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March 2, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:30:43

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #340

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	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters.
	It is the 2nd of March 2022.
	I am Thomas, your host for today, and I'm delighted to be joined by Harry.
	Hello there.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing alright, thanks.
	I wasn't expecting the question.
	I'm doing good.
	You know, just getting my stuff sorted for this morning.
	Had an interesting chat with Callum.
	Yesterday afternoon, which will be coming out as a special little premium podcast soon where I explain Western music to Callum because all he absorbs is Eastern propaganda music.
	Oh, fantastic.
	It kind of turned into him convincing me on Eastern propaganda music because, to be perfectly honest, there's a few bankers out there that I cannot deny how irresistible the boogie is on them.
	I very much look forward to seeing what comes of that.
	Yeah, well, it's just a bit of meme, bit of fun content, so, you know.
	Anyway, back to today.
	We're going to be discussing the fault stories coming out of Ukraine, the extremely badly timed pay rise self-given to our own members of parliament, and more double standards from Black Lives Matter.
	But first, we have some announcements to share with you, the first of which is this, mine, addressing the NATO question, which, as you can probably guess, It's about where NATO should perhaps go from here.
	You spent a lot of time on this, didn't you?
	I spent a lot of time on this, and I ended up completely rewriting it because, of course, it was very much a story unfolding.
	But I don't think that they can be without culpability in this issue, and I've tried to give a very, very considered explanation as to why that is.
	So please do give that a read.
	I very much look forward to interlocking with you.
	He drove himself crazy with NATO over the weekend, so please do him a favour.
	At least make it worth it.
	But moving on from this, we also have the video about Eric Zemmour and why he may be the most based man alive.
	And from what I know about Eric Zemmour, he is pretty based.
	When is he running for election in France?
	You'd have to ask Carl and Callum about that, because they're the ones who are on this podcast.
	I don't really know anywhere near as much about Zamor as they do.
	They seem to be Zamor fanboys at this point.
	Although, from the clips that I've seen, I can understand why.
	No, but indeed, it does seem like a video worth watching, so do check that out.
	And last of all, I believe this is the last announcement, we have the Rudyard Kipling collection, which is John's video, I believe.
	I don't know anything about Rudyard Kipling, but...
	I believe this is just John reading out some poetry, to be honest, which, given John's illustrious voice, will be a very pleasant experience.
	Yeah, well, that's enough justification to tune in, then, I suppose.
	Without further ado, Harry.
	Let's get into it.
	So, it's time to explore the wild, wild east and the stories coming out from the Ukrainian and Russian conflict at the moment.
	An important thing to note here is the fact that a lot of the information that we're getting is being filtered through news agencies, mainstream media outlets and the like, and even the information that's coming out that we're certain of is difficult to tell whose interpretation of particular information is accurate.
	That's one of the most difficult things.
	A lot of us have never really been involved or around during a conflict of this scale, of this kind of context before, so it's difficult to understand what is true and what's false that's been coming out of there, and it is very important to try and remain sceptical of the information that we see coming, especially any notable war hero stories or anything of the like like that.
	And another thing to take note of as well is that in debunking and checking a lot of this information, you also have to be wary of the people checking it and whether they are accurate when they're correcting the information as well.
	Yes, quite.
	So it's very complicated.
	It's kind of a sort of a deluge of information that we're very uncertain of.
	But we can be sure of a few things.
	There are a few people actually over there in Ukraine right now who you wouldn't really classify as typical news sources, but who could be used for some if you want to know How it's kind of unfolding on the ground.
	One being our old chum, Miles Rootledge, Lord Miles himself, who is currently in Ukraine.
	I think he was in Kiev.
	I think he's heading to Kharkiv.
	At the moment, last update that I saw was that he was being protected by a band of Ukrainian female soldiers.
	So, sounds like he's having a lovely time of it, to be perfectly honest.
	Yeah, sounds like he's in good company.
	You know, so obviously he streams on YouTube as well, so you can check him out for some sort of casual updates of what's going on in his local area.
	Interestingly enough, we also have people like Coach Redpill, who I was only aware of previously as being one of those chat-up artists, I think.
	And he's in Ukraine, because I think he's got a wife and children in there, and he's given an update on his Telegram, which is very unexpected, on the 27th of February, where he said that at the current pace of operations, the Russians will completely capture Ukraine within 7 to 14 days.
	They're winning, and winning decisively, so I don't know the accuracy of that.
	When did he say that?
	On the 27th?
	On the 27th, which would be Sunday.
	Yeah, that would be how it looked at the time.
	At the time, but we'll see how well that prediction comes to pass as it goes on.
	But there are people in Ukraine, as I've said, like these people, who are giving updates.
	Whether accurate or not, they're sort of giving their opinions.
	But the mainstream media outlets have been focusing on a number of specific stories.
	One being this particular woman, the Ukrainian woman, who has kind of become the face of the conflict.
	You've probably seen her plastered across front pages of the Daily Mail, The Sun, all those kinds of papers, where it's saying a woman whose face has become one of the faces of war in Ukraine has spoken of her ordeal and says she is lucky to be alive.
	The picture of teacher Elena Kurilo with her head bandaged and face covered in blood has become synonymous with the horror of the crises following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
	52 year old survived the shelling by Russian forces in Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, but her home was completely destroyed.
	All those kinds of papers.
	That's where I'll leave it with that woman at the moment.
	Obviously, the pictures that are involved, pretty brutal.
	It doesn't look like she's having a great time of it, and kind of indicative of the suffering that the individuals on the ground are going through.
	There's other stranger stories coming out from Ukraine, such as this one, where it's saying that Invaders will die.
	Former Miss Ukraine joins fight to defend her country from Russia, which also involves this one very specific picture that you can see on the left of her holding what appears to be, and we'll get into this a bit later, appears to be an assault rifle geared up to fight against the Russian invaders.
	Anastasia Lenner, Ukraine's 2015 representative in the Miss Grand International Beauty Contest, has answered Volodymyr Zelinsky's call for civilians to defend their homeland, according to her Instagram account.
	Since the launch of Russia's invasion on Thursday, the model has shared a string of posts on her Instagram story urging support and soliciting donations to the Ukrainian armed forces.
	In a recent Instagram story, the invaders will die on our land.
	All the world will see this.
	And in an earlier post, accompanied by the photo of armed soldiers blocking a road, she said, Everyone who crosses the Ukrainian border with the intent to invade will be killed.
	What we'll find out as we go on is that there's a little bit of context that a lot of these news outlets have been leaving out of these Instagram posts and these photos.
	But you can obviously see, judging by the look, the intent is to make it seem as though she is actively engaged in contact.
	On the front line.
	Exactly.
	And then there is probably the most famous initial story to have come out of this, which was the story of the Ghost of Kiev, who has appeared at terms to both be Alec Baldwin, Sam Hyde, and a number of other internet memes.
	If you've seen those images, social media has been ablaze with outlandish claims of a pilot known as the Ghost of Kiev, who's reportedly traversing the skies and taking down Russian jets.
	But does the Ukrainian flyer really exist?
	And this is where a lot of these stories, you start to see the cracks and you start to ask questions about them.
	A number of videos posted to Twitter showed a jet soaring through the sky amid speculation the pilot had downed six Russian planes on the first day of Vladimir Putin's war with Ukraine.
	Photo purporting to show the MiG-29 fighter pilot was tweeted on Friday by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, adding to speculation the exploits might be true.
	The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence also seized on rumours of the fly's heroics and tweeted an image of the MiG-29 as part of a post reporting that retired pilots were returning to the Air Force.
	The tweet said...
	However...
	There is a big but on this narrative, which is it's not certain that the Ghost of Kiev actually exists, and the one major clip that was going around that showed the fighter pilot racking up multiple kills and got 5 million views on social media has been debunked, because it's actually from a 2008 video game, Digital Combat Simulator.
	What a dreadful shame.
	Aviation experts have also said that the claims of a fighter pilot downing six planes in a day is pretty doubtful.
	As far as I'm aware, I'm not an air combat expert, but it does sound pretty unlikely that you'd be able to be so efficient in just one day.
	We've got...
	Other people who are talking about it, if you want to click on the image, we've got checkmarks.
	Adam Kinzinger sharing, the ghost of Kiev has a name and has absolutely owned the Russian Air Force.
	Godspeed and more kills, Samuel Lill.
	Seemingly, completely unironically not noticing that this is an obvious Photoshop of our glorious hero Samuel Hyde.
	Um...
	Which is very amusing that a number of check marks seem to have been falling for a number of these more obvious ruses that have been put about and bandied about on the internet.
	Here's another image, here's another thing that he might have shared.
	Oh yeah, he also shared this image of what appears to be small children saluting a passing Ukrainian tank with military force on it.
	And the child has a gun as well.
	I assume that's a small toy plastic gun.
	But still, this is obviously supposed to be like, ah, look at them all saluting their brave boys and soldiers going out to fight against the Russians.
	And the question isn't obviously whether or not people are going out and fighting for their homeland.
	For Ukraine, and I believe it's true that they were blocking exit from the country to adult male fighters, people between the ages of 18 and 60, but the question is whether all of these images and some of this stuff that you're seeing is true.
	And if we go to the next link as well, you can see something else that I'm sure Kinzinger would probably have shared if it had been attributed.
	Here's the Ghost of Kiev, obviously having to eject from his jet just in case, fires a rocket launcher into a fighter...
	This is obviously a video game.
	I think this is Battlefield V or something, isn't it?
	Either that or Call of Duty.
	One of those ones.
	This is one of those ones that was a big meme when the trailer came out.
	It's like, yes, this is what modern warfare truly looks like as the Ghost of Kiev.
	It's demonstrating, yeah.
	Yep, and there was also the big story, this one I was really sad to hear about, of Snake Island, the Ukrainian soldiers who were supposedly killed after refusing to surrender to a Russian warship while defending Snake Island.
	Ukraine has honored 13 soldiers who had killed defending a tiny island after reportedly swearing at a Russian ship that ordered them to surrender.
	In unverified audio clips, the border guards defending Ziminyi island in the Black Sea are told to "lay down your weapons or be bombed." "Russian war hit go to hell," they responded.
	I've heard the clip.
	It was actually...
	Tell them to go F themselves.
	So they say, go F yourself.
	Ukraine says they were then killed by air and sea strikes.
	Russia denies the account, saying that they all surrendered.
	So both sides are trying to push narratives that fit one side, and this is where you see the divisions start to come in, that a lot of what we're hearing from that area currently, because of the conflict, is likely to be a little bit skewed, depending on who's telling you what, because each side is going to have their own incentives depending on who's telling you what, because each side is going to have their own incentives to try and propagandise events for their own purposes of You know, something like the Ghost of Kiev may not be true,
	But it sounds like a rousing war story to get the troops to go out there and put their own lives on the risk.
	If there's a man going out there and taking out all these Russian fighter pilots just by himself, then you can have that same impact, which is noble.
	It's just whether over here we're reporting it as true or not, because I'd say the truth takes precedent over everything.
	And if we move along, we've got other people like Eliza Schaefer saying...
	Is this real or propaganda?
	Ukraine said the soldiers are dead.
	Russia says they took the soldiers prisoner and didn't kill them.
	And one video spreading the initial story hit 27 million views on TikTok.
	So whether you get the right impression of this whole situation or not is very important when it's reaching about 27 million people.
	Well, not sadly.
	Obviously, I don't want these people to be dead.
	No, of course not.
	But in terms of the actual tragedy of the story, it turns out not to have been true.
	Move along.
	And we can see that there are video of the soldiers who were captured that was given by Russia Today.
	Obviously, Russia Today, state media outlet, but I do believe that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has also confirmed that this is true as well.
	So you've got to be careful with all of this stuff, but this is also why it's important that we don't, even though we already have, I believe, that we don't and shouldn't ban channels like Russia Today from being shown, because...
	Whether or not they have their own political spin that they want to put on it, it can still be very useful and very informative to get another side of the story that we're not getting.
	And this is all...
	If we move along, yeah, you can see here...
	Russian warship captured alive not killed confirms the Ukrainian Navy so there you have it as well they were captured alive by Russia after initial reports claimed the service members died the Russian attack decimated the islands infrastructure and the crew of a Ukrainian Sapphire civilian ship sent to the island to aid victims were also captured we are very happy to learn our brothers are alive and well with them the Ukrainian Navy said so Happy-ish ending.
	Obviously, it would have been better if they didn't have to be captured at all, because I doubt it's very nice being captured.
	But better than being dead, is all I can say.
	And this is where we get into the rest of the misinformation that has been spread.
	This is a great thread by a man called Brian McNally, who I would say be careful of.
	This thread has some great resources for stuff that is verifiable and able to be debunked.
	But McNally does end this thread by basically saying, as a result of all this fake news I've uncovered, I've come to the conclusion the entire conflict is fake.
	And it's not happening.
	And when we've got people, when we know, we know, Callum talks to him, that people like Miles are there, actually experiencing what's going on, obviously it's not fake.
	Unless Miles is just an even deeper operative.
	Ryan would nonetheless like to claim that they're both part of the Matrix as well.
	I would only assume so.
	But, despite his own nuttiness, there is something to be said for the collection of resources that we've got through this thread.
	So, this picture that I pointed out earlier, that showed the children saluting the tank...
	Is not fake, but it is from 2016.
	So it's not actually from this conflict.
	It's from probably some of the sort of military recruitment picture where they're like, oh, let's get people to sign up for the military, look at the kids waving, or maybe it was part of the ongoing skirmishes that were going on in the eastern areas.
	The Donbass region.
	Yeah, the Donbass region.
	Then, there is also the image I showed earlier talking about the woman.
	People are claiming that this is fake, trying to say that this particular woman...
	I would be very, very careful with this one, because this is one that I've seen lots of other people other than just McNally claiming to be fake, and once again, this is where you have to be careful of the people who are supposedly debunking this as well, which is...
	I have tried to look into it, because people are attributing these photos to a gas attack in 2018, and you can see there they've got...
	Images of Dyer, Stein, 2018, blah, blah, blah.
	I and John have both tried to verify if those photos were taken, or taken from a particular date.
	McNally doesn't include any sort of reverse Google image searches to verify it either.
	They just put up this one image saying, oh, it's from 2018, but I can't verify it.
	And as far as I'm aware, not many other people can verify it as well, other than these screenshots.
	So we should probably suspend John from then?
	Yeah, so I'm going to suspend judgement and just assume, given the information that I've got available to me, that that woman was actually affected and caught in a blast and obviously has been very badly injured.
	Plus, I think you can also access the Twitter account of the people who took those photographs, and it does seem to all line up date-wise from the 24th of February when the photos were taken.
	But then there's other things like photos and videos being taken from films.
	People may have seen these particular images where it's like loved ones.
	Scroll to the next one just so we can see it, John.
	Thank you.
	Ukrainian soldiers leaving their loved ones to fight for their country.
	Absolutely heartbreaking.
	This all turns out to actually be a little clip from a film.
	It's pretty sinister, isn't it?
	From 2017.
	I don't know how sinister it is.
	I mean, I can understand why they would sort of want to repurpose things, because I imagine there are probably experiences like this going on.
	It's just the use of the film footage is...
	The playing off of emotion.
	Yes.
	I mean, I was thinking a real-life conflict, you don't have to resort to using...
	No, you don't need to fetishise this anymore.
	Yeah, because obviously these sorts of experiences we'll probably be having with people who are having to flee the country, because the women having to flee the country, the men not being allowed to flee the country.
	This is something that will be going on, but just be careful of the images you use and make sure that they're being used in the right context.
	Then there's other stuff, like, John, if you'd like to move along?
	The images of Kiev's mayor, whose name is blanking on me, Klinsky?
	I don't know.
	Something like that.
	These photos of him, which were supposedly made to look as though he's, you know, like, sat at a turret, ready to shoot at some Ukrainians.
	You've got Mike Pompeo.
	He'll fight as bravely for Ukraine.
	Yeah, sorry, yeah, fight the Russians.
	Oh no, I'm spreading fake news, God.
	But yeah, this one obviously is supposed to look like he's about to shoot a load of Russians, making it look like he's on the front lines.
	These photos, actually from last year, I don't know what the context was, but I've seen that you can reverse Google search them, and you are able to see that they are from 2018, 2021 I should say.
	And then the other funny one is Miss Ukraine fighting.
	One of the things they left out from those Instagram posts is that she's actually holding an airsoft rifle.
	This appears to be some kind of photo shoot that was done, probably once again for propaganda and morale.
	I was about to say, actually, her skin complexion's far too good.
	It's supposed to be an actual warfare shot, if you like.
	Yes, it's definitely done for morale purposes.
	And on the Instagram posts themselves, she hashtags airsoftgun and other such things.
	Obviously, I can't read Ukrainian and Russian, but I would assume that she also points that.
	But the news media outlets that we have over here are picking it up and trying to make it look like she is on the front lines already.
	From what I'm aware...
	Because I've watched the Quarterings video discussing this as well.
	She might actually be signing up to try and get onto the front lines of it, which was very admirable and very brave of you.
	But still, photos being used out of context to try and construe a different narrative.
	And then there's possibly the funniest one.
	I'd have no idea what the context of this one is, but there's this image going around, which is Fox News talking about Ukrainian civilians, and these men have very obviously cardboard guns in their hands.
	LAUGHTER I don't know what the context of this is.
	I don't know why.
	Perhaps it is just to present a different front.
	Perhaps they don't have the appropriate amount of weapons needed.
	But if you're going to talk about the Ukrainian civilians taking up arms, you might want to actually show footage of people with real guns in their hands.
	And like I say, this particular thread is very useful, but does conclude that the conflict is fake.
	Which is nonsense.
	Don't listen to that.
	Be sceptical of everything, including from us, because we're not going to get everything right.
	Of course not.
	Be sceptical of everything that you're hearing coming from that region, because there's going to be so much misinformation, purposeful disinformation, and also just propaganda being used by both sides.
	And people like Dan Crenshaw are falling for it on Twitter.
	He's saying this is from the 25th, so this is before most people knew that a lot of this had been debunked.
	But Snake Island says go F yourself.
	Ghost of Kiev kills five Russian jets.
	Ukrainians are fighters.
	Putin can go to hell.
	Be careful not to get swept up in all of this.
	As John has said, as far as we're all concerned, this appears to be a choose-your-own-adventure war because we've got this image showing the same image reported by different people saying it's captured Russians in Nikopol and then also captured Ukrainians in Nikopol.
	Which is it?
	We honestly don't really have any particular way of verifying it, for the most part, when it's just out of context images like this, unless you're aware and able to tell the difference between the getup that the Ukrainians and the Russians are wearing, in which case you're obviously more informed than I am.
	You need to be a uniform expert, clearly.
	And just to close this off, one of the worst things to come out of this whole operation, just as a little cheeky side note, is the fact that for some reason the Meerkat's ads have been pulled over Ukrainian war sensitivities.
	For some reason.
	This is the thing that's hit me closest to home.
	Hit me in my heart right here.
	Compare the market price comparison site has pulled ads featuring the animated rich Russian Meerkat, Alexander Orlov from news bulletins.
	And content about the Ukraine war.
	The firm stressed in a statement, Meerkat's a fictional character.
	You mean they're not real?
	I thought the talking Russian meerkats were real.
	I'm so...
	This is so disappointing.
	They continue.
	They have no association with Russia and the current situation.
	We're continually reviewing our advertising to ensure we're being sensitive to the current situation.
	So they're going to have to find new mascots for the time being.
	That is a dreadful shame.
	I never thought I'd see the day where the actual meerkat of all meerkats was actually cancelled.
	I know, it's really stressing.
	I hope they're treating him well while he's been sent to his internment camp.
	Oh yes.
	Anyway, that was just a little cheeky side note to end it off with.
	Sad times indeed, but be careful of the news that you're hearing.
	Yeah.
	It is a shame, isn't it?
	Because a lot of these are good news stories that make you feel slightly better about the awful stuff that's going on in Ukraine at the moment.
	And I'm not, of course, trying to virtually signal about which way I'm looking at this, because I'm not.
	But it's...
	You're always going to err on the side of those who are on the defence, or at least a part of you is, if you abstract it from the political context, because they're defending their homeland, right?
	We're basically evolutionarily designed to favour the underdog from an empathetic standpoint.
	That is interesting, and obviously that's the point.
	A lot of these stories are designed to stir the emotions so that you get all riled up, and I would imagine a lot of it is primarily for the purposes of those on the ground fighting the conflict.
	We're not on the ground fighting the conflict, and it's very easy to be misled or have your own emotions stirred by fake news, and you've got to be careful of that.
	Yeah, clearly.
	Well, no, thank you for that.
	The war is, of course, affecting everyone financially to some degree because of the economic sanctions, of course, being imposed on Russia as a result of this.
	But a select few have found a clever way of shielding themselves from it just a little bit.
	The MPs who have given themselves a pay rise now of all times.
	You know the way there's the we have investigated ourselves and find ourselves innocent?
	This is we have assessed ourselves and found ourselves worthy of pay rise.
	Do you know the last time that they gave themselves a pay rise?
	Do you know when that was?
	Every year.
	At the beginning of the pandemic.
	Choose your moments.
	So much overtime, guys.
	It's really hard work shutting down all your businesses and making you poor.
	Well, we're going to give, basically, reparations to all of you lot, so we best deserve something off the back of it as well.
	And this money printer, it's got a lot of excess we've got to skim off the side for ourselves.
	Yes, indeed.
	They gave themselves a pay rise right at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and have deemed it, of course, facing to give themselves another.
	We shouldn't really be all that surprised, to be honest, because there has been a progressive...
	Wage increase for MPs for some time, as we can see up here.
	If we scroll down just a little bit, you can see what they've been paid annually over the years.
	What happened between 2014 and 2015?
	Just 12 years ago, they were on £65,000 a year, closer to £66,000 a year.
	They are now earning, I'd never believe, £84,000.
	Yeah, because this only goes up to 2020 when they were getting about 82,000.
	The pay rise has gone up by about 2,200 a year, so that's rounded up to about 84,000.
	Everybody at home, ask yourself, do you think, do you feel deep down in your heart that your local MP, or anyone's local MP, is really doing enough to justify this continual pay rise?
	Once again, how much better were they doing in 2014 and 2015 that they decided to give themselves a seven grand pay rise just between those two years?
	I mean, honestly, I would say demote all of these people, get them back to a pre-2010 pay salary, because honestly, they've done a shocking job through the whole pandemic.
	They have.
	I mean, just look at their handling of Brexit.
	They nearly actually failed to deliver on a vote that they orchestrated and voted almost unanimously to have, and they nearly demolished it.
	Yeah, so I assume the MPs are in charge of deciding what their own...
	Yeah, but if they did vote to have the referendum in the first place, they just, of course, well...
	Anyway, you could make the argument, you know, MPs pay their bills, just like everyone else, but actually they don't.
	No, they pay their bills with my money.
	Yeah, the bills are, to my knowledge, covered as part of their living allowance, and they, of course, can have other things covered by expense claims as well, as we've heard.
	As you heard of Jackie Smith, Eric Pickles...
	So this is all disposable income.
	This is all pretty much...
	Yeah.
	Wonderful!
	Waste your money as you wish.
	Anyway, this isn't even saying anything about them owning a second home either.
	In any case, we've known for some time that there's going to be a hike in energy prices because wholesale energy prices are at a record high.
	So this is a bit of an insult to the taxpayer.
	We can see the extent of this in the following graph.
	If we go down a little bit, I'm of course not an expert on this, but you can see what this is trying to show is how...
	This is a forecast from October last year.
	You can see the rise from the final quarter of last year, which is right at the beginning, to the first year of this year is simply astonishing.
	This was before it looked remotely like an invasion of Ukraine was going to happen.
	that I've seen a lot of news outlets recently trying to put it down purely to the Russian conflict. - Please not. - Because we get so many natural gases, oil resources, all that sort of stuff from Russia.
	Then it's like, the prices have been rising for a good few months before any of that happened.
	And also, we've not been focusing on the kind of infrastructure that would be able to provide massive amounts of energy, like nuclear and other such other...
	Well, nuclear is the main energy source I would be focusing on, that would be able to make the situation much better for us.
	We saw what happened in Germany when they decided to close down their nuclear power plants, and they all of a sudden had energy shortages and power cuts.
	All across the country.
	As Nigel Farage has been saying, you've actually been subsidising to try to bring about forms of energy that have actually made prices even higher for ourselves.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, the green energy has been bankrupting us slowly.
	I hate it.
	Do you know who was actually a supporter of green energy of sorts was Russia Today at the time.
	Regressively, it was just being taken off air as of today, I believe.
	Oh, was it today?
	I believe it was today, yeah.
	If I'm wrong, correct me.
	But if you remember, they were on the front line of making the case against fracking in the UK, focused almost exclusively on the environmental consequences.
	They're very fair points, I suppose, they were making.
	But to be fair, in hindsight, it's easy to see why they were doing this, isn't it?
	But given the extent that the UK was kind of not using its own...
	given that the UK using its own natural resources would reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
	We could just build a few nuclear plants and we'd be sorted, but let's just keep focusing on solar panels and wind turbines.
	It isn't just the energy market, unfortunately.
	Investment funds have suffered from high volatility as well.
	I know these are very middle-class problems...
	But these are the financial services that a lot of people depend on to actually raise a deposit so they can buy their own home, something that originally assumed to be a natural right for human beings.
	Yeah, I mean, the thing is, you can say middle-class problems, but a lot of the working-class people I know, because of the fact that they're...
	I'm from the North.
	Yeah, well, this isn't even a dream of working-class people anymore, such is the space of...
	Well, that's the thing.
	A lot of working-class people that I know, after they get to a certain point, because they're part of trade unions and other such things, they often have decent salaries, and are often better off than most white-collar, middle-class people that I know myself, at least up to a certain age.
	I don't think investment, as long as you are frugal and smart with your money, should be out of the reach of anybody.
	Even if you're working minimum wage, if you can set aside a tiny little bit of that each month or each week, depending on how you're getting paid, you should be able to just invest inside.
	Yeah, it does depend on how much you can afford to put aside as well and whether the amount that you're saving is actually equivalent to the rate the house prices are currently increasing.
	That is the problem here, really.
	But anyway, if we move on to the housing price rise, the Office for National Statistics, you can see if we actually just summarise the extent of this problem and why the pay rise of MPs might be considered as a little bit of an insult if we scroll down a little bit.
	UK average house prices increased by 7.5% over the year to January 2021, down from 8% in December 2020.
	Average house prices increased over the year in England to 267,000.
	In Wales to 179,000.
	In Scotland, 164,000.
	And in Northern Ireland, that was in Scotland.
	And Northern Ireland to 148,000.
	So it does seem a little bit rich for MPs that issued themselves a pay rise at this point in time.
	I'm never going to be able to buy a bloody house.
	I know, it's depressing, isn't it?
	I mean, the Bank of England has apparently responded by loosening mortgage lending rules to counteract nervousness at present for obvious reasons and affordability.
	The problem is I don't see how loosening mortgage credit rules is going to help because, I don't know, I see that...
	Going too far ends up going down sort of roads that the 08 financial crisis did.
	It's just getting rid of some of the red tape that they bought in to try to avoid what happened in 2008.
	But it's only temporary, basically.
	Yeah, I don't know what red tape they did do, but I think mortgages, to a certain extent, should be something that are a bit more difficult for some people to get hold of, because otherwise you might get people who will default on loans.
	Yes, and they'll end up having their home repossessed and getting into endless...
	Yeah, and then the bank's just like, where's all this money gone?
	Government, please help.
	Again, government, help us correct these problems that you keep making.
	But if we move on slightly, on predominantly the same point, though, here's a summary of the Ukraine situation's effects on markets' volatility, which seems to have created as many opportunities as it has problems.
	The last month of the current quarter looks like it could start on a weak note as the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensifies as a convoy of Russian vehicles heading to the Ukrainian capital and Ukraine forces taking delivery of donated MiG-29 fighter jets in Poland.
	Near-term stock market volatility will likely persist as the conflict continues along with a growing number of sanctions on Russia.
	These developments will likely shape not only President Biden's State of the Union address tonight that is expected to focus on inflation.
	That's not tonight, that's a few days ago, wasn't it?
	Foreign policy and climate change, but also Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's semi-annual testimony at the House Committee of Financial Services that begins tomorrow before we get to those events.
	Today brings a few slow of retail earnings reports and a swarm of February PMI data.
	I mean, if anything, you could read between the lines and say this is a good time to invest in defence stocks, possibly.
	Do not take my advice, by the way, because I'm not an expert.
	Neither are any of those.
	Whatever you do, just don't listen to me.
	But there is just saying there is a war going on and someone is probably making a killing from selling military supplies.
	But anyway, the government...
	I'll stay on topic.
	The government continues to assure us that we are all in this together as they announce new sanctions on Russia in light of the ongoing aggression against Ukraine.
	So yes, here we are.
	Here is the statement.
	Russian ships have been banned from UK ports following a fresh raft of UK sanctions against Russia today.
	The ban includes any vessels owned or operated by anyone connected to Russia and authorities will also gain new powers to detain Russian vessels.
	Additional economic measures introduced by Foreign Secretary today, including against the Russian Central Bank and the state's sovereign wealth fund, may also mean the majority of Russia's financial system is now covered by UK sanctions.
	The new measures prohibit UK individuals and entities from providing financial services to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, as well as the Ministry of Finance and National Wealth Fund.
	Harry.
	Oh, I was just going to say, I think they're also...
	Was it Starmer who was saying that we should disconnect them from the Swift services as well?
	I think, hasn't Boris been arguing for that as well?
	That's the thing.
	I think it might have been Starmer at first, but I've seen more rumblings towards that direction in disconnecting Russia from SWIFT. And as far as I'm aware, that's completely unprecedented what sort of ripple effects that could have throughout economies around the world.
	Yeah, it is.
	But the government has nonetheless taken the moral decision that, look, whatever cost this has for us, it's done on a moral basis to isolate Vladimir Putin economically.
	Like, we are at an economic war with Russia.
	Hopefully, my God, it stays that way as an economic war, I I hope we don't have to keep fighting war in the first place, to be perfectly honest.
	I'm starting to get into a bit of an old-school hippie mindset of, man, can't we all just get along, do we?
	Yeah, exactly.
	But the UK government, and this was pushed most fervently by Liz Truss, has openly admitted that these sanctions will hurt the UK economy, but they're allowing it on the basis that it's morally the right thing to do in order to put pressure on Russia.
	The MPs are doing their bits by giving themselves, well, again, a pay rise where the rest of us pay for the economic war against Russia, which...
	Well, I suppose on principle, I perfectly understand why that is, of course.
	But anyway, here is the announcement as given by GB News.
	MPs are set to receive a substantial 2,200 pay hike next month, it has been revealed.
	Because we've done such a good job so far.
	Let's just pat ourselves on the back.
	Great job, lads.
	As the country is plunged into a cost-of-living crisis, the rise from 81,932 to 84,144 is likely to cause anger.
	You don't say!
	You don't say.
	You really don't say.
	Independence watchdog Ipsa was set up in the wake of MP's expense scandals and are tasked with setting the pay of the individuals who represent UK constituencies in Parliament.
	And apparently the rise is based on a calculation on the average change in salaries for public sector workers in the last year.
	Richard Lloyd, the chair of IPSA, This is the first increase in pay for MPs in two years and follows the average of increases across the public sector last year.
	I question if the justification is that the public sector workers have got the pay rise, that's one thing.
	You still need to prove and demonstrate to me that the managerial class on top of that has earned their way into that pay rise.
	Have you yourselves actually earned this?
	Yeah, it's all well and good to say the workers are working more efficiently, they're doing better, therefore they've earned this.
	The MPs?
	I don't really think so.
	No, I don't.
	Believe it or not, perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised.
	There hasn't actually been much of a fuss kicked up about this, as you would think.
	Of course, Momentum have been talking about this quite strongly, as you would expect, given their trade union roots.
	I suppose the Ukraine issue has kind of eclipsed it, really.
	But if we go on to the next one, you can see that some people have taken to social media to call this a sick early April Fool's joke.
	They're absolutely furious, and it's absolutely no wonder that they feel this way.
	But one of the more...
	I suppose, outspoken MPs on this matter is self-titled, not self-titled, she was given this unfortunate name of Putin's whore.
	Oh God!
	No, because she said something that sounded like she wanted NATO to disband, something like Jeremy Corbyn would say, which would of course be insane.
	But anyway, this is Zara Sultana.
	And if we scroll down a little, we can actually see the tweet that she issued.
	Yeah, there we are.
	So today the independent regulator said MPs will get a pay rise.
	I believe this is wrong.
	Ordinary people are facing a Tory cost-of-living crisis.
	They should get a proper pay rise, not well-paid MPs.
	That's why I donate mine to Coventry Food Bank and other local causes.
	I mean, that's fair enough, I suppose.
	You know what?
	I don't often agree with anything Zara Sultana says, but I agree.
	You don't deserve a pay rise.
	None of you deserve a pay rise.
	Stop stealing my money.
	No, you don't deserve what you were getting paid before.
	Taxation is theft.
	I'm just going to throw that out there.
	I'll save that for a premium segment to argue against that point.
	Okay, alright.
	When's the premium between you and Josh coming along where you argue about the subjective theory of value versus labour theory of value?
	I need to see that.
	It will come.
	It will come.
	Good things come to those who wait.
	But if we scroll down, we can actually see some of the responses that the mail has mentioned from ordinary people.
	It's a little bit further.
	Yeah, here we are.
	So this is Adam Thomas.
	Me and my wife both work full-time and are only just getting by.
	There is no money left for any luxuries.
	Lord knows how we are going to pay the energy bills when the rise kicks in.
	Then just to kick you down when you are down, MPs get another two grand.
	Wonderful.
	I mean, it's hard to not simplify to these frustrations, isn't it?
	Yeah, it is.
	The problem that I see in regards to this, and I think it's something that I've seen Zahra Sultana talk about as well, is that in relation to this, people are calling for price controls on energy.
	And I can understand the impulse to want to put in price controls, given that people are going to really struggle.
	But price controls, and I can say this from having read about them and having read some of the examples of them, never work.
	All they do is create shortages, and if you were to implement price controls, I would not be surprised if we saw rolling blackouts.
	Yeah, and that would be, depending on the extent of it, far worse than the hikes that we're due to...
	Then again, I suppose that could lead to people losing their power anyway.
	Either way, this is a problem, and it's a problem that's been caused by Tory policy, and it's the policy that people don't want to acknowledge, which is that all of this attempt to go green in the way that they have has created an issue where we're not generating as much energy as we could, we're having to rely on other countries for a lot of energy.
	We could just go nuclear, but not like that Putin.
	Putin, not like that.
	Use your words carefully.
	Yes, I should.
	But we could try and rely a bit more on nuclear energy, but we aren't, because nuclear has this big, scary connotation to it.
	Everybody just imagines it's going to be Chernobyl, because everybody thinks nuclear power plant inevitably equals explosion like Chernobyl.
	We do have emerging nuclear fusion technology as well.
	Yes.
	Which, I'm not a physicist, so I wouldn't know what the safety ramifications would be of nuclear fusion technology, but I'm led to believe that it doesn't pose the sorts of risks that Chernobyl did for explosion.
	No, I believe that Chernobyl was much more an example of terrible communist socialist Soviet mismanagement, which is unsurprising.
	Yes, that's one of the many things that they mismanaged, of course.
	We also do have fracking as well.
	Yes, there is fracking.
	As a serious option.
	Yes, but once again, environmentalists.
	It's not ideal, but it's literally that, or Russian gas.
	Yeah, that's the thing.
	I have recently got...
	What's more of a threat to the environment, do you think?
	I have recently got Apocalypse Never by an author, Michael Schellenberger, who is an advocate for fracking and nuclear energy and talks about a lot of the alarmism going on with the environment, and I'm excited to read it because it should be quite informative in regards to those areas.
	So stay tuned for the next few months where I might have a bit more informed information on those subjects.
	I certainly will, and I'm sure the viewers will too.
	But just to wrap up, this is, of course...
	Not good timing, in the slightest, from the MPs.
	I'm not entirely convinced that this is consistent or adjacent to public sector pay.
	I've heard the contrary constantly, but anyway.
	Maybe think again next time.
	Yes.
	Anyway, we'll move on.
	Just don't do it.
	Just don't do it, Mr and Mrs MPs out there.
	Alright, so, it's time to talk about how Black Lives Matter kind of, sometimes, depends on the context, really.
	Now, the subject of this particular segment, for the most part, is going to be focusing on somebody who you would be forgiven for not remembering her name.
	The name is Sasha Johnson, a Black Lives Matter activist slash radical BLM leader who in May of last year got shot while she was involved in a sort of back garden silent disco party in Peckham. a Black Lives Matter activist slash radical BLM leader who
	And you may remember this or more likely you may not because after certain circumstances, after certain information regarding the circumstances of the shooting emerged, all of a sudden you find the mainstream media dropped it.
	So let's go through a bit of a reminder, a refresher if you want on what's going on, what happened.
	This is the article from 24th May last year.
	Prominent Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is critically ill after being shot in the head, her party says.
	The 27-year-old has life-threatening injuries following the shooting on Consort Road in Peckham, South London.
	At a vigil...
	They threw a vigil for her, obviously.
	One speaker told the crowd in every community there are good eggs and bad eggs, and we have to make sure that those bad eggs are held accountable for their actions, because it's not acceptable for those bad eggs to be attacking our warriors, be they male or female, warriors who are out there every day without pay, working for our families, working for our communities.
	Which, this statement will turn out to be very ironic in terms of holding people accountable as we find out as the story will unfold.
	But the important thing to point out there is that they're deifying her as some kind of warrior, working for our families, working for our communities...
	aware of, she was a very, very radical person.
	She advocated for basically separatist communities with black people within the UK.
	She also advocated for enslavement of white people as reparations.
	So she was not what I would describe as a good person, but I would still argue that she did not deserve to be shot in the way that she was, and she certainly doesn't deserve to be in the condition that she's in currently, because as far as I'm aware, she was mainly advocating for positions and hadn't actually, you know, gone out and committed any violent crimes or she was mainly advocating for positions and hadn't actually, you know, gone Yes, here we see Black Lives Matter's Twitter page from last year, talking about Sasha Johnson is in critical condition after being shot in the head in London.
	Black activists like Sasha receive death threats daily.
	As a black woman and activist, her life has been under scrutiny and attack from the start.
	Starting to form a narrative here.
	There's only one reason that she could have been shot, and you can tell what that is.
	It will have been racism.
	She gets death threats daily.
	Even big brain, galaxy brain Diane Abbott decided to wade in with black activist Sasha Johnson in hospital in critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head.
	Nobody should potentially pay with their life because they stood up for racial justice.
	So she's basically just trying to propagate the idea that she was shot for standing up for racial injustice.
	Yes, there are big assumptions being made, and one of the things that is very implicit in that is standing up for racial justice, only one type of person could have shot her...
	Obviously supposed to be a white person.
	A white racist person is the narrative that was being pushed for about a day until there were five people arrested on suspicion of the shooting.
	Officers first arrested a 17-year-old boy on Tuesday afternoon following a stop and search in South London.
	He was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.
	Further investigations led police to an address in Peckham where three men, aged 18, 19, and 28, were all arrested on suspicion of affray and possession with an intent to supply Class B drugs.
	A 25-year-old man was also held later in the evening following a police chase.
	The Met said he'd been arrested on suspicion of affray and failing to stop for police.
	All five were also later arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
	So they got these guys...
	And as we'll find out in a bit, they looked into them and discovered that they may have something to do with the killing.
	I don't mean to be crass here, but can you guess, can you answer this simple question?
	Were any of these people white?
	Let me guess.
	No.
	No.
	They were all black.
	As such, the story vanished.
	Black Lives Matter, far from living up to their name and intentions, that tweet is the only mention I can find online of them even referencing Sasha Johnson beyond her own chapter.
	So this holy status that she was almost given...
	From being a victim of white supremacy that never existed now disappears, because it's not a case of white supremacy.
	Exactly.
	So now the news doesn't care about her as well.
	It happened every single time.
	And as we'll find out from this next article, which is the most recent update regarding this, this story is from yesterday, that whole, we need to hold the bag eggs in our communities accountable...
	Yeah, turns out it doesn't work that way.
	Charges dropped against suspects accused of shooting British BLM leader after witnesses refuse to cooperate.
	The group of suspects accused of shooting Sasha Johnson in the head have had...
	Oh, and you can also see here, that picture on the left, quite gruesome, not nice to see.
	That's the condition that she's in.
	She was a mother, or she is a mother.
	I believe that she might be semi-conscious because of the fact that she is...
	Paralyzed on one side, so they must be able to tell that.
	She might not be conscious, though.
	It's just, I've heard varying positions.
	It's astonishing that she's alive.
	It's awful, yeah.
	She's got a massive chunk missing from her skull, and therefore her brain as well, as you can imagine.
	Not nice.
	She wasn't a nice person.
	Not the sort of person that I would support.
	In fact, the sort of person that I would condemn.
	But I'm not going to celebrate the fact that she was shot and has been left in this condition.
	Yeah, so the suspects accused of shooting her in the head have had their charges dropped after witnesses have refused to cooperate with the police investigation.
	A trial was set to start in March against four men charged over the shooting.
	However, at a hearing last week, prosecutors said...
	It could not go ahead for reasons that could not be set out fully in open court.
	According to the prosecution, the case was based on circumstantial evidence with no direct evidence identifying any of the defendants as Johnson's attackers.
	The trial scheduled to begin on March 7 was nixed after prosecution announced that last Tuesday's hearing it would not be pursuing the case following this review.
	case in court, prosecutor Mark Haywood, QC, said he wasn't able to give the full reasons for the prosecution's decision but provided details as to why the Crown Prosecution Service had no other option.
	The CCTV analysis, phone cell site, and cell data showed that the four defendants had planned and conducted surveillance of the House before carrying out the attack with murderous intent on one or more of the partygoers.
	So as far as I can tell from this, it was basically just supposed to be a drive-by on a particular person or maybe a few particular people and it was just that this Sasha Johnson happened to be in the area Oh, God.
	And she just got caught in the crossfire and was the only one who got shot in the head.
	So she wasn't the target?
	She wasn't the target.
	So even if you wanted to make the argument, oh, it's probably...
	They may be black, but maybe it's their internalised white supremacy forced them to do it.
	No, it's nothing to do with that.
	The four suspects have denied conspiracy to murder.
	25-year-old Prince Dixon, 20-year-old Troy Reid, 19-year-old Cameron Derricks, and 19-year-old Devontae Brown had also pleaded not guilty to having a gun and ammunition with intent to endanger life.
	Now, I do not want to imply that these people are guilty...
	Obviously, legally speaking, we have no evidence and we cannot say so.
	These were the people who were arrested, rightfully or not, and held because they were suspected.
	It seemed to have some circumstantial evidence tying them to it, but we cannot say that these people are guilty because they have not gone through the trial process.
	So I'm not going to say that.
	But these are just the people who they had arrested, and where some of the evidence seems to point towards.
	Haywood pointed to a falling out and hostility between Derrickson Brown, as well as the two youngest, who were aged 18, occupying their property.
	There were previous incidents, and a panic alarm had been installed at the family residence just days before the May 2021 shooting.
	So this sounds as though there was a lot of danger, known danger, in that particular area, which makes it questionable as to why you would throw a house party...
	Outside, a silent disco where you're all wearing headphones so you can't actually hear anything if anybody's sneaking up on you, for instance.
	But, once again, doesn't justify it.
	was carrying a handgun.
	Haywood said Johnson, who was attending the party, was in a relationship with the oldest son living there.
	Four men were released, and the investigation continues.
	The mother of two has permanent and catastrophic injuries, police reported.
	Doctors have said it's a miracle that she's alive, according to Johnson's family.
	While appealing for witnesses to speak out about the May 23rd, 2021 shooting, Metropolitan Police Detectives say they've been met with silence.
	Detective Chief Inspector Nigel Penny, who's leading the investigation, said that many witnesses have refused to cooperate with law enforcement.
	Our biggest challenge is the wall of silence we have faced when appealing for witnesses.
	There were plenty of people there, yet many have not been willing to speak with us.
	Johnson's mother, Ellet Dalling, urged critical witnesses to come forward, declaring that the people that did this to Sasha need to come off the street.
	We need justice for Sasha, so please, I'm asking everyone at the party to come out and speak for Sasha.
	And she begged that to the witnesses.
	So much for holding the bad eggs accountable.
	Whether or not I think that Sasha was a bad person or not, once again, she did not deserve this.
	The people who did this are...
	Evidently violent people.
	They deserve to come off of the street, but because of the fact that within certain communities, probably pushed by people like Sasha, sadly, they have such a deeply held mistrust of the police and any sort of authority figure within the cultural hegemony that they exist within and try to exist outside of.
	It's the legacy of the McPherson Report, isn't it?
	Yeah, they just don't want to cooperate, which honestly is not going to help anybody, because obviously the people who are most being hurt by this are the people within your own community.
	The only way to fix this is to cooperate, whether or not that makes you a narc or a snitch or whatever.
	Although I can also understand that there may be some level of intimidation going on in this situation.
	The court heard as well that there was nothing to suggest that Johnson, a founding member of the initiative party that emerged from the BLM movement, was targeted because of a prominence in the far-left activism scene.
	A friend of Johnson's told BBC News that she believed the incident was more related to rival gangs that clashed and that Johnson was not the intended target.
	So I think it's more to do with gangs or gang violence or rivalry or some type of dispute between two different groups.
	And the incident was not intended with Sasha as far as we are aware, as I am being told by closer friends and family.
	So it sounds, once again, she was a bystander who got caught in the crossfire and not the intended target.
	And just as a reminder of the sorts of views that Sasha held, Johnson had called for the abolishment of police, regime change in Britain, the removal of statues linked to slavery, and the enslavement of whites as reparations.
	So I do think she was a maniac, but definitely didn't deserve this.
	Just because I disagree with Johnson's activism and goals does not mean that her being shot in the head and left in this condition is justice.
	And she was a mother, and it doesn't mean that these people deserve to be let off without a trial.
	And if they are innocent of it, then the people who do know more information should come forward, because whether or not this was a nasty person they got, they are still endangering other people just by being on the street, as far as I'm concerned.
	Yeah, well, they can believe the same things that she does, but just kind of put it aside as they pursue their own ends in the drug war or whatever caused it.
	Potentially.
	And the other thing you've got to remember is that Sasha Johnson, Johnson was a radical, but there are other black radicals from the past who managed to reform themselves.
	Yes.
	Nobody is beyond redemption, unless, of course, you have gone so far as to callously murder some, an innocent person.
	There are people like Shelby Steele, who was a black radical as part of the 1960s student protest movement, who, you know, took over, took over his university and berated his lecturers and, you know, did lots of bad stuff, but then he went on to sort of reform himself and become a much more moderate but then he went on to sort of reform himself and become a much more moderate voice He's got a good book called White Guilt, talking about blacks and whites destroying, you know, racial relations in America.
	Yeah.
	And there are other people like, one of my favorites, Thomas Sowell.
	Yes.
	Who, I don't know if he was a radical, but he did used to be a Marxist, which I consider to be a more radical ideology.
	It is.
	And he was able to pull himself away from that.
	And eventually, Thomas Sowell is one of my favourite intellectuals, if you want to sort of smear him.
	He wasn't a racial Marxist, though, was he?
	No, he was very orthodox.
	Very orthodox, yeah.
	Yes.
	There is someone else you missed off that list.
	Oh, who?
	Stanley Hudson.
	The next member of the Black Panthers.
	Yeah, if anybody remembers The Office, Stanley did used to be in the Black Panthers, and then by the time you see him in that show, he's not.
	He doesn't want any of that BS. But what we can see here with the fact that until now, this whole thing has been ignored.
	Sasha Johnson's face and name has not been one of the remember-their-names.
	This is another example of black-on-black violence being downplayed.
	And we have plenty of other examples of it.
	You may remember last year, in April, the story of Micaiah Bryant, which happened right before this did, where she was the girl who was about to stab one of her friends.
	I don't know if she was a friend, but supposedly over an argument over who would do the house cleaning.
	She was mid-stab in the motion.
	A police officer shoots her.
	And then everybody says racist police officer.
	The police officer saved the life of a young black girl and in doing so had to take the life of a young black girl who was about to become a murderer, was an attempted murderer.
	Apparently this was his racism that forced him to pull the trigger.
	Hours after crowds in Minneapolis celebrated the conviction of Derek Chauvin and the murder of George Floyd, a protest erupted in this Ohio city after a police officer shot and killed a black teenage girl who appears to have lunged at someone with a knife during a brawl.
	In an unusual move, Columbus police quickly released body cam footage of officers responding to a 911 call about an attempted stabbing and encountering three females fighting.
	If you have forgotten about this story, once again, this is an example where if the black person involved is in the wrong or is the one shooting, it doesn't matter what the context was, they will drop it because it doesn't matter.
	They are not looking for peace, they are not looking for a peaceful movement specifically.
	Yes.
	Or at least the ideologues at the top are who are directing these movements.
	Jack Posobiec was one to talk about this as well, pointing out that the Daily Beast said she had already dropped the knife in the yard, but police shot her four times without any warning.
	And somebody related to Bryant said, the police are going to lie.
	I'm sorry.
	But images and footage doesn't lie.
	And you can see here, this is the footage, still of the footage, right before, I believe this is a split second before the shots were fired.
	You can see she's about to do that.
	If you watch the footage, I think it's still available online.
	She's in the motion, and then gets shot, drops the knife.
	The man, the police officer, saved that girl's life.
	But that wasn't the part that was reported.
	Well, it certainly wasn't at first.
	And, as you'd imagine, as they always do, everybody immediately starts making excuses.
	Move along.
	Britney Cooper, black girl is dead because the cops brought a gun to a damn knife fight!
	If you don't know how to de-escalate teen girls who are fighting, maybe you shouldn't be a police officer.
	I said what I said.
	Honestly, do people just...
	I think these people, they watch way too many movies.
	Do they just expect police officers to be John Wick?
	Do you have lightning-fast reflexes?
	You're supposed to de-escalate situations by letting people stab each other first, Harry.
	Don't you remember?
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Once she's dead, it would have already de-escalated.
	So the problem would have solved itself, really.
	But seriously, are they expecting them to John Wick, like, shoot a knife out of their hand without hurting anybody?
	Wouldn't that be nice?
	And that real life doesn't work like that, sorry.
	We don't all get to be Keanu Reeves.
	And there were some of these reactions.
	They just go to show the extent at which people will make excuses when it's black-on-black violence and when they want to blame somebody who is the white person in the situation.
	Whether or not that person helped a black person in shooting them.
	Like, check this out.
	John.
	Kathy Griffin.
	John, if you want to click on the Kathy Griffin one.
	How in the hell does the police officer think it's a good idea to fire shots blindly into a group of teenagers having a fight?
	Yeah, one of them had a knife.
	Oh, that never happened in your school or neighbourhood?
	She didn't deserve to die 16 years old.
	I don't care if she was 16 years old, she was about to murder somebody else who was probably also 16 years old.
	In a bad neighbourhood.
	Obviously you didn't grow up in an American public school.
	You didn't have knife fights with your friends.
	You know, you didn't play knifey-spoony with all the lads at school.
	No, you utter toff.
	I know.
	I must be far too privileged.
	It was my white privilege protecting me from the knife fights.
	And the last one I just want to point out was one that Callum pointed out when this all went on.
	Amazing.
	Teenagers have been having fights, including fights involving knives, for eons.
	Yes.
	Whether or not that's a true statement or not, it's not a good thing.
	It doesn't mean we should keep letting them stab each other to death.
	It's not exactly climbing a tree, is it?
	We have this problem, you could say, in London.
	And it's not a good problem to have.
	We don't want this.
	If I was about to be stabbed by someone, I would want them to shoot the person who's about to stab me, and not just stand there and go, hold up, hold up, hold up.
	We can calm this down.
	Come on, lads.
	We can sort this out with words.
	Let's talk about this.
	Yeah, let's talk about this.
	No!
	No, shoot them!
	We do not need police to address these situations by showing up to the scene and using a weapon against one of the teenagers.
	We don't have to keep justifying that.
	We're not overreacting where we literally see gangs of machetes going at each other in the street.
	This is honestly so shocking to me.
	It's unbelievable.
	Basically, the ending of this line of logic is, let them die.
	If it's black-on-black violence, just let them die.
	But then, if that had happened, the police officer probably would have been accused of standing there and allowing it to happen.
	So it's a lose-lose situation.
	You know what the end point of this is, and the implicit assumption all along, is that by intervening, You are racist.
	Basically.
	But then if you don't intervene, you're also racist.
	So it's a catch-22, but basically, to end all of this off, it's a sad state of affairs that in England and America, it seems that certain elements of black communities have problems with violence.
	And this causes problems, pain and hardship for the law-abiding people within those communities.
	A lot of these people don't want to have to deal with this, don't want to have to live in fear.
	Those people who have been silent towards the Sasha Johnson thing, they might be victims of intimidation and threats to their own life, but whether out of fear or misplaced loyalty, people don't speak up, but they need to if they want this to end.
	And that's what I've got for that.
	No one deserves what Sasha Johnson got.
	Not even her.
	Not even her.
	I'm not going to be so insensitive as to say that it was deserved on her part.
	I would say perhaps in a different life, perhaps she could have reformed in the same way that someone like Shelby Steele did.
	We never know.
	She might yet.
	She's still alive.
	There's time.
	Well, with a big chunky brain missing like that, I'm sad to say that I don't think she'll be making any kind of significant recovery.
	And on that depressing note, shall we go to the video comments?
	Yep.
	They found it.
	Oh my lord!
	I hope you're not just planning on playing the whole song.
	Is this gorilla's rebranded?
	It might be.
	I have nothing to do with this.
	I swear.
	This just seems more like a little, uh...
	Oh, I forgot!
	I forgot!
	No!
	No, no, no, not the Borat suit!
	No, please!
	I had nothing to do with that, I swear.
	Is he just focusing on me?
	Yeah, it has to be a tornado clip.
	Yeah.
	We did end up having a party outside of number 10, though.
	I will say that's true.
	Masterful.
	So for some context...
	Yes.
	Much needed.
	If you need it.
	So my band, we decided over Christmas to do a medley of a bunch of ABBA songs.
	That was a video that we did for it.
	Bass Tape got his hands on it, and that is what happened.
	If you are wondering about the man in the mankini, that is the brother-in-law...
	Of the vocalist of my band, who is in a band where he appears on stage in that outfit.
	I've seen them live.
	Yes, it is somewhat scarring.
	You know, that is your official music video now.
	We've already got an official music video.
	That's more like a teaser for it.
	I don't want to say the best bits taken out of it and spliced together, but either way, Bass Tape, thank you very much for that.
	I'm glad you had fun with that, and I'm glad that you said that you really enjoyed the music as well.
	Yeah, excellent job.
	Let's move on to the next.
	And when someone says, where are you going for your holidays?
	Say Australia.
	Oh, and if they say, where's that?
	Tell them...
	Tell them it's where the America's Cup is.
	Pushing his tail in a fresh direction, Mr.
	Cooper crosses the Pacific for fresh characters and plots on the west coast of the United States of Yankee Land.
	I've always had a soft spot for the original Japanese monster movies so I can enjoy the colossal property damage the characters meet out so casually.
	However, that's Strayan writing style.
	Cooper, Americans don't say oi.
	They should, though.
	They should say oi, though.
	I like that weird little out-of-context clip.
	Was that Crocodile Dundee?
	I've no idea.
	I'm not familiar with this, if it was.
	I'm almost certain that was the guy from the original, not Knifey Spoonie Simpsons, from the original, like, this is a knife scene where he pulls like that.
	That's not Steve Irwin, is it?
	No, Steve Irwin wasn't pulling out alligator murder knives or anything.
	Steve Irwin was the guy who would give the animals a hug.
	Very good.
	This is...
	I don't know anything about either, clearly.
	Obviously you are illiterate to the glory of Steve Irwin.
	Yes, I am.
	Okay.
	You should educate yourself.
	It's not my job to educate you, okay?
	My false consciousness has been exposed.
	Exactly.
	And with that, let's go on to the next...
	Let's say instead of a book that gives you trivial knowledge on a martial arts, you want one that can be used to help touch up on certain techniques you're struggling with, or learn the etiquette system before you go to your first class so you don't embarrass yourself.
	Decisive Judo by Des Marwood.
	Brilliant book for this.
	That being said, I've not actually finished it yet.
	This also being said, it's not this book's fault that the governing body of judo keep changing which moves are and are not illegal, so bear that in mind if you pick this book up, because judo is a funny thing.
	Keep every martial art of the bloody Olympics until I'm here.
	Did he say keep it out of the Olympics?
	Yes.
	Really?
	Why?
	I quite enjoy it.
	I would have thought that watching people beat the hell out of each other would be one of the only interesting things to watch in the Olympics.
	Although, to be fair, judo is more about...
	Yeah, John's got a point.
	That is true.
	Yeah, John says the Olympics ruins everything, which is certainly true in recent years.
	Fair play.
	I've done judo in the past when I was in primary school, not done it for a while.
	I remember it as being the glorious art of tripping people over, but I was only 10 at the time.
	I've never done judo, but I did do karate and actually got quite far with it.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, I was too away from black.
	Chris, a bit of a renaissance man, aren't you?
	We've seen you climb at the bouldering centre, and you're far better than you ever gave yourself credit to be.
	Yeah, I suppose.
	But I do intend to pick it back up at some point to finish, or at least get to black.
	Oh, fair play.
	Because I did it for, what, seven or eight years?
	Goodness.
	Like I was a brown belt one stripe, yeah.
	Not quite far.
	Is that brown belt one stripe good?
	It depends on what type of karate that you do.
	For me, it was good.
	Oh, that's all.
	I think it's a form of shatakon karate.
	That's what I did anyway.
	It's alright then.
	Remind me never to annoy you or take you to a Hooters in that case.
	I might get a karate chop.
	I saw that coming.
	Don't ever suggest it again.
	Let's move on to the next.
	Oh, brilliant.
	He's T-posing at us.
	phone rings Zeno!
	Feel me!
	I was expecting him to hit himself in the head with his own sword there.
	A little bit.
	I don't know the context of any of these videos because I've been here for so long now that these videos have just sort of got used to them but I've just realised we're getting sent videos of guys in the garages making cool little mech armour for themselves.
	It is really cool but it's really weird.
	I don't understand.
	How do you get in?
	I don't see how you can get it coming over the top.
	I assume we can't see the back of it, so I assume that maybe either there's panels or maybe the back is just completely bare so that you can just step straight into it.
	Yeah, I suppose.
	Potentially.
	And I imagine you can just slot yourself into the arms.
	Anyway, nice work.
	Keep it up.
	We're loving these videos.
	It's really cool.
	Maybe we should send them out to Ukraine or something.
	Yes, is it?
	Meet our leopard gecko Diablo.
	Everyone else is chilling here, so screw it.
	I'm trying to do a podcast called All Around the Campfire.
	Come check it out.
	Here's a little teaser.
	It's a very cool bateman, but that's nothing.
	Look at that.
	You ain't seen nothing yet.
	White.
	Let's see Paul Allen's card.
	Oh my god!
	Oh no!
	That's, I have to say, pretty god-tier blocking there.
	Does Peter Hitchens typically block people?
	I thought it was...
	In an alternative universe, maybe?
	I don't know.
	Peter Hitchens really confuses me because, one, that's some great editing.
	I like a great punchline.
	Peter Hitchens confuses me because he seems like one of those people who would be above Twitter, or at least consider it to be a bit uncouth and plebeian, but at the same time, he's very often on Twitter, getting into petty Twitter.
	He does do everything he can to transmit the impression that he hates being on there, hence why he literally follows nobody.
	Oh, really?
	Literally nobody.
	Oh, I really hate being on here.
	Yeah.
	Anyway, congratulations.
	That is a genuine achievement.
	Mmm, yeah.
	Tommy Dee and Little Joan with another legend of Swindon.
	This time it's the Red Lion Pub in Wiltshire, voted Britain's most haunted pub.
	It was built in the 16th century.
	It has many ghosts, but its most famous one was a woman who was murdered by her husband in the 17th century.
	He returned home from the English Civil War, caught her with another man, killed her, and threw her down the well, which is now part of the pub's decor.
	But her spirit is a part of the pub forever.
	Nice.
	I'm honestly going to have to make a note of that.
	My girlfriend loves haunted places, ghost stories, anything like that, and if it's in the local area, I'm going to have to take her there.
	Fun fact, by the way, someone in this office, I'm not going to mention his name, has seen a ghost in there, and it's not me.
	Yeah.
	One was very annoyed at you even bringing up Wiltshire, because apparently pronouncing it Wiltshire is an insult to our culture, which, you know, I'm just glad that you're taking an interest.
	Thank you.
	But yes, he was then also...
	Oh, I've seen that.
	I've seen that ghost.
	Sure you have.
	Sure you have.
	Anyway, should we get into the...
	Written comments.
	So, Lord Nerovar says, We're treading on a fine line on this info from Ukraine.
	On one side is black pilling on the dire reality of the situation, and the other is blue pilling in all the good fake news coming from out of the conflict.
	Ukraine is not winning this war.
	They may not necessarily be losing either, but to say that everything is going their way is gross misinformation and needs to be stamped out.
	The fog of war is real, boys.
	I understand the reason why they want to present this as a formidable defence, because it's good for the morale on the ground level, right?
	But at the end of the day, you can't say they're winning the war, because they're in a position of defence.
	Yes.
	Like, the war ends when Putin effectively decides he's lost enough men.
	Or if they can actually manage to somehow push back the forces, which is unlikely.
	Unless someone else gets involved, God forbid.
	Yeah, I don't want anybody else to get involved.
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	No, I'm conscientious objector, don't you know?
	But yeah, it's especially prevalent nowadays, given that we've got the access to social media, because while there can be people like Miles on the ground who are sharing what's going on from their limited perspective, at the same time, anybody can pick up any old nonsense that people are doing or basically repurposing photographs.
	From one era and saying, oh, this is what's going on right now.
	So you've got to be very careful.
	S.H. Silver says, for everybody who thinks this conflict is entirely black and white and are gung-ho for their chosen side, just remember, you are not immune to propaganda.
	This is ostensibly two corrupt countries fighting as part of the grand chessboard of East versus West imperialism.
	I don't know too much about East versus West imperialism, but I will say I agree absolutely that you're not immune to propaganda.
	I don't think it's quite as black and white as that.
	There is an element of, there is Putin, of course, who is, I mean, part of his resistance has something to do with the global order that he wants to resist.
	And there's no doubt that he has one eye set on pushing that back as much as he does trying to, you know, what he wants to do with Ukraine specifically.
	That is something to consider.
	Embarrassingly, I'm usually pretty observant when it comes to identifying BS. On the, what was it?
	Not Storm Island.
	Snake Island?
	When it came to that, I genuinely thought that that was true.
	As did I. Because I actually saw a video that manipulated the situation, which was a manipulated edit, where you heard it said in Ukrainian, do you surrender or do you not?
	And they're alleged to have said, go F yourself.
	And the video I saw actually had the sound of an explosion at the end of it.
	Yeah, I think I saw that same video because I believe Count Dankula shared it.
	Count Dankula has since, of course, corrected himself as well.
	But the interesting thing with that is that, yeah, it took me in for a little bit as well.
	It's like, wow, how brave, how noble of them to sacrifice themselves.
	But you've got to be sceptical.
	I think the good thing is to...
	Just take everything that you hear online about this with a nice, helpful dollop of salt.
	Let's just take the true good news story.
	They are alive.
	Let's hope they're still in good health.
	Yes, that is the good news.
	Hopefully they're not held captive for too long.
	Alex Ogles says: "So the media coverage of the conflict show that they are basically students pulling images and screencaps to confront backgrounds for potentially real stories.
	A valuable lesson for people is that if you don't know, say you don't know, but that you'll find out.
	So the media would do well to learn that lesson." As Constantine Kissen says: "The media does lie to you, but that doesn't mean they intend to deceive.
	It probably means they are clueless young people eager to please and not knowing how." That's probably a good point actually.
	I always forget that I did a media degree that was sort of tangential to journalism, obviously, given that I'm here, sort of led me into a field of journalism.
	I always forget that some of the stories coming out from people are probably from people in similar situations with me, but who may not be as aware as I try to be about the fact that you don't know everything, and you've got to be really careful.
	The Magician of Swedenistan says on Snake Island, did you see the official Ukrainian Twitter account tweeting about the dead soldiers?
	The propaganda really is as insidious as Thomas implies.
	Once again, I can understand why they would be sharing that.
	It's sort of like, oh, people are fighting and dying.
	You've got to keep fighting or else their sacrifice is in vain.
	But it is kind of bad that we're also picking that up and also taking it for granted to be true as well.
	The tweet says, Russia blatantly captured Ukrainian island Zeminyil, destroying the infrastructure.
	All 13 border guards were killed, refusing to surrender.
	They will be awarded the title Hero of Ukraine Postmortem, says Zelensky.
	Glory to Ukrainian heroes.
	That's very interesting.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, my position on this is a lot more nuanced.
	That's fair.
	I will say I'm not going to claim to have any particular great knowledge of the geopolitical situation surrounding the factors that led to this in the first place.
	I will say I feel for the people who are on the ground suffering.
	Yeah, they are the victims, and there should be no disputes about that whatsoever, that Ukraine itself is falling to just...
	A mass of ineptitude that has built up for eight years.
	But, I mean, there have been a lot of accusations, I think, directed at us about that some of us may be shitting for Pusin, but none of us are.
	It's important to reinforce that.
	There's one thing for trying to look at a situation with nuance, or at least try and have a sort of less of a black pill view of the situation where, you know, we all engage in dark humour and gallant humour to try and lighten a terrible situation.
	It's another thing to then take that out of context and say that you're being pro-proof.
	If you cannot see that there has been prolonged ineptitude on NATO's side, you're flat-out delusional, and I'm sorry.
	I honestly do not see a way out of this.
	Without NATO making some concessions, which, if I'm honest, it should have made some time ago.
	But anyway, we'll move on.
	Bye-bye.
	Oh, no, no worries.
	X, Y, N, Z, brackets, E, E. Haha, didn't get me this time.
	Says, as the establishment and the media haven't met a conflict they haven't promoted since Gulf 1, I'll be holding my judgment that what I'm being told isn't quite what it seems.
	Very...
	Good approach to take there.
	Kevin Fox, here in the land of smiles, smirks more like, the government has refused to condemn Russia's actions in Ukraine, no doubt based on a number of Russian tourists here, and they hope will come here.
	On the other side is the problems being faced by Russians and Ukrainians already living/holidaying here and now finding it very difficult to access their money due to the sanctions on banking coming out of Russia.
	So the Thai government wants the Russian tourists to flood in, but I wonder how long they'll feel that way now the Russians can't access their money to spend here.
	Very interesting, that's a very interesting perspective.
	It has caused chaos in Russia.
	A lot of it has been unreported, of course.
	Oh, I'm sure.
	I'm sure.
	I mean, if foreign countries are now sort of interning even the Russian meerkats, I dread to think what they'll do to the tourists.
	Kulan Sloan says, always nice to see the continuing exciting adventures of miles of Kabul.
	Yes, he's always on his way, heading straight into danger.
	God bless him for that.
	George Hap says, so you're telling me that the media, which lied about everything, is also pushing pro-Ukrainian propaganda because this is the side they need the public to be on?
	Imagine that!
	I know!
	What a shock!
	And a final big comment from FreeWorld2112 says, regardless of the perfidy of our globalist politicians, regardless of the perfidy of the press and the BS on the internet, the bottom line is that Putin has invaded a sovereign country and is the aggressor.
	As for RT, I don't trust a channel that had Jeremy Corbyn, Alex Salmond and George Galloway broadcasting for them.
	Putin has a track record of crushing enemies.
	He used thermobaric weapons on Grozny in Chechnya and also...
	and he also assassinated people in his country using toxic and radioactive materials without any regard for collateral damage to innocent civilians.
	I'd also remind you that during World War II, the Allies used deception, lies, and propaganda all the time to defeat Nazi Germany, and listening to German propaganda was a crime.
	Lord Hohor, who broadcast from Nazi Germany, was executed as a traitor to Britain, and good riddance to him because he was.
	The idea that you can have propaganda-free war is simply naive beyond belief.
	That's a very important point.
	Excellent examples brought up there.
	I can't really...
	Talk about the veracity of them because, once again, I'm not the most informed when it comes to historical events and of the such, but that's an excellent point at the end there.
	We can't have a propaganda-free war and just be very, very aware of that.
	No, we can only do our best to provide a counterweight to the propaganda so that we can identify the truth in between.
	That's why I think it's bad, even in these circumstances, To take Russia Today off the air, because at least you know what the narrative that the Kremlin is trying to present.
	It's always good to be aware of what the enemy is doing and saying, if you want to classify them as the enemy.
	And in many occasions, or at least on issues unrelated to this, Russia Today have not been the enemy.
	They've actually been the most based media outlet that there was.
	On a lot of stuff before this.
	On the anti-woke stuff in particular.
	It's very good now that we're in a situation where they've started war to look at them with a healthy dose of scepticism, obviously.
	Yes, of course.
	As you should with every news outlet.
	So let's move on to MPs' pay rise.
	Freewell 2112 says, Westminster MPs worth every penny, as the comedians they obviously are, though the joke is on us as we vote for them.
	And then they ignore their manifesto promises.
	Well, I guess some comedians are paid significantly more than that, aren't they?
	Yeah, but they're also genuinely funny.
	I would also say that a good comedian is actually contributing to society, whereas a good MP is, even still if they're a good one, probably detracting from society.
	Yeah, it's hard to argue against that.
	Charlie the Beagle says politicians give themselves a pay rise while everyone is distracted by a war.
	Imagine my shock.
	Oh my god!
	Yeah, well said.
	Freewheel2112 says my energy bill has nearly doubled partially thanks to the dumb build back better bollocks these clowns have been implementing.
	No wonder they like wind power.
	They generate enough of it.
	Yeah, and they'd probably like to huff it as well on the weekends.
	Oh, almost certainly.
	Well, it's telling us, of course, just how awful it is.
	Yeah.
	Sidi Milon says, Given the governor of the Bank of England has said that employees shouldn't be asking for a pay rise as a result of the cost of living crisis, maybe the MPs should have led by example on that.
	Especially with all the benefits in kind stuff around expenses, it's probably double the amount they get.
	Probably true.
	It's also just found out that after my promotion this week, I'm now earning about as much as an MP, so I get a really good idea how much money they save by not having to pay for things.
	Oh, I bet.
	Yeah, well, congratulations on that promotion.
	Yes, good job on the promotion.
	Yeah, of course, not everyone has the liberty that MPs have to, of course, just issue pointless things as expenses.
	Or to take everybody else's liberty away when and if they desire it.
	Yeah, that's an even stronger point.
	Lord Nerevar says we desperately need to invest in our own oil supplies and energy independence and this should be a real wake-up call that parochialism is actually a useful thing to have when times are hard.
	Sanctions defeat globalism.
	I would agree that if we can find energy independence that works for the country and means that I'm not getting taxed or having to pay ridiculous prices for energy bills, that sounds very, very acceptable to me.
	As I've said, one of the very, very, very few things that could come out of what's going on at the moment is that we become more energy independent as a country.
	It, of course, may entail, of course, making use of fracking for some time, but it will probably cut costs for us.
	It will reduce the subsidies which have been undermining us.
	And, of course...
	Again, we've got nuclear fusion, which is some way away from actually being practically implemented, but nonetheless, we're on an upward trajectory, I think, at the moment, on that front at the very least.
	I'm clutching at straws.
	So just looking into it here, the UK currently has eight operational nuclear power stations, and bear in mind that's just eight, which supplied 18.7% of total electricity supply in 2018.
	So, eight power stations managed to give us almost one-fifth.
	Build more.
	Yeah, just build more.
	For the love of God.
	Taffy Doc says, why do MPs keep giving themselves massive pay rises every year?
	Well, it's a message, you see.
	They want me to come out and make my displeasure known.
	Yes, indeed.
	And please do make your displeasure known.
	Titch Potato says, MP pay rises are keeping up with inflation.
	It's not a liberty that all of us have, of course.
	What do you mean?
	It happens regardless of inflation rates, and those pay rises don't apply to the average citizen either.
	Tax hike time.
	Yeah, it's a punishment, really, isn't it, for the rest of us?
	Reducing, what was it, councils would be a blimmin' good start, wouldn't it?
	That would be lovely.
	Reducing lots of taxes would be a good start.
	Reducing the national insurance and just stripping back the NHS to its absolute essentials would be a good start, but they will never get there.
	Not in my lifetime, I suspect.
	Would you like to conclude with the double standards of BLM?
	BinarySurface says, Harry slash Thomas, you're entirely missing the point regarding MPs and pay rises.
	Oh, this is actually regarding yours.
	I'll read it out.
	Oh, okay.
	Go on.
	Give them all 150 to 200k a year, but ban all outside income from any source during their time as an MP. And for 10 years after, give them half of that-ish for the 10 years after all.
	So any and all income outside of this means life in prison.
	no bail.
	Whoa!
	Okay, well now you're speaking my language.
	No excuses.
	The real story is the constant financial lobbying and jobs for the boys after they leave politics, making them subject to massive outside interests.
	The pay is the distraction by them, and deliberately so.
	You want real change in politics?
	Get rid of lobbying via the above.
	You know, interestingly I was just right before the podcast reading Ayn Rand's Ayn Rand, I should say...
	Essay on the power of pull, which is talking about how lobbying destroys political systems and encourages a mixed economy, which she puts forward doesn't really work as well as, you know, a full laissez-faire economy, at least in terms of efficiency and individual freedom.
	And it's very interesting that I would say, yeah, lobbying is terrible afterwards.
	I don't understand why Tony Blair still has as much influence in UK politics as he seems to.
	What he's done.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But I would also say, no, I would say just strip them of all the benefits and any extra expenses that they can claim, and still reduce their pay, because I still don't think they're worth 150 to 200k a year.
	Yeah, and stop them from getting...
	Do you want to pay Zara Sultana 150k a year?
	Piss off!
	And stop, stop, stop them from making hordes of money from pointless public appearances, like George Osborne did at BlackRock.
	Oh, yeah.
	I mean, I just...
	I'm very much in the case of, like, your pay should be determined by the value and productivity that you are producing.
	And I see very, very little coming from the vast majority of MPs in this country, if I'm honest.
	Yeah.
	Student of history, lol, forget about the interrupted cultural knife fight.
	You forgot about it.
	Everybody forgot about it because they don't report on it.
	That's the point.
	You need to remember these things so you can keep in your mind that these people don't actually care.
	Why do you think all the money vanished into thin air and they all became property moguls?
	God, I hate it so much.
	Teach Potato again.
	I keep looking up Sasha Johnson every now and again, honestly fearing that I'll read Sasha Johnson dead in a headline.
	As much as I dislike her and agree with her, she shouldn't have been shot in the head, especially not in the way that it did happen.
	In that situation, she was an innocent citizen, and I absolutely agree with you there.
	Whether or not you agree with her or her positions, it's not just this.
	It's not justice in the slightest.
	She's in history.
	I'll admit she shouldn't have been shot.
	Not feeling horrifically bad for her, considering her slavery opinions.
	Also a good point.
	Once again, it isn't justice, and I'm not going to celebrate it, but at the same time, I don't feel too bad for her.
	I feel bad for her family.
	For her in particular.
	For her children.
	And her children, especially.
	Silly mid-on, Black Lives Matter.
	Unless another black person killed them, BLM from their ivory tower in the majority white gated community, probably.
	That's a more than accurate description.
	Not even probably, that's absolutely certain.
	And the honourable mentions, Benjamin Charles says...
	Oh, dear God.
	No!
	How can you ask this?
	Go on.
	Please, no.
	Cue the creation of Harry's OnlyFans page so he can buy a house in three, two, one.
	No!
	You do that.
	You're getting the chop.
	No, I know.
	Don't encourage Thomas to hurt me, please.
	No.
	I want a house.
	I want a house so that I can have a beautiful family and live a good and virtuous life.
	But in starting an OnlyFans page, I would no longer be living a good and virtuous life, and I no longer think that my family would be particularly proud of me.
	No, and neither should they.
	No, neither should they, exactly.
	I've got into arguments with people about the whole OnlyFans thing, where I've seen people talk about, you know...
	Oh, I know this person.
	She just started an OnlyFans and her mum wasn't particularly impressed with it, so she ends up basically disowning her.
	And I think that might be a bit of an extreme solution.
	Not really.
	But at the same time, what the person who started that OnlyFans is saying, what that girl is saying, is that me making money off flashing my tits online is worth more to me than my relationship with my mum.
	Which I think the whole thing is confusing and terrible.
	Lord Nereva, are you trying to say that stabbings and shootings of peace shouldn't be allowed?
	What are you, a bigot?
	I guess I am.
	And catastrophic regression thresholds is BLM normally, probably.
	We was Kang's.
	BLM on black on black crime.
	We didn't see nothing.
	Yeah.
	Convenient, that, isn't it?
	It is very convenient.
	Selective blindness, I would say.
	Yes, quite.
	And on that very, very depressing note, I'm afraid we do have to end.
	Thank you very much for joining us.
	We will be back at 1pm tomorrow.
	Enjoy the rest of your day.
	It's been a pleasure to have presented with Harry today.

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