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Sept. 1, 2021 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:29:52

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #210

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	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 1st of September 2021.
	I'm Josh of course and I am joined by Stella Perrett who was a cancelled cartoonist for The Morning Star and we're going to be talking about both your kind of experiences, your circumstances, we're going to be talking about the Marion Miller case in Scotland where she's being taken to court for supposedly Transphobic actions and comments and we're going to be talking about a Republican House Representative who has gone on
	a mission to Afghanistan against all odds to rescue a woman and her four children.
	So, to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself and What you've been doing with your career.
	Of course, you've been a cartoonist for quite a while.
	How long were you at The Morning Star, for example?
	Thanks, Josh, very much.
	It's nice to be here in sunny Swindon in your lovely studio.
	Thanks for having me.
	Well, for those of your audience who don't know me or my story, yeah, I was a cartoonist for the communist newspaper The Morning Star.
	It's a UK newspaper.
	It's quite small circulation, about 20,000, but it does come out every day.
	So it is very unusual in that sense.
	There is no other daily communist newspaper.
	And I was with them from 2015 to early last year when this cartoon of mine that's on the screen was published and published.
	The proverbial hit the fan over this cartoon.
	So explain what the cartoon is actually about for people who might not be able to understand.
	Okay, so early last year there was a big government consultation had just finished about the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
	Women's groups all over the country were contributing to this consultation and so were trans rights groups.
	And this cartoon is about the fear that a lot of women had about predatory men using the GRA Act if the rules around it were relaxed to go into women's space and be predators.
	And this is definitely something that we've seen in places like prisons in America where people who have been convicted of sex crimes have then identified as women and been put in women's prisons and then subsequently had other criminal convictions, to put it nicely, I suppose.
	Yes, since my cartoon was published and...
	The furor around it, obviously, we've seen this happen in real life.
	This cartoon showed some little newts in a little swimming pool, an actual women's-only swimming session, which does take place at some sports centres, or at least used to.
	I used to work as a lifeguard, and I used to lifeguard a few of them.
	Yeah, especially for pregnant women.
	You know, obviously, back in the day before this trans stuff came along, it was accepted that pregnant women might need more privacy and might want to go swimming with other women, you know.
	Anyway, so that's what the cartoon is about.
	It seemed quite harmless to the sub-editor who published it in the Morningstar, but when his boss got back two days later, by that time, they had had a massive pile-on of hate mobs from Twitter and from within the left, from within unions.
	The Trade Union Council, which is over all the unions in Britain, had to have a special meeting just about this cartoon to threaten the Morningstar with defunding, the first time in their 70-year history.
	I think we might have a little article that was written about it at the time this happened.
	It caused ructions at the Morningstar.
	The staff was split down the middle over it.
	The editor offered to resign.
	Over one cartoon.
	One cartoon.
	It's ridiculous, really, that all that fuss can be created over just something that, you know, it's relatively harmless to people, isn't it?
	You're not going to be harmed by seeing a cartoon that you disagree with.
	People have analysed it since then, and I've tried to analyse my...
	Because in the five years I was with them, I'd obviously contributed hundreds of cartoons on many different subjects, very controversial subjects, Brexit, the EU, the monarchy, the police...
	And since then, I'm still doing controversial cartoons, you know, about COVID restrictions and on and on and on.
	This one cartoon in my whole career as an artist to have caused this amount of fuss, I still find it difficult to understand looking at it now.
	There are many outlets that Websites and so on, which still will not republish this because they're afraid of repercussions.
	It's ridiculous, really, because it's just a common sense point, really.
	Like, to a normal person, you say, okay, you know, they're not going to look at that and they're going to think, oh, okay, fine.
	There's not really any controversy there.
	I think the trigger things about it are things like the fact that it's little cartoon animals.
	Mm-hmm.
	The words your pretty little heads I think perhaps was triggering to some people.
	And the fact that it's a predator, there are lots of, on the trans rights side, oh yeah, but, oh, very few men will take advantage of this.
	But it doesn't matter that it's very few.
	When it comes to safeguarding, the whole point is that even if it's one in a million, you still have those safeguarding laws in place just to guard against that one in a million.
	So that argument doesn't matter.
	Would it be alright if you just move your microphone a little bit closer?
	There we go.
	So I thought it might be worthwhile looking at some of your other controversial cartoons and the first one of which is one about the royal family.
	So would you be able to walk us through this one?
	Yeah, so this is when Harry and Meghan, you know, decided to abdicate themselves and go off to Canada and America.
	This was...
	My last cartoon I had published in the Morning Star before the one that got me cancelled.
	And this would be considered very controversial to anybody who was a royalist.
	You know, this cartoon is called Ticked Off, which has a double meaning.
	The Queen's ticking them off for absconding, but there are also a load of ticks and parasites hanging on the big bloated bottom of the UK taxpayers there.
	I think that might upset a few people in our own audience.
	Yeah.
	Well, maybe it will.
	You know, even in America, there's lots of pro-monarchists, lots of people who like the British royal family.
	Well, I quite often find that Americans really like following our royal family.
	They do.
	So, yeah, so this was published in The Morning Star.
	The Morning Star had no problem with publishing my controversial cartoons up until the one about which people call the Crocodile Cartoon.
	Its actual name is Endgame.
	It was called Endgame for a reason.
	Do you want to go back to it?
	It's called Endgame for a good reason because I thought this whole issue of relaxing the rules around gender recognition would be the endgame for feminism.
	And I'm sure some of your audience have heard all the arguments now and understand a lot more about it.
	If we erase women's words and women's language, then you erase the whole concept of what it means to be a woman.
	Well, they are trying to erase what being a woman is.
	I've seen UN resolutions where it's something like a woman is something that is timeless and formless.
	They were describing women like they're a Lovecraftian monster, not an adult human female.
	And words like chest feeding and leaders.
	It's gross and weird, isn't it?
	Well, the trouble with all that is that you then take away the language of safeguarding.
	Because if you can't name the class of people, in this case women and girls, that you're trying to talk about, then you also can't talk about safeguarding laws.
	And this is why we're fighting back so strongly about it in the British Parliament.
	Absolutely.
	And the next one is another one of your cartoons called The Presidential Makeover.
	Oh, yeah.
	So President No.
	46 taken over from President No.
	45.
	And I immediately thought of a sort of little makeover box with the different colours in it.
	And he's obviously painting a MAGA hat with the trans colours.
	And this is how I saw him.
	Because Biden said on day one that he was going to bring in rules supporting trans rights over and above women's rights.
	Yeah, I know that one of his health secretaries was actually a trans person, which was a very deliberate thing, I think, by Biden, because, of course, he's sending a very clear message that your health policy is going to be dictated by a transgender ideologue rather than...
	Someone who actually believes in biology.
	This cartoon has been published by the website I'm currently the cartoonist for, which is uncancelled.co.uk.
	And they have, so far, had no problem with publishing my controversial cartoons.
	Well, I can always attest to going to an independent website because the mainstream media, they don't treat people particularly nicely, to put it lightly.
	Probably I'm in an unusual position, not just being a female political cartoonist, but also that I'm on this side of this particular dispute.
	There are three or four other political cartoonist women operating in Britain.
	One works for The Guardian quite often, but none of them have been cancelled because none of them have stepped their toe into this cesspit.
	I don't quite know how to put it.
	This ideology, you know, this delusion which has took over institutions right across the Anglosphere.
	It's like a new form of blasphemy laws, questioning the transgender kind of ideology, because anything else is normally fair game.
	But as soon as you touch on this, it's like...
	Yes, I mean, from my point of view, Josh, you've got me on here.
	I'm a terrible TERF, you know, I'm a terrible transphobe.
	But from my point of view, how can I be phobic about something that doesn't actually exist?
	Well, yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of consensus among the psychological community that it's gender dysphoria and transgenderism is a political component.
	It's not recognised by people who are practising psychologists like...
	I've never heard any of them say anything about transgenderism.
	It's always gender dysphoria.
	And of course, gender dysphoria co-occurs with other dysphoric conditions of other types, which kind of suggests that it's something in keeping with that.
	Yeah, and the WHO only took it off their list of mental disorders in 2019.
	Yeah, so it's clearly political as well.
	It's not based on any new science that's come out.
	So here's a cartoon which some might call anti-Semitic.
	So just to describe for our listeners, it's a couple of hands with spoons in what looks like, I guess, a bowl of cereal, which has white privilege written on it.
	Yeah, so there were two news stories in the news that particular week.
	Again, this is uncancelled.co.uk.
	One was about a debate on the BBC about should Jews count as an ethnic minority, and one was about Pontons, which is a holiday camp, Uh, had, had drawn up a list of undesirable Irish surnames.
	I remember that being in the news, wasn't it?
	Being back in the fifties or sixties when it was no dogs, no blacks, no Irish.
	Um, yeah.
	So these, both these stories were in the same week.
	So, uh, I did this cartoon of a Jewish man and an old Jewish man and old Irish man sharing out this bowl of porridge with white privilege.
	Um, As if it's something to be dished out almost.
	Yeah.
	Both groups are accused of having white privilege, both Irish and Jews, and yet they are quite clearly both oppressed groups.
	Well, I don't know about the Irish, but...
	Well, historically.
	Well, I suppose.
	I'm willing to kind of concede it a little bit, but...
	I don't really like the idea of admitting the Irish were somehow victims.
	Sure, the point of showing these cartoons one after the other is to show that I've done plenty of controversial cartoons, both in my five years at the Morning Star and now, and none of them are getting anything like the pylons of hate or abuse or calling us transphobes or anything else that that one cartoon...
	With the crocodile.
	I'm quite surprised, actually, that you are working at The Morning Star because a lot of the cartoons I've seen from you don't necessarily seem in keeping with the overall political ideology of the newspaper.
	Well, the great thing about The Morning Star, and I absolutely loved...
	I loved being part of them, actually, is that they were very balshy.
	They were very out there.
	They were quite prepared to poke fun at every kind of institution.
	And it didn't always align with sort of the Labour Party.
	I mean, they were constantly having a go at the Labour Party, you know.
	Well, that's one of our favourite past times as well.
	It's funny.
	So this one again is about, this was about the recent Euro football in Europe.
	So for people listening, this has got someone kneeling down and then there's someone kind of on all fours looking at the ground and it says, I thought you said you wouldn't take the knee?
	And it says, I'm not, I'm looking for me contact lens.
	Yeah, so that was just taking the Michael out of this taking the knee nonsense in the Euro football.
	Yeah, and rightly so, because they're claiming that it's not a political thing, but as you mentioned, it's got the connotations with Black Lives Matter.
	And what was really awful about it was that a lot of teams were not doing it.
	Yeah, so it made us look even worse.
	It made us look stupid, and FIFA had actually got the teams to have on the side of their uniform here a little sewn-on patch, which actually said, I think it said respect.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So they all had that on their costumes anyway, on their shirts anyway.
	And some of the teams, I think Denmark was one of them, just stood there and pointed to the respect badge instead of kneeling.
	That's quite funny, really.
	Yeah.
	So it was really the English team were marking themselves out and we just looked ridiculous, really.
	Yeah, I 100% agree.
	I mean, I did enjoy watching the actual matches and the fact we got to the final was pretty great.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, the team spouting diversity, even if they did win, you'd never hear the end of it.
	Just like this team won because of the hardships that the media put them through for taking the knee or something along those lines.
	And other podcasts, rival podcasts yourself, like Spiked, for example, have talked quite a lot about how football is being politicised because it's a working class game.
	Mm-hmm.
	And it is a little bit of a war on the working class, because I know that a lot of people in the Labour Party are kind of middle class, metropolitan types, and I know that's a little bit of a stereotype, but I think even many in Labour have acknowledged that that's a problem, and it doesn't look very good for them, even from a political standpoint, for them to be doing stuff like that.
	Right, so what other shocking cartoons have we got?
	I think there's just one more.
	I think it was the route out of lockdown.
	This was a Covid restrictions cartoon.
	Again, uncancelled.co.uk got no problem with publishing this.
	This shows a little car full of English people, as it were, coming out of this dark forest, you know, the winter of lockdown that we had.
	It's a shame that some of that yellow is showing up as green on the screen there, but never mind.
	And this is called A Game for All the Family.
	So this is like Snakes and Nadders.
	And we were promised a route out of lockdown and obviously my cartoon is showing that there are so many things they can use to get us straight back down to the beginning again, which they will.
	I mean, we're not even out of restrictions yet, really.
	Not completely, no.
	And they're trying to coerce people into getting the vaccine by saying you can't go to large venues and stuff like that.
	And it's infringing on people's right to make choices for themselves.
	And again, to a lot of people, that is a controversial cartoon.
	They don't like any criticism of the restrictions or wearing masks or anything like that.
	I would imagine that there'd be some fringe weirdos who'd be like, this cartoon is literally killing people or something along those lines.
	And you do hear about it all the time.
	Out of all of these things, out of all of these views that you clearly hold, the thing that is very curious about it is that it was the transgender thing.
	It's the thing that we cannot question the gospel that cannot be challenged.
	Yes, because there are quite a lot of issues nowadays that you're not supposed to talk about, aren't there?
	Oh yeah, definitely.
	I think that was the last of those cartoons, wasn't it?
	So this is just to show that I'm still doing them.
	I'm still getting my cartoons out there.
	And since my cancellation...
	Oh, is this the article...
	Yeah, it's just a couple of articles that have actually covered your case, if you wanted to have a look at it in more detail.
	It has actually been quite widely covered, mostly abusing me in the paper.
	You only have to Google my name, Google the Morning Star, and if you just Googled Morning Star controversial cartoon, you will see all the abuse that was, you know...
	I felt very sorry for the newspaper, actually.
	They couldn't move.
	Their hands were tied.
	All their funding comes from the unions.
	So you don't actually blame them for pressuring you to move them?
	Absolutely not.
	And in fact, the guy who was my line manager there, the art editor, actually asked me at Christmas, could he have a copy of my book signed for his little granddaughter, which, of course, I was only too happy.
	So I've still got friendly relations with some of the journalists I knew there.
	So it's more about the pressure from externally.
	They're still not allowed to print anything by me and they're still not allowed to print my right of reply.
	While we're having a quick look at this, the original cartoon, I did send an explanation to the Morningstar at the time, which they didn't print.
	And the fact that they didn't print it was part of the problem.
	And I explained to them that the whole issue of transgenderism was very close to me because as a teenager, a girl, I had felt that way myself, like lots of women do.
	You know, and I hate to say this to everybody out there, but we grow through it.
	That's what people need to hear.
	We grow through it!
	And you might feel uncomfortable in a woman's body your entire life, but you find ways to deal with it and ways to cope with it.
	And it's just another symptom of puberty.
	Some girls go down awful routes of starving themselves, cutting themselves, and some do it in a more benign way.
	They just join some sort of cult like Goths or something like that.
	In my day, it was all dressing up in black and Punks, all these different youth movements.
	It has become a bit of a subculture, almost in a bizarre way, a trendy thing for youths.
	I'm not trivialising people's mental distress, but nowadays it's literally, oh, you've got blue hair, you must be queer.
	Mm-hmm.
	Like, you can't just have blue hair.
	Yeah, everything's got a political connotation now, hasn't it?
	That's kind of the way it's gone.
	So, it was an issue very close to my heart, and they would not print my explanation for it.
	And they still won't.
	Which means I haven't been able to answer the readership of the Morning Star, except on other platforms.
	Which is a shame, you know?
	So this was an article that was written at the time.
	I think we're slowly running out of time.
	Is there anything else you wanted to mention before wrapping up and moving on to the Scotland case?
	Well, the difficult I had getting my cartoons out there, before the pandemic I used to have a one-woman show in my home city Bristol and I couldn't do that so late last year I published this book Which is my own cartoon review of the year of the pandemic.
	It's the only cartoon book of 2020 published by Radical Feminists.
	And you can get it on all the major booksellers online, Amazon and everybody.
	But maybe not after this show.
	Who knows?
	So it's 2020, the year we were all cancelled.
	Just Google it.
	Okay, well, you can find that if you want to look for it.
	And of course, you've seen some of the cartoons on screen.
	So we are going to move on to now something that you have been following relatively closely.
	I'm very interested in is the case of Marian Miller.
	So first of all, what did she do wrong to end up in a court in Scotland?
	What's going on here?
	Well, until yesterday, the day of the court hearing, Marian Miller herself hadn't been given the accusations against her.
	Yeah, and that's very strange, isn't it?
	In the UK, for some reason, there are people now going to court not even aware of what crime they're accused of, which is...
	Really unnerving, really.
	This has happened with her, and this has fallen in a period just in between the Scottish Government bringing in their new hate law, which they didn't have the numbers in their parliament to do it, but now they've formed a coalition with the Greens, they will be able to do it.
	She's not actually being charged under that new hate law because it isn't in yet.
	She's being charged under the Malicious Communications Act.
	Oh, that's Section 127.
	Yeah, I believe and other hate legislation they've managed to find, you know.
	So apparently it's just retweeting a couple of tweets.
	Not even her own tweets aren't the same as Harry Miller with Fair Cop.
	Yeah, that's actually how we got in touch, wasn't it?
	Because Harry Miller, who has been on the podcast relatively recently, covered your case, didn't he, on his website, Fair Cop.
	And just to go back to this case, sorry.
	Yeah, as you can see, she's represented by Joanna Cherry QC. Joanna Cherry is a British, a Scots Nationalist MP in the Westminster Parliament.
	Let's get that right.
	Wasn't she removed from the party?
	She was sacked by Nicola Sturgeon from their front bench at Westminster for sticking up for women's rights.
	What else do you get sacked for these days?
	Yeah, it's weird how times have changed.
	So because she's been sacked from her front bench position and she's just a constituency MP now in Edinburgh, she is able to take on legal cases as a QC. So she's obviously took this on.
	They're clearly going to try and make it a test case under European human rights law, which they still can do even though we've gone through Brexit.
	I didn't realise that.
	So does that mean it still applies to us?
	I think we haven't actually said that we haven't actually dropped out of the European Convention for Human Rights.
	It's like a formal thing separate from the European Union, isn't it?
	It was already written into British law anyway, exactly the same.
	So that's what they're going to do.
	It's a very important case for Scotland, not just because of the women's rights issue, But because Scotland want to be an independent country and go back into Europe, are the EU going to welcome them back in with open lands if they have hate laws, which are so restrictive that they're almost as sort of beyond the pale as sort of Hungary and Poland?
	Scottish people really need to be looking at this and taking notice of this.
	Yeah, well, the kind of hate crime legislation in Scotland has been atrocious, really.
	Some of the things that they've prosecuted people over are so inconsequential, like this is supposedly related to something that's transphobic, isn't it?
	And it's retweeting something.
	Are we going to see a little picture of what she's meant to have done?
	I think we've got a video, haven't we, about reading out the statement.
	So if we could cut to that one.
	So this was only yesterday?
	Yeah, this has all happened very recently.
	I have a statement on behalf of Marion Milne.
	Today Marianne Miller attended court and for the first time received a copy of the Crown's complaint setting out the charges against her.
	She was represented by Joanna Cherry QC and Paul Harvey Advocate, instructed by Voltrami and co-solicitors.
	She made no plea and the case was continued for a hearing on...
	4th of October so that the courts can consider a number of preliminary legal issues including the compatibility of this prosecution with Ms Miller's human rights under the European Convention of Human Rights.
	Since this case is sub-judice, Marian Miller will not be making any statements at this time.
	Thank you.
	So, of course, the implications here is that if she loses this case, then the SNP can pretty much prosecute anyone for whatever they like.
	In a weird way.
	It's very much a test case for a law that isn't even in yet.
	Yeah.
	It's really strange.
	But yes, also there's a question of why the police thought this was serious enough to go to court at all.
	I mean, criminalising tweets is just ridiculous.
	Some of the stuff that you see on Twitter, I mean, you can just ignore it.
	You don't have to be there.
	Her alleged complainant is a well-known professional troll, actually.
	Somebody who's on Twitter a lot, abusing people, especially women.
	He is a CRA, trans rights activist himself.
	So it's politically motivated.
	She has been targeted because of her involvement as a women's rights activist.
	That's literally why.
	So because of her supposed belief that women are a biological group that aren't defined by social constructions, she is now finding herself in court at Because of some trans activist, and she could be facing prison.
	I think it was two years in prison, wasn't it?
	I remember reading.
	Up to two years in prison, yeah.
	Here we have somebody yesterday on Twitter, and this is a photograph of the alleged offensive tweet, which is a suffragette ribbon tied to a fence.
	Now, it's actually quite difficult to tie up to a fence without making some sort of noose, and apparently this was supposed to be in the shape of a noose.
	I mean, everyone knows that a ribbon looks like that.
	In fact, everybody's pointed out the Scottish Nationalist Party's own flag is actually more or less in the same...
	Well, I wouldn't be surprised if they changed their symbol to a noose soon enough if they carry on like this.
	Yeah, they might even change their own emblem.
	Who knows?
	Yeah, so this is how ludicrous it is.
	This is supposed to be homophobic, transphobic, all the rest of it.
	We don't know the details of exactly what the charge said because it wasn't read out outside the court.
	Doesn't it just seem absurd that people can be charged with something?
	For retweeting.
	Retweeting other people's tweets.
	And not even know, really, what they've done wrong or under what law they're being prosecuted.
	Well, this is very similar to the non-crime hate incidents in Britain, which Harry Miller fell foul off.
	I fell foul off.
	Yeah, it might be worth talking a little bit about that.
	Just quickly, I actually, apparently the police hold one against me and possibly and the editor of The Morning Star because of my cartoon.
	And the Free Speech Union has been trying for the best part of a year to get an answer from my local police force about what they hold on me about this and they won't give a yes or no answer.
	I think the fact that they're not telling you kind of shows that they know it looks really bad on their part.
	They must understand that if we release this, we're criminalising people without any criminal legislation backing.
	They're taking things into their own hands without Parliament.
	And they know that the Free Speech Union and many other people, such as yourselves, are going to make huge publicity.
	The minute anybody like me, who's even slightly in the public eye, you know, gets...
	If I had confirmation from the police, I would make it public, and they know that, you know.
	So...
	No, we're also waiting for Fair Cop to have their own case against the College of Policing over the whole issue of guidance to police forces about transgender.
	So we're waiting for that.
	So that might be another reason why the police are not saying anything at the moment, you know.
	So, do you know how this actual case is going to develop?
	Obviously, I think this has got to be some kind of criminal charge because she's appearing in court.
	It's not a non-crime.
	Oh no, it's a criminal.
	This is a criminal charge.
	Yeah, a proper criminal charge, isn't it?
	Rather than a non-crime hate incident, although those are just as bad and I wouldn't be surprised if she had some of those as well.
	Well, I believe the Sheriff's Court in Scotland is kind of our equivalent of a Magistrate's Court.
	I don't know whether it combines the features of a Crown Court and a No, me neither.
	Scottish law is a mystery to me.
	Judging from what the SNP have done to it, I don't really want to know about it either.
	But given what happened to Craig Murray, the journalist who's now in prison, that went on to a sort of higher court with a judge.
	Would you be able to outline what actually happened there?
	Because this of course might be a good example.
	Well that's a story in itself isn't it?
	It was done under a criminal offence which nobody's ever heard of called jigsaw identification which nobody's ever been prosecuted for for something like a hundred years which the judge in his court it's almost like they dragged from the lagoons of historical legal cases to try and find You know,
	a crime that would fit whatever he was alleged to have done.
	He was supposed to have identified in his articles online the women who had complained about the Alex Salmond in the Alex Salmond trial because Craig Murray was tweeting live from the Alex Salmond trial.
	He was pretty much the only journalist who was tweeting live from it.
	And obviously the women who'd made complaints against Alex Summond were under anonymity, obviously.
	And the judge said that Craig Murray had managed to, by not naming them, Or naming anything about them, had still managed to identify them in some way because of what he'd written in his articles, which were no different, by the way, to what journalists were writing in mainstream media newspapers and on the BBC. But he was an independent journalist.
	It is looked on in Scotland that he's a political prisoner because he was...
	One of the journalists who was assisting in the Julian Assange case to try and stop Julian Assange being extradited to America.
	An admirable cause, I think.
	So a lot of people do believe that Craig Murray was targeted because of that.
	So it seems to me that in Scotland there are people who are being targeted for their political views and criminalised.
	Have I got his name right?
	Everybody seems to be called Murray.
	That is right, isn't it, Craig?
	I don't know.
	I'm sure people know who you mean.
	It's fine.
	The important thing is here that people in Scotland are being criminalised under...
	Is it a common Scottish name or something?
	I think it is, yeah.
	People are being criminalised under dubious circumstances for political ends.
	Particularly the Scottish National Party seem to be getting rid of their political opponents, not through outmanoeuvring them politically, but by sending them to prison, which doesn't seem like the behaviour of...
	A democratic party.
	And he isn't just any old journalist or any old YouTuber.
	He was Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan.
	The guy is not a diplomat, a politician, as well as being a journalist.
	There he goes.
	There he is.
	I'm not saying they're all related or anything, but it seems to be a very common Scottish name, doesn't it?
	Well...
	Half my family's from Scotland and I can get away with saying that they more or less have like five surnames and that's about it.
	Like Wales or let's not start going down that road.
	So here's one of your cartoons.
	Again the yellow is coming up a bit green on the screen.
	I think that might just be our TV. Sorry guys.
	There you can see an example of the Scottish National Party's actual emblem, which also looks like a ribbon tied in the shape of a noose.
	It does, yeah.
	Lots of people have commented on that.
	Quite fitting actually.
	This was published by Wings Over Scotland.
	Rev Stuart Campbell is the guy who runs that website.
	A very well known pro-independence website.
	And this was after the most recent Parliamentary elections in Scotland in May this year.
	There they are sat outside a pub called the Gaslighters Arms and these are two election agents.
	One is for the Greens and one is for the SNP. Obviously all their candidates got in because they're all trans, transgender candidates.
	So yeah, just a bit of silliness.
	Just making fun of the fact that they ran them just for political clout, really.
	But with a very serious point that both parties are putting men in women's positions in their parties as candidates, as officers within their own parties, where those positions were originally intended for women.
	Yeah.
	Men who pretend to be women.
	It's about as farcical as Afghanistan having a place at the table on women's rights, which is a recent thing.
	If people didn't know, if people come to this cold and didn't know that this sort of thing's going on, it just sounds so ludicrous.
	It certainly does, yeah.
	You know, that there can be a man in Scotland who hasn't even had transition or who is in charge of Edinburgh rape crisis.
	It's almost beyond belief, but this is all going on in Scotland.
	Scotland is really...
	Like I said before, how do they intend to get back into the EU as an independent country with such laws that they're bringing in?
	They're sabotaging themselves, really, aren't they?
	Because...
	I imagine it's probably not also helping their popularity amongst some people.
	They're going to alienate a few people, certainly people who are feminists, who are going to see this and think, OK, well, actually, I might be going along with their left-wing politics, but actually...
	Yeah, it's not just about women's rights and feminism, it's about safeguarding children.
	Oh, absolutely.
	And all the rest of it, which was happening in another country, like countries that we look down on as less democratic than our own.
	We'd be wanting to send people in there, human rights people, to monitor it and try and get them to see, you know...
	To kind of, you know, see that they're doing things wrong, you know?
	Which is where we are with Afghanistan, 20 years trying to make them into a westernised country.
	And speaking of Afghanistan, I wanted to talk about this rogue Republican who has gone on a rescue mission in Afghanistan.
	So there is a Republican member of the House, his good New York Post article about it that went up yesterday, who He's an Oklahoma representative called Mark Wayne Mullen, and he has personally launched an otherwise secret rescue mission to rescue a mother and four children, who I believe are American citizens, from Afghanistan, which I very much commend him for.
	This is what you want to see from your politicians.
	You don't want them to be criminalising you.
	You want them to be putting themselves on the line to help citizens, and this is a great example of that.
	Well, what else are you going to do if the actual governments have pulled out and abandoned it?
	Then mercenaries and people are the only people who are going to be able to get in anyway, aren't they?
	Well, they were abandoned by Joe Biden, I think.
	It was very much him to blame for this.
	So, who is Mr Mullen?
	He is a former professional mixed martial artist and has been a congressman since 2012.
	So I feel like, although he has no military background, so I'm quite surprised that he's willing to go in on his own and risk himself for the sake of other people.
	But it's a pleasant surprise.
	It's good to see people doing good things.
	I mean, I'm going to go on to some other members of the House that have done similar things, but not to the same extent as this.
	So Mullen says, this is a sad day for our country.
	This was a few days ago when Biden was announcing the withdrawal.
	Americans have been stranded in Afghanistan by the Biden administration and now left to defend themselves from terrorists overrunning the country.
	Our motto of our military is leave no man behind.
	But today, that's exactly what President Biden did.
	and credit to him he has gone out and done something about it So he's defied all guidance by US officials.
	House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy all tried to dissuade him from going, saying, no, you can't go.
	And Kevin McCarthy brings up a good point that any member that I've heard that might go, I have explained to them that I don't think they should.
	I think it creates a great risk.
	You've got enough Americans over there, they could be held hostage by the Taliban, and they'd make a point out of holding a member of Congress.
	I think you'd take the military away from doing their job of getting out as many Americans as they can.
	And this was a little while ago, to be fair.
	This was before all of the American troops had left.
	But now all the American troops are gone and he really is the last ditch effort to get these people out because, of course, I think it was yesterday the last American soldier left Afghanistan.
	Well, we've seen what has happened in other countries where we had ISIS and so on going on and the Kurds and all that going back to the Iraq war and all that.
	If you don't have legitimate armies in there, you're just going to have a patchwork of mercenaries going in there because that's the only route to get into the country perhaps for veterans and other people that want to try and get in there and help on one side or the other.
	That's what Afghanistan is going to go like, just like those other countries did, you know?
	Yeah, I mean, it's kind of uncertain how it's going to go, because I know there are still some people trapped there.
	But they've got ISIS there as well, you see?
	Of course, yeah.
	So once they declare this as a new Islamic, what were they calling it, another caliphate?
	Yeah, I would say so.
	But it will basically become another caliphate.
	People will start going from all over the world to join it because they're fanatical Islamists and they want to actually be with the Taliban or with ISIS. And then you're going to have people like him and other people who, you know, ex-army.
	He's not actually ex-military though.
	Fair play to him.
	But I expect he knows a lot of people who are.
	I would imagine so, yeah.
	And fair play to them because...
	There are going to be people who feel very strongly to go back in and try and rescue Americans and other non-Afghans who are stranded there.
	And Afghans who were helping others, of course, who are still stranded there.
	I don't really know what the plan is to get them out.
	I've not really seen much about it.
	I suppose they want to keep it under wraps, don't they?
	But I wanted to go on about how he's actually planned to help them out.
	So apparently, according to the Washington Post, he reached out to the US ambassador for Tajikistan, sorry, saying that he needed assistance in transporting a huge amount of cash into the country, I'm assuming to help him get them out, saying I'm assuming to help him get them out, saying he was going to neighbouring Afghanistan to rescue five American citizens He said that he was planning to hire a helicopter to carry out the rescue himself.
	However, Apparently the diplomat said that they couldn't get around Tajikistan's laws on bringing a large amount of cash over to Afghanistan.
	I imagine that's to prevent terrorists joining the Taliban or ISIS or what have you.
	So I can understand, although I don't agree with them putting up barriers.
	Has he managed to do this then?
	Has he managed to get a sort of rescue mission together?
	Apparently, late as of yesterday, officials have said they were unsure where he is, so we don't actually know.
	And he's not responded to multiple messages.
	And he has also sought to get to Afghanistan through other means as well.
	Apparently, last week, this...
	Wasn't really reported on.
	He travelled to Greece and sought permission to travel from Afghanistan, but the Pentagon prevented him from doing so, basically.
	They just said, no, you can't do that, and stopped him.
	So he had to use different means.
	So he's really gone off the grid.
	He's probably annoying lots of people in senior positions in American politics and in the intelligence agencies, but at least he's not sitting idly by and letting these people say that he's doing something about it.
	I should imagine that the families of the...
	The dead soldiers and the injured soldiers will be cheering him on.
	Oh yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, you should have seen some of the things that the mothers of the dead soldiers were saying about Joe Biden and how basically it was all his fault.
	So they're not very supportive of how they've dealt with this.
	So someone from his office has confirmed though, I'm not sure how true this is yet because it's a relatively new story, that he's currently completely safe.
	Obviously they're not saying where he is because That might be dangerous for him, but both he and his office have asserted that they are going to try and do their best to continue to do anything in their power to bring home all Americans from war zones that President Biden has abandoned.
	So, fair play to you.
	I think he's a very brave man.
	Absolutely.
	Of course the State Department has declined to comment about Mullen's attempt to travel and they're trying to sweep it under the rug because of course it makes them all look bad if he's going and doing this of his own volition and you've got to respect it.
	This is how politicians should be behaving, I think.
	Not being discouraged but going out and putting themselves on the line to help people.
	So Perhaps we shouldn't be.
	I mean, people will say, well, maybe we shouldn't be saying, you know, because by speaking about it, we're encouraging other people to copy him and go rushing out there.
	But I think, unfortunately, Afghanistan is going to become lawless.
	And there are going to be people from all over the world, basically, who are going to go there for a variety of reasons.
	Well, I think if people are prepared to do it, then okay.
	But I think from a legal standpoint, don't do it.
	But also, I respect him for doing it.
	I hope his own party don't...
	Kick him out.
	Yeah, because...
	I don't think they will, really.
	I think it looks really good for the Republicans...
	I hope so.
	I mean, there might be some that say, well, he's abandoning his own constituents by rushing off abroad and could get himself killed.
	Do you know what I mean?
	There is that side of it, I suppose.
	I think there is an argument to be had there.
	But on the other hand, this is such a disaster for American foreign policy that anybody trying to do anything to help get people back that are stranded out there, I think, you know...
	It's commendable, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So, rather confusingly, President Biden last night in his address to the nation said the evacuation from Afghanistan was an extraordinary success for some reason.
	And this Reuters article says, President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the evacuation from Afghanistan an extraordinary success in his first public remarks since the United States withdrew its military from the country on Monday, ending a 20-year war.
	But...
	I don't understand how on earth he can claim such a That he thinks it was a success while the entire world looks on in horror.
	Well, I'm a lot older than you, Josh.
	I'm a lot older than you.
	And I can remember the American withdrawal from Saigon.
	And I can remember that.
	I was, you know, in my teens at the time.
	And I can remember the Bill Clinton American policy disaster where he sent the Marines into Somalia, wasn't it?
	I'm not sure.
	Yeah, and they got killed, beheaded, dragged through the streets, bodies hung up on lamp posts, and that was 1973 because the very next year, oh wait a minute, it was probably a bit too early, but it was the year before the Rwandan massacre.
	Okay.
	So if you can pin a date on the Rwandan massacre, it was the very...
	Was that the Rwandan genocide?
	I think that was the 90s, wasn't it?
	Yeah, 94, so this was 93.
	And because Clinton had lost American soldiers, He'd actually sent them in to try and rescue hostages.
	And they were slaughtered, basically.
	And because of that, America refused then to treat Rwanda as a genocide.
	And those of us who are old enough can remember the dreadful press conferences about Madeleine Albright, where she was challenged by the world's media to declare it a genocide and wouldn't declare it a genocide.
	And therefore, the other countries that have peacekeeping troops in Rwanda were not allowed to fire on these gangs of people committing horrible atrocities because America was vetoing it and not calling it a genocide.
	And so some of us can remember the other terrible American foreign policy disasters.
	But this one, I mean, the sight of those people standing in the trench of sewage Trying to get the attention, you know, of our soldiers, you know, British as well, American soldiers and other soldiers of other countries as well.
	I mean, I don't think that image will ever, ever leave us.
	And especially considering that's where the terrorist attack was as well.
	Well, you know, that's what your suicide bomber is going to aim straight for, isn't it?
	Where the people are packed the most closely together.
	That was just, I don't think any of us are ever going to forget that.
	No.
	And this man, Biden, can try and pull the wool over people's eyes as much as he likes.
	They can try and, but we're never ever going to forget it.
	I think it will be one of the things that is going to remain part of his legacy, like you have Obama with Benghazi, you have Clinton with Rwanda.
	There's one thing that Biden said that I thought, yeah, I actually agree with him about that, and that was when he said, you can't compare this to the fight against the Vietnamese, because they were an actual proper organised army and it was an actual war.
	That is the only thing I agree with him about.
	But he can't use that as an excuse.
	I mean, this was just a complete and utter farce.
	Yeah, and the whole reason that it was even that date in the first place as well is because of the symbolism of 9-11, right?
	That's why he wanted to withdraw by that date.
	Oh, that was just pure theatre, to try and get it all done and dusted.
	Trump was saying May 1st, wasn't he?
	That's the deal he negotiated with Pompeo and the Taliban, and they had that in the sand.
	And we still don't know why Biden has actually done that.
	So...
	It's still apparently just left by the wayside.
	No one's really questioning him why he extended it in the first place.
	And the sight of those Taliban fighters dressed up in all the American combat gear.
	Oh, it's weird, isn't it?
	I remember seeing a video of them with all of the combat gear, with an M16 going to American fighter helicopters, I suppose.
	I don't know what they were precisely.
	And it just seemed really weird...
	It just kind of hammered home that, yeah, they really did lose.
	It is a loss.
	I mean, not they, I mean, we were there as well, of course.
	Was this another press conference where he walked away at the end and didn't take questions?
	I think he does that for everything now.
	On a bit of a lighter note, I thought we can laugh about something a little bit.
	So here we have a Dr.
	Baha Jalli and she says, For 8.5 years I taught at the American University of Afghanistan as a faculty member of the academic administration.
	I founded the first gender studies program in Afghanistan's history there.
	All our work, hopes, dreams, progress, only to have it snatched away so needlessly.
	And the Taliban replied to this...
	And he says, Hello, I'm from the Taliban.
	Gender studies classes teach that paedophilia, man-boy love, is a human right.
	Gail Rubin, one of the world's leading feminists and founders of gender studies, says that older men having sex with little boys is a human right.
	This is forbidden by Allah.
	Right.
	Well, there's two things to take away from that, isn't it?
	Um...
	They're probably right.
	Bonifilia probably is something that you're taught about on gender studies courses.
	Yeah, I mean, I don't doubt it.
	I've never been on one.
	You're probably taught about it.
	There's lots of horrendous stuff that they're taught in those classes.
	It may be forbidden by Anna, but we've all heard stories from troops who've come back from Afghanistan in the last 20 years that it's actually very common over there.
	Well, the man-boy thing is something that our supposed allies...
	Yeah.
	But the Taliban outlaw that practice and they're more interested in so-called changing it in a heterosexual way, I guess, but it's just as weird and paedophilic.
	I mean, they're not defensible.
	Isn't it amazing that the Taliban can just come up on Twitter and...
	And it's perfect right for them to be on Twitter, but somebody like Marianne Miller, a woman, can tweet somebody else's picture of a suffragette ribbon on a fence and get took to court.
	Yeah, or Donald Trump, not on Twitter, and the Taliban are.
	Unbelievable.
	Actual terrorists are on Twitter, Donald Trump is not.
	A bit weird, really.
	These are people who, even as we speak, are actually going door to door.
	They've got lists of people.
	Some of those lists might even have come from American troop embassies.
	I know that in the UK we left a list behind, but supposedly we did everything in our power to get rid of it.
	Even as we speak, they're trying to find people who worked for the government or worked for the broadcasters or worked in these universities or something who they now see as traitors.
	I have seen them executing people in the street as well, which is obviously awful.
	But not to lower the tone too much.
	No, but I mean, even the idea of gender studies course in an Afghanistan university just seems bizarre, doesn't it?
	I'm amazed that it existed in the first place.
	And there were people that were willing to do it.
	But never mind.
	I wanted to not end on a depressing note.
	The Taliban were making fun of the West in a silly way by posting internet memes.
	So if we could go through a few of these.
	They are pointing at all of the US's weapons with the...
	The Talibanised meme faces.
	And if we go on to the next one, there they are, recreating the Iwo Jima flag raising with their own flag, wearing American equipment by the looks of it as well.
	And are those actually from the Taliban?
	Yeah, it's cut off here a little bit because it's a screenshot.
	But you can see the Taliban flag.
	Well, again, I don't want your audience to think I'm trivialising, but at least they've got a sense of humour.
	Well, yeah, I mean, I was quite amazed that they engage on Twitter and post jokes and stuff like that.
	I thought they were very stern.
	I mean, there are things that they've done that are awful, obviously, I'm not demeaning that, but it's just very strange, I suppose.
	And how they get away with it, how they are not banned from Twitter.
	When so many other people are.
	Yeah, I think no one should really be banned from any platform, but here we are.
	Also, Taliban, I think we've covered this before, but I'm going to go over it very quickly.
	The Taliban got a question about freedom of speech, and he said you should ask to US companies like Facebook, who claim to promote it while still censoring.
	I mean, I never thought the Taliban would have more sense than a lot of the UK's mainstream media, for example.
	Like...
	It's a little bit depressing, really.
	And of course, the thing that we've shown before of August 15th and then August 16th when the Taliban took over and the...
	I think it's a burqa, isn't it?
	When the face is uncovered.
	I can't tell the difference.
	But anyway, another thing that happened recently is there was an interview with a Taliban commander...
	And the interviewer had someone just standing, he had loads of fighters standing behind him with firearms, clearly just like, yes, if you say a word wrong, we're going to sort you out sort of thing.
	So if you could just scroll down to the picture.
	Oh yes, this poor man.
	And you can just tell from his facial expression that he's not a happy man.
	But yeah, anyone who thinks that there's a moderate face to the Taliban or the Taliban have changed, they haven't.
	This is not a peaceful transfer of power.
	This is another revolution for them, isn't it?
	And just to make that point, there was an Afghan singer who was murdered because the Taliban forbid music.
	And obviously I'm not going to show you any of the videos or anything of that.
	But yeah, the Taliban are no different than they ever were.
	And you shouldn't believe they have changed.
	They definitely haven't.
	No, and I think that congressman who's, well, you know, hats off to him, yeah.
	He's trying to do something that, and, you know, you'd never think a time would come when you would applaud people running off to countries like this to be mercenaries and things, but actually, if he can save a few people, you know, let's hope he can and get them out.
	So I think we're out of time now, so I'm going to read some comments.
	So the first comment is Omar Awad, something supremely patriotic and American about a bunch of veterans flipping their government the bird to charge into a conflict zone and make sure no man gets left behind.
	Absolutely.
	And I mean, I've got an immense amount of respect for the people who tried to do so.
	Fantastic.
	Robert Longshanks.
	There is not much difference in this cartoon from the Count Dankula Nazi pug video.
	It's funny because it's absurd that animals are such extremists because they are just animals.
	And Ghost of Adelaide.
	Stella, have you ever heard of the Australian cartoonist Bill Leak and the controversy he attracted a few years ago?
	It depicted Aboriginal people as drunken and neglectful parents as well as being drawn as caricatures.
	Where do you stand on cartoons invoking race stereotypes in this way and what do you think of Jermaine Greer?
	Well, that's quite a lot to cover actually, but I do like Stone Toss, and Stone Toss is actually, I don't know if Stone Toss is Australian, but he's considered a very sort of fascist cartoonist, and I like Stone Toss, I have to say, I find his cartoons very funny.
	Jermaine Greer, she's one of my heroines, actually.
	I was quite young, obviously, when she was famous, but she's still going strong.
	She's still interviewed every now and then.
	Yeah, I'm a big fan of Jermaine.
	Okay, moving on to David Shipton.
	Is it just me who thinks that once this ladies' court case has been rightfully thrown out for its ludicrousness, the state should then turn its attention to trans activists for wasting police time and public money on non-crimes?
	Am I missing something here?
	Has all the real crime now been wiped out?
	The police seem to have some more time on their hands with all this trite.
	Well, yeah, I think...
	People who bring cases like this, if we were more stringent about people wasting the police's time, I think they wouldn't risk it, basically.
	The problem is, as you were speaking to me before we started, Josh, is that we don't have a written constitution.
	Yeah, and it's something that I do envy Americans.
	Yeah, so everything happens for a long build-up of case law, which takes hundreds of years, so that they then have a body of case law that they can then point to and say, oh, but that judgment over here about this and that judgment over here about that.
	That's how our law is built up, I'm afraid.
	And so it's going to take quite a few of these court cases...
	Men and women, for them to be found innocent, like Maia Fosdata in Britain, a founder, went through about two years before she finally had a judgement in her favour that said her gender critical views could be treated as a belief, so that she was protected, her views were protected as a belief.
	Hopefully that's going to apply in that country, but because Scotland It's not an autonomous country, but it's got different laws.
	Well, yeah, because of Tony Blair, all the powers were devolved to, well, not all of them, but they have powers over lots of areas of society where Westminster Parliament doesn't, and therefore they can basically, over some policy areas like education and health and things like that, they have a lot of power over public policy.
	And there is yet another protest tomorrow in Scotland outside the Scottish Parliament.
	And this is because they've just formed a new coalition with the Greens, which means they can push their new hate law through.
	And one of the things they're pushing through is to relax the laws around gender recognition, like people are trying to do in the States, so that you just sign a simple statement, don't have to live as a woman, don't have to have any surgeries, don't have to go to a doctor.
	Just go online and say, yes, I'm now a woman, that's it, probably, you know?
	So they're trying to bring that in in Scotland.
	Yeah, I think in a few years' time we might have a wave of Scottish refugees.
	They're all going to be leaving the country, and I really wouldn't blame them.
	I mean, thankfully my family got out a long time ago.
	We might have a transfer, mightn't we?
	All the trans activists can move to Scotland, and then the women can come down and move to England.
	Everyone will be happy.
	It might have a kind of shake it out.
	Everybody might be happy, yeah.
	LAUGHTER We'll have the same people south of the border and it's going to be like nothing changed.
	It's alright.
	I can say that.
	I've got the Scottish past.
	I can call you all crazy.
	It's the beauty of being half Scottish.
	Anyway, so Anthony Parrish...
	Remember when the feminists were going around ruining men's only spaces and now the transgender lobby are doing it to women's spaces with the same tactics?
	I don't like what the tranners are doing, but I don't have that much sympathy with the feminists.
	So what would you say to that?
	I don't know if he's...
	I've got no examples that I can bring to mind about women doing that in men's spaces.
	I think there was a lot of attempts, particularly in the States, of saying that men's only spaces are deliberately sexist and it's places where...
	Things like men-only golf clubs and things like that, possibly, yeah.
	Because it took years and years, and even now you can have private members clubs, which are men-only, and indeed women-only.
	Because they went against the Equality Act, I think that would be why.
	But in terms of Invading the most private spaces, like toilets, like changing rooms, where women take little children as well.
	In terms of that, I don't think women have ever done that to men's spaces.
	They might have wanted women to be on the boards of clubs that were men only and stuff like that.
	Because of the equality laws we were trying to bring in.
	But in terms of invading private spaces, no, women haven't done that.
	And women have never said men shouldn't have.
	In fact, we'd all be very happy if the so-called transgender women felt free to use men's toilets and men's changing rooms.
	That's the whole point, because they're men, isn't it?
	Well, yeah, biologically, yeah.
	And why should they feel discriminated against?
	Because trans women, the other way around, trans men who are women who want to be seen as men are perfectly welcoming women's private spaces because we still accept them as women.
	So this is where the contrast is, you know?
	So would you say that it's not a comparable thing?
	I know that there were lots of attempts, particularly as I was talking to you beforehand in 2015, I kind of saw lots of feminists as being against me being who I was as a person and trying to destroy masculinity and perhaps male-only spaces, like having
	male-exclusive sports teams I kind of saw lots of feminists as being against me being who I was as a person and trying to destroy masculinity and perhaps male-only spaces, like having male-exclusive sports teams and stuff like having male-exclusive sports teams and stuff like that, where obviously there's a biological reason why sport is Yeah.
	One of your people on your questions asked a bit earlier, how do I feel about Germaine Greer?
	Germaine Greer famously said, it's my favourite quote of hers, it isn't equality we want, it's liberation.
	We didn't want to be equal to men.
	Real feminists do not want to be equal to men because we know that biologically we never can be.
	That's the whole reason you have separate sports, you know.
	And sports has been a huge thing recently because of the Olympics, you know.
	But no, yeah, I mean, Germaine Greer, as far as I'm concerned, is what I call a true feminist.
	And she never set out to be against men.
	She sees men as being oppressed as well.
	She said, why is it men that are always...
	We think men have to do all the rubbish, horrible jobs where they're actually in danger.
	Why is it men who have to be in the army?
	And why do women even want to be equal to men in that way?
	I always remember Hillary Clinton when she was running against Donald Trump.
	She said that the main victims of war were women.
	And that...
	I don't know.
	That kind of rubbed me the wrong way, a comment like that, where obviously...
	But if your audience wants to know where I stand on that, no, I don't agree that women are equal to men.
	Of course we're logically not equal to men.
	It doesn't even need saying, you know.
	It's obvious, isn't it?
	That's why there are separate sports and so on.
	And it's also why men...
	Do the more dangerous heavy jobs because they're physically capable of it.
	I mean, nobody has ever tried to pretend otherwise, you know.
	And in terms of Britain and Scotland in particular, you know, the British Empire and the powerhouse of the world and the Industrial Revolution, it was men that did all those jobs.
	Mm-hmm.
	It was men that did all the heavy industrial jobs, which is why we have the civilisation we now have.
	I mean, it's nice to hear that...
	Nobody can take that.
	Nobody has ever tried to pretend that men, you know, should not be, you know, respected and honoured for what, historically, what they've done, you know?
	I think that's perfectly reasonable, in my view.
	And...
	But that doesn't stop me being a radical feminist and being opposed to anything that will hurt children.
	But when people hear, at least our viewers at least, hear radical feminists, they think of the trans-inclusive variety who want to basically...
	I don't necessarily want to put words in their mouth, but...
	Not just bring up women, but also bring down men as well.
	It's not about being treated fairly.
	I don't want to use the word equal because that's not possible, but fair treatment is that they want to punish men for supposed past indiscretions.
	Right.
	Well, transgenderism as an ideology is also punishing men.
	Because young men, young boys and men who are perhaps not as masculine as their parents want them to be, or who don't want to go into a traditional male line of work, are being picked on in schools.
	In the past, they would have just been called effeminate and girly.
	And now it's, oh no, you probably are a girl.
	And we need to get you to a doctor and have your bits cut off.
	So I'm sorry, but this ideology is oppressing men as well.
	I mean, there's also the argument what happened to all the tomboys as well.
	They're going to be wiped out.
	And gay men, are there going to be any left?
	And until they actually open their eyes and see that this ideology is attacking them as well, you know, this struggle is going to go on.
	We've seen that recently.
	We've covered the LGB Alliance, where they've set up their own separate group from the LGBTQ +, whatever it is.
	They've got their charity status, which is under attack, even though the Charity Commission put out a lengthy judgment that they were quite happy with them becoming a charity.
	I think it's exactly the right move from them.
	They're trying to get people over from the radicals.
	They're trying to moderate the conversation a little bit.
	So, Sam Fletcher, the SNP are a joke.
	They say that they're for Scotland, but they would be happy to be slaves of the EU and I don't like the English club that has gotten way out of hand.
	Silver lining, their experimentation with communist nonsense should wake up a few Scots and hopefully they vote in a more level-headed party come next election.
	Yeah?
	I see nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
	I mean, couldn't agree more.
	Yeah, I do know some people who are involved in setting up Alex Salmon's new party.
	Obviously they didn't get very far in the recent elections because they're so brand new, but they are hoping to carry on and get more membership and they are a gender critical party.
	And the only other one in the British Isles that is like that is the one George Galloway runs, which is the Workers' Party of Britain, which did quite well in a recent by-election.
	And they are the only two parties, as far as I know, which are gender critical.
	I know that George Galloway, he's a curious case, isn't he?
	I know that he's...
	Very strong against violence against women and girls.
	Well, I mean...
	Fair play to him.
	Yeah, fair enough on that respect, but I know that...
	Oh, he's on Russia Today, if that's what you mean.
	Also, the fact that he's very, very defensive of the crimes of Islam and stuff like that.
	He's very quick to call things Islamophobic, and also when he quite often asks journalists whether they're Israeli or whether they're Jewish, and if they are, he won't talk to them.
	And it's a little bit weird.
	I think I don't really get that.
	Well, yes, but I mean, I'm of the generation where I can see that political parties have a broad church of people within them.
	And I wouldn't necessarily agree with everything about a political party, but I do draw the line with the SNP and their insistence on gender ideology.
	Oh, yeah.
	To me, that is my line in the sand.
	Mm-hmm.
	But, you know, George Galloway's never going to get anywhere with all that stuff, is he?
	The SMP are much more important.
	They are actually in power, yeah.
	Angel Brain, it's worth remembering that Scottish politics has always been massively corrupt.
	There's a lot of scheming along tribal lines, probably a vestige of the clan system.
	The Scottish economy has a few core resources and products that account for the majority of exports, so it's only a few steps on Up the ziggurat to total domination.
	The S&P are so corrupt I think they were born with a genetic inability to blush.
	Gosh, what a good comment.
	What a good comment, because the SNP grafted themselves onto the existing political system, which had been Labour for generations.
	And when John Smith, the old Labour leader from years ago, his constituency in Glasgow, I mean, they were considered to be rotten boroughs.
	They were considered so corrupt.
	So really, it was the same civil servants, same local government organisation, I mean, the SNP have simply grafted themselves on top of that, so yes, the corruption is probably still there.
	Yeah, I mean, I didn't really know about that, but...
	Well, it was Labour forever, wasn't it, Scotland?
	Of course, yeah.
	And a lot of it was considered to be very corrupt.
	I remember when the SMP were basically a fringe party.
	It wasn't too long ago.
	Rose Garnella, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, a true king is first in every desperate charge and last in every desperate retreat.
	So that's, I'm assuming, in reference to the Republican congressman.
	And very good quote.
	Yeah, and one I would think of as well is, a prophet is never recognised in his own country, is another famous quote that might apply to that guy.
	Yeah, I imagine that there are a fair few Americans that are going to hold him up as a hero, and I think, fair enough.
	I mean, we hear a lot of talk from politicians, but it's rare that they're willing to go up.
	I hope he's safe.
	Absolutely, of course.
	So, in response to our comments about the Rwandan genocide, Benjamin Charles, by way of comparison, the Nazis used an industrial apparatus to kill 6 million Jews in 6 years, while the Hutus killed 800,000 Tutsis in little over 100 days using just rifles, machetes and fire.
	Never underestimate the power of hatred.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah, it's one of the awful things that I remember learning about when I was studying the psychology of group behaviour and things like that, and how in-groups and out-groups function.
	It's all really to the fault of the Belgians who put in their minds, of course, the notion that one group was oppressing the other, when in reality there were no distinct genetic groups really.
	We're circling back round to eugenics again, aren't we?
	Eugenics as a political movement has never gone away, never really gone away.
	It's an unfortunate aspect of human nature that hopefully we can contain.
	Carbohydrate Crusader.
	Interesting name.
	Alright, lads.
	I don't know why you're saying lads.
	Can't watch today's show as I'm finishing my last ever university assignment.
	I'll be re-watching later though, so can I get a congrats for my...
	Final finishing in that left-wing hellhole and never want to go back again.
	All the best fellas.
	I'm assuming he didn't know who was on the podcast, that's why he's saying fellas.
	But yeah, congratulations.
	Which university does he say?
	He doesn't say.
	Probably for good reason.
	If he calls it a left-wing hellhole, I don't think they're going to be too happy.
	Congratulations, mate.
	Good on you.
	I hope the COVID restrictions are off so that you'll be able to have a proper celebration.
	So that you'll be able to get together with people and not have any more of this nonsense.
	But don't hold your breath, I think.
	Omar Awad, it's much easier to change the meaning of words than to change the laws they are supposed to define.
	Women's rights are quickly becoming arbitrarily applied to terms of service law.
	I don't really follow that one.
	Obviously, I understand the changing meaning of words, but I suppose what he's saying is that the kind of stuff under the radar, all the terms of services stuff that people don't really focus on, they're changing the definitions there.
	So that we're not really, there's not really any explicit on the surface change, but it's all happening where it can be concealed and then it's too late to stop it, I suppose.
	Being that we've been talking about Afghanistan, do you want to put my Afghanistan cartoon out on the screen?
	Oh yeah, of course.
	I think that was at the, I put it in the wrong part of the segment, so I didn't actually talk about it, but it was at the end of your first segment.
	It is, but we didn't show it, did we?
	It is linked down below in the reading list.
	Oh, okay.
	Thank you very much.
	So this is a cartoon that is currently on uncancelled.co.uk.
	It's my Afghanistan cartoon.
	I've called it The Betrayal.
	This is how they harvest the poppies.
	They make a cut across the poppy seed and the white resin, the opium, drips out of it.
	So very, very similar to that.
	And obviously that is a child's ABC book discarded on the ground.
	And the poppy petals.
	So this was my Afghanistan cartoon.
	Yeah.
	I mean, this isn't just some war in some faraway place.
	This is where we actually went in to try and recreate a version of Western society in a tribal country which we had no hope of doing it.
	I just slap bang next to Iran on one side, Pakistan on the other, a border with China.
	I mean, come on.
	We had no hope.
	We had no hope of doing this.
	And what we did was betray...
	Two generations of Afghan children who grew up and their parents who grew up thinking that they were going to have a life like Western people and be able to travel and be able to go to university and have a career and all the rest of it and not just the women and girls, boys, young boys as well.
	What are they ever going to be able to do?
	If they're not in the army, they'll be harvesting opium.
	Yeah, it's kind of a grim prospect for their future, isn't it?
	It is.
	Yeah, it is.
	And, you know, schools?
	I mean, forget about it.
	Because you just want people to be labourers or soldiers.
	You don't need them to know very much.
	I mean, your only hope is you could probably read the Koran.
	You might have an easy life then.
	It's going back to a medieval sort of time, isn't it?
	Well...
	I mean, you can't really be surprised when a book written in the 7th century evokes 7th century principles.
	I mean, we're going to be in the strange position where Iran next door...
	Women, middle class women, have got a measure of freedom which is probably more than women in Afghanistan are now going to have, which is just bizarre.
	I never thought I'd really see the day, but never mind.
	Bucketbot, I think that Scotland, like Australia, should be sanctioned for their egregious human rights abuses.
	And I think Australia, he's on about the...
	The response to COVID, yes.
	It is absurd.
	And the story about them shooting the dogs as well is so awful.
	Anybody watching this down under, I really feel for you.
	We do have a fair few.
	I hope it comes to an end soon for you, you know.
	New Zealand's even worse than Australia as well, at least.
	Australia, there are more cases to rationalise it.
	In New Zealand, they had the lockdowns.
	New Zealand, their government is very, very strange anyway.
	I mean, it's a strange government anyway.
	I think Jackie Ardern may as well be Xi Jinping, for all I know.
	I mean, they're basically the same person politically.
	It's very strange.
	I mean...
	They're very big on climate and climate concerns and environmentalism.
	And what are they doing?
	Before the pandemic started, they were giving people financial rewards for killing things.
	Just kill as many of this type of animal, this type of thing, because these are not native to this country.
	So we've got to slaughter them all.
	And in medieval times they gave children a penny for every rat's tail they brought in.
	It's like that in New Zealand, I swear to God.
	I didn't know about that.
	Yeah, you know, they're trying to wipe out every kind of animal that isn't a native species.
	Just a bizarre government.
	Very bizarre.
	I mean, I can understand the impulse there, but it's probably not one of their main priorities at the minute.
	They've got a lot more important issues.
	It's a fascistic mentality.
	It's saying that humans are vastly more important than any other creature on Earth.
	I'm totally the opposite.
	I think if the animals want to migrate, we should let them bloom and migrate.
	They're trying to get away from climate change just like people.
	If we say it's all right for people to migrate all over the world, why is it not all right for animals to migrate all over the world?
	So why are you stopping them?
	Why are you saying, oh, I don't want that growing in my gut?
	No, this thing is actually trying to find a new habitat for itself.
	If you respect animals and the environment, you should just let it be, let it do what it wants.
	You know, I'm sorry, I'm probably very extreme in that view.
	It doesn't sound that extreme, but I think the argument would be that they're introduced by people, and I think a lot of environmentalists don't like the impact that people have.
	If it were perfectly natural, they'd be more accepting.
	That's still putting humans in saying we're so important, we did this, we did that.
	No, I'm sorry, no.
	So, as an American, I would lose my mind living in Scotland or anywhere in the UK. I can't believe y'all put up with speech suppression like this.
	Well, I don't think I'd put up with it.
	We're not.
	We're fighting back against it.
	We're not putting up against it.
	We are fighting back against it.
	I think more often than not I know that people are familiar with the fact that YouTube restricts what we can say but of course people forget that as well we're constrained by the UK government in what we can say because of course we are in the UK and we can't always say what we really think because the government says and prescribes certain beliefs that you have to adhere to.
	Well, I suppose you've got restrictions on what you can upload to YouTube.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's what I refer to as Californian imperialism, where they're imposing their views on the rest of the world, even though, you know, it's a very weird and unusual belief just for America, let alone the rest of the world.
	And some of their views on things like race just aren't applicable in the UK. We don't have the same history as America.
	And how the government have reacted to COVID-19?
	Governments all around the world have done something different.
	They've all done something slightly different.
	And yet you're not allowed to discuss it.
	I mean, even something as simple as trying to compare how Sweden dealt with it to how other European countries dealt with it.
	People are banned from YouTube for talking about that, you know?
	And that's just...
	To me, it's just discussing how different countries dealt with it, and even that is sort of...
	People lament the anti-vax crowd that say that Bill Gates is trying to control people and stuff like that, but when there's deliberate suppression of civil discussion, you can't be surprised when people...
	I think that people are right to be suspicious when something is compelled and forced upon them.
	As in, you can't question this.
	People immediately sense that something's up and they're right to do so because it's not right in a liberal society for these things to happen.
	So, Northamptonian Knight, teaching the Taliban about gender studies is like teaching a caveman that his spear is misogynistic.
	I mean, I think that makes the point.
	Alex Hoggle, the state of that Afghan TV studio, all those men with guns standing under a sign that says, Peace Studio is the Taliban to a T. Absolutely.
	I think that image and the image of Biden repeatedly walking away from press conferences.
	Those are going to be the ones that are in the history books, aren't they?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So Kali Kjalander, sorry if I mispronounced your second name, I can get behind the freedom is part of feminism.
	The problem is that after they got the freedoms they wanted, the old feminists put up a no noticeable resistance to the Marxist feminists.
	More old feminists need to own up to this fact.
	Yeah.
	I think there's a, from my own experience, I was a kind of active feminist in my 20s.
	When I was doing a college course, I was in London, I was surrounded by other feminists, you know, it was the AIDS crisis, Margaret Thatcher, you know, the miners' strike, all those radical things going on.
	So, you know, we thought of ourselves as very feminist, you know, out on the streets marching and reclaim the night marches and all that sort of thing.
	And then we all had to go away and work for 20 years and keep a roof over our heads and in many cases raise a family.
	And these things take you away from keeping your eye on the ball.
	So you've now got, you had a good 20 year gap, even longer, 30 years, before you suddenly turn around in your late 50s and think, my God, what's happened to the world?
	And that's the position we're in now.
	The kind of feminists you see up at Glasgow supporting Maren Miller, it's all us oldies that have sort of suddenly thought, my God, what's happened to the world while I was busy earning a living, having a career, keeping a roof over my head?
	That's a fair point.
	I've never really thought about it like that.
	And the young ones have been brainwashed and have been captured by all this ideology.
	And that's why there's such a huge gap in the viewpoints.
	Yeah, I've always been curious because it is largely the people who campaigned from the 60s until, like you said, the 80s with Thatcher and things like that, that are the ones that are putting up the most resistance.
	Yeah, because we've had this big gap where we've actually been trying to live and raise families and stuff, you know?
	I suppose when you put it like that, it makes perfect sense, but you don't really think of it like that.
	And you kind of thought, right, they did all their campaigning, they did all their marching, they did all their communes, they did all their camping out at Greenham Common, and it's like, oh, it's all been done.
	Everybody accepts feminism as a real thing.
	What happened when we turned our back for 20 years?
	Do you know what I mean?
	And that is kind of why you've got this gap between older women and younger women.
	What do you think about the argument that I've seen go around where charities like Stonewall, once they achieve their original aims and other charities that are promoting social causes, once they achieve their original aims, they needed a raison d'etre, didn't they?
	They needed a reason to continue their organisation because they've got people with careers and they exist.
	And once they've achieved their political aims, they kind of don't want to just vanish.
	Well, like a lot of big NGOs and a lot of big charities, where are the millions of pounds going to come from if they don't carry on?
	But Stonewall are dying on their feet, really.
	Well, yeah, the government now has said they don't want anything to do with them, so...
	They're dying on their feet.
	This capture of the police forces is particularly bad, especially with Scotland, the prosecutions.
	But now that we've got a split in the gay movement, and you've now got the gender critical side of the gay movement setting up on their own and attracting more and more people to it, Where do the police go?
	They can't chop the rainbow police cars in half.
	No, they've nailed their colours to a particular mast.
	And this is why these individual cases are so important.
	Like that guy who was chucked out of the Manchester Pride and really bullied and piled on by people around him.
	My goodness, you know, what can you compare it to?
	Well, you can compare it to a lot of things.
	But how will that man get justice from the police when they have nailed their colours to the ideology of the people who are bullying him?
	Yeah, I mean, I don't know what he could do.
	The police are now in a position where somebody has got to step in from the top.
	And we are lucky in Britain, we have got people who are opening their eyes.
	We've got elected police and crime commissioners.
	One in particular has stood up, Lisa Townsend.
	I want to give a shout out to her.
	Sorry, police and crime commissioner has stood up against this nonsense.
	And these are elected people, by the way.
	Of course, yeah.
	Not like the unelected chief constables.
	These are elected people who are over and above the police forces in their areas.
	So yes, I think the fight back is going pretty well, at least in England.
	And of course the police are meant to be apolitical in the first place and their association with the Pride movement and the, I'm just going to call them the alphabet people because I'm sick of saying they're really long.
	I've got the word now.
	To protect and serve without fear or favour, that's their oath.
	Yeah, well, what's happened to that?
	Yeah.
	Well, like I said, they can't cut their rainbow cars in half and one go off in one direction and one go off in another.
	It doesn't work like that, you know?
	They can all ride bicycles, I don't know.
	71%er, we should beat Scotland to it and have our own referendum to kick them out of the UK. Well, funny enough, that's where Boris might blindside them, because he might allow Scottish people that are living in England, who have lived in England for a long time, to vote in the next referendum.
	That would be quite funny.
	That would be funny.
	And what would be more funny if he allows us all to vote in it.
	Because, you know, we could just send them packing, couldn't we?
	Say, go!
	If you want to go, just go.
	I'd quite like to see a referendum where they just ask Northern Ireland, Wales and England...
	Should we get rid of Scotland?
	You can always know what the answer's going to be, can't you?
	You know what the answer would be, yeah.
	Sick of you whinging, get lost.
	Just go, yeah.
	Just go.
	I mean, they're a drain on our tax money.
	I'm paying taxes that go up to Scotland to fund their much more expansive welfare state, and that doesn't seem right to me.
	Yes, which they've got massive problems with drug abuse and homelessness and stuff like that and that is, as you say, that is the British welfare state which is coping with all that, paying for all that, yeah.
	Jamie Custon.
	I don't know how to pronounce your name again, sorry.
	I'm a monarchist and I found the cartoon funny.
	That's good.
	It's good to see that people have a sense of humour about things that they might disagree with otherwise.
	Student of history.
	Oi, you got yourself a criticism licence.
	I'm just taking the mickey there.
	Ain't no licence for talking about dem transgenders lot.
	I think that's someone making fun of...
	We've got to be American making fun of the way we talk and how we need licenses for everything.
	But yes, we apparently need a license to do pretty much anything, unfortunately.
	Everything needs to be government mandated.
	But anyway, I believe we're out of time.
	So thank you very much for watching and thank you very much to Stella.
	And is there anything before we disappear?
	I just want to say thank you for the very nice comments and the intelligent comments.
	You know, I've done a lot of controversial stuff and I'm very pleased to see that the audience of the podcast and the Lotus Eaters, you know, you're not frightened of talking about this.
	You're not frightened of this type of satire.
	Well, thank you very much.
	And see you tomorrow.
	Here's my book, folks.
	It's still available on Amazon and all the rest of them, we hope.
	Okay.

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