolutely insufferable.
I hope he loses every race ever, ever.
There's something about him, he is...
I don't think it's enough for him to lose.
He's got to come last and his tires have got to go.
I don't know.
He's got to lose all his money.
Stay on Wimbledon now because I know I agree, but this is the same thing.
This is my whole silent majority thing.
Oh, well, I just have to.
I don't want to lose my job.
I want to play Wimbledon.
No, tell them to fuck off.
I agree.
I am.
I am living proof.
I've completely sacrificed my career in the mainstream media, which pays.
Absolutely.
And I don't feel a shred of guilt about it or whatever you're supposed to feel about it.
I don't feel awkward or... I'm really happy to have cut loose from those mofos.
I wonder if Federer is going to play though, because I doubt he's going to sign up to that, right?
Because his whole family, his whole family travelled with him.
He has, what, the four kids?
He's got two sets of twins.
And he hasn't played before now, because he's like, I'm not playing without a crowd.
Why would I do that?
Yeah.
Same with Djokovic.
Really interesting response.
From who?
I'm not going to say who, but from a tennis expert.
Oh yeah, go on.
So I said, you know, why don't the leading players tell them to fuck off?
Because money, okay, is nice, but principles are more important.
And somebody said, it's a good point, James.
And the Barcelona, James, I like when they talk to me personally.
And the Barcelona tennis event last weekend was played to a packed house, apparently.
So Wimbledon has no excuse for these reduced crowds.
And also, aren't all the restrictions supposed to be lifted in the middle of June?
Yes, exactly.
So it makes no sense.
No, I agree.
Here you've got this.
And this is not just in tennis.
It's happening in rugger.
It's happening in football.
All these, all this, this kind of bed wetting stuff is being gold plated.
If you can gold plate or sort of yellow, yellow piss plated by the people who run these sporting events, who seem to be really woke, obsessed with diversity, obsessed with it, with Black Lives Matter.
And don't seem to have much love of the sport.
It's all about virtue.
People need to take a stand from the bottom.
You know, it's interesting because one of my tennis friends, so everybody, if you're part of a club, they're all allocated, I think, a certain amount of tickets and most clubs will run a ballot, OK?
Now, I've never gone into the ballot because I've always been like, the kids are too small and actually the tickets are too expensive and I don't want to sit there and watch tennis for five hours.
I'd rather play it.
So anyway, but one of my friends did get the ticket and I think he got it for like Centre Court or Court 1, like one of the big ones.
So it didn't happen last year.
And he's like, I'm like, oh, well, you know, that's unfortunate.
And he said, oh, it doesn't matter.
You know, it'll roll over.
Now, this is courts way, way back last year in June.
He said, oh, it doesn't matter.
It'll roll over until next year.
And I texted him at the time.
I'm like, are you serious?
We're all going to be in NHS Stadium.
Oh, we're all going to be in the stadiums by then shouting NHS!
I've been more ish kind of proved right because they're vastly reducing the tickets.
Right.
I think there's only I don't know.
It's the whole thing.
It's just ludicrous.
Yeah.
I mean, it makes no sense.
You're outside.
You're in a stadium and you all have to wear your stupid masks.
And like, who the hell wants to do that?
That's the thing.
That's the thing.
I really want to go to a church service.
But I will not go to a church service with bloody masks.
I will not.
But it's depressing.
And I want to drink communion out of an actual cup that people have drunk out of and that their gob has gone in, like we used to do in the old days.
Yeah, totally.
Totally.
That's part of the deal.
No, I know.
I get it.
It is depressing.
Actually, that brings me on.
So I think... No, not... Hang on.
I haven't finished my tennis story.
Oh, sorry.
Go, go, go.
Yeah.
This expert person said, the problem is, History, with a capital H. Djokovic, who is very anti-vaccine and has been publicly named and shamed for doing so by the tennis media, is currently on 18 slams.
Two away from Federer and Nadal.
No, I get that.
I get all that.
All-time record.
And has limited time left to catch them, especially with all youngsters coming along.
A difficult dilemma for him as he is opposed to what Wimbledon has planned.
But guess who's totally on board with it, apparently?
Oh, well, go on.
I can just go on.
Well, who would be?
I don't know.
I mean, all the... He's Scottish.
He's woke, probably.
He's also really annoying, Andy Murray.
They do have four kids, though, so I always like that.
I think they've had their fourth or they've had their third.
I forget.
Yeah, I know.
He's annoying.
Well, he's not Lewis Hamilton levels of annoying, but he is kind of annoying.
Nobody is Lewis Hamilton levels annoying.
Lewis Hamilton's got to be the most annoying alleged sport.
I mean, it's not really a sport, is it?
Not really.
Driving a car, I don't think.
No, no, no.
Not tennis, I'll tell you that much.
It's not like fox hunting.
It's not a proper sport.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I agree.
I agree.
I forget what the rant was I was about to go on because it was quite a good one.
Oh yeah, no.
Who was the MP I mentioned?
The woman, the old woman.
She had an affair with John Major.
Who the fuck does that?
Oh, Edwina Curry.
Yeah, yeah.
So she's on.
She's on a while ago.
I just saw it on Twitter.
She's on one of the TV boxes.
You know, they're going on about vaccine passports.
Should you need to show a vaccine passport in a pub?
And she goes full Karen.
I like to use the Karen a lot.
You know the Karen thing, yeah?
Yeah, yeah.
Middle-aged women who complain about everything.
So she goes full Karen.
She's like, yes, they should be barred from the pub.
I don't want any of these unvaccinated people anywhere near me.
Blah, blah, blah.
Full Boomer, full Karen.
And you're just like...
Man, I mean, you are the reason.
And I was thinking, I don't want them anywhere near me.
I don't want anywhere near me.
And I'm just thinking, actually, I would like to take you up on that offer, Edwina, because I don't want to be anywhere near you.
So when you said about being on the mask, or on the march with the unmasked, so if they're going to bring in these stupid vaccine passports for the pubs, can we have a pub that opts out of it?
Entry is, you can only go in without a mask, without social distancing, and I mean you can go in if you've got a vaccine if you want, and obviously like no papers, so that we can actually just spend time together with normal non-hysterical reasonable people and all the crazy other people can go to the pubs with their vaccine passports.
There's got to be an audience for that.
Oh, I don't think that this is totally off the cards.
Just to go back to the march a second, the atmosphere was just something else.
You could not have had a more mixed, you know, if you were a kind of liberal guardian reading type, And you wanted a kind of the perfect example of multiracial Britain.
It was there.
There was a hundred year old bloke there.
There were loads and loads of black people and all the ethnic minorities.
There were sort of white upper middle class people from the shires.
There were, it was crazy.
But the great thing was, everyone was the kind of person you'd like to hang out with.
You'd want to go to the pub with these people.
The atmosphere would be really good.
These are the best of Britain.
And it's not about class, and it's not about gender, and it's not about race.
It's about values.
And these people all have the same values.
Yeah, it really is about values.
Far more diverse than a Black Lives Matter march.
And you can bet, you can bet your life that every single black person there has never, ever once in their life played the identity politics card, the race card, because they're not that kind of people.
And I wanted to tell you a story about somebody I met on the, I went campaigning on the Lawrence Fox bus.
Oh yeah, go on.
Oh yeah, I saw him in Bromley.
I didn't talk to, I just took my, I was shopping.
So yeah, I saw him there.
Should have gone to say hi.
So it's so it's great.
So so he's got this double decker bus with the with the top off and, you know, one of those tourists, tourists.
Yeah.
And at the end of the march, we we drove back down Oxford Street and we were he was he had a loud speaker and he was telling people to take their masks off.
And we were singing and we were singing, take your mask off for the lads.
It was funny anyway.
So earlier in the week, I went on on his bus and I was talking about education.
I got into conversation with this black woman sitting behind me.
Yeah.
And I was thinking, oh, that's interesting.
You've got to got a black woman on the on the Lawrence and the Lawrence Fox campaign bus, given that he's so racist, you know?
Yeah, I heard.
And I thought she'd be the most fantastic interview.
So I got talking to her and she said and she was from France.
Originally she was born in France, but had to move to England when she was 18.
I said, are you happy here?
She said, I love this country so much.
She said, I've been so happy here.
I much prefer it to France.
I've never experienced racism once in my life here.
You get racism in France, but people, you know, people who say it's a problem here, they're up there.
They're lying.
And she'd been so furious when she'd seen.
Fox being being accused of racism for his remarks on Question Time.
And she recognized instantly that this was the kind of the radical left playing its kind of, you know, Alinskyite rules for radicals game to destroy a target they didn't like.
Nothing to do with fairness or whatever.
And I said, this is this is.
Would you say this on camera?
And she said, I'm really sorry.
No, if I were recognized, he said, I work in the civil service.
And if I were recognized, I would lose my job.
And she said, I'm better off.
I'm better off serving our cause where I am anonymously, believing the things I do are more useful than than making a quick hit on a video and then being kicked out of my job.
And I had a similar conversation with a female barrister the other day who I also met and She said again, there are loads and loads of people in your profession, the legal profession, who think as we do, but cannot say it, cannot admit it.
And they know it would be career death.
So she said, but do you not think it's more important that we're there keeping quiet?
But, but, you know, we're sort of.
Well, I mean, I think it's easy for me.
Obviously, it's easy to say, you know, look, you know, your person has to eat, right?
And if you need your job, you need your job.
But again, I think, you know, you know, this what annoys me a lot is the self censorship.
So say you're literally just chatting, you know, to another colleague, I'm not not talking about even doing podcasts or tweeting, you're chatting to another colleague, and he says something that's left wing, whatever.
And he assumes that or she assumes that you agree.
And I think a simple, actually, I don't agree with you on that, can be quite powerful.
You know, what can they do to you? - Well, that's you and me. - Say it was Trump or the president, someone's trashing Trump or whatever, and you just say, well, actually, you know, he has his issues, but I don't like Biden.
I don't like him.
So I have this with the kids sometimes, you know, because obviously they're like, who do you want to win?
And I'm like, well, I want Trump to win.
And everybody in the school would have been like, oh my God, he is like the antichrist.
Ooh, he smelled.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there was probably a bit of back and forth.
And I have said to them, you know, look, I'm not, you don't need to get into an argument with people.
You know, they're only, they're only little.
You know, people say things that often, what I'm saying is a lot of these beliefs are very shallow.
They're only skin deep.
And just saying, actually, I don't agree with you on that.
The person behind them, the other part of the silent majority that your female barrister thinks is there says, yeah, you're right, I'm with her, you know.
So when I say, you know, the silent majority, see, I'm sorry, but that lacks courage.
Again, I am not saying, you know, burn your, burn your career down so that you're flip, you know, you're on the furlough.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
You know, so there's certain, there's certain things, but this is, you're all kind of already, in a way you're paid to be opinionated, right?
I get it, if you're embarrassed or whatever.
But I do think, because the thing, what these people don't realize is, so if they give way on A, Okay, you give away on line, and this is all, this being the last 40, you give away on line A that, okay, it doesn't really matter.
I'm not that big worked up about it.
Then you're always playing defense, right?
Then suddenly they come for you further back and they want more and they want more and they want more.
And then, then there's something really critical.
Then you're on your hill, right?
You're on your hill that you're going to be willing to die on.
Okay.
And, but you have surrendered.
On so much that it's so much more difficult for you once you get to the hill you actually care about.
And in a way, I agree, because I have always I guess I've always had a reputation of being sort of contrary or whatever.
So people sort of just know, oh, well, that's Laura.
But they would very.
You know, I've never paid a big price for it.
And the other thing is, you have to be willing to lose friends over this.
That sounds bad.
And I definitely, I'm pretty sure, have lost friends over it.
And it's like, if they are like, look, I just can't be friends with her anymore because of X, then it's sad.
It's sad.
But you, that person, as they always say, is not a true friend to you.
Because I wouldn't, there's only, there's probably only two issues.
I would not be friends with somebody over.
So I wouldn't do it to them, and if they're willing to do it to you, then you're better off without them.
And then that, of course, that opens up space for somebody else to come in that does agree with you on certain things, and you may form a bond with, etc, etc.
So it's not... The self-censorship is...
Completely wrong.
You shouldn't be doing that.
Again, you don't need to go in there and sort of burn the place down.
But if it comes up, and when people assume that your opinions are on a certain issue, you know, how dare they?
No, actually, it isn't.
So that was one thing.
And oh, because you said it as well.
So I read one of your blogs.
On Breitbart.
Oh, which one was it?
But you said about how political correctness and how Theodore Dalrymple had said political correctness is actually, again, a form of humiliation in that people say things that they don't believe.
And this is definitely what the transgender thing is, right?
You're you're sort of forced into accepting that men can turn into women, et cetera, which is just impossible.
And they don't... well, actually, I do think they want you to believe it.
But even if they don't want you to believe it, they want you to say it.
They want you to actually lie.
And then a part of you dies.
Slowly.
You don't.
Yes, it does.
As well as Tinkerbell.
Yeah, so it's not... it is a form... it's a form of cowardice, and it...
It's, and again, it's a form of self, it's a form of humiliation.
You shouldn't engage with it.
There's ways of, you know, dealing with things.
You know, if someone was transgender before me and they obviously presented as a woman, I wouldn't just purposely call them a man or he, I would just call them by their name.
Okay, because, you know, if they're in their place of work, fine.
I would just call them by their name.
But that doesn't mean to say that on the principle, You know, it's a difficult one because I've been in this situation.
When do you when do you refer to them as a she?
I mean, if they've got kind of long hair, a high voice, they've had their balls chopped off.
By the way, they're like hardly any of them do that.
That's like a tiny percentage.
No, no, no, no.
But if they have gone all the way.
Yeah.
They've earned the right.
Yeah.
I would prefer to them.
I would try and refer to them as their name pretty much all the time.
But I would be very... I know what you mean.
Because again, to me, that would be a form of lying.
But then on the other hand, so that's what I would try and that's what I would try and do.
What about Jan Morris?
Oh, who's that?
Formerly James Morris.
James Morris was one of the first kind of, I mean, you know, very early sex change was a travel writer became Jan Morris.
Well, you know, I mean, as I said, as I said, I just I just used your name.
You can change your name.
You can't change your gender.
You know, but again, if you're out in a restaurant or something and you're having lunch with this person and, you know, you wouldn't sort of, it would actually be confusing in a way to use their old pronoun if everybody else thinks they're a woman and you're referring to them as he, well then you look like the muppet, right?
And it's just not necessary.
So, you know, most of these conversations... But you might say, Zachary for the lady.
Well, I never say daiquiri for the lady, James.
You might say that!
I'm just looking at the clock, Laura.
It's so exciting to be back with you.
And, you know, the band is back together and it's great.
And lots of people are going to be really excited.
We're like a pop duo, aren't we?
I think we're probably the Eurythmics, would you say?
Would you like to be the Eurythmics?
Maybe, I don't, yeah, I really, as you know, I, yeah, rhythm's fine.
I'm not great with popular pop.
Yeah, I can't think of other iconic male-female pop QOs that we could emulate.
Yeah, that's true, that's true.
I mean, I'd quite like to be the Pet Shop Boys, but they're two men.
Yeah.
That doesn't work.
We have to do movies as well, because I liked our movie chats.
It was good.
We're going to do that.
It's only that the wife's got a Zoom call in the office soon.
I just wanted to say the final thing.
Did you see Alastair Williams' comic has had his YouTube channel and 50,000 followers just deleted just like that.
The purge is getting worse and worse.
And I wanted to say to our audience, Please make sure that you've you've got in touch with me by email.
I think I think if you go to my website delingpoleworld.com, I think there's a thing where you can register your email address, which is kind of helpful because you don't want me to suddenly to disappear and not be able to know where I am.
It's quite a hassle looking around for me and maybe I'll put up the details below our A chinwag so that people can, I mean, you can find Laura, a conservative woman, apart from anything else.
But yeah, it's I mean, these these are definitely worrying times of censorship and we're going to have to find our little pockets.
It is like the dark ages, isn't it?
It starts with the simple, personal thing of, you know, I don't agree with you on that.
You know, this is this is it.
The self-censorship, it will only get worse.
People who self-censor.
You have to stand up.
You're right.
It's just it's so bad.
It's so bad.
Oh, Laura, I've got to tell you the most amazing story before we go.
OK, my mom, my mom.
Oh, yeah.
She she went to I mean, mother's been wearing masks throughout because when you're when you're of that generation, I mean, she's she's just turned 80, I think.
You get ostracized if you don't.
I mean, they're all kind of complete bedwetters.
For the same reason, she had to get the vaccine, even though, sorry, the experimental gene therapy, even though we all asked, begged her not to, but she couldn't, you know, because her partner and et cetera, et cetera.
Anyway, she was in Tesco, one of those big Tesco super stores, which had an escalator in it.
And I think it was Tesco?
I think it was Tesco, one of those stores anyway.
And the escalator had broken down.
Right.
And there was this massive, massive queue in front of the lift.
Yeah.
And Mother joined the queue and she saw to her horror that the lift, which had been designed for eight people, was carrying one person at a time.
No, it's crazy.
People are crazy.
And this was people deciding this.
I mean, there was no security saying they must.
And Mother got to about eight in the queue and said, look, this is silly.
We're all perfectly healthy.
Most of us were wearing masks and most of us had our jabs.
Why don't we all get in the lift together?
And another man said, that's a good idea.
Yes, let's do that.
All eight of them got into the lift together.
And I was so proud of my mum to do that.
Everyone should be doing this.
It doesn't require much.
I know.
I agree.
It's the power of one.
And actually it's not the big things.
It's small things like that.
I am telling you, they are really important.
Really, really important.
Yeah.
It matters.
So you may not all be James and Laura, but you can, you can still be, but you can be James's mum.
Yeah.
In fact, no, that stuff is even more important, I think, than, than our stuff.
It's raining it.
Oh, I agree.
We're used to doing this stuff.
It's our, it's our meat and drink to us, but, but for, Well, bread and butter, at least.
But for Mother, it took quite courage, I think.
Yeah, no, I know.
Laura, it's really great to have you back on, to be back together.
And we'll do another one next week.
Yes.
Yeah.
Cool.
Thank you.
Take it easy, James.
OK.
Bye bye.
Bye bye.
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